I was doing a spot of grocery shopping in Tesco yesterday and saw Sharp’s beers on a four for a tenner special. So, I decided to take a chance. The Doom Bar is hugely popular across the Irish Sea. It pours a lovely shade of amber in fairness. I had it with my Sunday dinner of roast beef and it wasn’t bad with it. It’s drinkable but completely unchallenging, this may go some way to explain it’s mass appeal.
The Pale Ale is also pretty inoffensive. I would be happy enough if I was handed one at a party and I had a thirst on me.
The main reason I splashed out on the beers was that I had never tried the Wolf Rock ‘Exceptional’ Red IPA. ( They’re all ‘exceptional’!) It’s firmly in the mould of the English IPA and you won’t be overly troubled by bitter hops. Disappointing. Another interesting point is that each of the labels has Sharp’s, Rock, Cornwall on the front but on the back it states that Doom Bar is brewed in Molson Coors Burton-upon-Trent facility, the other two simply state ‘brewed in the UK’. I knew that they were owned by Molson Coors but if you didn’t, you could be forgiven for thinking you were drinking beer brewed in Cornwall. Spend the extra fifty cent or a euro and buy something local. Sláinte!
St. Austell Ales are the better Cornish beers – if you see, buy! Proper Job and Tribute are the ones to go for and are more substantial than Sharp’s.
I have had both of those and would be very inclined to agree,cheers!
Exceptional my arse (in a Jim Royle kinda accent) lol
Probably is the same vain as Granville Island Brewing in British Columbia Canada and Cremour Springs in Ontario Canada. When brewed at the original brewery they make some interesting to great ales and lagers but the majority of their beer is brewed by Molson-Coors and is pretty bad.
Yup, that’s generally the sad reality of macro buy outs… but all generalisations are dangerous!
Oh for sure. Some people get really hung up on it. AB Inbev has not distroyed Goose Island out of Chicago even though they brew some of their more interesting beers. Matilda and Sofie are brewed in Bud plants in USA and Labbat in Canada and it is still amazing
I’m still glad I got to visit one of their Brew pubs back in 2010…that was a good afternoon!