28 July 2011

Cornish freedom

The nice people who do PR for the St Austell brewery sent me a box of the new one: Trelawny, a 3.8% ABV bitter, named in honour of a local hero who fought valiantly against religious tolerance in 17th century England.

Australian Galaxy hops are, we're told, at the centre of this dark amber beer. It's no hop-bomb, however, preferring subtlety and understatement throughout. The hops impart a fresh and succulent fruitiness: some nectarine, perhaps shading towards more tart plum and even rhubarb notes. The malt base is light and quite dry and tannic, something I always enjoy in English bitter. Putting them together you get a refreshing quencher designed very much for session drinking.

My only real criticism is that it's a little thin and gassy. While I'm sure the cask version cleans that up, I'm not sure if the lovely fruity hops would come out of that arrangement well. I'd have to try it on draught to know, of course, which I'd be very happy to do should I ever see it in a pub.

6 comments:

  1. It even looks thin and gassy in your photo.

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  2. I endeavour in my photography to bring forth the latent innermost qualities of my subject.

    Also, that glass may not have been entirely clean.

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  3. was perfect on cask at glastonbury

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  4. Yeah, I could see "a local hero who fought valiantly against religious tolerance in 17th century England" going down well in Ireland. Down with religious tolerance!

    Free beer turning up in the post. Shit, why am I wasting my time blogging about cartooning?

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  5. Ha! I guess if I didn't write this crap so far in advance I could actually work more topical stuff into it.

    The other side of PR companies spontaneously posting beer to me is truckloads of spam about the latest, coolest, TV spot produced by FizzCorp that my readers will want to know all about.

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  6. Galaxy hops? Shouldn't they be in a chocolate stout?

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