I’ve been trawling through my anniversary edition of the Good Beer Guide and a couple of things have struck me. It is always unfair to take the mickey out of tasting notes because one person’s clear elucidation of taste is another person’s overblown tosh. But one thing that ought to be reasonably consistent is the categorisation of beers but the category of ‘bitter’ seems to have become singularly elastic. For instance, Adnams brew what used to be called Bitter and is now called Southwold Bitter and Black Sheep brews what used to be called Bitter and is now called Best Bitter. The good book categorises them all as ‘bitter’. But it also categorises Adnams’ Mosaic Pale Ale and Black Sheep’s Twilight Pale Ale as ‘bitter’. You’d have thought the name would have given the compilers a clue. At the other end of the alphabet, St Austell’s Tribute and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord are classified as ‘bitter’ yet what they have in common with others similarly categorised, such as Sambrook’s Wandle or Woodforde’s Wherry, defeats me.
Recently I called in at a couple of GBG entries. One had eight hand pumps, four of them with the badges turned round and the functioning four selling variations of the same yellow beer. The other was selling Tribute, Landlord, Crouch Vale Gold and one other like that and I’m ashamed to say I took refuge in Warsteiner! I fear the world has left my palate behind and I’ll soon be driven to temperance except for one bit of good news. You report McMullen’s moves into the capital. But those I’ve been to recently have been prone to being without the distinctive AK. Perhaps it is selling faster than anticipated and they’ll catch up. I do hope so.
Nik Wood