No joyous Noël three months before Christmas

You win some and you lose some, and yesterday I definitely lost, ending up by consigning a bottle of beer, that I’d eagerly been looking forward, to the ignominy of a “drain pour”. As its name suggest, Hepworth’s Noël, is the Sussex-based brewery’s beer, specially brewed to mark the festive season. At 7.4% abv, this vintage strong ale is brewed annually, and is designed to mature and improve slowly, over time.  It is a bottle-conditioned ale, (BCA), which is claimed, will improve with keeping. That’s the theory, and also the USP, but unfortunately my bottle didn’t live up to expectations.

I bought the beer several years ago, from an independent off-licence, called Armstrong’s, just off East Grinstead High Street.  I must have beer meeting up with Matthew, after his shift, and the shop he works at is just a few hundred yards away, it seemed a good idea to call in at Armstrong’s and see what they had on offer. The shop is the one of the only outlets locally for Sam Smith’s beers, and I’m fairly certain that I picked up a few bottles of Humphrey’s finest, whilst in the shop. It was the bottle of Hepworth’s Christmas Ale, with its attractive, and very festive looking, red and gold label that caught my attention.

We don’t often see Hepworth’s beers in Tonbridge, as we are slightly out of the brewery’s trading area. This is more of a problem now, since Hepworth’s relocated from their original home in Horsham, to the large village of Pulborough. The latter is not a location I am familiar with, either, although I note that the settlement does have a railway station, and is just three stops down the line from Horsham. Hepworth’s Brewery was founded by Andy Hepworth in 2000, following the closure of King & Barnes, where Andy had been head brewer. The company moved to Pulborough in 2016, and into a brand new, state of the art brewery, that embraced energy-efficient processes and advanced recycling techniques. Hepworth’s remain independent and claim that they make no compromise in brewing beers that meet their own exacting standards.

Back to the Christmas beer. Somewhat unusually, Hepworth’s give this particular brew a "Best After", as well as a "Best Before" date, with a two-year window between the two.  The Best After date allows a period in which the beer can mature, and with my bottle the date was 20^th April 2023. This meant the Best Before was 20^th April, this year, so by the time I got round to opening it, the beer was five months past its Best Before date.  I admit that I’d let this one slip a bit and had left the bottle gearing dust at the back of the cupboard. In an ideal world I would have cracked the bottle open last Christmas, but for whatever reason, I didn’t.

Unperturbed, I though that despite the Noël being a few months passed its Best Before date, that it would still be OK. Sadly, it wasn’t, and despite the having plenty of condition, it was tart, sour and definitely undrinkable! This wasn’t the first incident I’ve had with a BCA, and it does highlight the potential pitfall with this type of bottled beer. I’m wondering though, that if I’d opened the bottle within that two-year window period, would the beer have been alright? I suspect not, but conversely, would the beer have been drinkable if opened prior to the Best After date, and here I strongly suspect that it would have been.

Whatever the case, the incident highlights my concerns that despite all the hype, and CAMRA designating these type of beers as RAIB (Real Ale In (a) Bottle, the additional conditioning process the beer undergoes in the container, is very hit and miss, and with the risk of the bottle not being 100% sterile, prior to filling, the whole ideas of BCA’s, really isn’t worth the extra effort.