Drygate gate

I will freely admit that the packaging is what sold me on these two Drygate beers. Specifically, how breathtakingly similar their design is to that of Beavertown. Well, it's nice to have an angle for these posts. Drygate is the joint brewing operation of C&C Scotland (the Tennent's people) and Williams Brothers. You'd think that avoiding the charge of stealing craft beer's clothes would be high on their agenda but there you are. Mind you, events since this post was first drafted mean they're pretty much as independently craft as Beavertown now.

The lesser offender is Chimera, an India pale lager. Williams already has a decent one of these in its portfolio, Caesar Augustus, so they know their way around the style. This one's high ABV of 5.9% is very apparent in the thick texture. It's soupy looking as well as tasting, so a clean hoppy lager is not what's on offer. Instead it's a gritty and pithy affair, full of oily orange and herbal bathsalts. There's nothing lagery at all about the downright greasy texture, but as an IPA it's not bad. I enjoyed the chewiness of it, while the flavour is big and punchy, layering on the fruit then finishing sharp. It took a bit of time to get used to but I was on board by the end.

Disco Fork Lift Truck mango pale ale is the one whose can looks like a direct rip-off of Neck Oil. It's clearer than the lager but still orange, and lighter at 5.1% ABV. There's a syrupy artificiality right from the get-go: a sharp sugary hit of fake fruit. Behind this there's a medium-bodied, low bittered, plain pale ale, almost touching on the cereal blandness of twiggy brown bitter. The mango gunk has very obviously been wheeled out front and centre to be the beer's headline quality, but it's just not good enough. It's trying to be fun and down-with-the-kids, but you need hops for that: syrup doesn't cut it.

Branding aside, these are largely what I expected from the Drygate project: passable supermarket beers, taking cues from smaller independents but not really executing them with the same panache. There's an argument here that such things are gateways (no pun intended) to better beer, but I think they're at least as likely to prevent the curious beer drinker from looking further afield than Sainsbury's.

Pubs and such

I had my back to the foreign beers for most of my evening at Pig's Ear last week, unwisely, perhaps. However, I did turn round enough to grab one beer of interest, namely Chimera by Del Ducato of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. I thoroughly enjoyed several of the artisan beers I had last time I was in Italy, and was keen to try more. The phrase that struck me on first tasting the hazy orange ale was "malt bomb". It's not one of those sickly sweet jus des vagabonds nightmares: far from it. Instead, the beautiful hazy orange body is packed with big sticky toffee flavours. Very tasty, but I couldn't help thinking that a solid dose of big hops would have done it the power of good.

Last beer of the festival was one I didn't even bother getting out of my chair to get -- thanks to whoever passed me a glass of Mikkeller's It's Alight. There's a very nice, smooth, Cantillon-grade sourness to this saison, with more than a hint of farmyard earthiness. Only 4.5% ABV but very much a beer to take time over.

And that was Pig's Ear for another year. I didn't have far to stagger to my lodgings: the Boak & Bailey Travel Agency had me set up in The Old Ship Inn in a back alley across the street. Despite access to 24-hour cask ale I managed to resist the urge for a post-festival pint, and was glad I did: when I came down for breakfast next day I discovered that Bombardier would have been my only option. They seem pretty green in the whole hotel stakes, and the kitchen doesn't yet open for Full Englishes of a morning. It probably wouldn't have been economical for them anyway as my only company in the dining area as I munched my muesli was a tiny, but seriously rotund, grey mouse. This is what happens in pubs too posh to keep a cat.

Work was long, arduous and finished near 6 in Mayfair. I had the usual option of sprinting off to one of London's famous beer pubs, virtually none of which I've ever visited, to chug a pint or two before zipping back to Paddington and the train to Heathrow. But I decided that I really just couldn't be bothered. Instead I wandered up through Marble Arch and made for John's local-from-local, The Victoria on Strathearn Place.

This cosy traditional pub is a multi-award-winner, including a recent spell as Fuller's Pub of the Year. From the spiel on the menu it's clear that they care a lot about their beers, and while they're not shy about throwing a guest ale or two on, only Fuller's core range was available on my visit. So I settled in by the open fire for a textbook pint of Pride. I find it hard to get excited about this beer. It's good, unfussy, understated, but I have to say I prefer a bit more oomph to my ales these days. I had hoped that my follow-up ESB would be in one of the beautiful wide stemmed glasses everyone else had, but it wasn't to be. I still really really enjoyed my pint: all the weighty caramel and fruit characteristics were wonderfully pronounced.

The Victoria is definitely a pub to note if one is in the vicinity of Paddington. Thanks for the recommendation, John: you claim your ramblings are random, but I can see why you'd direct them to this place. Best beer of the day, however, was in the unlikely surrounds of Heathrow, where I idled my last half hour over a delightfully tart and fruity pint of Adnams Bitter.

I really really do need to spend some quality time drinking in London. These stolen hours between meetings and flights just aren't good enough, ESB and Adnam's Bitter notwithstanding.