Ringwood Brewery Forty Niner Beer Review

Welcome to the Drink in the Sights Forty Niner from Ringwood Brewery Beer Review. I seem to be finding a lot of Ringwood Brewery beers lately and Forty Niner is just the latest for me to try. Like a lot of breweries these days Ringwood is owned by Marston's, but we wont hold that against them. I also wont hold it against them that their beer names rarely make any sense. Just for the record a Forty Niner is a miner who went over to California to get involved in the gold rush, to be honest I only know this due to the Neil Young song 'Clementine' which was about 'a miner forty niner and his daughter Clementine.' I have no idea why that line has always stuck in my head.

Forty Niner from Ringwood comes in the usual 500ml bottle with a wood effect label featuring the Ringwood boar. There's nothing about a miner anywhere on there. The beer is described as 'bright and full of rich flavours. Great with a charcoaled sausage, mates, and a bit of banter.' Maybe I should have left this one until after lockdown then. Forty Niner clocks in with a 4.9% alcohol content, which is distinctly average these days, and pours a golden amber colour with a small head which sticks around for a minute or two before becoming lacing.

The beers aroma is mainly fruity and floral with a distinctly soapy smell lingering in the background, which is never a good sign. Not for the first time with a Ringwood beer I'm left with a feeling that this could well be quite an average ale, which I guess having picked it up for just over one pound from B&M shouldn't be too surprising. I'm just a sucker for a cheap drink. Unfortunately Forty Niner also has the texture of quite a cheap beer. It's very thin and watery so maybe the description is right and it would be more of a summer barbecue drink.

The beer has a similarly light taste, there's just not much coming through at all. You'll probably just about get some bready malts and some bitter hops but honestly there's nothing at all to write home about in here. I do imagine that on a warm summers day, eating some nice food in the garden this beer would probably be an ok alternative to a lager as it wouldn't interfere with the taste of the food too much, but really I like my beers to be much more flavoursome than this. I'm going to give Forty Niner from Ringwood Brewery a poor 3 out of 10. There's just nothing of note going on in there.