Bell Rates... Newcastle Founders' Ale

type: Pale Ale
origin: Newcastle, England
ABV: 4.8%
location: house
served: 355ml bottle to glass


Having thoroughly enjoyed the Summer Ale, I opted to sample another of the Newcastle seasonal beers. Sadly, for me, this one doesn't quite measure up to the standard set by the first one.

I feel the bitterness overshadows the malt too much, except for the toasted-butter-biscuit notes, which are more evident in the aroma than in the taste.

Smell: Biscuits, primarily, and a hint of Diacetyl. Floral hops waiting to pounce.  2/4

Colour: The strong-point, by far, is the bronze hue. head could have been better though. 3/4

Taste: Admittedly a varied flavour, with a fair amount of aftertaste, but the aftertaste isn't ideal, and the butter remains. Right on the edge of being too bitter and quite dry. While the Summer Ale struck a good balance between the maltiness and bitterness, this Founders' Ale seems a bit.  2/4

Overall: Decent enough, but I suspect that with a different variety of hops it could have been a real winner. Like something of Geordie Shore, it looks good, but lacks personality. 7/12


NB: I have never actually seen Geordie Shore, and that may therefore be an unfair comparison.

Bell Rates... Bulmers Red Apple

type: cider

origin: England

ABV: 4.5%

location: house

served: 568ml bottle to glass, over ice

Right, to clarify who makes this product, it's HP Bulmer of England not Magners of Clonmel, Ireland. That might seem obvious to you, but in Ireland Magners is sold under the 'Bulmers' label, despite not having had anything to do with HP Bulmer for many years.

Outside Ireland, of course, the difference is obvious.

Anyroad, this is their 'Red Apple' limited edition cider, introduced at the tail end of 2010, and is an attempt by Bulmers to carve out every niche-within-a-niche they can. But who can blame them? The 'over ice' cider market has boomed in the last decade and it's Magners who've got the best market position.

Red Apple is a subtly different version of Bulmers' main product - which is clearly what they set out to achieve, so mission accomplished there. As the name suggests, the cider is brewed using red apples, and while some ciders don't have a lot of 'apple' taste left after the yeast is finished transforming all that juice to alcohol, this one does taste of apples, and red ones at that.

It's also very refreshing, which is the other must for this type of product.

Smell: apples! but quite faint and I think they've missed a trick by not going for the heavy-apple smell to reinforce the 'apple' label a bit more 2/4

Colour: again, I'd have preferred a more red colour - it's supposed to be a 'limited edition', so why not make it a bit more distinctive looking? 2/4

Taste: this is where it pulls the points back - refreshing, sharp, not overly sweet and with a definite red apple flavour. 3/4

overall: tastes just different enough to stand out from the crowd without being a 'speciality' taste that will alienate less adventurous drinkers, but not adventurous enough to carve out a new niche in an already crowded market. 7/12