Melbourn Brothers Strawberry

Brewed by Melbourn Brothers (Samuel Smith)
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Stamford, England

In short: A strawberry strudel in a bottle. Kind of gross. Overrated.
How: Bottle 330ml, 4 months old
The look: Almost clear copper body with a small white head leaving good lacings
In long: Strong aroma of strawberries and whip cream. Taste is full of strawberries, rather sweet, commercial caramel candies, some milky elements, some soft ripe apples, some wood/oak flavour that didn’t fit in at all. Overall impression of eating a strawberry strudel while taking sips of a 7-up. Acceptable as a dessert sipper but I thought it was actually pretty bad with big sips. Let’s be honest, you are more likely to find a good steak in England than a good spontaneous fermentation beer. And that says a lot.

Short strawberry aroma, wonderful hint of strawberry without being medicinal or perfumy. I am partial to lambic beer.

In the bottle from Total Beverage Denver. Pours a pinkish light amber with a medium white head. Large carbonation bubbles are present. Has a simply unreal strawberry cough drop aroma. A tart blast of wild strawberry gives way to a synthetic sweetness followed by an intense sourness to the finish. The apricot is less fake tasting. Perhaps brewers simply should not use strawberry in beer? I suppose this is the best strawberry attempt that I’ve tried, but that does not say much.

Perfume-y, cooked strawberry aroma. When cold, it smells like those impossible Crisco strawberry pies. Good retro potato-masher bottle, mostly foggy brown beer with a little berry blush. A long-lived head. Very sweet, rather one-dimensional, but a pleasant dessert beer. A little off sulphur flavor towards the very end. Medium body, but clings like a thin syrup.

This was my first try with this type of beer and it was wonderful. It is red with a big, thick, dense, light pink head that lasts forever, only slowly diminishing to a smaller head and leaves some lacing. The aroma is strawberry with malty grain and pungent yeasty bread undertones. The taste is similar, being very definitely strawberry, both very sweet and very tart at the same time, and a bit sour and tangy as well, again with a definite yeasty bread element lurking below the strawberry surface. This is very interesting, with nice complexity, and is neither too sweet nor too sour or sharp. The palate is lively and intriguing. It is highly drinkable, but only for one and very enjoyable.

Amber beer with pinkish head that smells like a freshly-tred field of strawberries. Flavor is both tart and sweet... but not chalky like a strawberry sweet tart would be. About halfway through I thought I might be drinking strawberry milk, perhaps the result of sour tongue fatigue. Flavor alternates between and combines sweet and sour. Delicious fruity filtered beer.

Not on a level with Lindeman’s, but a good fruit lambic. Relatively simple palatte, but very fruity. I was very surprised that there was almost no "hey this is still a beer!" bitter aftertaste that you find with most beers that claim a fruit flavor. This is also helped, no doubt, by the nearly-nothing alcohol content.

500. Pours rubied medium amber with bright pink foamy head. Not much lace. Huge white sugar processed strawberry nose. Light and fizzy body. Serious puckery processed strawberry flavors all over the mid-palate: just like a strawberry Jolly Rancher, really. That slightly funky and vinegary lambic tang is underneath it, just a hint of tartness to balance all the synthetic sugar. Not too bad for an occasional change of pace, but probably not going to supplant the finest fruit lambics anytime soon.