Valley Brew London Tavern Ale

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

sampled 3/8/10. 22oz bottle. pours a medium brown color. medium head. aroma is roasted, toffee. taste is rich maltiness, toffee, earthy, cocoa as it warms. body is medium/light. aftertaste is a little sweet.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

This is extremely over carbonated from a traditional English Mild perspective as a standard pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces a four-finger thick, lightly browned, dark tan colored head. The head is quite dense and leaves lots of lace as it slowly subsides. The beer is a dark brown color that shows an almost brilliantly clear amber-brown hue when held up to the light. The aroma smells of carbonic acid, fruit and dark malt. Some vigorous swirling helps to release the excess carbon dioxide and leaves me with a deeply toasted, slightly roasted dark malt character, a touch of raisin and sweet plum, a faint chocolate component, some green apple, some spiciness that reminds me a bit of cinnamon and molasses and a solid browned whole grain cracker component in the finish.

This is light bodied, but has a nice sweetness to it up front. The sweetness accentuates some raisin notes as well as a touch of red table grapes. The finish is pretty dry with a touch of roasted malt character as well as a toasted whole grain component that ultimately cleans the sweetness from the palate. This beer is extremely quaffable (which if of course totally expected from a beer of this style). A touch of browned toffee and toasted caramel are found here as well as a nice biscuit like maltiness. The beer seems to be a touch too young as there is some green apple notes that mix with the caramelized malt to form more of a red apple flavor; this is fairly light over all though.

Not a bad beer, I must admit that I was expecting great things from this so am a little bit disappointing. The beer is definitely over carbonated and would seem like it could benefit from a touch more conditioning; bottle conditioning would certainly help the latter.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

tasty, but ultimatly a bit to mild for me...not that it does anything wrong. the malt aroma and flavor and slightly dry finish are just what they were going for, i just wanted a little more. 5/10-another "good for the style" beer. a flavorful mild, but still a mild.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

This mild was tasted on tap at the brewpub. Medium brown color. Medium sized white foamy head. Aroma is roasty malt, caramel and sweet. Hops are slightly earthy and floral. Good balance. Nice caramel roasty malts with a slight bitter backbone. Good carbonation. Very tasty mile. EXCELLENT session ale. Very nice mild ale. Mouthfeel is full. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly sweet.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

Another beer I sampled on tap. A nice golden amber/copper color. Aroma notes present were some toffee, hops and malt. The palate was part hops, malt and VERY well balanced and very drinkable. One could drink mass quanities of this very easily I think. It’s that good.