Nothing to do with the American Civil War. (Black Sheep Ale)

Member Name: The Operator

Product:	Black Sheep Ale
Date:	14/07/01 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: We've done this before

Disadvantages: And this

I didn't have to go to work today, or yesterday for that matter. A two day holiday taken at short notice. When is this country going to recognise the needs of parents with young children who develop rashes overnight? We have to babysit - I can't send him into school with a rash and Mrs O was meant to be standing in for a teacher today, even though she's technically unqualified to do so, being only a LSA and she usually has to take days off. So it was my turn. At least I get paid holiday, she doesn't. Anyway, that's all for a different op on a different day.

To celebrate this enforced rest I thought I'd do the sensible thing and drink some beer. I don't visit pubs in my locale, they're full of types called Darren and Tel who should be at home doing their maths homework but instead go out parading their suppurating acne sores, wearing their shirt tails outside their trousers in order to drink pale fizzy beer from bottles and unfeasible amounts of Red Bull which appears to make them walk with permanently bent legs (has anyone else noticed that?).
So I get a couple of bottles from Wm Morrisons really good and splendid off-licence and dream up one of these. It's a habit which needs funding, so there.

Black Sheep Ale has my undivided attention this week. I took some away with me on holiday on the boat (mentioned elsewhere) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then someone (I think it was Thanatoszane), in a comment to the chocolate beer op said she was drinking some of this and the rest is here. I can't say "the rest is history", that would be daft. Me writing a beer opinion won't ever rank up there with The Gettysburg Address or the Battle of the Bulge (capitalised just because, you pedants and anyway, my German mother-in-law is staying at the moment so these are nouns in her Art), those are big-time history. If Abe Lincoln had mentioned Black Sheep Ale, that would definitely have been history. Extraordina
rily prescient as well; the brewery has only been around for about 10 years.

Black Sheep Brewery was founded and is run by Paul Theakston, 5th generation of that ilk and is based in Masham, North Yorkshire. That's 'Massam', by the way. Why Black Sheep? It's not the obvious Yorkshire Dales/sheep farmer thing. Paul Theakston founded the brewery after the family firm got taken over by the huge mega Scottish and Newcastle, now Scottish Courage (go on, name more than two of their products off the top of your head). Theakston's on the other hand, may well have been around for Abe to mention on November 19th 1863 as they can trace their involvement with brewing back to the 1820s. So Black Sheep because Paul wanted to carry on the family tradition outside the influence of huge, big fat brewery man. But to do it a few yards down the road from the the others, now that takes big ones.

If the rest of the business is as healthy as this beer, they are in good shape. This is a very very nice beer indeed. It is a bottled version of the cask Black Sheep Special and puts out a healthy 4.4% abv so it doesn't really pack a punch, more a sly poke and a little tug of your hair. A healthy golden colour and very malty smell are the first impressions on opening although the maltiness settles down once in the air. It pours out a healthy but not too smooth and creamy head (good) and Camra types will doubtless be pleased to know that the two main constituents are Goldings hops and Maris Otter barley; so nothing out of the ordinary there then he says trying to sound knowledgeable but actually coming over as cocky. These are fairly common ingredients in English Ales. But it's what the brewmaster does with them when he combines them with the brewery's own water source that makes the result special. How he managed to get that lovely whiff of toffee apples, I don't know. If I did, I wouldn't be spending an hour or so in pursuit of a quid
for a few hundred words on beer, I'd be making it. It may be something to do with the fact that Black Sheep use a rare form of fermenting vessel, the "Yorkshire square", a vat made of slabs of Welsh slate. Goodness knows what flavours that could impart.

This all makes for a very drinkable beer. The slightly dry bitterness and that toffee apple taste balance one another nicely and there is no tangy metallic aftertaste that you can get with some lesser bottled beers. Yummy.

The label says that this beer is "the culmination of five generations of brewing expertise". It also says that it is brewed at "Masham, North Yorkshire. And nowhere else". A rather pointed reference to the fact that Theakston's, the family firm, now brew not only at Masham, but in huge horrible fat lardy bulk in Newcastle as well.

You keep brewing it, Paul - I'll keep buying it.

Dan? Not serious just a slight allergic reaction so the holiday's over.

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