Williams Roisin
Williams Brothers Brewing Company

The blurb on the can says "pours like pink champagne" but it initially poured more like a pinkish red ale to me.
As a fruit beer fan the smell was immediately enticing to me, and the taste doesn't disappoint!
The taste of the tayberry (one of my favourite fruits, which helps) is pretty strong here but it's still clearly a beer - it's sweet and quite tart, but not heavy and sugary like a cider or a radler.
Could drink it like juice. Bonnie stuff.

Bright red. Rather unnatural looking. Thin dissipating head.
Very sweet tayberry nose.
Medicinal and tart. Red currant straight from the bush.
Thirst quenching despite the unusual flavour.

500 ml bottle with a BB date of 9/17 in Uig Scotland.
Very fruity with a clear tayberry flavor. Mildly bitter-sweet-tart. Lovely, clear strawberry colored body with a durable off-white head. A tad thin; good carbonation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orange color with a few drops of pink. Made a two finger head with medium retention.
Nice aroma of berries and pine, even juniper like. Flowers all over the place.
Delicious refreshing taste, I guess I know now how a tayberry tastes like. You can still feel some bitterness from its floral hops.
Aftertaste is fruity and mild dry. Light body with a crisp and champagne feeling.
You know what, I dig this beer. And I more into bitter and extreme beers. Very fresh and well balanced bee, best fruit beer I had so far.

Pours a hazy faded pink colour with a white head. Faint lacing as you drink down.

Smells fresh, flowery and sweet, with a hint of lemon tang.

Tastes very fruity and sharp, quite crisp and dry on the tongue like a champagne. Reminds me of a cherry wheat beer.

Overall not a bad beer, very refreshing on a hot summers day I would imagine.

 

A 500ml bottle with a BB of Apr 2012. The label states that this ale contains tayberries.

Poured into a York beerfest pint glass. A hazy golden-amber hue with good carbonation (not pink). Forms a large head of creamy white foam with excellent stability; this eventually reduces to a thick surface layer. A tart, juicy berry aroma - just like a blend of raspberries and blackberries. A hint of underlying malt and yeast. Fruity, sweet and dry.

Tastes of tart berries with a light malt base and a dry finish. Notes of tayberries (raspberry/blackberry combo), malt, yeast and subtle stewed hops. Quite sour, but attenuated by a residual fruit sweetness. Mouthfeel is light and crisp, with tingling from the acidity. Somewhat astringent. Mild fruity aftertaste.

Rather good - the tayberries shine through in the aroma and flavour, despite the appearance of a regular ale (it's not pink, even if the label says otherwise). Pleasantly tart; it isn't overly sweet or cloying. The mouthfeel is also nice - light but with decent body. This would be fantastic on a hot day. A tasty fruit beer that deserves your attention.

500ml can:
Raspberry with an pinkish head just under 1cm tall with a foamy texture with not bad retention. Hoppy with berries on the nose, a touch of citrus too but nothing that strong, there's a funky sweetness towards the end too. The taste is stronger with more raspberries & tayberries, it's quite juicy with a citrus & blackcurrant at the end. It's a medium body with decent carbonation, a nice citrus tang & quite a fruity, juicy feel to it.

500ml bottle, consumed Jun 2011, BBE Oct 2012.

A - Orange body with some pink highlights, more akin to peach than pink. Head dissipates pretty quickly, leaving scant covering and a little lacing.

S - Fruity berry aromas, along with some malt notes and a little hop on the tail.

T - Similar to the aromas, the tayberries are definitely the driver on the taste, providing some sweet fruity notes on the opener and lasting throughout. Finishes sweet with just a little hop balance in the finish to level out the taste, finishing perfectly balanced.

M - Medium body, light to medium carbonation, smooth and crisp.

O - Overall, extremely pleasant sweet beer. Possibly a little sweet for a session beer for some, but a great one to enjoy on a warm day.

500 ml bottle, bought at Real Foods, Edinburgh (an organic food store, but there’s no mentioning on the label that this beer is organic). The basis of this beer is Williams Gold, with added tayberries and left to mature for a few weeks. Róisin Tayberry Beer pours with a clear pinkish red colour and a decent pale pink head. Strong aroma of ripe tayberries (which appears to be a crossbreed between raspberry and blackberry, much like boysenberries). The flavour is also dominated by tayberries, but the beer is not very sweet, nor very sour, and there are noticeable hops in the finish. The mouthfeel is a bit thin though. Still a nice change-of-pace beer.

I had this on cask at the Brickskeller for the Williams Brothers tasting. It pours a ruby red with a light head atop the beer.

The nose is a bit weak however berry and a very light malt seem to prevail.

It's very VERY sweet, though the taste does grow on you as you work your way down the glass. It is a drier beer and the sugars really make you pucker up for that next sip. The dryness does help with the balance of the beer after the second or third sip.

Served on cask, so not as "heady" or carbonated as it would be on tap, but it was nice.

A little too sweet and dry for me, but I could see myself sitting down for desert or to a table of good friends on a warm summers night with a bottle of this. Should definitely give this one a try as it is still quite rare ... at least here in D.C. and it is quite unique.

Found at Oddbins (British chain wineshop) the other day, coming as a very pleasant surprise that the Williams Bros. just keep on doing more and more "innovative ancient" ales~~ According to the beer label, the "Tayberry" used to make this special beer is "a cross b/w a raspberry and a blackberry, originally grown in the Tay valley region of Scotland", hence the naturally pink colour~~

BB FEB 2008, served lightly chilled in a 500ml weizen glass (for nice presentation, that is~~).
A: a dark golden hue with just a touch of reddish glows--absolutely NOT pink, if I may?... coming with a slowly-growing white frothy head with nice retention, on top of ve...ry gentle carbonation. Looking nice.
S: an assertive hint of hop resins skirts orangey (Golding?)+peachy and sweet-flowery (American varieties?) hops and very mildly-flavoured pale malts, with just a lovely tinge of so-called tay-berries lurking underneath... balanced, understated, smelling more like a well-made pale ale with a dash of raspberry syrup~~ as it warms the slightly stinky, hay-ish note of Fuggles(?) gradually expands, making it smelling even more like a pale ale. Very hoppy.
T: a slightly chemical taste like fruit flavouring of, again, "tayberries", prevails upfront, also tangy and bitter at the same time ... leading fast towards, first, a flow of increasingly dryish grapefruit-zesty hops... then, a soothing base of bitter biscuity malts to add to the mix... lingering bitterness of hops lends a healthy length and renders a very dry palate, while the berry-ish aroma (rather than taste, I'm sure) deep down the sides of the tongue serves as just a faint reminder that this beer is made with fruits--in this sense, I'm not even sure whether this beer is a successful attempt or not?
M&D: softly carbonationed, light-bodied, very easy-drinking like a summer ale especially given that tangy and citric edge of hops and never-ending bitterness. Can't say it's my cup of tea, though, as I probably expect more fruits than just a hint of fruit flavouring... Well, the Williams Bros. are truly audacious, that's for certain!

I first found this on cask at the Three Judges, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a 20oz bottle of it at Peckhams too.

This brew contains tayberries which are apparently a cross between raspberries and blackberries grown in the Lowlands.

A dark pink colour, this looks more like pink champagne than beer, although there is a decent head.

Berries dominate the nose, but since raspberry rather blackberry is apparent here I'd call it a bouquet instead. it does smell very sweet. I am reminded of raspberry jam on toast.

The taste is dominated by the sweet acidic berry tones (again this tayberry seems nearer to a raspberry than a blackberry), but seemingly more so out of the bottle than the cask. There are sufficient hops backing the sweet tang up to make it clear that this is a beer, but it certainly does skirt with frou-frou status! That is well carbonated makes it more refreshing, but less like a good, honest pint. I approve of such deviations from the status quo now and again though.

Whether you like this will probably depend on whether or not you are a berry fan, but this is certainly a good berry beer, and a very refreshing one at that.