This week’s Ale Mail sees everything from Hobsons Mild to zesty hoppy beers via Darwin’s Origin. Keep up to date with what is on the bar on our Real Ale and Craft Beer page http://baileyhead.co.uk/real-ale-and-craft-beer-at-the-bailey-head/
On the bar:
Howling Hops Pale Ale No 1 (Citra Simcoe Mosaic) 3.8% £2.70
Hoppy! A tantalising combination of citrus and tropical fruits with good refreshing bitterness. Hackney, London.
Hobsons Best 3.8% £2.70
The very first of the Hobsons deliveries in 1993 and still a firm favourite. Best has lived up to its name and won many awards over the years including CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain, overall Bronze medalist in 1997 and CAMRA West Midlands Champion Bitter in 2012. The pale brown to amber medium bodied beer has a strong hop character. It’s a bitter but with unconventional warm tones of malt that lingers on the palette, the complex malty flavours gives richness, balanced by the clean hoppy finish. A good session bitter brewed with local British hops picked from the farm seven miles down the road in Worcestershire – Fuggles, Goldings, Challenger and Progress. Cleobury Mortimer.
Salopian Darwin’s Origin 4.3% £2.70
A specially brewed ale for 2009 to celebrate the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth in Shrewsbury. A copper coloured beer that evolves with a pronounced hop character which leads to a refined malt finish. Awards: SIBA National Champion Best Bitters Gold 2015, SIBA National Champion Beer 3rd Overall 2015, CAMRA Champion Best Bitter of Britain 2014, 3rd overall CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain 2014, West Mids CAMRA Best Bitter of the Year 2013, SIBA National Best Bitter 2010. Shrewsbury. LocAle.
Salopian Far Side 4.8% £2.70
A black rich opulent stout with aromas of chocolate, cocoa, and roasted malts the flavour is smooth and creamy with hints of cookie dough, vanilla, liquorice and resinous hops.. Shrewsbury. LocAle
Coming on this weekend:
Hobsons Champion Mild 3.2% £2.70
Hobsons champion Mild has a smooth character and taste notes of chocolate malt, which gives this beer plenty of flavour and belies its strength. A British classic crafted to our brewers special recipe makes this a nutty mild and despite being only 3.2% abv it’s packed full of flavour. Hobsons Mild is brewed in the style of a traditional dark coloured Mild ale, using Maris Otter malting barley, pale chocolate malt and crystal malt and British variety hops Fuggles and Goldings from Worcestershire. Cleobury Mortimer.
Coming soon:
Burning Sky Plateau 3.5% £2.70
Burning Sky was set up a couple of years ago by brewer Mark Tranter, one of the founders of the Dark Star Brewery – one of the pioneers of the microbrewery revolution. Pale gold in colour, with a crisp malt edge and sharp bitterness. Plateau has been hopped at different stages of the brew, with a big mix of US & NZ hops to satisfy the discerning drinker. Full in flavour, zesty, refreshing & low in alcohol, this beer will have you returning to the bar for another. Sussex.
Three Tuns Rantipole 3.6% £2.70
Refreshingly light and hoppy with hints of elderflower. Bishops Castle. LocAle
Pig & Porter Skylarking Session IPA 4% £2.70
An ultra-pale super refreshing session IPA hopped with Ella and Galaxy. Expect hints of tropical fruit, mango, lychee and melon. Kent.
Pig & Porter Ashcan Rantings Pale Series Citra 4.2% £2.70
One of a series of pale ales featuring different hops, featuring US Citra hops. Kent.
Pig & Porter Dance First Stout 4.2% £2.70
Something a little different. Black and roasty as you’d expect but with a clean tasting yeast and some beautiful resinous American hops that work particularly well in a dark beer. Kent.
We have a fridge full of exciting beers from The Wild Beer Co in Somerset.
Wild Beer. Wild Yeast. Wild Hops. Wild Ingredients. Wild Ideas. Wild Ambitions.
If you fancy trying a sour beer, a saison, a geuze or something wildly different…
All £3.00 a 330ml bottle
Sleeping Lemons 3.6% – L’hamd Marakad, the Moroccan for preserved lemon, literally translates as Sleeping Lemons. Wild preserved lemons in salt and lemon juice throughout last winter, ready to brew this refreshing, zesty special. Gose, is a traditional German-style sour wheat beer, usually brewed with coriander and salt. Once nearly extinct, this very refreshing style is making a comeback and we thought it would provide the perfect backbone to this wonderfully complex summer beer.
Sourdough 3.6% – Loosely based on a Berliner Weisse style – a historical Sour beer style from Northern Germany, but with a Wild Beer slant to it. Using Hobbs House Bakery’s 58 year old sourdough culture and a little brettanomyces and put the beer straight into oak barrels for its primary fermentation. It has been slowly fermenting, maturing and souring for 4 months in the barrels and will continue to evolve and develop in the bottle.
Wild Goose Chase 4.5% – The “all-day” wild beer, tart and fruity, but well-hopped and drinkable. We have been chasing this beer since we started the brewery and love this combination. Juicy, tart gooseberries and our own culture of wild yeast from local orchards give this a gentle acidity. Whilst a generous “dry-hop” of complementary hops enhance the fruitiness and give a light but moreish bitterness.
Somerset Wild 5% – A beer with the acidity levels of a white wine or farmhouse cider, with a depth, complexity and refreshing drinkability to it that makes it a wonderful beer to pair with food.
Epic Saison 5% – This Farmhouse Ale is a transcontinental fusion of Belgium’s eclectic beer culture and the feisty Sorachi Ace hops of North America.
Fresh 5.5% – pale ale, made with northern and southern hemisphere hops. Created with a passion for flavour and a lust for hops – this is a frisky, fragrant pale ale. Whilst consistency is (rightly) the benchmark of most beers, we’ve gone Wild and thrown away the rulebook on this one. Every six months Wild source some of the most interesting hops from the northern and southern hemispheres, which means two hop harvests and two excitingly different hop profiles.
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Guest keg on the bar:
Salopian Kashmir 5.5% £4.00 a pint, or £2.70 for 2/3 pint in a Salopian Brewery Rastal glass.
An elegant strong Salopian version of an IPA, citrus, pines and tropical fruit engulf the palate and caress the senses. A dry body with an extremely long lingering finish. Hopped with Citra, Riwaka and Saaz.
Guest keg coming on this weekend replacing the Kashmir:
Intrepid Traveller 5.4% £4.00 a pint, £2.70 for 2/3 pint, £2.00 half.
American India Pale Ale. With plenty of fruit flavours, bags of hoppyness and finished with a slight caramel sweetness. Straw coloured, fruity nose and initial flavour of oranges & grapefruit followed by a bitter bite at the end from all the hops which are from America, Australia and New Zealand. Derbyshire.
Permanent keg:
Arbor Nitro Stout 4.2% £3.00
Brewed specifically for keg, this easy drinking dry stout pours silky smooth with a tight off-white head. Brewed in Bristol by the Arbor microbrewery, this is our alternative to the traditional black stuff.
Wrexham Lager 4.0% £2.70
A revival of the old ‘Wrexham Lager’ that went defunct in 2000, brewed at a new microbrewery. A refreshing, lightly hopped malty lager.
Krombacher Pils 4.8% £3.00
German pils imported by Oakham Ales and brewed under German Beer Purity Law, so full of flavour not chemicals. Pale gold colour, stable white head. Hoppy aromas and malt flavours. A Krombacher stands for naturally fresh beer enjoyment and a fine, spicy aroma.
Orchard Pig Draft Ciders:
Explorer. 4.5% Still. Bag in a box real cider. The bittersweet aroma and taste of cider country with a lingering ripe fruit sweetness – easy drinking Somerset cider. £2.70
Reveller 4.5% Keg. A celebration of Somerset – snort in the hearty aroma of West Country cider apples. Crisp, refreshing and lightly sparkling cider with a tangy note of freshly squeezed lime. £2.70
Farmer Jim’s Farmyard Perry 4.5% A clear medium sweet perry, tastes a mixture of conference pears and pear drops.
Our food:
Cheese Board £5.00
A generous helping of locally Shropshire produced cheese by the Weird & Wonderful Cheese Company.
Served with a selection of pickles and a choice of crackers.
Choose three from:
Cheddar Crunch with Sea Salt
Coloured Cheshire (unpasteurised) – Gold Award Winner British Cheese Awards 2014
Blue Cheshire (unpasteurised) – only made by two cheese producers
Chilli and Jalapeno Oak Smoked
Paprika Smoked
Red Leicester with Black Pepper
Cheddar with Garlic and Mixed Herbs.
Charcuterie Platter £5.50
Wenlock Edge locally produced charcuterie platter of Prosciutto, Bresaola, Coppa and Salami prepared to Swiss recipes. Served with antipasti and two freshly baked French Petits Pains.
Pork Pie Platter £2.60
A Radfords Pork Pie produced in Oswestry served with a range of pickles.
Choose from:
Traditional
Caramalised Onion
Black Pudding.
Scotch Egg Platter £2.60
Aunty Mo’s locally produced Scotch Eggs. Served with a range of pickles.
Choose from:
Original
Welsh Dragon Chilli
Black Pudding.
Snacks
Pipers award winning crisps 40g 90p: Anglesey Sea Salt, Lye Cross Cheddar and Onion, Karnataka Black Pepper and Sea Salt, Burrow Hill Cider Vinegar and Sea Salt, Kirkby Malham Chorizo, Biggleswade Sweet Chilli, Wissington Spicy Tomato.
Our Pork Scratchings are changing:
Black Country Pork Scratchings 45g 80p
Changing to…
JT Pork Crackling 80g £1.00
Bowl of Spicy Habanero Peanuts £1.20
Bowl of Pretzels £1.20
Bowl of Salt and Pepper Pistachios £1.75