My local Farm Shop (yes I live out in the country) sells City of Cambridge Brewery ales.

Hobson’s Choice is one of the 4 bottles I bought last time I was there. Atom Splitter, Parker’s Porter and Boathouse Bitter are the other ones I’ll try sometime soon.

Hobson’s Choice headlines as a light golden ale with a refreshing hoppy aftertaste.

Their website also says – ‘… this light golden bitter has a pronounced hop aroma, contributing to the refreshing bitter aftertaste. Hobsons Choice has an ABV of 4.1%.

This bottle won ‘local champion beer’ in 1997, was an ‘Great British Beer Festival – Olympia Finalist’, in 1998 and won a ‘Bronze English Ale Award’ in 1999.

Named after Thomas Hobson Esq a Cambridge carrier who delivered mail between London and Cambridge. The stables were near St Catherine’s College in the centre of the city and when the horses were not delivering mail they were used by the students and staff of the university. Thomas Hobson noticed that the strongest and fastest horses were very popular and tended to be overworked. He devised a scheme whereby customers were offered the choice of the horse nearest to the door or none at all, renting his horses out in strict rotation. Hence there was no choice at all.

Anyway, the verdict: this bottle very drinkable indeed. It lives up to it’s refreshing hoppy claims and went down nicely. It was a bit gassy so I knocked that out with a fork. I’d give this a 4 out of 5 as I reckon it would be great to drink all afternoon whilst sitting in your garden in the sun (if we ever get any).

Apparently you can sometimes get this on draught in ‘The Cambridge Blue, Gwydir Street, Cambridge. I’d be keen to try that.