Sunshine Daydrean Session IPA
George Bateman & Son / Batemans Brewery

Tasted this beer on cask during the Wetherspoon's beer festival this month. Fat Head's Sunshine Daydream Pale Ale tastes a bit strange here @ Heathrow T4: Too flat, too astringent comes the hop aroma & in need of a malt body, also there seems to be some "unwanted" elements lurking in the beer... Maybe the cellarmanship is the issue here, not the beer. But fundamentally this doesn't strike as a balanced brew and definitely not supreme in its cask-conditioned form.

Matt Cole has made his second visit to brew a beer especially for a Wetherspoon real-ale festival, this time travelling to Batemans Brewery, in Lincolnshire.

This beer is a clear, light copper colour, with tropical and citrus notes on the nose, leading to a flavour which contains sweet malt notes, set against a hoppy dryness, resulting in a solid punch of melon and a pine hop bitterness in the finish.

Hops used : Centennial, Citra, Simcoe

That's the official blurb: here's my take.

Hand-pulled third of a pint at the Wellington Wetherspoon's on 16th Oct 2013.

Light yellow with a thinning white head.

Citrus and other fruits in the nose, mild malts also in evidence.

The taste was a blend of subtle flavours with the malts just about winning the battle for supremacy over the hops: the hops however did give a slight bitter finish to an otherwise instantly forgettable brew.

Didn't work for me: expected and hoped for a lot more flavour and depth.