Hello and welcome back to the Eternal Hoptimists,
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Everybody in the car come on, let’s ride……
Yep, I cannot look at this beer without thinking of the late 90’s hit Mambo No.5 by Lou Bega. I’m pretty certain that when Saltaire came up with the name for this English stout it had no bearing on the cheesy earworm. So, it’s time to forget about Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, and Jessica and put all of our focus on to the beer!
1. Name : No.5
2. Brewery : Saltaire Brewery (Shipley, West Yorkshire, England)
3. Hops : Not specified
4. Grain : Barley, Oats & Wheat
5. Aroma : Very appealing aroma of chocolate, caramel, hints of coffee and a nice roastiness.
6. Appearance : Black beer in the glass with light bleed evident and a one to two finger fluffy off white head that dissipates when drank.
7. Body : Medium body with a nice creamy mouthfeel and slight bitterness on the palate
8. Taste : As soon as this hit the palate it had me going mmmmnnnn, now this is good! Lovely creaminess backed by a nice roastiness which cuts through the initial delicate chocolate/caramel flavour. This is very palatable indeed!
American Amber is a style that I do not seem to buy all that often and when I do, I usually find them enjoyable. Saltaire New World fits that billing although I must be honest in saying that there are far better beers of this style available. This is not to say that New World is a bad beer, it just comes across as pretty safe in comparison to many others in this style.
For me I much preferred New World as a cask beer than from the bottle, however it is good to see that Saltaire are bottling their core range and making them readily available. The big question is, Would I buy this again? On cask, certainly, in a bottle I quite enjoyed it but would probably look to find other beers before this. No doubt New World will have its fans, whereas my first reaction was, yeah, not bad, rather than ooohhh this is lovely.
Our overall rating: 3.8/ 5.0
The|Eternal|Hoptimitsts 