Heather Ales Grozet

Brewed by Williams Brothers (Heather Ales)
Style: Traditional Ale
Alloa, Central, Scotland

Another beer from the Historic Ales of Scotland set. Pours golden with a minimal head some lacing. Aroma was sweet and malty, almost like a macro without the harsh metallic hint associated with most macros. Faint malt flavour finishing with a dominatng sweetness in the end. Can’t really put my finger on it but I’ve tasted something like this before. Not bad, not great either.

Bottled. Golden, unclear ale, topped off by an off-white head. Fruity and honey-ish aroma with some berries. The flavor has a tad sourness, else it is malty and honey-ish, with some bitterness and herbal notes, as well as some sweetness. Medium body. Definately not bad, just a bit odd. Not unexpected from Heather Ales though. (061228)

Pours a clear golden color, with about a half inch of white foam. The head dies back in a minute or so to just a thin film. A little bit of lace clings to the glass. Mild sweet aroma, a little bit fruity. Tart up front, with a floral taste (from the bogmyrtle? meadowsweet? hops?) and lightly fruity. A light sweet malt then kicks in, with more fruitiness, like tart green goosebarry. Light body, light carbonation. A bit of soft fruitwine in the the aftertaste. Not my favorite fruit beer, but still enjoyable. Nothing in the beer /tasted artificial to me.

Pours a hazy orange-ish color with a quarter inch head that fades quickly to a thin, spotty cap, leaving behind only a little lacing. Smell; there’s a kind of graininess in the smell, along with a berry aroma that I can only assume is gooseberries. It’s also has a very herbal quality to it. Taste; very herbal with a somewhat weet profile from the gooseberries. The wheat doesn’t quite stand out as much as I would have liked, and there’s a strange aftertaste, that I can’t quite place, that I’m not really enjoying. Mouthfeel is on the thin side, and the aftertaste makes this a bit hard for me to drink. This is something that I won’t be seeking out again.

Bottle: Golden color with a large white head. Nose is minty and spicey, the taste is more sweet with hints of spice and more mint. It would be like a mint julep poured into a budweiser... No hops or malt here, just a yellow liquid impersonating (poorly) beer.

330ml bottle - the bottle I had was labelled "Grozet Lagered Celtic Ale". Poured a pale, piss yellow/gold colour with a thin white head. Looks like a macro. Smells better than most macros however, with an interesting "hoppy", spicy aroma. A bit of ginger, and fruity (gooseberries?), vaguelly citrusy. Carbonation is minimal. Flavour is weirdly sweet, and becomes a little bit cloying as the glass drains. There’s a blueberry quality to the fruitiness in the flavour (and the nose actually). Interesting off the top, but it’s a bit like somebody steeped a bag of blueberry tea in a glass of Heineken or something. A little bit sour, but no appreciable bitterness. Drinkable and would definitely be nice as a quaffing beer on a hot summer’s day. Better than many macro brews, but not all that exciting otherwise. At least I now know how to improve a Heineken.

Hazy, light brown with no head. Looks like dirty dish water. Yeasty aroma, with perhaps a bit of wheat. Very sweet and flat. Really, this beer has no appreciable carbonation. The flavor is decent, but the lack of any carbonation detracts from the beer.

Sampled this beer poured from the bottle. Came out a light gold color with a small white head that quickly disappeared; only slightly cloudy. The aroma was very fruity, and a unique scent that I assume was gooseberry. The taste was extremely sweet and fruity, with a slight sourness. The beer started off strong, but became too sweet as I progressed.