White Horse Black Beauty

Brewed by White Horse
Style: Mild Ale
Stanford-in-the-Vale, Faringdon, England

Cask conditioned handpump Evening Star Brighton An oily black coloured headless beer. The aroma is roasty with notes of coal and a bit of fruit. The taste is mild yet has good roasty and fruity notes. A tasty smoky mild.

[on cask at Nag’s Head, Reading] I’m a little bemused by these new-fangled milds-with-hops. Surely the whole definition of a mild and the thing that sets it apart from other English beers is that it is mild on hops - hence the name. Surely by adding hops you end up with something like a weak stout or porter? However, I’m quite happy with it as it expands the range of flavours available within milds, which hopefully will increase the popularity of this wonderful and vastly under-rated style. And if you’re going to start trying the style, this is a very fine beer indeed to start with. Near-black, with no head at all, it has a wonderfully dry, ashy, smokey, taste throughout, with strong mahogany overtones, as if the charred remains of a burnt antique wardrobe had been dropped into the mash tun. Sometimes a smokey flavour can be a little overwhelming, but in this beer it’s well balanced with a hint of deep fruitiness behind, making it a very easy-to-drink beer. The moderate bitterness in the aftertaste, unusual for a mild, makes it surprisingly refreshing and thirst-quenching for a dark beer, whilst the woody flavours mean that it remains a very comforting beer. Whilst it’s not the best mild I’ve had (try Brewdog Edge, Pint-Size Mild or Hobson’s Mild), it’s still an excellent beer that can kick the pants off of most of the over-hyped, over-strong Belgian beers in terms of both flavour and drinkability - hurrah once again for British brews!. In terms of similar beers it actually reminds me most of Stonehenge Old Smokey - which is a stout - and therefore reinforces my belief that milds-with-hops are actually stouts...

Cask, gravity at Oxford City Football Club Beer Festival 24-05-08 Poured black tapering off to brown at the edges little or no head to speak of. The aroma is a little earthy and also burnt, but the first taste is just great, a stunning burnt woody bitterness that just hangs there forever, in fact I was still tasting this beer some 20 mins later after I’d cycled into town. The hops appear to sit there patiently (fuggles according to the beer programme notes) but then they show, but it’s the wonderful restrained fruitiness which competes and eventually loses out to some super roasty, toasty woodiness. This is a proper mild, and at 3.9% very sessionable also proof if its needed that White Horse appear to be back on form again. Excellent.

Cask at Wellington Arms, Bedford. Near black with a small beige head. Lovely aroma of grainy straw and dusty toast like a rather dowdy stable deep in the shires. Taste is malty, burnt and ashy as last weekend’s bonfire, with some sour dark fruit and a crisp bitterness. Magical.

Cask conditioned at The Woolpack, Banbury. Pearlescent Black with tan head. I thought I had had all that a Mild could throw at me, I thought I could get no surprises from an outdated beer style (according to those that are supposed to know), but my word this black and roasty beer shows us a new direction for this great old style, the early milds with hops were largely a little dull, this is heavenly fruity and dry and refreshing, absolutely marvelous and full. It reminds me of an old leather chair that you rediscover after years of being away, comfy, easy and welcoming. The best beer I have had this year so far, words are not enough.