Three Castles Brewery - Secret Santa. Not a well-kept secret...

A couple of weekends ago I picked up three different beers from the shop at Down House, an English Heritage property. I like to support them and always to try a new beer. Unfortunately, this one was a bit of a let-down.

As you can see it's a middle-strength bottle-conditioned ruby ale. That puts it totally in my nice (beer) list. I'm a big fan of Fullers' Red Fox and Caledonian's Autumn Red.
However, when I popped it open and poured it out, the result was less than satisfying.

Not much of a head there, which is always a worry with a beer like this. It also had that metallic taste that comes from a beer which was bottled with a bit of impurity involved. I didn't check the lid - I'd expect it to show a little rust - it was that sort of taste.
The nutty taste was discernible, but not as up front as I'd like.
Hopefully this was just a duff bottle and when I try the second one I'll get the proper taste, but for now, this one's on my naughty list :(

For reference, the glass had previously contained some Banks' Best Bitter - pasteurised beer that I really like and only costs 90p in my local Tesco's.

This is posted as part of the #BeerSaturday challenge by @detlev. Earn some extra Steem by posting about beer!