BEER REVIEW: 359

BREWER: Tudor Brewery, Gwent, Wales

STYLE: Golden Ale

ABV: 3.8%

VESSEL: 500ml brown bottle

X: @Tudorbrewery

INSTAGRAM: tudorbrewery

DATE OF POST: 24th August 2024

 

SAMMY SAY’S…

Grab your magnifying glasses, folks! We’re diving into the case of (not a case of) Operation Julie.  It’s a beer that promises intrigue but delivers… well, something else entirely. Imagine a police operation where the mission is to find the most inspirational ale imaginable. Spoiler alert:we may just have gone and found it.

The nose offers nothing.  Picture a detective, if you will, arriving at a crime scene.  Said detective might just be expecting a whiff of mystery and excitement, only to find… ale. Just ale. Nothing surprising, nothing memorable. You almost feel like calling the sniffer dogs back; there’s just nothing to get a hold of here.

Operation Julie is marketed as a golden ale.  The sad truth is that it’s more of a witness protection program for flavours. It’s thin, with a faint hint of caramel that’s as elusive as a master criminal. The maltiness tries to show up but ends up being more of an innocent bystander than a key player. If this beer were a suspect, it’d be let off without even a warning for being completely unremarkable.

Allow yourself to slip back to a time where you might have been sipping water with a tea bag briefly dunked in it. OJ is the kind of drink that will bring back those reflections and make you want to call for backup. To be clear, you won’t want to take it slow with this one, not because it’s so good, but because you just want to get the whole drinking experience over with and move onto your next case.

The initial pour should be like unveiling a “golden” treasure.  However, all you will find is fool’s gold. It looks like a crime scene in your glass – pale, almost see-through, and completely unappealing. It appears as if the brewers fled with the golden part of this ale.

The packaging of Operation Julie is so awful it should be charged with a fine against marketing. If this beer were part of a lineup, it’d be the one you point at and say, “Yeah, that’s the one. The terrible-looking one.” It’s very unappealing on the eyes.

Operation Julie could possibly be the best thing about this beer.  And it’s not even that good. It’s a bit like naming a goldfish “Shark.” A real letdown when you realise it’s just a fish.

Operation Julie by Tudor Brewery might sound like an exciting undercover mission, but it’s more like a routine parking ticket. From its thin taste and horrible packaging to its misleading name, it’s a beer that could well find itself under investigation for crimes against ale lovers everywhere. If you happen to stumble across this beer, consider it part of an unwanted lineup: move on to the next offering. Better luck next time, Tudor Brewery. Over and out!

Sammy’s Rating: 21%

 

JYMI SAY’S…

I think Tudor Brewery, almost certainly unintentionally, have pulled off something of a masterstroke here!

Let me explain…

Our beer today, Operation Julie, takes it’s name from a massive police operation and subsequent massive drugs bust in Wales in the mid 70’s. A stage show has since been born telling the story of this and I believe this beer was brewed to be sold at said show.

Now where Tudors unintentional masterstroke comes in is that they seemed to have brewed a fairly crap beer that could easily have come straight from the 70’s! I mean, my tasting notes read… Thin Beer. That’s it! There is literally nothing else to report on the taste of this brew. Haha.

I wouldn’t say OJ is horrible nor undrinkable, but I didn’t really like it very much.

If this whole thing WAS intentional to transport people watching the show back to 1976 then I suppose fair play. But surely, nobody sets out on a brew with the intention of it being a thin, crap and dated beer?? Surely??

Jymi’s Rating: 32%

 

MUSE ON BOOZE RATING: 26.5%

MOB review next weekend: CALI PALE by TINY REBEL

Sammy & Jymi – Musing on Booze weekly since 2017

Twitter: @museonbooze

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