Rebellion Cask Ale

So due to the unfortunate eruption of an Icelandic volcano with a name too hard to pronounce never mind spell, I found myself in the position of being stuck in the UK for three nights as oppposed to the originally planned one. However I decided to make the most of my time and seek out some nice Engish cask ale.

First up on Wednesday night was two beers from the Rebellion Beer Company This company is based near Marlow on the banks of the Thames. The brewery was established in 1999 and currently has a capacity of 36,000 pints per week and seems to only deliver to local pubs and restaurants.

The first beer was a session IPA that was only 3.7% ABV, this was a really nice beer, not too dissimilar to what I would imagine Galway Hooker would taste like on Cask, it was nice thirst quenching drink with a good solid bitter backbone. I followed this on with a pint of their Rebellion Budget Blues Ale. This beer appears to be part of a series of one-off beers that Rebellion are producing in 2010, they are brewing one per month and the series is called the Recession and Recovery Range. This is descirbed on their website as Red and Hoppy with a strength of 4.3%. This was a really enjoyable red ale, it would be more balanced towards bitter rather than an Irish red ale that would be more about the sweet malts. Really enjoyed this beer and would think that this is maybe one of the series that should be added to the permanent rotation.

I really enjoyed these two beers, and they really showed me what a cask beer is all about, served at the right temperature through a beer engine that is well looked after, you can enjoy a quality pint of beer the way it was supposed to be enjoyed.

For the rest of the week I was stuck down in London, however I did still manage to enjoy some nice Young's Gold and a few pints of Greene King. Overall a very enjoyable few days of beer tasting, I must remeber to be over in the UK the next time an Icelandic volcano decides to erupt.