Thursday 15 July 2010

Pete Drinks: Samuel Smith's Organic Best Ale

SamSmithBeer-2676

Name: Samuel Smith's Organic Best Ale

ABV: 5.0%

Bottled/ Draft: Bottled

Bottle Conditioned: No

Bottle Size: 500 ml

Price: £2.31 from Abel & Cole

Colour: Deep Golden

Clarity: Bright

Head/ Bubbles: Slightly artificially carbonated; large bubbles, short lived head.

Mouthfeel: The artificial carbonation gives it a rather 'soft drink' feel.

Taste: The bottle describes this beer as "delicately flavoured", and that's almost an understatement - a light taste, little maltiness and a subtle hoppiness.

Comment: This beer suffers from a couple of issues; firstly, although it's announcing itself as delicately flavoured it really takes this too far. I love a light beer, especially in hot weather like we've been enjoying, but in this case it's come at a lack of complexity. Secondly, the carbonation is rather overdone, and you end up tasting bubbles more than ale. This is a common problem with non bottle-conditioned beers (and you'll probably find me complaining about it often!) but this beer suffers worse than normal for it - this may be due to the fact that it has such a delicate flavour, that it gets easily overwhelmed by the carbonation. I would be very interested to track this down on draft, because with a normal head the light taste might well get across much better - not one to bother with in a bottle, though.

SamSmithBeer-2679

5 comments:

Mr Noodles said...

I hate too many bubbles too and it would defo be interesting to check this out at the boozer, as I reckon it wouldn't cost much more than the £2.31 you paid.

BTW - I like this new spin-off of "Pete Drinks".

Kavey said...

Hey Mr Noodles, if you find it at a London boozer, let us know!

Thanks, glad you like the new series!

Pete Favelle said...

I'm actually thinking that maybe I just needed to let it sit for a couple of hours to lose the fizz. Might have to grab another bottle and try this...!

Mr Noodles said...

Sam Smith's pubs like the Chandos (Charing X) and Princess Louise (Holborn) should have it although not sure if they have it on tap. The link below is to a list of known Sam Smith's boozers in the smoke

http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?Category_Samuel_Smith's

Pete Favelle said...

What a fantastic resource! I shall definitely have to hunt it out on draft...