Ridleys Old Bob (Bottle)

Brewed by Greene King
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Bury St. Edmunds, England

Serve in English pint

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UPDATED: DEC 24, 2006 Bottle. Orange/gold with an off-white head. Aromas are grain, metal with some caramel malts. Creamy with some spices. Flavours are creamy and malty with oranges and spices. Yeasty, despite being pasteurised.

Plain ale appearance with a lightly hopped aroma and slightly sour flavour. A plain beer, quite strong.

The nose is flowery, fruity but too faint. The color is amber and the head is small. The mouthfeel is very soft, and the flavor is fruity with notes of black currant and other berries. It is slightly prickling. All in all a really good beer.

UPDATED: MAY 18, 2009 Nov, 2002: Ridley’s is a small family brewery founded in the mid 1800s on the river Chelmer in Essex. Best known in their local county of Essex, they do produce very good traditional British beers. Old Bob is, as the name implies, in the Old Ale style, though a little lighter in taste and alcohol. The brewery calls it a strong pale ale. [3.9]
Oct, 2007 Bottle from Morrisons. This is a decently malty brew with a good smack of hops. Even though it’s rather clean and flat with barley sugar notes from the pasteurising process, there’s enough sweet and nutty malt to overcome the major flaws. Green King call this a Strong Premium Ale, and there is perhaps more of the Premium Bitter about this than the Old Ale, though not enough to make a style change. I like this beer. I never had the bottled Old Bob often enough to make any kind of meaningful comparison, and I couldn’t say if this is any better or worse. I am giving a lower score than last time purely because I am more critical these days, and my palate is picking up more evidence of the processing than it did in 2002 when I last rated it, but I think I am enjoying it and appreciating it on the same comparative level [3.3]
May, 2009 Bottle. This is a fairly typical pasteurised British premium bitter. It has a dollop of malt - turned into butterscotch by the pasteurising, and a dollop of robust bittering hops which have soaked well into the malt and yield up their cardboard notes reluctantly. This is not good really. Feels like a lowering of quality has taken place - but it may just be that I am liking it less and less as the years go by! [2.6]

UPDATED: MAY 9, 2009 courtesy of Laurent Mousson (WBA) - clear reddish-amber colour under a foamy beige head; aroma of dust and vegetal; medium-bodied with a low bitterness, quite tasteless; some caramel and dust in the finish - very dubious