On the Marches

A family Christmas in Shropshire afforded the opportunity for a little bit of pub-going in the area. That began in Shrewsbury, at The Coach & Horses, recently re-opened and given a thumbs up by local pub maven Laura. Shortly after opening on the day before Christmas Eve, I thought I would have had it to myself, but it was bustling -- all drinking and dining tables occupied. I was lucky to find a draughty spot to sit by the door. 

Local brewery Noble had a couple of beers on, and I picked Jester, described as an amber ale, so a bitter with notions, then. It is, in fairness, fairly amber coloured: a clear garnet shade. The aroma is predominantly dark fruits, suggesting plums and black cherries, with a hint of Christmas cake spice. Tannin features heavily in the flavour. It is achingly dry, to the point of acridity, and I wasn't a fan of that. The nutmeg and pepper spice helps ease the severity a little but there's none of the fruit, and no malt sweetness from the caramelised one which provides its colour. The end result is certainly bold and flavourful, and brimming with old fashioned beery tradition of a distinctly English sort. I found it a little too rough and unbalanced to be properly enjoyable, unfortunately.

Noble showed up again at The Red Lion in Longden Common, in the form of Scruffy Jon. They've badged this simply as a dark ale, though it has a lot in common with stout, I thought, starting with the pure black colour. Dryness -- perhaps a house trait -- features also, but there's more besides. I don't get to drink a lot of English old ales, beyond good old Old Peculier, but this had a bit of that character: a mature, vinous quality with woody cork notes. We're back to stout again when the roasty finish kicks in. Like the Jester before it, it's a little severe and very grown-up -- don't expect any chocolate or vanilla softness here. I liked it, however: serious black beer is more my thing than serious amber.

Christmas day at The White Horse in Pulverbatch involved a long wait for a pint of Monty's MPA, the Welsh brewery's session IPA. The freshly-tapped cask had to be run through the lines, and was foaming furiously when eventually poured, even with the sparkler twisted off. I don't know that it was entirely worth the wait, but it's a decent beer. Pale gold, it has a punchy lemon bitterness, building gradually to a more intense wax bite. Seasonal factors meant it was served keg-cold, but I think that suited it, upping the refreshment factor, something aided by its 4% ABV. It's unfussy, quality stuff, one of those cask ales that manages to deliver big flavours in a modestly sized package.

Nipping in to The Mytton Arms for a swift one on Stephen's's Day yielded a pint of Dorothy Goodbody's Christmas Cracker. This is another one of those English Christmas ales which aren't especially different to the year-round output. Wye Valley is generally a good brewery so I trust them with this. Take a best bitter at 4.7% ABV and make it a little darker than the norm, plum coloured though not plum flavoured. It is unsurprisingly malt forward, though dry with that: something like the toasted crust of a fruitcake, seasoned by earthy English hops, and with a strong mug of black tea on the side. It's filling, and even a little warming. There's nothing fancy going on, and certainly no seasonal spice silliness, but it's solid.

That's the pubs covered, but my sister had some bottled beers laid in too. Here are my picks from the cellar selection.

I'm reasonably sure the beer buyer included Tower Brewery's Ale to the King as a wind-up. It's a strong ale of 5.6% ABV and a beautiful clear mahogany colour. The aroma is unsurprisingly malt-forward, all toffee and nougat. That's a big part of the flavour, the toffee in particular, while the hops manifest as stickily bitter liquorice, completing the Victorian sweetshop effect. As such, it's not an easy drinker. There's a bit of a sweaty note, a hit of rubber and an earthiness from the all-English hops, all barely tolerable, though doubtless part of the design. Like the monarchy, this belongs to a different age and I'm not sure it should still be around today.

Wrexham Lager's first claim to fame is that it's Britain's oldest lager brewery. The second is that it was recently part-acquired by two Hollywood medium-to-big shots. There's a flagship lager, and then there's this: Wrexham Lager Export. Drinking it in Shropshire meant it hadn't been exported very far. It looks like... lager: pale gold, and perfectly clear. Claiming to be in the Dortmund style, the aroma is sweetly malt-driven and the texture has a bit of chew to it, more than might be expected at 5% ABV. When German lagers use hop extract I tend to get a tang of plastic, and this has that. There's a candyfloss sugary quality and a touch of popcorn, none of which says good lager. I liked the general beefiness of this, but it doesn’t get the finer details right. Maybe the new ownership can fix that.

Gluten free oatmeal stout? How does that work? The label on Monty's Dark Secret says the gluten has been removed ("and laboratory tested". Eh?) but wouldn't that also remove the point of having oatmeal there in the first place? Anyway. 5.5% ABV and full- on black. The aroma is a beautiful wintery mix of cocoa, rosemary and brown toast. I wind my critical neck in from the first sip, which is fully full, with all the beautiful round sumptuousness that we come to oatmeal stout for. The flavour uses that to deliver big coffee and chocolate, matched with herbal hops for a mildly tangy bitterness. It's superbly put together, the contrasting tastes complementing each other perfectly. I opened this with a big cynical head on me but came away utterly charmed. It's an extremely well-made stout, which I fear might put drinkers off by proclaiming its gluten-freeness. The dark secret is it's excellent anyway.

Monty's also has a barley wine, called Magnitude 8.0, named for its ABV. It's a pale one, showing a light ochre colour, one which clouds up when the significant quantity of dregs at the bottom of the bottle went in accidentally. Ahem. Turns out, the bottle is a full three years old, and I detected a definite maturity here: the roundness and warmth of a dark sherry. An aroma of stewed raisin starts us off, while the flavour puts them in a cake, with some bonus honey, a hint of seasonal cinnamon, and a less-cake-like leafy savoury bitterness. It's an unorthodox barley wine, lacking the toffee, roast and general darkness they often have. It works, though. I like a change, and pale, light-ish barley wine is a valid one.

Aldi UK has enlisted Hall & Woodhouse, the Badger people, to brew its Specially Selected Chocolate Stout. It's a sturdy fellow, at 5% ABV, pouring with a substantial head of rough, loose-bubbled foam. The chocolate appears to have been laid on very heavily, and it smells rather sickly, more of vanilla and butterscotch than chocolate. That's actually a little unpleasant. The flavour isn't quite so extreme, and there's a modicum of balancing roast before the chocolate kicks in. The texture is light too, so don't expect much by way of creaminess. The vanilla sweetness does build, however, and light body or no, it does leave one with a fully candy-coated palate, which is even less pleasant than it sounds. I get what they were trying to do with this, and it is unmistakably A Chocolate Stout. They have significantly over-chocolated it, however, and I recommend it only to those with a taste for sweet beer which is even more pronounced than mine.

A palate-cleanser was needed after that, for which we turned to Aldi's arch-rival. This is one of those stubby-bottled French lagers, not normally spotted in the wild at this time of year. Saint-Bertin, named for the patron saint of beers you buy for guests but have no intention of drinking yourself, is 2.6% ABV and by golly is it watery. The aroma is slightly sugary, but I don't think I can dignify it with the descriptor "malt". What flavour there is arrives late, and does actually manage to combine golden-syrup malt with a tang from hop extract. Nothing is anywhere near intense enough to be problematic, but it is extremely plain: the final exam for the beer reviewers' certificate. This is one for very hot days only, but even under those circumstances I think I'd prefer something which tasted of beer.

The stock of alcohol-free beer proved to be somewhat surplus to requirements, so, as a final gesture of goodwill, I drank one of them before leaving: Adnams Ghost Ship. This version of their flagship pale ale is 0.5% ABV and a clear rose-gold colour. There's not much head to speak of, though the aroma has a decent hop kick, a Lilt-like lemon, lime and pineapple. The body is decent at first, turning watery towards the finish. In the flavour, I was on alert for nasty cooked vegetables, metallic twangs, unfermented wort and similar bum notes of the genre, but there's none of that, just more of that tropical sweetness, finishing with a gentle poke of bittering. And yet it doesn't come across as a soft drink, but genuinely beery. The watery aspect is the only thing that would prevent me from substituting the real thing for it. As non-alcoholic beers go, though, this is a class act.

That's almost every beer I drank over Christmas, though I've singled out two oddities for their own post, next.