Well I couldn’t resist going back to The Sportsman to sample some of the other beers in their beer festival. The Greene King IPA (3.6%) was a good start. This is a regularly available beer in The Sportsman, and has become the usual session bitter (which used to be Morland Bitter in the olden days). Still, I do like the IPA – it’s light and refreshing and has a decent flavour and a nice bitterness, and is very drinkable. I then went for another pint of Hydes Jekyll’s Gold, and an Olde Trip – which I described in my previous post. Both excellent beers, and certainly ones that I hope to see again as guest beers. I then had to go for the Old Speckled Hen (4.5%). There is a bottled version of this beer that weighs in at 5.2%, which I drink occasionally, but it’s always a treat to drink the slightly less strong cask version. The cask version is much smoother I find – the bottled version has quite a powerful caramel taste – nice in itself, but a bit of an acquired taste.
Something that was interesting (and a bit concerning) was that apart from me, only a couple of other people were drinking the real beer; everyone else was drinking lager. Okay, it was Sunday evening and not very busy, but there still seemed to be plenty of beer left in the barrels, considering the beer festival had started on the previous Thursday (St. George’s Day). The only beer on the list that had run out was the Hare Raiser, although the barman promised me they would be getting some more in.