Jennings Golden Host

I’d sum up Jennings Golden Host up in two simple words: floral and biscuity. Wordsworth might roll in his grave at that crude and lazy generalisation, so let’s try something a bit more prosaic…

The scene that Golden Host conjures is a spring day, the first of the year where the cool air breaks the gentle heat of the sun; arms, necks and foreheads are exposed for the first time since the leaves started to reappear on trees. Hot cookies sit on a window sill, a view perhaps overlooking Bassenthwaite or Loweswater, an iridescent shimmer on the water that heralds a yawning season, waiting to become vivacious and dominant.

There’s daffodils leading up the path to the maltings; for the workers there’s toasted teacakes and honey for breakfast; roughly cut brown bread and salad (dressed in herbs, perhaps even anise) for dinner; and following a rural supper of beer and bread those cookies get to fulfil their destiny.

Don’t expect pomp and grandeur, or the glory of a god in the sky to shine down on you as you take your first sip – even if you are of a Romantic persuasion and this beer has you dreaming of Wordsworth and his zeal for floating clouds and crowds, nay hosts!, of daffodils, as the sun sets over the lonely vales and hills this is a simple beer of pale malt, floral hops, Fair Trade sugar and a subtle, fresh disposition.

'I wander'd lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils' - William Wordsworth, born Cockermouth, Cumbria, 1770

Treacle & cocoa, cashew & pistachio, berries and toffee.

All that from hops & malt?

Perhaps there are added kisses in Geltsdale’s Hops & Kisses, a Valentine’s re-branding of Geltsdale’s Hell Beck.

It’s a red bitter and infused with dashes of all sorts, but perhaps my senses are getting the better of me. Crystal and amber malts and Fuggles and Goldings hops don’t seem enough on paper to impart the luscious body imparted from these very English ingredients.

Rich toffee, hedgerow fruit, a roasted character that’s hard to pin down - Hops & Kisses is deliciously down to earth yet delightfully playful.

Hops & Kisses is a smooth operator, another fine Lakeland ale.

Geltsdale Hops & Kisses. Photo by David Ambridge

Beer information:
Beer: Hops & Kisses
Brewery: Geltsdale
Style: Bitter
ABV: 4.2%
Country: Cumbria, UK

Yates Cumbrian Ale might not be your easiest Lakeland ale to find, but if you can find your way to Open All Hours in Keswick or Laird’s Larder in Houghton, you might be able to grab a few bottles. But to add this to your summer beer roster your best bet in the North West is Booths Supermarkets.

Straight away it’s different –  manuka honey and lemsip perhaps the easiest descriptors of a grainy, citric and medicinal infused beer.

It’s comfy, reassuring beer; a summer cough syrup combined with a mug of Horlicks; a dollop of caramel and a gentle bitterness; light in alcohol, gentle in carbonation, the beery bubbles removing any cloying stickyness and thus ensuring it’s place as a beer well placed to serve a hot weather session.

Yates Cumbrian Ale

Beer information:
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Dent Rescewe was bought for Yorkshire month, the month of June where we planned to sample mostly Yorkshire ales and report back on our regional fare. Surreptitiously it stared back at me when I needed a beer for an unexpectedly sunny day in the garden in May, and there I saw it on the label, the address that I had neglected to check: ‘Dent Brewery, Dent, Cumbria’. Cue immediate fast track to Cumbrian month!

I’ve been to Dent only once, on a whistle stop weekend to the North Yorkshire Dales. It’s a living breathing Warburton’s ad, except Land Rovers rumble and bumble (depending on the age of their reg plate) across cobbles where flat-capped knee-socked boys should be cycling home, peddling against gravity and the extra weight of bakers fresh, crusty loaves.

I’d always assumed it was a forgotten Yorkshire village, one of those quaint border settlements that nonchalantly gets on with life amidst the whims of policy makers and county councils who can’t decide exactly which authority should be organising the bin rounds.

Dent Rescewe - premium bitter raising money for the Cave Rescue Organisation in the Yorkshire Dales

Tuesday night, two bottled bitters sunk and the quenches for thirst and flavour continue to itch away unabated.

Cue Lakeland IPA, a beer that for one moment in time justifies the beatification of hops single-handedly.

The perfect hiss released as metal hits glass and twists plastic; an aroma eager to reach a nose and knock on the door of the senses.

Soft-fleshed fruit says hello – mangoes might not be typical of Cumbria unless visiting a certain kitchenware store for a peeling device that the kitchen drawer doesn’t really need, but here they add sweetness and a vibrancy missing from the evenings other contenders.

Wisps of unidentifiable flowers blend without any disharmony and it’s all finished with a perfect bitterness to leave behind a craving for just a little bit more.

Lakeland IPA, a fresh, floral IPA with a suitably apt bitter end

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