Could it be Magic? (3)

This is the third of four posts on the 2023 iteration of Mild Magic, CAMRA’s annual campaign to promote mild around Manchester.

A trip to Sale and Altrincham started out at the J P Joule (JDW), a spit away from the Metrolink, where a survey of the pumps revealed no milds; I wasn’t particularly sorry to settle for an Acorn Gorlovka. (Perhaps the reasons for it aren’t entirely admirable, but I do appreciate JDW’s policy of putting on 6% stouts at the same price as every other guest beer.) When I asked for a sticker the bartender pointed out that they did in fact have a mild on – Titanic Dark Mild was lurking at the top end of the bar along with Ruddles County and Greene King Abbot. There was no objection to giving me a sticker, “but I didn’t want you going away and saying we didn’t have a mild on”. Duly noted.

Down the road, the Volunteer was its familiar big, slightly basic, partially-carpeted self, and not one but two Holt’s milds were on the bar. I ordered the standard mild, and – it being 3.2% as compared to the 4.3% Unmistakably – pushed the boat out and had a pint.

We could see the bus stop across the road from where we were sitting, meaning that we could tell we’d missed the hourly bus to Altrincham without getting up. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the other hourly bus to Altrincham hadn’t been scheduled for all of two minutes later. (Sort it out, Andy!) We trekked back to the Metrolink and headed for Alti that way. The Unicorn (JDW) also had Titanic Dark Mild on, and this time I did order it. It was turning into a bit of a day for pints, unusually for Mild Magic trips; we were eating, and I couldn’t bring myself to order a half to go with my meal. Not only that, but they were for some reason selling off Rudgate Ruby Mild at an MUP-busting 99p per pint, and I could hardly pass that up.

Lastly we went to Costello’s. What is there to say about Costello’s (other than that it’s twice as big as the last time we were there and has a music policy that falls on the right side of eclectic*)? What’s there to say about Dunham Dark, or Dunham Porter, or Lymm Lymm Dam? Great beers, great bar.

*nothing later than the Kaiser Chiefs, earlier than the Sex Pistols** or more mainstream than New Order
**sorry, Matthew

A trip to Salford, Eccles and points beyond might have been in this post, but that I couldn’t work out how to start it from the cathedral area, and it seemed absurd to ‘do’ Salford without the New Oxford. So I just made a trip out from town to the New Oxford on its own. The bartender was in expansive form and told me that I’d just missed the Moorhouse‘s Black Cat Reserve, which he’d hoped would last Mild Magic out. I think he may also have told me that they hadn’t got it in for MM but had had it sitting around for ages (possibly even since before lockdown?), as they didn’t believe in throwing away good beer if they could help it, and if it hadn’t been opened it wasn’t as if it would go off, but it’s possible I misunderstood that bit. (If anyone had the Black Cat Reserve and found it a touch punchier than the advertised strength, though…) Anyway, I had a half of RedWillow Heritage Porter and another of Cloudwater Dusk, a 4.6% stout with cacao and vanilla; I was intrigued to see how a drinking-strength stout coped with additions like that, but the answer turned out to be “by dialling them right down”. The RedWillow porter, on the other hand, was superb; I haven’t been blown away by the HP in cans, but on cask it was something else. As indeed was the New Oxford, whose beer range I’ve been a bit lukewarm about in some previous years; there were some nice-looking beers on the list, and the mid-table sluggers of brewing were much less in evidence. Hopefully I’ll get back there before this time next year.

The Lord Nelson in Urmston is another big, open-plan Holt’s pub, and it also had both milds on the bar. I commented to the bartender that most places only seemed to be selling the Unmistakably Mild; he said, “that’s because most places don’t sell mild,” and walked off to the other bar. The Holt’s Mild was in good nick, and the pub was – if this doesn’t sound too ridiculous – an old man’s pub in the best sense of the word: everything was immaculate, from the wood and leather to the placement of beermats, and on that Saturday afternoon the pub had just enough custom to make you think it was going to be absolutely buzzing later on. This is probably the biggest difference between old-school working men’s pubs and Spoons’, which often look considerably less than immaculate and give the impression that it’s going to be a bit lairy later on. (And yet my wife and daughter consistently prefer them to Holt’s pubs. Must be the menu.)

Enough amateur sociology, and onward to the Prairie Schooner, which was already absolutely buzzing – so much so that I couldn’t find a seat. H’mph. Brightside Manchester Magic Mild (is somebody looking for a sponsorship opportunity?) was a good example of the malty end of the mild spectrum, although I think 5% is a bit top-end for a mild; I didn’t feel like stopping for another, though.

Finally, a trip to Cheadle and environs gave me further data for my theory about Hyde’s 1863. At the Horse and Farrier they seemed to be shifting a lot of it – well, they seemed to be shifting a lot of everything – and it was… fine. Not really my favourite beer, judged from that half – a light, thin-bodied bitter with pronounced bitterness and sharpness and not much else; you’d certainly never take it for a light mild. And then there was the James Watts. Seeing the name, I looked at the Spoons app on my phone to see what they had on, but it’s not a Spoons at all. The pub’s own Web page explains all:

To satisfy an interest in craft ale and for those looking to explore beers from the far flung corners of the globe, the James Watts is the place sample the wares.

With an array of over 100 beers to choose from, we have something to keep you interested as you seek out your new favourite tipple.

Enjoy some time with friends in a laid-back atmosphere with a glass of wine or a masterly crafted beer.

If there’s one thing I like even more than a beer from the far flung corners of the globe, it’s a masterly crafted beer. So I had high hopes when I headed for the James Watts – well, no, to be honest I didn’t have high hopes at all, but I was intrigued; I had no idea what I was going to see on the bar. So it was a complete surprise to see a cask lineup consisting of Hyde’s Original, 1863, Dark Ruby and Hopster. Exactly what Hyde’s are trying to do with that pub, or why they’re trying to do it in Cheadle, I don’t know, but I think they need a rethink. The 1863, on the other hand, was really nice – pleasantly bland, slightly sweet, very much a light mild. Work that out.

My last port of call in the area was a genuine, and rather pleasantly spartan, craft beer bar, the Wobbly Stamp. They were playing Erasure and serving Empire Moonrakers’ Mild – a ‘ten malt mild’ from a brewery in Slaithwaite, and one of the best milds I’ve had this year; I enjoyed both of them.

Ten pubs visited, nine of which were serving seven different milds. Overall, that’s 35 pubs visited and 15 different milds, from 13 breweries. Avanti!

Next: I make it to beer city (Stockport) and reach the end of the road (Stalybridge)

 

Advertisement

Could it be Magic? (2)

This is the second of four posts on the 2023 iteration of Mild Magic, CAMRA’s annual campaign to promote mild around Manchester.

A trip down Oxford Road started badly at the Ford Madox Brown (JDW) in Rusholme. Nothing wrong with the pub – quietly buzzing on a weekday afternoon, so no surprises there – but there was no mild to be seen (although stickers were present and correct). Back on the bus, then, to Fallowfield and the Friendship, a pub where I remember spending a lot of time in the late 1980s, although as I was living in Chorlton at the time I can’t for the life of me think why. It hasn’t changed much, anyway – still huge, still pulling in enough drinkers not to feel it. I had a half of Hyde’s 1863 and moved on to the Victoria in Withington, where I had… another half of Hyde’s 1863.

About which, as I may have mentioned, I’ve got a theory. Ahem.

My Theory About Hyde’s 1863

Come with me, if you will, back to (wobbly dissolve) the 2010s…

In 2013 I visited the Plough in Ashton-on-Mersey and found that

“Hyde’s Light Mild was … a lot nicer than I remember 1863 being – is this a rebadge or a new (old?) recipe?”

In 2015 in the same pub,

“they were serving something – with an official-looking pump clip – called Hyde’s Light Mild. It was no Golden Best, but it was really rather good – and, I thought, quite different from the 1863″

I’ve had a few halves of 1863 this time round, and I can report that, in the Friendship and the Horse and Farrier it was… fine. Actually ‘fine’ would be stretching it – it was just a light-bodied pale amber beer, thin, sharp and bitter. (But cheap.) In the Vic, the Grey Horse and James Watts, on the other hand, it was something else – something much closer to what I remembered from the Plough; closer, that is, to a light mild.

So here’s my theory: that Hyde’s 1863 needs careful handling, and doesn’t always get it.

How you would actually get a light, sweetish light mild and turn it into a thin, elbowy low-end bitter I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem like the same kind of cellaring issue that has some pubs serving Landlord green or Batham’s bitter loaded with diacetyl – and neither of the pubs where I had it in (arguably) poor condition were having any trouble shifting beer generally. But it seems like it must be some kind of cellaring issue – and one that, if my travels this year are anything to go by, is hitting the 1863’s potential sales.

The 1863 in the Vic was the good stuff, anyway. Recommended.

If you head down the road to Burton Road, you may as well carry on to Lapwing Lane, where you’ll find Wine and Wallop. Where there was (alas) no mild. A sticker was forthcoming, though, and Brightside Maverick was pretty good. Further down the road in East Didsbury I was pleasantly surprised to see a mild on the bar at the Head of Steam. The Only With Love Merlin’s Mythical Mild wasn’t great, to be honest – I think they’d had a slow start – but it was good to see them give over a pump to mild (and they had Beartown Quantock on a return visit). Excellence in Customer Service Dept: a shout out to the bartender who took my follow-up order for a third of a Magic Rock cherry sour and assured me that a third was probably the right measure – “it’s good but it is sour”. I went back to my seat feeling vaguely flattered, then heard the bartender asking her colleague “what’s that sour like?”.

Onward to Didsbury. I hoped to test my 1863 theory (see above) at the Fletcher Moss, but they were only serving Hyde’s Dark Ruby – and not very much of it, to judge from the condition of my half. Hey ho. That was better than the Famous Crown, where the bartender expressed ignorance of the entire Mild Magic concept and had to have the whole thing explained to her. Needless to say, they were ‘between milds’; there were three hand pumps, serving Wainwright, Landlord and Boltmaker, the last of which she pulled through for me.

There was no problem with mild availability at the Gateway (JDW), where they had both Titanic Mild and Bank Top Dark Mild on. I had the latter, which was very nice indeed. There are (at least) four distinct types of dark mild – fruity, stouty, malty and liquorice-water – and this was a good example of the third. As indeed is Holt’s Unmistakably Mild, although the half I had at the Griffin (Heaton Mersey) was a bit tired – my experience suggests that Holt’s aren’t having any trouble shifting it in pubs where they don’t have mild on normally, but that selling it alongside the standard 3.2% Mild is a challenge.

And finally for Didsbury and environs: Reasons to be Cheerful had RedWillow Dark Mild and, as ever, much else. I followed up my half with a third of something whose details I honestly forget, other than that it was a bourbon barrel-aged stout and 11%. It’s a hard life being a connosse conoisue connoissuer boozer.

Ten pubs visited, seven milds. Running total: 25 pubs, ten different milds from nine breweries. Onwards!

Next: Urmston and Gatley and Sale, oh my!

Could it be Magic?

A staggering 16% of all posts on this blog in the past three years have been about Mild Magic, CAMRA’s annual campaign to promote mild around Manchester – and that figure is set to rise still further! Which is to say, blogging on here tailed off a bit during and after lockdown – in fact, there have only been eighteen posts in the last three years – and one of the few things apart from bottled beer that I wrote about in that time was Mild Magic (2022). Have to see if I can do something about that.

In the mean time… well, it’s that time again, although this time round I’m shooting for the 48-pub tier. So, without further ado…

There were three pubs to tick off in Chorlton. I started at the Sedge Lynn (JDW), where Peerless Mother Redcap’s Ruby Mild was
[stares at screen trying to think of another way to say ‘quite nice’]
[time passes]
…OK. Not bad. A decent example of the style. All right, I admit it, it was quite nice. And the pub was buzzing (it was a quarter to four on a Friday afternoon, so basically the weekend was in full swing).

Things were a lot quieter at both the Horse and Jockey and the Beech, although there were a fair few punters in both places. The H&J’s gastro makeover of a few years back has made the place curiously unwelcoming for the casual drinker – curiously in that it’s hard to put your finger on what’s actually changed (although the lack of bar stools must be a factor). I drank up fairly quickly and left, vaguely convinced that I’d been the only drinker overlooked by tables of diners; it was only when I replayed the scene in memory that I realised that, what with it being around 4.00 on a Friday, very few of the people in were actually diners (even if they were in groups and seated at tables for four). Anyway, the Holt’s Unmistakably Mild was very good – all credit to Joeys’ for brewing a mild specially for MM, and a big, malty one in particular.

Timothy Taylor’s Golden Best is a light mild I’m very fond of, and one that I’ve had many times in the Beech under at least one of its tenancies. It’s been a managed house for a while now; it still has Landlord and Boltmaker on the bar as regulars, but there’s no sign of Golden Best – and they don’t intend to change that situation for Mild Magic, or so a fellow CAMRA member was informed when they asked. All of which doesn’t so much put a question mark over the pub’s commitment to MM as put a clown nose on it. On the plus side, the Landlord tasted as good as ever, and a Mild Magic sticker was eventually forthcoming.

There were five pubs to tick off when I went into Manchester town centre. Or four. Or twelve (or thirteen?).

Start again. There are four sub-areas in the town centre, with three pubs in each; the New Oxford in Salford is a short walk away, and in other years I’ve fitted it in when I’m doing the town centre. So I set off for town intending to do at least four (or possibly five) and maybe a few more. In the event I went into nine pubs, but only drank anything in five. Several factors militated against a protracted trawl around the centre’s pubs – it was a warm day, it was a Saturday and (perhaps most importantly) City were at home with an early-evening kickoff. Starting off at the Cathedral end of town, I poked my nose in the Crown and Anchor, didn’t fancy the scrum at the bar and decided to get my Holt’s fix somewhere else – specifically the Ape and Apple, where the Unmistakably Mild was in good nick. The crowd at the bar in the Waterhouse (JDW) made the Crown and Anchor look sparse, and besides there wasn’t a mild on the bar (Rudgate Ruby Mild was listed in the ‘coming attractions’). I cut through to the City Arms, which had some fearsomely interesting-looking beers on (black kveik IPA anyone?) but no mild – and was also too busy to stay. “Too busy” in the case of the Crown and Anchor meant that I would have felt awkward monopolising the bartender long enough to get a sticker; in the case of the City, it meant I would have had difficulty finding anywhere to stand, let alone sit. Things were similar in the Grey Horse, even though it leans Red; it’s cosy in there at the best of times, and it was like a sauna that afternoon.

Pubs visited: five. Milds drunk: one. Fortunately things picked up after that. The Molly House was pleasantly quiet and cool, and the RedWillow Dark Mild was in good nick; it’s a good example of the sweet, fruity side of the dark mild spectrum. Something similar goes for Steelfish Running With Believers, the mild on offer at the Piccadilly Tap – which was also busy, but not quite so much so as to be unpleasant. The Smithfield was the busiest I’ve ever seen it – so much so that I didn’t stay for another after a half of Blackjack Pub Ale, which I guess is a historical take on mild; it’s big, malty and 5.2%. I finished at the Briton’s Protection with another half of RedWillow Dark Mild; very much standing room only, but there was no way I was going home without at least a fifth sticker.

Later visits to town furnished Rudgate Ruby Mild at both the City and the Waterhouse (JDW) – a really nice mild, incidentally, one of my favourites so far. The Grey Horse had both of Hyde’s erstwhile milds on (I had the 1863 – concerning which, incidentally, I’ve got a theory), while the Old Monkey, Lower Turk’s Head and Crown and Anchor all had Holt’s Unmistakably Mild (4.3%) (although not the rather tamer Holt’s Mild (3.2%)). At the Paramount (JDW), lastly, I ordered the darkest thing I could see on the bar; it turned out to be (a) a stout and (b) visibly ‘kicking’, even in the time it took to pour a half. The bartender insisted on serving it anyway; it was basically fine, albeit a bit flat.

So that’s fifteen pubs visited, of which thirteen had a mild on; in those thirteen I had seven milds from as many different breweries. There’s a lot of mild on a lot of bars out there.

Next: I leave the bright lights (Chorlton) and venture into suburbia (Didsbury)

 

 

0, 1, 2, 10

For this post I’m taking the unusual step of repeating most of the previous one. Bear with me, it’ll make sense.

I’ve been bulk-buying Orval – and reordering before my stock runs out – since the first lockdown. As a result I’ve ended up with, oh, more than one or two bottles of it, including bottles from 2022, 2021 and 2020. Which I taste-tested back in September; the notes are repeated below. (The strong sharpness of the two-year-old makes me think now that there may have been something wrong with it – which is a shame, but you can only review the beer you’ve got.)

The reason I’m repeating this post is that I’ve recently completed the set with a couple of bottles of Orval that are – not two, not three, not five but – ten years old. (I bought them from Beeronweb.com, which as far as I know is still – nearly three years out from Brexit Day – the only generalist Belgian online beer retailer shipping to the UK; happy to be corrected if anyone knows otherwise.)

I drank one of the ten-year-olds last night. How did it compare? For background, here’s what I said about the first three, edited slightly for length.

Bottle 1: 9/6/2022; just under three months old

Reminds me oddly of an old-school English bitter, but deconstructed. The flavour seems to have the same overall ‘shape’, beginning with a bit of citric freshness in the front of the mouth, developing into something denser and heavier in the bitter/sweet region and finishing with tannic bitterness in mid-mouth, but without any bittering-hop aftertaste. There’s no big hit of malt, though, just a bitterness that gradually develops, accompanied oddly by a vague milk-chocolate sweetness.

But the big flavour element – the one that really drives through and carries the other flavour elements, in the way that bittering hops drive through a pale bitter – is the Brett. Call it old books, call it dry leaves, call it last night’s tobacco smoke; whatever you call it, there’s a lot of it in this beer. It’s there in the aroma, it’s there almost immediately after the start, and from there on it builds to the finish. The other elements – initial sharpness, hint of milk chocolate, dense bitterness – make this quite a complex flavour, but there’s never any doubt which element is in charge; balanced, this is not.

Bottle 2: 2/8/2021; a year and a month old.

Again, the flavour has that old-school English bitter profile, but in a much smoother, more integrated form. Grapefruit bitterness and a bit of citric fruit in the foretaste, but not in overpowering amounts; then there’s something sweetish – maybe even malty – with a bit of weight and body; then the whole thing is rounded off with mid-mouth bitterness, charcoal and dark chocolate. Again, it’s not a hoppy flavour – no flowery aromas and no back-of-the-throat bitterness.

As for the Brett, it’s there, but it’s behaving itself; it binds to the main flavour elements and hangs over them like a wisp of smoke (or sweat), only really making its presence felt in the aftertaste. At this age it only tastes of Brett in the same sense that chips taste of salt – which is to say, it doesn’t, except that you’d miss it if it wasn’t there.

Bottle 3: 6/6/2020; two years and three months old

This time the citric opening hit is in charge, slightly to my surprise, with a sharp note dominating almost all the way through. If the fresh version was “an old-school English bitter, but deconstructed”, two years later the flavour profile’s well and truly put itself together again; there’s very few fireworks or surprises between the sharp opening and the mid-mouth bitter finish. The wispy, smoky, old-books-y Brett element is definitely there, but it’s back in its box, mainly serving to make the mid-mouth flavour a bit more complex and bulk up the finish.

And now…

Bottle 4: 9/6/2012; almost ten and a half years old

I opened this bottle cautiously, mindful that – even at two years old – Orval tends to throw a tall, dense head, and sometimes even to gush. In this case I needn’t have worried: this is how it poured.

Whatever had been going on for those ten years, it hadn’t involved the continued accumulation of CO2. It wasn’t flat – if it was a cask beer you’d call it reasonably lively – but it certainly didn’t froth up at me.

But what did it taste like? The sharp note that had tended to dominate the two-year-old bottle was dialled right down; so too was the bitterness of the younger versions (and even they aren’t very bitter). I’m quite pleased to notice that I spotted a ‘milk chocolate’ note in the youngest version, because that was there in a big way: the dominant flavour, running right through this beer, is a combination of old-books funk with something big, smooth and – yes – slightly sweet. It’s a dense, complex flavour that rewards sipping, but if I had to sum it up those would definitely be the two elements I’d go for. There’s also a slightly dangerous-tasting overtone which I’d sum up as the taste of spontaneous fermentation – I mean, I’ve tasted things that had fermented although they weren’t intended to, and that’s what it reminded me of. My head this morning confirmed this impression, making me wonder if ten years in the bottle was enough to make a significant difference to the published a.b.v. of 6.2%.

Fascinating beer; the way the flavour gets more dense and integrated with the passage of time suggests it’s brewed with keeping in mind (the label does suggest a ‘best before’ age of five years, but I suspect that’s just for compliance with regulations). i’ve got one more bottle of the ten-year-old; perhaps I’ll hang on to it till next June and see if an eleventh year makes any difference.

0, 1, 2

it looks as if the period when my beer drinking consisted mostly, or entirely, of bottled beers at home may – touch wood – finally be coming to an end, I wrote here back in April (new Covid cases in England: 20,000/day and falling). Two and a half months later (new Covid cases 20,000/day and rising) I caught the damn thing myself, which was no fun at all for about a week and left me wondering if I was “back to normal” yet for the next… well, I’ll tell you when it stops. (Was I always this unfit? Was my capacity always this low? Did I always get that weird weak panicky feeling at odd moments? And so on. That said, I have been sitting in front of this computer too nervous to go out for two years, which may also have had the odd knock-on effect.)

Anyway, I didn’t get a bad dose (people I know have been knocked flat both by Covid and by the after-effects) – and Omicron infection is supposed to give your immunity a boost – and besides, new cases in England are currently 4,000/day and falling – so I’ll cautiously venture back out on that limb and say that, now, it looks as if the period when my beer drinking consisted mostly, or entirely, of bottled beers at home may – touch wood – finally be coming to an end.

Still got this stash, though. 50 beers at last count. Run out of Westmalle Tripels, too – ought to do something about that…

Bulk buying is a habit that’s going to die hard, and for some beers I can’t see myself giving it up at all: I don’t know if there will ever be a time when I don’t want to have a De Ranke XX-bitter to hand. Or a Westmalle Tripel; or an M&S Czech lager; or an Orval.

As it happens I’ve been bulk-buying Orval – and reordering before my stock runs out – since the first lockdown. As a result I’ve ended up with, oh, more than one or two bottles of it, including… this:

 

 

What do they taste like, though? Specifically, what do they taste like in comparison?

Let’s find out.

Bottle 1: 9/6/2022; just under three months old

Reminds me oddly of an old-school English bitter, but deconstructed. The flavour seems to have the same overall ‘shape’, beginning with a bit of citric freshness in the front of the mouth, developing into something denser and heavier in the bitter/sweet region and finishing with tannic bitterness in mid-mouth, but without any bittering-hop aftertaste. There’s no big hit of malt, though, just a bitterness that gradually develops, accompanied oddly by a vague milk-chocolate sweetness.

But the big flavour element – the one that really drives through and carries the other flavour elements, in the way that bittering hops drive through a pale bitter (or De Ranke XX-bitter) – is the Brett. After drinking this I spent an hour looking at secondhand books on the Internet, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Think old books, think dry leaves, think socks left unwashed, think last night’s tobacco smoke; you can even think horse blankets, if (but only if) you know what one of those smells like. Whatever you call it, there’s a lot of it in this beer: it’s there in the aroma, it’s there almost immediately after the start, and from there on it builds to the finish. The other elements – initial sharpness, hint of milk chocolate, dense bitterness – make this quite a complex flavour, but there’s never any doubt which element is in charge; balanced, this is not.

But then, it’s only young.

Bottle 2: 2/8/2021; a year and a month old.

Again, the flavour has that old-school English bitter profile, but in a much smoother, more integrated form. Grapefruit bitterness and a bit of citric fruit in the foretaste, but not in overpowering amounts; then there’s something sweetish – maybe even malty – with a bit of weight and body; then the whole thing is rounded off with mid-mouth bitterness, charcoal and dark chocolate. Again, it’s not a hoppy flavour – no flowery aromas and no back-of-the-throat bitterness.

As for the Brett, it’s there, but it’s behaving itself; it binds to the main flavour elements and hangs over them like a wisp of smoke (or sweat), only really making its presence felt in the aftertaste. At this age it only tastes of Brett in the same sense that chips taste of salt – which is to say, it doesn’t, except that you’d miss the Brett if it wasn’t there. The overall flavour profile is much better put together than in the fresh beer – you could even call it balanced.

Bottle 3: 6/6/2020; two years and three months old

This time the citric opening hit is in charge, slightly to my surprise, with a sharp note dominating almost all the way through. (I remember ‘old’ bottles I’ve had before being a lot mellower, and wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility of this one having a fault. But you can only review the one you’re drinking.)

If the fresh version was “an old-school English bitter, but deconstructed”, two years later the flavour profile’s well and truly put itself together again; there’s very few fireworks or surprises between the sharp opening and the mid-mouth bitter finish. The wispy, smoky, old-books-y Brett element is definitely there, but it’s back in its box, mainly serving to make the mid-mouth flavour a bit more complex and bulk up the finish.

It’s a fascinating beer; my only slight regret is that I haven’t organised my stash better and rotated a few more older bottles to the back. If any of my current stash makes it to three years old, I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Around Manchester on a pint of mild (3)

One more post on Mild Magic, CAMRA’s annual campaign to promote mild around Manchester.

When I started this blog back in 2010, one of the first things I posted was a series of posts on “my local” – I was lucky enough to have four pubs and bars to choose from. All four are still trading, although with the exception of the Wetherspoon’s they’re all under different management. Of the other three, two – the Beerhouse and the Hillary Step – are more or less recognisable as the same place they were, with a formula that the incoming management have altered but not overturned.

The Beech, though, is an almost completely different pub, with the snug opened out and large screens – and piped music – in every room. Not, I have to say, my cup of tea. Still, at all but its very lowest points the Beech has been dependable for beer quality, with a longstanding association with Timothy Taylor’s, and I’m happy to say that both of these are still the case. I didn’t stop long enough to find out if the Landlord and Boltmaker were as good as I remember them being, but I can report that the Brightside Umbra was in good nick. It’s an odd one for a dark mild, with a lot of roasty bitterness and very little sweetness; if you’d told me it was a light stout I wouldn’t have argued. Good stuff, though.

I had the Beech, and its many screens, more or less to myself on this Friday afternoon, but as I approached the Bowling Green things looked decidedly more lively. In fact it was buzzing. Actually it was a bit too busy, and what was that? a sign asking customers to place all orders at the desk? I approached close enough to the lad on the said desk for him to accost me and ask whether I was with the funeral. Ah.

Fortunately there was another pub handy, in the shape of the Horse and Jockey. In its latterday form as a gastropub, it was deserted and rather unwelcoming. I took my pint of Holt’s mild outside; it was fine, but no more than that.

On another Friday afternoon, the bus took me to Urmston and the Lord Nelson – a pub I’ve only ever visited in daytime, and which always looks as if it’s going to be a lot livelier in the evening; not in an unwelcoming way, though. The Holt’s mild here was excellent, for what that’s worth.

A walk into the centre brought me to the Prairie Schooner, the Music for the Soul secondhand record shop, and – more to the point – the Tim Bobbin (JDW), where I had another pint of Brightside Umbra (for about half the price the Beech had charged). The sticker sheet had gone walkabout, so I returned to the bar afterwards to get a signature, only to be stuck behind an old bloke who was having a pint of Coors dispensed from the slowest keg tap you have ever seen. And a slightly lairy-looking guy who lunged up to the bar, counted out some coins, said something about ifmyturncomesroundandI’mnotherecheersta and disappeared out of the front entrance, presumably for a smoke. (The bartender, still drawing the endless pint of Coors, ignored this approach completely and rolled her eyes as he left.) Then it turned out that the old bloke with the Coors wasn’t just ordering the one pint; in fact I had to wait until the bartender had pulled four of them, by which time there was a small crowd waiting and I felt quite bad about monopolising the bartender’s attention. Still, I seized my moment and got… the bartender’s initials in the box on the form. (This was actually the only place I came away from without a sticker this year.) Outside I met ifmyturncomesround guy, although as it turned out he wasn’t smoking; in fact he was riding a pushbike in circles on the pavement. He asked if there was still a queue at the bar, then answered himself (ahyouwouldn’tknowwouldyou) and headed inside to find out, wheeling the bike. JDW’s, all human life is there.

There was no drama at the Prairie Schooner – not least because it wasn’t on the MM list – but I’ll talk about it anyway. There was an opportunity to compare and contrast Loch Lomond‘s single-hop DIPAs Lost in Citra and Lost in Mosaic (verdict: the Citra works better than the Mosaic, unless you like an undertone of burnt toast with your fruit cocktail). Also at the Schooner, a wall entirely covered with past pump badges; I was able to count 20 different TicketyBrew beers, half of which I never had, alas. (Also a few from Cryptic – and doubtless from other former breweries of quality.)

And then to Didsbury. Wine and Wallop and I have (slightly tetchy) history with regard to MM, so it’s nice to be able to report that they had a mild on, and that it was a very nice pint. It’d be even nicer if I could remember which mild it was. I blame their bizarre decision to operate on table service only, while still having draught beers on the bar (and not on a menu, blackboard etc, at least as far as I could see). I distinctly remember thinking, halfway down the pint, what is this again? and straining to read the pump clip from my seat (I appear to be drinking… Binny Stritchly’s Dank Mick… can that possibly be right?). I don’t distinctly remember what I eventually worked it out to be, sadly. Still: they’re serving mild – and giving out stickers – so fair play to them.

There was more nomenclatural (it’s a word) consternation at the Fletcher Moss, which turns out to have been the only Hyde’s pub I visited on this year’s MM. Despite sponsoring MM, Hyde’s seem determined not to sell anything actually called Mild. As I understand it Hyde’s light mild is still on sale as 1863 (although as Hyde’s currently badge it as a “chestnut session ale” I wonder if it’s as light as it used to be), but the dark mild is no longer Owd Oak or even Old Indie; it’s… (You have to imagine this entire paragraph playing out, with increasing rapidity, in my head as I studied the pump clips at the Fletcher Moss.) In the end I plumped for Dark Ruby (“a very dark ruby red beer”), as much on the basis of its strength (3.5%) as anything else. A pint of it in the beer garden went down quite nicely.

Lastly to East Didsbury and the Gateway (JDW), where they were between milds. As remnants of their ‘beer festival’ were still visible, I took the opportunity to settle a question from the Waterhouse – where

There was a pump for Rudgate Ruby Mild, which is what I duly ordered, but I didn’t see the server draw it – she disappeared to the other end of the bar and came back with my pint some minutes later. (I checked afterwards and there wasn’t another mild tap at that end.) Maybe she had it ‘banked’, although I can’t imagine why.

The only other dark beer it could have been was an Italian porter – Foglie d’Erba Hot Night at the Village – which, as luck would have it, was on the bar at the Gateway. So I had a half. It was good, but it was definitely a porter – which means I did have the Rudgate mild. Nice to get these things settled.

There was very nearly a problem with the stickers at the Gateway, albeit an unusual kind of problem – I overheard two members of staff debating whether, considering they hadn’t had a mild on, I should have been given a sticker. Fortunately they didn’t confiscate it for being obtained under false pretences. They were also pulling through Titanic Classic Mild at the time, and as I’d only had a half of the porter it seemed rude not to have a half of that as well.

Six pubs and one bar; seven venues, seven milds, six stickers. Overall, 23 out of 24 were giving out stickers and – more importantly – 20 out of 24 had mild on. Several old favourites it was nice to visit again – Costello’s, the Stalybridge Buffet Bar and of course the Tap – and four places I’d never been before (Ladybarn SC, Tapsters, the Halfway House and Bridge Beers). (And I really must get back to Reasons one of these days.)

Many thanks to the organisers for making Mild Magic possible, again – it’s good to have it back.

Around Manchester on a pint of mild (2)

More on Mild Magic, CAMRA’s annual campaign to promote mild around Manchester.

One of the pleasures of Mild Magic is connecting up assorted pubs and bars in a single route – particularly when it means getting to somewhere you don’t usually go without having to make a special trip. It doesn’t always work out; this time round I decided not to fit Reasons to be Cheerful into my Didsbury trip (of which more anon), but never managed to work out another route it would fit into. What I did manage this year, courtesy of a £10 all-you-can-eat bus/train/tram pass, was Stalybridge via Droylsden and Ashton.

At the Silly Country my notes have let me down; I could tell you what was on two of the handpumps (viz. two different flavoured ciders); I could draw you a map of the layout and tell you where I was sitting; I could even name several of the books on the bookshelves, but I can’t tell you the name of the dark mild I had. It was pretty good, though. (It definitely wasn’t Pomona Mild Peril, which TSC had had on, as that’s 6% and I would have (a) remembered and (b) had a half.) The Silly Country – a craft beer bar in a shopping-centre unit, in Droylsden – wouldn’t have been on my list of Bars Most Likely To Succeed, but it’s been there four years now and seems to be doing OK (and the mild, whatever it was, was in good nick). Good luck to them.

Back on the tram to Ashton, where I decided to tick off the (restricted-opening) Halfway House before trying anywhere more central. I’m not sure where it’s halfway to, but it would have to be pretty good if you were going to get me doing the other half on foot. I did get a bus part of the way, but ‘part’ was the operative word – the usually-reliable Moovit app suggested that my best route was “get on bus, sit down, count to ten, stand up, get off bus, walk uphill through terraced streets for 15 minutes”, and like a fool I believed it. The Halfway House turned out to be a back street pub on the old “large detached house” model, with three rooms, three customers and two handpumps. They had had a mild on, apparently, but no longer; I had a pint of Bass, which was perfectly fine.

Then back into the centre, which took a while – that side of Ashton isn’t really optimised for foot traffic – and took me down a lot of streets where all the shops were closed and there was nobody around but bored teenagers. As it was a Saturday lunchtime this seemed odd, to say no more than that. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by living in Chorlton. Fortified by a couple of pies from the covered market, I went in search of Tapster’s, and found… a nightclub. A nightclub from the 1970s or 80s, specifically – chrome, deep pile carpets, black leather, low lighting… And, er, cask beer. There was no mild on, so I had a half of Bridge Beers Galaxy. The bartender told me they had a Bridge Beers mild, but it was still settling; we had a bit of a chat about the brewery, who he rated highly.

Next stop was the aforesaid bridge – viz. Staly – and my first call was Bridge Beers itself, where the brewery’s beers are served on gravity, from nines behind the bar. I had a half of Bridge Beers mild, which was really good. Ordinarily I would have either made it a pint or stopped for another half or two – I’d enjoyed the Galaxy & was quite tempted by the “Galaxy Export Strength”, even though “export strength” turned out to be 5% – but.. Well, it’s a social distancing thing, or rather an ‘enclosed space’ thing. I’d managed to mute, or at least snooze, my inner Covid Alert in all the places I’d visited so far – “well, it’s quite airy”; “well, it’s quite a big place”; “OK, it’s a small place with no windows at all, but… actually it’s quite big, and anyway there’s hardly anyone in”… But Bridge Beers was (a) tiny, (b) packed (there must have been eight other customers in there, maybe even ten) and (c) frankly a bit stuffy – you know how, when you’re in a crowded room, after a while the air starts to feel a bit moist? That.

So I regretfully supped up and moved on to my last stop of the day, the Buffet Bar. I went there 28 years ago to my certain knowledge (and that may not have been the first time); it hasn’t changed a lot. Sadly there wasn’t a mild to be had, but as they had Jaipur on cask I didn’t feel too hard done by. A half of that was followed by a half of Thornbridge/Neon Raptor Pandora’s Box, an 8% DIPA (on keg, naturally). Which was fine – lots of tropical fruit, lots of alcohol – but no more than that; I should just have had a pint of Jaipur, or maybe two.

Another trip out took me to Sale and Altrincham – not an actual train trip, admittedly, although it did involve travelling on a railway line.

In Sale I decided against trekking up the A56 to the Volunteer, and went to the J. P. Joule (JDW) next to the stationtram stop. It was early in the day, so I broke my rule and had a half, of Phoenix Monkeytown Mild. It was a fairly light-bodied dark mild, not particularly sweet, with a slightly stout-like bitter finish. I wasn’t bowled over, but it would probably work better over a full pint.

In Altrincham I went to the Old Market Tavern. I’ve seen it buzzing in the past, but that was at night. On this particular Saturday lunchtime, this big, open pub, a bit outside the town centre, not serving food (despite signs claiming otherwise), was about as busy as you’d expect. I imagine food service was a casualty of the pandemic, as I think was also the case for the Buffet Bar. Bringing it back would be a big step, but without it a place like the Old Market has lost a lot of its appeal, at least during the day. They also didn’t have any mild on, but a pint of Lees‘ MPA was very welcome.

Then it was over to Costello’s, where I was back on halves; the Dunham Dark would have been well worth a pint, but there was the Porter to fit in (malt extract and tobacco smoke), not to mention the Lymm Lymm Dam. There’s a certain kind of beer of which I always want to say that it “rings like a bell”. I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that(!), but it’s usually an old ale, an abbey beer or a top-end strong bitter; Ticketybrew Pale qualified, for example. It’s a certain combination of body, fullness of flavour (without cloying sweetness or cough-mixture heaviness) and strength. Anyway, that half of Lymm Dam absolutely rang like a bell. (And the Dunham Dark was a very good mild.)

Three pubs and five bars – or if you’re being picky, three pubs, four bars and one micro-pub; quite a variety of places, anyway. And eight venues got me eight stickers and five milds – a bit less impressive than the 8/9 scored by central Manchester and Stockport (see previous post), but not bad.

Next: making some local calls.

Around Manchester on a pint of mild (1)

Mild Magic – CAMRA’s annual campaign to promote mild around Manchester – is back for 2022; slightly to my surprise, I’m even taking part myself. (“Look how the figures are falling at the moment” did battle with “Look at all the people who’ve been posting pictures of their positive tests”; it wasn’t a foregone conclusion, but optimism eventually won, thanks in part to an intervention by “it’s not as if I’m not going to the pub already”.) 24 pubs, 24 different areas, mostly on weekday afternoons (being a part-timer has its benefits) – it’s been fun, and hopefully it hasn’t been excessively risky.

The main difference with previous years, as far as I’m concerned, is that I’ve decided to have a pint where possible. The weekday afternoon trade tends to be slack, for obvious reasons, and in previous years’ MMs I’ve sat in quite a few pubs and bars that were otherwise completely empty. If I was going to be the only custom a bar had in half an hour, I didn’t want to seem like a cheapskate into the bargain – especially post-pandemic. Also, it’s mild – a good mild should be pintable, even to the point of being a “disappearing beer“.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the first instalment of pubs on this year’s MM itinerary, covering central Manchester and Stockport.

I started at the Briton’s Protection, a landmark pub with reliably good and interesting beer, now sadly under threat (petition here). The mild they had on was 4Ts Old School, which was… fine. To be more positive about it, it was – as the name implies – an old-school dark mild: malty, sweetish, light-textured, absolutely nothing striking or unexpected about it. Which meant that it went down very easily.

I had an odd experience at the Waterhouse (JDW). There was a pump for Rudgate Ruby Mild, which is what I duly ordered, but I didn’t see the server draw it – she disappeared to the other end of the bar and came back with my pint some minutes later. (I checked afterwards and there wasn’t another mild tap at that end.) Maybe she had it ‘banked’, although I can’t imagine why. It was a nice mild, anyway – fruity and full-flavoured, with a lot of body.

Also in – or near – the city centre are the New Oxford and the Piccadilly Tap; I know I had a mild in both places but I didn’t make a note of it, sadly. Both places had a big range of beers on tap, as ever – and, as ever, an impressive range of Belgian bottles at the Oxford – but nothing that made me feel the need to stop for another.

A city-centre pub that wasn’t an old haunt of mine – I think I’d only been in once before – was the Lower Turk’s Head. There are pubs that, when you see them in daylight, look as if they come into their own at night, and the Turk’s Head was definitely one of those. The Holt’s Cherry Mild was excellent, though – not especially sweet or fruity, but a big, complex flavour, far superior to the standard mild.

As for the Stockport leg of my MM journey, that began at the Ladybarn Social Club. I was initially foxed by the “entry by key fob only” notice on the door and considered going elsewhere, before reasoning that it must be possible for non-members to get in and trying the door buzzer. Of course, it was fine – just a matter of signing in as a guest – and I had a pint of Dunham’s Chocolate Cherry Mild, which was really good. The signing-in process took a bit of a while to organise, as did the hunt for the MM stickers, and I was slightly concerned that I was going to miss the next bus. Once I’d got my pint, I realised I needn’t have worried. The flavour of the CCM is just as big as the name implies, but the chocolate and cherry notes don’t feel bolted-on – it just tastes like a dark mild that happens to taste of those things. (Cf. Ticketybrew’s “Frankenstein beers” with hops-and-barley flavour profiles duplicated – and heightened – by the use of additions.) And it goes down extraordinarily easily. After this and the 4Ts, I started to wonder if the roster of disappearing beers needed to be updated to include traditional dark milds (and some less traditional ones).

In Stockport itself, the recently-revived Crown didn’t have a mild on, but only because it had run off the previous night, when (the licensees were keen to impress on me) the place had been rammed. It was Sunday afternoon, just after lunch; I had a half of Brimstage Oystercatcher stout, and I didn’t see another soul while I was there. It’s hard to come back from closure, and I wish the new licensees luck with it.

The Cocked Hat, by contrast, had a good complement of regulars, a word which here means “person sitting at the bar who looks round at you suspiciously as you come in” (an experience I’ve had in there before, although oddly enough the pub was under different management). It also had big screen sport with the sound off, together with piped music – a weird and unappealing combination (also seen at the Lower Turk’s Head). I decided to break my pint rule and had a half of Timothy Taylor’s Dark Mild – a fairly rare bird, which I’ve enjoyed a lot in the past. Either it’s not as good now as it used to be or the half I had was in poor nick; I wasn’t impressed, anyway.

Lastly, I broke the pints rule again at the Petersgate Tap, but this was because they had Ashover Victorian Ruby Mild on – and it’s 7%. There’s no reason to imagine that a Victorian time traveller would call it anything but a mild – and matching Victorian styles to anything we’d recognise now is a mug’s game – and  but for what it’s worth this tasted like a strong old ale or a light-ish barley wine; it was terrific, either way. (But a half was enough.)

Counting the Ladybarn SC as a pub – and it’s certainly the pubbiest social club I’ve ever seen; I could name pubs that look more like a social club – that’s seven pubs and two bars; nine venues, nine stickers, eight milds.

Next: two train trips

Front line, back line

In the last week I’ve drunk about twice as much beer in pubs as at home; it looks as if the period when my beer drinking consisted mostly, or entirely, of bottled beers at home may – touch wood – finally be coming to an end. Let’s hope so.

Still, I do want to talk a bit more about the bottles under the stairs (and in the garage); specifically, about the front line and the back line.

Over the last two years I’ve ordered a lot of “mixed cases” (mostly from Thirst Class, Marble, the Petersgate Tap and Rotsaert – not the Belgian beer merchant I was using a couple of years ago, but the one that was first off the blocks in resuming deliveries to Brexit Island). I’ve also done a lot of bulk ordering – either beers that I knew I’d get through or beers that were only available in multiples, or in a couple of cases both: Jaipur, Boltmaker, Batham’s, Harvey’s Elizabethan… Perhaps especially during lockdown, I found it very reassuring always to know that any time I fancied an X, there an X would be. (I only got the Batham’s once, though – they just went down too quickly.)

Over time I’ve refined the bulk ordering process, generally by a process of realising over a period of time that (e.g.) six Ram Tams was one too many. (It goes out as Landlord Dark these days, seeming to endorse the old rumour that it was just Landlord with added caramel – which is odd because a side-by-side tasting confirms that they’re totally different beers.) But there’s been addition as well as subtraction; in fact I’ve now got six beers that are my ‘go to’ example of a particular style & which I’ve bought in quantity. So my stash has a definite front line of multiple-purchase reliables, along with everything else that catches my eye (the back line).

What’s in my front line? There are six (or seven) beers involved, and in ascending total alcohol content order (doesn’t everyone order their stash by total alcohol content?), they are:

1. The bitter: Marble Pint and Bitter (3.9% and 4.1% @ 500ml = 3.4% and 3.6% pint equivalent)

For some reason I largely went off hoppy beers during lockdown; I drank quite a bit of Boltmaker and indeed Landlord, but the Jaipur took a long time to get through. More recently, though, I’ve reacquired the taste for Bitter, Marble‘s contemporary stripped-down refit of a best bitter. More recently still, I’ve started finding even that a bit on the malty side, and preferred to go pale’n’oppy with Pint. To cut a long story short, when I fancy “a bitter” at home what I reach for is a 500 ml can of Bitter… or sometimes Pint.

2. The… well, the Orval: Orval (6.2% @ 330ml = 3.6% equiv.)

It’s Orval. There isn’t anything else like it. You can get it in bulk from Belgium. (Mind you, by Belgian standards it’s on the expensive side for a Trappist beer, making the differential with sterling pricing less steep than it is for many beers; if you can find it in bulk at a British beer merchant it’s sometimes worth a punt.) It does tend to be ‘young’ when you buy it from Belgium; for the last year or so I’ve been attempting to buy enough Orval to allow some of it to age in the garage, but I’ve never got much beyond a year. Young Orval’s still pretty good, though.

3. The Czech lager: a supermarket Czech lager (almost invariably 5% @ 500ml = 4.4% equiv.)

There’s nothing quite like a světlý ležák, even in the inevitably less than stellar examples that British supermarkets stock. That said, both Marks and Spencer’s own-brand Czech lager and, bizarrely, Lidl’s (Staravice) are pretty good examples of the style, IMO – and Sainsbury’s own-brand isn’t bad. (All three are brewed in the Czech Republic, for what that’s worth.) And even the Marks’ is cheap enough to buy four at a time.

4. The stout: Shepherd Neame Double Stout (5.2% = 4.6% equiv.)

Like a lot of people, I sampled Shepherd Neame‘s ‘brown label’ revival recipe beers when they appeared, and like a lot of people I found most of them a bit underwhelming – not bad, and certainly a cut above Sheps’ standard supermarket fare, but not particularly memorable either. The exception, as far as I’m concerned, was the “Double Stout”. (It’s certainly not a historically accurate Victorian double stout: they would have been a lot stronger, as well as having a relatively thin body and more than a touch of Brett. But then, if I want one of them I know where I can find it.) What this is, is a strongish but still “pintable” stout, big in body and flavour but without the sharp roasty edge of a Guinness. When it appeared in Lidl I stocked up.

5. The tripel: Westmalle (8.5% = 5% equiv.)

Got to have a tripel in there somewhere… I’ve had several orders from Belgium over the last couple of years and tried quite a few tripels, but very few of them come close to Westmalle. It’s oddly hard to describe: it’s dry, but with no sharpness (which is where a lot of other tripels fall down); there’s some sweetness, but it’s not sweet; it’s got herbal notes to it but no flowery or tropical-fruit overtones; it doesn’t exactly drink its strength – it’s certainly not ‘hot’ – but it doesn’t hide its strength either. It’s a really fine beer. (Honourable mention: De Ranke Guldenberg, which is even drier but perhaps not quite as complex.)

6. The quadhigh-end abbey beer: Rochefort 10 (11.3% = 6.6% equiv.)

I don’t call Rochefort 10 a quadrupel, if only because it had been brewed for some time before anyone thought of extending the dubbel/tripel naming convention up another level. It’s just… Rochefort 10: a third of a litre of beer that’s stronger than a pint of Wobbly Bob and tastes like plums in brandy – although, again, without any alcohol heat to speak of, despite its considerable strength. I don’t fancy this kind of beer all the time, but when I do there isn’t a better option. (Unless it’s Abt?)

There’s room for refinement – not least because the Sheps’ stout won’t last forever. I haven’t yet identified “the mild” (not enough candidates) or “the IPA” (too many candidates); “the black IPA” might also be worth a punt (and at the moment would probably be Thirst Class Penny Black). “The old ale” and/or “the barleywine” would be good – but as with milds, the field is small. I might replace the stout with “the imperial stout” if I can identify a good candidate (I had twelve of Harvey’s Imperial Extra Double Stout right at the start of lockdown, but that’s a bit too much its own thing). I have had “the porter” in the past (it was Thirst Class Any Porter In A Storm), not to mention “the old-school BB” (Boltmaker) and “the low-end abbey beer” (Rochefort 6); none of them made it past the first six, though.

Or I might just go back to drinking actual pints in pubs. Who knows, it could catch on.

 

Good Czechs

While I’m getting out a lot more than I did during the Omicron wave, I’m still mostly drinking at home. A mainstay of my beer stash is some kind of Czech lager… but what kind, exactly?

On returning from my only visit to Prague (thus far) I made sure to stock up on Czech beers when I saw them, but generally found them disappointing. There’s a curious quality of drinkability to an ordinary 11- or 12-degree Czech pale lager. They aren’t (for the most part) spiky or complex – in fact there’s nothing in the flavour that might get in the way of the beer disappearing down your throat. At the same time I’d never call them bland or characterless; on the contrary, they have enough character to make you want to keep drinking.

It’s a good trick, and one I was hoping that available imports of Czech brands would replicate. So I was sorely disappointed to find a couple of the leading candidates tasting full-bodied, slightly sweet and slightly bready – very like you’d expect a lager from an ale brewery to taste, and very much lacking the cleanness and simplicity of the beers I remembered having on draught.

I gave up on the Czechs for a while, before one of the beers listed below came to my attention. After a bit more research, I can offer a definitive Top 5 of Mass-Market Bottled Czech Beer. You lucky people.

5. Staropramen

Avoid, unless you like your beer to taste of sweetcorn and milk loaf. Brewed in the UK, quite badly.

4. Budvar

Much, much better than #5. Really, much better. That said, it’s not the best example of the style by a long chalk; the malt is a significantly bigger presence in this than I remember it ever being in draught beer in Prague.

2=. Sainsbury’s Czech lager

With a name consisting of the word ‘Czech’ and a label seemingly aping Staropramen, this beer didn’t raise high hopes. But it’s cleaner and lighter than Budvar, which makes it significantly more drinkable; it evokes a bog-standard undesitka, which is not a bad thing to be evoking.

2=. Pilsner Urquell

This is a contender in a very different way. It doesn’t go down the “clean and light” route; the body’s heavy and the flavour’s herby and aromatic. But none of that gets in the way of sinkability. Bonus points for being available in Prague, and tasting an awful lot like I remember it tasting there.

1. Marks and Spencer Czech lager

Brewed by the Regent brewery in Bohemia, this… this is the good stuff. In my admittedly limited experience, nothing comes closer to the světlý ležák experience than this middle-ranking supermarket own-brand. Strong recommend.

But what am I missing? Are there any (reasonably easily available) bottled Czech beers that outclass the M&S (and indeed the PU)? Am I too easily impressed – alternatively, have I been too hard on Budvar? Let me know what you think.