Cottage Delight Great British Beer

Cottage Delight
Brewed at Leek
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Leek, England

Serve in English pint

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

Purchased in the gift shop at Leeds Castle, Kent with three others. They don’t normally sell beers at Leeds Castle, so I was pleased to see these. Looking at the brewery name, I thought this was a new brewery for me as well - Cottage Delight - though I was surprised that it was a Staffordshire brewery rather than a Kent one. I mentioned this to the shop manager, and she said that they were encouraged to try them as a Christmas special but it hadn’t worked. Not surprised really - why would tourists in Kent want to buy beer from Staffordshire? And the labels looked rather cheap and nasty. Shame, because the shop manager was now put off selling any beers. On getting the beers home I was saddened to note they are made by the Leek brewery under contract to Cottage Delight, a speciality food company. As is typical of Leek, the bottle conditioning hasn’t gone well, and while you can detect the roasty notes and the hops in the background, the upfront flavour is slightly acidic lemon, with a rather thin mouthfeel. Not good.