Robinsons Brewery - Trooper

As Less Than Jake once observed: All my friends are metalheads, which is good because I loves me some metals but it does mostly mean that if I give this beer a bad or even an indifferent review then I might find myself Caught in a Mosh or on the end of between One and Six Hundred and Sixty Six lashes. It's enough to drive a guy Psychosocial or make them just Run to the Hills...

Ok, enough of me trying to ram as many metal track names in as I can. This is a beer review, dammit! So, the question you've all been asking ever since Bruce Dickenson announced that he'd been working with Robinson's brewery to make his own beer is about to get answered. Is The Trooper a beer that really gets its Hooks in You or will this beer become just another example of The Evil that Men Do? All I wanted to know when it came out was whether it was worth buying but, since I'm not Calirvoyant, I got off my lazy back side, travelled from Here to Eternity, only to find out that they were on offer and bought 3.

There has been a trend with celebrities stretching their proverbial wings and venturing into alcohol production but, like The Flight of Icarus, many of the attempts have been doomed from the get go. AC/DC have their Hell's Bells Sauvignon Blanc, Slayer have their Reign in Blood Cabarnet and a wine by KISS that wasn't so much Strutter as it was a stutter. Not to mention that this is not the first time that Iron Maiden have made some delicious alco-booze! Eddie's Evil Brew tasted of boysenberry and passionfruit, 2 things I never thought I'd see associated with the men who have the power to instil everyone on the planet with a Fear of the Dark. There are also wines from Motorhead, Ratt, Warrant and (although very much not metal) a collaborative beer made by Thornbridge and Reverend and the Makers.

What of this beer though? Will it go the way of Wickerman or will Robinsons Brewery, Bruce Dickenson and I become Blood Brothers?

First impressions? Well it strikes me as a traditional English bitter... Which is a good start. The label says that this beer combines bobec, golding and cascade hops to dominate the flavour with a subtle hint of lemon... Wait... What? Dominating with subtlety? Are you sure? Ok, it's your beer. There's also a light history lesson about the charge of the light brigade but we don't really need to concern ourselves with that. The beer itself pours well and has a thin head, it's slightly cloudy with medium carbonation. It's biscuity and bready on the nose, which suits its light, leather brown, body. It has a light to medium mouth feel with a very welcoming wave of soft lemon that is rather pleasing in so much as it means you could chug this for days but if you did decide to do that then I imagine you might eventually become rather bored as that lemon flavour is the only thing that makes The Trooper stand out. There's nothing before the lemon, there's nothing after the lemon, there's no depth, don't get me wrong, what you do get is nice, it's just nothing to write home about. Especially if who you're writing home to is an Iron Maiden fan.

I guess I have a problem with bands I love making beer... Which I love more; because there's only going to be one winner and it's not going to have an audience of thousands of black clad mentalists, it's going to have an audience of one. Me. I'm the one experiencing this beer regardless of who made it, I couldn't care less if the influences for the beer are the guys who brought me The Number of the Beast and 2 Minutes to Midnight, if the beer isn't great then it isn't great... And this isn't great. It's not bad, it's just not great. It needs a little something else, a little tweak of bitterness, a little kick of hops in the aroma, something to push this pleasing session beer into a future English classic. I imagine a lot of this has something to do with expectations; I don't associate Iron Maiden with light, sweet, lemon flavours. No, I associate them with bubbling pots of goo, the occult, battles from wars I've only vaguely heard of, torture and the glorification of the symptoms of mental illness. How that translates to beer I'm not too sure but I would have like something much more complex, interesting and substantial. I expected something mad.

Trooper stands up on its own so don't panic, it's not as if Maiden have become the proverbial Fallen Angel just for making this beer, you can still love them and you can love the beer too if you like, nothing is stopping you but nothing is stopping you from spreading your own wings and searching for something better.

Hint: Drinking this whilst listening to the Rock in Rio version of The Trooper definitely makes the whole experience a lot more fun.

Food suggestion: I'd love a big slab of haddock, plaice, sole or monkfish with this, though the way I'm thinking just involves the fanciest fish and chip shop you can think off and then eating out of the bag near a pond.

Drink this if you like: Iron Maiden. No, I'm not being facetious. If you like Iron Maiden then you will almost force yourself to like this beer regardless of whether you actually like it or not. The closest beer equivalent, however, is Harviestoun's Bitter and Twisted.