Williams Brothers Roisin (Bottle)

Brewed by Williams Brothers (Heather Ales)
Style: Fruit Beer
Alloa, Central, Scotland

Clear, spritzy and pinkish with a creamy head of froth. Cut grass and stemmy raspberry in the snout. Enough hop bite and biscuity malt to steer it well away from alcopop territory. The sharpness of the berries is quite well-integrated, but pronounced enough to be refreshing. Spoilt by a nasty departing note of shampoo bitterness. Intriguing, but not wholly convincing.

Golden rose’ colored, some white head, dissipating. A better aroma than flavor--the berry aroma is gentle and attractive, however the flavor is more dominated by a grassy bitterness that doesn’t do much for me. The palate is stinging with carbonation and that bitterness; the beer itself is rather dry. I wish this had been a complete hit. Bottle.

500ml bottle. Rhubarb and onion skin coloured with next to no head. Slight aroma of tart raspberries. Flavour had plenty of red fruit before an abrupt, dry finish. An enjoyable and unusual fruit beer.

Bottle (from Bitter Virtue, BB Feb 08). Orangey amber colour. Fruit not initially pronounced on nose - noticeably grassy floral hops. Lightly tart raspberry flavours grow in the mouth and work quite well with the hops. Very little bitterness and indistinct malt leaves this with a short poor finish which is slightly metallic and highlights the artificial carbonation on the next sip. Could be better and suprisingly its not the fruit that lets it down.

Bottle (50 cl) at Haket, Göteborg, Sweden. Shaddy mahogny, small head. Earthy malt aroma with some spicy hops and dark berries, especially raspberries. Dry with moderate bitterness. Ok but a bit cloying after a while.

From Skjold-Burne, Aarhus, DK. Bottled, 230808. Pink with white head. Aroma of red berries. Flavor is OK sweet of berries with tones of malt and some bitterness.

500 ml bottle, bought at Real Foods, Edinburgh (an organic food store, but there’s no mentioning on the label that this beer is organic). The basis of this beer is Williams Gold, with added tayberries and left to mature for a few weeks. Róisin Tayberry Beer pours with a clear pinkish red colour and a decent pale pink head. Strong aroma of ripe tayberries (which appears to be a crossbreed between raspberry and blackberry, much like boysenberries). The flavour is also dominated by tayberries, but the beer is not very sweet, nor very sour, and there are noticeable hops in the finish. The mouthfeel is a bit thin though. Still a nice change-of-pace beer.

INteresting,t he colour was a little red alike, not too sweet, but sour at the same time. I like this new one.