Profound Madness: Wortley Beer Festival

On Friday night I paid a visit to the Wortley Men's Club beer festival - an intimate, well run affair raising money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Now, I have to admit I'm not a massive fan of beer festivals per se. Standing shoulder to shoulder in a noisy, sweaty marquee and drinking out of a sticky, unwashed glass isn't exactly my idea of the perfect beer sampling environment, but we'll leave that polemic for another day. I purchased my half-pint festival tankard and beer tokens and made my way through what seemed like a downpour of apocalyptic proportions into the lively marquee where I was greeted with a choice of thirteen hand-pulls, seven ciders, a couple of lagers and three foreign bottled beers.

Ale for sale:

Acorn Brewery - Old Moor Porter 4.4% & Madness 4.5%

Abbeydale Brewery – Profundity 4.1%

Rudgate Brewery - Grain of Britain 4.0%

Kelham Island Brewery - Pride of Sheffield 4.0%

Saltaire Brewery - Cascade Pale Ale 4.8%

Wold Top Brewery - Headland Red 4.3%

Goose Eye Brewery – Goose Eye Bitter 3.9%

Bradfield Brewery - Farmer's Blonde 4.0%

Geeves Brewery - Gunwhale Dance 4.2%

Captain Cook Brewery – Slipway 4.2%

Harthill Brewery - Hart's Desire 4.2%

Ossett Brewery - Silver Link 4.6%

It's safe to say that these beers wouldn't appeal to your hardened beer geek - there are no barrel aged, imperial anythings here. The festival tasting notes reveal that Pale Rider at 5.2% has the dubious honour of being strongest beer of the festival. For the seasoned beer ticker there's not a lot to get pulses racing either. None of the beers are particularly rare – of the thirteen on offer when I arrived, seven of them I'd tried before.

What the festival does offer however is a fun, relaxed environment for the average drinker to experiment and try things he/she wouldn't normally. Here were a selection of bitters, pales, and golden beers that demonstrated the world of flavour that real ale has to offer, even if you are only really dancing on the tip of the whole top fermented iceberg. These are safe beers, unchallenging but not unassuming. Beers that your lifelong lager drinker could warm to (pun intended). These are beers that do not dominate conversations the way a 100% Brettanomyces Black IPA would but subtly lubricate and infiltrate them instead, offering you a safe transition into a wonderful new world of taste and aroma. 

So onto the reviews...

I started with Acorn Madness, a pale, moderately bitter and citrusy beer. Fortuitously 'Baggy Trousers' started playing as soon as I took my first sip. (mental note: must look into beer and music pairing) Rudgate Grain of Britain followed, described in the tasting notes as a 'Tawny coloured bitter. Balanced bitters, fresh flavours and hints of malt on the palate'. My third was Wold Top Headland Red, a sweet, creamy red ale balanced nicely with Progress hops.

The rain still hadn't abated but the beer was flowing, the marquee roof wasn't leaking and everyone was enjoying the music. The opening bars of Madness' 1979 hit 'One Step Beyond' prompted a bespectacled man in a novelty hat to rush out into the torrential rain and start dancing enthusiastically. As each attempt to drag someone out of the marquee to dance with him was met with refusal he admonished us all 'you boring bastards!' I went for beer number 4 - Geeves Gunwhale Dance, a 'pale ale with a dry citrusy bitterness coupled by a zingy aftertaste'. It was excellent, decidedly un-boring and it didn't make me feel like a bastard as I drank it. Goose Eye Bitter 3.9% had too much diacetyl for my tastes and Saltaire Cascade Pale Ale 4.8% which is always good did not disappoint.

Beer of the festival has to go to Abbeydale Profundity 4.1%. A deep brown ale with sweet roasted notes, a healthy dose of bitterness and lots of complex fruity aromas. Profound indeed.