Adam Croft

Leeds Best, from the Leeds Brewery, was one of the fantastic beers I was glad to receive as part of this year’s BeerSwap scheme. Coming in at 4.3%, it’s described on the brewery’s website as “A classic Yorkshire Bitter. Finest English hops blend perfectly with our unique Yorkshire yeast to create a full flavoured beer with a superb hoppy finish.”

On the pour, the beer retains a decent head and shows a clean light amber glow. The nose is sharp and fruity with noticeable hints of strawberry and grape. The alcohol is also very apparent on the back of the nose which took me a little by surprise.

Onto the first taste, and the beer tastes dry and fresh with the hop character doing most of the work. No sign of the strawberries and grapes from the nose, though. In fact, there’s a distinct lack of fruity flavour but that’s by no means a bad thing. The ‘unique strain of Yorkshire yeast’ as advertised on the bottles gives a pleasing freshness and a nice yeasty flavour.

A few tastes later and the fruity flavours start to come through. The fresh grapey notes are apparant and the dry, grassy bitterness from the hops gives a superb finish. As you get further down the glass, the hop kick does, as with most similar beers, blend away into the background a little as your palate adjusts and gives way to something of a lager quality. Perhaps it should be referred to as a quality lager quality, as this isn’t a bad  thing at all. All in all, this is a very pleasant beer in superb condition and with just my kind of hop balance.