Medium reddish-brown. Toasty and slightly toffeeish aroma. Nice mild, with light toast, slight fruit, light body.

Cask at the Bird in Hand, Knowl Hill. Dark with a reddish copper glow and a ring of white head; fruity aroma with a touch of hops; immediate hit of Fuggles hops in the mouth, then sweet and malty; the finish is dry with raisins and sultanas. Very good, but rather an odd mild.

12th May 2009
Clear dark brown beer. Soft to dry palate. Nice balance of malt and hops. The hops start pretty bitter but then turn more fruity and finally end up a little sweet. Not bad!

[on cask at Nag’s Head, Reading] I’m a little bemused by these new-fangled milds-with-hops. Surely the whole definition of a mild and the thing that sets it apart from other English beers is that it is mild on hops - hence the name. Surely by adding hops you end up with something like a weak stout or porter? However, I’m quite happy with it as it expands the range of flavours available within milds, which hopefully will increase the popularity of this wonderful and vastly under-rated style. And if you’re going to start trying the style, this is a very fine beer indeed to start with. Near-black, with no head at all, it has a wonderfully dry, ashy, smokey, taste throughout, with strong mahogany overtones, as if the charred remains of a burnt antique wardrobe had been dropped into the mash tun. Sometimes a smokey flavour can be a little overwhelming, but in this beer it’s well balanced with a hint of deep fruitiness behind, making it a very easy-to-drink beer. The moderate bitterness in the aftertaste, unusual for a mild, makes it surprisingly refreshing and thirst-quenching for a dark beer, whilst the woody flavours mean that it remains a very comforting beer. Whilst it’s not the best mild I’ve had (try Brewdog Edge, Pint-Size Mild or Hobson’s Mild), it’s still an excellent beer that can kick the pants off of most of the over-hyped, over-strong Belgian beers in terms of both flavour and drinkability - hurrah once again for British brews!. In terms of similar beers it actually reminds me most of Stonehenge Old Smokey - which is a stout - and therefore reinforces my belief that milds-with-hops are actually stouts...