Breakfast Beer Tasting: Ramsbottom Craft Brewery Scottish Red

I’m staying local again this morning with another Ramsbottom Craft Brewery effort. This one is in the style of a Scottish Red Ale. Now that’s a style that usually generates a lukewarm response from anyone living south of Loch Ness and I can’t claim to be its biggest fan, either. However, I’m trying to keep an open mind...and palate.

It’s 4.1% and comes in 500ml bottle-conditioned form. I quite like the simple, but effective label on this. It poured chestnut in colour with good carbonation and a medium beige head. The aroma was heavily malted with a deep, roasted resinous.

The roast was there in the taste but, to my surprise, not as much as the aroma might suggest. Still the roast dominates the flavour together with a little dark woodland fruit in the background. The resulting dry bitter finish is harsher than I would expect from this style, but better for it, in my opinion.

This is quite a heavy beer: it drinks more than 4.1% and is surprisingly bitter. But let it warm up and you’ve got a good dark beer for a winter’s day.