Oakham Asylum

Brewed by Oakham
Style: Bitter
Peterborough, England

From cask The Rake. Pours slight cloudy orange with a bubbly white head. Spiced an towards herbal aroma. Hoppy and mild spiced flavoured with a nice bitterness coming through. Light citric hoppy too. Spiced lasting impression. Presumeably not in top condition but still good.

Cask Handpump at the Crown Inn, Stockport 20/09/2008 Citrus hop aroma. Small white head. Golden coloured floral and hoppy with a crisp slightly dry and creamy malt finish.

Cask handpull at Market Porter, Southwark. Gold colour with lasting off whtie head. Trademark Oakham’s hoppiness, citric. Very good malt in mouth and then sherberty grapefruit hoppy finish. Utterly drinkable, bit of cat pee at worst. Clean, smooth fullish in mouth. It’s Oakham’s and I love it.

A Mes rate: gravicask at Peterborough Beer Festival.
Beautiful clean gold colour with a thin but lasting white head and awesome condition. Straight down the line English golden ale but christ on a bike, it’s a good un. Just about the best balance of semi sweet biscuity malt and huge, utterly superb dry grassy hoppage. Masses of citrus, gorgeous cake, wonderfully drinkable and the dryness makes me want more with every sip. Perfectly pitched all round and a simply fantastic brew.

Nothing else to add note wise (other than once again, it’s stunning) but following on from having this at the New Crown JDW, I just had to up the score a little. Bloody excellent.

Cask at Peterborough beer fest. Alround rating: Oh come now! Seriously, this takes things to a new level. This is soo soo good, like the hoppy citrus character, the juicey resinous hop, the alround outstanding amazingness of this beer. Gee man i had like 3 of them at a festival where i only had like 3 mouthfulls of every other rating there. My god this is one of the finest cask beers iv ever had. British brewing has once again been taken to another level.

Cask conditioned - handpump - Out Of The Vaults Leicester. A golden coloured beer (not sure why Oakham would describe it as amber) with a nice white head and lacing. The aroma is hoppy with oranges and grapefruit. The taste is more of the same. Citricity abounds but there’s a decent malty base as well which sets it apart from some of the hoppy stuff Oakham puts out. Lots of citrus in the aftertaste. Very nice.

You better believe I was psyched when this cask showed up at Redbones on 6/12/07. This was the only English beer I missed at this year’s cask festival.
Just an ever-so-slight haziness to it, with a soft lemon-lime tinted golden body and a cascading, white/off-white head that is impeccably well retained and completely douses the glass in lace. While the haziness is slight, I just cant bring myself to give it a 4
Even out of a shaker, this stuff just pours on the fresh, aromatic, juicy dry-hopping and wonderfully attenuated malts that are dripping with light honey and fresh woodiness. Incredibly high strength of aroma. The hops just continue on endlessly and there’s a bit of crunchy/crackery-like maltiness to give it a little oomph. Definitely a strong house yeast character, kind of reminds me of moldy bread, or damp basements, but in a good way, if that’s possible. Flawless, as well.
Succulent, in a word, is the flavor, with no overdone bitterness, yet certainly a boatload of hoppiness. Orange peel, lemons, limes, white grapefruit and light melon, it unfolds upon a backbone of angelfood cake-like sweetness, yet with the same delicate, aerated mouthfeel. Some dustiness, woodiness and hints of quasi-funky house yeast all complete the picture, giving it that extra jab of character that makes well-done English beers that much more enjoyable and unique. Simply stunning and flawless of course. I could see giving this a perfect score, but perhaps the hoppiness could be toned down a little and the malt balance/complexity improved somewhat. As well, I’d like to see it just a touch more dry and with less dextrine comfort on the palate. Minor complaints though, this stuff is marvelous.

Cask@Flower Pot, Derby. Amber beer with a light head. The aroma is toffee/caramel and the flavour is dry and toffee/caramel. Overall an average dry and toffee beer.