Donnington XXX

Formerly brewed at Donnington
Style: Mild Ale
Cheltenham, England

Cask (handpump) at The Queens Head, Stow-on-the-Wold. Old notes from circa 1999. On a more recent visit to this pub I confirmed with the landlords and some regulars, one of whom used to work for the brewery, that this beer is definitely discontinued. They carried on making it for the one pub in the estate (I forget which) that took it but gave up a couple of years ago. So I’ll break my usual rule and rate from old notes as this historic beer is unlikely to be seen again. Dark brown with a reddish tinge. A fruity and slightly woody mild, with touches of nuttiness. Had a slightly lactic edge, similar to that found sometimes in Harveys beers. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary but a pretty decent mild that achieves what it set out to do entirely effectively. RIP.

Reading Beer Fest, Gravity. My first purchase of the festival. Donnington’s beers are so rarely available outside of the brewery’s small chain of pubs around Stow on the Wold, that I had to be sure of grabbing one before they sold out. Though I didn’t want to sample the whole range - the other more regular beers I would save for a visit to Stow in the future. This dark mild has some brown fringes and a light and refreshing body. There is some soft coffee aroma and some cough syrup flavours. There’s a clean and soft acidity in the finish alongside a faint licorice. A nice, decently made, and fairly mainstream dark mild.

Cask Conditioned at The Queens Head, Stow on the Wold, Gloucs. Donningtons Brewery is about as traditional as you can get. The Arkell family split in the 19th Century and Thomas Arkell bought a working watermill near Stow on the Wold to brew his beers, in the 21st century Claude carries on the family name. The brewery is idyllic, pobably the most beautiful brewery in the world, a wild claim I know. High in cotswold country, the waterwheel still drives some of the pumps and gristmills around the brewery. The brewery owns 15 pubs in a tight area around the northern cotswolds and they are all pretty much traditionally run country pubs with domino's, darts and football teams, and all just sell Donningtons beers, no selling out to marketing fads here! Claude only sells his beers through his own pubs too, although a couple of casks have made it to beer festivals if the organisers are prepared to pick them up and deliver the empties back directly to the brewery. Incidentally, this is the only way to get a look around as no visitors are allowed. The beer is a pretty standard mild and is the rarest of the pretty rare range of beers. There is a plummy fruitiness with a little spicey note. A short sweet finish. But with Donningtons its not all about the beer, its the whole package that makes it wonderful.