Yeovil Ales

Passing through Yeovil recently was a good opportunity to call into the brewery of the same name to buy some of their excellent beers. The brewery is located on an industrial estate as is quite common now for smaller breweries. The signage around the brewery is not great and it is easily missed.

Three beers from Yeovil ales

Having spent a lifetime working for Regional brewers, it is quite sobering to realise how few people keep the mash tuns churning of smaller breweries such as this. However their beers are none-the-less still very good.

Star Gazer flavour wheel

I purchased three examples of their beers. The first thing that struck me was the branding on the bottles. All are clearly part of a quite distinctive family style. The labels are clear and offer good standout, in fact they are right up their with some of the better labels I've seen and very good for a smaller brewer.

Star Gazer is a really easy drinking 4% bitter. A good beer in this style is one that is not too challenging but has enough flavour to keep you interested. Star Gazer has a degree of floral hop balanced with roast malt, but the key is balance, its easy to drink.

The flavour is a toasty roasted bitter beer with floral hop. Also interesting for a relatively low abv beer such as this is that its a bottled conditioned beer.



Lynx Wildcat flavour wheel

Lynx Wildcat is a 4.3% brewery conditioned beer. The aroma is grassy and touch herbal, but overwhelming hop. The taste is biscuit malt but an overriding tropical pineapple hop is the dominent flavour. I really liked this beer. It is in the English IPA style, drinks well and is on a par with other classic English brewed beers of the same style.

The name commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Yeovil built Lynx Helicopter.

Stout Hearted flavour wheel

The final beer I tried was the Stout Hearted, as the name suggests a fine 4.3% dark stout, plenty of roasted malt and hint of chocolate on the aroma, but one unusual thing about this stout is the higher than normal level of hop you might get in a beer of this style. Not quite a black IPA, but certainly there is a hint of this in the taste of this beer. 

 

All told I really like the Yeovil Ales. They were good quality and very drinkable. The label designs were excellent and easily as good as many of the larger brewers produce. I'd certainly recommend beers from this brewer.