Paisley Beer Festival II

There's a beer for every occasion, which means there's a beer for when you don't really feel like a beer … such as when you've already been out drinking every night for the best part of a week. That's dark mild. Nutritious and restorative, the gentle flavours of Timothy Taylors Dark Mild soothe the hop-wearied senses. Still, I wanted to take it easy and just have a couple. This wasn't difficult as there were none left of the beers I especially wanted to tick, and I'd been lucky enough to get most on Thursday, Neuzeller Porter will just have to wait for another day.

By Saturday afternoon the number of beers on offer had slumped dramatically, the foreign beer bar was completely sold out and there were no festival glasses left. Luckily there was still a strong line-up of Scottish beer. First, though, I wanted a Theakston's Best Bitter from the wood. It wasn't very good, only marginally more flavoursome than Friday's Tartan Special, and it does pain me to say that. A little bit of acid fruit, some sulphur. Just goes to show that cask conditioning isn't everything. Even from a wooden cask.

Next I went for Tryst Blackjack IPA, a name which neatly side-steps the question if whether Black IPA is an acceptable name. Bread, liquorice, the typical US hops are there but they don't dominate. It's also really rathercsweet. The brewer says there's too much chocolate malt in it and the next batch will be drier. Next beer was Highland Light Munro, thinnish but that's not a surprise at this gravity, with some chocolate notes. Orkney IPA from the same brewery was
much more satisfying, less hoppy than the Tryst beers but still enjoyably bitter.

I finished off with a sausage and a half pint of Tryst Carronade IPA. Lovely stuff and the perfect finish to a rather beery week. Off the sauce for a few days now.