Best Mates One Off

Brewed by Best Mates
Style: Bitter
Wantage, England

Bottle Conditioned from Millet’s farm shop in Oxfordshire: Slightly hazy, deep orange brown. Very little head at all really. Smoke heavy to the nose, roasted malt and sulphur. Weirdly green out of the stuffiness of the nose. Reasonably sweet but with a very long smoked finish comprising of oakey wood and caramel malts. Very vegetal. This is a strange beer. Pleasant but nothing more than a one off.

Bottle conditioned, 500ml from Bellingers Garage, grove. Amber with white head, good sticky yeast. For a little bottling line operation, they are doing quite well, this was a little boiled cabbage on the nose, but a reasonable sharp bitter came through, some malty sweetness and a dry finish. Mine was reasonable.

Bottle from Bellingers Garage, Grove, Near Wantage, Oxon. Consumed 28-05-09 Pours an orange/dark amber colour, looks very good with a white head. The aroma is quite something and I don’t mean positive either, its vegative, almost compost like and you have to really inhale for ages to get beyond that before any malt or sweetness show. The taste is rather fortunately better than the aroma suggested and is bitter, chewy, malty with some toffee in there. I cannot really get on with this beer, and at first wondered whether being ill for over a week and not drinking had, had an affect but then I realised I’d just enjoyed sharing a bottle of Dupont with Loz beforehand and despite it seeming desperately bitter after a week of drinking nothing but juices, squash and water I still loved it. No I think that this is just a poor effort. A3 A5 F5 P3 Ov9 2.5