This weeks craft beer of the week is another award winner from Longman Brewery. Their “Long Blonde” picked up a silver medal at the prestigious International Beer Challenge in 2015. It’s one of Stansted Farm Shop’s best selling beers for a good reason…
Blonde beers can mean many things depending on what country you are in and in an ever increasing world of diverse beer, where it’s just as easy to pick up a Belgian blonde beer as a local blonde beer, style names can be confusing! Blonde beers from America, Belgium, Britain and France all taste very different. British blonde beers are relatively new to the beer world having first appeared in the late 1980s as a beer to appeal to the then massive market of lager drinkers. The style is relatively uncommon and can also go under the name of summer ale.
The British blonde style tends to be light, citrusy and refreshing with some brews containing malted wheat alongside the malted barley that makes it light, sessionable and easy to go down.
Long Blonde is exactly that and a great example of what a British blonde beer should be. Long Blonde contains malted wheat, which aids its easy drinking characteristics and makes it super refreshing.
When I first poured this beer the aroma took me straight back to being a child. On the nose you get grass, straw and (it could be the straw smell that’s pulling this aroma out) strawberries! It takes me back to the pick your own strawberry fields that I used to visit with my family when I was a child, eating as much as I picked! But the trip down childhood memory lane doesn’t stop there. There is a lemon sweetness in the aroma which reminds me of lemon sherbets. It is an easy going beer but in the mouth I still pick up the same flavours as I did on the nose… Yet somehow the lemon sherbet becomes more apparent, and I swear there is an almost sherbetesque fizz on the tongue which is complimented by a strawberry juiciness. You also get a caramel cereal quality, provided by the malted barley, that helps give depth to the dry, crisp, bitter finish.
With this being a light easy beer it would be be great with light summer foods like salad (especially one with a bit of fruit in), chicken and white fish. I haven’t tried it but I think this beer might have enough about it to go with some desert. The strawberry and lemon flavours might just hold up to a lemon cake that isn’t too sweet as well as strawberries and cream (imagine Wimbledon is on). Give this beer about 40 minutes in the fridge before enjoying.
To find out more about Longman Brewery check out the previous review on their American Pale Ale.