Beer of the month.........June
You might think that you've seen this beer before -
Marston's Pedigree is very widely available in the UK in cans, bottles, and on draught -
but this is not your ordinary Pedigree.
This is, in fact, Pedigree Gold Reserve which is a
limited edition brew. That said, I'm not sure how easy this is going to be to find, but if
you can possibly hunt it out you're in for a treat!
First, the techy stuff. All Pedigree is brewed in
what are called the "Burton Unions". These are traditionally constructed, or
"coopered" oak barrels. The water used is Burton well water, the hops are a
mixture of Fuggles and Goldings and the malted barley is the Maris Otter variety.
All well and good, but what does all that mean for
your tastebuds? Delaying answering that for a minute, it's a real sight for sore eyes. A
deep golden-brown with a good dense head which maintains its integrity to the bottom of
the glass, this has to be one of the most attractive beers tasted for BOTM so far.
Now for the taste. For saying that this is a 6% ABV
ale, I was impressed by its lack of over-sweetness. Strong beers are frequently far too
sweet for my palate, but the Gold Reserve had a pleasing dryness whilst tasting very
hoppy. It hit the mouth with a rounded smoothness and then burst forth with a variety of
flavours leaving you a good bitter finish.
The terrible scan above is of the thick cardboard
tube in which the bottle came. It proved impossible to soak the label off the bottle in
one piece - an increasingly difficult task these days now that so many brewers use a
very thin paper with a metallic sort of foil on which the design is printed. So, I had to
cut the tube, bend it flat and then scan that. Whilst we're on the subject of labels, each
label of Gold Reserve has its own unique bottle reference number.
So, a good beer for June, but I'm not sure how easy
this one is going to track down. Good luck!