The Professor at PBF
Here we are again at the PBF, a great range of ales on offer and, with the help of that gestalt entity AlanandTerry, we managed to sample 22 beers over the Thursday lunchtime. The majority we tried were light, summery pale and golden ales under 4%, and very good they were too; the standard was consistently high. Absolute star of the show for me was Whim Arbor Light (3.6%) "Crisp, juicy, refreshing, fizzy, pale beer. Lovely citrus notes and nice bitterness over a very light biscuity base. Gosh, this is good. 3.6%? Surely not!" which I awarded a coveted 10. Close runners up with 9 were Bewdley Worcestershire Way (3.6%) "Biscuity with apply fruit and a hint of citrus. Good grassy hoppiness. Excellent for a 3.6"; Nobby's Claridges Crystal (3.6%) "Exceeding pale, dry, nicely bitter, florally hoppy and grapefruity too"; Grafter's Moonlight (3.6%) "Nice, hoppy, biscuity brew. Apricot blonde in colour with a touch of pear drops on the palate and a dry grapefruit finish. Great for the ABV."; and Church End Hoptimist (4.1%) "Very hoppy and dry with a big grapefruit finish. Excellent." All my highest scoring beers were pale or golden and, with the exception of the last one, 3.6% ABV. Well, that's no surprise, that just shows my particular preference.
Doing the rounds of the tables, handing out PintPicker publicity, I bumped into the legendary Martin the Mildman who's been contributing large numbers of reviews to the database. It was great to meet him at last. All in all a great day out and the organisers are to be congratulated once again for a fantastic range of new beers and breweries.