Wychwood Brakspear Triple

First published in BEER November 2007 as part of a piece about beers from Booths supermarkets. More Booths beers in previous post.

ABV: 7.2 per cent
Origin: Witney, Oxfordshire
Website www.brakspear-beers.co.uk

Wychwood Brakspear Triple

Like Young’s, Brakspear is another revered Thames-side name now achieving good results at a new location. Most readers will be familiar with the story of how beer marketing company Refresh UK acquired Brakspear’s brands and most of its brewing kit when the owning family sold off their historic Henley brewery for redevelopment, and after a period of contract brewing installed both brands and kit in their own separate section of the Wychwood brewery in Witney [now owned by Marstons]. 

Triple was created by head brewer Jeremy Moss to celebrate the return of the brand to Oxfordshire. The unusually high strength may mislead you into thinking it’s in the strong golden Belgian abbey style but in fact it’s more a souped-up English bitter, deep amber in colour with a thick yellowish head – the name alludes to the fact that the beer is hopped and fermented three times. Maris Otter pale, crystal and black malts, Northdown hops on the boil and Cascade on the aroma make up the recipe.

A toffeeish, sacky and spicy hop aroma leads to a rich nutty palate with a powerful dose of hops and hints of almonds, yeast and orange marmalade – but creamy, slightly syrupy malt dominates, recalling Speyside malt whisky. A sappy and slightly warming finish has estery varnish notes and a controlled but quite peppery hop bite. A fine sipping beer that will mature past its best before date, and you can even look up the bottling date of each individually numbered bottle on the brewery website.

Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/brakspear-triple/46132/