Middling midlands

Tomorrow, all going well, will see me back at the Great British Beer Festival for the first time in a decade. I am bemused at the thought that I won't be stepping outdoors at any point between arriving at Dublin airport in the morning and leaving it again in the evening. GBBF has moved to the UK's National Exhibition Centre, which is physically connected to Birmingham airport. It'll be my second return trip through that airport this summer, as a few weeks ago, work sent me to Great Malvern in Worcestershire. It's a quite pleasantly sedate spa town, catering mostly for walkers in the surrounding hills. It has a handful of pubs, and I did my best to explore the ones nearest me.

There were two very charming traditional pubs nearby, The Red Lion and The Unicorn, the former owned by Marston's while the latter may as well be. Each had minimal cask selections, and all beers I'd had before, in medium-to-decent condition -- excusable given the warm weather. Wasps, though. The whole town was overrun with wasps, and the pubs most of all. It's quite hard to enjoy a mediocre pint of Pedigree with one of those bastards hoving into view every few seconds.

The town boasts one microbar, The Weavers, though it's quite an elaborate one, with lounge seating and a terrace, as well as a variety of keg and cask beers. Still, it was comfortable, and it looked like the selection merited exploring. I started with a half of Orbital Abyss, a "breakfast stout" by Fownd Brewing in Kidderminster, served on cask. It's only 4% ABV and very much on the brown side, rather than black. There's lots of chocolate aroma and the requisite creamy oatmeal mouthfeel, so it's not the lightweight it first appeared to be. I guess it has coffee in it, but I didn't get much of that. Chocolate was one side of the main flavour, while the other was a harsh vinegar tang which I don't think was meant to be there. The result is sour chocolate, a flavour combination which is not recommended. I guess the July heatwave was to blame for this as well. And while I really wanted to give the place another chance, I didn't make time to do it, fearing another bad beer and a wasted opportunity.

Up the hill and around the corner, there's a Wetherspoon called The Foley Arms. This is a genuine Georgian coaching inn, though has been thoroughly Wetherspoonised since. From the local cask options, I chose Hop Star, by Silhill Brewery in Birmingham. It's an IPA, supposedly American-style, but at a very English 4.2% ABV. It's a clear golden colour and has an enticing aroma of lemon sherbet. The flavour brings us on a sensory tour which starts with sweet and chewy candy and bubblegum, all perfumed pink with fake fruit. After that, there's an unpleasant sweaty or musty note, and I couldn't work out what might have caused it. And then the surprise finish is aggressively bitter, though in the waxy, vegetal, Germanic way, not the sort you get from citric American hops. I found it a bit disjointed and hard to like. While I respected the cleanness and the bitterness, there's just too much else going on. It really should have occurred to me that this was a deliberate house style...

...before I followed with Blonde Star from the same brewery. This is only a tiny bit lighter than the IPA, at 4.1% ABV, but it's much paler -- an almost silvery white gold. It's much more restrained than the other one, even though the citric sherbet spritz and harder wax bitterness are both present, though to a lesser degree. That makes it altogether more palatable, even if I'm still not keen on how it goes about things. There remains a raw and pithy hop character, and a chalky mineral bite which adds nothing positive. Doubtless the brewery has a fanbase which doesn't mind its specific flavour idiosyncrasies, and is there a nod to Bathams in the hard bitterness? I don't know, but I won't be in a rush to seek out more Silhill beer.

My batting average has been pretty poor so far. Who will save the beer reputation of Great Malvern? Step forward Wye Valley, one of the consistent stars of midlands brewing. My hotel was serving their Pyoneer on cask, another one of those brown bitters that claims to be "amber" for marketing reasons. It goes big on the tannins, which is just how I like these, and is soft-textured and smooth, for perfect sinkability. A fresh lemon counter-melody plays opposite the strong black tea. All this and a tiddling ABV of 3.4% too. I guess it's designed to be basic, but it does it brilliantly, and while it's not up to the standard of the sublime Harvey's Sussex Best, it's in that general mode. There's nothing not to like here.

Before I leave Great Malvern, a shout-out to Faun. This is ostensibly a wine shop, but one of those chi-chi drink-in ones, with posh snacks and charcuterie available. It also has a modest selection of well-chosen beers, with a slight emphasis on Belgian classics, plus a good range of ciders, perries and meads to explore.

The trek back to Birmingham airport was a slog in 33° heat and the rail system buckling under the stress. Its airside Wetherspoon was a welcome relief, with good air conditioning and Redemption Urban Dusk on cask. This is a proper amber ale, not a bitter, and is 4.6% ABV. The flavour offers an odd mix of crystal-malt caramel and almost acrid tannins. That makes for an unsteady balance of sweet and dry, to which is added some herbal liquorice bitterness and a fine dusting of chocolate. I was confused at first, but settled into it, enjoying the complexity. The disparate elements coalesce as it goes, and by the time I was finished, I was ready for a second pint.

Two out of five ain't great. I'm hoping for a much better hit rate at tomorrow's festival, and fewer wasps.