The Guild now has its own ale (and we went to try it)

It’s meant to taste like toffee

Ale beer bitter brand campus guild liverpool sphinx students tasting try uni union university

The Guild has joined forces with Knowsley’s Melwood Beer company to produce their own ale.

Alongside the opening of nightclub The Cellar on Saturday nights, the Guild has continued its developments in the form of creating its own beer.

Your favourite new cheeky pint, Sphinx, is now available for £2.50 at The Guild’s bar of the same name.

Melwood said: “Sphinx has been designed to give newcomers to real ales an easy drinking, refreshing pint to ease them in to the world of flavoursome beers.”

Nice head that

Three barrels were sold in the first two days of being on sale, with only half a barrel left on Thursday.

James Coe, deputy president of the Guild said: “We’re thrilled to have our very own pale ale, and I can say with complete confidence it’s a great pint.

“While it’s early days at the moment, it’s proving to be a popular choice with students and we’re pleased to offer them a locally brewed beer and show our support for local businesses.”

Curious to sample what has been billed as “a refreshing bitter” with “a sweet, almost toffee edge”, we went down to the bar to get a taste of the headline beer.

tasting time

We decided to each mark the bev using four categories: smell, colour, texture and taste.

Smell

Adam: “There is a sweet undertone but it is kind of weak. I didn’t get the toffee. It just smells like every other ale”

Mark: 2/5

Marisa: “It smells like beer, nicer than normal beer, though.”

Mark: 2/5

Aesthetic value (colour)

Adam: “It is light dependent. From this angle I am thinking Fields Of Gold… the Sting version, not Eva Cassidy.”

Mark: 3/5

Marisa: “It looks like normal beer and a bit like piss but quite golden.”

Mark 2/5

Taste

Adam: “This ale agrees with me. I’m not big on ale but it wasn’t too bitter. If ale all tasted like this I could see myself becoming a big drinker of the stuff.”

Mark: 4/5

Marisa: “I don’t like beer.”

Mark: 1/5

Texture

Adam: “It is smooth, goes down easy. Potential session drink. Could do with a bit more fizz though.”

Mark: 3/5

Marisa: “Nice bit of fizz but I just can’t forgive the taste.”

Mark: 1/5

Marisa hating on the ale

Overall: 17/40

The ale just about scraped a pass, although Marisa’s pre-existing anti-beer agenda did rather bring the mark down.

Disappointingly, we spent at least 20 minutes waiting for the toffee to come through, but it just didn’t come out to play.

We were far from enchanted with the Sphnix ale, but it is a cheap, pleasant-enough alternative to those boring old lagers and as said by James Coe, it is a really great way of supporting local businesses.