I decided to try a beer I hadn’t tried before with our Sunday roast (beef this week) – Badger Hopping Hare (4.5%) from Hall & Woodhouse. It is “thrice hopped” – two lots of hops added to the copper, and a third lot added to the cask. It is what it sets out to be – a light, refreshing Spring beer to take our minds off the dingy dull days of Winter. It is a pale amber colour, with a hoppy and quite fruity aroma. I’ve said several times before that I prefer the less powerful beers, but this is extremely drinkable for a 4.5% bitter – I could certainly down a few of these, and I will be looking for the draught version in our local Badger pubs (not many of them near us, unfortunately).
Unfortunately, although I thoroughly enjoyed the beer, it came up a bit short against the roast beef. The bottle notes declare it to be “a terrific match with spring lamb” – but I don’t think it is quite up to roast beef. Not the beer’s fault – entirely my error in selecting it.
Hopping Hare is only available during Spring 2009 – so get some before May, or you might not get any at all. It’s well worth trying, and as the bottle says, in a rather naff play on words, it is “bound to please”.
For comparison, I had a bottle of Marston’s Double Drop, as I knew it was a similar style of beer – it has the same pale amber colour as Hopping Hare, but it’s a bit stronger at 5%, and it has a more intense aroma, more bitter taste, and longer bitter finish. Double Drop is also a nice drop, and followed the Hopping Hare very nicely.