We set out into the warm summer's evening and found that my usual was shut, it being Wednesday, and so had to quickly take that into consideration. A recce earlier in the day had identified some decent ales on and so it was that we ventured into town in high spirits and with some gung-ho spirit! Would you like to know more?
Warriors of old carried with them all they needed for months on the road because, in those days, it was a voluntary expedition and there would be loot to be had on the battles, it was expected. We also had something of the same in the town of Saxon origin by stopping off at a cash point to begin and tooling straight into the Observatory, a Wetherspoon's on the corner of the market in Ilson.
It was a nicely drawn light lemony yellow with a clear white head that settled nicely and stuck around a bit after I started drinking. A bit low on the hops and malt on the nose, mainly a faint fruit, and then onto the tongue where it continued to be, well, a light pale. A good start to the evening with a quiz ongoing down in the back recesses and some references to Johnson, our Foreign Secretary(!) in a... country(!), on the TV screens. It stayed light in the middle of the mouth but avoided leaving any gaps, more citrus than tropical with nothing standing out before it moved to a slightly bitter aftertaste. As light pales go this is not bad and definitely not one to turn one's up at. However, I'm not sure I would leap at it again if I saw it on. I made a mental note of the Blueberry Ale in case we came back and we agreed to head out into the gathering night without too much trouble. The main issue, for me, was the lack of a stout on. I'm coming to the conclusion that you can gauge the quality of a pub by whether or not they have a stout on other than Guinness, and even then, whether or not they have a stout on at all!
Our next stop was the Crafty One Bar and Bottle Shop because of course it was and I was keen to actually drink a beer in the place rather than just pour my excess money each week into the till and take away some bottles and cans. The craft board here was awash with potential delights but there was one that really caught my eye.
This started well with an instant hit of hops on the nose. Clear white head atop a slightly cloudy brew with burnished bronze edges. Good carbonation. On the tongue it did as you would expect from an IPA and opened with slightly tropical notes and some grapefruit in the background. Maybe a touch of melon in the opening before it was cradled by a malt backbone in the middle of the taste. Down the sides there was a continuing bitterness and sour edge but this was subtle, blink and you miss it kind of stuff, and the aftertaste was of the dry and careful variety rather than a punchy one. Bit of an apple and orange edge, actually, almost like a very interesting cider but in a very positive way. I had been waiting a while to sample this, seeing many people praise it all over the internet, and I have to say that I was not disappointed. My companion and the publican entered into a long chat about the power of the place compared to the beer scene in Derby and I went and had a long hard look at the cans and bottles on offer but decided that I couldn't lug them around all night. Had this place still been open when we made our way home I suspect that it would have been a much dearer night than it turned out being!
The initial impression from this was of roasted milk, exactly like a stout should be, and it billed itself as being a velvet stout without a word of a lie. There was rich whipped cream on the nose that just hung around and I could have fallen into. Yes, this was what I had been searching for! Strangely thin on the tongue though, almost incongruous with the opening impressions, and then it didn't really thicken either. I have to say I was a little disappointed with that performance. Not that this was a bad stout, far from it, it just wasn't the thick and creamy milk stout that I suspect I had been hankering after. It was a little bit like a thin milkshake, the kind that you make with semi-skimmed milk. There was an unmistakable malt to this one, as you would expect, with a slight biscuity malt flavour beneath as it tumbled into the middle of the tongue and slowly slunk its way back to the throat like a an elderly dog curling up by the fire after a walk in the night. In essence, the bark offered more than the bite delivered on this one but it was a welcome first stout of the evening.
Then it was off again, at my insistence, I suspect my companion would have happily spent the rest of the night in the place but I was keen to show more of what Ilson had to offer. We made our way past the Toll House and across the road to the General Havelock, that place I have previously spoken about being of 1930s vintage.
This was warm and spicy from the get go, the aroma conjuring images of coffee and chocolate dessert and cherries after a big Italian meal in Carlisle from my youth. It would be decked in mint leaves and festooned with chocolate shavings. Very much like a pudding on the nose with a hint of ice cream atop a proper malt backbone. In fact, I would argue it could give Thornbridge and their ice-cream ale a run for its money. Once in the mouth it was satisfying and sweet with a hint of dessert-style heaviness to it. I suspect it won't run as a dessert beer though as it simply doesn't have the heft or weight to pull it off. It was very much spicy and warm but lacked the epic depth promised by the nose and, being a porter, wasn't quite enough to do the heavy lifting the way a stout would have done. That is not to say that I was disappointed, I wasn't, but it is to say that it was the second ale of the evening that promised more than it ended up giving. By this point we were both flagging and I took my time a bit with it to try and give myself time to recover rather than trying to ascertain what it was doing. Perhaps, on reflection, this is more like what the Tiramisu would do in pudding form. My companion agreed that it was a confection of an ale and then we decanted ourselves into the inky blackness without.
Off again, itinerant in the town of Ilson, we made our way back up the road and crossed over into The Spanish Bar because it has an amazing beer garden as I remembered from my time out with another friend. This place was actually reasonably busy for a Wednesday and had the Whim Ales on that I remembered from a visit almost two years ago now!
Sure enough it immediately woke up the tastebuds with a zest of lemon cutting through the weight and sweetness of the previous brew, reminding me a bit of the cleaning fluids that my mother used to use or the dishwashing liquid, maybe it was Jif? I don't know, the point is that this was very lemony indeed. Someone pointed out that real lemons were used in cleaning fluids but not in lemon cordial and they may have a point, cerrtainly this had an aroma of proper lemons to it, bitter rather than sour. We made our way to the beer garden and sat in the convivial warmth and darkness of the night. It was, indeed, good and fresh with a rather large head of citrus (lemony, natch) hops hitting the top of the mouth and staying there whilst hints of lime and lemon zest vied for control of the base of the tongue and the sides. There was a creamy feel to the carbonation, being draught, and this kept the edges from becoming to raw and sharp as one might get in a bottle or a can. And that carbonation made sure that the lemon hops were fired high and long to create a good, distinct, lemon aftertaste that reminded me of my youth when I would eat raw lemons because I liked them and people would look at me as though I had gone mad.
It did the trick, my mouth was freed of the cloying remnants of all the ales I had partaken and fresh and ready for something new. Finding that the Crafty One had shut (it was gone eleven) we stopped in at the chippy and got some chips and gravy for the walk home, they lasted us just long enough that we were able to use the bin by the bus stop before heading on in through the front door and ending our evening.
This is the point where I usually pick a winner but this crawl was a bit different in that it was hard to really compare the brews that were had. I think, if I had to, I would go for the Tiramisu Porter again as it did most of what I was looking for on the night. That said, I would heartily recommend the Soundwave IPA for any reason. I think, had we gone out earlier or at any other point in the year, I would have been on the IPAs and this would have dominated the show. The Porter was a welcome change of pace but suited peculiarly to the evening itself and the slight nip in the air in the middle of the summer.
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