Last Of Winter
Archers Brewing & Wholesale Limited

Presentation: Sampled at Fernandes Brewery Tap in Wakefield, West Yorkshire during a lazy Sunday afternoon spent crawling around Wakefield Town Centre. Handpump #2of #6 had the classic Archers style pumpclip with its colorful presentation and listed this one as “Last of Winter”, 4.4% ABV.

Appearance: Half decent beige head set against a clear but polished dark copper body. Conditioning was good but the head retention was poor.

Nose: Heavy on the malts with some caramel traits and hints of Devon toffee. Low strengths and a little reticent to reveal itself.

Taste: Bold English malts dominate this one, the hops, if any, are completely consumed in this Winter style English Bitter. Warming with lots of toffee malts and a finish that is suited to a cold Winter, the malt imparts a feel which wants to be an Old Ale when it grows up, but it never strays far away from just being a malty English Bitter which is better suited to the colder early Spring nights, as indeed it was during my visit to England to be honest.

Mouthfeel: Solid enough, the malts were a little cloying and the stated strength did not come through in the body. Above average but far from a real Winter brew.

Drinkability: Not much effort to sink one this one at first but it soon became a little stodgy towards the end. A brew that desperately lacked some alternating balance to the malt dominance. One-sided in the long term.

Overall: A brewery that was a firm old favorite in my early days of drinking; in the latter days of the pop culture laden 1980’s they produced only a handful of regular brews including the utterly fantastic Archers Headbanger. Sadly these days they seem to have run down the road of producing a different beer each week, or at least a beer with a different name and pumpclip each week. This seems to be yet another one of those. Once seen, easily missed.