2 Excellent Pale Ales, Spoilt for Choice!

Indeed, yesterday I was in The Dolphin Inn, 11-12 Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings TN34 3DW (website), and was spoilt for choice, not just the 3 regular ales, Dark Star Hophead, Harvey's Sussex Best and 360 Degrees Bluebell Sussex Best, but Harvey's Old as one of their regular winter guest ales, and 2 spectacular pale hoppy guest ales! And regular readers will be well aware of my love of pale dry bitters, and first I shall  refer to the ale in the photograph above.

From Derby based Shiny Brewery (website), whose goal is to create excellent hoppy beers, but also to make people happy (REM + Kate Pierson of the B52s - YouTube), their 4.6% Affinity. This is a vegan friendly and gluten free golden ale, consequently slightly hazy, although dropped out more for today, so much clearer on the third day after placing on stillage. A big fruity aroma hits you as soon as it's poured, and it stays there in your nose, plenty of body, and apparently with Citra hops used (Hopslist), thus explaining the citrus, particularly grapefruit, and forest fruits in the taste and aroma, and finished with a refreshing dryness, excellent!

For comparative research purposes, obviously, I also drank the more local, from Kent Brewery (website), and a similar strength at 4.5% Pilgrim, #37 in their single-hopped series, and very different from Affinity. Pilgrim hops (hopslist) were developed in England and released for sale in the year 2000, and produce a much more subtle fruitiness than the US developed Citra, but still with grapefruit and pear taste and a hint of berries. This dries out much more than the Affinity to a dry bitterness, I'd advise, if you were to try both, start first with the paler golden Pilgrim, yet another excellent ale from Kent Brewery, and a tad more refreshing than Affinity, nice one!

What can I say in comparison, I'd be happy to drink either in any session, cheers!

More great ales, oh dear, cheers!

I'll start off with 2 pale bitters, OK, they're all pale bitters, 😉from The Park Brewery in Kingston upon Thames (website), the theme of their ales being Richmond Park, obviously. First, their 4.4% Gallows Gold, brewed with Simcoe and Cascade hops, providing a big fruity aroma with tropical and citrus flavours, with a great dry bitter finish. I liked this a lot, but... 

Spankers IPA (5.4%), like Gallows Gold but with knobs on! Brewed with three of the 'C' hops, Chinook, Columbus and Centennial, you'd expect citrus flavours and aroma, and you wouldn't be wrong, an enormous citrus aroma, and grapefruit ++ in the flavour, loadsa body, pale golden, dry and bitter, I wrote "gorgeous" in my notes, that's how I remember it!

Next, 2 more excellent pale bitters, but this time from East Sussex brewery, Franklins Brewing Company (website). I've already recently discussed their 4.2% Resurrection EPA, a couple of blogs ago, with its wonderful flavours from the Amarillo, Galaxy, Centennial and Citra hops used, and I've had it at 2 further bars since, still excellent! 

Next though, their stronger North Shore IPA (5.5%), another ale I always love to drink. This is brewed with New Zealand hops, Rakau, and another pale golden bitter with plenty of body, plenty of fruit in the aroma and taste too, and, again, noted as "gorgeous!"

I mentioned the Three Sods Trade Union Pale Ale in my last blog, so we'll pass my notes on that one this time, but, another brewery that seems to be consistently putting out great ales is Green Duck Beer Company of the West Midlands (website). Their Duck & Dab IPA (5%) is brewed with Sorachi Ace and Mount Hood hops which provide plenty of citrus on the nose, not just a fruity aroma, but citrus in the flavour too, plenty of body, and finishing off as a very dry bitter, another excellent ale!

Finally-ish, we come to Shiny Brewing of Derbyshire (website), another brewery I keep tasting great ales from! Their 4.6% Affinity, they call an ESB, and do not share the hops used on their website, but it is yet another nice one! You'll have to believe my description, a pale golden ale, with much citrus aroma, I had to think again and again at what fruit is in the flavour, definitely grapefruit, and hints of orange and mango, whatever, finishes off a lovely dry bitter indeed! 

I also drank an ale from the ever reliable Oakham Ales, but you'll have to wait for my next blog, because there's an extra story there, cheers!