Conners Best Bitter

Formerly brewed at Brick Brewing Company
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Waterloo, Canada

Serve in English pint

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Sampled from341ml brown stubby. Nice orange colour, lasting white head. Slight aroma of citrusy hops and caramel. Full mouthfeel, malty body, finishes hoppy and smooth.

Originally rated May 2005. Bought a 12 pack of this brew. Comes in stubbies. Pours a medium-light amber colour with a decent white head. Carbonation is lively and lacing is nice and thick. The aroma is mostly malty, but has a slight flower scent to it. The taste is mildly bitter in the middle and then goes into a smooth breaded finish with hints of fruits. Drinkability on this one is great. Nothing crazy special about this bitter, but would drink it again.

Hazy orange amber with a fizzy head. Malty "off" chemical aroma. Tastes like a glass of warm water.

Faint but present hops to the nose with malt and barley. Light amber color with thick, rich frothy tan head with decent lacing... Nice. Flavor is simple yet delivers a satisfying experience. It is a balanced combination of caramelized malts, smokey barley and hops with a bitter-sweet finish... Very nice. Mouthfeel is velvety smooth, perfectly catbonated and refreshing... Very very nice.

Retasted 15/6/06........Bottled: Poured a slightly hazey orange-gold. Nice foamy 1 finger head with modest retention, reduces to a thick surface capping lace. Nose of sweet malts and floral hops...not overstated, Medium carbonation. Starts with a sandy mouthfeel then builds to a medium-light body where the carastan malts balance off against slightly medicinal hopping, The finish is wet and bready with a nice moderate bittering bite to it. An inoffensive english style ESB. Others have said this ale took a dive after Brick took it on from Conners.... However, as good and well rounded as I found this ale to be, there is an oddity to this ale ...it leaves me with a good impression but a nagging feeling that it still lacks a something....possibly more floral hopping or some fruity tones from different yeast.. that could make it a good ESB.... It is still one of the few ESB ales available in bottles in Ontario and I’d never turn one down.....but it lacks some undefinable something to kick it up into the class of ales one would seek out as an ESB .

Bottle-Pours transparent amber/copper with a short lived, white froth. Aromas of faint floral hops and mild candied malt. Taste is semi-sweet with a smidgen of hops bitterness to balance out the act. Pretty standard, but better than a lot of stuff here in Ontario.

UPDATED: JAN 29, 2006 Stubby bottle. 4.8%. Pale amber with a short-lived frothy head. Not bad at all. Light bitterness, good balance. Hoppy finish.

Poured a nice amber colour with an average head. It wasn’t too flat or too fluffy. Taste was first a bit sharp, but not as sharp as one would expect. Nice malty undertones with the hops coming through nicely. A good supper beer; not too filling.

A malted down and slightly watered down bitter for mass Ontario consumption. Some bitterness on tongue that fades the more you drink (the malt base). Light mouthfeel, carmel rounded. Good lace. Needs to be a lot more bitter. Thanks Pootz for indulging me.

This bitter ale pours a golden yellow colour with a small white head. Scents are generic white bread beer. First taste was pretty good. Taste wasn’t too far off the generic but with good carbonation and a round malty taste. Maybe a little honey taste?! The palate was nice with just a little bitterness.

It’s a shame to see that Brick has retired this beer. Not that it was a spectacular beer - it was a fairly pleasant ale with a decently hopped finish, but nothing special, and certianly a shadow of the beer it was when the Conners brewery was still in business. It’s just that Conners was one of the first wave of breweries to open during the micro resurgence in the 80s and early 90s, so having the final Conners brand disappear is like losing a little bit of Ontario’s brewing history. Ah well, we’ll always have our memories of those old 1 litre plastic bottles that Conners used to use...