Belhaven Best (Bottle and Keg)

Brewed by Belhaven (Greene King)
Style: Bitter
Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland

mild, mild, mild. not sure why it’s called ’best’. certainly not as ’smooth’ and creamy as advertised on tap. that said, better than the average american lagers. very little aftertaste, if any. wife enjoys it though - so i won’t rate it below 3.

I have learned a trick: Open a nitrogen can, place a pint glass on top of it, turn upside down and pull the can slowly upwards, so that it’s just above the surface all the time - this give a beer very close to a draught. Anyhow, there is a nice creamy head on this dark amber ale. The aroma has notes of caramel just like the flavour, that also has notes of fruit and a light bitter finish. A mild and easy to drink session beer, with only 3,5%.

Pleasent enough beer, sweet honeied nose with a malty sidekick. Taste is fairly bland, but drinkable. Typical big brewery stuff. Nothing to write home about. Although I have to a certain extent! average but know doubt i’ll drink it again.

Light copper coloured, grassy hop, verly light smokeyness quite fruity and mellow malt.

Can. Belhaven Best. For me ths was right in the middle of John Smihs Smooth Cans (too cloying for me) and Boddingtons (far too weak flavour). I enjoyed this. I did get the biscuits and the bread and faint caramel. Also tried on tap August 2008 - Dalrymple Arms.. North Berwick. (as Belhaven Best)

Tap handle said "Belhaven Best..dunno what the confusion is with this beer’s name or even why it’s worth fussing over. All shine no substance here. Nice big creamy cap sits atop a orange-gold ale...great lace on the glass. Aromas of caramel, light floral and some sweetness. Nice bite of malt up front, light smokiness, some pine-like hopping then....nothing....from that point forward I thought the liquid in my mouth had turned to water...weak liquid tasteless finish and after the swallow a light bittering after taste. Weak watery body on this one ruined what could have been a decent session bitter...just too weak for me....2 or 3 of this diluted concoction and you feel water-logged.

Tap at Chaucer’s in London, Ontario: pours deep orangey amber with lots of creamy blecched white foam. Lotsa lace too. Biscuity, bready, nutty aroma with faint hoppy/apple aromas. Mildly bitter nutty flavours make up most of what is going on. Biscuit and some malt sweetness, lemon and some grassy flavours. Very creamy with mostly bitter finishes. Who said light beers don’t taste good?

Draught @ West 50, Mississauga, ON: Orange in colour, thick nitro head and the last elements of a reverse cascade as it arrived. Aroma is an absentee landlord, very hard to discern anything but subtle sweetness. Flavour is actually quite nice, but very watery and not at all assertive. Still, for something a little sweet, nutty, and malty, she’s not bad. The dude with the 0.8 needs to stop rating glasses and start rating beer.