Young's 175th Anniversary Ale
Young & Co Brewery PLC

03/15/07- Received as a gift from BA member RKhaze upon his return from London.

Presentation- 16.9oz commerative bottle with a bottle #. Mine happens to be #1640 out of 35,000. Poured into my imperial pint glass.

Appearance- Hazy white peach puree in color. Minor head a bit less than a 1/4 inch, but leaves the whole head for the duration, Decent sheet style lacing.

Smell- A light scent of caramel malt goodness with a citrus hop profile. I can't really pick a fruit though.

Taste- Great caramel malt base with a really nice lemon, orange hop flavor. I also get a mild tea flavor and something which says 7up to me? It's an all together good flavor though. Not super bitter, but the aftertaste that lingers if pretty tasty.

Mouthfeel- Medium carbonation level. Lightly spicy and bitter afterflavor.

Drinkability- I'm rating this as an English IPA rather than a strong ale. I can see it as a strong ale, but seems to have better characteristics for an IPA. Very flavorful and an easy drinker. Wish they made this a permenant brew.

Thanks to the thoughtfulness of pal Rkhaze who brought one back from London for me, I was able to try it. Very light clear amber color was topped by a nice head that thinnned to about 2- 8ths of an inch, lacing was scattered and wispy. Grassy aroma, quite typical of the countries brews was faint yet inviting. Very smooth taste was anchored by solid malt, notably caramel. Some slight hop tones provided a lingering yet subtle finish. Excellent mouthfeel and drinkability good despite it's potency at 7.2%. Another fine beer from Young's. Kind of sad to see that this beer comes out and the brewery is closing. I'm even sadder that on my next trip to London, which is just at the first of the year, I will not be able ot go to my beloved "shrine". I sure hope the Wells-Young product is unchanged, we'll see.

Purchased at "Richard I", a Young's pub in Greenwich right next-door to the Greenwich Union, at the "4 for 5 quid" deal. Bottled and filtered in a 500ml brown glass bottle, "Limited Edition Lot No. 07485". The front label says "celebrating 175 years trustworthy brewing"... "Yeah, right~~" I think, that they should issue this "Anniversary Ale" just before they will finally move out of their hundreds-year base to the north... can it get more ironic or what?

BB 04 Apr. 2007, served cool in a straight imperial-pint glass.
A: bright, dark orangey amber hue; coming with a reasonably thick off-white beer head sustaining pretty well, gradually settling down to a thin white foat on top of that gentle carbonation.
S: rich and enticing citric-hoppy aroma and perfumy yeastiness prevail upfront, with lots of tangerine peels, red-apples, peaches, and slightly flowery note combining with the second layer of savoury-sweet maltiness, a light flow of caramel-sugary note and a warmish and candyish maltiness as the thick backbone; fruity-hoppy as well as malty, balanced and smooth--not as complex as Young's Special London Ale, but overall bears the classic Young's hallmark aroma.
T: a mouthful of candyish and mildly caramely malts hand in hand with a moderately-textured, Young's hallmark hoppyness with apple-ish, lightly citric elements and a faintly piney+dryish tinge of Fuggles-like flavour... very moderate bitter-sweetness in the finish, where the relatively high entrance of hops and malts continue to work together, achieving a good balance overall without considerable warming alc.
M&D: fluffy on the mouthfeel and pretty light on the palate, esp. given the high alc. content. All in all, this is to me an English IPA style beer and a twist of Young's pale beers all put together, showing a balanced profile b/w hops and malts, tasting very English for its understated-ness~~ But for a swan-song like product, this beer should've come bottle-conditioned to show its seriousness, whereas in fact it falls slightly short of the promise for the great occasion of 175th Anniversary of Young's history. But this is still an above-average beer worth a try, if one could find it if not at one of Young's houses~~