Dionysus
Milton Brewery

This was the 2nd beer tasted at the Pembury Tavern in Hackney, N. London, during its 3rd Beer Festival earlier this summer (18-22/07/2007). This spacious pub had rightly accumulated plenty of praises and awards for its contribution to the real ale scene in London. This time round, 15 festival beers were served on the handpumps at any one time plus 9 others on stillage displayed right beside the entrance! I was there on the last day so, alas, some beers were gone already. But still I had around 13 real ales to choose from! According to the Beer List, this was originally brewed as Milton's 501st brew, but was so popular it had to be re-brewed almost immediately afterwards.

A: served by a handpump w/o a sparkler, it pours a dark yellow straw colour with a rimmed head and very fine carbonation.
S: a "sting" of fresh hops hides behind a facade of cane-sugary pale maltiness, resulting in a lingering flow of flowery hoppy scent and sweet lemons; but, overall, the aroma is a tad sweet due to the sugar-ness.
T: a slightly weird raw-nutty taste accompanies the earthy Fuggles upfront, then a milder taste consisting of biscuity pale malts and a dryish citric palate develops. The aromatic-taste of malt-hop mixture slowly but surely expands in the long finish, experienced fully at the rear of the palate.
M&D: this supposedly hoppy summer brew, like the first beer tasted during the festival, is also "tired". Being both feather-light in body and overly smooth on the texture, the good length of dryish bitter tang of hops in the aftertaste comes as a compensation prize and says something about the true quality of this brew (when being served fresher, of course).