At the Tower Beer Fest 2019

By Steve the Beermeister:

I recently wrote a blog about the ale and cider festival being held this weekend at The Tower in London Road TN37 6NB, and yesterday I put in a couple of hours at the festival bar following a rather pleasant walk up through Alexandra Park (blog), looking back down to where I had been walking in the photograph above, oh, and I shall be posting a few more images soon of the Park...

Sorry about the quality of these last 2 indoors photographs, but above is the pub's bar which had 6 of the stronger ales available, out of 18 being served at any one time, plus 7 real ciders and a perry. I only drank 1 of these yesterday, though have enjoyed before the excellent pale dry hoppy bitterness of Burning Sky Brewery Aurora (5.6%) and the wonderfully full rich dark Gun Brewery Whisky Imperial Stout (7.4%). Yesterday I tried the Cwrw Ial The Apache Line, a 5% pale bitter, with a huge fruity aroma, mango and citrus in the flavour too, not so bitter and dry, but very easy to drink!

And from the bar which I worked as a volunteer on for a couple of hours, the less strong ales were served, plus the excellent stew, which I enjoyed too. I'll start with the weakest of those I tasted, the 3.9% Salopian Push, and I have to admit I was disappointed, as I'm usually impressed by Salopian's ales, though for many others it appeared their favourite, which is why drinking ales is so much fun, nearly an infinite number of possible recipes and nearly something for everyone! Push was/is a quite dry bitter ale with hints of fruit and sweet to taste at first, though not quite enough for me, though regular readers will appreciate that I am, and have been called, a "hop monster" in the past, so not enough hops for me, certainly not as many as I had expected...

I think I may have had the pleasure before, but I then tucked into Great Heck Proverbs (4.5%), with 2 excellent hops, Citra and Mosaic, used in the brew, which provided a lovely fruity and citrus aroma and taste, and lovely dry bitter finish.  Sticking with the Mosaic hop I enjoyed drinking the single hopped Downlands Mosaic (4.8% and does what it says on the label). This is a vegan friendly beer, which usually means a wee bit hazy, as no finings used, and produces a very BIG aroma, fruitiness bursting up into the nostrils! At first taste I caught a slight sourness to it, but this disappeared as I drank more of this pale golden ale with a lovely dry bitter finish.

The final 2 ales I tried were Redcastle Tower IPA (4.8%), a new (Scottish) brewery for me, and apparently using a mix of hops from Britain and the USA; this had a slightly fruity and caramel aroma, with malted biscuit in the taste and a nice dry bitter finish, enjoyable. The other was Long Man Special Tower APA Brew (4.8%), which I'm guessing was a dry hopped cask of their usual APA, with Willamette and Cascade hops, hint of citrus fruitiness, and very dry bitter finish.

My favourite of the day? Close, but the Downlands Mosaic, cheers!