Saturday, April 30, 2011

No surprise there

Dunham Massey Vintage White, a 9.2% ABV barley wine in a 275ml bottle that I won in a raffle. Bottle-conditioned, so I let it stand in a dark cupboard for a full two weeks until it had cleared. Despite this, and exercising great care, it didn’t pour remotely clear. It was cloudy, flat and sour. Really, it should have gone straight down the sink, but I struggled through it, hoping to find some redeeming features. However, I didn’t. Yet another reinforcement of the principle that bottle-conditioned beers from micro breweries should be avoided like the plague. On the other hand, Dunham Massey do produce some excellent cask beers - perhaps they should stick to what they're good at.