Ok, ok, so I’ve done the exaggerated screamy hyperbole before, but this time I really mean it: Moor Revival is the best bottled British 4% pale ale in the galaxy.
A calm gleaming gold with a thin, creamy veil of head comes straight from the handsome bottle. Berries jump out first, shortly followed by citrus fruit, peel, pith and juice. One mouthful and you know you’ve got something good – a touch of sweetness to begin which is passed over by those hops bringing juicy fruit and fresh bitterness followed by pithy, grapefruity bitterness and a long, lingering finish to assert authority: I may only be 4%, it says, but I’ve got more flavour than all of your rubbish beers put together (it’s shouting back at all the boring brown bitters waddling aimlessly beneath it).
The joy of this beer is that it tastes just like a pint of perfect cask ale. In a blind taste test you’d struggle to pick it as a bottle; it doesn’t have ferocious bubbles and its flavours haven’t been dulled by the time spent in glass, instead it has the body, mouthfeel and freshness of something just-tapped and hand-pulled and that’s a great achievement.
Not many breweries succeed in bottling hoppy 4% pale ales and manage to retain this level of flavour and freshness. Moor Revival kicks arse (and it’s only £4 for a big bottle!).
I had this while watching the football yesterday so it could’ve been swept up under sadness but it shone as a beacon of light out of the mire of despair. It also went incredibly well with a packet of delicious Q pork scratchings, but then what doesn’t go well with pork scratchings? To qualify this further, during the game I also had a Crouch Vale Amarillo, a Marble Manchester Bitter and a Crouch Vale Apollo (the Apollo is deserving of a capital letter blog post, something along the lines of HOLY CRAP, CROUCH VALE APOLLO IS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST DELICIOUS SINGLE-HOP PALE ALE IN ENGLAND – the fruitiest Um Bongo aroma and another one which tasted like a freshly hand-pulled pint) and the Moor was the standout beer from its immediate peers.
Is it the best beer ever like forever or until the next beer you neck, which stands a reasonable chance of being the best beer ever?
ReplyDeleteFABFUCKING WOW!!
ReplyDelete"CROUCH VALE APOLLO IS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST DELICIOUS SINGLE-HOP PALE ALE IN ENGLAND" - Oh, I bet several of the Pictish single hop beers could give it a run for its money.
ReplyDeleteJC
Cookie - each of these best beers fit into their own, neat category. This is the galaxy's best 4% bottled pale ale. The next could be the world's greatest 8% stout, who knows?!
ReplyDeleteJC - I'd challenge that! I've had a few of the Pictish ones and this was spectacular. A side-by-side of Apollo single hoppers is likely the only way to decide it!