William Bros Golden Torch Session Pale Ale Beer Review

As I move through my ALDI bargain bucket beers we have William Bros Golden Torch Session Pale Ale, a beer for a quid. When I worked my way through the LIDL beer festival I came across a few William Bros beers so I'm getting to know the Alloa based brewery quite well. I guess creating beers for the UK's biggest cheap supermarkets is a pretty good way to get your name out there, and it's certainly worked on me as I have another two ready to be reviewed at some point this week. It's not that I usually only buy cheap beers it's just that I'm trying to make the most of the lockdown opportunity to save a few pennies before splashing out when the pubs open.

The first thing to say is that the packaging for Golden Torch is terrible. Sure my photo isn't great, but unless you have a light facing directly at it the dark pink/purple labelling on the dark navy blue can is almost completely illegible. Honestly I don't know what they're thinking with these colours. The can is also only a 330, but the price means they can get away with that. Similarly small is the 3.9% alcohol content which means Golden Torch Session Pale Ale very much lives up to the session name. I've got nothing against a low or middle ground alcohol percentage, but I do hope there's a good taste to make up for the lack of bite.

To be fair the beer pours really nicely with a good creamy head that doesn't last long at all, but looks good while it's there. The body is a very clear, pale gold which matches the name quite nicely, so things are certainly starting to look up a bit. The scent is much more malty than I was expecting, but also sweet and inviting. Despite the look of the can, and the relatively low percentage I'm actually starting to look forward to drinking this beer. 

The texture is light and refreshing while the taste is actually really good. The malty smell carries through to a really nice, quite subtle taste. There's some faint citrus flavours, which only add to the generally pleasant flavour. I really like this as often pale beers have far too much citrus in them and lose their balance as a result but this one is just about right. As a dark beer drinker I have to say I'm surprised, I'd quite happily drink this again, and it's certainly one of the best pale ales I've had. I'm going to score Golden Torch Session Pale Ale from William Bros and brewed exclusively for ALDI a very impressive 8 out of 10, it really is a bargain for the price.