Today's Independent features a guide to the top 50 beers.
Oxfordshire breweries have done rather well with four of the fifty being brewed in the county.
Hook Norton Brewery does particularly well with both their bitter, Old Hooky, and their Double Stout both featured.
Brakspear Triple, which is nowadays brewed by the Wychwood Brewery, and Ridgeway IPA, from the brewery set up by Brakspears former head brewer, also feature.
This is great news for local brewers and the top 50 as a whole, which is mainly made up of UK beers, demonstrates the strength of the growing UK small brewery sector.
The list also featured several other of my favourite tipples including Badger Golden Champion from Hall and Woodhouse in Dorset (for any Westminster based readers you can enjoy it at St Stephens Tavern next to Westminster tube station), St Austell Brewery's Admiral Ale and Hop Back Brewery's Summer Lightning.
Unfortunately Wychwood's cult brew, Hobgoblin, didn't feature.
There are several other excellent small breweries in this area including the Appleford Brewery based at Brightwell-cum-Sotwell near Wallingford, Best Mates Brewery, based at Ardington near Wantage and the White Horse Brewery based at Stanford-in-the-Vale.
See my next post for more about beer.
2 comments:
I thoroughly recommend the Lamb & Flag in St Giles for Oxfordshire brews. It seems that every time I've been in lately they have a different Oxfordshire brewery on show. Oxfordshire Ales in particular has some stunners. And, though technically Buckinghamshire, the Vale Brewery's Vale Pale Ale is fabulous - when they say citrus, they really mean it.
Ah yes - Oxfordshire Ales' Triple B is very tasty.
Have you been to the Royal Blenheim recently? It is run by the White Horse Brewery now and has their beers on tap as well as several guests.
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