Highland Brewing Scarpa Special Pale Ale

Beer by Highland, glass by Purity - a pale ale double whammy

One of my favourite meals at the moment is grilled chicken, roasted vegetables and cous cous (interchangeable with rice, fried potatoes or other carbs to please your taste buds). Yes, the roasted veg is usually pre-chopped from ASDA – we’d never use a full courgette if we bought one – and the cous cous is Ainsley Harriot’s finest, but it’s a simple and hassle-free evening meal that’s healthy whilst ensuring we eat at a reasonable time.

It’s a meal that doesn’t want a big fancy beer. It needs something refreshing and palette cleansing, a light golden ale with qualities that mean the meal slips down easily and the night is mine to relax afterwards.

Step up Highland Brewing Company and Scapa Special. It’s a ‘world class pale ale’ and it fits the bill presented by its description: ‘golden and sparkling’, ‘light hop notes’ and a ‘balanced malt/hop middle’.

The nose is somewhere between floral and fruity, elderfloweresque and gentle. The mouth feel is crisp with a zesty punch; vibrant and refreshing. With the food it’s a bit Jacob’s cracker in the finish, the main occasion that I noticed the slightly nutty malt flavours, which is nice to wash down my ‘Mediterranean’ veg but a bit dry for the seasoned chicken breast.

Highland Brewing Scapa Special ale: a sprightly and lightly hopped pale ale from waaaay up north

After tea, whilst I finish the weekends DIY, fumbling around with a variety of forms of bathroom sealant, Scapa is the perfect tonic to keep me going. On its own straight from the bottle it maintains its aromatic hoppiness whilst staying refreshing rather than bitter and it carousels through bursts of the fruity esters and wholesome maltiness that the bottle promises.