Beer sellers: Meadow Farm Shop
ABV: 4.5%, 4.8% and 58%
Origin: Tyndyrn, Sir Fynwy, Cymru
Website: www.kingstonebrewery.co.uk
I tasted several bottle conditioned Kingstone beers during a visit to the adjoining Meadow Farm Shop in the breathtakingly beautiful Wye Valley for a Beers of the World piece in 2008. There’s more background to the brewery in my review of Kingstone Gold, but these beers were also notable either as favourites of the brewery owner or ones that impressed me.
Award winning Classic Bitter is an orange-amber beer with a slightly bubbly off-white head made from pale and crystal malt, hopped with four quite distinctive hop varieties: Northern Brewer, Bramling Cross, Cascade and Willamette. The aroma is fresh and creamy but relatively restrained with citric and malt notes. A dry and tangy palate has cracker-like malt and marmalade, with a slight burnt rubber touch. A note of roasty crystal makes its presence felt on a biscuity dry finish with long lasting peppery hops turning quite earthy and rooty. A decent, well-made bitter with an unusual hop profile.
Kingstone 1503 Tudor Ale
1503 Tudor Ale commemorates the date of the first manuscript reference to the use of hops in British brewing, as recorded by Richard Arnold. The idea that this old ale closely resembles something Arnold might have brewed is surely fanciful, but 1503 tastes pretty good in its own right, and is certainly old fashioned in inspiration. Brown and smoked malts, used alongside pale and chocolate malts and some malted wheat and oats, recall the darker, smokier malt flavours of centuries past, while the single hop is the old established Fuggles variety. The result is chestnut brown, with a thick fawn head and a roasty burnt toffee and fruit aroma. The palate is dry but slightly treacly, with orange and apple notes, slightly musty yeast flavours, burnt rubber, smoke, lemon squash and caramel notes, but remains light in texture given the vivid flavours. There’s ripe orange on a juicy, slightly nutty and very moreish finish that develops late chocolate hints.
Kingstone Humpty's Fuddle IPA
Humpty’s Fuddle, previously known as Humpty Dumpty’s Downfall, is the brewery’s fair enough version of an old-style strong IPA, again hopped only with Fuggles, its pale malt bolstered with crystal malt and maize. This mid-amber beer has a thick and creamy pale fawn head and a yeasty ,malty aroma with a touch of banana. A firm pale malt palate has orange notes, peach syrup and oily spices. There are more orange and spice flavours in the finish which is slightly vinous, distantly reminiscent of Orval, with fennel and peach flavours and a late sprinkling of hops.
Read more about these beers at ratebeer.com:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/kingstone-classic-bitter/58236/
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/kingstone-1503-tudor-ale/79622/
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/kingstone-humptys-fuddle/104672/
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