Listen out for the Siren

Siren craft brews lurks in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Finchampstead where they occupy 2 units, one is the brewery itself, the other is their “tap yard” where tastings are run from as well as which they store their ageing barrels upstairs.

It was a lovely day and they were setting up an outdoor pizza oven (they regularly invite food trucks round so that the tap yard can act as a social hub – you can buy beer by the glass or growler to accompany your nosh).

We opted to sit outside (a party of 12, soon to become 13, all celebrating one of our number’s impending nuptials) and we were provided with slates heaped with tons of really decent meats and cheeses to make sure that our jaws were well exercised.

We ran through an initial 6 of their main beers, plus a couple of extras and we also indulged freely at the tap.

My personal favourites (I’m a bit of a traditionalist) were the Yu Lu loose leaf pale ale – zingy and refreshing , a perfect start and heaven on a parched throat, the sensuous Broken Dream stout and the wonderful malty Liquid Mistress which is described as a red IPA – I’d just call it very , very moreish.

There were some more divisive beers such as the Calypso Berliner “sour” beer – exactly as described, a real palate cleanser. I’ve had berliners before (in Berlin – natch), served as the Germans like with a shot of Woodruff syrup or summer fruit syrup turning the beer green or red. It’s a real marmite moment…….

The one fail for me was the Limoncello beer – far too lemon sherbety – I like my beers to taste of beer, although I thoroughly applaud te cleverness that goes into producing something like their affogado beer which although it looks like a golden ale, reproduces that coffee/vanilla ice cream flavours and mouth-feel of an affogado.

I must look out for this stuff – apparently it’s now stocked by Waitrose.