Beer Review: Holy Grail

Beer o'clock at the Atkinson's and now for something a little different.  Ladies and gentlemen it is the officially branded Monty Python beer from Black Sheep found, bizarrely, in the bottled beer section of ASDA(!), though pretty pricey.  It's-!

Holy Grail is the offering of the evening and claims to have been tempered over burning witches (presumably made of wood).

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Reassuringly presented in a brown bottle and weighing in at a respectable 4.7% ABV, made by my favourite brewers, I'll admit that I was expecting something a little bit special.  Alas, I was somewhat disappointed.  It smelled of vaguely yeasty beer but lacked that citrus-like tinge that I've come to expect from proper hops-based ale.  The taste was also slightly flatter than I've come to enjoy.  Now, there was still a bit of spicey bite to it that I liked, but it was almost as though they decided to avoid their usual flavour and strive for different.  Different doesn't always have to mean bad, but in this case I think they tried too hard.

There is a maltiness to it, putting me in mind of strong brown ales, but it was tempered by the fizz throughout so that it came out... I don't know... wrong somehow.  I mean, I wouldn't kick it out of bed for making crumbs but it wasn't my usual tastes.  It didn't make friends with my meal and it didn't seem to like discussion.  It was sippable and certainly could be repeated, were it not trading expensively based on the name, and there is something about it that prevented my lightweight senses tingling.

Basically it's a drinking beer.  You'll need to get one or two of these in and have them in succession and with others too.  You'll probably need to be proper Monty Python enthusiasts too and have something like Life of Brian on in the background.  If it came with a different label I would have said it was a beer to drink a lot of in a pub but it doesn't and thus sets itself apart, with disastrous results for it.  It's a nice beer but it's not worthy of being made special like the name suggests.