Oakham Ales
Citra
4.6%
Peterborough, UK

I don’t know that many breweries in the midlands however I’ve been aware of Oakham Ales for a while. My introduction was ordering a pint of Scarlet Macaw a lovely fruity number and since then I’ve been trying various beers by them. Oakham was officially opened on Friday 13th in October 2006 and since then has won a plethora of awards for its beers. Paul Hook and John Bryan are the two partners but Oakham Ales was originally the brainchild of John  Wood.

Citra started off as a guest ale, of which Oakham have A LOT. However, due to the popularity of Citra Oakham made it their fifth permanent ale in 2010. Oakham were the first brewery to commercially brew with the citra hop back in 2009 and it has gone on to win awards along the way. In both 2011 and 2012 it won the Gold Award at the International Beer Challenge. As previously mentioned Citra is brewed with just one variety of hop and is a light, refreshing beer. The flavour heavily  reminds me of Wild Swan, Thornbridge’s white gold pale ale.

The beer has a fruity aroma and is similar to several American Pale Ales (APA). I’ve now tried this beer both on draught and in bottle and I have to say the bottle format left me slightly disappointed. I’ve had several pints of this from the pub and it’s always been good to me however I found the bottle version more bitter and not as fruity as I’d like. This is a top beer however I think it is best served from the tap.

OVERALL: 3/5