Smuggler's Ale - St. Austell Brewery

wl0307

United Kingdom (England)

4.6/5  rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 5

Revisiting this beer, BB 20/12/2006. The front label bears a golden seal, "ASDA Beer Festival Winner 2005"--guess quite a lot of people fell for this nice ale like I did last year. Served cool in a straight imperial-pint glass.

A: bright copperish hue, coming with a fast-growing off-white beer head retaining its 3cm thickness for a good while, slowly settling down like a souffle top, leaving tight, spongey-textured lacing behind; very nice looking, fine carbonation
S: resiny and ashy notes upfront coming from the thick foam, but the intensely fragrant+fruity hops (grapefruits, sweet tangerine, juicy fresh longan-fruits, raisins and unidentified dried stone-fruits--a bit like marriage b/w fragrant US hops and English Goldings?!...) rediate from the glass without any hesitation; a focused note of caramely/toffee-ish maltiness and X'mas cake sprinkled with coconut-shavings, with a touch of mineral-salty note produces a firm backdrop, allowing the rich hoppy aroma to roam freely... lots of hops plus lots of malts, rich, juicy, a sheer beauty for Premium Bitter~~
T: upfront comes a flow of slightly sour and sweet malts mixed with sweetened tangerine-peel and raisins, settling gradually to a bitter-sweet aftertaste of melted toffees, as a semi-dryish bitter, Fuggles' black-tea like hoppyness and a slightly roasty edge of dark malts prevail at the rear of the tongue, making a superb and soothing finish full of hops, dried stone-fruits, and never-ending flow of bitterness (like roasted nuts) to underline the equally lingering aroma of fudge-like maltiness.
M&D: the great mouthfeel benefits from consistently creamy fizz, thus soft and smooth, ideal for this nearly full-bodied, full-flavoured and excellently structured Premium Bitter at just 5%abv.!! It tastes even better than my last bottle consumed 10 months ago, which I guess is due to my serving this bottle roughly warmer than cool (~15 centigrade), and it works ju...st fine! I really like this beer, in a sense it outperforms the bottled Fuller's ESB as the latter lacks the niche of that "lively-softness" given by the bottled yeasts. Sublime drinkability, really pleasant and satisfying strong bitter~~ Well worth seeking out!

Serving type: bottle

08-23-2006 19:46:53 | More by wl0307