Tolhurst
Brasserie Silo

Appearance: English bitter is not a style I associated with high carbonation, so this offering pouring with 3 fingers of head and nearly causing the can to spillover upon opening is overkill. The body just barely falls into amber, as incredibly dirty blonde notes in the cloudy opaque body leaves me a bit concerned this a bad can as I don't expect opaque from this style.

Smell: I don't think it's a bad can, as I'm not getting any off scents. That said, I don't really catch much of anything initially as apart from some dry caramel malt paired with an earl grey tea note (very much the bergamot orange note), I'm not really picking up a lot. Warming does help coax it out of it's shell.

Taste: Usually when I encounter this style, it's a lot more malt forward. In this instance less so. It starts with only the barest touch of caramel as it is predominantly biscuit malt with a mild tea note. Like someone put a few dots of caramel sauce on a stick of shortbread and just barely dunked it into plain earl grey tea. The tea, or more specifically the orange note I tend to find with earl grey tea comes forward before handing it off to grassy hops with a slight floral touch.

Mouthfeel: The aftertaste is dry, a bit too dry as it focuses on the biscuit malt but the biscuit is dry as a bone. That said, there is a bitter tea and floral touch that does pair with it, so it doesn't get too out of control The carbonation is solid, and the transitioning is good.

Drinkability: The dryness does hamper it's ability to be refreshing but it still remains mild enough with its light body to stay sessionable. Settles down well as well but kind of expected here.

Final Thoughts: Honestly, it tastes like someone gave the parameters of 4% and is called English Bitter and thought "Huh...well we can manage bitter...but how you do make it taste English? Like Tea? That must be what they want. Again, it's not bad, but it's not going to knock your socks off and really it needs more caramel malt.