RAMSEY'S FAT LIP ALE & THE CASK FROM WHENCE IT POURED

We have this local pub in town called the EDINBURGH CASTLE that I've practically been going to since I was old enough to drink. It's an english/scottish pub with that whole sort of vibe, you know what I mean, and their beer selection's quite good if a little English. Sometimes they’ll throw on a few smalltime American craft beers on tap just to make it interesting; the other night I enjoyed a MOONLIGHT DEATH & TAXES, for instance, and then there was this other unknown mystery beer on the board called FAT LIP (CASK). I asked the fella behind the bar and he erroneously told me it was from some Santa Rosa brewery (Russian River…..riiiight!!) instead of what it really was – a product of the ENGLISH ALES brewery in Marina, CA, a beer officially called RAMSEY’S FAT LIP ALE. It had a decent roasted malt taste to it, and poured a very flat copper with zero head at all (that’s cool – this was the cask version). But in all, I found it a little flat and boring. It didn’t have any bite, nothing to remind me of the great English beers I’ve had in the mother country – just a very tolerable beer made slightly more interesting by the fact that it was on cask rather than “draught”. Let’s go with a 6/10, only because I love an underdog.