Originally published in BEER June 2006 as part of a piece about beers in Asda supermarkets
ABV: 5 per cent
Origin: St Austell, Cornwall, England
Buy from: ASDA supermarkets
St Austell Smuggler's Ale
I’ve been drinking a lot of St Austell beers recently: a trip deep into the brewery’s territory to research a pub walk coincided with receiving samples of this new bottle conditioned line. I’m not complaining: the Cornish brewery is one of the treasures among Britain’s remaining independent regionals.
St Austell’s credentials as a traditional vertically-integrated family brewery are impeccable. The 1893 Victorian brewhouse is still in use, descendants of founder Walter Hicks still sit on the board, there’s a regional pub estate with numerous long-serving tenants and a dynamic range of well-made and distinctive ales.
Smuggler’s Ale was created for the ASDA supermarket chain’s beer competition and selected by a tasting panel as one of four finalists put on trail sale last autumn. Emerging as the best seller of the four, it’s been rewarded with a national listing until the end of this year.
St Austell head brewer Roger Ryman is no stranger to winning supermarket competitions. His innovative spiced wheat beer Clouded Yellow, also a Real Ale in a Bottle and reviewed in this column a while back, emerged from the Tesco Beer Challenge.
The grist of of Smuggler’s Ale – anyone slightly familiar with the maritime history of Cornwall will require no explanation of the name – is 100% Brewer’s Gold, a malt made exclusively for the brewery from locally grown Optic Barley at Tuckers Maltings. Cascade hops are used for bittering, with Styrian and more Cascade for aroma.
As Roger Protz noted in last month’s Beer, Smuggler’s Ale is cold-filtered before being “dusted” with a special strain of fresh yeast that clings to the bottom of the bottle, making it much easier to pour clear than many other bottle conditioned beers.
While old hands might miss the ritual of careful pouring, many drinkers new to live bottled beer will welcome this and other recent “easy pour” beers, and the technique helps address retailers’ common complaint that customers don’t like too much sediment.
It certainly helps you appreciate the beer’s rich deep red-tinged amber tones, under a soft foamy off-white head. The aroma is flowery and biscuity, with hints of roast and a fresh squeeze of hop resins.
The chewy palate is packed with biscuity, grainy malt with a hop dryness from the start, very much in the brewery’s style, and hints of raspberry and mint. Resiny, peppery hops assert themselves firmly in a long finish over plenty of juicy malt.
Overall this is a delightful strong bitter full of freshness and flavour that well deserves to join Clouded Yellow as a permanent line.
More Asda beers in next post.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/st-austell-smugglers-ale/51672/
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