I have reviewed a few of the beers from Young's before: Special London Ale and Oatmeal Stout, Dirty Dick's Ale and Double Chocolate Stout. Still more work to be done as the brewery lists 20 bottled beers on its website.

This particular bottle pre-dates the new stylish labelling and sits in the range at 5% below the strength of Old Nick at 7.2% and Special London Ale at 6.4%. At that weight, the Beer Advocate considers this a very worthy ESB or Extra Special Bitter, other examples of which style can be found in these posts.

Ram Rod pours an orange-tinged straw with an off-white rim with foam. Its nose is similar to Special London but the marmalade is much less to the forefront in the mouth, battling with a really nice pale malt graininess all in a fresh moreish soft water. The hops are tangy and floral. This is a very attractive ale. Lighter in the mouth maybe than I might have expected but in the scale of things, English ales come in a little lighter than their namesake Canadian and US cousins.