Many breweries around the UK have different ways of producing their much loved beers, however there are specific elements within the brewing process that when tweaked will actually make  the same recipe beers almost different. 

If you take Carling for example, one of Molson Coors premium products around the majority of Europe, this beer you see is brewed into Kegs (Lager Barrels) for the pub trade and also cans for the public to purchase from supermarkets. Furthermore, if you try the same beer which has been created from two different departments of the same brewery, you’ll be able to notice that the taste will be completely different. 

Thornbridge Brewery based in Derbyshire also follows this procedure and this is what we are basing today’s post on today. 

AM PM Tasting Notes – Keg Version 

Thoughts on the clarity, aroma, taste and aftertaste 

Clarity – AM PM delivered a clear and bright blonde beer, and one thing for sure that we clearly noticed once the beer was poured the head retention was almost perfect and the retention of the head remained as we took each sip. 

Aroma – The malt scents made this beer smell absolutely amazing, it made us feel that there was just the correct amount of malt scent bursting out the top of the glass, too much malt can impair the aroma of the beer. After you get past the scents of malt, there is a welcoming amount of tropical fruit which again makes this beer have an outstanding aroma. 

Taste – Although the beer aroma is great, there was just one small tiny problem that we struggled to compete with on the flavour of the beer which we  personally found quite dry and alarmed us to thinking that the texture of the beer was unpleasant, however the dryness did provide those fruity flavours, most common fruits we could pick up were orange and mango. 

Aftertaste – So the dry flavour that sparked at the first sip is converted into a fruity finish which made us feel that this beer certainly has a complex flavour which made the beer taste beautiful. It wasn’t just how sweet the finish of the beer was, the long lasting amount of pineapple and the subtle amount of bitter throughout the tasting of this beer made it sensational. 

AM PM Tasting Notes – Cask Version 

Thoughts on clarity, aroma, taste and aftertaste 

Clarity – In comparison with AM PM Keg beer, the cask ale version delivered more of a darkened amber ale that certainly made the keg ale more brighter and welcoming. 

Aroma – The appealing malt scent which was surrounding the top of the glass was swapped with a citrus smell which certainly made this appear to be interesting. 

Taste – What was really interesting about this beer was how different the flavours  were from the keg version of this beer, like mentioned earlier, a beer which is brewed differently throughout the process can deliver completely opposite results. 

Instead of that tropical fruity malty flavour, there was more caramel and toffee involved, this certainly made us feel we were drinking a classic British real ale. 

Aftertaste – The citrus aromas were welcomed once again on the aftertaste, but instead of it being a sweet citrus, it was more of a bitter citrus, it made this version of the beer quite sharp but not overly powerful. 

Do we recommend it? 

Out of both versions of the beer we tried, we scored both beers the same 3 out of 5 stars, but if we had to decide which was the winner, then that would be the cask ale version.

It’s important to remember both beers tasted great, but one thing that the cask ale didn’t deliver was the dryness which appeared in the keg beer, we just believe when you taste beers that are dry it sometimes can confuse the pallet, but still with this in mind both beers were certainly very enjoyable and we would definitely try them again in the future.