English styles

Stilton stuffed dates wrapped in bacon

 

The beer or the dessert? Both, I'm assuming...

 

I really like Worthington White Shield for an English IPA.

 

As has been mentioned by others, the 'trick' with buying English brewed ales (Bitters, Pale, Mild, etc.) is finding fresh product. IMO, these beers readily suffer from age.

@kellyst has a great suggestion that you focus on purchasing the freshest English beers you can find.

If you lived in the Mid-Atlantic area I would recommend that you buy Yards English style beers since they are of high quality and you can find them fresh.

Cheers!

 

Are you thinking Bluebird Bitter? Good beer when fresh on cask, features Challanger hops all the way.

 

Also, UK brewers have embraced American / New World hops and the gamut of flavour has really expanded in recent years.

From conversations with overseas beer geek friends it seems English pale ale gets pigeonholed something rotten. Possibly due to things like the BJCP guidelines, and because the craft community (American and European) arbitrarily impose beer taxonomy.

And the fact that most of our exports are boring and samey, and that the bottled versions mostly pale in comparison to their cask versions.

 

that was the dessert - I haven't actually tried that beer haha

 

There were many cask beers with American, AU and NZ hops featured when I was last in England. There were one or 2 with German hops up in the Lakes District.

This was very nice, used Citra. http://www.fyneales.com/shop/beers/jarl

 

Cheers to that pun!!

 

I almost paraphrased it with (no pun intended)!

 

Not had that one but yeah, Antipodean hops are very prominent at the moment. They work really well in English style pale ale but personally I'm really bored of them. Seems every new release has Galaxy in it. Give me a good old fashioned C-hop any day.

 

What would the penultimate examples of the style, in your opinion/? I happen to like Fuller's London Pride and would like to try similar beers within the style. Thanks.

 

Or any import, as far as that goes.

 

Jarl is delicious - agreed

 

The best pales I've had recently have mostly been darkish, toasty and woody although I had an excellent pale at the weekend called Crown & Glory. It was sort of the same style as London Pride but far more nuanced and interesting. A perfectly conditioned Fuller's HSB or even ESB is close to perfection for me. As pretentious as it sounds though the bottled versions are like what CDs are to vinyl, and then some. I like pale ales that have a nice velvetty sweetness but it absolutely does not translate to bottle form.

I very rarely drink bottled English style pale ale and I honestly couldn't suggest a penultimate example of the style, especially one that's distributed overseas.

 

Can't believe no one has said Landlord yet, loved that beer.

 

Oh shit yeah, there's that.