Scotland is awash with new breweries at the moment, all doing their own thing. Fallen is no exception, starting in 2012 and currently brewed at Traditional Scottish Ales facility they managed to achieve best new Scottish brewery on Ratebeer last year. I bagged a selection of their beers from Alesela (bought with my hard earned of course); here's my thinkings.
Clean, easily differentiated labelling helps the beers to stand out on the now crowded Scottish beer shop shelves.
The blonde ale is the golden girl of the bunch. Very lager-like and that's no bad thing. It manages to do exactly what the label suggests. Pours deep gold with fluffy white head. Nettle like Saaz hops and malt
sweetness, pleasing bitterness tempered by malt, medium body and
carbonation, some citrus hops ,and dry moreish finish. 
Dragonfly is the 4.8% amber ale. Pours hazy midbrown with fluffy off white head. Aroma of citrus pith and
mango. Medium carbonation and body, initial sweetness then sharp citrus,
dry digestive biscuit and caramel malts and an astringent finish.
Grapevine is outside of the session range at 5.4% but drinks much lower in strength. Burnished gold with slight fluffy white head. Lemon custard and lychee
on the nose. Shortcake malt, dry citrus pith finish which is rather
moreish. Despite its abv it’d make a good one for a few pints as it develops well down the glass.
I also had a chance to try their smoked porter, Blackhouse (5%) on keg at Holyrood 9A a while back. it poured dark ruby brown, but with no head I worried it may be flat. Savoury bacon nose and touch of chocolate.
Very dry, chocolate malt, roast barley, no astringency, light body but I needn't have worried as carbonation was certainly in attendance. Certainly my favourite in their range; but I reckon all of the other beers would taste fab cask conditioned.
That tapered glass with the blond ale gives me shivers. Sounds yum and fun, but the smoked porter would likely be my brewery pick- cask conditioned is always the champion. When you add dry amounts of choco and bacon then you pretty much have a mouthful of liquid love.
ReplyDeleteAs usual- I'm jealous.
cheers for commenting Nitch! Can't see the pics at work so not sure which one I used, but I often use spieglau tulip glass which I got at EBBC last year- glass shape does make a difference to taste/ aroma.
DeleteAm hoping to find their other beers about this weekend but there's so many untried beers from other breweries that tehy may have to wait until my next trip across
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ReplyDeleteLove the glassware variation in your photos here.
ReplyDeleteRonnie
Got a set of four from spieglau but tend to use the tulip the most
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