Hamilton Cock and Bull

I went last night to the tasting of the new Marzen/Oktoberfest style beer "Rhinefire" at the Hamilton C&B. I'd had a sneak preview of this awesome beer previously, and was really impressed with how authentic it was - reminded me of sitting in Munich drinking the good stuff by the litre.

Anyway... last night it tasted TERRIBLE. Not just "not on form" bad, but seriously nasty. Metallic, full of acetaldehyde, overly sweet, cold, and fizzy, and really nasty banana ester. I honestly thought I was drinking stale DB draught. I also tried the Epic – amazingly similar flaws, and dark ruby-red. I don't know what they must be doing to the beer to have it taste this bad, but I wish they'd stop. I miss enjoying every beer that was on every time.

I spoke to (I think) Nigel, and he didn't taste what I was tasting. He seemed very knowledgable about beer and brewing in general, and was a totally nice guy, but myself and the table full of people who came along with me couldn't all be wrong, surely? He suggested that we try it again after the lines have been cleaned. The more I thought about this afterwards, the more it bugged me. New release beer - you want it to taste the best, no? I *know* what it is supposed to taste like, I've had it before, ditto Epic. And Epic has been tasting terrible at the C&B Hamilton for quite some time now. You wouldn't believe it was the same beer.

Also, the Ruakura Campus Club gets its supply of Epic Pale Ale from the C&B, and it always tastes great. This leads me to the conclusion that it's something they are doing with the beer after hooking it up.

So. What's going on? Any Cock and Bull'ers reading this and care to comment? Shane? You make an awesome drop, how do we stop it being so mistreated?