Belhaven St Andrews Ale (Bottle)

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

Pours an off-white head with a golden body. Smells of malt, biscuit, and caramel. Tastes like biscuit, caramel, and a hint of bitter. Finish is sweet malt.

Bottle. Pours a clear orange copper with a small frothy off white head. The aroma is a corn malt with sweet fruit. Good sticky lacing on the glass. The taste is a fruity malt with a lot of caramel in the finish. Very rich and full on the mouth and easy to drink. A good ESB from Belhaven.

From a bottle poured brown with a good amount of head. Nice bitter hoppy flavor with a lasting finish.

Bottle (355ml). Poured amber with an averaged sized, foamy, white head which was mostly lasting. Aroma was of earthy hops with sweet marmalade, toffee malts and some toasted hazel nuts. Flavor was a mild earthy hop bitterness with toffee malts, nuts and hints if blackberries & oranges. Light to medium bodied with soft carbonation, a dry mouthfeel, watery texture and average length finish.

Copper colour, clear, creamy whitish head. Aroma has toffee, malt. Taste is dry, some bitternes, pretty much carbonation.

Strong aroma of grain, grass, and aome alcohol. Pours a darkish orange with a fizzy head. Laces nicely though. taste is not terribly complex, with the forerunner being malt, followed by some peppery hops and honey. Not as bitter as I might expect, but finishes smooth and creamy.

Ah, the temptation to pepper my review with cheesy golf puns! Even more pressure to do so self-consciously, having already pointed out their badness, but I’ll refrain from any references to this beer being "not quite up to par," or "failing to score a hole in one." Oops, too late. Really, I was just hoping for more from a Scottish ale, but St. Andrews has some nice, roasted malt and caramel flavour, and comparisons to Anheiser Busch aren’t really fair. It’s kind of a beginner’s beer, for someone who grew up on American lager and isn’t quite ready for anything with strong flavour. If it were a choice between this and typical macrobeers, I’d drink this, but I could list plenty that blow this stuff out of the water.

This beer has a horrible aroma. An off balance brew. A total lack of any kind of bitterness. Has an earth dirt flavor. A a little honey an caramel in the body. This beer looks a lot better than it tastes.