Brut Al

England U21 7 v Andorra U21 0
UEFA U21 Championships Qualifying, Group 4
Thursday 11 October 2018
Played at Chesterfield

With one game still to play, that easy, bit of a farce if I'm honest, win puts England through to the 2019 U21 EUROs (in Italy & San Marino). You can't knock their record. Played 9, won 7, drew 2. Unbeaten. But, naturally, that wasn't much of a game.

The major drink around the game was the Sheffield CAMRA Steel City 44 Beer Festival at Kelham Island. A great, something for everyone gig. The Carrier Bag Firm prefer it quiet. Afternoon drinkers us. On Wednesday, the doors don't open until 5pm. And, we'd had an SUFC Futures game up the hill at Shirecliffe cancelled from under us. So, we had to grit our teeth, put a torch in the Carrier Bag & drink as the street lights came on. Surprisingly doable, who knew? But, it felt better settling in for the arvo on Thursday.

Usual recent winning formula set up. Breweries A to K upstairs, L onwards downstairs. And a key keg bar. One of the CBF drinks upstairs on one day. Downstairs the next. That's a way of doing it. I prefer the relentless up & down continuous guessing game. Keeps my steps up an’ all.

Aside - there is a marvellous website the festival uses. You can search by style, brewery, etc & set up a hitlist that you can attack vigorously. And tick off. Love that work. Crucially, you can search by abv. I'm a big big fan of thirds of low abv Pales at festivals. Keeps your head clear, and on track for absolutely filthily piling into the high abv keg Imperial IPAs when “it's nearly time to leave”.

My own Beer Of The Festival was Oakham, Elephant In The Whirlpool, IPA, cask at 5%. A 25th anniversary beer brewed in their new whirlpool copper. I thought that was superb. Right up there. Some indiscernible sugar. Then a growing, growing ever richer bitterness.

The judging panel put Little Critters, Nutty Ambassador, Milk Stout as Sheffield Beer Of The Festival. And, I can see why. At 6%, very well balanced. Pleasantly NOT too sweet. Nice & complex. All the flavours coming through.

I chucked myself at a few of the new Brut IPAs. By far the best was Abbeydale, Splash It All Over on keg at 6.5%. The Brut business just seemed to smooth it all out. As if everything was getting out of the way for the hop finish. But, damn, it just needed a bit more bitter.

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