Wensleydale: Semer Water (England: Golden Ale: 4.1% ABV)
Visual: Pale lemon juice to grain. Creamy white head. The body is mildly hazy and the head leaves lots of suds.
Nose: Lemon curd. Creamy. Light cinnamon. Light sulfur.
Body: Mild lime. Lightly creamy feel and flavor. Cinnamon. Light white sugar. Mild creamy lemon. Slightly thin up front.
Finish: Creamy. Peppery. Lemon cream air. Mild bitterness and hop character. Light sulfur. Lime. Slightly dry – dry biscuits.
Conclusion: It is time for another beer, sampled in the field! In this case, in reasonable closeness to the Yorkshire fields. Time to break open a bit of the local cask real ales again.
This seems to aim at the gentle and session end of the ale scale, with lemon and lime notes, any tartness there would be muted by a creamy style making this soothing rather than sharp. The beer feels slightly more attenuated than I would expect for a golden ale, it is creamy mid body but heads out to a quite dry feeling finish. Tellingly the finish is where it lets the mild bitter character play after being absent for most of the rest of the beer.
For the main part this is a a reasonable, lemon pushing, British Cask ale style, golden ale – though the finish reminds me of the milder hop take on an APA which makes me think that the dry character of the finish is done a bit too heavily. If the beer had been just slightly more easily going on the way out it would have helped the overall feel a lot.
Still, the body, which is slightly light up front, is soon helped by the real ale character – giving a nice weight without high abv or a too thick character, and backed by a light amount of sulfur.
So, still a nice enough beer, gentle and easy to drink, even quite refreshing. It could do with a bit of work, for example a less dry finish and a bit more body in the early moments, but not bad for a wee session, though not one that overly stands out.
Background: Drunk on cask up north at the Bolton Arms in Leyburn, just a very short drive from the brewery. Was back with the family for a while so decided to grab a local cask ale while I could. I’ve had Wensleydale beers while visiting the family before, but I think this is the first time I ever did notes on one. The parents very kindly let me be an antisocial git while I did the notes. Many thanks. Also the beer’s name sounds kind of like semen water. Which amused me. Because I am childish. In other reviews my mother sampled it and said, and I quote “Yuck”. She is not a fan of real ale so that may be a bias on her review.
