Golden Hare
Bath Ales Ltd

 

A 500ml bottle. It pours a clear golden color with small white head. Aromas caramel, leaves & apples. Tastes of tangy orange, biscuit, lemon, hay, flowers & malt. Medium bodied. Aftertaste has a medium fruity bitterness.

Look is a crystal clear, flat, copper colour with a thin, open, white head that quickly recedes to a faint cap.

Smell is faintly citrus. A gentle swirl reveals sweet malt.

Taste is very subdued. There is some sweet malt and light hop bitterness. It's balanced but underwhelming.

Feel is light and smooth with gentle carbonation and soft bitterness. There is a softness that saves it from becoming watery.

This is an easy drinking golden ale that verges on bland.

 

Got it here in Serbia, bottle 0,5 l

A - Dark golden color with thin foam, low carbonation.
S - Honey, light malts, refreshing.
T/ M - Drinkable, refreshing, balanced. Medium bitterness with medium carbonation. Sweet finish.

O - More then decent.

500ml bottle poured into a pint glass

Look: Pours a golden yellow with a fair amount of fluffy, off-white head. Decent head retention and some residual lacing, giving way to a thin collar and some surface foam.

Smell: Really not much going on - faint spiciness and hints of malt but very little else.

Taste: Not much going on taste-wise, either - the bottle mentions Maris Otter barley and Golding hops. The former would go some way to explaining the slightly buttery vibe but there's very little evidence of the latter barring some residual bitterness. Not unpleasant, by any means, but it's not going to set your world alight either.

Feel: Lightweight in every respect - not much in the way of carbonation, and even if there were there aren't really any flavours for it to support. Slips down well enough, but pretty unmemorable.

Overall: In one word: bland - very little in the way of outstanding flavours or smells means that this is a pretty 'anonymous' brew. Sessionable, but unremarkable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

500ml bottle: BBD 11 July 2014, poured into a UK pint sleeve on 27 Aug 2013.

I found this to be one dimensional and fairly boring.

Poured a golden colour, as the name suggests: clear and bright enough, with a thin white head that soon turned into a wisp and collar.

Mild malty and spicy nose: not much of anything really.

Light weight in taste as well, some malt and hop notes but again not a lot of either. This isn't unpleasant, just a bit bland and so-so in every department. A shame because I like all the rest of the Bath Ales I've come across.

One to miss I'm sorry to say.

 

 

 

 

Goldenrod with fluffy, clingy white froth. Butterscotch nose with maybe a bit of orange hard candy.
Movie theater popcorn butter hiding some fresh floury biscuit and faint orange skin and wood hops.
Oily finish and tingling linger. Light to medium, crisp, some stick.

Butter bomb.

This is a funny one because I've heard that Maris Otter can be mistaken for diacetyl by less experienced palates, so I can't say for certain whether the tastes here are intentional.

Having said that, I don't especially like what it does here; it's all a bit one note and I find myself wishing for some hops citrus to break the monotony. So, not the best blonde and a sour note from Bath.

500ml bottle bought from Sainsburys..

Poured a pale golden colour. White head poured thick and foamy with a pock marked topping then faded to light covering with thick edging... some light carbonation bubbles drift slowly to the surface... light lacing...

Aroma - Some juicy tart fruits with maybe some tropical hints (peaches, lemons and limes, pears,), quite grassy, floral honey, light sweet grainy malts, talcum powder traces, herbal, peppery hops...

Taste pretty much mirrors the aromas... light grassy and peppery hop bitterness, quite floral, some hay, metallic hints, light biscuit malts, mouth watering fruits (lemons, apples, limes), some saltiness, faint floral honey sweetness, light chalky hints...

M&D - Fairly sharp and dry... light bodied... a quaffable and sessionble brew at 4.4%...

Overall - A decent enough if slightly uninspiring bitter / golden ale... nothing groundbreaking but fairly drinkable...

A 500ml bottle with a BB date of April 2012. Label mentions that this contains wheat in addition to barley malt. I like the hare emblem that this brewery uses for their branding.

Poured into a Sam Smith's pint glass. A pale golden colour with little carbonation; just a few bubbles meandering up the centre of the ale. Head is a foamy white and subsides after a minute to leave a surface film. Aroma has some light malt and a distinct buttery note, also a faint notes of leaves. Not the most enticing smell for an ale.

Initial taste is of light grainy malt, followed by some bitterness upon swallowing. No clear hop flavours. Again the buttery notes appears, particularly when you breath while drinking. Also a butteriness to the aftertaste, as well as a tinge of corn or stewed veg. Mouthfeel is slightly slick and oily on the tongue.

Overall, drinkable but not the best beer. Taste is relatively light and lacking in character, along with some unpleasant off-flavours in the background. I like some other beers I've tried from this brewery, but this can be passed over.

500ml bottle poured into a Young's pint pot.

A. Pale orange in colour with virtually no head whatsoever.

S. Toffeeish notes, malty.

T. Some malt, toffee, butterscotch, some hoppiness.

M. Thin.

D. A light tasting beer that wasn't really to my liking like one or two other Bath ales I have had. It could be me or it could be the brewery that isn't brewing beers that are robust enough but sadly I don't get on with Bath Ales.

500 mL brown bottle poured into a pint glass.

A: very clear, golden color (like ginger root), with minimal head that dissipates quickly and no lacing.

S: grapefruit/zest upfront with some butter following

T: sharp and citrusy first, followed by a pronounced bitterness that increases in the aftertaste

M: mildly carbonated, thin and light in the mouthfeel, pretty refreshing

D: although very interesting in all the above categories, drinkability is slightly lower for me because of the high bitterness factor. Nonetheless, a quality beer overall.

Appearance: Straw, bordering on light golden in colour, with a rapidly fading head. Very light carbonation.

Aroma: There is a subtle caramel/toffee aroma from the Maris Otter barley, with a mild hoppy lager smell. There is a hint of vanilla, alongside a graininess.

Taste: The flavours are very malty at the front, with a definite caramel, with creamy toffee, and a sweet grainy bread. There is a subtle taste of hops in the middle providing a bitterness to balance the malts. The finish is slightly perfumy but there is clear bready malts again giving it a less bitter taste than I was expecting.

Mouthfeel: The body is light to medium, with a mild liveliness but still retains a certain smoothness.

Drinkability: I think this beer works really well. It's all about the Maris Otter barley that is used, it clearly dominates the taste, with a very subtle use of hops to take the edge off with some bitterness. I'm not overly familiar with Bath Ales but this beer has encouraged me to look towards the rest of their range. Well worth a try, if you see it about.

Purchased at the Sainsbury's supermarket, coming in a 500ml brown bottle, not bottle-conditioned; BB 01/07/2010, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. NOTE: the ingredients include floor-malted Maris Otter and Goldings hops - sounds very traditionally English...

A: pours a pale golden that comes with restrained carbonation and a slowly-dissipating white fluffy head.
S: quite sweet is the nose, like liquidy sugar cane on top of the traditional aroma of English Goldings that is sweet tangerine-ish in a sense, plus a touch of butter. The highly likely pasteurisation process seems to endow a burned sugary hint as well to the overall aroma. Quite straight-forward and not outstanding.
T: the flavour is just as straight forward as the nose, but with a bit more elements to entertain the tastebuds - the lightly orangey-citric foretaste comes with a faintly grassy & buttery tinge, and fiantly powdery pale malts, not as sweet as the nose suggests; then, the hop tannins and lightly woody bitterness follow up and expand down the wings of the tongue. The finish is restrained on the level of bitterness, but slightly chewy still.
M&D: pretty light and refreshing, not quite fizzy as most bottled ales are, but the overall flavour profile comes semi-mundane and the balance fails to materialise, while the addition of buttery note and taste is not particularly helpful, either. Compared with most other Bath Ales I've tried, this one is by far the least impressive.