Beer Radar

It’s been 10 years since George Bateman’s beers have been imported to the U.S. It’s being brought back by SBS-Imports of Seattle, which is a pretty good coup for the 5-year-old company.

I guess we’re talking bottles only, because there’s no mention of cask beer (which would be great to see). I remember a particularly fresh keg of XXXB being tapped at the Khyber Pass in the mid-’90s at a spectacular British ale festival. I kind of remember Jim Anderson and, maybe, Chris Morris spending the afternoon within about 3 feet of the cask, trying to Bogart the thing.

In the late ’80s, XXXB was named champion premium/special bitter at the Great British Beer Festival for four consecutive years.

Here’s the tasting details from SBS:

Batemans Triple XB (XXXB) is a classic English premium pale ale, with a deep bronze colour, and a pleasing interplay between grassy hops and a solid malt backbone. Combined Harvest is a smooth golden ale brewed with wheat, rye, and oats in addition to malted barley.  It has an initial sweetness that is quickly overtaken by a gentle hop bitterness and crispy fruit acidity.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Beer etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.