In August of 1998, I sat at a table in a warm room in London's Olympia and evaluated beers in the category of 'standard bitter.' The occasion was the 21st Great British Beer Festival, and the six ales poured for me and my fellow panelists were finalists in their class. The moment we reached the fifth of these unnamed brews, however, the competition might as well have been over. What we were tasting was without doubt the class of its style, and as it turned out, also that year's Champion Beer of Britain. It was Coniston Bluebird Bitter.
So it was quite understandable that I was thrilled to recently find bottled Bluebird at a downtown Toronto beer and blues joint called Smokeless Joe's. It wasn't in the regular beer menu, just chalked on a board at the entry, and it was pricey. But I didn't care, it was my next beer ordered.
The ale served to me was so good that I forced everyone at my table to taste it, even the ones nursing head colds, and they all reacted positively. So enthusiastic was their response, in fact, that I had to almost wrestle back my glass. It was one of those rare occasions when I didn't have a notebook with me, so I made no tasting notes on the Bluebird, and frankly didn't care. This was beer enjoyment at its most elemental, and sketching descriptives would have only hindered the experience. Produced under contract by the Oxfordshire brewery Brakspear, Coniston Bluebird is about as good a bottled best bitter as you're likely to find on either side of the Atlantic.
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