13 October 2018

Gnarly Fox Lager (Lidl) By @SpectreUK

Gnarly Fox Lager

This might be frowned upon by some folk, but every night we have a fox that visits our back garden that we've taken to feeding. We know this because we've seen it. It's quite large, well fed and fairly fluffy. We've taken to leaving dinner scraps, or left over sandwich meat, and the odd dog treats out for it when we don't have any leftovers. It even likes prawn crackers from Chinese Takeaways! We could be described as animal loving townies, but there is another reason why we feed 'our' fox… It's because we also have hedgehogs who live in our privet hedge. We've seen the hedgehogs too, which are endangered in this country. Unfortunately the hedgehogs come looking for bugs and to drink the water we leave out for them around about the same time as the fox, so we also feed the fox so he doesn't eat the hedgehogs!

This Gnarly Fox Lager was produced by the Hatherwood Craft Beer Company. At 4.5% volume it's described as a 'New Wave Lager' brewed with 100% British barley, and made with a blend of American, British and continental hops, which are dry-hopped by adding the hops in secondary for a unique hoppy aroma. This dry-hopping process is usually used in pale ales, so I guess that's why this is a New Wave Lager. On opening the 500ml bottle there was indeed a strong smell of herbal hops followed by the sweet smell of barley malt. On taste this golden lightly carbonated Gnarly Fox Lager has an initial herbal bitterness from the mixture of international hops. This hoppy bitterness then blends perfectly with the sweetness from the malted barley rounding off the craft lager flavour into the aftertaste. Not too fizzy like some mass produced lagers, the taste from the dry-hopping of this Gnarly Fox Lager does remind me slightly of a pale ale, which is one of my favourite types of ale, but hey, they're all my favourites at the end of the day!

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