Boathouse Bitter
City Of Cambridge Brewery Company Limited

 

Bought in a good wine shop, "Cambridge Wine Merchants", in Cambridge, where the full range of City of Cambridge's bottle-conditioned beers are available. 500ml brown bottle, bottle-conditioned. BBE Apr. 07, served cool in a straight imperial-pint glass.

A: light copper to chestnut brown hue; a foamy off-white cap with nice retention, on top of a lively carbonated body.
S: Goldings-like orange-citrus and slightly floral hop aroma comes hand in hand with semi-sweet maltiness, laced with a touch of sugar+toffee at the fringe; overall, quite restrained nose, but pleasant and balanced, just what a "healthy" bitter should be like.
T: a lightly-roasted malt+fruity hop flavour prevails upfront, under the shadow of a stream of overly-sharp fizziness; as the fizzy texture softens, the flavour has proceeded into the second layer of nuttiness, followed by a tea-ish and leafy bitter-sweet hoppyness in the short finish.
M&D: the mouthfeel is very light against an equally light body, but the soda-ish fizzy intrusion throughout IS rather uncomfortable for my palate, and certainly prevents me from appreciating this beer thoroughly. I suppose the cask-conditioned version should be more like a session bitter than this bottled one, as the overall balance of this bitter is not bad at all.