The day started with people arriving at the Odd One Out from around 1pm, we were seated in the wonderful garden area and after a round of the always excellent Colchester No 1 and Metropolis, we got down to business.

First point of discussion was the rather interesting bottle opener Colin had found on his way in, let’s just say the part you grip was more than a handful. Discussions then moved on to the rather impressive Mulberry tree they have and how they would work well in a porter or stout (more on this later!)

A second round of drinks was ordered, where we discovered they have added two ‘craft beer’ taps and were serving Burnt Mills beers on keg, very modern for the Oddie!

Clone Challenge

Finally we got down to the real business and started the Fullers London Pride Clone judging, we had 8 beers provided which was an excellent turn out from the 11 in attendance.

The beers were judged completely blind and a big thanks to Kevin and Justin for their stewarding efforts, in the absence of a jug they had to pour and serve all the beers to the rest of the group. Judging was very close for the first few beers, a couple towards the end that had a few fermentation issues, but overall the quality and similarity of the beers was amazing so well done to all the brewers.

Results

The four brewers going through to the final round at the Fullers brewery are (in no particular order)

• Alan Osbiston
• Keith Bailey
• Tony Tilbury
• John Watson

Congratulates to all the brewers, excellent effort all round.

ACB Competition winners

We was then treated to a selection of the winning beers that Steve had collected at the end of the ACB home brew competition held back in June.

It was a pleasure to taste some of the best beers from the day, I think we all agreed that BOS 1st and 2nd were perhaps round the wrong way, but different day, different tasting, different results.

Lunch

Food was ordered, excellent Pizza’s from a local place which were enjoyed with another round of beers from the bar. This included some of the fancy kegged ‘craft beers’ they had on tap, all agreed it was a nice drop, although perhaps not the West Coast IPA it was advertised as.

There was a further discussion about the Mulberry tree with Tom the head brewers and owner of Colchester brewery and the pub, he informed us that they have harvested quite a lot in the previous few weeks and have plans to use them in an upcoming beers, so keep a look out for that.

AOB

Quite a selection of beers were provided, given this was our third round of tastings on the day things are bit hazy! If memory serves we started with a very interesting no hop beer from Kevin, I think we all agreed that it was definitely interesting. A few other highlights was a Best Bitter from John, a Red IPA from Tony and Andy provide a very nice beer (but the style I can’t remember!).

The meeting concluded around 5:30, the sensible ones left to go home and the rest went up the Queen Street Brewhouse to continue the evening with Belgian beers.

A couple of things we discovered on the day.

• A penis shaped bottle opener, makes a great penis substitute but doesn’t make a good bottle opener
• Colin forgets his name after too many Belgian Beers
• Mulberries when picked from the tree make you look like you work in an abattoir
• Tasting 24 beers is a challenge even for a bunch of seasoned drinkers

In attendance

• Alan Osbiston
• Andy Whitaker
• Colin Miller
• James Pettifor
• John Watson
• Justin Dean
• Keith Bailey
• Kevin Warnes
• Steve Plampton
• Steve Bennett
• Tony Tilbury