Special Bedford Ale

For along time now I have been hanging out for a bottle of Special London Ale with the words ‘Brewed by Wells and Young’s Brewing Co Bedford” it hasn’t come. When Stonch posted a story covering the one year anniversary of the closure of the Wandsworth Brewery I discovered that all fresh Special London Ale in the UK is still claiming to have been brewed in London. So I went out and picked up a couple of bottles of what was in my opinion the most character full of the Young’s bottled beers. Sure enough the beer still bore the ‘Brewed in Wandsworth’ label. According to the CAMRA Good Bottled Beer Guide Special London Ale has a 12 month best before date. My bottles had best before dates of 29/02/08 putting the production date well after Wandsworth had closed. Clearly while it is fine to truthfully label Double Chocolate Stout as brewed in Bedford, the irony of Bedford brewed Special London Ale is to much to openly publicise.

Thankfully the beer tasted fantastic, not the bitter beast it used to be some years ago (did it used to be more bitter ? or has my taste for hops simply developed?) but certainly on a par with the last examples to roll out of the Ram Brewery.