Confederacy of a Dunce - Beer Festival

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

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As promised in a previous entry, it's time for a report of the recent beer festival at the Oakdale Arms. Friday night was just too hot and muggy to spend much time there, but we made up for it later in the weekend. Here are my tasting notes, in (approximate) order of consumption. The Dunce household uses an elaborate scoring system, summarized here (because I can't be bothered to search for suitable smiley images, and I don't want to set a precedent by using emoticons in this blog):

v = smiley face (most enjoyed)
/ = partial smiley (OK but not the best)
_ = neutral face (not good but not bad)
^ = frowny face (bad)

/ Burton Bridge - Moorish Mild. It's very light-drinking dark mild. Tasty but not exciting. One rating on ratebeer.com concurs. I would have added another but couldn't come up with 75 characters of comments (despite a nice bucket-of-words to help reviewers comment, including "Banana,Bubble gum", "Sulfur, Skunk", "Earth,Mold,Cobwebs", "Horse blanket, Barnyard, Leather", my palate is not sufficiently refined to taste any of these).

_ Nethergate - Dr John's Panacea. This was an unimpressive ale, not especially notable for any reason. Two reviewers seem to agree.

v Minchews - Stoke Red Cyder. This was a really tasty, strong (8.4% ABV) dry cider. My tastes run toward the driest of dry, and this was really refreshing with a strong bite. Mmmmmmm. My favorite from the cider/perry side of the menu.

/ Eccleshall - Slaters Shining Knight. Another one which is given an average rating by drinkers on ratebeer and I have to agree. I should note at this point that I favor a really hoppy beer, and this was not. Reminded me a lot of London Pride.

/ Orchards - Blended Perry (like cider, but made from pears). This was a fine drink, but compared to memories of Stoke Red Cyder, it just didn't stand up. It was dry but didn't have that bite of tartness which I prefer. It also didn't have much of the pear about it; overall just a little something missing. Not at all bad but nothing to write home about.

V Milton - Sparta. I was a little hesitant to go with a Milton beer as the Oakdale usually has a good number of Miltons, and to me a beer festival is an opportunity to taste things I wouldn't ordinarily find. But as it turns out, Sparta isn't so common after all -- it's not listed on Milton's website, nor on ratebeer.com. It's described as "A new beer in the ancient cities range", but that's about all I know (there is also apparently a Thebes which seems quite well-liked; I'm anxious to see more of the Ancient Cities in the future). Anyway, this was very hoppy and strong flavored with an excellent aftertaste, and the taste improved even more after a few sips (and no, this was not a product of intoxication). This is what I hope for when I drink a bitter. My pick of the festival

v Old Cannon - Gunners Daughter. This was another excellent pint, hoppy and tasty. Were it not for the pleasures of Sparta, this one would have been my top pick. Drinkers at ratebeer really seemed to like it as well, I guess that means my palate may be more refined than I thought.

/ Troggi - Siedr Penalt. And I finished it all up with another cider. Very much like the blended perry above, this was a decent, tasty drink. Rather dry, but very light in flavor. And again there was just a little something missing which made it only OK, not great.

All in all, a good festival. I didn't drink anything I didn't like (except for a taste of Mrs. Dunce's Umbel Magna [Nethergate] which had an unfortunate aroma of urine, and tasted like "tincture of something"). For the record, here are her drinks and ratings:

^ Nethergate - Umbel Magna
v Nethergate - Priory Mild
/ Pitfield - East Kent Goldings
v St. Austell - H.S.D.
_ Tipples - Longshore
/ Tipples - Redhead
v Wadworth - 6X

EDIT: fixed some of the ratebeer links; sorry I didn't check them all.

consume

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:46:41 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)