Dark Star Brewery
Sunburst
4.8%
West Sussex, UK
Dark Star Brewery is based in West Sussex and was founded in 1994 by entrepreneur Peter Halliday, publican Peter Skinner, and brewer Rob Jones. The name of the brewery comes from a Grateful Dead song of the same name and originally started out in the cellar of a pub in Brighton called The Evening Star. I’ve been lucky enough to try various Dark Star beers on tap in some lovely pubs in London including such fine ales as Hophead, Dark Star Original and their American Pale Ale, which is my favourite.

Whilst browsing in my local supermarket I spotted the Sunburst Dark Star, which is a seasonal ale. Every ale I drink by Dark Star has a soothing quality and it’s not a big surprise that they’ve won various awards.

The ale is very light in colour and in flavour. It is a very light taste that’s incredibly addictive and easy to drink. On their website the ale is described as, “A hint of initial sweetness adds to the fruitiness and grapefruit tang of this summer ale without detracting from its clean flavour and rich hop aroma.” I usually stray away from ales described as “golden ale” as I find them a bit bland and uninteresting, however the Sunburst ale by Dark Star is neither of those things. It is a lot sweeter than ales I usually go for but makes for a pleasant change to the current craze of high hop tasting beers.

Overall it is a fine ale.

BITTER: 2
SWEET: 4
DESIGN: 3
OVERALL: 3