Great Oakley Welland Valley Mild

Brewed by Great Oakley
Style: Mild Ale
Northampton, England

Serve in English pint, Shaker

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Cask conditioned @ Live and Let Live, Cambridge. Dry roasty malt hint of choc. Slightly ashy and smoky. Dry drinkable and refreshing with enough hints of richer flavours to add interest but not enough to overpower the delicate balance.

A - smokey with coffee A - dark and hazy with lasting head T - medicinal bitter P - mid and soft O - decent

Cask Handpump at the Kings Head, Huddersfield 15/08/2009 Some fruit and hop aromas. Beige head. Dark red coloured fruity and a little sour with a slight acidic taste. A hint of bitterness in a crisp and dry finish.

Cask at the Live and Let Live, Cambridge. Tar brown in colour with a loose beige head and a striking cherry red colour when held to the light; aroma of roasted malt with smoke and tar mingling; dry in the mouth with a solid chocolate malt body and a light peppery bitterness; then a touch of caramel to finish. Excellent - if only all milds were as good as this.

Handpulled cask at the Pembury Tavern on 15th July 2009, during beer festival. Deep brown-black with a small cream-coloured head. For such a low strength this mild was bursting with flavour. A sharp scent of roasted malts are in the forefront with strong coffee and chocolate notes abounding. A little sophisticated smoke too. First pint at the festival, and absolutely delicious.

[Gravity cask at Milton Keynes beerfest] Vicious foretaste of plums and coffee mellows into the usual dry, toasty mild, but the sour overtones of the plum keep hanging around. Interesting, and good depth of flavour, but ultimately it didn’t work very well for me.

Cask, Nottingham Fest 08. Dark brown with a small head. Aromas are weetabix and chocolate malts with light roast coffee. Flavours are malty with chocolate and coffee. Sweet, light, yet tasty. A simple decent 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.

UPDATED: FEB 21, 2008 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.