If anyone is interested this bottle pale ale is on "try me for free" offer in Tesco and Asda (and probably others) at present. The redemption is via post with circled till receipt and neck label as proof of purchase.
It's a lovely and unsual pale ale style beer - I guess that the unusually deep and hoppy smell and flavour comes from the US hops (Tettnang hops). Very nice but possibly a little too easy to drink and maybe a little too light in terms of taste.
Gareth.
But these tettnang were grown in US, see also a beer Young's used to brew with US fuggles, or new CBoB, Crouch Vale Brewer's Gold, brewed with a UK of the same name, now only grown abroad (Germany, Belgium & in their case, US I think).
Now NewZealand hop-growers claim to grow many noble hop varieties often organically too, but they've been bred/genetically mucked about with (you can tell I'm a scientist, yes? it has something to do with diploid & triploid something or other) & they turn out with massively high alpha acids, which is usually associated with lower quality aroma / flavour.
Not brewed with them ever though, so I'll reserve judgement, but air-freighting organic hops into a hop-growing country seems a bit daft to me too! cheers, MikeMcG.
And Austria has a bit as well :-)
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