Harveys Bill Brewer

Brewed by Harveys
Style: Old Ale
Lewes, England

Serve in English pint, Snifter

Pours clear dark brown with off-white thin head. Nose is stale coffee, dry coffee beans, sweet English malt. Taste is light flavoured. Bit of dry coffee on tongue, roasted notes, touch of ale fruitiness. Little depth. Watery.

A sweet, malty beer, lightly hopped and of medium body. Sweet malt-loaf aroma and taste. Similar to the Old Ale on which it is apparently based, but lacking the aromas and flavours that usually come with the alcohol content. Good for an (almost) alcohol -free beer and one of two or three I would choose to drink again, good value at 75 p a bottle.

Decent for a low alcohol beer, good balance, tastes normalish - pretty good effort.

A Mes rate. Bottle at Home.
A pleasant amber colour with a faint off white collar. Lots of caramel in the aroma with a hint of sweaty socks and a little bit of straw. Similar flavour but with an off almost oxidised and minty note. Drinkable enough however for a beer of such considerable strength.

275ml bottle from the brewery shop in Lewes. A bottle of sweet stale beer coloured with caramel. Kinda interesting and strangely attractive to a someone, like me, who enjoys sweet low alcohol beers with a bit of aged character to them.

Bottle thanks to mes and mes’s gaff. Alround rating: Sweet brown bread malt character, light ruby malts too, metallic minerally edge, noteably harveys, caramel. No hops. Not balanced, an interesting drink, but the metallic pasturisation has ruined it.

Bottle at The Dorset Arms, Lewes, 18th August 2007. Not sure if I got a sole bad bottle, but this did not have the essential character of the Old Ale (which I love). It had the essential character of diacetyl! Poured a carbonated mid brown, with a strong butterscotch aroma (uh oh) that carried over into the taste (which is extremely sweet) and capped off by the slippery mouthfeel. Even at only £1.05 a bottle, I’m not inclined to try it again...

Bottled (275ml). So, this is an OK beer, better than the John Hop low alcohol beer.. more body. Dark & sweet. It's not something I would ever bother drinking again.