#451 St Andrews Brewing Company

St Andrews in Fife, Scotland is the home of golf, and as a result there are thousands of tourists patrolling the three main streets of this ancient east coast town.  As all tourists do, they want to buy local products, but despite there being a lot of farmland around the area, there is precious little production of anything that a tourist would want to take home with them.  If you want whisky the nearest distilleries are fifty miles away near Gleneagles or Pitlochry and the only brewery that bares any relevance to St Andrews is Belhaven's St Andrews Ale, which is made nowhere near the town and is produced in vast quantities and shipped around the world.  

But now Bob Phaff has addressed all that.  He has started the St Andrews Brewing Company, and is producing a range of five beers in the nearby town of Glenrothes with the intention to move to St Andrews in the long term, giving visitors the chance to take home something that was locally made.  I tried his beers at the launch event.

Fife Gold

Light, bright lemon elements to it.  A little bit of floral aroma coming off.  The palate is gentle, very approachable with some bitter elements coming off the end.  Nice clean and easy drinking. Some dry bitter elements on the finish.  A simple session beer.  85pts

India Pale Ale

A clean, bright, orange element coming off, some creamier notes with a tang emerging.  The palate has a floral, hay like flavour, some bitter elements but reasonably restrained with no huge powerful hoppy elements.  Good dry, aromatic finish.  I like it because it shows restraint with the bitterness.  88pts

Seventy Bob

Bright, caramelly with some really tasty sweetness coming off.  The palate is dry, reasonably floral with some dried pot pourri coming off.  Some dried orange skin comes through as well which is quite nice.  Maybe needs a little work. 85pts

Neuk Ale

Some dark, chocolate and treacle aromas with a little bit of liquorice ice cream coming off - a beef jerky aroma as well that is quite appealing.  The palate has a malty, dark flavour, more of the treacle flavour emerging from the glass.  A tiny amount of cocoa on the finish coming through with a lovely bitter finish.  Delicious and very dry on the finish.  89pts

Oatmeal Stout

A huge amount of dark, malty chocolate aromas with some really nice coffee coming off.  The palate follows that up with more of the chocolate covered cocoa beans, a lovely big, dark flavour but with a lightness and some really lovely burnt toast flavours coming through.  A delicious malt flavour on the very dry finish.  90pts

My preference for darker beers definitely shows here, but I think Bob has done a very good job for his first batch of beers.  He admits he isn't entirely happy with a few of his beers and I am certain, a year from now he will have refined his recipes, got used to his equipment and be producing really great beers.  In the meantime, he is making good, solid ales which will be gobbled up by golfers who visit St Andrews and drunk in every corner of the world.