Thursday 23 April 2009

Wetherspoons Beer Festival

Apart from last weekend I haven't managed to sample that many of the Beer Festival offerings at our local Wetherspoons. I popped in quite early last Saturday and typically, seeing as I needed to drive later on that day, there were several beers that I would have liked to have tried. These included Wild Blue Yonder from Oregon, Palm Steenbrugge Blond from Belgium and Sinebrychoff Porter from Finland.

I risked a half of the latter with the aim of popping back in the early evening. Unfortunately, this plan never quite materialised, and it wasn't until the following day that I was able to re-visit. Even more unfortunately, all three of the aforementioned beers had sold out, and the selection that Sunday included a few too many fruit-flavoured offerings for my liking. Perhaps it is just me, but I feel that we don't quite get these beers right here in the UK. Having said that whilst I may have the occasional Belgian Kriek or Framozen they are not the sort of beers I wish to drink a lot of.

I therefore gave the Sharps Red Sloe Ale and the Caledonian Raspberry Fool a miss. The Brains Dark and the St Peters Golden Ale were both good though, and it was nice to be able to sit outside and drink them. A glass of the Sinebrychoff Porter would have been really nice to finish up on, but I can perhaps understand the pub's management wanting to put some of the more exotic beers on for the Saturday. I just hope they weren't wasted on the Fosters-swilling crowd that frequents our Wetherspoons later on in the evening.

I'm off to visit Nelson Brewery at Chatham, this Saturday, along with other members of West Kent CAMRA. We'll possibly end up at a Wetherspons somewhere, I just hope there's some Sinebrychoff and Wild Blue Yonder on sale!

1 comment:

Paul Garrard said...

I've not tried very many beers in the festival but I did try the Sinebrychoff Porter - I found it a rather peculiar mix of flavours and not really to my liking. The Brains Dark however was lovely!