Wood's Hopping Mad

Originally published in What’s Brewing October 2003

Origin: Winstantow, Shropshire, England
ABV: 4.7 per cent
Buy from supermarkets, specialist shops

Wood's Hopping Mad

Awareness of the ingredients of beers is growing, and the hop, which gives beer its most obviously identifiable and distinctive aromas and flavours, has come in for particular attention. Where once brewers would simply reach for their traditional varieties, now there is a whole repertoire of sensations with which to engage the consumer’s interest.

Single varietal beers, an idea borrowed from the wine world, contain only one, named variety of hop, rather than following the more usual practice of choosing several different varieties to cover the various functions of bittering, aroma and preservative.

One such is Hopping Mad, from a small but successful family-owned micro established in 1980 next to the Plough Inn at Winstantow in the Shropshire Hills, near the celebrated landscape of Wenlock Edge. This is another one of those British real ales in a bottle that’s derived from a draught recipe, in which form it won a silver Beauty of Hops award, though the bold flavours stand up well to the bottling process.

The beer was originally brewed as an easter special — the manic bunny on the label reveals a third meaning to the painfully punning name. The hop is Progress, a milder relative of the familiar British bittering hop Fuggle. However the beer also demonstrates the limitations of analogy; while wine is more-or-less 100% grapes, hops are only one among several ingredients in beer, all of which need to be carefully chosen to show them off to best effect.

The Woods get it right with a grist of pale malt, crystal malt and torrefied wheat (similar to the puffed wheat found in breakfast cereals), giving a warmly amber-hued beer with a thick white head which emerged from my bottle slightly cloudy — but according to the label it’s fine to drink with our without the yeast deposit. The aroma is distinctly hoppy and slightly peachy at first, quickly mellowing out with subtle traces of earthiness, fennel and a touch of liquorice.

The palate is crisp but full, and subtly complex, with touches of demerara sugar and peach softening an overall dry beer with spicy fennel-like hops. My bottle was well-conditioned, with a gentle carbonation supporting the inviting softness. Hops and citric fruit come forward on the swallow, followed by a slowly developing bitterness that becomes quite intense but always well rounded. The beer is finally quite tongue-drying, but with plenty of soft malt and a touch of vanilla in the finish.

Try also City of Cambridge Hobson’s Choice (First Gold), Gale’s Conquest (Fuggle), Iceni Phoenix (Phoenix), Pitfield East Kent Goldings (Golding) 

Read more at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/woods-hopping-mad/5882/