Beer- #309 – Townshend – Kings Landing

Kings Landing, a dark Scotch ale with a touch of peated malt. See what I did there Ned’s head and then a Kings Landing. Like a Game of Thrones tribute. or not.

Brewed by Townshend Brewery this is styled as a Scotch Ale in Upper Moutere, New Zealand

A familiar 500ml bottle of a 5.6% ABV beer making that about 2.2 standard drinks, and only around 150 calories a serve!

So a confusion of descriptions. But I’m intrigued.

Forewarned though that this has a sediment, and from the last bottle might be a gusher.

Light peat aroma on opening, and that was all, no overly excited beer, also a sweetness about this. I frowned.

Almost the opposite an under carbonated beer. Very chestnut brown on the pour, and the little head settles to just a film. Aroma really is go light peat, or perhaps you could imagine a wee dram in your beer as a filler.

There is a lightness about the peat addition in this, more at the aroma and insinuation level than as an integral part of the brewing. It’s not an afterthought though clearly this is part of the brewing process.

Peat infused beer then. Hot or miss. There are certainly a few of these styles around, Old Dubh was the last one I had, and that was fantastic, then there was a Yeastie Boys version that was almost, for me, undrinkable.

This is somewhere in the middle. Most defiantly not undrinkable by any stretch of the imagination.

Enjoyable? For me though this is ‘thin’, like the Ned’s head. There isn’t a substance to the body that carries this. The peatiness leaves the stage and leaves a cold beer that is somewhat middle of the road.

I don’t think this hits the brief somehow. Pdubyah-o-meter thinks 5, absolutely making this average, and average as.

You get the peat (read whisky) note as the background to this but that leaves you a bit unfulfilled and empty. If you were on a dink unit limit you might be miffed you wasted a couple on this though. If, however, you like a whisky and you like beer, this might be something you could try and be sightly impressed with.

I wasn’t and I won’t be revisiting this to try again.

Not so confused about the music in the background – a little something from Vampire Weekend

SCOTCH ALE

Scotch Ale was the name given to a strong pale ale from Edinburgh in the 19th century. This was typical of the strong pale ales brewed in Britain at that time – mainly pale barley malt and moderate hopping, and were not that stylistically different to English Strong Ales or Barley Wines. The name however became regionalised so that a strong pale ale from Scotland became known as a Scotch Ale or Wee Heavy. Beers using the designation Scotch Ale are popular in the USA where most examples are brewed locally. Examples of beers brewed in the USA under the name Wee Heavy tend to be 7% abv and higher, while Scottish brewed examples, such as Belhavens Wee Heavy, are typically between 5.5% and 6.5% abv.