Old Dairy Brewery - Czech Mate

With a delicious waft of redcurrants bouncing off the top of its generous, creamy, goose down pillow of a head, I suspect that my original suspicions about Czech Mate, a lager brewed to a traditional pilsner recipe (a Czech one I assume but it doesn't actually say that,) are going to be right on the money. What were my original suspicions you ask? Well, let me set the scene.

Czech Mate was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met her...

Wait, nope, that's the start to another story altogether! I saw Czech Mate on their website and said, out loud (though I was the only one in the room so I didn't end up looking like I had mental issues,) that it looked like the Old Dairy Brewery beer that would impress me most. I deduced that it'd probably have a massive head, a hazy amber body and it would probably use Saaz hops... Which it does, but a chimp could've predicted that. Even so, I'm glad they haven't messed around with a classic.

It smells like a delicious summery pudding with a core of citrus and red berries getting backed up by a little kick of cake. The pour is frisky and the foam is so fine that anorexics stare at the bubbles and wish they were that slim, the body itself is slightly darker than your average pilsner but not enough for it to be unrecognisable as one of the breed. The taste is the thing that really shocks you about this, though, because as well as being horrifically easy to drink it is also deeply interesting. This is a pilsner with character! The Saaz gives it an element of spice that you don't expect and there is an unexpected yet thoroughly welcome bitter kick that is a sight for sore eyes and a taste for tired buds. There's still an element of garden fruits in the mix when you drink it, there are hints of redcurrant and blackberry that precede that bitterness and without them the beer would be one dimensional but as it is Czech Mate is one of the most fun pilsners I've ever had.

I'm so happy that this was brewed in my home county but I assure you that that's not why this is getting such a good review. Old Dairy Brewery have impressed me simply by consistently getting the simple things right and growing with a subtle hand that is very rare in an age where the guys who are getting all the limelight are the ones who are going big with ABV, experimentation and hop combinations.

Food suggestion: You know what this would go great with? Dim Sum! Tiny little parcels of pork or fish delicately steamed and served in bamboo box things. Oh hell yeah! I could down a big sloppy bucket of Czech Mate and gorge myself on Dim Sum in china town every day of the week if the cumulative calories and alcohol wouldn't eventually kill me through cholesterol poisoning and/or liver failure.

Drink this if you like: Sitting in the sun, drinking a cold pint, being challenged by that cold pint. Looking at that cold pint and audibly saying "well played Czech Mate... Well played," only for you later to be sectioned because you were caught talking to beer again.