Earlier this week I was delighted to take delivery of a bottle of Sole Bay Celebratory Beer, courtesy of the good folks at Adnams. It’s 750ml of 10% ABV Belgian-style ale with good carbonation (by which I’m guessing they mean it’s a ‘sparkling’ ale) which has been brewed to celebrate the 350th anniversary of Brewing by Adnams at Sole Bay.

Handsome devil it is, too, with it’s elegant livery and classy presentation tin:

Mind you, now I’m torn. The polite thing to do would be to sample it and post the Tasting Notes, tout-de-suite. But from the sounds of things, this one could be a bit on the sweet side and maybe a few months’ cellaring might help tone it down a bit? So maybe I should save it for a suitably celebratory occasion instead?

Only one thing to do, I reckon: sample it as soon as decently possible, then decide whether it’s the sort of beer that’s good to glug young or would definitely improve with age and (frankly, in either case) grab a couple more bottles from the Adnams webstore before the limited edition bottling runs out. Sounds like a plan to me.