Shane from Soulwater kindly gave me a few beers at the Midlands Craft Beer Festival. After a day of some manual labour I felt that I deserved to sit down with a beer. I have no excuse the rest of the time. Hoppy Joe is an American Red Ale from Lervig. I drank it fairly quickly as it was the hottest day of the year so far. It’s light enough with some sweet maltiness balanced with some hoppy resinous bitterness. It certainly hit the spot.
Wild Beer’s Bibble was next on my hit list. This Pale Ale is a bit straightforward by Wild Beer’s usual out there standards but for all that I enjoyed it. It has a lot of orangey flavour, and a hint of the rind. Bibble means ‘to drink regularly’ in Somerset. I can get behind that.
I picked up Brewdog’s Hop Fiction Pale Ale in Deveney’s, Dundrum. It is a fruity floral number that brought Elvis Juice to mind with a 1.5% lower abv. It didn’t do a whole lot for me after the other two, which I thought were more well balanced. But sure no one ever accused Brewdog of being well balanced. All three are worth trying at least once though. Sláinte!
I think I love BrewDog for the reason they throw balance out the window and down a cliff. They just go balls out and take risks!