Yardbird is a apparently an ‘innovative brew’ that has been ‘hand-crafted’
by…uhh...Greene King. Despite visiting The Compton Arms in Islington pretty much
every Wednesday for the last 18 months or so I’ve managed to avoid drinking
this beer, which they have both in bottles and on keg, until now. I’m very
sceptical of the attempts being made by larger UK breweries to worm their way
into the ‘craft’ beer market, if only out of principle. But this week, this
week I thought I’d give it a try. First thing to note is that this ‘American-style
IPA’ is not really an American style IPA at all. I’m not sure what the thinking
was there, do they think people wouldn’t know what an American-style IPA
actually tastes like? Odd. Anyway, this doesn’t. It pours a dark brown and mine
was served in a fancy-ish stemmed glass, nice. The aroma is of dark fruits, it
smells pretty malty and has a medicinal hint to it. There is quite a lot going
on flavour-wise but mostly it’s bit strange. I found it sweet and very
definitely malt-forward with strong caramel and dark fruit dominating, resembling a fairly standard English ale with a bit more tang. The
marketing blurb proclaims that it is ‘packed full of hops’ but where they put
them I don’t know. It was by no means a bad beer but for me it was too sweet
and it really isn’t what it says on the tin.
Brewery: Greene King
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.0%
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