Friday 12 November 2010

Wessex Banger and Tom Wood's Vanilla Orchid

As the ale festival continues down at Wetherspoons, my knowledge of ales and brewery expands also. I kicked the night on wednesday off with a pint of the delicious Wessex Banger.


I had never seen Wessex Banger before, or even heard of the Cottage brewing company, so it was a nice opportunity to sample something quite rare. It is described as a mature dark fruity ale. I am going to be honest when I say that I'm not quite sure what it means by mature, maybe it is the strong flavour. It was dark, and so I was looking forward to having a pint. However, I was somewhat concerned about it being a fruity ale, I was not sure about whether it would ruin it or not. Happily, the taste of fruit was by no means overpowering and it turned out to be a good pint. If it is there still again tonight, I will certainly have another.

Another festival ale I tried was "Tom Wood's Vanilla Orchid". Once again, the idea of messing around with unusual flavours has never really served me well in the past (for example, dumpling ale and espresso ale... urgh) so I was not optimistic. However, a fellow ale fan and good friend of mine "Fred" Pearson told me that it was actually not bad.

So I gave it a whirl, and low and behold it was not bad at all. Just like with the wessex banger, the extra flavour the brewery had decided to add was not too strong and did not ruin the ale. Unfortunately I could not find a picture of it, as it was brewed especially for the ale festival alone and therefore can't be bought. I personally would not buy it again as I prefer not to have these odd flavours mixed in, but I did enjoy it.

Whilst researching the Tom Wood brewery in Lincolnshire, I discovered they make a variety of best bitters (my favourite category of ale) and there was a few of them I would love to try. Unfortunately, because it is a micro-brewery, it is very difficult to get their beer without going to one of their licensed pubs. Damn. 

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