Ales of Kent

Merry Mice Mild

ABV 4.8% • Vol 500 ml • bottle • UK • Mid-price • Flavour 5.5 • Bottle Conditioned
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The Catford Beer Festival has a policy of featuring London and Kentish brewers, and this year the very small Ales of Kent brewery in Chatham contributed one of the two Festival Beers, available both on draught and in this bottle-conditioned version. The brewery is committed to dark mild, still a rare beast in the south of England, and on this occassion went for a strong version, taking the designation as correctly referring to flavour not strength. The name alludes to this year's festival logo, reproduced on the label: the regular cartoon cat character peering through a mousehole at a party of merrymaking mice. For all its laudable intentions, though, the beer itself is rather disappointing. It pours dark brown, with no head and a restrained carbonation, and starts with an attractive aroma of redcurrant and chocolate fudge, with some petrolly hints. The texture is very light, with a malty chocolate fudge cake palate barely lifted by a hint of ashy, coffeeish bitter in the finish and some tangy fruit. The beer doesn't follow through the promise of the aroma, and becomes quite cloying with some wet cardboard, badly in need of more balance. Perhaps the bottled version was simply the draught version bottled, unprimed, from conditioning tanks, and really needed a while to brighten up again: I didn't try the draught version, but I did revisit the brewery's regular Smugglers Mild (3.9%) and enjoyed it rather more for its pleasant melon-strawberry fruitiness.

Review submitted by: Des de Moor

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