Battle of the breweries - Boars Head 12-14th July

This weekend the Boars Head at Tyla Garw, South Wales, is holding a 'Battle of the Breweries' beer festival,  featuring Dark Star,  Oakham, Crouch Vale, Salopian and the Welsh Champion Brewers Tiny Rebel.
With the glorious sunny weekend ahead where else would i want to spend my birthday weekend!!
BBQ on Saturday.
Looking at the list today with Wayne behind the bar they have some cracking beers on, loads from Tiny Rebel.


Directions to the  Boars Head here.

Marks and Spencer Single Hop Varieties Cascade, Citra and Sovereign

Marks and Spencer's continue to take the best beers from breweries across the country and re-brand them for their stores.
Seeing another beer trend/bandwagon/niche they have released some 'Single Hop' beers, using the hops Sovereign, Citra and Cascade.
All these bottles are £2.69 which is a lot compared to most supermarket beer prices, but they are also 1 pint bottles not 500mls.

Produced by the Elgoods brewery the first was Sovereign, a 5% golden ale. Good golden/orange colour, sweet toffee aroma, and this followed on, i found it a bit too sweet, cloying with toffee and honey, bits of kids sweets from your memories. Not for me.




Second up is Citra, an IPA from Oakham thats 4.9% abv which is a little higher than their own well known Citra beer at 4.2%.
More yellow in colour, lovely hop aroma of grapefruit and gooseberry, bags of fruit flavours with that expected bite of citra hops. Very enjoyable.










Third was from the Castle Rock brewery, Cascasde single hop, 5% abv. Light golden in colour, light grass aroma and sweet oranges, pleasant drink with light body, easy, earthy malt holds up flavours well, making this a very good pint.

Of the three the Citra was head and shoulders above the other two but I did enjoy the Cascade too, leaving the Sovereign trailing far behind in last.

M&S duo

The first one up is the 'Cambridgeshire Summer ale' which is brewed by Oakham and is a re-labeled 'JHB'. Currently on sale in M&S for I think it was £2.19.

This is a 4.2% abv beer, which in its original incarnation is styled as a golden ale, and the bottle informs us that it uses some Challenger and US Mount Hood hops.

 As you see from the photo, its a very pale yellow, and produced a small white head.
 Its aroma was very light fruit, a little pine, citrus mostly. A medium body that gives us a good crisp citrus bite, floral somewhat, some spice dryness, perhaps pepper, honey provides the sweetness, and a good lingering dryness.
Very good overall, you could certainly drink several of these for a very pleasant session.




The second bottle of the night was the 'Yorkshire Best Bitter'. This has been produced by the Hambleton brewery, its a 4.3% bottle conditioned bitter, same price as the first?

Initial impression is the smoke on the aroma, some nuttiness too.
This is a good strong bitter, malty on a medium body, it gives you a sharp bitterness alongside its  strong rich fruit, and woody ash dryness.
Something odd as well, the smoke dryness comes and goes almost with each mouthful. Perhaps I was thinking about it to much, who knows.  This was also perfectly carbonated as a conditioned bottle.

Review: Boar's Head, Tyla Garw, April festival

Well unfortunately its only a review of the tail end of the festival as plans for a Friday attendance were scuppered and i got to go this evening (Sunday) instead.
Firstly well done to the girl behind the bar this evening, seemed to be on her own in a busy pub, excellent service.
According to a guy i spoke to on the Friday and Saturday, as well as the bar pumps, most of the casks were on outside, this evening though it was only the beers left on the pumps but seeing as i had not tried any of those before that was fine with me.
Attending on my own, with a book, (William Burroughs 'Junkie' - probably why no-one spoke to me!) ) i found a nice armchair and tried:
Centurion Ghost ale -  very dark almost black in the glass, aroma was blackberry and burnt, good body, with a lingering bitterness, smoke/roasted malts, chocolate. Very nice.
Oakham White Dwarf - pale lemon and hazy, small foam head, citric sharp, wheat, bitter hop end, astringent/lemon, would be a lovely pint on a hot day.
Banks & Taylor Shefford Old Dark (SOD) - very little aroma, maybe some malt, creamy head, slight sweetness, hint of coca cola, its very drinkable but light with little body, no weight in the mouth.
Westerham British Bulldog - beautiful shining bronze colour, medium amount of maltyness, biscuit, some fruit comes through, flattish/little carbonation, fairly standard bitter, nothing exciting.
 Buffys Bitter - again a bronze malty bitter, fairly drying in the mouth, earthy, not to dissimilar from the last one to be honest, a little fruit and malt, but again average stuff.

Well they had great weather all weekend so i hope it was a success, the wife and i are hoping to get out there for a meal very soon, being walking distance is very handy. I noticed they had their 'awards' from the Mid-Glam Camra branch for their service to real ales, and also from the R.A.T.S on the walls.

If i had to buy another pint i would have chosen it from between the Ghost Ale and the White Dwarf, and i think the Dwarf would have won it, perfect for the sunny Sunday evening.