Sprig & Fern British Best

British Best is a style that isn't popular enough (another malt driven style that just isn't surviving in a hop driven world). This beer is amazing; a delicious sweet caramel and roasty body that smells as good as it tastes. The British type hop character (surely a Nelson brewery doesn't actually use British hops, right? Surely they take some of the British-ish NZ hops that are grown within cycling distance of the brewery...) is subtle but present, and fuses really well with the complex malts to make them almost indistinguishable. 

If you drank it blind folded you could think it was a dark beer, but the body is actually much lighter, and whatever it is about reddish beers that makes them delicious is strong in this one. Overall so full of flavour, but very sessionable and drinkable; and what I really loved is that it's so different to all the hop overloaded beers in craft beer NZ 2020. (I was trying to choose a beer today to try, and well over half of the craft beers to choose from were hazy IPAs...)

sprigandfern.co.nz

ABV: 5.0%

Brewery: Sprig & Fern

Region: Nelson

Style: Best Bitter

Wife check: (wife absent)

Drinking Song: Every Inch of You by the Darkness