Beer Review – St. Peter’s Winter Ale
January 27, 2010
Is it just me, or do the British Ales come in the coolest bottles?
I had always noticed the beers from the St. Peter’s brewery on the shelves with their short necks and simple elliptical labels. Still, it wasn’t until I recently decided to buy the St. Peter’s Winter Ale that I actually got to take a closer look at the bottle, and more importantly, try the beer!
Just a little on the bottle. The glass, as I’ve noticed with many British beer bottles, is quite thick. I’m thinking you could throw it against a brick wall and it wouldn’t break! That’s an exaggeration of course, but the bottle is noticeably heftier than bottles from America, Germany or anyplace else I think. I wonder why?
The short neck is kind of cool too I think, and the glass itself is a yellowish-green color that isn’t that common. I know. You’re hoping I’m as impressed with the beer inside the bottle as I am with the beer bottle itself!
Well, here’s the beer review spoiler. I am!
According to the label on the very cool bottle, the beer is “A deep Ruby Red Ale with a superb balance of malt sweetness, and hop bitterness. A classic English winter ale, rich in flavor.” For the most part, they aren’t kidding!
The beer pours a dark color, and creates a dense foamy head. Held to a bright light, one can see that the beer is perfectly clear, and is indeed a deep ruby color. Its quite nice actually.
The aroma is mostly malt, and while its hard for me to put a finger on, it has an unmistakable British character to it. Maybe its the type of malt that is used, but I can tell even before tasting it that this is my type of beer!
Getting on to the taste. Sweet malts dominate this 6.3% ABV beauty and as the label suggests there is just the right amount of hops to give it good balance and a very enjoyable bitterness.
Its got a great mouthfeel, just the right body and overall, this Winter Ale goes down very well. At this stage, I think this St Peter’s Winter Ale is my favorite Winter beer of this season, and I’ll be looking to pick up a few more of them before they’re gone and I’d suggest you do the same!
This was my first beer from St Peter’s, and while I’m going to try grabbing a few more of their Winter Ales for the stockpile, I’m also going to consider trying some of their other offerings. I’d be silly not to!
I was so impressed with this beer that I’m giving it a super-rare 4.5 stars! It was really a pleasure to review this beer for The Brew Club. That’s a good pint!
Rating: 
What about you? Ever try the St. Peter’s Winter Ale or perhaps another beer for St Peter’s brewery? What did you think?
Posted in 4 Star Reviews, Ales, English Beers, Seasonal Beers
Subscribe Here!
January 27th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Andrea and I drank this the other night. We both loved it. It was a lot like a Porter in my opinion.
January 27th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Do you know any places to get their beers from in the UK? High street or online?
January 27th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Interestingly, my beer shelf has at least six St Peter’s beers to review. Having read this review I checked the shelf to find this, but sadly I don’t have the Winter Ale.
I HAVE, however, tried their gluten-free beer for an upcoming review.
@Jim, St Peter’s Ales are quite widely available here in the UK – I’ve seen their beers in most of the major supermarkets, and they have their own bar (The Jerusalem Tavern) in Clerkenwell, London.
Their website http://www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk also has an online shop.
Bob the Brit´s last blog ..Burns Night
January 27th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
OK there is so much to work with in this review Scott! At first I though Bob the Brit must have done this review because of the 4.5 stars. He is not nearly as stingy with his stars as you are scott, so this beer must have come pretty close to blowing your mind! Second, I’m really impressed that you were so impressed with a beer bottle that didn’t have a cork! Of course we all know that corks make beer better! Finally I think there must be an IRA operative in the bottling department, because as you described the bottle I thought it would be perfect for making maltoff cocktails because the thick glass would keep your hands from burning!
This sounds like a great brew. I’ll look out for it.
Don´s last blog ..I Found My Thrill…
January 27th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Yeah, once in awhile I step on Bob’s toes with the English Ale reviews, but as it turns out some of my favorite beers are from there! This was a really nice beer. Thanks for stopping in!
Scott-TheBrewCLub´s last blog ..Franziskaner Weissbeer
January 28th, 2010 at 5:00 am
A few responses to @Don
You’re the second person to think that one of Scott’s reviews was written by me, which is nice because it means that we’re probably on the same page, whcih is positive. Although I guess I’m going to be stingier with my points in the future, or at least Scott and I should get together to confirm our scoring system.
I might question your observation “we all know that corks make beer better!” – I was fortunate enough to attend a wine tasting a year or so ago with well respected and award winning wine makers (from California and France) and the question of screw top wine bottles came up. The consensus from both was that screw tops do not affect the taste of fine wine, and the reason that wine makers use corks is that the Romans hadn’t thought of screw tops. If metal tops are good enough for the finest wine then they should be okay for the finest beer. That said, a cork does add cachet to a beer and, coincidentally, my favourite beer comes in a bottle with a cork.
And incidentally, I’m not sure what shape the ‘cool’ bottle found by Scott was, but here in the UK St Peter’s uses a very distinctive oval bottle. According to the brewery the shape of their oval bottle derived from one produced in the 1770’s for one Thomas Gerrard, an innkeeper from Gibbstown, near Philadelphia. What goes around, comes around.
Bob the Brit´s last blog ..Burns Night
January 28th, 2010 at 10:24 am
I have a st.Peters Cream Stout I picked up about a year+ ago that has been sitting on my shelf with a nice layer of dust on it. I don’t know why but I’m having a hard time opening the bottle, not because I want to save it because it looks cheap. Probably makes no sense but there is noting inviting about the bottle. It looks like they found some old used pre industrial revolution bottles and reused them.
Yeah Yeah, don’t judge a book by its cover….
Simply Beer´s last blog ..Simply Beer Tasting – Eclectic Beer Tasting, Sat Feb 20th, 4PM
January 28th, 2010 at 10:30 am
I think Bob’s right about the cork thing – I can’t imagine one of those big bottles of Belgian Ale coming with a metal top, although the beer would be just as good. Marketing and tradition I suppose, although there was one beer I had recently that had a synthetic cork. One of the Belgian Christmas Ales, I just don’t remember which right now.
@Bob, the bottle that I got, while impressive in its heft, it round at the base and not oval. Interesting that they would use an entirely different bottle for export? Looking forward to your reviews on the rest of their line.
@Don, we don’t really have uniform rating standards. I would put more weight on Bob’s ratings from a technical standpoint, and he has quite a bit more experience with beer in general than I do. My ratings are largely from the gut!
Scott-TheBrewClub´s last blog ..Wolaver’s Coffee Porter
January 28th, 2010 at 10:35 am
@SimplyBeer – LOL! Pre-industrial revolution bottles! Does your bottle look like the one in my picture (sans dust) ? I don’t know, I liked this bottle for some reason. I think if it were to be used as Don suggested, the glass is so thick the damn thing probably wouldn’t even break!
Scott-TheBrewClub´s last blog ..Beer Review – Long Trail Winter White
January 28th, 2010 at 10:40 am
I like the look of the bottle and I’m going to try and source a few of these in if i can as they sound very good to me
January 28th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Well,I’m just back from the liquor store (empty handed!) but the bottle of Organic English Ale was the oval shape that Bob described. I also checked the St Peter’s website and they do mention that the round bottles like the one in the picture are for export. Sorry about all the bottle-talk folk! Its still a good beer!
Scott-TheBrewClub´s last blog ..Beer Review – Veltins Pilsner
January 29th, 2010 at 9:53 am
I think this the only of St. Peter’s I haven’t had. I think their offerings are great, and reasonably priced.
The bottle is cool. I actually stripped the label (which was difficult–aluminum backing) and then stuck a long candle in the opening of the bottle and let the candle melt down so that the wax dripped all over the bottle and the candle was left with a 2 inch stub. We put it on the floating shelf in our living room.
Beer is cool in so many ways.
nate´s last blog ..Keeping Beer in the Family
January 29th, 2010 at 10:36 am
I’ve never known a bottle generate such discussion! At least the beer inside justifies the bottle, I remember when the dutch brew Fischer first came to the UK it had a ceramic flip top stopper with a wire cage, if you know what I mean. The advertising read “Next time you’ll buy it for the beer.”
Wrong!
Bob the Brit´s last blog ..Burns Night
January 30th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Hi all,
I managed to source the St Peters Organic Ale and have just opened one up. First off, the UK bottle is certainly different to the one in the picture from this review –it’s the oval one and does look a lot more interesting.
Now to the taste. It’s a snappy, light ale that actually reminds me of…. dare i say it Kronenbourg, as in it’s quite sharp and has a bitterness to it. It also has that same smell to it, too. Sorry, i can’t describe the smell in words and it actually make any sense, but if you’ve smelt Kronenbourg before you’d easily notice this one is very similar. I suggest you grab one of these to compare. The difference between these two is that the Organic Ale has a smoother roll off the tongue whereas Kronenbourg tends to have a nice bite but then immediately feels watery and bitter –The Organic Ale just smoothly decays off exponentially with no unpleasant after taste, which is excellent.
It’s a very drinkable ale so after one 500ml bottle another is sure to follow, so get a few in
This is a good high quality, deeper alternative to common off-the-shelf pilsner style beers. It’s certainly not the same (it’s not as light), but as someone who doesn’t really get much out of very light beers, this one has the plus point of being very drinkable one after the other, but retains a lot more character than a typical pilsner.
Anyone else tried one of these?
January 30th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
@Jim, thanks for sharing. I’ve actually seen their Organic Ale, but haven’t tried it, and yes it was in the funky oval bottle! Bob has some reviews from St. Peter’s coming up soon so perhaps he’ll cover the Organic Ale.
@Bob the Brit – that’s a funny story! At least they got people to buy the beer the first time!
@Nate, that’s a great use for the bottle, and I bet it looks very cool. In your face Peter!!!!
Scott-TheBrewClub´s last blog ..Ramstein Winter Wheat Beer
January 31st, 2010 at 4:20 am
I’m pretty sure that I have the Organic in my St Peter’s collection to try. It’s interesting that Jim was comparing it to Kronenbourg and pilsner beers, as the St Peter’s Ale is not a lager, but a light ’summer’ ale and so is top fermented rather than bottom fermented.
I’ll start on the St Peter’s Ales as a matter of urgency!
Bob the Brit´s last blog ..Burns Night
February 25th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
ok this just got moved up the list for review on the podcast.
February 26th, 2010 at 12:33 am
Cool! Let us know when its out!
Scott-TheBrewClub´s last blog ..George Washington – Beer Lover