Back to Bitter - Shropshire Gold

The Tweed Pig feels bitter on his return to Blighty

The pig has landed. A lovely break in Croatia, but it's good to return to the green and pleasantness. I don't normally miss things when I'm away, in fact I have a tendency of going native in a rather affected way, but this time I missed a nice pint of bitter. A good glass of wine you can get anywhere, bitter is more elusive.

Whilst paddling in the waters of the Adriatic, I pondered over the words of the star chef and, ahem, eccentric Marco Pierre White. I can't recall exactly the why and when, but he recently posited something along the lines of British food needing to be accompanied by British ale and not wine (Britsh or otherwise).

We enjoy the whole a-b-c of the cocktail cabinet at Tweed Towers, from Absinthe to Zinfandel, but I wondered whether he might actually have a point?

Shropshire Gold turns a ham sandwich into an ambrosian delight

 

Pining for bitter, the first on my return is a very fine ale indeed - we have fine wines, so why not fine ales? It's called Shropshire Gold – a fitting name for a beautifully golden ale. It has won several awards for the Salopian Brewery, and is described as being "golden", naturally, "with a floral aroma, hoppy, malty". But does it taste good? Indeed it does. Very good. I had it slightly chilled. The beer left a very pleasant finish on the palate, and it made a fitting accompaniment to a simple, thickly-cut Wiltshire ham sandwich on crusty bread with English mustard (I pined for a nice ham sandwich too). Marco Pierre White experiment successfully completed.