a-leaping!

On the tenth day of Beermas I went and bought for me

Ten horses leaping

Nine feet a-floating

Eight icicles dripping

Seven sea monsters swimming

Six owls nesting

Five malts of gold

Four avian hallucinations

Three French magicians

Two love ya dearlies

And the simplest answer there could be 

It could have been more imaginative, but it certainly could have been less.  Although to be honest, I have not actually seen a perfect match for lords a-leaping on a beer bottle.  The horses are lordly by themselves, but I guess we can imagine some lords having a hunt.  It's an English beer too, Adnams, so definitely the sort you would imagine hunting and launching their fine steeds over walls and fences.  Tally-ho indeed.

Like a good barleywine, it's a rich dark brown with a sweet yet earthy scent.  There's some head, light colored, not awfully abundant.  It's not as syrupy as more local barleywines, although there's a hint of the barrel in it, with more of an apple juice/cider taste.  Fairly clean taste, not a lot of aftertaste, although there is just a hint of buildup.  There's even a little bit of banana lurking behind the apple in the aroma, and after a while there's some in the taste as well.  It starts out light, but as befitting a barleywine it seems to grow and gain in volume and weight.  It's a good balance of light and heavy, fruit, alcohol and wood playing together nicely.

cheating and consequences

It's the end of August and now we're just in lazy, lazy days.  It's not too hot, which is definitely a good thing, but there's not a lot of call to go out and about.  Even to go browse some beer shelves.  Lucky for me, there's some beer hanging around my house that fits the bill, something a little different and representative of what good beer should be.  I have in my fridge now Adnams Ghost Ship, a citrus pale ale.  Not a shandy, mind you, just a beer with bright and shiny hops.  Like a good many modern ales.

It has a striking citrusy smell for a simple pale ale, but there is that touch of citrus that's supposed to be in there.  There's also a layer of pepper or other exotic spices underneath, giving the aroma a nice depth.  It doesn't look very fizzy, so a nice smooth drink will probably be forthcoming.  The head isn't very bubbly, but it does hang around for a while.  But that first sip - wow, I'm disappointed.  I was expecting a snap of flavor, a bitter kick or even sour rasp of lemon on the palate, but there really isn't anything.  It's smoothly bitter, with only a hint of citrus flavor.  It's fairly clean and goes down without any weird aftertaste hanging around, but there just isn't much else there.  It's not a bad beer, it would be a very good drink with snacks and conversation, not drawing any attention to itself, but alone it's just not very interesting.  Shoulda taken a trip after all.

summer harvest

We're coming to the end of August, and temperatures are somewhat...flexible.  It's still hot, I'm still not very happy on the street, but there are cool breezes and cool nights to sleep in.  Anyway, I have a nice pale ale, Adnams Mosaic Pale Ale to be precise, to calm my frayed and roasting nerves.

It's not very odorous, with just a slight hint of citrusy ale.  It's also on the dark side for a pale ale, tending towards orange more than yellow.  The taste is fruity at first, quite sweet, but the aftertaste is mildly bitter.  It's very subtle and highly drinkable, smooth and calm in the background, but ready to be examined in the limelight.  Dissecting the fruit, there's the expected citrus, breaking down into sweeter mandarin and bitter grapefruit.  There is a sort of tropical undertone, maybe mango as they say many IPAs have picked up.  Very refreshing and light, a very good summer beer, but maybe a little too light for the winter.  Of course, my preference is always for the black beer, but in an overheated bar in December, Mosaic would be welcome.

Supplier: Espuma
Price: €3.25