Originally published in BEER April 2006
CAMRA North London tasting 2010
ABV: 4 and 4.2 per cent
Origin: Cropton, North Yorkshire, England
Buy from: Local Tesco, specialists
Mail order: 01751 417330, www.croptonbrewery.com
Cropton Two Pints
From Jacobite Ale [see previous post] to a brewery offering a beer called King Billy might once have seemed a jump too far, but anyone who appreciates great beer should find room for them both. Cropton is an outgrown brewpub dating from 1984 and based at the New Inn pub in a tiny village near Pickering in the North York Moors national park.
Its range of nine bottled beers are all bottle conditioned and all vegetarian and vegan. The ones I’ve tried are distinctive and packed full of flavour, and you can shop for a mail order mixed case on the web or over the phone.
Two Pints Bitter was the brewery’s first brew as a draught beer, so named because it was so good that drinking one pint was as good as drinking two. It’s a rich lively golden colour with a fine but low white head and a tart spiced apple and blackberry aroma, made from pale and crystal malt and hopped with Challenger and East Kent Goldings.
A dry, slightly milky and nicely biscuity palate has blackcurrant notes, with a bitter sting in the swallow leading to a delicate leafy finish with slight roasty notes. This is a subtle, elegant and very refreshing beer with an exquisite balance.
Cropton Scoresby Stout
Scoresby Stout is a more robust beer taking its name from a local whaling captain who is credited with inventing the crow’s nest. This adds roasted barley to a grist similar to Two Pints, to produce a very dark brown beer with a thick brown head subsiding to bubbly lace.
The aroma is relatively restrained, with malt, dark sugar, roast and cola, followed by lots of fruit on a very tangy palate with the sting of roasted barley. There’s charred wood well-blended with malt and a moreish touch of hop bitterness on the rounded finish.
At the CAMRA North London tasting in February 2010 we started with Two Pints, which was generally enjoyed as a well balanced straightforward session beer, although with a notably short finish with little hop character.
Read more about these beers at ratebeer.com:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/cropton-two-pints-bitter/6685/
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/cropton-scoresby-stout/6695/
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