The Moon Under Water, Balham 17th October 2006

Met some friends for a drink in Balham, a normal occurrence for a Tuesday.

Someone got there early and chose the Marston’s Wicked Witch (4.6%) to start. This wasn’t a great beer, tasting dull and flat, although drinkable.

I ordered next and chose the Hyde’s Original bitter (3.8%), while also getting a taster of the Bateman’s Strawberry Fields (4.2%). The Hyde’s was also disappointing, lifeless bitter. One of my friends didn’t even finish it, which has to be a first!

As its name suggests, the Bateman’s was an intensely strawberry flavoured beer. While being unusually palatable for a beer with a strong, sweet fruit flavour, I decided we wouldn’t want to drink whole pints of it. In retrospect this was probably the best of the three guest bitters.

Generally I leave an establishment pleased with the beer choices I have made, but on this occasion I think the beers I didn’t drink – Marston’s Pedigree and Everard’s Pitch Black stout (4.3%) – can’t have been worse than the ones I did.

Maybe the beers just haven’t been kept properly and the ones I missed out on would have been as lifeless as the ones I tried. Who can tell at a Wetherspoon’s?