Pah! I leap to the defence of the Mumbles Ale House. He keeps Butcombe Bitter on more-or-less permanently for those fancying a straight-up no-nonsense English Bitter, and Wye Valley Butty Bach for those who like their beer to be good without being interesting. And the week before last he had two very different stouts on simultaneously. As the new kid on the block in Mumbles he consciously chooses beers that are different from those you are likely to find in the other two decent boozers. The Park Inn up the road keeps excellent beer but has a lucky-dip approach to rotation and tends not to think quite so carefully about what the whole 'portfolio' is offering at any given moment, so it's not unusual to find five biscuity offerings on at once. And biscuity happens to be my least favourite thing in a beer, although I don't mind it in a biscuit. The Pilot only has a couple of guests on at a time because it is usually serving three of its own beers, which are mostly OK but you wouldn't chuck an Oakham or a Celt out of bed to fit them in. The Alehouse is the only place that is really paying attention to hops, which only appear all the same to people who don't like hops very much. At any given moment he will be offering most of the following: a low-strength session beer with tons of flavour (like Cereal Killer or One-Inch Punch); a single-hop masterpiece like Oakham Citra; a red, brown or rye ale; something complex and full-flavoured like Arbor Blue Sky Drinking or Oakham Bishop's Farewell; a crazy tropical hop-frenzy thing, and either a porter or a stout. Occasionally even a mild, which no one else seems to bother serving. Yesterday I mostly settled on the crazy tropical hop-frenzy thing - a session IPA from Arbor callled Shangri-La, but I was a bit torn between that and Antares - a mahoosively malty and suitably bright red beer with a surprising dry finish from Dark Star. My dad made sensible use of his brief visit by trying everything above 4%, then going round again to make sure.
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