Augustinian Ale - Nethergate Brewery Co. Ltd.

Pegasus

Texas

3.88/5  rDev +12.1%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Appearance: Quite hazy copper color, even with a gentle pouring; there is quite a lot of suspended fine sediment. The large and creamy, excellent off-white head slowly fades to a paper-thin layer; despite this, excellent lacing is present.

Aroma: Strong aroma of home-baked bread, fruits, spices, mild hops, and honeysuckle notes

Taste: Begins with grassy notes, caramel and yeast notes and zesty carbonation. The taste soon assumes a fruit-and-spice characteristic. The finish is drawn out with a rather pronounced earthy note and a long-lasting, slightly medicinal note.

Mouth feel: Quite creamy, smooth, and fairly full.

Drinkability/notes: A rather interesting beer, far from what I expected. One has a sense that that this beer would be familiar to an English tavern patron of two centuries ago.

Serving type: bottle

05-17-2003 07:48:24 | More by Pegasus

kbub6f

New York

3.63/5  rDev +4.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3

Bought locally (Grapevine refrigerated shelves), over a week in my fridge, reviewed 45F-65F.

A big, cream-colored head leaves some creamy lacing. The beer is a very slightly hazy orange/amber. The last pour unloads a ton of fine sediment with some not-so-fine dark specks.

The smell is flowery, sweet, a little smoky, fruity with just a hint of caramel. I don't know if it adds up, but my overall impression is sunscreen lotion.

Lots of hops in the front: flowers, some grapefruit, a little tobacco. Some caramel makes a nice entrance in the middle, sweetening things a little. The finish is hoppy bitter! Turfy. A little peaty. This is pretty good.

Serving type: bottle

04-14-2003 13:49:55 | More by kbub6f

TXHops

Texas

3.5/5  rDev +1.2%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

Nethergate’s Augustinian Ale is a recent addition to Manneken-Brussel Imports out of Austin, so on a recent trip, I got me some… This coriander-spiced English Pale Ale pours with a honeyish amber body and a beautiful, perfect cream-colored head of foam with bubbles so small, the head looks like an albino pancake. This head would make a nitro-ale jealous, plus it didn’t take 5 minutes to settle. Unfortunately for this beer’s appearance score, large, black chunks of trub floated around awhile before settling to the bottom. Oh well—bottle conditioning…

A sweet, peachy aroma greets the nose, somehow escaping the blanket of foam. There’s maybe the vaguest sign of the coriander in the aroma, though a bit of it comes through in the sweet, peachy flavor. The medium-light, softly-carbonated body swims around the mouth, pushing that canned-peaches-in-syrup flavor to the far reaches of my palate. A dose of bitterness from some flavorless hop prevents the beer from falling out of balance.

As the beer warms and the flavor lingers in my mouth, the coriander begins to come through slightly more in the aroma. The same change occurs in the flavor as well, but the peach syrup flavor increases as well, subduing the spice’s push.

For a guy who doesn’t like coriander, I thought this was a well done beer. The spice was used very conservatively and didn’t overwhelm the beer’s native flavors.

Serving type: bottle

03-03-2003 20:10:59 | More by TXHops

NeroFiddled

Pennsylvania

4/5  rDev +15.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

A lightly hazy, peachy-amber body is topped by a creamy off-white head that holds quite well and leaves some nice lace. The bouquet is unlike any I've ever encountered with a sharply fruity (peach and citrus), sweet, and gently coriander-like aroma. Very odd! It's really interesting, but not necessarily inviting as one might expect a "sour" beer. In a Jeckyl & Hyde twist the flavor, however, has much more in common with a standard fruity pale ale except that it's gently spiced. A firm, softly sweet malt is well balanced by light flavorful spice, some grassy and floral hop flavor, and a firm bitterness that dries out the finish. Some coriander carries over in a long and dry aftertaste. As it warms the spicing becomes much more obvious and it overpowers much of the hop flavor. Quite unique, but not very inspiring. Still, well-brewed and enjoyable nonetheless.

Serving type: bottle

01-02-2003 18:00:06 | More by NeroFiddled

feloniousmonk

Minnesota

3.3/5  rDev -4.6%
look: 3 | smell: 4 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5

Pale amber color, average head, but not the astonishing mushroom cap of foam I find in good weizens or witbiers. Great aroma : tingly, spicy, loads of fruitiness. Majestic hoppiness here, with a rush of flavors spilling onto the tongue, but slightly sour and citrusy. It's an English wheat ale, but I'm not sure if it falls near a Belgian wit or a German weizen, or somewhere off on it's own. I can pick out the coriander, but not exactly orange. Good, but, compared to the best of those aforementioned styles, out of it's league.

Serving type: bottle

12-05-2002 16:22:59 | More by feloniousmonk

ADR

Pennsylvania

3.93/5  rDev +13.6%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4

Pretty clear for a bottle-conditioned brew. Head settles to skim in 30 seconds. About 10 big chunks of yeast. Lemony aroma, a touch of cinnamon. Sweet and sour flavors, enhanced by aroma. Senses of citric and coriander (and even a touch of dill?), especially pronounced at the mid and back part of the mouth. All the flavors are nevertheless mellow, making this pleasant but a little thin in mouthfeel. Despite its use of coriander, not super memorable.

Serving type: bottle

07-01-2002 08:21:14 | More by ADR

John

New York

4.13/5  rDev +19.4%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

16.9oz. bottle. Bottle conditioned. Pale straw-gold color with a yeasty haze after pouring. There's no dregs left in the bottom of the bottle. Good initial head with a persistent layer of creamy foam. The aroma is primarily grapefruity hops and some fruit (peaches?). Initial taste is hoppy. Overall taste is atypical of any other English ale I've had...but I like it. The label states that the beer is brewed with "a touch of coriander." It works extremely well here though, meshes well with the hops. As the brew warms, the coriander is more evident but welcome. Sturdy malt balances the equation. One could argue the catagorization of this as an English pale ale vs. an herb/spice beer. IMHO, this was a hoppy English pale for 2/3 of the experience. Whatever catagory you prefer, this was a tasty, unique brew.

Serving type: bottle

05-20-2002 09:50:34 | More by John