Beavertown Bloody ‘Ell: Decent, drinkable but the thrill has gone
I had my first glass of the new 5.5% Beavertown Bloody ‘Ell blood orange IPA at the Tottenham taproom on Saturday. A couple of weeks after the launch but I’ve been out of London and anyway does it matter that much since its no longer a seasonal beer?
I can report that it was a decent and highly drinkable beer that tasted of orange. So far so good. Was it in any way comparable to the old 7.2 version? Not that I could discern. That is perhaps obvious. If you take out 1.7% ABV from a beer its unlikely to have the same character.
I don’t really have an issue with that except I do think keeping exactly the same name is pushing it. The insertion of the word ‘new’ or ‘Mk11’ for a bit would perhaps have been a bit more upfront.
I also tried it in can btw where I was a little impressed with a can with a date just under a month old. The beer from the Tottenham Tap was clearly very fresh, as it should be.
The idea seems to be to push Bloody ‘Ell as a session fruit IPA (although that in itself indicates how the world has moved on. In the 1970s the strongest regular beer available in London was Fullers ESB at 5.56%. While it was certainly drunk in pints (halves were not well regarded) hangovers resulted). That seems like a perfectly decent plan.
Where and whether this will in fact happen remains a bit unclear. Perhaps in Heineken owned pubs. Alternatively maybe in supermarkets although the only one I’ve seen cans of Bloody Ell in so far is Waitrose.
Time will tell on that.
Perhaps Beavertown will come round to brewing a Bloody ‘Ell Original from time to time.
In the meantime the new version is a beer well worth trying, particularly if you have little or no memory of the 7.2% original.
My brief thoughts on earlier versions of Bloody ‘Ell (first produced in 2013) are here:
https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/beavertown-bloody-ell-2018-beard-friendly/
The original Bloody ‘Ell was my favourite IPA in any style and I vastly enjoyed the brief window it was available every year. Given this history I am sorely disappointed with the replacement which does not seem at all distinguished from the range of light slightly citrus IPAs available from many brewers. Ultimately I agree this new core beer should have been given a different name.
Fortunately many other solid Beavertown products remain available and still to a high standard IMO.
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