Williams Brothers IPA

Brewed by Williams Brothers (Heather Ales)
Style: Golden Ale/Blond Ale
Alloa, Central, Scotland

Bottle. Pale golden beer with a strong head. The aroma is very dryly hopped and floral. The flavour is plain but very strongly hopped and very very dry. Overall a very basic but very dry beer.

Bottle 500ml.
Clear medium orange color with a average to large, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, caramel, moderate hoppy, citrus - orange, toffee notes. Flavor is moderate sweet and bitter with a average to long duration. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. [20090412]

bottle from nelsons wines/ south wim. clear, straw coloured, thin white head, good fine carbonation, little lace. delicate flower and grass nose. well balanced sweet grassy flavours, good bitter finish. lovely light ipa. like a lot

In Sainsburys Festival ’09. Gold with a white head. Hoppy aroma with an initial whiff of cabbage. Taste has a bit of musty, dusty grain sack and a lot of grapefruit bitterness in the finish. Enjoyed this in the garden on a golden English autumn afternoon, which probably increased my enjoyment of this brew by several points.

Bottled, filtered, 500ml from Sainsburys in Banbury. Gold with white head. Good fresh flavours, with a bright hoppy note on quite a crisp body, if just a little too thin. The hops are what count here though and these are well presented, leafy, grassy, bitter and I like the nettle connection by Mes below. Sharp and tangy. A good bottled beer that I would revisit.

Bottle, Sainsburys, Cheshire Oaks. Poured a clear golden colour with a lingering medium white head. Aroma had some pleasant grassy hop interspersed with hints of tropical fruit. The Amarillo hop isn’t really given the chance to shine in the flavour sadly, as previously noted, which is a shame bacause on the whole this is a fairly decent and drinkable effort. Wouldn’t really call this an IPA as such, but its streets ahead of most of the dross littering the shelves at Sainsbos.

Bottle. Poured straw yellow, very slight head. Hoppy aroma, malt with some hop flavour.

A Mes rate. Bottle from Shamansburys.
An attractive clean golden colour with a thin bright white head. Superb hoppy aroma on top of a really elegant biscuity malt base. The Brambling Cross and Amarillo blend superbly giving a really sniffable mix of nettles and tangerine with a faint hint of straw. Sadly the blend just doesn’t quite sit right in the mouth and I am inclined to agree with Steve that it’s entirely due to the Brambling Cross coming too much to the front. Dry grass, nettles and straw dominate the fruity Amarillo and the end result is just a little too much bite and not enough substance. The malt becomes slightly sticky too which, combined with the dryness gives it a rather odd mouthfeel. Overall it’s a decent enough brew but maybe if they had dry hopped with a little more Amarillo it could have really shone.