Last night’s meet up with other colleagues working in healthcare research programming roles was only a qualified success as, for various reasons, it ended up just being me sat in The Butcher’s Arms. I did however have a useful session doing some tidying up of different collections on my Kindle and reading the rest of the excellent Learning the vi and Vim Editors book I loaded on there some time ago. Furthermore, I also discovered a beer that I won’t be spending any more money on in future.

By and large, I am a fan of beers in the India Pale Ale (IPA) style. I expect them to have a refreshing bitterness from the hops and perhaps floral or citrus foundations. That was one of the reasons for my recent February Flowers experiment (which should be ready for bottling at the end of this week). Therefore, I decided to treat myself to a pint of Fuller’s Bengal Lancer at the bar.

On getting home I did a bit of web research and the brew seems to get good reviews so possibly it wasn’t on form but it tasted more like hopped wort than a properly finished brew. If it wasn’t for the fact I could sense the alcohol (5% ABV according to the brewer’s site) I would have questioned if it had been fermented at all. The malt was sickly sweet while the hops lacked subtlety. I suppose that gives an element of balance and the aftertaste wasn’t too bad but I could get the same effect from sucking on a hop pellet from my brewing stores.

This was disappointing as the Fullers name isn’t one I had reason to distrust. However, I doubt I’ll be trying Bengal Lancer again and I hope whatever I do try next from the same stable will undo the bad impression this one made.