Searching for a Glass of Fine Beer: Fuller’s Extra Special Bitter

I can remember when I had my first sip of beer (with my dad and his friend Gord Bucholtz on the day we moved to Norwich; we were in a crawl space under the house my mom and dad had recently purchased; I was six years old) but I can’t remember when I drank my first full bottle.

If you can, you have a better mind for such things than I do.

I do recall paying $14 to a bootlegger, however, for my first case of 24 beers in the mid to late 1960s. The beer was warm and David Alexander and Johnny Croft, two schoolmates of mine, help me drink them. We likely drank them all too, while driving down dirt roads and past tobacco farms late one summer night.

(Somewhere in my house is a piece of prose called ‘tobacco roads’ based on memories of that experience. I must find it and share it with you one day. You’ll be so impressed).


["This man wrote prose about the schnapps he distilled": photos by GAH]

You’ll be more impressed though (I’m sure), if you drink a can or bottle of Fuller’s Extra Special Bitter (ESB), an extra special champion ale.

While sipping my first can of Fuller’s ESB just before Christmas (2009) I felt it was the best ale I’d had in a long time.


["Ale tastes great in the workshop and smells like wood"]

Men have probably written songs about it (prose too, but no one will likely admit it) and if one line in the chorus said, “Of all the stuff I’ve drunk before, much pales beside me mugga Fuller’s,” I’d heartily join right in.

I heard of Fuller’s ESB for the first time about a year ago while reading a book entitled ‘Notes on a Beermat’ by Nicholas Pashley.

I kept my eyes open for it and was rewarded during a trip to the LCBO in December. I opened it as soon as I arrived home.

Honestly, I can still recall me first mug of ESB.

It has a lovely nose and the taste is full and complex.

If you enjoy deep red ales from Britain, distinctive hoppy flavours that have won more ribbons honestly than Carl Lewis, and love to sit and sip, try one soon.

If you write a song, let me know.

***

Is ESB in your top ten?

What is?

Click here for another brief (but brilliant) beer review.

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