Brewery: Bath Ales
Location: Bristol, England
ABV: 4.8%
Version: Bottled
Source: Courtesy of BeerMerchants.com

Our highly esteemed and most learned BoB.com colleague Tim is a big fan of Bath Ales (he’s covered Dark Hare and Barnstormer already) so I was delighted to receive a bottle of Bath Ales Gem from Phil at BeerMerchants.com as part of the sample case that I’ve been steadily working my way through just recently (memo to self: must sort out a round-up post for the whole batch).

Bath Ales Gem is billed on the Bath Ales website as their premium best bitter and “a quintessential English beer”. I honestly can’t argue with that; it really is a particularly fine example of the breed. Pouring a lovely dark amber colour (actually a fair bit darker than the glowing golden colour shown on the website), Gem gives off a lovely, rich malty aroma that carries over to the flavour as well. There are hints of honey-sweetness as well, but it’s nicely undercut by a hoppy sharpness and a lingering bitter after-taste. Smooth mouth-feel, good balance of flavours, entirely palatable. At 4.8% it would make for a good session beer, and I’d be willing to wager that this is another example of a brew that tastes just fine in the bottle but would be even better fresh from the cask.

So, another big thank you to Phil at BeerMerchants.com for sending this one along! (Incidentally, if there are any other UK beer retailers who want to get in on the whole sending-beer-to-us-in-return-for-a-thank-you advertising / product-placement type deal, then please do drop me a line and I’ll happily let you have the relevant details…)