Day Four, Beer Four - Wold Top's "Wolds Way".

Today's Beer

Name – Wolds Way

Brewer – Wold Top

Classification – Pale Ale

Strength – 3.6% ABV

Verdict - At A Glance

On the eye – Harvest promise. You can sense the spirit of swaying crops haunting the glass. No kidding!

On the nose – Wow! A far stronger impact than you might expect. White wine vinegar with a yeasty kick.

On the tongue – Like a glass of cool squash used to feel after an evening playing out with your mates after school.

On the subject – Yorkshire based Wold Top have locally sourced ingredients to thank for their hat-full of awards.

On the market – A growing supermarket presence (I got mine in ASDA) but buying direct is still the best bet nationally.

On the whole – 8.5/10

Full Review

Every once in a while, and I do mean rarely, a beer comes along and properly surprises you.

The best examples of these beers are those that you think you've worked out after a glance at the label and a couple of sips, but they then somehow proceed to charm the pants off you by the time your glass is empty.

“Wold's Way” – the folks at Wold Top Brewery claim – is intended as the sort of drink that might be perfect for refreshing the arid palates of ramblers as they reach the end of a particular 70 mile trail across the Yorkshire Wolds from which the beer takes its name.

I have no qualms about that claim. On the contrary, I found my experience of this drink to be almost like that of consuming an area of unspoilt English landscape, it is a bottle full of meadow flowers, wild-grasses and honeyed tree sap.

But without doubt, the thing that this beer achieves like almost no other ale I can yet recall – is to properly quench the thirst. In fact, it managed to fully satisfy a thirst I didn't even have, so powerful was the sense that it was ready to obliterate any dry mouth this side of the sun.

The answer to alcohol's ultimate 'quench question'... has been found.

Which is pretty much what the brewery suggests.

However, they also suggest that this beer is 'uncomplicated.'

Well, they may be right. But this pale ale has made me realise something. Just because a beer is 'uncomplicated', that doesn't mean that it isn't 'clever'. The reality is that there are evidently some very bright brewing minds at work over at Wold Top, and purely on the merits of their excellent 'Wolds Way' – I'd say their domination of the wider market is only a matter of time.