Ay up,
despite being witness to the travesty of having to go into chuffing work on my day off today to finish a job application, I was able to turn dire into desire by heading straight off for Shakespeares with Chala afterwards. Here, she had a Franziskaner wheat and I had two pints of the excellent Revolutions Brewery Replica's Pale Ale, at 4.5%. I really enjoyed this well rounded beer, with lots of hops, and more fruity flavours and an aftertaste I loved but could not put my finger on. Indeed, sat in the quiet left hand room, reading, supping and listening to the reassuring tick tock thud of the old French clock was simply bliss.
However, rather than being a self serving wank fest of gloating, this post aims to find out if any of you have identified any "must drink" breweries?
I have assembled a rudimentary list from guesswork, rubbish remembering and details on my blog, of the breweries who's 2012 output has tickled my fancy. I concede that its only bleeding April but already I am aware of a band of brewers producing consistently (we'll forget that odd Devolution from Revolutions Brewery that disturbed me in Shakespeares) excellent beers that seem to somehow perfectly suit my palate.
These are beers from :
Magic Rock
Blue Monkey
Revolutions
Brass Castle
Kirkstall
Red Willow
Abbeydale
Dunham Massey
Dark Star
Black Iris
This isn't intentionally a Top 10 it just so happens to be the breweries that have, erm, tweaked my knobs, so to speak.
My questions is therefore, am I the only one noticing a group of brewers essentially "pulling free" from the bunch, and if so, which brewers would you add or remove from the above list?
Interaction, as always, is much appreciated....
Wee Beefy
Mark Dredge described a premier league of breweries here.
ReplyDeleteThere are certain breweries we're always excited to see and who rarely let us down: Crouch Vale, Dark Star and Thornbridge are three that spring to mind. Several on your list we've never tried, sadly.
There are quite a few breweries that seem to be in other people's 'top tens' that we're not yet convinced by.
Which is the joy of course! - that so many people for so many reasons see or come to recognise a brewery consistently being good. Really I could do with a top 15, but that would seem silly....
ReplyDelete