Wye Valley Dorothy Goodbodys Country Ale

Brewed by Wye Valley
Style: English Strong Ale
Hereford, England

Bottle shared with HogTownHarry & tupalev -- courtesy of HogTownHarry. Labelled as "Our Glass". Pours a flat clear reddish-brown with no head. Mild semi-sweet aroma of light hops, spices and caramel malt. Flavour is quite malty and has a mild Scotch Ale quality to it. It’s also surprisingly bitter compared to the aroma. Thin to medium bodied. Hey tupalev, you mention not liking it as much as me & Harry but I rated it lower then you, so clearly you are wrong. Overall it was a decent beer but nothing special.

Bottle (500ml). Shared with blankboy and tupalev - my bottle. Poured cloudy mahogany with a small off-white head. Sweet candyish malt aroma, some mild hops - a nice funky woodiness emerges as it warms. This is very malty, mildly spicy and funky - there’s a hin of bottle-metal there too; reminds me of a light belgian ale crossed with a scotch ale. Mouthfeel is syupry, fairly flat, with a solid body (no pun on the picture) and fair alcohol presence. I liked it - started sweet, had a longish finish with a fair amount of alcoholic bitterness left on the tongue.

Bottle, labeled as "Our Glass", shared with blankboy and Hogtown Harry, courtesy of Harry. Musty tea, cinnamon, herbal, rootbeer and malt aroma. Dark brown/orange, very still and flat looking. Very sweet musty malt taste. Tea like. A little thin. A grower, it became a little more like a weak Scotch Ale. Some bitterness and alcohol, but not a ton. Ok, didn’t like it as much as my drinking companions.

500 ml bottle (labeled as "Our Glass") from Julios Liquors in Westborough, MA (Feb 2006). Served at cellar temperature in a Chimay glass. No date, of course, like you’d want to know how old this 6% English beer is before shelling out $5. Sigh, my own fault. Anyway, it’s muddy dark brown with a dried blood-reddish haze to it, just a tiny touch of immediately dying head...nose is caramel, touch buttery but not overly so, quite oaky, oxidized, rather elegant to my nose but also faint and old....the body is port-like, smooth and oxidized with light hints of metal, upon which light cherry flavor and woody somewhat astringent hops rest....grows drier after midpalate though the beginnning thinness of the beast is less apparent. Lovely bottle, not quite so lovely contents.

What makes Our Glass a very interesting beer, is this beer is not available in the UK. Our Glass is an English "Strong" Ale by style, brewed for the export market in the United States. Coming in at 6% abv, which is no means "strong" by American microbrew standards, this beer is a rich, delicious, complex real ale, with lots of flavor and character. It is brewed with Amber, Pale, Crystal, and Wheat malts, and hopped with a very UK hop variety called Bramling Cross. Marketed in beautiful brown Imperial pint bottles with a picture of the beautiful Dorothy sitting in a field with a green dress, this beer would make any beer lover drool. Dorothy Goodbody’s Our Glass pours to a beautiful, bright, ruby red color with a slight white head that fades and a soft carbonation. It is important to note, with real ale, you must pour carefully. For this beer to pour bright, you must leave the dregs in the bottle or the beer will pour hazy. My suggestion is leave the last bit of beer in the bottle. You can drink it(I do) or you can just discard it. If you do drink it, clear your palate with some water, and enjoy this beer without any chance of the flavors being muddled. The nose on this beer has a wonderfully malty and fruity aroma, with some nice flowery hop aromas, to balance out the sweet malty and fruity aromas. The palate is very soft on the tongue with lots of really good pale and sweet malt flavors paired with estery, juicy fruity flavors. There is also, as Garrett Oliver(brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery) likes to say, a back drop of flinty flavor, often found in British ales. What is flinty? You really have to taste it to understand what it means, but it is there in this beer. Our Glass finishes with more of those great malty and fruity flavors, then ends with some nice flowery/slightly herbal bitterness that lingers on the tongue. This is yet another very impressive beer, from a very impressive British brewery. I could see my self losing a whole day in a pub drinking pint after pint of this beer. It has so much flavor, yet it is so soft and drinkable

(Bottle) Pours a medium brown body with a small off-white head. Aroma of caramel malt and fruit. Flavor of malt and mild hops. Bitter finish.

Bottle. Dark brown vibrant beer with a citric fruity aroma and a fairly strong fruity and dry flavour. Overall quite disappointing.

has a nice redish color to it. thought it was better when it was a liittle warmer but has a nice sweetness to it and a little spice to.