Chimera German Pale Ale
Downton Brewery Company

 

Tasted by a half-pint and served on gravity at the "Town Mill", a Wadworth's pub situated in a real (roughly) four-hundred-year-old town-mill (water mill) in the centre of Andover. The cask was one of around 16 served during the pub's mini-beerfestival in late summer 2008.

A: pale golden in colour, no head, light carbonation, coming with great clarity. Very good for a cask ale served on stillage.
S: a refreshing flow of earthy & hay-ish hops comes on a par with a little salty-sweet aroma like oxidised white grapes and static pale malts. Slightly plain overall.
T: almost winey on the texture for the smooth and quiet mouthfeel, then syrupy and smooth lager- or very-pale-malts catch up with a bitter-sweet taste, leading towards a little starch-y aftertaste and leaving an increasingly grassy bitterness and straw-ish undertone expanding in a subtle manner.
M&D: lightly flavoured, slightly off-balance and semi-flat, but a decent level of bitter hops makes up for the lack of body and mouthfeel. The yeast-hop mixture of this Golden-Bitter style ale rings a bell of other Downton/Hopback ales, by the way.