Thames Welsh ESB

Brewed by Felinfoel
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Llanelli, Dyfed, Wales

Bottle. Dark amber color with moderate off-white head that diminished slowly. Complex good sweet aroma. Full body with a smooth texture. Good well balanced flavor of malt, fruit and toffee with a long finish.

I don’t know what you people are thinking. Probably one of the best beers out there. Nutty and full on the nose. The color is a deep amber and the flavors are bold and suprisingly sweet. You can taste the caramel and toffee. Wonderful beer.

Deep and dark like a good Welsh beer should be, then surprisingly sweet. The combo of Stout and sweet works very well, with a taste of strawberrings and toffee working at the edges of the blacknesss.

My second rating from Wales. Sweet malty aroma. Deep brown color with an ample creamy tan head. Candy caramel sweet with a massive malt backbone. There is some grape juice sweetness in the finish as well. Really makes you pine to be in a comfortable local pub with many friends. Nicely crafted beer that is on the sweeter side of the spectrum.

Bottle. Sweet caramel, toffee, and orange aroma. Cloudy orange brown color with next to no head. Sweet dried cherry, orange, caramel and toffee flavors - pretty complex. A tad on the light side. Like a light porter/stout. Nice and drinkable.

Bottle poured a brown caramel color with very little head or lacing. Aroma of malt and caramel. Flavor is malt, caramel, raisins. Not too sweet, Medium heavy body. Became more smooth and easy drinking as it warmed.

Bottle from Peace St. Market, Raleigh, NC. Pours turbid pumpkin pie colored with little head. I’m not sure how this one got into NC if it truly has a 6.5% ABV. Aroma is wonderful sweet caramel, some cotton candy, dark fruit, some cherries, almonds, and blackberries. Fabulous aroma! Tastes caramel malty, with tons of fruitiness including the aforementioned cherries and blackberries, plus some slight molasses. The palate is medium, worthy of only a 3. The finish is very smooth but lacking in complexity a bit. The front end was a bit better than the back end here, but this one is very good at either end.

Bottled. Malty, sweet aroma, some brown sugar, toasted nut, dried cherry, bitter orange peel and raisin along with traces of spicy, leafy British noble hops, faint chocolatey maltiness and butterscotch. Medium-dark amber-brown color, clear and filtered with a lasting, foamy, light tan head and very good lacing. Flavor profile is full and balanced, even some moderate complexity here, with aspects of toasty, buttery, sweet malts, earthy, leafy, spicy and herbal hops and a variety of dark, dried, berryish and citric fruits interspersed from start to finish. Some gently prickly alcohol heat on the palate along with the abundant carbonation, body is medium-full. I remember this being pretty good from my pre-RateBeer days, so it is to its credit that it remains enjoyable even after a rather serious palate upgrade and general beer paradigm shift on the part of this rater.