Whistle
Wolf Brewery Ltd.

Hand-pulled pint in my local Spoon’s during the March 2012 Beerfestival.

I have enjoyed all the beers I’ve had from Wolf and this was no exception. Clean looking: chestnut red and almost bright in appearance: an off-white crown of creamy textured head sat on top.

The aroma was of mildly toasted malts sprinkled with some citrus esters, pleasant without being over-powering or heavy. The taste was a fine blend of beery things: malty yet not sweet, hoppy yet not bitter or too citrusy.

The alcohol was well concealled within the flavours: this is an easy drinking beer and a pleasure to sip.

Amber to copper colours with a fairly small, foamy white head at the top of the beer.

Some sweet malts and a faint touch of caramel along with some more earthly malts and possibly some dried fruits.

Faint malts and caramel or perhaps toffee to begin with, but again like the smell the taste is also very weak and light. There is some bitter hops and malts with the bitterness staying around for a while.

Slightly chewy with a medium body and a very bitter finish that is slightly dry. Carbonation on this one is very low and as is normally the case with a cask ale, it taste a little flat with a sightly warm feel.

This one was like every other cask ale I can remember, the nose was fairly weak and light with the taste not much better. The feel was a slightly warm, flat one.

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Appearance: Reddish chestnut colour, small white head that disappears completely after a few seconds. Little to no carbonation.

Aroma: The aromas are very weak. I can pick up some sweetness from the malts, a bit of chocolate, and maybe toffee. A little fruit, possibly berries.

Taste: Biscuity malts initially, with some graininess, not as sweet as the nose though. There is some mild fruits in there, possibly cherry, as well as some hints of tea, and a pepperiness...sounds weird, right?

Mouthfeel: Medium body, a touch watery at times though. Quite clingy in the finish.

Drinkability: This is one of the best bitters I have had. The aromas seem too week, and the lack of a head is a bit disappointing. The flavours are interesting but I'm not sure that they work.

Purchased at the Sainsbury's supermarket, coming in a 500ml brown bottle, not bottle-conditioned; BB May 2010, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. NOTE: Hops used in this ale are the American Cluster, according to the back label.

A: pours an elegant light copper-red hue with absolute clarity and very restrained carbonation; the off-white foamy head settle slowly to a thin cap.
S: like a decently-hopped Best Bitter, the caramely + brown-sugary malt bedrock gets an assertive support from the citric fruity hoppiness, while at times the secondary elements such as dates, sweetened chestnuts and unnamed berry fruits manage to surface. Refreshing, quite pleasant, but not demanding.
T: the sour-sweet fruity swallow of caramel malts is inseparable from an assertive stream of brown-malt like sweetness (bready and brown-sugary at the same time), leaving the faint input of aromatic citric hops in the background. The finish has a bit more to it, showing a lightly dry tea-ish and toasted nutty undertone and an intriguingly salty-sour touch hard to relate to anything but salted & herbed hawthorn-fruits, yet only just.
M&D: light to medium-minus bodied with a lightly effervescent texture, the overall performance tells the story of an easy-drinking Best Bitter-type of amber ale that somehow lacks an overall malt-hop balance, really delicious characters, and a necessary depth of bitterness to intrigue one's curious palate.