Brewery: Wolf Brewery
Location: Attleborough, Norfolk, England
ABV: 4.8%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

I fancied a cheeky mid-weeker on Wednesday and there were a couple of beers that I picked up from the Sainsbury’s real ale promotion that I wanted to try early in case they turned out to be worth stocking up on at promo prices. I actually started off with the Allgates Brewery Porteresque, but unfortunately it had gone off in the bottle, so I reached for the Wolf Brewery Woild Moild.

This one turned out to be just fine. It poured a lovely dark chestnut with a ruby tint (very Hobgoblin-esque, actually) and to start with there was a sharp, almost acid bite – although this mellowed as the beer went on – with an underlying sweetness (hints of green apples, dates, brown sugar, dark chocolate) and a slightly bitter finish that reminded me of rooibos tea.

Overall it was very pleasant indeed and definitely one of the more interesting milds I’ve encountered to-date – more flavoursome than both the Dunham Dark and Phoenix Monkey Town that I tried at the Altrincham Bottle & Cask Festival at the weekend, for instance. I’ll be keeping an eye out for other Wolf-themed beers in future.

Sainsbury’s have kicked off this year’s Real Ale promo and have the full range in stock at our local store, which made last night’s mid-week top-up shopping trip about twice as expensive, twice as heavy and ten times as interesting as it usually is.

I grabbed pretty much one of everything they had, which means I’m now the proud owner of a bottle of each of the following all-new (to me) beers:

• Allgates Brewery Porteresque – “classic style porter”, 4.4%
• Bath Ales Golden Hare – “full-flavoured light ale”, 4.4% abv
• Bays Brewery Bays Breaker – “award-winning ale with a chestnut colour and fruity taste”, 4.7% abv
• Greene King Bretwalda – “spicy and fruity ale”, 4.1%
• Hambleton Ales Taylor’s Tipple – “chestnut coloured ale with an uplifting citrus and berry aroma”, 4.5%
• Williams Bros 80/- Ale – “traditional Scottish ale brewed with an emphasis on the malt characteristics”, 4.2%
• Williams Bros Birds n’ Bees – “golden summer ale … brewed with a late infusion of elderflowers and lemon zest”, 5%
• Williams Bros Ceilidh – “crisp, citrusy lager”, 4.7%
• Williams Bros Williams IPA – “Aggressively hopped … an unusual blend of Bramling X and Amarillo”, 5%
• Wolf Brewery Woild Moild – “rich, fruity mild”, 4.8%
• Wolf Brewery Wolf Whistle – “lightly hopped reddish ale” 4.7%
• Wood’s Brewery Shropshire Lass – “a delectable blonde”, 4.1%

I picked up top-up bottles of BrewDog’s Chaos Theory, Dogma and Hardcore IPA as well, all of which I’m already quite familiar with and fairly stocked-up on already… but it would have been rude not to, eh? Prices ranged from about £1.59 to £1.89 per bottle, but with the ’4 for 3, cheapest free’ offer that dragged the averages down into bargain territory, particularly for those BrewDog brews.

Compared to last year’s selection there seems to be a smaller group of participating breweries this time around – whether this is down to their having stormed the taste-tests or for logistical reasons I don’t know – but still a reasonably broad range of beer styles. Nice to see a mild and a porter included, as well as a craft lager and, of course, BrewDog’s two hop-monsters and their rather delicious Dogma.

I think I’m most looking forward (BrewDogs aside, as I’ve already tried all of those) to the Allgates Porteresque, Williams 80/-and Wolf Woild Moild. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Greene King Bretwalda will be the dud of the bunch, but that might be my inherent ‘Greene King = kinda average’ bias creeping in. We shall see.

Update 28.08.09 Reluctant Scooper has posted a tasting round-up of the four Williams Bros beers.