Beers Of London Series: 47. Adventure Brewery - South 5.0%

Beers Of London Series
47. Adventure Brewery- South 5.0%

When I first reviewed West by Adventure Brewery I have to confess I was a little low on details about them. Alex Wilson and Ben Owen, for it is they who are behind this venture now have much more information on their website than I was previously able to glean. They did indeed start brewing in January of 2012 (not Jamuary as I previously wrote, go check it's still there, but what a great month that would be) with the first bottles available in April of that year. Influenced by recipes from a bygone era, the heritage of nineteenth century brewing is very important to them, South is the second of their core range that I have had with North and East yet to come. They also brew a limited beer each month as part of the New Frontier range, and I'd love to get my hands on some of those too.
South is a best bitter brewed using the 1880 recipe from a London brewery but given the added twist of the addition of Australian hops. It pours quite a flat orange/yellow, especially considering it is bottle conditioned as all the Adventure bottles are, but with a thin layer of pure white bubbles sitting on top. It has an aroma of grapefruit juice, honey and orange chewy sweets, all very light and fruity and quite inviting. I'm picking up no trace of carbonation here, rather it oozes over the tongue with barely a whisper moving over the palate in quite a polite manner, shuffling along to make it's may down your throat, but what it leaves in it's wake is full and flavoursome. There's mandarin orange here and that really is the dominant flavour, but there's also peach skin, grapefruit, lemon and melon juice sitting nicely and confidently underneath. More of those chewy orange sweets come through in the finish leaving you feeling rather satisfied, even if it is a
touch sweet, but there's some bitterness and a little crumbly oaty biscuit coming through right at the death.
I really enjoyed this beer in spite, or perhaps because of that little prickle of fizziness that I have come to expect with most beers of this time that I drink. The big flavours are very welcome with the addition of those Australian hops adding some gorgeous juicy fruitiness to the mix. This is yet another beer I picked up from Ales By Mail and whilst they don't currently have it in stock as I write, I'm sure it won't be too long before they have it back.