Red letter day

When I was an undergraduate, my university offered the option to sit second year exams in March, a term early. A decent grade came with an exemption from the summer exams, and so it was that my housemate Tim and I spent a lot of April and May 1997 in The Porterhouse, drinking their Red ale. I have a very particular memory of the beer, which was smooth and fruity; predominantly sweet, but not excessively so; balanced, and modestly strong, so well suited for an afternoon's drinking before a long evening of Mario Kart duels. In the early 2000s, I got out of the habit of drinking in The Porterhouse, and when I came back a decade later, the Red seemed to me to have changed, with a harsher bitterness and a more stark caramel sweet side. No harm: there were always plenty of enjoyable alternatives. But my experience with the Red of old came back to me recently when I called in to try the beer they've released to mark 30 years of the beer brand and its Temple Bar headquarters*.In a marked…