Dunham Massey Cheshire IPA

Let me start by saying I’m not sure I gave this beer a fair run (which is an inadvertent pun!). I’ve just run 8 miles, never a good time for beer tasting. I doubt it was my fastest run ever but it did entail an hour and a half of running up the hills of Morley (of which their are seven, just like Rome, and Sheffield), over the Huddersfield-Leeds train line, across muddy fields, all the way along Churwell Hill, across to Dewsbury and back over the M62. In the rain. You know that rain. The rain that soaks you reet through.

Dunham Massey IPA and parsnip soup

On my return, after 2 x hamstring stretch + 2 x abductor stretch + 2 x hip flexor, but before my super hot sauna style shower, I popped open a beer whilst I liquidised the soup that had been simmering in the slow cooker.

This was part of a haul from the Beer Emporium in Sandbach, one of the first I picked up because I can’t help but be drawn to anything that says IPA on the label/pump clip. It poured very well for a bottle conditioned IPA, very clear, with a copper gradient and deep amber colour. Its nose and taste belied its appearance: I would expect it to be much more yellow and thinner because it tasted pale and gaunt, despite some upfront hop flavours and a little bit of biscuit.

The nose was floral and fairy liquid; the taste was bland and the texture watery. The hops didn’t provide any zest; the malt provided little sustenance. Without impact and without complexity or challenging bitterness this beer didn’t cut the mustard. It was drinkable, but because it was easy to drink rather than it being interesting, salivating or uncharacteristically smooth.

Perhaps my late supper (the unliquidised broth of parsnips and sweet potato left over from soup-making) wasn’t a good partner. Nor the last of Sarah’s milk and white chocolate Milka that provided my muscles with the sugar they’d been craving since the Tingley Fish Bar junction (about 6.3 miles in). Either way, I didn’t enjoy this beer. I’ll look out for it again and hopefully try in bottle and on cask. It could have been a bad ‘un, as despite leaving the sediment virtually untouched the last pour had a distinct farmyard character to it. But somehow I think it’s just a bland beer.

I’m disappointed as Dunham Massey sound like a brewery I could really like: they were relegated from Cheshire to Alty (and therefore Manchester) because of administrative jiggery-pokery and they create craft beer from a National Trust site, both of which appeal to my instinctive love for an underdog. I hope the rest of their beer portfolio has a bit more umpf to it (I don’t half fancy their Cherry Chocolate Mild!)

I pondered (as any self respecting vacuous nobody would) over the reason for this beers inherent washing up scent. I’ve heard Saltaire Cascade accused of the same washing up liquid nose, but as far as I can see Cheshire IPA doesn’t use Cascade hops, so I’m (with insufficient brewing experience) going to blame either the Fuggle or the Goldings that it is apparently finished with. I’m not sure that is the cause though, anyone have any ideas?