I know I’m nowhere near the first beer blogger to suggest this (not by a long chalk), but fantastic as it is to sip and savour a huge, dry-roasted imperial stout or a gob-smacking, palate-shrivelling double-IPA, sometimes there’s nothing like a few good session bitters to see you through a pleasant evening (or two) of pleasant company down the pub.

A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to enjoy not one but two classic cases. On the Friday night I went out for a few jars and a chin-wag with my mate Andy. We started off down the Knott Bar, where I sampled a Titanic Port & Starboard (a 4.2% deep red-coloured ale with a rich malty main-flavour and a hoppy after-taste), followed by an Acorn Barnsley Bitter (3.8%, light, dry and hoppy). After that we wandered off to the Rising Sun, where we had a Leeds Best Bitter (4.3%, perfectly pleasant if not hugely remarkable) and then we nipped in for one more at the City Arms, where I had a Batemans G.H.A. Pale (another 4.2% hoppy and drinkable if not exactly amazing beer).

End result: after a couple of hours of chat and four pints each, we decided to call it a night. Personally I was feeling fine and dandy and nowhere near the worse for wear in the morning despite the 8-unit-or-so (technical) binge drinking session I’d indulged in the night before. So on Saturday I had no problem whatsoever heading out with Jo for date night at The Angel. The place is under new management and they’ve recently opened an upstairs dining room, which is where we sat to enjoy a particularly fine meal (red grouse for me and baked gurnard for Jo, both of which were delicious and are highly recommendable), accompanied by a couple more session bitters.

First up was Williams Bros Fraoch Heather Ale, which I’d only encountered in bottles before (a few years ago) and which turned out to be very good indeed on draught. Quite malty and slightly sweet, with a pleasant, light bitterness on the after-taste, it went down very easily indeed. Jo liked it so much she stuck with it for the rest of the evening, but I’d spotted a couple of others I wanted to try, so I switched to Redemption Urban Dusk, from a relatively new addition to the London brewery scene. This one was a 3.8%ABV dark bitter with a strong burnt-sugar flavour and plenty of malt. A very tasty dark beer that I wouldn’t mind trying again some time.

After that, I decided I was in the mood for something a bit more experimental, so I opted for a half of Hornbeam Lemon Blossom, a 3.7% pale ale that promised lemony freshness and turned out to taste like mildly alcoholic lemon curd; there was lemon zest in there, definitely, but the whole thing was carried along on a slightly stilton tang. Not entirely unpleasant, but not one I’d rush back to, either. And then I’m afraid I fell off the session wagon, because I’d spotted the big, boozy (6.6% ABV) Wensleydale Porter on draught at the very start of the evening and I’d been itching to try it ever since. Delicious it was, too: a big whack of roasty malt flavours, shot through with blackcurrant and fruitcake, with a nicely dry finish by way of contrast. A pint and a half of that one (Jo had the other half, having been tempted herself) and we called it a damn good night.

Brewery: Williams Bros Brewing Company
Location: Heather Ale Ltd, Alloa, Scotland, FK10 1NT
ABV: 5.0%

The colour of Fraoch when poured from the bottle with its elaborately decorated label is a very beautiful, golden honey-amber. The back label blurb declares that it has a “flowery aroma” which is actually true, there is a very light, flowery scent from the ale, which shouldn’t be a surprise since it is “infused in heather flowers before being fermented in coppers tuns.” The blurb also goes on to say how this is one of the oldest Scottish forms of ale brewing, with native heather infusions in ale going back to before the time of the Picts (on a side note the label decoration draws on the elaborate Pictish art forms which gives it a nice semi-historical, semi-fantasy look – maybe serve it up with Hobgoblin at your next D&D RPG night!) and is apparently brewed to a Scots-Gaelic 16th century recipe (Scots, Gaelic and Picts – ticks all the boxes for Scottishness, couldn‘t claim to be more Caledonian if it had Haggis smoothies added in), part of a range of historic Scots ale recipes the brewer has resurrected.

Okay, I do find the whole Pict-Scots-Gaelic-heather-ancient-recipe a little bit overdone, although I can see why they’d do it for marketing reasons, especially for overseas markets. And the blurb doesn’t affect the taste, which is very smooth and warm; the ale itself has a lightness, slightly sweet (especially the aftertaste), although not too sweet, just right. One odd observation for an ale though – I noticed a very small but persistent stream of bubbles in my glass for quite a while after pouring, which is unusual in an ale, although it isn’t a large amount like you’d expect in a fizzy lager. I have had Fraoch on draught a couple of times (in Edinburgh’s Guildford Arms, an extremely highly recommended real ale emporium) and I’m trying to remember if too had more bubbles than usual. Again it didn’t affect the refreshing, light, aromatic taste, so it doesn’t matter too much other than as a little quirky detail. A nice, different beer to slide into your mix now and again.