Strongs Best Bitter
Hampshire Brewery Ltd

Likely a replicate of the old - also Romsey-based, now long-gone - Strongs Brewery's Best Bitter, as indicated on the label that this ale is "brewed with classic English Goldings in the original Strongs tradition". Other ingredients include Challenger, Progress and Goldings hops, Caramel E150, barley malt, etc. Bottle-conditioned in a 500ml brown bottle, BB 28/10/09, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: pours a light copper hue, coming with a thick off-white soufflé frothy head and naturally lively carbonation.
S: a salty-sour touch of yeast sediments accompanies the main aroma of sweet-tangerine-ish English citrus hops (yeah, like Goldings indeed). Malts are left way behind.
T: the effervescent foretaste comes faintly leather-ish or old/damp wood-ish, spicy, as well as lightly sour-sweet fruity (like tangerine plus dried hawthorn-fruit), while pale malts' lightly stinky (hay-ish) edge lingers at the back of the palate, then all settling to a rather flat-texture tea-ish as well as tangy zesty bitterness in the decent long finish.
M&D: the good level of fizziness serves as vivid witness to the still-active yeast sediments in the bottle, albeit at the expense of a more smooth/mellow texture, while the yeastiness also leaves a deep imprint in the overall flavour. Overall, this light-bodied, well-hopped traditional bitter tastes not bad in a bottle, but surely better on cask that I bumped into a while ago that has a more harmonious mixture of flavour due to less yeasty intervention. Alas, now that the Hampshire Brewery's own fate is uncertain, this replicate of a previous local brewery's recipe might face the same end sooner or later.