Beer of the Week (w/e 18th November 2018)

:cheers:

Kent:thin after last couple of weeks.

Shepherd Neame-Whitstable Bay Pale Ale 3.9% abv. Forgettable.
Hook Norton-Old Hookey 4.6%abv. Bit of a blast from the past.Malty and mellow.Not an Old Ale in my opinion.
Allendale-Wilderness IPA 6.5%abv.(Can) Perked up an evening in a draughty village hall. My BOTW.

I've finished for the week, so here are mine.

Summerskills - Whistle Belly Vengeance
Swannay - Dark Munro
Peerless - Full Whack
Arundel - Winter Knights
Blindmans - Funny Farm
Shep Neame - Bishops Finger
Goose Island - 312 Urban Wheat Ale
Leeds - Yorkshire Gold
Sambrook's - Powerhouse Porter
Tring - Brock Bitter
Tring - Cipher
Purity - Pure UBU
Black Sheep - Special Ale
DBC - Dorset Knob
Rudgate - Ruby Mild
Mad Squirrel - Burning Effigy
3 Brewers - Mild
Mix Brewery - BP 1805 Pale Stout
Oakham - Inferno
Celtic Marshes - Nell Gwynne Cider
Skinners - Lushingtons
Box Steam - Handlebar
Watling Street - Secret Santa (my first Chr1stm4s beer of the season)
Marston's - Poppy
Elgood's - Golden Newt

The Whistle Belly Vengeance and the Ruby Mild get on the podium; but my BotW is the BP 1805 Pale Stout, more for curiosity value really. It's from Mix Brewery, a nano brewery in Hemel Hempstead, and I met the brewer Mick Harrison at a new micro pub in the town. He bought in three different bottled brews to see if the owner wanted to stock any. He went away with an order and left the bottles, one of which we tried later. Apparently the recipe dates back to an original Pale Stout recipe from 1805. At 7% it was both delicious and interesting.

A good week for well conditioned beer.

Dark Star Hop Head
Salopian Oracle
Purity Bunny Hop
Cloudwater Brown Ale
Hammerton Pentonville
Great Heck Citra
By The Horns Hopadelic
Ilkley Mary Jane
Camden Pale
Burning Sky Plateau
Oakham Citra
Ringwood Boondoggle
Fullers Bengal Lancer
Great Newsome Harvest Festivale
Lincoln Green Quarterstaff
Slaters Single Hop

The Cloudwater Brown Ale was pretty good as was the Bengal Lancer but BOTW is Burning Sky Plateau in very good form in The Wenlock Arms.

Not a bad week :-

AJ's Hop Pot 3.8%
Holden's Black Country Bitter 3.9%
Byatt's Platinum Blonde 3.9%
Kent Pale 4.0%
Swanney Dark Munro 4.0%
Titanic Iceberg 4.1%
Titanic Anchor 4.1%
Twisted Veteran 4.2%
Lymestone Stray Cat 4.2%
Titanic Cherry Dark 4.4%
Lymestone Foundation Stone 4.5%
Slater's Maravilla 4.5%
Phoenix West Coast IPA 4.6%
Summerskills Whistlebelly Vengeance 4.7%
Downton Moby Dick (with an I) 4.7%
Bristol Beer Factory Hoff 4.9%
Black Country Fireside 5.0%
Holden's Special 5.1%
Titanic Captain Smith 5.2%
Fixed Wheel Concussion Mild 5.5%
Orkney Skull Splitter 8.5%

It's between the bookends of this list. AJ's Hop Pot is a low abv New World Hop Bomb as tried in the Stafford Bird In Hand for £3.20. The Skull Splitter is a real blast from the past and is an old school barley wine that I expected to be darker and was £4.00 in the Wolverhampton Great Western. Not for the first time, I had to pour two halves into a pint glass.
Despite being quite heavy going the old school wins out this week.


BOTW Orkney Skull Splitter

A small but well formed list:

Adnams Ghost Ship*
Wild Card Blackberry Stout*
Brancaster Oystercatcher
Oakham Bishops Farewell*

BOTW Wild Card Blackberry Stout. Exactly as it says and slid down very easily.

A smallish list, this week, but with a decent hit rate.

Kirkstall - Dissolution IPA.*
Cromarty - Raptor IPA.*
2 Roses - Mosaic.
Castle Rock - Harvest Pale.
Great Newsome - Muddy Boots.*
Tigertops - Hop Smith.*
North Riding - Mosaic.*
Hilltop - Stout.
York - Globe Hopping Kolibri.
Rat - Ginger Rat.*

Enjoyed all the highlighted beers, but the Raptor and the Muddy Boots (porter) just nosed ahead. Cromarty is a new brewery to me, so I'll let them take the honours. Raptor is an aromatic, copper coloured IPA hopped with Ekuanot and Simcoe. Sampled in The Cardigan Arms, Leeds.

After a couple of weeks off the beer, had an excellent Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout in the Gidea Park Micropub yesterday which is my default BOTW.

Just one pub visit and one pint ,so by default BOTW was Tring Drop Bar in good nick in Monks Inn and consumed in the genial company of Millay.If I hadn't been driving this would have resulted in a proper session.

Next week boating through the South Midlands (a definition will not be forthcoming ;) ) so hoping for a much longer list.