Tetley's Smoothflow
Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing Ltd

 

Acquired via a beer trade with a neighbour. After chilling in the cooler for a few hours I popped open the can and poured into a pint glass. A very decent head of foam that lasted several minuets before gently dissipating. There was a lot of lacing left around the sides of the glass as I sipped. The aroma was of faint biscuits and brown bread crust. The colour was tea like. The taste was typical of these types of ale. Mouth feel was creamy. Finish was refreshing.

The aroma is fruit, light toffee and malts. The flavor is fruit, malts, slightly vanilla/creamy/somewhat bland texture and a tart/slightly sweet finish.

 

From can, pours Amber, with a thick white head. Aroma malty with fruity and floral notes. Taste malty with toffee and bread crust, sweet fruits like ripe plums and pear. Mild bitter finish

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is not much of an English Bitter. The widget can is a fun gimmick, but otherwise it's pretty dismal stuff. Big nitro foam that dies down rapidly, but leaves a nice little cap.

Faint beery aroma. A touch of rusty water with a hint of malt. Tea water with a faint hoppy hint. Oddly astringent. From the 440 ml can.

 

 

 

Format: a tall 440mL can with a decent label. A good package.

Appearance: a pure golden-copper in colour with carbonation clinging to the glass rather than rising to the top. A thin off-white head (even with a vigorous pour) lasts the distance throughout the session. Looks pretty good for an English mid.

Aroma: a pretty typical sweet English malt profile - toffee and butterscotch. Definitely stronger on the nose than I would have expected for 3.6% ABV.

Taste: whilst it even tastes smooth (however that works!), the flavour is far more demure here than on the nose. Still the toffee with some buttery flavour and some toasted malts. Not as good as the nose due to the feel, but still quite nice for such a low ABV beer.

Aftertaste: the flavours drop away slowly without much in the way of bitterness. Still that lingering sweetness from the malts - not cloying, still quite pleasant but also light.

Mouth feel: medium in feel with a lower to moderate carbonation. Very, very English, and I still don't quite get it. Makes the beer feel a bit flat in flavour, though maybe that is due to differences in climate between England and Queensland Australia. It is very smooth though.

Overall: normally I am not that big a fan of English mid bitters due to the massive price in Australia (mainly due to our stupid excise laws and taxes on, well, everything). This is a good-tasting beer for a 3.6% - it is fairly light, but the flavours are there and are quite identifiable. A good price at AU$77 for a case of 24 x 440mL.

 

 

 

 

 

had this on tap, it was served way too cold...i left it sitting for 15mins and it warmed up a good bit which really helped the taste...for the abv 3.6% it has good taste and is extremely session-able..its similar to kilkenny in style...it actually has more taste than kilkenny.

Be warned dont drink it too cold it kills the taste badly

 

 

 

Ahhh, Tetley's Smoothflow, the beer named after its own can. Tetley's is one of those modest English chaps, more interested breaking the Enigma code at Bletchley Park than piloting a Spitfire off the coast of Dover and shooting Jerries down. Let's face it every bally one of them played their part in winning the Battle of Britain - just as the IPA is boisterous and boastful so too does this smooth English Bitter have its place in the Battle for my Taste-buds [end analogy here].

Poured from a 440ml nitro-can into a nonic pint.

A: Presents with a clear copper body and a tight 1.5cm creamy cream-coloured head, as with all the classic nitro-can ales (Guinness, Murphy's, Cafferey's, Kilkenny, Boddingtons, etc...) the presentation is perfect - it's hard to go wrong with a nitro-can.

S: Sweet caramel malts give way to some light fruity hops and metal from the can, it is mild-mannered and laid-back here, like those cyber-breaking Bletchley boys.

T: Again sweet caramel malts with light fruity hops and that metallic hint, if this brew was a bit more flavoursome it might have covered up the metal note, but it's not so deal with it taste-buds. Also noted is a dry finish, odd for an English Bitter to take on more of a dry-than-bitter aspect but my belief is that this beer is styled in the Irish-Cream-Ale vein.

M: Mid to light bodied, a little watery with an English pub tack flat carbonation.

D: This and Boddington's are both basically the same beer with different marketing/labels, does that mean it's crap? By all means no... it is however light, predictable and a tad boring... there are bigger and better beers vying for my attention, even in the "session ale" category, QED: Ruddles County.

Food match: Don't go overboard with flavours on this brew otherwise what's the point? I'm picturing potato and leek soup with crusty bread, or a minestrone, or cream of mushroom, or winter vegetable, or... you get the idea - soup.

 

 

 

This is for the smoothflow keg stuff but also true of the
So Pours the actual look of Tetley bitter, straw coloured body tight white head
But it's an illusion
Aroma of tin
Taste of carrots

 

 

 

 

 

Nitro-can poured into an English pub glass. A rather light golden straw color with perhaps a hint of red, once the entire glass of billowing beige nitro bubbles gradually broke ... Actually looks pretty cool as the bubbles recede and the beer coalesces at the bottom of the glass. Aroma is rather weak and mellow but I do get a tea-like floral and fruity scent along with scant doughy malts. Taste is similarly subdued, with some Juicy Fruit bubblegum, very light citrus iced tea, and dry bitter tea leaf hops putting in appearances. Ultra-thin body and silky smooth ... One of the creamiest beers I have yet to sample and admittedly I enjoyed this aspect. The carbonation is high but feels soft, with little in the way of astringent burning. Good ol' nitro bubbles. Finish does not really linger although there is a persistent metallic tang. I can appreciate this modern English bitter for what it is ... A low ABV brew drinkable in massive quantities. Look elsewhere for robust flavors.

A: typical picturesque nitro - perfect 1/2" tight, dense-creamy foam.... cascade effect on pour... crystal-clear, amber liquid.... big sheets of lace

S: super-fruity - a lightly-spicy apple... some moderately potent syrupy malt.... surprising amount of aroma, considering the serving

T: standard, somewhat bland nitro-can bitter flavor... nothing distinctive.... clean, mellow pale malts drenched in apple-skin esters with a little tail of earthy hop flavor and bitterness.... bit of a minerally taste through.... everything just washes down with only a mild aftertaste of bitter fruit skin

M: very light and smooth, like soft water... little to no sensation of carbonation on the palate

O: don't expect much from something like this though, once again, it's funny how something like Boddington's manages to stand out in the crowd