Robinsons Trooper Review

Name: Robinsons Trooper
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
ABV: 4.7%

While I was down in Minneapolis for the State Fair, this was one of the three beers I had picked up, the others being Flat Earth Element 115 and Stone's Gotterdammerung. I picked up this beer because I had heard about it many times before and I am a huge Iron Maiden fan. When I heard Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden, was making a beer  in collaboration with Robinsons I just had to try it out.

The beer by Robinsons Brewing called Trooper is inspired by the Iron Maiden song of the same name.
The name of the song is inspired by The Charge of the Light Brigade which took place at Battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War. A light brigade cavalry were suppsoed to be sent to attack some retreating Russian forces but due to a miscommunication higher up on the command chain they were instead sent to attack a Russian artillery unit. Upon initiating the attack, the British soliders were surprised by the artillery attacks and were forced to retreat but not before losing 118 of their troops and 60 of them captured by Russian Forces.

Trooper pours a clear dark orange color with a foamy head and sparse lacing. I'm not picking up on any visible carbonation activity in the glass.

The nose consists mainly of marmalade, strong floral hops, caramel, barley and biscuits. With the exception of the floral hops, all the other notes feel somewhat subdued.

The flavor has a stronger floral hop profile, but the caramel, barley, and yeasty flavor are again all very subdued and pretty much in line with the nose.

In terms of weight, it's pretty light but the carbonation is pretty much non-existent and the body as a whole feels kind of watery.

As stated before, I'm a big Iron Maiden fan but I'm not a fan of this beer. It's not offensive in any way, but the flavor feels imbalanced and severely lacking at the same time. There are better ESB/Bitter Beers out there than this one.

Robinsons Trooper - 5/10