1) Longtime readers of Beer is Your Friend will know I have a bit of a thing for Two Birds Taco. Have loved it ever since I tried it at my first ever GABS way back in 2013. And it is one of this blog’s few claims to fame that it may have played a part in the bottling of Taco – which is now part of the brewery’s core range.

2) Yes, brewers make decisions on what products to release on far more important details than “hey, some beer writer from Wollongong wants us to bottle our beer. We should totally do that”. But it surely can’t hurt to hear that someone has a total fanboy crush on one of your beers.

3) Well, now there’s every chance of a fanboy crush developing on another Two Birds beer. That would be their new beer, which is minimalistically called PALE, which is based on a small-run beer made for the Spotswood tasting room called Oaty McOatface. You ask me, I’m glad they went with PALE for the name.

4) That other name gives you a big hint as to the key ingredient in PALE – oats. Two different varieties of oats. That came as a bit of a surprise to me as I couldn’t recall ever having a light-coloured beer made with oats. In my experience it’s usually used in your porters and stouts. So it was with a smidge of trepidation that I approached PALE. “Oats in a pale ale, they must be mad!”

5) Yep, mad like a fox (or something like that anyway). Because this is a lovely, lovely beer. Not quite Taco lovely I grant you but that’s a hard mark for any other beer to reach. Those oats do the same things they do in darker beers; create a soft, silky feel across the tongue, and it’s just as welcoming in a pale ale as it is in a stout. I reckon it also creates a bit of a thicker mouthfeel too. The hops throw some sweet pineapple notes and perhaps even a little sweetness in the palate as well. At least this one’s already bottled so I don’t have to pester them to do that.

Free or paid for?: The company that does the PR for Two Birds sent me a whole six-pack of Pale. Which is five more beers than I usually get for reviewing – and that’s great. It means I have one for reviewing purposes and five for sitting back and enjoying purposes.