Turkers Maltings beer festival

Yes peeps its that time of year again, that wonderful time of sunny days but more importantly BEER FESTIVALS, as mentioned in my previous posting JDWetherspoons have been runing a festival over the past couple of weeks. This weekend the attention turns towards Newton Abbott for the annual Tuckers Maltings beer festival with a line-up of around 300 ales. This is one of the most prestigious festivals on the SW calender. Sadly due to work commitments i am unable to join in, but hope anybody who is going has a great time.
Another festival coming up is the Occombe Farm beer festival not sure about the exact dates yet but is usually the first week in June, i'll post more details as soon as i can.

Beer Festival

Come, gather all ye lovers of real ale, for i bring ye glad tidings. JDWhetherspoons are holding another beer festival, listed as the "WORLD'S LARGEST INTERNATIONAL REAL ALE FESTIVAL", ales appearing include ales from Belgium, Hawii, South Africa and Czech Republic to name a few. This festival started on Wednesday 7th April and runs until Sunday 25th April.

Having seen the listing for beers due to appear over the festival it looks to be a rather impressive line-up, from Daleside Spring Frenzy at 3.4%, right up to Budelse Capucijn from the Netherlands at 6.0%, and incudes a few brewed especially for this festival. I will try and give some notes and my opinion on some of these ales as i try them.

Starting with Springhead's Spring Chicken 4.5% ABV, This ale was presented to me after being poured direct from the barrel, a beautiful golded yellow colour with a lovelly deep fruity aroma, scrumptious wildflower honey taste with a hint of cinnamon and a refreshing well-balanced bitterness. Alltogether a delightful ale, from the Springhead Brewery.

OWD RODGER

WOW!!! What a beer.

Tonight i had planned to go out for a drink after finishing work, but didn't get out as early as i thought i would and by the time i did get out i couldn't be bothered to walk into town for an hour or two, so i returned to my room where i had one bottle of beer left.

My last bottle was a Marston's Owd Rodger, when i bought this one i didn't look too closely at the label and so didn't spot the bit that said ABV 7.6%, so on spotting this tonight my first thought was not another foul tasting extra strong beer but was pleasantly surprised by this old style country ale. Brewed to a recipe believed to be over 500 years old it has an explosion of rich fruit flavours with a bitter sweet finish.

 A very palitable winter ale, my only complaint...... i only had the one bottle.