Grozet
Heather Ale Company Williams Bros. Brewing Co.
Kellibank, Alloa, Scotland, UK
Independent
Fruit Flavoured Wheat Beer 5.0 % ABV Brown Glass Bottle 330 ml.
$2.71 (Canadian) At LCBO $10.85 for a four pack
Twitter: @williamsbrewery
Tonight's beer from the Historic Ales of Scotland pack is the Grozet. Claimed to be from a 16th Century Scots monk's recipe. The beer could technically be called a "Gruit Ale" (and possibly so could Beer # 93: "Froach" ) Gruit ales used various herbs and berries to bitter, or preserve beer before the use of hops was widely accepted. One of these herbs is Bog Myrtle, which makes it's appearance in this beer as it does in the previous. Other herbs included Henbane a toxin that often caused mild hallucinations... (hmmm Pint Jockey Brew Project idea?). However our ale tonight also contains hops, so it would be somewhere in between a gruit and a modern flavoured beer.
Onto tonight's historic brew:
Clear gold in colour with the slightest hint of green. Thin wispy white head made up of uneven sized bubbles. Cloudy and translucent. The nose is fruity and citrus, with gooseberies evident right away and the more subtle wheat notes beneath. As you get deeper into the nose the fruit is replaced with raw grain and hint of spice. First sip gives up some more gooseberry, more subtle than the nose. Very dry and wheaty some citrus, clean, crisp, slightly effervescent. Finish is short and clean with a lingering of grapes and gooseberries.
Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional
Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order: 4/6 PASS
Experience: 5/6 PASS
Final Thoughts:
Being Welsh... I love gooseberries, and I miss them as they don't see their way to Canada often. Sadly, the ones I have had here are not the sweet-tart, bursting with flavour gooseberries of my youth. So this beer brings back some memories. Supposedly Shakespeare drank a version of this beer, so perhaps if I consumed more I would become more eloquent, and poetic. But perhaps, if his version of this beer had Henbane in it... that would explain a lot too.
Cheers
CJT
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