Perhaps it was the nose that created images of toffee apples doused in vinegar or meths. Or the uncertainty of trying to enjoy the gone-off flavours of rotten veg, crab apples, musty drawers and dirty rags?

Yet, Old Thumper kinda grows on you.

'Hint of apples' is a whopping understatement...

Unfurled slowly is the, not quite delicate, but protracted sweetness and bitterness of an aged and just-too-soft orange, and dark, spicy toffee littered with crushed peppercorns. The hops are tangled in a quick-sand of fusty, earth-like, cereal-doused-in-petrol malt.

It’s the most complicated beer that, underneath it all, isn’t complex at all. It’s strong, uncompromising and distinctly unique.

This beer took a long time to ‘get’, and still I doubt if I really do. In one sip it’s a beer from another century, a dirtier one, a man’s century; one of outdoor labour, grime, countryside and simple, rusting machinery. And yet another sip it’s simply a beer I don’t think I’d want to drink all that often.

Perhaps I’d understand this beer better if sipped whilst perusing antiquarian maps or ancient parish registers from long-forgotten local boundaries. Or maybe I need a spot of medieval role play, ideally with a buxom female farmhand and a secure place in the feudal system?

However you choose to enjoy it, one thing’s for sure, it is a beast of a beer.

Beer information:
Beer: Old Thumper
Brewery: Ringwood
Style: Bitter
ABV: 5.6%
Country: England

The brewery is a new one, set up in 2007 on the south Devon coast and has three flagship ales: Bays Best, Gold and Breaker. It’s the latter that made the cut in the Sainsbury’s Beer Competition this year and therefore found its way into my trolley a few weeks ago.

I should point out I drank this a little colder than it’s probably meant to be, a result of not very good fridge planning and me been very indecisive about which beers I wanted that night.

Bays Breaker is an interesting beer, it’s almost peppery, sweet and bitter all at the same time, an array of contradictory flavours that sit together better than you’d expect. The peppery aftertaste demands another sip, a sip that will start fruity and soft, and ends with a carbonised bitterness.

In big gulps the malt and fruit shines through and if you sip slower it the bitter flavours linger.

Without becoming a favourite Bays Breaker certainly makes for an interesting tipple and that could well have a couple of food partnerships out there waiting to be found (I reckon this to wash down fish and chips might just work!)

Bays Breaker: beer from Devon