Eve and I decided that on the last day of paternity leave and for some unfathomable reason we fancied Greek food.  In the wilds of Oxfordshire.  On a Monday lunchtime.

Stumped for restaurants and not being bothered to either head into Oxford or find out where George Michael lived, we headed to the Rock of Gibraltar pub near Bletchingdon in Oxfordshire.

The bloke that runs the Rock hails from Hellenic climes and he did us reasonably proud on the food front, he also had Wye Valley Butty Bach on tap…which turned out to be very nice indeed.

A lovely Amber colour, but lacking any head retention at all…which didn’t matter too much.  The aroma was rich juicy fruits and solid sweet malt, which followed through into the taste; which was further enhanced by a smooth nuttiness.

I also picked up on a faint orangey background note which was enjoyable and persisted through into the aftertaste that was backed up some, but not a great deal, of bitterness…

This is one of those beers that you’ll either like or dislike.  It suited me fine because the sweet malt acted as restorative after a knackering weekend of childcare.  You’d probably dig a couple of pints of this after some manual toil…maybe after laying a patio.

Give some to your domestics and see how much faster they recover from hard manual labour…

http://www.wyevalleybrewery.co.uk/beers/butty-bach.html#.Ud_9x5zhdtQ

http://www.therockofgibraltar.co.uk/

(although the site’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast…unlike the Greek food which wasn’t bad at all)