Old Fireglass took to the high seas this quarter, across the Solent to the beautiful Isle of Wight where my old mate Yatesy works as Head Brewer for Burts' in Sandown. A trip round his bustling little empire left the Prince of Ales a-leaping and a-laughing after a sampling of his delicious brews.
    I started with his Nipper Bitter, which at 3.4% is a light session beer: a good, bronze-coloured ale with a pleasant taste and at only £1.30 per pint will not break the bank. I went on to sample the V.P.A. which is short for Vectis Premium Ale - Vectis being the old Roman name for the island. If those old Romans had had a taste of this stuff, they might never have left Blighty and I'd be writing in Latin. At 4.2% this dark, malty beer is fit for any centurion and slips down like a toga at bed-time.
    Next on the agenda came Newport Nobbler, and at 4.4% I felt well nobbled. It's a smooth, light bitter with a kick as good as any of the I.O.W donkeys at the Sanctuary.
    Old Yatesy makes a special guest ale each month. Try Crustache. At 5.5% it lives up to its name - that's crustache of course, not an Italian sports-car! Meanwhile, Codswallop weighs in happily with a gravity of 5%. My particular favourite is Buddha's Golden Bitter: a deeply meditative experience at 5.2%. Its curious name derives from the fact that beside the Hole in the Wall pub in Ryde, there stands a bush called the Temple Tree, so known because in Thailand they have one by every temple (a tree, that is). The monks grind the leaves for medicinal purposes. Yatesy cast aside the Trance of Sorrow and infused the leaves into his bitter: an enlightened being.
    If you're over there for Christmas, look out for this corker: Yatesy's Christmas Pudding. At a mega 7.5% gravity you can skip the brandy! Christmas is followed by Black Gang Stout, a collection of full-bodied ingredients let out in January and weighing in at 6% : another whopper for seeing-in the New Year - providing, that is, you can see anything after the Christmas Pudding.
    I'm not an enthusiast for bottled beers but I did like Yatesy's Vectis Venom (5%). It's a real stinger - a bottled conditioned ale, bottled at source. Burts' is the only hand-made plant to do this. Good luck to you, Yatesy! If any of my fellow brothers and sisters would like to visit the brewery (founded 1840), Yatesy will be only too pleased to show you around. He can be found behind The Old Comical, a pub in St.John's Road, Sandown. So enjoy yourselves, my fellow revellers and I'll see you in Spring with more real ale tales!