I don’t know much about the Wagtail brewery, as their website is Spartan to say the least…but as long as they’re concentrating on making good beer, who cares…

Pouring out a pure copper colour with a thinnish oily-slick looking head (which means good proteins and normally good beer) it looks like a bitter should.

The aroma is solid crystal malt and a very yeasty fruitiness.  I suspect that this has a lot to do with the bottle conditioning – which is almost certainly the brewery strain and not some “other” yeast pitched just for bottling.

This is a very dry, bitter and solidly malty pint. It’s got a very dry finish – which wasn’t completely to my particular taste, but that’s no yardstick to its quality. It’s not a desperately complex flavour profile and there’s no hop character to speak of, it’s just a good solidly-bitter flinty-dry drop.

I can’t remember where this beer came from – but wherever it was I don’t think it was stored well as there was a strange tangy cheesiness in the flavour, which I’m sure is not representative of Wagtail’s normal output at all.

And the name…yes I get it.  Whatever next?  Pale Quail?

http://www.wagtailbrewery.com/