Padstow Brewing Co. May Day
| Padstow Brewing Co. May Day (568ml, 5.0% ABV) Fancy a pint? You’ll have to go the pub, then – bottles are half a litre, aren’t they? Not necessarily … Samuel Smith’s Brewery in Yorkshire flies in the face of convention by offering their beers in 550ml bottles. And now the Padstow Brewing Com  pany has gone one step further by going for 568ml – a full British imperial pint. This is not to be confused with the US liquid pint (473ml), US ‘dry’ pint (551ml) or French pinte (952.1ml). And in Canada the law states that if you order a pint in English, you get 568ml; order in French and you get twice as much – 1136ml. This is all too complicated – I need a drink.Tradition dictates that I should be going for a warming, dark ale at this time of year (December at the time of writing), not a pale ale, and especially not one names after the fifth month of the year. Originally brewed for Padstow’s May Day celebrations, this beer was popular enough that the brewery now produces it all year. And a good thing too, because it’s a cracker.
Pouring into a pint glass, it’s good that this beer isn’t overly carbonated – there’s no room for a head. This is a truly pale ale, yellow with maybe just a touch of orange. The aroma reminds me of nectarines and elderflower. It features the mighty Citra – yielder of a whole spectrum of hoppy deliciousness, from zingy grapefruit to juicy orange. In this beer, that nectarine tang also makes another appearance on the taste buds, and the alcohol provides a nice foil to all those hops. The finish is juicy and thirst-quenching with a lingering spiciness. May Day is a lovely beer – a ray of sunshine on a grey day. If it hasn’t already won awards, it’s about time it did. You can check out the Padstow Brewery website here: http://www.padstowbrewing.co.uk/
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