Sail and Anchor Pale Ale - the beer journey begins again

So it's been some time a very long time between reviews. As I explained in my previous post, one particular sense was taking a good year off on long service leave. But now it's back, the beer reviews have begun anew and we start off with the last beer on the fridge left over from a pool party on New Years Eve.

Yes it's a beer that I reviewed back in 2017 - but would my newly installed turbo nose and beer consumption since then change the way I see this one? Let's find out!




Last time I had one of these I was manning the bbq. This time I was attempting to corral the family into a house clean up crew ala Team Mary Poppins, just in time for potential new renters to pop around the next day to size our house up while we move on.

It was a good idea in theory but kids being kids and kids getting bored easily, meant my wife and I did most of the cleaning after a solid ten minutes and when it was all said and done a few hours later, I deemed to necessary to celebrate the shiny new rooms with the last beer in the house.

Enter the Sail and Anchor Pale Ale and the only beer glass I haven't moved to the new house yet.

I bought a six pack for New Years Eve and don't remember anything apart from sneezing through most of them (literally, see above health reasons for that one). Thankfully back on the health train and having time to actually sit down and see and taste what's happening here, here's what we found:

After not being able to smell anything at all beer related or not in over twelve months, what am I smelling with this one?: Straight from the neck of the bottle, a quick hit of pine. Then stone fruits especially rock melon and there's a champagne like aroma lurking near the back somewhere.

(Let me tell you, after having an inactive sniffer for over twelve months you have no idea how much joy I got from everything racing up my nostrils at once, all vying to get noticed. It's part of the beer drinking experience that I sorely missed.)

With all senses back in operation, what am I tasting here?: It starts with a selection of fruits followed by a dry sensation akin to having just consumed some fruit toast (unbuttered) and then there's some lingering fruit flavors ghosting around for a while. It's a decent fruit experience and if you don't like fruit then you're not going to find much to enjoy with this one.

Overall: Look I enjoy the occasional fruit flavors in my beer but in conjunction with others like your caramels, malts, spices etc. And while my first foray back into beer tasting for quite some time was enjoyable, I didn't encounter that disappointment of not having another one on hand as soon as this one was done. It doesn't strike me a pale ale either really. However it was tasty (fruity), the label told the story and after three hours of scrubbing the place silly, it was well deserved.

3.25 out of 5 ramshackle cleaning crews.