X is Adventure Brewery’s range of limited edition beers and this, their first I believe, is a Best Bitter based on a recipe from 1885.
X pours a deep red brown and smells of boozy red fruits and biscuits.
You get a nice mouthful of malt as soon as you take a swig, full of apple and pear juice soaked into a bran biscuit base with a nice light treacle toffee over the top.
And there’s a good bitter hopping to follow.
It’s all Victorian pressed flowers, dry and brittle, fragile and pretty.
There’s a surprisingly big squeeze of lemon juice roaming around in here too, and it makes for a good astringent and bitterly dry finish that’s long and lovely.
Very good indeed.