Brewery: Adnams
Location: Sole Bay, England
Style: Sparkling, Belgian-style strong ale
ABV: 10%
Version: Bottled
Source: Courtesy of Adnams

I’d been looking forward to this one since it arrived a week and a half ago: Sole Bay Celebratory Beer, a special edition, 10% ABV, sparkling, Belgian-style ale brewed by Adnams to celebrate the 350th anniversary of their Sole Bay brewery.

Following a spot of helpful advice from Baron Orm I put the bottle in the fridge last weekend and then, chilled right down and glistening with perspiration, popped the cork on it last night. (The occasion I’d decided to celebrate? As suggested by @pintsandpubs: Friday. Also, as it turned out, a 4-0 England win over Bulgaria, which was a handy bonus.)

Here’s how the Sole Bay Celebratory looked after I’d poured the first measure into a tulip glass (the closest thing you’ll find to a champagne flute in our house):

Isn’t that a beautiful colour? Like sunset over the sea…

The aroma was gently sweet and faintly floral, nothing too intense. Carbonation was good: a steady flood of tiny, tonsil-tickling bubbles. And the flavour? A huge hit of instantly recognisable Belgian-styling, with honeyed malt, crisp shortbread biscuit, luxurious caramel, just a faint touch of hazelnuts or almonds, a splash of soft sherry and a nip of Irish whiskey. All those sweet, sweet flavours were then chased down by a lingering dryness on the after-taste which, coupled with the chilled-down carbonation, kept the overall profile in excellent balance and made for a sense of intense refreshment.

As the beer warmed a little – over the course of measure two and the half-glass that was left for measure three – that crisp, refreshing edge diminished slightly, but a those sugary flavours intensified and became more pronounced; by now I was getting sticky toffee-pudding and more fruit: ripe honeydew melon in particular. At one point I had a swig after nibbling a square of Green & Black’s fruit & nut milk chocolate and the result was an explosion of marzipan (and I’m a big fan of marzipan, so I repeated that little experiment a couple more times, just to be sure I had it right.)

In conclusion, then: a rather lovely, rather wonderful beer that would be a worthy accompaniment to any celebration. I reckon I’ll be ordering another couple of bottles of this one from Adnams in the very near future. One to keep until Yueltide / New Year, and one to store for a fair bit longer. I rather suspect that Sole Bay Celebratory will turn out to be a beer with great potential for alchemical magic, given a few years to let those sugars calm down a bit.

Huge thanks to the good folks at Adnams for their generosity in sending this one along for me to sample. And please don’t sell the rest before I can find my credit card…