La Tène
The Celt Experience

 

 

 

 

Poured into pint.
Pours murky amber with sediment and 2-finger white head, leaving some laces. Rich aroma of grape and pineapple. Taste is rather balanced, fruity body (grape) and remarkable bitter hop note. Excellent beer for such a low ABV.

500ml bottle poured into a pint glass

Look: Deep, golden orange pour with a fingers width of fluffy, off-white head. Head receded to a foamy cap with some lacing.

Smell: Very 'refreshing' smell - quite floral and fresh with hints of grass, pineapple and orange. Overall, gloriously fruity.

Taste: A good balance of malt and hops - there's plenty of biscuity malt and fruit notes in there, which give way to a long, extremely dry and resinous hoppy finish.

Feel: Surprisingly well-bodied for a low-ABV beer. A good level of carbonation helps to enhance the almost astringent finish. Although the bottle states that this is 32 IBU, it feels far more bitter than that.

Overall: I've had mixed success with Celt's beers, but this is a definite keeper - don't be put off by the low (3.3%) ABV, this punches above its weight in terms of taste and body. All in all, it's as good an interpretation of a British pale ale as you're likely to find. Well worth the effort.

Pours a cloudy orangey golden colour. Smells like a pale ale should, tropical fruit and grassy freshness. Taste reflects this, with quite a wholesome malt backbone, holding up crisp US/UK/NZ hops, lots of pineapple, grapefruit, some pine, bitter, clean and crisp finish.

 

 

Coming in a 500ml brown bottle, not bottle-conditioned; BB 09/06/2015, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. Note: 32 IBUs, using US, NZ and UK hops.

A: pours a pale golden colour with great clarity, low level of carbonation and a thin off-white foam on the top.
S: citric, grape-fruit juicy, and guava-ish tropical fruits approach on a par with lightly syrupy pale malts; given a good swirl, Nelson Sauvin like gooseberry and grapey aroma comes to the forth, adding more layers of refreshing fruitiness on the nose.
T: clean, crisp, the biscuity malts make a short entrance before the ultra dry and tangy palate of deepening hop bitterness (really only 32 IBUs??) comes to dominate. Finishing very dry and bitter, leaving the mixed fruitiness to linger in the aromatic, tannic hoppy finish.
M&O: well carbonated but not overly fizzy, at 3.3%abv. this beer somehow drinks well with quite a body to be enjoyed throughout the drink. For all the lower-gravity beers of Celt Experience, I find this one perhaps the most balanced and most enjoyable; at 3.3%abv., really one has to show fairly good craftsmanship to make it flavoursome and never going thin. Can’t say my opinion is not biased due to the lovely focus on hops in this Pale Bitter, though... it actually reminds me of Thornbridge's White Swan, an equally hop-accentuated dry Pale Bitter with a very low gravity, but I dare say this one fairs even better!