I’ve been given a gift box of beers from Boots that, is slightly in keeping with their Salvation Army roots. I originally subliminally thought the box was from M&S perhaps because the beers were more widely seen in the time of ‘Life on Mars’. It’s marked as ‘Regional British Ales’ but three of the four are light ales — and three of the ales are admirably from small breweries. The full list is: Cotswold Farm Ale (3%); Young’s Light Ale (3.2%); Ridgeway Thames Valley Ale (3.4%); Ridgeway Bitter (4%).
I guess Boots is also making quite a profit on this because they probably didn’t price the gift pack according to the relative amount of duty they would pay on these light beers — and the bottles are half pint size as well. Nevertheless, it’s good to see light, delicate beers with sensible names being put in the nation’s Christmas stockings rather than some syrupy 6% Old Fetid Gonad type brew.