A couple of weeks ago we had a company outing to Windsor Races. It was an evening meeting, and as well as the horse racing we enjoyed an excellent supper of fish and chips – but unfortunately the choice from the bar wasn’t up to the same standard. I risked a pint of Tetley’s Smoothflow which, to paraphrase the wonderful Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, tasted “almost, but not quite, entirely unlike beer”. I’m afraid I don’t see the point of these “widget” beers – the aim seems to be to remove everything that I enjoy about a bitter – the look, the smell, the texture – and the taste.
To make up for this, on the way home we stopped off at The Bird In Hand at Knowl Hill. This is a well-known real ale pub in our area, and has been CAMRA Berkshire Pub of the Year on a number of occasions. They had five beers on hand pump – unfortunately (for me) it was my turn to drive, and Sarah notied that they had one of her favourite wines available, so I was limited to trying just one of them. I opted for a pint of O’Hanlon’s Goldblade – a wheat beer and 4.0% – lovely golden colour, aromatic smell, sharp but citrussy taste. Until recently I hadn’t gone much for wheat beers – mainly because they came in bottles with foreign-sounding names on them, and were quite expensive – but recently a number of English breweries have started to brew wheat beers and put some of them in casks, and they are very very nice – apart from Goldblade I’m thinking of St. Austell Clouded Yellow, Hook Norton Summer Haze, etc.
Anyway, next time we visit the Bird In Hand, it’s definitely my turn to drink. They will probably have a completely different range of beers on, but I’m sure they will all be worth a taste