Great Oakley Welland Valley Mild

Cask gravity @ Reading Beer Festival 2008.
Clear medium red brown color with a average, fizzy, fair lacing, mostly diminishing, off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, roasted, burnt, coffee. Flavor is moderate sweet and moderate to heavy bitter (malt burnt bitter) with a long duration. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is flat. (020508)

Cask at the Globe, Nottingham. I found this to be a pleasant but unremarkable mild with all the usual sort of aromas and flavours – roast, coffee, etc. It was a textbook case, but without any flair to make it stand out.

First pint at the highly anticipated Merton Winter Festival. Rich chocolate brown, big soapy tan head that lingers attractively. Deep toast aroma, as if one made a concentrate, a reduction sauce, of toast. Nice chocolate accent. Simple, gently sour roast flavor. Just enough body to keep it from feeling unsubstantial, but still a deeply refreshing beer. (If daily gallons of beer like this were still one of the perks of being a miner, perhaps we’d still have more mines.) Cracking good mild, and a fine way to start the festival.

Cask conditioned at Merton Winter Beer Festival ’08. Dark brown with white head. Dry nutty flavours, perhaps hazelnut, to the fore in this beer, quite bitter from the malt and packs plenty of flavour for the ABV. Some smoky and coffee background notes. An unusual but very decent mild.

Cask at ’Spoons, Milton Keynes. Dark brown, small off white head. Musty chocolate aroma. roasted taste, quite strong up front. Finish tails off into residual back of throat bitterness. Doesn’t have the sour, grainy taste I like in a mild. But it’s still pretty good.