The Bar Towel

The Champion Beer of Britain was announced yesterday on the first day of The Great British Beer Festival. For the second year in a row the winner was from a Scottish brewery. Harvieston Bitter and Twisted is described in the Good Beer Guide as a refreshingly hoppy beer with fruit throughout. A bitter-sweet taste with a long, dry, bitter finish. Sounds great! Has anybody had this? If so What is your opinion of this beer?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Publican on 2003-08-06 20:24 ]</font>

We placed a private order for this beer back in June, so we should be receiving it within the next month or so. We ordered five beers from the brewery including Old Engine Oil.

Good, but not CBOB good. That award is really hit and miss IMO.

FYI, the Champion beers at GBBF are the draft versions, not the bottles, with the exception of the Champion Bottle-Conditioned Beer this year which was O'Hanlons Port Stout from our supplier, O'Hanlons Brewery who are also now producing Thomas Hardy's Ale.

I've had this bottle-conditioned (Bitter & Twisted) so the difference is negligible from the cask. It simply isn't up to the task. I've had several dozen better bitters in the UK. This and last year's are good, but lean more towards the middle of the road, which isn't good enough for such a prestigious award. Kind of in the same way that I like Creemore but I couldn't call it Canada's best - as good as it is, it's just not interesting enough. The CBOB should be a captivating pint, not merely satisfying.

O'Hanlon's Port Stout, on the other hand, is dynamite stuff, and fully deserving of the award (and the Champion Winter Beer nod it picked up last year).

We may bring in some O'Hanlons Stout when we get our tiny allocation of Thomas Hardy as it will be at least a year before we can get it into the LCBO...we'll keep you informed.