#7 Speight's Gold Medal Ale - 5%ABV

As an avid home brewer, the Pride of the South has always been my beer of choice for collecting the 750mL bottles.

Speight's Gold pours a lovely amber with plenty of life and a thin head. It has a soft malt sweetness to the nose with just a touch of hop aroma. There's a little bit of the cardboardy mustiness that all the mainstream 'crate' beers seem to possess but it is far more subdued than its competitors.

It has a light to medium body and is sweet and refreshing on the tongue with a little bitterness to finish.

Actually I'm being too kind.

TPOTS lacks everything an ale should - complexity in flavour and aroma, with a little fruit of some degree or variety. It's just cold, gold and beery - like all the other insipid lagers that a churned out by the hectolitre. And it makes me burp more than any other beer I've ever had the pleasure of sampling.

But I get to keep the bottles. Maybe I should just buy them empty from now on.