Free Beer

When offered free beer some people take the trouble to analyse and investigate. I adopt a simpler approach. I just say "yes please".

So when Brewhive were offering beer round to internet based beer bores some was soon coming my way.

I was interested to see they had an Endeavour IPA so I went for that first. Its deep gold, some citrus, with a crisp bitterness. It was underpowered though, more golden ale than American style IPA. The Endeavour hop has a good flavour but lacks intensity so you really need to use shed loads of it. And whilst I'm here I'll try and knock on the head a beer myth that seems to be growing. The name of Endeavour has nothing to do with Inspector Morse. It's carrying on the Wye tradition of hop naming also seen for example in Challenger, which met the challenge of breeding a wilt resistant hop variety, and Target, which met the required high alpha acid target. Endeavour marks the endeavour of Wye Hops Ltd breeding a hop variety from their own work, not work started at Wye College.

Next was a chocolate malt porter. This was a pleasant creamy, chocolate porter. This was better than the IPA but perhaps was a little overpowered, being a bit too chewy.

There was also a rather bland lager and for some reason a cider. As neither lagers or inferior fruit based beverages are my thing I wasn't taken with either of them.

I can't say I'd rush to buy any of these if I saw them, but I can thoroughly recommend drinking them if they're free.