Pirates, pale ale and pork sandwiches

We’ve got a standing commitment to go to the annual Wedmore Real Ale Festival in Somerset as often as possible.

We’ve described the unusually young, party-like, community atmosphere before, so we’ll just update a couple of topical details: the fancy dress theme this year was pirates, and the live band, Loose Change, were led by the absurdly charismatic local hero Pete Hicks.

These were the highlights on the beer front:

• Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout — nice in bottles, even better from a cask; rich and delicious, like coffee and rum.
• Titanic Chocolate and Vanilla Stout — fantastic aroma of the headline ingredients; tasted like Young’s Double Chocolate but more bitter.
• Thornbridge Jaipur — no need to rave about this intensely hoppy, delicious IPA again; a real shock to the system after two stouts and maybe a little astringent next to…
• Dark Star Sunburst — hoppier than Hophead but sweeter, too; fresh, fragrant and flowery.
• Dark Star American Pale Ale — similar to the above, but with more lemon and sherbet flavours. This was the outstanding beer of the night for us and maybe makes Dark Star our favourite UK brewery at the moment.
• RCH East Street Cream — rich, brown and fruity. Somehow not a party beer, though nice enough.