Henry's IPA

A quick post for a rather lacklustre pint. Feeling a little thirsty last Thursday I snuck into the Sir Chritopher Hatton after work. I noticed a new addition I had not encountered before Henry's IPA (3.6% ABV).

Brewed by the Wadworth Brewery, this beer is another best bitter dressed up in IPA clothes, much along the lines of Greene King IPA and Well's Eagle IPA.

For those of you who are real tickers/beer geeks here is the lowdown from the website.

HENRYS IPA 3.6% ABV

Named after the Wadworth founder Henry Alfred Wadworth
Palate:Malt dominates initially with dry hoppy finish and biscuity after-palate.
Nose: Floral hops aroma, with light fruit.
Comments: Devizes and surrounding area local bitter. A light and refreshing deep golden coloured ale.
Brewed from Pale Ale Malt (94%) Crystal Malt (4%) and cane sugar (4%) whole cone aroma hops - Fuggles in copper for bitterness (22 - 23 BUs) and character, Goldings in hop back for aroma. Primed with liquid cane sugar for secondary fermentation in cask.

The website is actually quite useful if you are a home brewer as you can easily use the information to devise clone of their beers!

Website

Beartown Brewery Bear Ass

Another work leaving session led me to The Sir Christopher Hatton for an evening on the beer. As luck would have it, my usual tipple there: Timothy Taylor's Landlord Bitter went off halfway through the evening, leaving me with a limited choice for a substitute. Browsing along the pump clips, I noticed a contender. A beer I had yet to try. This beer was called Bear Ass (4.0% abv)..... WTF????

Being the "Accidental Ticker" that I am, I decided to give it a go. First impressions, this beer is darker than I was expecting and is bordering on brown porter in colour. First taste is dark sweet crystal, followed by a cloying sweetness which smothers any hop bitterness that claims to be there. Not a particularly pleasant beer.

Would I have the beer again?? Hell no, its rubbish and it tastes really under attenuated. If your thirst for knowledge (pun intended) desires, check out the following website.

Also, the recent poll I conducted clearly indicates that you prefer the name ' Beer Diary' over 'The Accidental Ticker' , so the name will remain.

I would also like to thank social commentator Wurst aka Whorst, for recognizing me as a 'know-it-all'. You do not realize that you are just feeding the most egotistical beer blogger of all time. BTW, when you have finished your Landlord clone, put your money where your mouth is and send it my way. I'd love to let the beer-blog-o-sphere know my opinion of it!

Timothy Taylor Landlord Ale 3

Ok, I'm not going to talk about TTLA again as I have commented on it a couple of times in the past, however it is worth noting that I had the pint's in The Sir Christopher Hatton (SCH). The SCH is a new refurbishment of the Old Goose on Leather Lane by pubco Nicholson's. The pub is certainly more upmarket that The Goose was, but it still suffers from the numbers on the table syndrome which plagues all chain bars ('spoons, O'Neills, All Bar One etc). The most interesting finding I had was they had a total of 12 real ales on their beer menu, but they only had 8 pumps!

Even still 8 different real ales is a pretty good number. My only concern is that the crowd was predominately drinking lager and wine, with only a handful or very small percentage of punters getting into the ales. I question whether or not they will be able to continue offering such a selection, but in asking this I am not going to comment on their turnover!

Anyhow the pint I had was in excellent condition and I'll probably head back there if it is deemed the venue to attend by my colleagues for Friday evening drinks. Well, its better than the king of diamonds anyhow!