(Inevitable?) disappointment
When I was back in the UK, Young's Special London Ale was my favourite bottled beer of all time. A beautifully rich hoppy drop, perfectly balanced. I had it in bottles many times and was lucky enough to have it on draught at a couple of beer festivals, thanks to the friendly people at Young's brewery.
However, Young's sold out their heritage (in my opinion) and moved their brewing operations from Wandsworth to Charles Wells in Bedford. They inisted the beers would be unaffected - they were taking their yeast strain with them and the brewers at Bedford had been working hard to match the beers. Initial experiences were not encouraging. Young's Bitter (known as Ordinary) seemed to lose it's citrus bite. But at first, SLA seemed unaffected. Maybe because they were still selling Wandsworth-brewed stock.
Recently, Kieran (a Kiwi beer blogger, homebrewer and beer judge with an exceptional knowledge of English beers, who shares my love of Special London Ale) posted the distressing news that Bedford-brewed Special London Ale had lost its soul. Maybe I was in denial, but I had to taste for myself. So today I finally picked up a couple of bottles of SLA which said "Brewed in Bedford" on the back.
And I was devastated. They've ruined it. I could hardly drink it. I am nowhere near as skilled a judge of beer as Kieran, so forgive my dodgy tasting notes (not helped by the half bottle of red wine I've consumed since tasting the SLA). Unlike Kieran, I felt that the major change was a loss of balance. The hops seem to overwhelm the beer with a medicinal, almost soapy flavour. Previously the big hop hit was balanced by a rich malty depth, but that seems to have gone. In fact there appears to be a big gap between the malt and the hops, a gaping chasm which separates the two flavour elements. There is a cloying sweetness from the alcohol, but it seems thin. Maybe I've had a bad bottle but it certainly was NOT good and was a million miles away from the nectar of the gods I've had under this label before.
Very very sad.
posted by Martin @ 8:07 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Wow , that suggests there is some major batch variation going on because the bottles we had had no discernible bitterness what so ever. It was all malt and hop aroma.
Never been a great fan of bottled beer but our recent trip to the smoke to watch the mighty Terriers take on Chelski put me back on the receiving end of some draught Special for the first time in many years. To say I was underwhelmed would be letting Youngs off lightly. This was once a tremendously satisfying, moreish ale that I could never get enough of during my time in London - and I'm sure that's not just the mind playing tricks. Still at least they haven't spoilt their superb pubs!
The nearest pub to my office in London was a Young's pub so I used to drink a lot of their beers. I oscillated between preferring Ordinary or Special. As soon as they moved to Bedford they both lost something. I'm fairly certain it was a definite flavour change rather than my mind playing tricks.
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