Black Sheep Ale

Brewed by Black Sheep
Style: Bitter
Ripon, England

hazy golden brown pour. Aroma of hops, malts, copper. Flavor is mainly malty with some astringency, little metallic flavor.

bottle: Copper with off-white head. Aroma is fruity with roasted malts. Taste is dominated by hops, malt and caramel. Nice bitter ale.

(bottle from Co-op, Long Stratton) Amber clear with a nice, pure white head, the bubbles easily visible. Citrusy grapefruit smell with some hops and sweet malt. Taste is good bready malt with some spicy hops and a drying finish. Smooth and creamy, with a prickly carbonation. Refreshing and drinkable with a little ’tang’. Not bad at all.

I found this beer pretty one-dimensional, but satisfying. The finish is clean, and there is a definite dryness that lingers long after drinking. I found it sweeter and less intense than I imagined (where are the hops mentioned on the bottle?), but that might have been a good thing. It’s a good session beer.

Has a clear light bronze-red pour with a white and off-white head, head quickly fades to a ring and sparse cover, mild effervescence, aromas of faint caramel and toasted malt, faint fruit sweetness, some earthy fragrances, faint dark honey in the background, flavor of light toasted malt, faint caramel and mild sweetness, little bitterness follows at the finish, and the finish is dry, this was alright.

Pours an amber ruby color with a medium to small sized foamy off white head. Notes of raspberries, toasted biscuits, toffee, and hints of caramel. Pretty basic and highly quaffable at 4.4.

Perhaps it’s unfair to rate this so soon after (and still buzzed on) a good, strong Belgian tripel, but Black Sheep simply tastes like beer. Just plain ol’ beer. Granted, it’s malty and hoppy, with a little bit of burnt oak lurking in there somewhere, and it’s better than the watery piss American and (I’m sad to say) Canadian macrobreweries try to pass off as beer. But the bottle boasts "the culmination of five generations of brewing expertise. Brewed at teh Black Sheep Brewerey in Masham, North Yorkshire - and nowhere else." Really. This is the result. Sure, in Yorkshire, "five generations" usually means about 75 years, but don’t the deep-voiced, working-class heroes of the North deserve better? Is this really the beer of the people who survived political unrest, the Norms, the Viking, the War of the Roses, two cholera epidemics and the tragedy of Sheffield United in the late ’70s? Given the agony being from Yorkshire, don’t they deserve a more memorable beer?