I have not posted for a while due to a stinking cold. At least this has allowed me to get plenty of sleep, but feeling like death very slightly warmed up has not been generally entertaining.
The odd thing about this pale ale is that it reminds me of when I was at school. More specifically, its flavour seems very much like one batch of beer I brewed that I didn’t think had enough character and so added a slug of gin to each bottle. I am told it was not terribly good behaviour to then sell this beer to my classmates, but that really didn’t occur to me at the time. I was genuinely interested what people thought of it, and I had to sell it to cover my costs. In these enlightened times, of course, a 13 year old selling home-brewed beer (and occasionally wine as well) to fellow pupils at school would be cause for getting locked up in a deeply frightening establishment for majorly maleficent adolescents. Seems a bit off to me, how is a young chap ever supposed to improve his plum wine without feedback?
[image image_id=”4857″ size=”medium” align=”left”]Mad Goose Pale Ale 4.2%, Purity Brewing Company
Deep golden colour. A lovely fruity, floral nose of hops with a herbal edge and good malty aromas. I’d like a shade more alcoholic richness, but as far as pale ale goes this is a nicely complex nose. The palate has great bitterness, just what I want from pale ale. The flavours really persist as well, with hoppy characters really lasting for a long time. This palate could easily handle, and be enhanced by, a shade more booze action – 5% seems like the sweet spot for pale ale in my view. Perhaps my memory does not serve, but I seem to recall my gin-infused beer had more personality and better alcoholic balance – I had no complaints from my school chums.
So. Teenage boys drink high strength beer and don’t complain. No way! Apparently the pope likes a good mass also.
Your methods may have changed, David, but you are still finding ways to lead innocent boys astray. Keep it up!
Edward, the sad thing was no one did complain – they were all too keen to neck my homebrew without making the incisive quality comments I sought. That being said, I was rightly proud of a few of my booze creations. I made several batches of ginger beer that clocked in at ~10% and, given six months bottle age, it mellowed to a potable refinement that belied its skull-pounding strength.
Peter, I think any claim you make to being innocent is less defensible than that of being a boy – you are beyond the reach of even my heady skills at corrupting in the ways of dissolution.