Good evening,
its the Friday night before the Bank holiday. Today the temperature has nudged 30 degrees and its still warm now, looking like 16 or 17 overnight. The room has a lovely orange glow from the last embers of the hot sunshine. I am crying out for a cold beverage.
I have had a bottle of beer in my fridge since late March or early April, and recently spent a sum of money on some other rather excellent ales from Sean at Beer Central. The bottle in question is the BBNos and came from Shakesepares and is the first I will use to try and cool me down. I wouldn't normally drink it straight from the fridge but am warm and alas a little sweaty and the instructions on the bottle of the unfiltered and unpasteurised ale say to do that. It also says drink fresh - it was bottled 30 January so should be drunk by 30 May. I have therefore also followed that instruction. The Hop City is chilling in the fridge whilst I write about this one...
The BBNo 05/20 is an Azacca and Amarillo IPA at 6.5%, so a perfect starting strength. The label mentions that the resinous tropical fruit flavours of the Azacca are enveloped in the soft citrus of the Amarillo - this is probably why the veer has such a piney, fruity hoppiness, although it packs a very bitter after taste.
Its colour is darker than I had imagined and I wonder if I had drunk it in February instead of May it might have been paler? Not that it matters, its still a wonderfully easy drinking punchily hopped IPA. The aroma is also beautiful , its possibly pine or hop resin that I can detect. Its definitely a characteristic of the hops used that gives it that distinctive moreish luponic tang. And now its warmed a little, there are subtle flavours of blood orange coming through. And the bitterness does not dissipate. Brilliant.
The Hop City IPA is a beer Sean raved about. I understand there was a festival in Leeds, maybe at the Northern Monk brewery, of the same name, and this collaboration was born out of or for, that. The IPA is a collaboration between Northern Monk, Cloudwater and YCH Hops. I had never heard of the latter, but a quick Google search leads you to their website which is here and information about Cyro Hops. I have heard of them, if nothing else because Cloudwater and Magic Rock I think used them, or maybe the Lupulin Powder, in some recent canned ales. Alas at present I can't recall which beers, but one of the DIPA's had Lupulin powder in it so am guessing its the same product.
The Hop City is lighter than the BBNo and has a distinctive Cloudwater nose - maybe its that J W Lees yeast they use? For a hoppy 6.2% pale its incredibly easy drinking and the hoppy bitterness is subtle but ever present. The can proclaims they used HBC 344, which is a new or maybe experimental hop, along with Simcoe, Amarillo and Mosaic. The result is a lovely blend of tropical fruit, spice and bitterness.
These are two fantastic beers that showcase the hops used perfectly, and both have tropical fruit notes with lingering bitterness, so are right up my street.
Lets hope that now I know about it, I will be able to try similar and other hoppy ales at Hop City 2018.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
Showing posts with label Bottled beer review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bottled beer review. Show all posts
Friday, 26 May 2017
Tuesday, 24 December 2013
The first beer of Christmas
Now then.
firstly: I know, I know. Its supposed to be the first beer of Christmas on December the 1st. Yet, its Christmas Eve. What is wrong with this man, you ask? Why is he reviewing a "Christmas" beer on day 24?
Well the simple answer is, because I can.
Also, my Christmas 2013 beer stash wasn't collected until last night and its only now that I have started to tap into it. There are 18 pints of sedimented Abbeydale Absolution and 12 bottles of rather excellent and at times expensive beer to get through. Not that my supplier, Archer Road Beer Stop is expensive - its just I bought a couple of strong Durham beers and a bottle of Fantome Saison. Which is approximately a million pounds....
So, after an hour of festively moshing to Cathedral and Acid Reign, what better way to cool off than in a spare room chilled to below room temperature (although arguably am in said room and erm...well, its the temperature that it is?....) with a cold-ish bottle of excellent beer.
The first of my box, part of a series of potentially two reviews of the 12, is Blue Monkey Bludolph. Its 5% and an orange hued golden colour and it smells rather fab. Dave told me in the shop that its three lots of three types of hops which are chosen by the brewer every year. It's been a very long 24 hours since yesterday however so you may be better off looking at the link here from real ale store - since he brewery are. um, too busy to update their website....
It has a lovely tangerine kick with some dry bitterness, a hint of lemon and a pleasing soft malt in the background which means the bitterness settles back into the beer rather than jarring at the forefront throughout; although the aftertaste is lingeringly bitter, after the more calming malt has dissipated.
Obviously better than your average brown spiced nonsense, it wins plaudits foe being umpologetically hoppy and not remotely interested in Christmas pudding or berry fruit.
In conclusion, a great example of a Christmas beer that doesn't taste of sherry and rum and raisin chocolate with treacle, like so many of the ilk have a tendency to do. And it was so good that I didn't take a picture.
This is virtually anti blogging.....
Merry Merry Christmas!
WB
firstly: I know, I know. Its supposed to be the first beer of Christmas on December the 1st. Yet, its Christmas Eve. What is wrong with this man, you ask? Why is he reviewing a "Christmas" beer on day 24?
Well the simple answer is, because I can.
Also, my Christmas 2013 beer stash wasn't collected until last night and its only now that I have started to tap into it. There are 18 pints of sedimented Abbeydale Absolution and 12 bottles of rather excellent and at times expensive beer to get through. Not that my supplier, Archer Road Beer Stop is expensive - its just I bought a couple of strong Durham beers and a bottle of Fantome Saison. Which is approximately a million pounds....
So, after an hour of festively moshing to Cathedral and Acid Reign, what better way to cool off than in a spare room chilled to below room temperature (although arguably am in said room and erm...well, its the temperature that it is?....) with a cold-ish bottle of excellent beer.
The first of my box, part of a series of potentially two reviews of the 12, is Blue Monkey Bludolph. Its 5% and an orange hued golden colour and it smells rather fab. Dave told me in the shop that its three lots of three types of hops which are chosen by the brewer every year. It's been a very long 24 hours since yesterday however so you may be better off looking at the link here from real ale store - since he brewery are. um, too busy to update their website....
It has a lovely tangerine kick with some dry bitterness, a hint of lemon and a pleasing soft malt in the background which means the bitterness settles back into the beer rather than jarring at the forefront throughout; although the aftertaste is lingeringly bitter, after the more calming malt has dissipated.
Obviously better than your average brown spiced nonsense, it wins plaudits foe being umpologetically hoppy and not remotely interested in Christmas pudding or berry fruit.
In conclusion, a great example of a Christmas beer that doesn't taste of sherry and rum and raisin chocolate with treacle, like so many of the ilk have a tendency to do. And it was so good that I didn't take a picture.
This is virtually anti blogging.....
Merry Merry Christmas!
WB
Friday, 22 March 2013
Hello old friend
Hello,
I've been relaxing tonight. I dallied with the idea of popping to DAda to try some of their impressive looking bottled beers but I don't have much cash and also it was perishing, with biting cold winds blowing in icy powder that turned to slippery foam under the warmth of each footstep. I opted instead to get home, cook a curry, and drink some bottled beers. Right now I've arrived at a beer long absent from my stash.
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a very inexpensive beer for it's strength. It's 7.5% so probably attracts HSBD, although am unsure about this. It comes in an iconic bottle with a more enticing warming design that Guinness omits from its frozen tar branded fonts and cans, and it looks lovely and appetising in it's 330ml bottle.
I opened it to be wowed by a great aroma. Creamy malt and a Belgian yeast with hints of toffee (not too much mind, it isn't skunked). There's also a strong whiff of alcohol that sits atop the subtler scents. It pours with what is initially a muddy almost caramel head, although that has settled down now to a pleasing coffee cream. It looks delectable. It tastes...interesting.
Hold on there though, it doesn't taste unpleasant, it just has a surprisingly bitter background and an initial tartness in the bite. It settles down to be creamy with a slight molasses, and satisfying big beer mouthfeel en route. The more I drink of it the more flavours I'm picking out - burnt malt, brown sugar, bitter fruit and possibly raisin, although the more I drink the more the slightly ascorbic finish intensifies, but it quickly subsides and seems to harangue your palate into experiencing some more..
It mystifies me why I don't drink this masterpiece more often. Its interesting, aesthetically pleasing, robust and tantalising, in that, there's one more taste just before the aftertaste that is eluding me.
Earlier I had a couple more dark beers so this is a nice contrast. Tatton Brewery Ruck and Maul porter is a soft slightly bitter but well rounded dark brew with their signature Cheshire yeast flavours, whereas Rudgate York Chocolate stout was an interesting and pleasant surprise, being only vaguely chocolaty and having a backbone of malt and surprising bitterness to both counteract and balance the beer.
After this am cracking open a Thornbridge Heather Honey Stout. I expect to really enjoy it, which is a compliment since I don't really rate honey in beer. In the meantime, I'm glad to have reinstated my relationship with Guinness FES after a very long time. A pleasant end to the working week.
Cheers
Wee Beefy
I've been relaxing tonight. I dallied with the idea of popping to DAda to try some of their impressive looking bottled beers but I don't have much cash and also it was perishing, with biting cold winds blowing in icy powder that turned to slippery foam under the warmth of each footstep. I opted instead to get home, cook a curry, and drink some bottled beers. Right now I've arrived at a beer long absent from my stash.
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a very inexpensive beer for it's strength. It's 7.5% so probably attracts HSBD, although am unsure about this. It comes in an iconic bottle with a more enticing warming design that Guinness omits from its frozen tar branded fonts and cans, and it looks lovely and appetising in it's 330ml bottle.
I opened it to be wowed by a great aroma. Creamy malt and a Belgian yeast with hints of toffee (not too much mind, it isn't skunked). There's also a strong whiff of alcohol that sits atop the subtler scents. It pours with what is initially a muddy almost caramel head, although that has settled down now to a pleasing coffee cream. It looks delectable. It tastes...interesting.
Hold on there though, it doesn't taste unpleasant, it just has a surprisingly bitter background and an initial tartness in the bite. It settles down to be creamy with a slight molasses, and satisfying big beer mouthfeel en route. The more I drink of it the more flavours I'm picking out - burnt malt, brown sugar, bitter fruit and possibly raisin, although the more I drink the more the slightly ascorbic finish intensifies, but it quickly subsides and seems to harangue your palate into experiencing some more..
It mystifies me why I don't drink this masterpiece more often. Its interesting, aesthetically pleasing, robust and tantalising, in that, there's one more taste just before the aftertaste that is eluding me.
Earlier I had a couple more dark beers so this is a nice contrast. Tatton Brewery Ruck and Maul porter is a soft slightly bitter but well rounded dark brew with their signature Cheshire yeast flavours, whereas Rudgate York Chocolate stout was an interesting and pleasant surprise, being only vaguely chocolaty and having a backbone of malt and surprising bitterness to both counteract and balance the beer.
After this am cracking open a Thornbridge Heather Honey Stout. I expect to really enjoy it, which is a compliment since I don't really rate honey in beer. In the meantime, I'm glad to have reinstated my relationship with Guinness FES after a very long time. A pleasant end to the working week.
Cheers
Wee Beefy
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Genius in a bottle?
Good evening,
Wednesday 1st July 1981 was a good day. I was 7 years old, probably doing something carefree in the garden, most likely involving a hosepipe or climbing frame, and it was probably sunny. It always was. That's a fact, using rose tinted glasses. To be fair, even if it wasn't sunny, it was certainly a good day for me because Davefromtshop graduanded in Bournemouth and purchased at least 2 bottles of Eldridge Pope Thomas hardy Ale, brewed on that date. We tried one in 2006 and it was astonishingly good. Kept for 25 years, as the bottle promised you could, the beer was in amazing condition.
One bottle remained, and it was getting to the point where Eldridge Pope'/s claims about it still being drinkable were seeming less likely. Dave mentioned to me a while back that he as looking forward to opening it and kindly asked if I'd like to partake of half the bottles contents. Unsurprisingly I said yes, and have been looking forward to the prospect ever since.
So 11,412 days after it was brewed, we hoped to find out if 01 July 1981 is still a date worth remembering, as we opened the second bottle.
I wasn't writing a blog in 2006, which is a shame because I don't have any written details about the taste or even appearance of the 25 year vintage, in order to make a clear comparison. All I can do is fossick through my obfuscate cupboard of beer memories to note a few things - like its colour, which was a beautiful chestnut orange (memories don't seem to wheedle out absurd sounding colour combinations it seems), that it was incredibly strong, that you could still taste the hops in amongst the overpowering alcoholic punch and that crucially the yeast was still alive, and doing its job.
We opened this one with trepidation. It fizzed, but it was more like a tiny cough and straight away we could tell the bottle was not carbonated as the brewer had intended. It smelled very similar to the last bottle, if that's even possible, with a huge sherry and slightly musty aroma in amongst an unsubtle blast of alcohol and , I swear this is true, leather. However, here the similarities with the 25 years old version ended.
It was a far darker colour. It tasted sharper, and there was no hint of hops. It even managed to taste slightly musty, and also had the sherry flavour that was present in the George Gales Prize Old Ale. It was better than that though, really much more fruity and the strong alcohol flavour was faintly reminiscent of port. There wa also just enough sweeteness to balance it out, similar to the taste of barley sugar sweets
One really interesting feature was the bubbles. We had poured the beer quickly into each glass to teases some otherwise missing carbonation from the brew. They were a really beautiful white, really large in size and they didn't seem to disappear as we drank. Taking a close up in the glass, with the bubbles grouped round teh sides, the image below nicely shows the beer with a deep russet red colour, flanked by the sparkling pearl like bubbles.
We kept aside a small amount of the yeast, and we did actually add it at the very end. It was clear from the less harmonious flavours that the yeast had died. This was disappointing, but I think the yeast does pretty bloody well to last 25 years, which our previous bottle demonstrated it had.
There are, as with all live bottled beers, numerous factors that could have contributed to the yeasts demise and the slight spoiling of what is a truly incredible beer. I have tasted a 1 year old, 8 years old, 15 year old and a 25 year old prior to this. And I still can't say what the best age is to drink it given the myriad of possibilities that there are for how the beer could turn out. The 25 year old was amazing, but Dave mentioned that this bottle had been mistreated over the years, kept at different and unsuitable temperatures amongst other things, so perhaps the beer is drinkable aged 31, but only if its kept at a constant suitable temperature?
Who knows, but if you see a vintage for sale I would still recommend shelling out for it. I am still taken aback by how brilliant the 25 year old was, and the slightly off flavours in amongst the overwhelming vinous qualifies reminded me that this was probably only a random event away from being one of the best beers I ever tasted. So near, yet maybe a year or two too far.
Next year my oldest bottle turns 20. I only have two left now, and both are different vintages so I'm going to have them both at 25 years and hope for the best. Despite this minor upset, I am really looking forward to it.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
Wednesday 1st July 1981 was a good day. I was 7 years old, probably doing something carefree in the garden, most likely involving a hosepipe or climbing frame, and it was probably sunny. It always was. That's a fact, using rose tinted glasses. To be fair, even if it wasn't sunny, it was certainly a good day for me because Davefromtshop graduanded in Bournemouth and purchased at least 2 bottles of Eldridge Pope Thomas hardy Ale, brewed on that date. We tried one in 2006 and it was astonishingly good. Kept for 25 years, as the bottle promised you could, the beer was in amazing condition.
One bottle remained, and it was getting to the point where Eldridge Pope'/s claims about it still being drinkable were seeming less likely. Dave mentioned to me a while back that he as looking forward to opening it and kindly asked if I'd like to partake of half the bottles contents. Unsurprisingly I said yes, and have been looking forward to the prospect ever since.
So 11,412 days after it was brewed, we hoped to find out if 01 July 1981 is still a date worth remembering, as we opened the second bottle.
I wasn't writing a blog in 2006, which is a shame because I don't have any written details about the taste or even appearance of the 25 year vintage, in order to make a clear comparison. All I can do is fossick through my obfuscate cupboard of beer memories to note a few things - like its colour, which was a beautiful chestnut orange (memories don't seem to wheedle out absurd sounding colour combinations it seems), that it was incredibly strong, that you could still taste the hops in amongst the overpowering alcoholic punch and that crucially the yeast was still alive, and doing its job.
We opened this one with trepidation. It fizzed, but it was more like a tiny cough and straight away we could tell the bottle was not carbonated as the brewer had intended. It smelled very similar to the last bottle, if that's even possible, with a huge sherry and slightly musty aroma in amongst an unsubtle blast of alcohol and , I swear this is true, leather. However, here the similarities with the 25 years old version ended.
It was a far darker colour. It tasted sharper, and there was no hint of hops. It even managed to taste slightly musty, and also had the sherry flavour that was present in the George Gales Prize Old Ale. It was better than that though, really much more fruity and the strong alcohol flavour was faintly reminiscent of port. There wa also just enough sweeteness to balance it out, similar to the taste of barley sugar sweets
One really interesting feature was the bubbles. We had poured the beer quickly into each glass to teases some otherwise missing carbonation from the brew. They were a really beautiful white, really large in size and they didn't seem to disappear as we drank. Taking a close up in the glass, with the bubbles grouped round teh sides, the image below nicely shows the beer with a deep russet red colour, flanked by the sparkling pearl like bubbles.
We kept aside a small amount of the yeast, and we did actually add it at the very end. It was clear from the less harmonious flavours that the yeast had died. This was disappointing, but I think the yeast does pretty bloody well to last 25 years, which our previous bottle demonstrated it had.
There are, as with all live bottled beers, numerous factors that could have contributed to the yeasts demise and the slight spoiling of what is a truly incredible beer. I have tasted a 1 year old, 8 years old, 15 year old and a 25 year old prior to this. And I still can't say what the best age is to drink it given the myriad of possibilities that there are for how the beer could turn out. The 25 year old was amazing, but Dave mentioned that this bottle had been mistreated over the years, kept at different and unsuitable temperatures amongst other things, so perhaps the beer is drinkable aged 31, but only if its kept at a constant suitable temperature?
Who knows, but if you see a vintage for sale I would still recommend shelling out for it. I am still taken aback by how brilliant the 25 year old was, and the slightly off flavours in amongst the overwhelming vinous qualifies reminded me that this was probably only a random event away from being one of the best beers I ever tasted. So near, yet maybe a year or two too far.
Next year my oldest bottle turns 20. I only have two left now, and both are different vintages so I'm going to have them both at 25 years and hope for the best. Despite this minor upset, I am really looking forward to it.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
Monday, 27 August 2012
Bottled beer mystery - Franklins Conqueror
Now then,
I recently heard Wee Keefy say on a number of occasions about a beer he was buying regularly from an off license chain on Crookes, Sheffield. Having been bought a worthy selection of their offerings for my Birthday, including ones from Great Orme, Box Steam and Hopdaemon, I wasn't surprised to hear about an unusual brew, but was surprised to hear it was from a closed brewery in Harrogate. Time to investigate....
Franklins, as any fule kno, was a brewery that was based on Bilton Lane Harrogate. Bilton Lane is also the location of excellent National Inventory of Unspoilt Pub Interiors example the Gardeners Arms, although it may now be on Part 2. It never sold their beers, and indeed, it seemed, nowhere did. Franklins was that frustrating beast the unobtainable beer, a beer that purported to be on but never was, and eventually simply stopped existing.
Routing around earlier I found a 2008 GBG and noted it's omission from there. I then tried finding an older copy (I have lots, somewhere) and found it still listed in the 2000 edition. This informs me it was started in 1980 and now run by Leeds CAMRA member Tommy Thomas, presumably someone retired from the great Harry Enfield Arsenal side that included Charles "Charlie" Charles. But I digress....
Somewhere between 1999 when the guide was compiled and 2007 it closed down, and has now resurfaced in Bexhill in East Sussex. As you do. The kit, according to Quaffale website, has been purchased by Whites of Bexhill who are now apparently running the revived Franklins name alongside their own business. Whites, as you may recall used to be mainly a brewing supplies firm who brewed beer intermittently on the side. Around the time of the millennium me and WF drove down to the South coast to pick up beer from Whites for Sheffield beer festival (and a cask for the Hillsborough Hotel, but don't tell anyone....) and it really was a haphazard small scale operation. So what, I wondered, was the beer like now?
Well firstly, I never got to try the illusive Franklins! It was alleged to be a regular at the George and Dragon in Melmerby North Yorkshire, but a trip out there heralded only Theakstons Black Bull, and it was also reputed to be at the only ever Leeds beer festival I attended, which it invariably wasn't. So all I know is that their bitter was highly regarded according to successive editions of the GBG. Here's what the "revived" Franklins was like :
Beer : Conqueror, 5.1%
Colour : dark russet brown, decent whitish head.
Pour - decent carbonation initially but goes flat quickly and the head disappears
Aroma : Hmmm....very little. Some sweet malt, barely discernible caramel?
Taste : without the above background this may be my shortest bottled beer review ever! Because it tastes of very little. There is sweet malt, and a very lightl burnt toffee/roast malt taste, and a predominant flavour that I found to be akin to hobnobs, but more bitter.
There was very little in the way of hops, and sometimes with bigger mouthfuls the beer tasted of burnt sugar, but all the facets of sweetness and malt fought against each other to remain equally unremarkable and undemanding on the palate. A really average beer, by comparison, nowhere near as good as the excellent White 1066 ale I tried at the Double H (it lasted less than 40 minutes).
So, not really much to be excited about, a malty brown beer by numbers, and seemingly one entirely divorced from the excellent output of Whites, and what was alleged to have been the qualities of Franklins beers.
Which brings me to my final point - is it really revived ?
I would lead you to the brewery website but it links to some redirect bot which now means I simply return to Google every time I click on their link - you should be able to see their Facebook page at the following which says basically the same. The blurb states"were back" which seems a little odd since Quaffale suggests it stopped brewing in 2000 (Quaffale gen) - so are those involved the same people who brewed at Harrogate?
Also the contact details are for someone at Brewmad.com - they list Whites and Potton as their friends, but the website (here, but I wouldn't bother, its mainly spoof and there's no real info or even contact details) for that company doesn't mention Franklins!
A final snippet was found on Brighton CAMRA's website CAMRABrighton) :
"EDGE BREWING Co. (and Franklins) Pebsham Farm Industrial Estate, Pebsham Lane, Bexhill, East Sussex TN40 2RZ. tel. 01424 73 1066. www.edgebrewing.co.uk www.franklinsbrewery.co.uk They say 'We have changed our name from White's to Edge Brewing Co. We now also have a sister company called Franklins. It is a separate brewery but is run at the same site as Edge. The beer produced by both breweries is selling extremely well and we are currently brewing seven days a week. For this reason we have scaled down our range of beers and are now producing two core beers for Edge Brewing and three for Franklins Brewery'. The Edge ones are Brighton Rocks 4% (pale colour) and a weaker IPA 3.6% Franklins PDF to download "
All in all, its a bit of an unseemly puzzle, and on the evidence of conqueror its not particularly exciting beer either. The bottle label tellingly does not mention the address of the brewery only a website which, even assuming it worked and doesn't redirect you to Google, should give you an insight into the kind of operation Franklins is. That said, I'm tempted to follow them on social media to see what the crack is.
I hope to post next from a far away place, but for now, I am finishing packing and wearing shorts in anticipation of some sunshine. And its chuffing freezing.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
Thursday, 16 August 2012
George Gales Prize Old Ale (corked)
Now then,
the Olympics finished on Sunday and in a moment of heady excitement I decided it would be good to celebrate the event with one of my "stash" - a cavalcade of bottled beers from 1971 (yes, long before I was old enough to drink, or even born) til the present day, amassed since 1993.
One such bottle was a Gales Prize Old Ale from the last batch brewed in Horndean and thus corked. I had two so figured one could be sacrificed, having had them laid on their side (as per the label instructions) since 2005. A cursory glance at the label proclaimed it had been brewed that year and was best before March 2010. Well, I thought, its 9% for chrissakes. Surely it had the balls for the journey? And besides, whenever I caved in after 3 years and drank one it was invariably unbalanced and too "young". So this seemed a perfect chance to try a good one.
With the roar and razzmatazz of the Olympics blaring out of the TV behind me I set about opening the chilled beer. Not rate chilled you understand, but I had concerns that it might be fizzy. I broke the pinkish red plastic seal round the top and slightly indelicately removed the cork. There was little sound. Hmmm..
The aroma was predominantly sherry. As I breathed n a bit more there was a sharper stronger aroma like whisky, plus the sweetness, reminiscent faintly of cane sugar, and for a mad moment fruit salad sweets.
I poured it out flat as a millpond. Some carbonation was caused towards the end of the pour, although not knowing what to expect from the yeast it was eked out slowly so no gravity pushed the bubbles into the glass. I still don't think throwing it in would have created much bubbles, if that is even grammatically correct.
The colour was, well, sherry to be honest! Maybe brandy depending on the light. But with a darker brown shade more reminiscent of the beer it was supposed to be, with some attractive reddish hints.
The first taste was something of a slow motion slap across the face. I could see it coming, but couldn't avoid the massive sherry, tart fruit and residual alcohol smashing into me in one angry wave of tipsy bravado. Further tastes allowed the sugar to increase, or rather its sweetness to come through, and I detected candy, lavender sugar, treacle, and fighting unconvincingly at the back, some hops.
Later tastes revealed lemon sherbet and a taste I can only describe as the smell of leather (just trust me) and, regrettably, cardboard. I added the yeast half way down which only served to increase the sweetness but it was also mildly acidic and there seemed to be even more alcohol - certainly my complexion was telling me that this was no longer 9.0%.
The body was thin, there even seemed to be a little suggestion of water, almost like I hadn't dried the glass after rinsing, except I had. It was strange having a thin beer with such incredibly strong flavours.
So in conclusion, not a subtle beer, and not really a beer at all in terms of taste. More a sherry with a suggestion of malt and hops with sweet tart fruit and alcoholic flavours.
This is interesting since I don't think I've ever had a really good Gales corked beer. They've always been a bit muddled or eccentric or unbalanced, usually with only one prominent characteristic on display - I am thinking of 5 examples over the past 18 years. The best one was a celebration beer at around 7.0% which had a bit more subtlety to its flavours and was a bit more, well, beer.
That the Harveys Imperial Russian Stout that was brewed in the mid nineties and was undrinkable was blamed by the brewery on their contracting bottling to Gales says a lot, although perhaps more about Harveys, since it was their yeast which died in the bottle. It makes you wonder whether the passage of time clouds our memories of what was good beer, I mean, does it all have odd flavours and no carbonation? And it also begs the question, can we make good corked ale in Britain?
Wissey Valley managed it , at least I think they did! But really its not a British strongpoint - its got to ne Chimay who nailed it. So perhaps we once again have to look at how the Belgians do things.
In defence of the "old stagers" of brewing though, I'd like to try a bottle conditioned new world hopped IPA or Black IPA, or heavy hopped stout after 7 years to see how the more popular ingredients fared over time in the bottle. It would be really interesting to see if they could match classics like Thomas Hardy Ale.
To which end, I am, co-incidentally as it happens, hoping to try what I think is a 29 year old vintage next month. The 25 year was still carbonated and you could taste the hops. So already better than Gales, but might 29 years be a step too far?
Wee Beefy
the Olympics finished on Sunday and in a moment of heady excitement I decided it would be good to celebrate the event with one of my "stash" - a cavalcade of bottled beers from 1971 (yes, long before I was old enough to drink, or even born) til the present day, amassed since 1993.
One such bottle was a Gales Prize Old Ale from the last batch brewed in Horndean and thus corked. I had two so figured one could be sacrificed, having had them laid on their side (as per the label instructions) since 2005. A cursory glance at the label proclaimed it had been brewed that year and was best before March 2010. Well, I thought, its 9% for chrissakes. Surely it had the balls for the journey? And besides, whenever I caved in after 3 years and drank one it was invariably unbalanced and too "young". So this seemed a perfect chance to try a good one.
With the roar and razzmatazz of the Olympics blaring out of the TV behind me I set about opening the chilled beer. Not rate chilled you understand, but I had concerns that it might be fizzy. I broke the pinkish red plastic seal round the top and slightly indelicately removed the cork. There was little sound. Hmmm..
The aroma was predominantly sherry. As I breathed n a bit more there was a sharper stronger aroma like whisky, plus the sweetness, reminiscent faintly of cane sugar, and for a mad moment fruit salad sweets.
I poured it out flat as a millpond. Some carbonation was caused towards the end of the pour, although not knowing what to expect from the yeast it was eked out slowly so no gravity pushed the bubbles into the glass. I still don't think throwing it in would have created much bubbles, if that is even grammatically correct.
The colour was, well, sherry to be honest! Maybe brandy depending on the light. But with a darker brown shade more reminiscent of the beer it was supposed to be, with some attractive reddish hints.
The first taste was something of a slow motion slap across the face. I could see it coming, but couldn't avoid the massive sherry, tart fruit and residual alcohol smashing into me in one angry wave of tipsy bravado. Further tastes allowed the sugar to increase, or rather its sweetness to come through, and I detected candy, lavender sugar, treacle, and fighting unconvincingly at the back, some hops.
Later tastes revealed lemon sherbet and a taste I can only describe as the smell of leather (just trust me) and, regrettably, cardboard. I added the yeast half way down which only served to increase the sweetness but it was also mildly acidic and there seemed to be even more alcohol - certainly my complexion was telling me that this was no longer 9.0%.
The body was thin, there even seemed to be a little suggestion of water, almost like I hadn't dried the glass after rinsing, except I had. It was strange having a thin beer with such incredibly strong flavours.
So in conclusion, not a subtle beer, and not really a beer at all in terms of taste. More a sherry with a suggestion of malt and hops with sweet tart fruit and alcoholic flavours.
This is interesting since I don't think I've ever had a really good Gales corked beer. They've always been a bit muddled or eccentric or unbalanced, usually with only one prominent characteristic on display - I am thinking of 5 examples over the past 18 years. The best one was a celebration beer at around 7.0% which had a bit more subtlety to its flavours and was a bit more, well, beer.
That the Harveys Imperial Russian Stout that was brewed in the mid nineties and was undrinkable was blamed by the brewery on their contracting bottling to Gales says a lot, although perhaps more about Harveys, since it was their yeast which died in the bottle. It makes you wonder whether the passage of time clouds our memories of what was good beer, I mean, does it all have odd flavours and no carbonation? And it also begs the question, can we make good corked ale in Britain?
Wissey Valley managed it , at least I think they did! But really its not a British strongpoint - its got to ne Chimay who nailed it. So perhaps we once again have to look at how the Belgians do things.
In defence of the "old stagers" of brewing though, I'd like to try a bottle conditioned new world hopped IPA or Black IPA, or heavy hopped stout after 7 years to see how the more popular ingredients fared over time in the bottle. It would be really interesting to see if they could match classics like Thomas Hardy Ale.
To which end, I am, co-incidentally as it happens, hoping to try what I think is a 29 year old vintage next month. The 25 year was still carbonated and you could taste the hops. So already better than Gales, but might 29 years be a step too far?
Wee Beefy
Monday, 18 June 2012
Live Blog - De Dolle Stille Nacht 2010
Now Then,
this is my first live blog. So as not to disappoint those veterans of innovative media, I must confirm that its only really live in the sense that it is being written as I drink. Instead of afterwards, like it usually is....
So, this is my only bottle of the Stille Nacht from the dark days when the brew date wasn't on the label anymore. I still have a bottle of the 2006 in my stash. I imagine that will be fecking absurd to be brutally honest. This is silly enough.
Brewery : De Dolle (says Oer bier on side, probably from Esen, but label is more interpretive than factual.
Name : Stille Nacht, brewed October 2010
Strength : 12.0%
BCA/none BCA? : Erm...unfiltered maybe?.
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop Sheffield.
Colour : Gold, light chestnut, a little like Retsina, but without the cloudiness since yeast in bottle for now for initial taste.
Carbonation/Pouring : Silent insurgence from the bottle but with retained head and bubbles carrying on their ascent long after opening..
Aroma : Alcohol! Sweet malt and fruit, lots of peach, orange, lemon, brandy, perhaps cherry, currants, raisins and somehow, peat..
Taste : this is a very silly beer. Its crammed full of intense sweet alcohol notes, with a jammy fruit preserve in the back of the mouth before alcoholic flavours wash over to reveal spiky sweet malt, that distinctive Belgian yeast, and and some sort of sour marmalade, the fruit of which might be quince (I realise there's only really a few marmalade fruits....). I'm going to add the yeast now.
After adding the extra but vital matter there is a loud fizz and a flurry of detritus in the bottom of the glass riding the new wave of carbonation, quite large chunks of yeast swirl up and fall like the contents of a stood Alka Seltzer. Intriguingly they don't all drop, they are still there in the glass reminding me that this is an evolving brew.
The first apres yeast taste is a little more mellow but with a slight ascorbic edge, but there's more of that dry alcoholic fruit and some surprising bitterness fighting its way through to the forefront of this distinctly and thankfully uncompromising and unsubtle adventure into alcohol. Like a Barley wine but with more finesse it fizzes on the tongue with that ever present alcoholic citrus and dry fruit taste lingering. Its been chilled for 45 minutes and tastes like it it could live with another hour. Like I said, its daft.
Continuing down the glass the flavour splits a little - the dryish fruit and alochol linger but the more subtle malts and hints of bitterness disperse. Also, I notice that this is perhaps the cloudiest and most claggy ale I have ever drank - the yeast sediment neither dissipates nor sinks, it just hangs in sharp vinous stasis waiting to assault the tastebuds. I don't really know what to make of this. If I had poured this first off I might have been seriously worried that this was from Shropshire, but it doesn't necessarily impact on the flavour, except a half thought idea that older vintages had more proportionate yeast deposits and melded the physical matter and taste a little better.
Head retention - not bad, there's still an identifiable white/grey crown on the top as I near the end. .
WBrating : 7.2.
This low score may be a reflection of my unease at the pond water cloudiness f the beer, and also that the sheer intensity f the beer makes any kind of expeditious tasting impossible. And the drink warms it becomes cloying, and the yeast flavours niggle. Its a stupendous beer in terms of overall taste, incredibly fruity to begin with, but the slip in marks reflects the loss of those vibrant fruits as the beer goes on..
More birthday sups to come this week!
Wee Beefy
this is my first live blog. So as not to disappoint those veterans of innovative media, I must confirm that its only really live in the sense that it is being written as I drink. Instead of afterwards, like it usually is....
So, this is my only bottle of the Stille Nacht from the dark days when the brew date wasn't on the label anymore. I still have a bottle of the 2006 in my stash. I imagine that will be fecking absurd to be brutally honest. This is silly enough.
Brewery : De Dolle (says Oer bier on side, probably from Esen, but label is more interpretive than factual.
Name : Stille Nacht, brewed October 2010
Strength : 12.0%
BCA/none BCA? : Erm...unfiltered maybe?.
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop Sheffield.
Colour : Gold, light chestnut, a little like Retsina, but without the cloudiness since yeast in bottle for now for initial taste.
Carbonation/Pouring : Silent insurgence from the bottle but with retained head and bubbles carrying on their ascent long after opening..
Aroma : Alcohol! Sweet malt and fruit, lots of peach, orange, lemon, brandy, perhaps cherry, currants, raisins and somehow, peat..
Taste : this is a very silly beer. Its crammed full of intense sweet alcohol notes, with a jammy fruit preserve in the back of the mouth before alcoholic flavours wash over to reveal spiky sweet malt, that distinctive Belgian yeast, and and some sort of sour marmalade, the fruit of which might be quince (I realise there's only really a few marmalade fruits....). I'm going to add the yeast now.
After adding the extra but vital matter there is a loud fizz and a flurry of detritus in the bottom of the glass riding the new wave of carbonation, quite large chunks of yeast swirl up and fall like the contents of a stood Alka Seltzer. Intriguingly they don't all drop, they are still there in the glass reminding me that this is an evolving brew.
The first apres yeast taste is a little more mellow but with a slight ascorbic edge, but there's more of that dry alcoholic fruit and some surprising bitterness fighting its way through to the forefront of this distinctly and thankfully uncompromising and unsubtle adventure into alcohol. Like a Barley wine but with more finesse it fizzes on the tongue with that ever present alcoholic citrus and dry fruit taste lingering. Its been chilled for 45 minutes and tastes like it it could live with another hour. Like I said, its daft.
Continuing down the glass the flavour splits a little - the dryish fruit and alochol linger but the more subtle malts and hints of bitterness disperse. Also, I notice that this is perhaps the cloudiest and most claggy ale I have ever drank - the yeast sediment neither dissipates nor sinks, it just hangs in sharp vinous stasis waiting to assault the tastebuds. I don't really know what to make of this. If I had poured this first off I might have been seriously worried that this was from Shropshire, but it doesn't necessarily impact on the flavour, except a half thought idea that older vintages had more proportionate yeast deposits and melded the physical matter and taste a little better.
Head retention - not bad, there's still an identifiable white/grey crown on the top as I near the end. .
WBrating : 7.2.
This low score may be a reflection of my unease at the pond water cloudiness f the beer, and also that the sheer intensity f the beer makes any kind of expeditious tasting impossible. And the drink warms it becomes cloying, and the yeast flavours niggle. Its a stupendous beer in terms of overall taste, incredibly fruity to begin with, but the slip in marks reflects the loss of those vibrant fruits as the beer goes on..
More birthday sups to come this week!
Wee Beefy
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Bottle conditioned beer - doom put on hold temporarily
Hello,
back in February I wrote about my experience of a bottle of Durham Temptation Stout, perhaps my favourite bottle conditioned beer, that I had tried, and found to be orf. This was an incredibly disappointing outcome for me, since I rated Durham and this beer so highly. As I said though, the only thing when you have a fall is to get back on the horse - so seeking suitable reward for my exhausting endeavours today, I decided to open another bottle.
Please4 accept my apologies for a lack of pics - my phone camera decided to refuse to recharge, and Chala has taken hers to bed with my pics on it!
Here's what I found :
Brewery : Durham, in Durham
Name : Temptation ( May 2007 vintage, BBE September 2012)
Strength : 10.0%
BCA/none BCA? : BCA.
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop Sheffield.
Colour : "Black! Black! (No Johnnyy...) All black! Like the procession of night that leads us into the valley of despair " (apologies to the Fast Show for borrowing this, here's a cursory link by way of recognition) . Anyhoo, also a thin, white-ish but gently fizzing layer of bubbles sits atop the dark chasm of drinkability.
Style win I say.
Carbonation/Pouring : Loud and reassuring fizz on opening - pours silky smooth with a lot of beer coming out before we hit the yeast.
Aroma : Alcohol! Plenty of it, its five years old and clearly not an old ladies drink. There's roast malt, molasses, tar and coffee fighting through in there as well.
Taste : There is an enormous initial mouthfeel of molasses, burnt toffee, massive alcohol, following to an incredible intense sweetish creamy malt finish, with a further bitter burnt aftertaste, which simply increases the desire for more. Even after that lingering wave of taste sensations has left there is still a hint of malt and maybe currants in alcohol? (am struggling for the drunken fruit here).
On the second taste you get more molasses and once again that initial burst of alcohol and warming roast and burnt malt, with that joyous creamy malted aftertaste, as the beer pushes you from creamy to bitter to burnt to toffee and back again over and over again with every swig.
I added the yeast to a small amount of the clear (as far as that's possible!) beer about 10 gulps in, because I noticed a very minor imbalance which I felt the addition of the bottling yeast might remedy. Straight away, the barely 50ml of sediment caused a massive head to form, with a striking yellow brown toffee colour, before receding back into the glass. The result is an even better beer - less burnt, more toffee notes, and and an even longer lingering creamy finish which makes the beer dangerously moreish (note, drinking 500ml of 10% beer is quite tiring, even if it is incredibly enjoyable!).
Head retention - its not really appreciably a head after a bit. The bubbles disperse after about 20 minutes leaving a luscious tar black sea of roasted creamy goodness with enough alcohol in it to confuse a rhino. .
WBrating : 9.0.
Sorry but this is beervana. Perhaps this score is skewed slightly by my disappointment last time but this is an amazingly well rounded tasty, vinous behemoth of a stout.
So, it seems that all is not lost. I have my faith partly restored, and I am happy about that.
I do have a 2010 and 2011 vintage in storage so five years from now I hope to be enjoying one of them, but in the meantime they'll have to wait (hopefully) with the Durham yeast doing its job and taking the coarse strands of the strong stout and melding them together into the ultimate beer, which if you'll forgive my somewhat muddle headed hyperbole, is precisely what the 2007 vintage is.
Wee Beefy
back in February I wrote about my experience of a bottle of Durham Temptation Stout, perhaps my favourite bottle conditioned beer, that I had tried, and found to be orf. This was an incredibly disappointing outcome for me, since I rated Durham and this beer so highly. As I said though, the only thing when you have a fall is to get back on the horse - so seeking suitable reward for my exhausting endeavours today, I decided to open another bottle.
Please4 accept my apologies for a lack of pics - my phone camera decided to refuse to recharge, and Chala has taken hers to bed with my pics on it!
Here's what I found :
Brewery : Durham, in Durham
Name : Temptation ( May 2007 vintage, BBE September 2012)
Strength : 10.0%
BCA/none BCA? : BCA.
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop Sheffield.
Colour : "Black! Black! (No Johnnyy...) All black! Like the procession of night that leads us into the valley of despair " (apologies to the Fast Show for borrowing this, here's a cursory link by way of recognition) . Anyhoo, also a thin, white-ish but gently fizzing layer of bubbles sits atop the dark chasm of drinkability.
Style win I say.
Carbonation/Pouring : Loud and reassuring fizz on opening - pours silky smooth with a lot of beer coming out before we hit the yeast.
Aroma : Alcohol! Plenty of it, its five years old and clearly not an old ladies drink. There's roast malt, molasses, tar and coffee fighting through in there as well.
Taste : There is an enormous initial mouthfeel of molasses, burnt toffee, massive alcohol, following to an incredible intense sweetish creamy malt finish, with a further bitter burnt aftertaste, which simply increases the desire for more. Even after that lingering wave of taste sensations has left there is still a hint of malt and maybe currants in alcohol? (am struggling for the drunken fruit here).
On the second taste you get more molasses and once again that initial burst of alcohol and warming roast and burnt malt, with that joyous creamy malted aftertaste, as the beer pushes you from creamy to bitter to burnt to toffee and back again over and over again with every swig.
I added the yeast to a small amount of the clear (as far as that's possible!) beer about 10 gulps in, because I noticed a very minor imbalance which I felt the addition of the bottling yeast might remedy. Straight away, the barely 50ml of sediment caused a massive head to form, with a striking yellow brown toffee colour, before receding back into the glass. The result is an even better beer - less burnt, more toffee notes, and and an even longer lingering creamy finish which makes the beer dangerously moreish (note, drinking 500ml of 10% beer is quite tiring, even if it is incredibly enjoyable!).
Head retention - its not really appreciably a head after a bit. The bubbles disperse after about 20 minutes leaving a luscious tar black sea of roasted creamy goodness with enough alcohol in it to confuse a rhino. .
WBrating : 9.0.
Sorry but this is beervana. Perhaps this score is skewed slightly by my disappointment last time but this is an amazingly well rounded tasty, vinous behemoth of a stout.
So, it seems that all is not lost. I have my faith partly restored, and I am happy about that.
I do have a 2010 and 2011 vintage in storage so five years from now I hope to be enjoying one of them, but in the meantime they'll have to wait (hopefully) with the Durham yeast doing its job and taking the coarse strands of the strong stout and melding them together into the ultimate beer, which if you'll forgive my somewhat muddle headed hyperbole, is precisely what the 2007 vintage is.
Wee Beefy
Sunday, 22 April 2012
A Premier Cru bottled beer
Afternoon,
the title, you will be relieved to discover, is not a reference to some dreadful over-concept "craft"(?) bottled beer made with wine, instead, its simply a wine term used to afford compliment to an excellent British bottled beer, from an excellent local brewery.
Brampton Brewery in Chesterfield produce a regular range of really very good beers. Impy dark is a classic, and a personal favourite of mine, and the Stout and session bitter "Best" are worthy features in a commendable portfolio. Interestingly though, it seems like they haven't branched out much into stronger beers yet, or at least, not until the end of last year.
Winter Bock
When I went to buy my Christmas beers from Archer Road Beer Stop, Davefromtshop told me that, despite its rather exclusive price tag, Brampton Winter Bock was one of the best beers he'd tried for a long time. Curiously, seeing its tempting livery of mucky white and black in a flip top 750ml bottle I assumed it was really strong. I was actually a little disappointed to discover that it was "only" 6%, so accustomed had I become to stouts being of imperial strength when packaged so well. Dave reassured me that despite its strength, it was still a brilliant beer. And then, I was bought one for Christmas.
I was going to patiently store it until my birthday in June but caved in last night and offered to share it with Chala - after all, at the sharp end of a refreshing night, the last thing you want is to munch your way through a wine bottle sized slab of beer, no matter how delicious it is. As it turned out, it was so good that I could easily have sunk the lot on my own. A good job then that it wasn't a gorilla baffler.
I should confess now that I didn't make notes. I couldn't be arsed to be quite honest! I didn't want to impinge on the event by thinking carefully about what flavours I could pick out, so here are some rambling vaguely useful notes about this wonderful bottled beer that I have managed to more or less remember.
Brampton Winter Bock is 6.0%, numbered 063 from a limited edition of am not sure how many and, possibly due to an identified degree of refreshment last night, I thought it was bottle conditioned, whereas the label makes no such claim. No spine chilling "CAMRA says this is real ale" vinegar portent to be seen. The label also proudly proclaims that its a barley wine. This is in fact, the only thing that I could find fault with - I think barley wine does it a disservice, since its much more drinkable and well balanced than most barley wine offerings. And really, at 6.0%, its too weak to be a barley wine. But I digress....
It pours a glorious black and smells straight away like a a Belgian Dubbel, but that is quickly knocked into touch by a familiar Brampton dark beer aroma. Aside from this, Brampton do three dark beers - Impy, Mild and Stout. I swear if you tried every one of them one after another you'd soon recognise that Brampton waft. Is it the yeast they use perhaps, or do they always prefer to use specific malts in their dark beers? I don't know, but why change something that works - if they continue to all have that appealing sweet and roast malt aroma I'll continue to enjoy drinking them.
The taste is the same as the aroma, in that there is a definite dark Belgian or possibly German, perhaps Andechs Dopplebock taste, giving way to a glorious blend of roast malts. This is a surprisingly refreshing drink for a strong beer - the label describes it as dangerously drinkable and I think that's spot on. There is some bitterness, it kind of appears with the malt in the second part of the taste, and lingers subtly in the background when you finish each mouthful.
The primary feature though is its lustrous creaminess, the sort of smooth palate caressing warm satisfaction that could never be achieved by filling beer with Nitrogen or other crap. Its smooth in a good way. And tremendously enjoyable.
Labouring under the illusion it was a BCA I actually poured it in to 4 glasses - a near full pint for me, a small measure for Chala who also loved it, another small measure leaving what I thought would be yeast in the bottom, and then a mug containing the last of the bottle contents. In the end this interesting but needless exercise served me very well as it drew out the drinking experience that little longer. Its just a shame that mild befuddlement means I am not 100% certain it wasn't bottle conditioned, and so will now have to buy another to find out - which depending on its limited edition numbers, will either be extremely expensive or impossible.
Overall this was an example of a recommendation deserved. It was fantastic. If you find one buy it; if you own one, drink it.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
the title, you will be relieved to discover, is not a reference to some dreadful over-concept "craft"(?) bottled beer made with wine, instead, its simply a wine term used to afford compliment to an excellent British bottled beer, from an excellent local brewery.
Brampton Brewery in Chesterfield produce a regular range of really very good beers. Impy dark is a classic, and a personal favourite of mine, and the Stout and session bitter "Best" are worthy features in a commendable portfolio. Interestingly though, it seems like they haven't branched out much into stronger beers yet, or at least, not until the end of last year.
Winter Bock
When I went to buy my Christmas beers from Archer Road Beer Stop, Davefromtshop told me that, despite its rather exclusive price tag, Brampton Winter Bock was one of the best beers he'd tried for a long time. Curiously, seeing its tempting livery of mucky white and black in a flip top 750ml bottle I assumed it was really strong. I was actually a little disappointed to discover that it was "only" 6%, so accustomed had I become to stouts being of imperial strength when packaged so well. Dave reassured me that despite its strength, it was still a brilliant beer. And then, I was bought one for Christmas.
I was going to patiently store it until my birthday in June but caved in last night and offered to share it with Chala - after all, at the sharp end of a refreshing night, the last thing you want is to munch your way through a wine bottle sized slab of beer, no matter how delicious it is. As it turned out, it was so good that I could easily have sunk the lot on my own. A good job then that it wasn't a gorilla baffler.
I should confess now that I didn't make notes. I couldn't be arsed to be quite honest! I didn't want to impinge on the event by thinking carefully about what flavours I could pick out, so here are some rambling vaguely useful notes about this wonderful bottled beer that I have managed to more or less remember.
Brampton Winter Bock is 6.0%, numbered 063 from a limited edition of am not sure how many and, possibly due to an identified degree of refreshment last night, I thought it was bottle conditioned, whereas the label makes no such claim. No spine chilling "CAMRA says this is real ale" vinegar portent to be seen. The label also proudly proclaims that its a barley wine. This is in fact, the only thing that I could find fault with - I think barley wine does it a disservice, since its much more drinkable and well balanced than most barley wine offerings. And really, at 6.0%, its too weak to be a barley wine. But I digress....
It pours a glorious black and smells straight away like a a Belgian Dubbel, but that is quickly knocked into touch by a familiar Brampton dark beer aroma. Aside from this, Brampton do three dark beers - Impy, Mild and Stout. I swear if you tried every one of them one after another you'd soon recognise that Brampton waft. Is it the yeast they use perhaps, or do they always prefer to use specific malts in their dark beers? I don't know, but why change something that works - if they continue to all have that appealing sweet and roast malt aroma I'll continue to enjoy drinking them.
The taste is the same as the aroma, in that there is a definite dark Belgian or possibly German, perhaps Andechs Dopplebock taste, giving way to a glorious blend of roast malts. This is a surprisingly refreshing drink for a strong beer - the label describes it as dangerously drinkable and I think that's spot on. There is some bitterness, it kind of appears with the malt in the second part of the taste, and lingers subtly in the background when you finish each mouthful.
The primary feature though is its lustrous creaminess, the sort of smooth palate caressing warm satisfaction that could never be achieved by filling beer with Nitrogen or other crap. Its smooth in a good way. And tremendously enjoyable.
Labouring under the illusion it was a BCA I actually poured it in to 4 glasses - a near full pint for me, a small measure for Chala who also loved it, another small measure leaving what I thought would be yeast in the bottom, and then a mug containing the last of the bottle contents. In the end this interesting but needless exercise served me very well as it drew out the drinking experience that little longer. Its just a shame that mild befuddlement means I am not 100% certain it wasn't bottle conditioned, and so will now have to buy another to find out - which depending on its limited edition numbers, will either be extremely expensive or impossible.
Overall this was an example of a recommendation deserved. It was fantastic. If you find one buy it; if you own one, drink it.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
Monday, 13 February 2012
Bottle conditioned beer - we're all doomed!
Hello,
I have made many references to the purveyors of good bottle conditioned beer. I have also alluded to some of the more rubbish ones, but rarely have I mentioned quality bottle conditioned beers or ales (BCA) without mentioning Durham Brewery. I think they are shit hot at the old BCA. Along with Dunham Massey, strangely, Thwaites and Coors (only one BCA each but never lets me down) I consider that they are the sort of brewery who's beers you should give a BCA doubter to try - let them see for themselves that BCA does not need to be sour piss like (insert name of almost any small brewery who's bottle conditioning experiment consists of bravado, guesswork, and hand bottling without any prior knowledge or later product testing)
So, against this paean to Durham's merits, what do you expect would happen then if I tried a crap Durham bottle conditioned beer?
Well, put simply, the world would end.
It went a little like this :
Brewery : Durham, in Durham
Name : Temptation (2008 or 2009 vintage, whichever was the first batch to not confirm the year of brewing)
Strength : 10.0%
BCA/none BCA? : BCA.
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop Sheffield.
Pictured below is the beer with the bottle, helpfully demonstrating the noticeable lack of any head, although also its jet black colour, and a few white bubbles have formed at the beer's edge.
Colour : as above, black. Absolutely black. No fannying about with "hues" or nuances of colour shades, this is black as coal and proud of it.
Carbonation/Pouring : no sound on opening - quite worrying since its a good three years in the bottle so you would expect a bit of carbonation. Pours silky smooth but ultimately flat.
Aroma : This is the 5th or 6th Temptation I have had, of varying vintages, and everyone carries a strong chocolate coffee malt aroma and sweet nose that tells you its rounded and alcoholic. This hints at that, but there is yeast. And molasses. I am concerned.
Taste : There is an enormous initial mouthfeel but its not well balanced. Yes, there are roast malts, smoked chocolate hints and warming alcohol in there but there is a niggly piquant bite of yeast, and a big dumb lumbering brute of molasses in the aftertaste. I am starting to worry that this has not been a successful bottling.
On the second taste you get more molasses and despite the pleasing strong alcohol and aged beer flavours which light the beer up its very one dimensional and worse still, slightly sour. There is a strong coffee and roast malt flavour struggling to the front again but all too soon its lost in the sledgehammer of thick vinous and unsavoury malt and yeast in the aftertaste.. As we get further down the glass the aftertaste becomes more prevalent. Below is a pic which shows the enticing velvety black ocean of tempting stout loveliness. If you didn't read this review, and just looked at the picture, you'd probably fall in love with the beer at once...
At this point I assume its just my keeping the yeast aside which has caused the problem so taste it separately. Doing so immediately confirms my fears and explains the problem. In essence, the yeast has died, not activated in the bottle. Its the yeast that has created and generated the off flavours as well as the beer stagnating rather than living since it was bottled. Its nasty enough, when it should be drinkable, to leave in the bottle.
Head retention - its not really appreciably a head at all. There are some game white bubbles that pop up now and again but its like a tar lake, and this is not how Temptation should pour. The fact that none of the strong flavours are lost in the head is a detriment on this occasion.
WBrating : 3.5.
Alas this is a BCA fail. The yeast should be the main player in the ageing and conditioning process and it has not managed to do that. As a result, the remaining beer gets to go off and slowly lose any of its redeeming flavours in the face of the sour molasses hit of the yeast.
In all honesty, I poured half of the bottle away. I could see that no temperature change or yeast addition would save this brew. It only manages to muster 3.5 because even though the beer is dead it is still from a recipe good enough to demonstrate what the real flavours should have been.
So what does this matter you may ask?
Well, its gutting for me, because I always tell people that not only are Durham Brewery the best bottle conditioned ale purveyors in the UK but that Temptation is their showcase. Its like my signature BCA argument - " I think its a shame that the bottle conditioned beer you tried was crap, but you really need to try something great instead like a Durham" The thing is, really, who is going to have this same experience? Will it be everyone I have proffered that advice to?
Well, I guess not, but this is genuinely the first bad Durham BCA I have ever had, and the fact that I kept it carefully for 3 years prior to opening (I considered in light of recent events I was entitled to a reward) just makes it all the more difficult to swallow. Literally.
I'll go out and buy a white stout instead. The only lingering gripe I have, is that I do still have 4 different Temptation vintages in my beer cupboard. So I will need to be open minded when anticipating sampling one.
Sigh.
Wee Beefy.
I have made many references to the purveyors of good bottle conditioned beer. I have also alluded to some of the more rubbish ones, but rarely have I mentioned quality bottle conditioned beers or ales (BCA) without mentioning Durham Brewery. I think they are shit hot at the old BCA. Along with Dunham Massey, strangely, Thwaites and Coors (only one BCA each but never lets me down) I consider that they are the sort of brewery who's beers you should give a BCA doubter to try - let them see for themselves that BCA does not need to be sour piss like (insert name of almost any small brewery who's bottle conditioning experiment consists of bravado, guesswork, and hand bottling without any prior knowledge or later product testing)
So, against this paean to Durham's merits, what do you expect would happen then if I tried a crap Durham bottle conditioned beer?
Well, put simply, the world would end.
Brewery : Durham, in Durham
Name : Temptation (2008 or 2009 vintage, whichever was the first batch to not confirm the year of brewing)
Strength : 10.0%
BCA/none BCA? : BCA.
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop Sheffield.
Pictured below is the beer with the bottle, helpfully demonstrating the noticeable lack of any head, although also its jet black colour, and a few white bubbles have formed at the beer's edge.
Colour : as above, black. Absolutely black. No fannying about with "hues" or nuances of colour shades, this is black as coal and proud of it.
Carbonation/Pouring : no sound on opening - quite worrying since its a good three years in the bottle so you would expect a bit of carbonation. Pours silky smooth but ultimately flat.
Aroma : This is the 5th or 6th Temptation I have had, of varying vintages, and everyone carries a strong chocolate coffee malt aroma and sweet nose that tells you its rounded and alcoholic. This hints at that, but there is yeast. And molasses. I am concerned.
Taste : There is an enormous initial mouthfeel but its not well balanced. Yes, there are roast malts, smoked chocolate hints and warming alcohol in there but there is a niggly piquant bite of yeast, and a big dumb lumbering brute of molasses in the aftertaste. I am starting to worry that this has not been a successful bottling.
On the second taste you get more molasses and despite the pleasing strong alcohol and aged beer flavours which light the beer up its very one dimensional and worse still, slightly sour. There is a strong coffee and roast malt flavour struggling to the front again but all too soon its lost in the sledgehammer of thick vinous and unsavoury malt and yeast in the aftertaste.. As we get further down the glass the aftertaste becomes more prevalent. Below is a pic which shows the enticing velvety black ocean of tempting stout loveliness. If you didn't read this review, and just looked at the picture, you'd probably fall in love with the beer at once...
At this point I assume its just my keeping the yeast aside which has caused the problem so taste it separately. Doing so immediately confirms my fears and explains the problem. In essence, the yeast has died, not activated in the bottle. Its the yeast that has created and generated the off flavours as well as the beer stagnating rather than living since it was bottled. Its nasty enough, when it should be drinkable, to leave in the bottle.
Head retention - its not really appreciably a head at all. There are some game white bubbles that pop up now and again but its like a tar lake, and this is not how Temptation should pour. The fact that none of the strong flavours are lost in the head is a detriment on this occasion.
WBrating : 3.5.
Alas this is a BCA fail. The yeast should be the main player in the ageing and conditioning process and it has not managed to do that. As a result, the remaining beer gets to go off and slowly lose any of its redeeming flavours in the face of the sour molasses hit of the yeast.
In all honesty, I poured half of the bottle away. I could see that no temperature change or yeast addition would save this brew. It only manages to muster 3.5 because even though the beer is dead it is still from a recipe good enough to demonstrate what the real flavours should have been.
So what does this matter you may ask?
Well, its gutting for me, because I always tell people that not only are Durham Brewery the best bottle conditioned ale purveyors in the UK but that Temptation is their showcase. Its like my signature BCA argument - " I think its a shame that the bottle conditioned beer you tried was crap, but you really need to try something great instead like a Durham" The thing is, really, who is going to have this same experience? Will it be everyone I have proffered that advice to?
Well, I guess not, but this is genuinely the first bad Durham BCA I have ever had, and the fact that I kept it carefully for 3 years prior to opening (I considered in light of recent events I was entitled to a reward) just makes it all the more difficult to swallow. Literally.
I'll go out and buy a white stout instead. The only lingering gripe I have, is that I do still have 4 different Temptation vintages in my beer cupboard. So I will need to be open minded when anticipating sampling one.
Sigh.
Wee Beefy.
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Buy store open pour smell gaze slake write
Hello beermoths
tonight I have mostly been had a beer. Instead of writing the descriptions down in time honoured style, then copying them onto the blog, I'm going to "free review" whilst at the keyboard...
Brewery : Lancaster, Lancashire
Name : Black
Strength : 4.6%
BCA/none BCA? : None BCA.
Purchased : Asda Handsworth Sheffield.
Pictured below is the beer with the bottle "artistically" out of focus (this was deliberate mind, I was a bit short of space)....
Colour : dark brown, not black, muddy with no other hues immediately visible, with a lacklustre, thin, grey white head which lasts less time than it took to take 7 photo's of the beer (so not very long I confess). When held up to the light half way down the drink it resembles flat Coke. Am already concerned by the brewers choice of a clear bottle...
Carbonation/Pouring : no sound on opening and pours flat, there are bubbles if you look carefully at the "head horizon" where the beer meets what little foam there is, but considering I opened this warm, you'd have to give it a good shake and a massive gulp to get any carbonation. That said, mini bubbles do fizz shortly after each mouthful. A delayed reaction sparkle.
Aroma : I am in the very last throes of a cold. So whilst I am satisfied that this does not impede my flavour receptors, and I have experienced some truly incredible smells of late, I am going to benevolently assume that the aroma is hidden by nasal bacteria.
Taste : Initially a strange sweet burst of malt, perhaps in three stages, biscuity, then sweet and then a mixture, receding in the mouth as the beer goes down to leave a dry slightly sharp bitterness. Even half way through the drink the more unco-operative bitter flavours seem to predominate, and eventually the malt and sweetness is reduced to a sharp kick at the beginning. See the pic below to get an idea of just how flat this beer pours, despite being kept in perfect conditions, and not being bottle conditioned, so susceptible to yeast malfunction.
Even as the beer warms, the maltiness remains subdued, but whilst you may expect that to propel the bitterness into the forefront of the flavour, its alas not a nice punchy bitterness. It is roasted, and that is exactly what you would expect in a dark beer, but also, now that I can identify roast malt as part of the balance, there's a weird aspirin and salt hint to the bitterness.
At the deathroes of the drink the beer begins to remind me of a can of Mitchells bitter drunk warm at the end of a party, as used to happen, even in Easterly Sheffield, in the early nineties. Am afraid I have failed spectacularly to get on with the roasted bitterness and the short lived harsh sweetness in the initial taste.
Head retention - well, for the last 3rd, none at all. The thin residue that subtly graced the surface at the beginning gamely hangs on for about 2 thirds but its so thin and so anchored to the very edge that its not really appreciably a head at all.
WBrating : 4.5.
Alas am not smitten with this dark stranger. It only scrapes this score for being more palatable than their dreadful malty Red that I tried once, but never again. I can't understand why there is no malt balance, and why the bitter tones are so dry and one dimensional, or what that wearying aftertaste is. It was the only one left on the shelf when I bought it - perhaps its time to go back to Hambleton Nightmare and Little Valley Hebden Wheat...
More news soon - am out with Dave Barra Harri Thurs and have abeer tasting at Davefromtshop's Friday so expect some facts, half remembered mumbles, pics and attempts at journalism over the weekend.
Wee Beefy
tonight I have mostly been had a beer. Instead of writing the descriptions down in time honoured style, then copying them onto the blog, I'm going to "free review" whilst at the keyboard...
Brewery : Lancaster, Lancashire
Name : Black
Strength : 4.6%
BCA/none BCA? : None BCA.
Purchased : Asda Handsworth Sheffield.
Pictured below is the beer with the bottle "artistically" out of focus (this was deliberate mind, I was a bit short of space)....
Colour : dark brown, not black, muddy with no other hues immediately visible, with a lacklustre, thin, grey white head which lasts less time than it took to take 7 photo's of the beer (so not very long I confess). When held up to the light half way down the drink it resembles flat Coke. Am already concerned by the brewers choice of a clear bottle...
Carbonation/Pouring : no sound on opening and pours flat, there are bubbles if you look carefully at the "head horizon" where the beer meets what little foam there is, but considering I opened this warm, you'd have to give it a good shake and a massive gulp to get any carbonation. That said, mini bubbles do fizz shortly after each mouthful. A delayed reaction sparkle.
Aroma : I am in the very last throes of a cold. So whilst I am satisfied that this does not impede my flavour receptors, and I have experienced some truly incredible smells of late, I am going to benevolently assume that the aroma is hidden by nasal bacteria.
Taste : Initially a strange sweet burst of malt, perhaps in three stages, biscuity, then sweet and then a mixture, receding in the mouth as the beer goes down to leave a dry slightly sharp bitterness. Even half way through the drink the more unco-operative bitter flavours seem to predominate, and eventually the malt and sweetness is reduced to a sharp kick at the beginning. See the pic below to get an idea of just how flat this beer pours, despite being kept in perfect conditions, and not being bottle conditioned, so susceptible to yeast malfunction.
At the deathroes of the drink the beer begins to remind me of a can of Mitchells bitter drunk warm at the end of a party, as used to happen, even in Easterly Sheffield, in the early nineties. Am afraid I have failed spectacularly to get on with the roasted bitterness and the short lived harsh sweetness in the initial taste.
Head retention - well, for the last 3rd, none at all. The thin residue that subtly graced the surface at the beginning gamely hangs on for about 2 thirds but its so thin and so anchored to the very edge that its not really appreciably a head at all.
WBrating : 4.5.
Alas am not smitten with this dark stranger. It only scrapes this score for being more palatable than their dreadful malty Red that I tried once, but never again. I can't understand why there is no malt balance, and why the bitter tones are so dry and one dimensional, or what that wearying aftertaste is. It was the only one left on the shelf when I bought it - perhaps its time to go back to Hambleton Nightmare and Little Valley Hebden Wheat...
More news soon - am out with Dave Barra Harri Thurs and have abeer tasting at Davefromtshop's Friday so expect some facts, half remembered mumbles, pics and attempts at journalism over the weekend.
Wee Beefy
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Wee Beefy's no longer Christmas bottled beer review
Helloo
I actually despatched this tipple Saturday night but have been busy with stuff not to mention things so delayed this review until now. Here are the details of my latest beer tasting.
A menu of one...
A menu featuring a single item seems a bit of a shit shaped offering but sometimes you can see that you will be sate after item one and so there's no point wasting anything else. I had already "warmed up" with a glass or two of Old Luxters Cuvee English wine (yes, you read right, and none of that dreadful fizzy dry crap neither), my last pint of Moonshine and a slightly disappointing Derby Brewing co Business as Usual, but this beer was my dessert and I hoped it would kick me hard enough to render a nightcap redundant.
Brewery : Sierra Nevada, California
Colour : Russet brown with orange in the light, topped by a light bubble packed white head.
Carbonation/Pouring : Lively but not unpourable, pouring silent down the side of the glass with the bubbles lessening through the drink. See radically different picture below, depicting the head...
Aroma : Wow! Grapefruit, honeysuckle and orange blossom, AKA fine citric hops.
The bitterness, which gets a little sweeter as the beer warms in the glass, still fizzes on the tongue pleasingly with every mouthful. The balance of different citrus flavours and malt makes it a more rounded beer than their signature Pale Ale.
Overall, the extra alcohol, which can so often be masked in really astringent IPA's, seems prevalent in the taste so, although its less refreshing than the the 5.9% Pale Ale, the beer is all the more satisfying for being so.
Head Retention : Regimented throughout, with the head showing the same at every stage of the drink, with none sloping off for a rest on the side of the glass en route to the bottom.
WBrating : 8.6 - a really good IPA which, despite being American, which is now conversely an English "craft" brewers fancy, balances malt and hops in such a way that it reminds me of an older style English IPA like a really good Fullers or Durham Brewery offering.
Wee Beefy
I actually despatched this tipple Saturday night but have been busy with stuff not to mention things so delayed this review until now. Here are the details of my latest beer tasting.
A menu of one...
A menu featuring a single item seems a bit of a shit shaped offering but sometimes you can see that you will be sate after item one and so there's no point wasting anything else. I had already "warmed up" with a glass or two of Old Luxters Cuvee English wine (yes, you read right, and none of that dreadful fizzy dry crap neither), my last pint of Moonshine and a slightly disappointing Derby Brewing co Business as Usual, but this beer was my dessert and I hoped it would kick me hard enough to render a nightcap redundant.
Brewery : Sierra Nevada, CaliforniaName : Torpedo Extra IPA
Strength : 7.2%
BCA/none BCA? : none BCA.
Purchased : Waitrose.
Apologies for the rather ham-fisted focus - my knackered old camera lurches to one side (bad, tools, blames, workman, etc) resulting in a rather accurate representation of how my notes from later that night appear to me now whilst sober. Strength : 7.2%
BCA/none BCA? : none BCA.
Purchased : Waitrose.
Colour : Russet brown with orange in the light, topped by a light bubble packed white head.
Carbonation/Pouring : Lively but not unpourable, pouring silent down the side of the glass with the bubbles lessening through the drink. See radically different picture below, depicting the head...
Aroma : Wow! Grapefruit, honeysuckle and orange blossom, AKA fine citric hops.Taste : Many, many hops. Very bittersweet with a long dry aftertaste. Marmalade insists on playing a part in the flavour, more so in the second swig, but the strong bitterness doesn't leave quickly, showing itself in a sharp citrus bite that sits in the aftertaste with welcome balancing malt.
The bitterness, which gets a little sweeter as the beer warms in the glass, still fizzes on the tongue pleasingly with every mouthful. The balance of different citrus flavours and malt makes it a more rounded beer than their signature Pale Ale.
Overall, the extra alcohol, which can so often be masked in really astringent IPA's, seems prevalent in the taste so, although its less refreshing than the the 5.9% Pale Ale, the beer is all the more satisfying for being so.
Head Retention : Regimented throughout, with the head showing the same at every stage of the drink, with none sloping off for a rest on the side of the glass en route to the bottom.
WBrating : 8.6 - a really good IPA which, despite being American, which is now conversely an English "craft" brewers fancy, balances malt and hops in such a way that it reminds me of an older style English IPA like a really good Fullers or Durham Brewery offering.
Wee Beefy
Friday, 6 January 2012
Wee Beefy's beer review bites - Christmas beers I have known.
Hello,
In the doldrum days of boring arse January I concede that finding the inspiration to do almost anything is difficult to come across. Thank Christmas then that I still have a few Yuletide brews sat in their bottles to enjoy. Please find below a couple of reviews of two quite different ales.
1st offering :
Brewery : Tucher, Germany
Beer : Kristkindlesmarkt Bier
Strength : 6.0%
BCA/none BCA : None
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop, Sheffield
Colour : Pale gold perhaps Baltic amber, with a thin but quickly none existent white head.
Carbonation/Pouring : The cap departs with no noise and there is a big fizz when you pour the beer into the glass, but then very little visible carbonation follows - this despite serving the beer a degree or two warmer than would usually be ideal.
Aroma : Clean lager with a mellow slightly sweet biscuit malt.
Taste : a very drinkable beer, this has sweet malt and a pleasing lager malt flavour with hints of banana somewhere in the background. The finish is clean and understandably the mellow lager malt dominates but there is a slight bitterness in the aftertaste that lingers between swigs.
The beer takes on a more balanced malt texture with the sweetness changing to a warming malt flavour, that ensures a big mouthfeel with each drink. Despite the fact that the beer rests almost entirely flat, the beer fizzes on the tongue if you take a swig, and it seemed to me that the balancing agent that "warmed" the beer up was perhaps a wheat malt, although the beer is perfectly clear.
Head Retention : None. I kid ye not.
WBrating : 7.0 - yep, its flat alright, and that's quite weird, but its shandy strength drink-ability belies its ABV and made me wish I could have tucked straight away into another.
Second subject.
Brewery : Summer Wine Brewery, Honley West Yorkshire
Beer : Teleporter 10 malt porter
Strength : 5.0%
BCA/none BCA : none
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop, Sheffield.
You will note that the image above (apart from being a bit dark, which is the camera's fault, obviously, because the battery decided to run out before I got a good shot), shows the SWB porter modelling a Sheffield beer festival glass, in order to create an unbiased reflection of my pint glass collection...
Colour : Black as coal, with a pleasing dark cherry when held with a light behind it, topped with an enticing mocha head.
Carbonation/Pouring : pours frothy initially and the level of fizz is appreciable without being in your face.
Aroma : Burnt sugar, hops, roast malt , and a hint of lemon zest if you breathe in.
Taste : Delicious astringent bitter malts flood in, bitterness coming from burnt malt and espresso characteristics which are amply reigned in by a creaminess , which perhaps reflects some of the less harsh malts used in the mix.
The second taste reveals some chocolate malt and and a smokey flavour, along with a balancing seam of pleasing creaminess which could almost be malted milk. This mingles effortlessly with the bitterness from the hops and roast malts. The bitterness builds trough the drink and lingers long after each taste.
Head retention : Good throughout, following the malty tide obediently down the glass right till the end.
WBrating : 8.8 - showing that SWB can pull off a tricky balance in their beers, and for being a damn good bitter, roast malt, porter at the same time.
I hope to be free of my homely shackles tomorrow so may have some beer news to post - it is a beer and pubs blog after all....
Wee Beefy
In the doldrum days of boring arse January I concede that finding the inspiration to do almost anything is difficult to come across. Thank Christmas then that I still have a few Yuletide brews sat in their bottles to enjoy. Please find below a couple of reviews of two quite different ales.
1st offering :
Brewery : Tucher, Germany
Beer : Kristkindlesmarkt Bier
Strength : 6.0%
BCA/none BCA : None
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop, Sheffield
Colour : Pale gold perhaps Baltic amber, with a thin but quickly none existent white head.
Carbonation/Pouring : The cap departs with no noise and there is a big fizz when you pour the beer into the glass, but then very little visible carbonation follows - this despite serving the beer a degree or two warmer than would usually be ideal.
Aroma : Clean lager with a mellow slightly sweet biscuit malt.
Taste : a very drinkable beer, this has sweet malt and a pleasing lager malt flavour with hints of banana somewhere in the background. The finish is clean and understandably the mellow lager malt dominates but there is a slight bitterness in the aftertaste that lingers between swigs.
The beer takes on a more balanced malt texture with the sweetness changing to a warming malt flavour, that ensures a big mouthfeel with each drink. Despite the fact that the beer rests almost entirely flat, the beer fizzes on the tongue if you take a swig, and it seemed to me that the balancing agent that "warmed" the beer up was perhaps a wheat malt, although the beer is perfectly clear.
Head Retention : None. I kid ye not.
WBrating : 7.0 - yep, its flat alright, and that's quite weird, but its shandy strength drink-ability belies its ABV and made me wish I could have tucked straight away into another.
Second subject.
Brewery : Summer Wine Brewery, Honley West Yorkshire
Beer : Teleporter 10 malt porter
Strength : 5.0%
BCA/none BCA : none
Purchased : Archer Road Beer Stop, Sheffield.
You will note that the image above (apart from being a bit dark, which is the camera's fault, obviously, because the battery decided to run out before I got a good shot), shows the SWB porter modelling a Sheffield beer festival glass, in order to create an unbiased reflection of my pint glass collection...
Colour : Black as coal, with a pleasing dark cherry when held with a light behind it, topped with an enticing mocha head.
Carbonation/Pouring : pours frothy initially and the level of fizz is appreciable without being in your face.
Aroma : Burnt sugar, hops, roast malt , and a hint of lemon zest if you breathe in.
Taste : Delicious astringent bitter malts flood in, bitterness coming from burnt malt and espresso characteristics which are amply reigned in by a creaminess , which perhaps reflects some of the less harsh malts used in the mix.
The second taste reveals some chocolate malt and and a smokey flavour, along with a balancing seam of pleasing creaminess which could almost be malted milk. This mingles effortlessly with the bitterness from the hops and roast malts. The bitterness builds trough the drink and lingers long after each taste.
Head retention : Good throughout, following the malty tide obediently down the glass right till the end.
WBrating : 8.8 - showing that SWB can pull off a tricky balance in their beers, and for being a damn good bitter, roast malt, porter at the same time.
I hope to be free of my homely shackles tomorrow so may have some beer news to post - it is a beer and pubs blog after all....
Wee Beefy
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Another Wee Beefy Christmas beer review.
Now then,
I noticed the other day that another Sheffield blogger had reviewed the Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Porter. This made me think it was the same as the Traditional Porter that I got in Tesco Extraneous last month (the retail behemoth used to sell the Engine Oil you see). Having decided I needed to fill a beer shaped hole I gave it a try tonight, and my review follows.
You could have a look at the Barl Fire blog and read the review and see if you think its the same beer? Personally I think it is, but then the subjective nature of tasting notes coupled with my rather limited beer sommelier experience means they might end up sounding different even if they are the same. Go to Barl Fire Harviestoun Review after you have read the below. Especially if you work for Tesco and fancy confessing....
Brewery : Harviestoun, Alva, Clackmannanshire
Name : Tesco Finest Traditional Porter
Strength : 6.0%
BCA/none BCA? : none BCA.
Purchased : Tesco. I am going to hell.
Colour : No nonsense black but with some hints of dark brown, topped by a creamy white dense head.
Carbonation/Pouring : very good, in that its not too fizzy and quickly settles down in the glass.
Aroma : Burnt malts and roasted malts, cigar box, a hint of Islay peat and something like molasses.
Taste : There is bitterness from the start from the dark malts and followed by a long smokey finish, in amidst which I swear I can taste that Islay malt (Bunnahabhain, not Kilchoman, for you single malt fans). A few glugs in I noticed that now the strong burnt malt, although prevalent, was being balanced by what might be the addition of a paler warmer malt.
There is also an ascorbic bitter fizz in the finish which provides a good contrast in time for the next mouthful. Further down the malt mellows a bit more and I think there is an orangey hint, not unlike fruitcake, which adds to the rich and sumptuous overall taste.
Head Retention - the head keeps pace with the beer almost all the way down the glass, only disappearing, albeit quite quickly, because I dawdled over something I spotted on TV!
WBrating : 8.6 - this feisty beer from Scotland's smallest county nudges past the Tatton Ale because of its mighty weight at the outset, and plus the smokey malt idea has put me in the mood for a very small drop of something from the sound of Islay.
More beer and pub details soon. Sláinte!
Wee Beefy.
I noticed the other day that another Sheffield blogger had reviewed the Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Porter. This made me think it was the same as the Traditional Porter that I got in Tesco Extraneous last month (the retail behemoth used to sell the Engine Oil you see). Having decided I needed to fill a beer shaped hole I gave it a try tonight, and my review follows.
You could have a look at the Barl Fire blog and read the review and see if you think its the same beer? Personally I think it is, but then the subjective nature of tasting notes coupled with my rather limited beer sommelier experience means they might end up sounding different even if they are the same. Go to Barl Fire Harviestoun Review after you have read the below. Especially if you work for Tesco and fancy confessing....
Brewery : Harviestoun, Alva, Clackmannanshire
Name : Tesco Finest Traditional Porter
Strength : 6.0%
BCA/none BCA? : none BCA.
Purchased : Tesco. I am going to hell.
Colour : No nonsense black but with some hints of dark brown, topped by a creamy white dense head.
Carbonation/Pouring : very good, in that its not too fizzy and quickly settles down in the glass.
Aroma : Burnt malts and roasted malts, cigar box, a hint of Islay peat and something like molasses.
Taste : There is bitterness from the start from the dark malts and followed by a long smokey finish, in amidst which I swear I can taste that Islay malt (Bunnahabhain, not Kilchoman, for you single malt fans). A few glugs in I noticed that now the strong burnt malt, although prevalent, was being balanced by what might be the addition of a paler warmer malt.
There is also an ascorbic bitter fizz in the finish which provides a good contrast in time for the next mouthful. Further down the malt mellows a bit more and I think there is an orangey hint, not unlike fruitcake, which adds to the rich and sumptuous overall taste.
Head Retention - the head keeps pace with the beer almost all the way down the glass, only disappearing, albeit quite quickly, because I dawdled over something I spotted on TV!
WBrating : 8.6 - this feisty beer from Scotland's smallest county nudges past the Tatton Ale because of its mighty weight at the outset, and plus the smokey malt idea has put me in the mood for a very small drop of something from the sound of Islay.
More beer and pub details soon. Sláinte!
Wee Beefy.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Wee Beefy's bottled beer reviews
Hello thirsty folks,
I have decided, what with my 13 years experience of working in a specialist off license, and with a burgeoning collection of special, celebration or just strong bottle conditioned beers ageing around my house, that I should start trying to review the bottles I try.
Not just the towering delights of beers such as a 10 year old bottle of Thomas Hardy Ale (December 2009) or a 4 year old bottle of Fullers Vintage (same night, and what a fantastic beer!) but also the humdrum, mass produced , supermarket fosited and chain off licence over promoted stalwarts, as well as unusual and obscure stuff I either pick up on my travels or am fetched from afar by friends and family.
Today, I will tell you all about Hepworth and Co ales from Sussex, but before that, I should clarify the following :
BCA stands for Bottle Conditioned Ale - a beer with live yeast in the bottle which conditions much like a cask does, providing the drinker with an enhanced freshness and quality of flavour;
None BCA - any beer in a bottle, not containing live yeast.
Lets begin.
1.
A : Brewey and Beer - Hepworth & Co Brewers Ltd - Sussex.
B : Strength - 3.5%
C : BCA or none BCA - None.
This is a bit of a departure for me. Whilst I don't think you can top a hoppy bitter pale ale at 5% or a strong thick stout or porter at the sort of strength that porter or stout deserves, that being 5.5% upwards, I do love the undervalued and often ignored delights of lower gravity beers. I think it makes a pleasant change to treat your tastebuds to something that they have to work for a bit, rather than wallpping them from the off with a massive beer whivh takes an hour to drink. I have time for, although can rarely find examples of to buy, the sort of beer you can sink a few pints of at lunchtime without spending the afternoon asleep, the milds, the light bitters, the old style luncheon ales, the bottles you find covered in dust on bar shelves in old regional brewers pubs.
However, its fair to say that, even having prepared myself for a light strength ale, and even having returned only a few months ago from the junior beer kingdom that is the saarf, ie Hampshire and Dorset, I was a little surprised at just how subtle the flavours were to my partly desensitised Yorkshire palette.
The Sussex, as the label proclaims proudly, is a wholly Sussex made product, and utilises Sussex Goldings and Admiral Hops and Sussex malted barley and is an honest light in colour and alcohol bitter beer, not dissimilar to Courage Georges Bitter Ale from the past, but perhaps having a little more edge.
The bitterness is slow to hit, the first taste is a pleasing if unabsorbing beery mouthfeel before a subtle malty note nudges in and the bitterness finishes the taste as you swallow. This would make an ideal starter for a tasting evening, especially if you get hold of some Harveys dinner ale or light ale to measure it against.
Overall a pleasant, but not incredible, bitter beer.
2.
A : Brewey and Beer - Hepworth & Co Brewers Ltd - Pullman, First Class Ale.
B : Strength - 4.2%
C : BCA or none BCA - None.
A stronger stablemate of the above, from the same brewery, sadly this time a bit less forthcoming about which hops are adding the bite - I don't expect brewers to write their recipes on the side, but why the mystique ? Telling us they have expertly crafted malt and hops is a bit obvious when you start drinking their mixture of water malt hops and yeast. See Saltaire bottles - very well informed notes letting you understand the flavours and the ingredients used.
Anyhoo, I digress. Pullman is much more to my taste, having a little bit more bitterness, although its is still quite a subtle beer. This is not a hindrance to enjoyment however, as it lets the drinker appreciate the mix of hops that balance with the malt. The bitterness rides in a little earlier when you drink a mouthful and so mingles with the overall taste as you drink, which gives the beer a more satisfying edge.
A good bottled beer, moreish, and not too strong, so you could down a few.
3.
A : Brewey and Beer - Hepworth & Co Brewers Ltd - Prospect - Sussex organic pale ale.
B : Strength - 4.5%
C : BCA or none BCA - BCA.
Hold on their Hepwoth ! When did you make this a BCA ? I am ashamed to say that I somehow managed to drink this beer without knowing it was bottle conditioned - the lively head created by the conditioning meant that I inadvertently left about a glass bottom covering in the bottle, hence avoiding any sediment.
This could be a complimentary celebration of the brewers art, because these days bottle conditioning is something of a dark art, almost as if it unlocks so many possibilities that few brewers seem to want to understand and learn about its full power. In not instantly noticing this beer is bottle conditioned, I would say that Hepworth know what they are doing; it shouldn't explode and fountain out the top, or take your nose off with the strong smell of yeast. It doesn't, ergo it is good.
Sadly, many years after widespread bottle conditioning of beers took off again, far too many brewers approach the process with an over optimistic mad professor slant, putting far too much and/or completely the wrong yeast in the bottle, resulting in cases of foul undrinkable yeast piss being sold to unsuspecting stockists and consumers alike. This is the failure of the brewing industry to understand or take sufficient care when bottle conditioning. Hats off then to Hepworth for seeming to understand what is required of them.
Prospect is hoppy with not too much malt to distract you and is very easy to drink at 4.5%. It pours clear very easily allowing you to appreciate its golden colour. The label info suggests this is simply a stronger, organic bottle conditioned version of Sussex, having the same ingredients, and this may well be the case - either way, its a cracking drink.
However, the bottle conditioning aspect is a tease - the bottle does not carry a banner or neck tie showing its BCA credentials, which is partly what made me miss it, but also does not sport a "CAMRA says this is real ale" logo. This is strange since Hepworth seem to be doing something that many brewers find impossible, that being producing good BCA. Yet at the same time, CAMRA allows its logo to be shown on some truly unthinkably bad bottled beers. Thus, herein lies the folly and failure of embracing BCA's without, seemingly, finding out what they taste like, or what quality control measures individual brewers put in place before CAMRA endorse the beer.
The county of Sussex is rich pasture for BCA's, with one former brewer leading the way in its heyday, and one continuing to produce them. King & Barnes of Horsham, the location, if not perhaps the same building, that Hepworth now come from, and of course Harveys of Lewes.
King and Barnes produced good quality reliable BCA's from their range, including the impressive boxed Millenium ale, which I rather foolishly drank by myself on new years day 2000, instead of leaving it to improve, and their excellent stewardship of White Shield, to name but two.
Harveys meanwhile dallied with a BCA version of their incredibly good Porter, released in February every year, and this may well still be bottle conditioned. Also, I think, they do occasional one off specials such as Firemans Ale, which was brewed in honour of those who fought a blaze at the brewery. There is however, a sting in this tale, which nicely illustrates why bottle conditioned products can bite you on the bum.....
Harveys brewed an impressive strong Imperial Stout at 9.0% which was corked, possibly at the time at George Gales, and could be laid down for years to mature. I bought a couple of bottles and was blown away by how fantastic they were, but at some point, possibly the last vintage they produced, the beer ran into difficulties.
Waiting 3 years to uncork a non-conditioned jar of sour molasses is disheartening to say the least. I had however purchased 4 or more based on the excellence of earlier vintages. I contacted Harveys who very kindly promised to send me a couple of replacements when they did their next batch, but this has never transpired. Worse still, it seems they knew that the yeast was not working quite soon after its bottling, but, crucially, did not pull the product or recall it from sale.
Waiting 6 years for a replacement is bad PR, but worse than that, the nature of such an ale means that it would likely be laid away to mature, and years down the line its often impossible to remember or prove which retailer you bought it from. I was promised this refund only after contacting Harveys myself, but who else went to that length ? The money had already left the pockets of suppliers and customers and there is a strong possibility that no-one has received anything in return.
So. BCA's are simultaneously brilliant and exasperating, as proven by the above, but CAMRA's role in this is no better. I can say that probably 20% of all BCA's for sale are undrinkable or at best amateurishly produced experiments not good enough to sell. Some people, who may buy a large range from across the UK, may well find that in their personal experience its a higher percentage. So poor have many of the offerings been that I have tasted, I have wanted the brewer them self to be there to tell me exactly how they think the frothing yeast soup in front of me represents their often award winning cask conditioned beer. CAMRA, keen to help popularise and make available BCA's, allows its catchy logo and tag line to appear on almost all BCA's now, but so many of these bottles are of unacceptably poor quality.
If a consumer pours a glass of some of the crap that I have had in bottles and then reads back the promotional line "CAMRA says this is real ale ", they must think " well what do they know ? This is not real ale at all ". Or worse "if this is what real ale tastes like I won't drink it again". It seems strange that CAMRA spent so long campaigning to save real ale from oblivion, as part of which they strove to dispel lazy and ill informed myths about it always being flat or cloudy or warm or tasting funny, yet they are happy for breweries to produce third rate apologies for their draught beer in bottles with their endorsement, that do nothing but suggest the old wives tales about beer are right.
Bad CAMRA, lazy CAMRA back in your box.
Wee Beefy.
I have decided, what with my 13 years experience of working in a specialist off license, and with a burgeoning collection of special, celebration or just strong bottle conditioned beers ageing around my house, that I should start trying to review the bottles I try.
Not just the towering delights of beers such as a 10 year old bottle of Thomas Hardy Ale (December 2009) or a 4 year old bottle of Fullers Vintage (same night, and what a fantastic beer!) but also the humdrum, mass produced , supermarket fosited and chain off licence over promoted stalwarts, as well as unusual and obscure stuff I either pick up on my travels or am fetched from afar by friends and family.
Today, I will tell you all about Hepworth and Co ales from Sussex, but before that, I should clarify the following :
BCA stands for Bottle Conditioned Ale - a beer with live yeast in the bottle which conditions much like a cask does, providing the drinker with an enhanced freshness and quality of flavour;
None BCA - any beer in a bottle, not containing live yeast.
Lets begin.
1.
A : Brewey and Beer - Hepworth & Co Brewers Ltd - Sussex.
B : Strength - 3.5%
C : BCA or none BCA - None.
This is a bit of a departure for me. Whilst I don't think you can top a hoppy bitter pale ale at 5% or a strong thick stout or porter at the sort of strength that porter or stout deserves, that being 5.5% upwards, I do love the undervalued and often ignored delights of lower gravity beers. I think it makes a pleasant change to treat your tastebuds to something that they have to work for a bit, rather than wallpping them from the off with a massive beer whivh takes an hour to drink. I have time for, although can rarely find examples of to buy, the sort of beer you can sink a few pints of at lunchtime without spending the afternoon asleep, the milds, the light bitters, the old style luncheon ales, the bottles you find covered in dust on bar shelves in old regional brewers pubs.
However, its fair to say that, even having prepared myself for a light strength ale, and even having returned only a few months ago from the junior beer kingdom that is the saarf, ie Hampshire and Dorset, I was a little surprised at just how subtle the flavours were to my partly desensitised Yorkshire palette.
The Sussex, as the label proclaims proudly, is a wholly Sussex made product, and utilises Sussex Goldings and Admiral Hops and Sussex malted barley and is an honest light in colour and alcohol bitter beer, not dissimilar to Courage Georges Bitter Ale from the past, but perhaps having a little more edge.
The bitterness is slow to hit, the first taste is a pleasing if unabsorbing beery mouthfeel before a subtle malty note nudges in and the bitterness finishes the taste as you swallow. This would make an ideal starter for a tasting evening, especially if you get hold of some Harveys dinner ale or light ale to measure it against.
Overall a pleasant, but not incredible, bitter beer.
2.
A : Brewey and Beer - Hepworth & Co Brewers Ltd - Pullman, First Class Ale.
B : Strength - 4.2%
C : BCA or none BCA - None.
A stronger stablemate of the above, from the same brewery, sadly this time a bit less forthcoming about which hops are adding the bite - I don't expect brewers to write their recipes on the side, but why the mystique ? Telling us they have expertly crafted malt and hops is a bit obvious when you start drinking their mixture of water malt hops and yeast. See Saltaire bottles - very well informed notes letting you understand the flavours and the ingredients used.
Anyhoo, I digress. Pullman is much more to my taste, having a little bit more bitterness, although its is still quite a subtle beer. This is not a hindrance to enjoyment however, as it lets the drinker appreciate the mix of hops that balance with the malt. The bitterness rides in a little earlier when you drink a mouthful and so mingles with the overall taste as you drink, which gives the beer a more satisfying edge.
A good bottled beer, moreish, and not too strong, so you could down a few.
3.
A : Brewey and Beer - Hepworth & Co Brewers Ltd - Prospect - Sussex organic pale ale.
B : Strength - 4.5%
C : BCA or none BCA - BCA.
Hold on their Hepwoth ! When did you make this a BCA ? I am ashamed to say that I somehow managed to drink this beer without knowing it was bottle conditioned - the lively head created by the conditioning meant that I inadvertently left about a glass bottom covering in the bottle, hence avoiding any sediment.
This could be a complimentary celebration of the brewers art, because these days bottle conditioning is something of a dark art, almost as if it unlocks so many possibilities that few brewers seem to want to understand and learn about its full power. In not instantly noticing this beer is bottle conditioned, I would say that Hepworth know what they are doing; it shouldn't explode and fountain out the top, or take your nose off with the strong smell of yeast. It doesn't, ergo it is good.
Sadly, many years after widespread bottle conditioning of beers took off again, far too many brewers approach the process with an over optimistic mad professor slant, putting far too much and/or completely the wrong yeast in the bottle, resulting in cases of foul undrinkable yeast piss being sold to unsuspecting stockists and consumers alike. This is the failure of the brewing industry to understand or take sufficient care when bottle conditioning. Hats off then to Hepworth for seeming to understand what is required of them.
Prospect is hoppy with not too much malt to distract you and is very easy to drink at 4.5%. It pours clear very easily allowing you to appreciate its golden colour. The label info suggests this is simply a stronger, organic bottle conditioned version of Sussex, having the same ingredients, and this may well be the case - either way, its a cracking drink.
However, the bottle conditioning aspect is a tease - the bottle does not carry a banner or neck tie showing its BCA credentials, which is partly what made me miss it, but also does not sport a "CAMRA says this is real ale" logo. This is strange since Hepworth seem to be doing something that many brewers find impossible, that being producing good BCA. Yet at the same time, CAMRA allows its logo to be shown on some truly unthinkably bad bottled beers. Thus, herein lies the folly and failure of embracing BCA's without, seemingly, finding out what they taste like, or what quality control measures individual brewers put in place before CAMRA endorse the beer.
The county of Sussex is rich pasture for BCA's, with one former brewer leading the way in its heyday, and one continuing to produce them. King & Barnes of Horsham, the location, if not perhaps the same building, that Hepworth now come from, and of course Harveys of Lewes.
King and Barnes produced good quality reliable BCA's from their range, including the impressive boxed Millenium ale, which I rather foolishly drank by myself on new years day 2000, instead of leaving it to improve, and their excellent stewardship of White Shield, to name but two.
Harveys meanwhile dallied with a BCA version of their incredibly good Porter, released in February every year, and this may well still be bottle conditioned. Also, I think, they do occasional one off specials such as Firemans Ale, which was brewed in honour of those who fought a blaze at the brewery. There is however, a sting in this tale, which nicely illustrates why bottle conditioned products can bite you on the bum.....
Harveys brewed an impressive strong Imperial Stout at 9.0% which was corked, possibly at the time at George Gales, and could be laid down for years to mature. I bought a couple of bottles and was blown away by how fantastic they were, but at some point, possibly the last vintage they produced, the beer ran into difficulties.
Waiting 3 years to uncork a non-conditioned jar of sour molasses is disheartening to say the least. I had however purchased 4 or more based on the excellence of earlier vintages. I contacted Harveys who very kindly promised to send me a couple of replacements when they did their next batch, but this has never transpired. Worse still, it seems they knew that the yeast was not working quite soon after its bottling, but, crucially, did not pull the product or recall it from sale.
Waiting 6 years for a replacement is bad PR, but worse than that, the nature of such an ale means that it would likely be laid away to mature, and years down the line its often impossible to remember or prove which retailer you bought it from. I was promised this refund only after contacting Harveys myself, but who else went to that length ? The money had already left the pockets of suppliers and customers and there is a strong possibility that no-one has received anything in return.
So. BCA's are simultaneously brilliant and exasperating, as proven by the above, but CAMRA's role in this is no better. I can say that probably 20% of all BCA's for sale are undrinkable or at best amateurishly produced experiments not good enough to sell. Some people, who may buy a large range from across the UK, may well find that in their personal experience its a higher percentage. So poor have many of the offerings been that I have tasted, I have wanted the brewer them self to be there to tell me exactly how they think the frothing yeast soup in front of me represents their often award winning cask conditioned beer. CAMRA, keen to help popularise and make available BCA's, allows its catchy logo and tag line to appear on almost all BCA's now, but so many of these bottles are of unacceptably poor quality.
If a consumer pours a glass of some of the crap that I have had in bottles and then reads back the promotional line "CAMRA says this is real ale ", they must think " well what do they know ? This is not real ale at all ". Or worse "if this is what real ale tastes like I won't drink it again". It seems strange that CAMRA spent so long campaigning to save real ale from oblivion, as part of which they strove to dispel lazy and ill informed myths about it always being flat or cloudy or warm or tasting funny, yet they are happy for breweries to produce third rate apologies for their draught beer in bottles with their endorsement, that do nothing but suggest the old wives tales about beer are right.
Bad CAMRA, lazy CAMRA back in your box.
Wee Beefy.
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