Braidwood Best Bitter

Formerly brewed at Braidwood Brewery
Style: Bitter
Braidwood NSW, Australia

Serve in English pint

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Aroma: hint of pear/cidery notes. Appearance: poures amber gold and nicely cloudy with the yeast, off white good head. Flavour: cane sugary cidery. Palate: thin and bland.

bottled. weirdo lychee compost aroma. hazy amber, very fizzy, some orchard syrup floavours and chemical nastiness and zero bitterness

Preparing for a Braidwood gusher I opened this one over the sink, but I needn’t have worried as it was perfectly benign. It poured quite well leaving a big foamy off-white head over a hazy pale brown fluid. Peppery apple aroma which on tasting makes it like a dodgy extract homebrew. The carbonation explodes in the mouth making it really hard to discern the flavours, which was bitterness and a bit sour (but without much acidity if that is possible?). Well I’m now 1 from 3 with the Braidwood beers, with the 2 being terribly over carbonate making it a chore to drink. Looks like I’ll have to make a trip down there one day to get a good sample.

Malty smokey aroma. Cloudy yellow brown colour with good head and lacing. Malty full flavour. Smooth palate.

30 Jul 2005 - (Rosalbahof) - Light sweet and hoppy aroma with some smokiness. Very cloudy orange-amber colour with good head retention. Very lighyt malt and hop flavour. Thickish mouthfeel, with some hop bitter finish. Overall - Lacks distinction.

Bottled. A bit overcarbonated, but a good, honest, strong bitter flavour with a good mouthfeel despite the bubbles. Unfortunate about the slight, sulphurous home-brew aroma and aftertaste though.

UPDATED: SEP 5, 2005 Bottled. Hazy pale yellow. Flowery band aid aroma. Medium bodied with dense, soft malt character and some hay likes hops. Medium bitterness. Has potential, but the extreme flowery flavour, reminiscent of a homebrew fermented at too high temperatures, takes over.

Disappointing fizzy bottle-conditioned bitter from country NSW. Appearance: quick and messy. Spurted everywhere before I got a glass under it. Caramel colour, huge rocky head that left clumpy lace. Peculiar aroma: light and spritzy for the style, with odd sulphurous notes and a hint of fruity hops. The mouthfeel is fizzy and champagne-like. Thin body. There’s some fruitiness in there but it’s dominated by a metallic bitterness that’s faint but objectionable. No ’best before’ date on the bottle, so I’ve no idea how fresh this is. However, Camperdown Cellars are pretty reliable. (Bottle)

Bottle. Yes, it is too fizzy for the style, but it also lacks flavour. Very thin mouthfeel, some hints of hops in here. I kept tasting chlorine for some reason. I’m sorry for my lack of descriptive analysis in this review, but there isn’t much i can say about it.

UPDATED: MAR 16, 2005 Much better the second time around (last tasted in October 2004). Vibrant cloudy orange - looks really good. Fruit nose, quite varietal but a slight metallic note hangs in the background. Ok in the mouth, malts are a little faint but good bitterness. Just a bit too fizzy for the style.