No, not the famous pub blogger, the beer.
My beer of choice while I waited for the return of the Waterbeach Kebab van after his long Summer holiday, the big news in our village this last week. Large chicken kebab, £6, loads of salad. Matt eats the chicken.
I never tire of bringing you NBSS scores from the Sun.
Three beers and a cider is plenty on Monday night.
Now, with one of the beers being served in a hideous glass, and one being Wherry, it’s nice to have an easy choice.
Citra is a bit like Plum Porter or that £22.50 Speedway Stout, almost totally reliable in a way that Bass or Landlord will never be. Whether that’s because it’s a beer a landlord takes because they care, I couldn’t say.
With a rare gap in the football calendar before the Nations Cup grabs our attention, the Sun is a little quiet, but Citra is now, like Ghost Ship, a beer well known enough to keep ticking over in a quiet Fenland village.
It’s cool and rich and tasty (NBSS 4), and leaves an impressive mess in the glass that probably looks like an extract from “Starry Night” or something.
And, of course, it’s worth a visit just for these.
retiredmartin 
The Nation’s League is a bit like those school sports days where every child gets a prize.
Scotland qualifies for something at last – just for being Scotland.
Decent-looking pint.
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Although Citra is my favourite beer from Oakham (odd that), I think all their beers are reliable, a sign of a very good brewer, I can’t recall coming across a really duff pint from them, even end of barrel.
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Yes, should have said that, Citra. Green Devil a favourite always easier at 6%, I guess. JHB has seemed a tad disappointing but perhaps that’s because it’s lost out to Citra, which was brilliant in Live & Let Live in Cambridge.
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I love Oakham, Green Devil is my favourite, JHB least favourite and wouldn’t usually chose it. It’s a relative rarity around here, although you do see it occasionally. The best bet is M & S who’s bottled ‘Citra’ appears to be a Citra/Green Devil variant in a bottle.
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Citra,
I accept that Oakham of Peterborough are “a very good brewer” but suggest that the main reason “their beers are reliable” is that they are highly hopped and a beer “bursting with citrus and tropical hop flavours” will most likely have any ‘off’ flavour masked by the hop flavour.
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That may be the case, but I can tell a beer that’s been sitting in the pipes for days and I rarely find that with Citra. It seems to have become the house beer in a certain type of unfussy free house.
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Paul,
I see you’re point here, maybe if a casual drinker were to come across that situation, that might be the case, but even highly hopped beers that go off will lose their citrus flavour and I have certainly experienced off/ cellar contaminated flavours in hoppy beers brewed by respected brewers such as Dark Star and Moor, just never in Oakham beers. Perhaps its because they sell so fast.
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Indeed. Dark Star Hophead is a similar beer, often very good but dull in recent pubs with far too many beers on for the turnover.
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Citra,
You’ve drunk much more Citra than me and I’m sure you’re right.
Maybe “a very good brewer” with beers that “sell so fast” can’t go far wrong.
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A beer that’s “almost totally reliable” is probably more brewery conditioned than cask conditioned but will retain a few yeast cells so that it’s still Real Ale.
Mention of Woodforde’s Wherry reminds me that after an hour at Stafford Masonic Lodge’s Open Day on Saturday I did three of the ‘North End’ pubs and Wherry was on it the Kings Arms. I’ve always liked the beer but wouldn’t have it there as the Kings Arms, as you all know, is one of the two Stafford pubs selling Draught Bass. Imagine my disappointment at the Bass pumpclip turned round but I did enjoy a pint of Wadworths IPA Brewers Strength at 6.2% and it was free as on my previous visit I had filled up one of their loyalty cards.
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I can, indeed, imagine your disappointment Paul.
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So a totally reliable beer would be one like Marstons aka Wolverhampton & Dudley brew, where all the yeast is stripped at the brewery and a small amount of yeast contained within some gel put back in? Some might determine all their products done in this way as the next best thing to ‘Bright Beer’.
I’ve had that Brewers strength Wadworth’s a couple of times and it’s a nice drop of beer.
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My “reliable” is a beer that always seems to score NBSS 3.5 or better, which rules out the beers brewed in Wolves. Competence of the licensee always the biggest factor; it just seems the best licensees pick Citra.
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prob because people like it
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Never seen that. Sounds yum.
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Richard,
Yes, that’s about right.
It’s complaints about “bits” in their beer, mainly from the free trade, that prompted Marstons to introduce fast cask for SOME of their beers ( mainly EPA and Hobgoblin ) and this has improved their reliability.
Reliability is though but one aspect of beer quality.
Most microbreweries I’ve been round in recent years have large cylindrical conditioning tanks in which the beer, between fermentation vessel and cask, near enough drops bright and I doubt if either of us considers that to be a bad thing given how all too many pubs these days expect to put a cask on in two or three hours rather than two or three days. .
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Thats why many licensees fail with Landlord, they don’t give it enough time to ‘settle’ in the cellar, needs at least a week.
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Richard,
Yes, indeed.
Now all too “many licensees fail with Landlord” and other proper beers because of their ignorance and / or their impatience.
I doubt if there’s a Palmers, Donnington, Holdens or Bathams tenant that expects their cask beer to be ready in less than three days. .
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The beer currently sat in my locals cellar (OBB) that’s been there since last Wednesday is the beer for this week, the beer for the week after comes this Wednesday, if you see what I mean.
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How do they get three ales out of the single beer engine Martin. Is it like the soft drinks dispensers where you have to select a button?
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They’re all the same beer, Richard. Only the glassware varies
NB read the explanation I so patiently attach to the photo (says the man who only looks at photos these days).
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Do they still make homebrew kits of Wherry?
Memories of beers really being lively for beer festivals and seeing a Cannon Royal brew virtually exploding out when vented, there were hops stuck to the ceiling for years (may still be there), the ceiling got painted and the residue merely got painted over. Didn’t drop bright in a couple of hours.
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Scott,
Yes, that reminds me of being ‘showered’ when I vented a cask of Timothy Taylors Landlord over forty years ago.
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We will be back to make that right.
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Dick,
What, more yeast in the Marstons casks ?
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That was a little vague. We will return to visit the Sun in Waterbeach. Walked right by it but did not go in. Now I consider it a mistake. At the time, I can never remember.
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“No, not the famous pub blogger, the beer.”
(slow golf clap)
“That’s not a 3-in-1 pump; the beers are next door”
Good idea though to let you know though.
“that probably looks like an extract from “Starry Night” or something.”
Whilst ones you dump in the plant pots are probably reminiscent of ‘The Scream’. 😉
“As visited by BRAPA, but not Dick and Dave”
Is there a pub somewhere that Si’s been in but didn’t go to the loo? 🙂
Cheers
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Fast hand clap for “The Scream”.
I think Si feels obliged to visit every loo in case there’s a picture of a “Neighbours” star on the rule.
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