It’s the weekend !

While people are stranded at airports and worrying about who to vote for in the election, my only real concern right now is what bottle of ale I am going to crack open first.

Hook Norton Brewery are based in Oxfordshire and I’ve previously sampled most of their range and Tweeted about them very positively.

Hook Norton have brewing award winning beers since 1849. They use ‘… water from their own spring-fed well.. ‘ and ‘… their brewery is still powered by a steam engine’.

Anyway – to the ale. Twelve Days is a 5.5% strong dark brown ale.

The bottle headlines as ‘… deliciously dark and strong’. It’s certainly delicious and – although it is 5.5% – it doesn’t taste strong.

Bottle notes tell us ‘.. Twelve Days is a Strong Dark Brown beer offering a dominantly malty palate with nutty overtones’ – and that it ‘…is a fine partner to the cheese board’.

I love this ale. It’s one of my top 10. It is indeed very malty and rich and dark and is really nice served at room temperature.

It would be hard to choose between the Bath Ales Dark Hare and this one. They are as good as each other – and I would never say no to either.

On the Ouse scale this would also score 4.5 out of 5.

Hook Norton have a fine range of ales – I’ll be sampling them and reviewing them later – but this is one of their best ones.