Brewed By: Wells and Young's Brewing Company in Bedford, England
Purchased: 11.2oz bottle from a 4-pack purchased at Friar Tucks in Urbana, IL; 2012
Style/ABV: Fruit Beer, 5.2%
Reported IBUs: ?
Have you ever had déjà vu? I have, because I could have swore I had reviewed Wells and Young's Banana Bread Beer before.
Well's and Youngs began began in Bedford, England, back in 1875, when Charles Wells returned from 20 years in the Merchant Navy. Charles Wells settled down with his soon-to-be-wife, Josephine Grimbley, and bought a brewery and thirty-two pubs in an auction. By 1890, Charles Wells owned 80 pubs, and was brewing over 12,000 barrels of beer annually. Charles Wells died on April 18, 1914, and was succeeded by his wife Josephine and five sons. In 1976, the decision to build a new brewery was made, and a new brewery was constructed in Havelock Street, Bedford. And in 2006, Charles Wells merged with Young and Co (of Wandsworth, London) to form Wells and Young's.
Today's beer, the Wells Banana Bread Beer, is an ale that features "banoffee aromas tempered by a grassy, lemony nose all leading to a finely balanced, fresh, delicate flavour of peppery hops with a lingering dry finish." Let's get this into a glass, and see how it stacks up.
Rating: Above-Average
Random Thought: It's easy to fixate on the gimmicky nature of a banana bread beer, but this shit is probably hard to brew consistently. What goes into making a beer like this? And does it really count as beer if it has banana in it? People, I think I just found an excuse to drink 20 "banana beverages" on a weekday afternoon.
Purchased: 11.2oz bottle from a 4-pack purchased at Friar Tucks in Urbana, IL; 2012
Style/ABV: Fruit Beer, 5.2%
Reported IBUs: ?
Have you ever had déjà vu? I have, because I could have swore I had reviewed Wells and Young's Banana Bread Beer before.
Well's and Youngs began began in Bedford, England, back in 1875, when Charles Wells returned from 20 years in the Merchant Navy. Charles Wells settled down with his soon-to-be-wife, Josephine Grimbley, and bought a brewery and thirty-two pubs in an auction. By 1890, Charles Wells owned 80 pubs, and was brewing over 12,000 barrels of beer annually. Charles Wells died on April 18, 1914, and was succeeded by his wife Josephine and five sons. In 1976, the decision to build a new brewery was made, and a new brewery was constructed in Havelock Street, Bedford. And in 2006, Charles Wells merged with Young and Co (of Wandsworth, London) to form Wells and Young's.
Today's beer, the Wells Banana Bread Beer, is an ale that features "banoffee aromas tempered by a grassy, lemony nose all leading to a finely balanced, fresh, delicate flavour of peppery hops with a lingering dry finish." Let's get this into a glass, and see how it stacks up.
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| Wells Banana Bread Beer |
The beer pours an amber/copper color, with 3-fingers of thin, foamy, off-white head. When held to bright light, this beer is totally transparent, looks to be filtered, and has A TON of carbonation rising upwards in the form of mid-sized bubbles. In bright light this beer has a sort of amber/gold color, leaning almost towards pale. The head is still slightly off-white in bright light, and a centimeter is sustaining nicely; there is some lacing.
This bottle is slighlty past-expired, but this beer has been sitting in a COLD fridge since I picked it up. I had a bottle of this beer the other night, and it was about the same as I remember it fresh. The nose on this is banana bread, banana, bread, some grass and earthy hop aromas, and a hint of sugars and toffee.
The taste is about the same...really nice banana, banana bread, toffee, slight sugar, and a grassy hop thing that is pervasive throughout. You do get a slight watery/astringent edge to this beer, which contributes just a slightly burnt or artifical complexity to the flavor. I've heard this beer described as being "burnt rubber," but I call shennanigans. This beer tastes a lot like banana bread; don't believe me, go make some yourself.
At 5.2% ABV, this drinks incredibly easy. This is light to medium-light in terms of body, has moderate plate depth, and not a whole lot of complexity. Up front you get smoothness, water, and then banana bread; this rolls into banana bread, burnt banana bread, and some hint of hop spice and grass; the finish is crisp with grass, and light hops, hint of spice, lingering banana bread, and a finish that isn't all that dry. It's light, refreshing, and accomplishes what it set out to accomplish.
I'm feeling a Light Above-Average on this. It's pretty hard to rate this beer in terms of any style guidelines, so I'll just say that this beer has a wonderful and lovely banana bread flavor, but isn't overly complex, and has a slight burnt/metallic astringency throughout. On the other hand, this is surprisingly clean, refreshing, and has some nice light, grassy hops providing some much needed balance. I'd pair this beer with Chinese food (take out? mmm), dried cake, banana bread, birthday cake, ice cream (I wonder how this would taste as a float), or even as a foil to some tamales or something.
Random Thought: It's easy to fixate on the gimmicky nature of a banana bread beer, but this shit is probably hard to brew consistently. What goes into making a beer like this? And does it really count as beer if it has banana in it? People, I think I just found an excuse to drink 20 "banana beverages" on a weekday afternoon.
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