Thursday 4 October 2012

Crafted by Marstons


I don't do tasting notes that much as most of my readers will know. In fact I rarely read that thoroughly the blogs of those that solely do,  with the exception of the Beer Nut, as he is one of the few that does it in an interesting way and whose palate seems up to the job. (That is it sometimes concurs with mine.)  What I do do though, is make occasional recommendations.

Last night I had four different beers, all golden and all pretty damn good in their way.  I know that golden beers get a fair bit of stick, but I like them and when done properly, they make drinking a pleasure.  (Drinking should be a pleasure by the way, not an ordeal of sipping and trying to make the best out of a mass of conflicting ingredients.) But I digress. Phoenix Pale Moonlight was clear, citrussy and dry.  Roosters Cogburn (geddit?) was rather grainy and husky, but once my palate had adapted, easy to drink though, as I often find with Roosters, a touch under conditioned.  These were tried in the Flying Horse in Rochdale, a Good Beer Guide pub and well deserved too on this showing.

These were horse's dovers though. The main meal as it were was served up in the Regal Moon, another GBG entry and where I met the lads (OK my fellow geriatrics).  Ossett Silver King is an old friend and was distinctive, full bodied and lemony hoppy.  Lager malt is used and the beer was so polished that you could see my mates ugly mugs through it. Dave, who works in the chemical industry said that its turbidity measurement looked pretty near zero. This is astonishingly clear in layman's terms, so would not count as good beer to some murky beer lovers.  Dave himself had started on Marston's Citra. He liked it, but found the grapefruit flavours a little overpowering, so switched to Silver King. I picked up the challenge.  I thought it a delight.  No holding back on the hopping, this Wolverhampton brewed beer showed the Citra hop off well. It had the full gamut of flavours from peach through to grapefruit and all tropical points between.  It wasn't perfumey though, but had just the right amount of bitterness and was full bodied and easy drinking.  Pin bright too. To me it was the beer of the night against pretty stiff opposition. Well done Marstons and of course the Regal Moon for serving the beers in top condition.

So there you have it. Three and a half recommendations, all golden, all hoppy and all with that most elusive of attributes, drinkability. That is if you actually want to drink beer, rather than sip it.

Citra was craft brewed at the Wolverhampton (Banks) Brewery. See here for further details.

9 comments:

Bailey said...

Marston's tick a few of our boxes; wouldn't take much for them to tick a few more...

Cooking Lager said...

Can we have a turbidity measurement for all these beers, and can it become a standard in the blogsphere to provide one please? Then maybe brewers will realise we need this as customers and provide it alongside abv, hop variety etc.

The Beer Nut said...

Blushing here. Cheers, Tanders!

Phil said...

Citra was craft brewed at the Wolverhampton (Banks) Brewery.

What the HELL does that word mean? (You know which one!)

Tandleman said...

Haha. So does Marstons I assume.

Neville Grundy said...

Citra isn't in my dictionary either.

py0 said...

Citra is a hop type Red Nev, according to wikipedia it is a cross of Hallertauer Mittelfruh, U.S. Tettnanger, East Kent Golding, Bavarian, Brewers Gold and others.

I've had 3 single hopped beers from different breweries named Citra, and they've all been very good. Maybe its a young man's thing, but I quite like the idea of single hopped beers. You feel like you're learning something. The concept is not going to go away for a long while methinks. The academic earth generation likes this kind of thing.

Erlangernick said...

Excellent, Nev!

I have a love-hate relationship with single-hopped Citra beers. Sometimes, they're fantastic - clean, dry, yet still deliciously fruity; sometimes they run to the phenolic. Bottled, that is.

It also blends really well with Chinook (but then so many hops do) and (or) Centennial.

AFA Marston's goes, I had a fabulous IPA from them in Bangor, Wales a couple of years ago, something along the lines of "Yankee Clipper", brewed in the vein of what Yanks think "English IPA" is supposed to be. IIRC, it was a collaboration with someone from New England. I'll give Marston's a try any time I see something that looks interesting, even enjoyed a half of some Fuggley thing at the Bull's Head in Manc last visit.

Paul Bailey said...

Some brewers have been known to take the concept of single-hopped beers to ridiculous extremes. I'm not saying it's deliberately done to appeal to the ticker's market, but I do have my doubts at times.

ps. Are single varietal hop beers in the same vein as single varietal grape wines? (Sometimes, but not always, one dimensional?)