Evenin,
I wondered if many of the readers of this blog under the age of 30 know of or less likely still have tried, and even less likely still, have enjoyed, a bottle conditioned ale?
I had a chat back in March with one of the brewers from Northern Monk (it may have been April) about putting bottle conditioned beers in the fridge to reduce its liveliness, and then opening it cold and allowing it to return to room temperature. He seemed concerned. What bottle conditioned beer are you drinking nowadays? I had to think.....Durham Temptation I replied. He seemed to think that was the only one likely to be any good. He is probably right. And its three years since I last had one. I may have met them in May. These are just months after all....
In 1995 I started working at Archer Road Beer Stop, Sheffield's first real ale off license, then just changed from Small Beer, as Davefromtshop had taken over. In 1995 I believed that bottle conditioning was the future of beer. I know. Don't judge me. And this was despite a horror show of evidence to the contrary. If putting live yeast in a cask and expecting strangers in multiple venues to know how to keep it and to avoid multitudinous naturally occurring happenstances that may ruin a beer is risky, then doing the same with a bottle is surely madness.
Then there were the rules. Chill it first, open it col.d Certain beers, such as Burton Bridge Empire Pale Ale, needed chilling for a day, and then to be poured into two steins to hold the froth. Much beer had issues with the yeast used (who chooses to put yeast in a beer that you can't drink?) which would either die, go rank through other issues such as light or temperature, and then needed to be poured away. Usually with the rest of the contents of the bottle. Apart from King and Barnes and Marstons, and the ever so lively Burton Bridge, oh, and Durham, most bottle conditioned ale, or BCA, was to be avoided at all costs.
Although the Belgians seem to know what they are doing with it.....
This realisation of the pooernes of BCA in part prompted me to write the following post here. All the way back in 2012. Having thought carefully about it I reckon there may only have been a handful of bottled beers, all aged, and very few purchased, that were BCAs, thereafter. And that isn't all down to the horrors of the Corvedale or Litton brewery bottled beers, all of which were senselessly bad.
Its mainly because, as of 2014 or 2015 when I first tried "modern" beer in a can, I have recognised that the type of beer I like to drink tastes better in a can. Nobody wants a BCA soupy IPA. Some such beers are bottled but very clearly implore you to drink fresh - spot on advice. I want to drink the freshest beer with the hops at their prime. And the likes of Citra, Mosaic and Centennial do seem to have extra citrus bitterness when freshly mashed. So gerrit supped!
I do still have couple of old beers that I intend to drink, and some that, unlike most of my collection, may in fact be worth something so won't be opened, although that is a narrow market am sure. My 1994 Thomas Hardy Ale is reaching maturity next year and will be shared. The difference there is, the style is suited to ageing, and the yeast also. Its a work of art. It may not have a whole bagful of zesty hops but it will still be an interesting and hopefully enjoyable drop.
Apart from Durham, am struggling to think of breweries whose beers I like that I know still produce BCAs. Are BCAs dead? No. And for different reasons, not all positive. They don't however end up in my monthly beer shop nowadays, with far far better potations on offer in can.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy.
Showing posts with label Durham Brewery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Durham Brewery. Show all posts
Sunday, 5 August 2018
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
Drinking what I said I'd drink, and what happened.
Hello,
as reward for her covering my stint at the NGH I decided to treat Miss N, and lets face it, Mi Sen, to a trio of aged or otherwise interesting beers that I had around the house. In the end, we tried 4. The weakest was 8% and all of them came with the weight of expectation upon them. There were contrasts, conundrums and contention. And, as is only right, there was a winner.
The first beer we tried was Durham Brewery Something Blue. This was a 10% bottle conditioned beer brewed to celebrate someone's wedding or something. I had bought it and laboured for a few years under the delusion that keeping it, with its noteworthy provenance, may make it a sought after item in years to come. In the end, after a frank and searching exploration of the merits of such an undertaking, I couldn't be arsed.
The beer had a lovely ruby colour to it and an aroma of marmalade and something vaguely but not unpleasantly woody. Miss N considered the malt predominated, and described it as a great big malt comfort blanket. There was quite a lot of carbonation, and taste wise it had a noticeable bitter aftertaste, some malt flavours that reminded me of a Belgian yeast influence, and an initial sweetness that gave way to quite a dry finish. It said on the label that there were fuggles hops in the brew, and there was something of that pungency that comes to the fore when you drink green hop fuggles beers ,but crucially all these tastes combined perfectly. And it didn't really taste or drink like it was 10%.
Next up was the wild card. The Something Blue had a couple of years on its best before date but our next beer didn't even have one. Nor, indeed, did it have anything so superfluous as a description. Or even an ABV.
Courage 1977 Jubilee Ale was a bit of a gamble to say the least. Beer rarely excels after more than 25 years in the bottle, less so 30 years, but this was asking for trouble, having likely been brewed around the beginning of 1977 in time for the jubilee some months later. Would it even be beer?
In terms of appearance it had a very pleasing silver foil cover over the cap and had purple coronets printed on the foil on the neck, and there was 275ml of it. Taking the top off the bottle there was no carbonation whatsoever - a hardly unforgivable state of affairs, given its age. What there was aroma wise didn't disappoint however. A huge blast of sherry. Sweetness, but crucially no off aromas.
Storage is the key with aged bottled beers. I once bought a 26 year old bottle of Charles and Diana Royal Wedding Ale form Greenwich market and should have paid attention to where it was stored - since all the vendors wares appeared to be locked in a metal container and the bottle itself was standing in a metal drawer. As it was, the beer had plenty of suggestions of what it should have tasted like but predominantly tasted of metal. In this case, bearing in mind I was sacrificing this as I had two bottles, I probably opened the well kept one - because it didn't taste of anything but sherry, malt and, if you tried really hard, hops.
One interesting feature, and I don't know what the proper term is, was that it seemed to have "split". After the strong alcoholic punch of sweet malt and other flavours, there appeared to be water at the end. Almost as if the beer was 90% of the content and the rest of the bottle was water. As we drank more there also appeared to be a caramel flavour which I associate with aged or out of date bottled beers, and once you got past the waft of sherry there was an interesting aroma of leather - again, unlikely to be a positive feature, but interesting nonetheless. Miss N thought its basic flavour characteristics, bottle label design and gentlemen's club mustiness made it seem very much of the age in which it was brewed. Overall though, it was fascinating to try.
Our third beer was to have been the last. We let bias and the gaunt spectre of expectation trick us into thinking we'd need to pour the jubilee ale away and that our saviour would be the Ilkley Brewery Worlds End, an 18 year old whisky barrel aged version of the Mayan Chipotle chocolate porter. All the ingredients were there - Ilkley's pedigree, chilli, chocolate, dark beer and whisky. This had to be the winner. Except it wasn't.
I really enjoyed the Mayan and just as much appreciated the Magic Rock Chipotle Punchline earlier last week. So imagine my disappointment at encountering a lack of fire, and a distinct lack of any balance. Things didn't start that well with an aroma of wood, burnt malt and phenols from the whisky. The first taste was promisingly peaty, earthy as well, and then I expected the chocolate to balance it out and the bite of the chipotle to zip on the tongue with the malt and hop flavours, but that didn't happen. The peat was actually quite harsh and the chocolate non existent, and even after adding the yeast it was still difficult to drink. The aftertaste was almost acrid and the longer the drink went on the more we could smell peat. We had made a crucial error in assuming that this would be the winner before we started. So now we needed another beer.
Its fair to say that the quandary of shall I shan't I regarding keeping bottled beers of strength crops up quite a lot - over the last 18 months the stunning Thornbridge and Brooklyn Alliance bottles I'd kept since 2007 rewarded me richly, suggesting that there were benefits to the aging process. So surely I could dip into another from my collection...
One of the bottles I'd kept had a surprisingly short best before date on given its 10% strength. And having been impressed over the years by their Temptation and since we enjoyed the Something Blue, it seemed like a good idea to drink a bottle of Durham Brewery Decade, brewed to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Presumably before 2006, since that was its best before date. I was going to prove them wrong - it was going to be ace.
Lessons that go unlearned are a matter for some frustration I find and the Decade was no different. Initially the signs were very promising - even though the beer was 8 years out of date the lovely sweet malt aromas that escaped from the bottle suggested a hugely satisfying beer. However, the proof of the matter was in the difference between the aroma and the taste. There wasn't a difference. It tasted exactly as it smelled, and although it smelled inviting, you can't identify all of the complex flavours that go to make up and ultimately balance a beer in the aroma alone.
A reflection of the lack of complexity is the brevity of my notes. My notes are quite concise. "Smells sweet. Tastes very sweet. Strange aftertaste. Reminds me of the sweetness of De Dolle Stille Nacht without the soft Belgian yeast". That was it.
So, what we learned is, being out of date is no reason to write a bottled beer off. Neither is it a reason to hope to enjoy drinking it. Meanwhile, reputations count for nothing, because even the best make mistakes, and sometimes you can't get better than what you started with. So Durham's accomplished Something Blue was the winner.
Now don't get me started on expectation again....
Cheers!
Wee Beefy.
as reward for her covering my stint at the NGH I decided to treat Miss N, and lets face it, Mi Sen, to a trio of aged or otherwise interesting beers that I had around the house. In the end, we tried 4. The weakest was 8% and all of them came with the weight of expectation upon them. There were contrasts, conundrums and contention. And, as is only right, there was a winner.
The first beer we tried was Durham Brewery Something Blue. This was a 10% bottle conditioned beer brewed to celebrate someone's wedding or something. I had bought it and laboured for a few years under the delusion that keeping it, with its noteworthy provenance, may make it a sought after item in years to come. In the end, after a frank and searching exploration of the merits of such an undertaking, I couldn't be arsed.
The beer had a lovely ruby colour to it and an aroma of marmalade and something vaguely but not unpleasantly woody. Miss N considered the malt predominated, and described it as a great big malt comfort blanket. There was quite a lot of carbonation, and taste wise it had a noticeable bitter aftertaste, some malt flavours that reminded me of a Belgian yeast influence, and an initial sweetness that gave way to quite a dry finish. It said on the label that there were fuggles hops in the brew, and there was something of that pungency that comes to the fore when you drink green hop fuggles beers ,but crucially all these tastes combined perfectly. And it didn't really taste or drink like it was 10%.
Next up was the wild card. The Something Blue had a couple of years on its best before date but our next beer didn't even have one. Nor, indeed, did it have anything so superfluous as a description. Or even an ABV.
Courage 1977 Jubilee Ale was a bit of a gamble to say the least. Beer rarely excels after more than 25 years in the bottle, less so 30 years, but this was asking for trouble, having likely been brewed around the beginning of 1977 in time for the jubilee some months later. Would it even be beer?
In terms of appearance it had a very pleasing silver foil cover over the cap and had purple coronets printed on the foil on the neck, and there was 275ml of it. Taking the top off the bottle there was no carbonation whatsoever - a hardly unforgivable state of affairs, given its age. What there was aroma wise didn't disappoint however. A huge blast of sherry. Sweetness, but crucially no off aromas.
Storage is the key with aged bottled beers. I once bought a 26 year old bottle of Charles and Diana Royal Wedding Ale form Greenwich market and should have paid attention to where it was stored - since all the vendors wares appeared to be locked in a metal container and the bottle itself was standing in a metal drawer. As it was, the beer had plenty of suggestions of what it should have tasted like but predominantly tasted of metal. In this case, bearing in mind I was sacrificing this as I had two bottles, I probably opened the well kept one - because it didn't taste of anything but sherry, malt and, if you tried really hard, hops.
One interesting feature, and I don't know what the proper term is, was that it seemed to have "split". After the strong alcoholic punch of sweet malt and other flavours, there appeared to be water at the end. Almost as if the beer was 90% of the content and the rest of the bottle was water. As we drank more there also appeared to be a caramel flavour which I associate with aged or out of date bottled beers, and once you got past the waft of sherry there was an interesting aroma of leather - again, unlikely to be a positive feature, but interesting nonetheless. Miss N thought its basic flavour characteristics, bottle label design and gentlemen's club mustiness made it seem very much of the age in which it was brewed. Overall though, it was fascinating to try.
Our third beer was to have been the last. We let bias and the gaunt spectre of expectation trick us into thinking we'd need to pour the jubilee ale away and that our saviour would be the Ilkley Brewery Worlds End, an 18 year old whisky barrel aged version of the Mayan Chipotle chocolate porter. All the ingredients were there - Ilkley's pedigree, chilli, chocolate, dark beer and whisky. This had to be the winner. Except it wasn't.
I really enjoyed the Mayan and just as much appreciated the Magic Rock Chipotle Punchline earlier last week. So imagine my disappointment at encountering a lack of fire, and a distinct lack of any balance. Things didn't start that well with an aroma of wood, burnt malt and phenols from the whisky. The first taste was promisingly peaty, earthy as well, and then I expected the chocolate to balance it out and the bite of the chipotle to zip on the tongue with the malt and hop flavours, but that didn't happen. The peat was actually quite harsh and the chocolate non existent, and even after adding the yeast it was still difficult to drink. The aftertaste was almost acrid and the longer the drink went on the more we could smell peat. We had made a crucial error in assuming that this would be the winner before we started. So now we needed another beer.
Its fair to say that the quandary of shall I shan't I regarding keeping bottled beers of strength crops up quite a lot - over the last 18 months the stunning Thornbridge and Brooklyn Alliance bottles I'd kept since 2007 rewarded me richly, suggesting that there were benefits to the aging process. So surely I could dip into another from my collection...
One of the bottles I'd kept had a surprisingly short best before date on given its 10% strength. And having been impressed over the years by their Temptation and since we enjoyed the Something Blue, it seemed like a good idea to drink a bottle of Durham Brewery Decade, brewed to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Presumably before 2006, since that was its best before date. I was going to prove them wrong - it was going to be ace.
Lessons that go unlearned are a matter for some frustration I find and the Decade was no different. Initially the signs were very promising - even though the beer was 8 years out of date the lovely sweet malt aromas that escaped from the bottle suggested a hugely satisfying beer. However, the proof of the matter was in the difference between the aroma and the taste. There wasn't a difference. It tasted exactly as it smelled, and although it smelled inviting, you can't identify all of the complex flavours that go to make up and ultimately balance a beer in the aroma alone.
A reflection of the lack of complexity is the brevity of my notes. My notes are quite concise. "Smells sweet. Tastes very sweet. Strange aftertaste. Reminds me of the sweetness of De Dolle Stille Nacht without the soft Belgian yeast". That was it.
So, what we learned is, being out of date is no reason to write a bottled beer off. Neither is it a reason to hope to enjoy drinking it. Meanwhile, reputations count for nothing, because even the best make mistakes, and sometimes you can't get better than what you started with. So Durham's accomplished Something Blue was the winner.
Now don't get me started on expectation again....
Cheers!
Wee Beefy.
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Spoilt, by unspoiled beer
Hello,
its been a good week in Sheff for the discerning slaker. A few fine pubs have excelled themselves in terms of choice. And a new pub is set to open very soon. I say a new pub; a previously open pub that was on its last legs, and dealt a final death knell by well kept if slightly pricey Thornbridge beers in Commonside. But more of that in my next post.
I was in The Bath Hotel (I snigger if I say "in the Bath" but then, I am slightly immature..) on Tuesday, and was tempted, having tried one of the excellent beers in particular, to stay there all night. I could easily have, had it not been for the allure of lamb chops, and no hangover. I managed to eat the lamb chops, at least.
I arrived around 19.00 and got myself a warming pint of the Dark Star Espresso Stout. It was ace. Everything that a coffee stout should be, roasty, heavy, thick yet drinkable, creamy, and it managed to be all of these. It also wasn't a bad price (not that I have dallied with triviality like what that was) and was served in a lined glass. I looked this time, see.
Next,. I tried the highly recommended Red Willow Sleepless Amber Ale. Usually a second pint lacks the pace of the first, as the body has had its much needed initial hit, but this lasted me about 4 minutes. It was simply incredible.
Two more pints followed, admittedly a little slower (it was 5.4%), and they confirmed that this was an amazingly well balanced tasty beer. Hoppy, but not daft. Malty, in an ingeniously smooth way, with a hint of sweetness that somehow blended in so well it didn't have a sweet aftertaste or overall flavour. It was quintessentially astounding. I believe they have another barrel, so you should get down and buy some. Plenty more Red Willow and Dark Star on the way as well.
After I left and purchased supplies I needed to nip in a hostelry for the facilities and did so in the Wick at Both Ends. Three real ales were available, including to my surprise, the newly re released Matins from Abbeydale. A swift half followed, plus a look at their Beer Menu. I can't claim they heeded my advice on this subject, but its a good idea. Alas no Brewdog at the mo but plenty of decent ale, including Saison Dupont. If only the toilets didn't reek so badly of urine this pub could be the shit, as the young folk might remark.
My final stop was DAda. Jamie was holding the fort and was overseeing an admirable range of ales. No Pollards alas but that was coming on - so I had a pint of the Dark Star Espresso again. I also had two pints (against my better judgement) of the excellent Marble Lagonda. A perfect blend of hops sitting on a fabulously complimentary malt background made this tasty and refreshing and pleasingly hoppy.
I finished on half of dear old friend Thornbridge Halcyon. Just as lychee peach and melon like as I craved, and still best supped in halves. A fantastic end to the evening.
A few things made me think after this - firstly, the Lagonda. Its £3.00 a pint on cask at DAda. Its £5.20 a pint on Keykeg at the Sheffield Tap. Now, there is a slim possibility that it's a stronger version on at the Tap, but that doesn't explain the £2.20 difference. Both beers are below the HSBD levee and, I think, the traditional excise standard (who knows if that means anything nowadays!).
I can't see the Keykeg version competing with, let alone being better than, the cask version. So why is it so expensive, comparatively? I suspect we'll never know, but am open to suggestions that the fault lies with more than one party in this respect.
In other news, I have contacted Thornbridge, and they are to brew a 3.1% mild with lots of caramalt and chocolate malt and only Target Hops. Its to be called"Madness" and will be served in specially rebranded John Smith oversized WMC pots that hold about 700ml to accommodate foam.
Obviously the above isn't true, but it made me laugh.
Finally, one year ago today we had to have our cat Bruin put down. In tribute to him that day I opened a bottle of Durham Temptation. Alas the beer failed to deliver the joy I expected, as I wrote here so tonight I have opened a three year old version to try and pay my respects. This version is much better carbonated and despite that weird, possibly bretty molasses aroma, and a disconcerting flavour of cheap cola, it has a very pleasing leather and coffee and treacle taste that reminds me of Courage Imperial Russian Stout.
A fitting tribute to the wee hairy boy.
Cheers.
Wee Beefy
its been a good week in Sheff for the discerning slaker. A few fine pubs have excelled themselves in terms of choice. And a new pub is set to open very soon. I say a new pub; a previously open pub that was on its last legs, and dealt a final death knell by well kept if slightly pricey Thornbridge beers in Commonside. But more of that in my next post.
I was in The Bath Hotel (I snigger if I say "in the Bath" but then, I am slightly immature..) on Tuesday, and was tempted, having tried one of the excellent beers in particular, to stay there all night. I could easily have, had it not been for the allure of lamb chops, and no hangover. I managed to eat the lamb chops, at least.
I arrived around 19.00 and got myself a warming pint of the Dark Star Espresso Stout. It was ace. Everything that a coffee stout should be, roasty, heavy, thick yet drinkable, creamy, and it managed to be all of these. It also wasn't a bad price (not that I have dallied with triviality like what that was) and was served in a lined glass. I looked this time, see.
Next,. I tried the highly recommended Red Willow Sleepless Amber Ale. Usually a second pint lacks the pace of the first, as the body has had its much needed initial hit, but this lasted me about 4 minutes. It was simply incredible.
Two more pints followed, admittedly a little slower (it was 5.4%), and they confirmed that this was an amazingly well balanced tasty beer. Hoppy, but not daft. Malty, in an ingeniously smooth way, with a hint of sweetness that somehow blended in so well it didn't have a sweet aftertaste or overall flavour. It was quintessentially astounding. I believe they have another barrel, so you should get down and buy some. Plenty more Red Willow and Dark Star on the way as well.
After I left and purchased supplies I needed to nip in a hostelry for the facilities and did so in the Wick at Both Ends. Three real ales were available, including to my surprise, the newly re released Matins from Abbeydale. A swift half followed, plus a look at their Beer Menu. I can't claim they heeded my advice on this subject, but its a good idea. Alas no Brewdog at the mo but plenty of decent ale, including Saison Dupont. If only the toilets didn't reek so badly of urine this pub could be the shit, as the young folk might remark.
My final stop was DAda. Jamie was holding the fort and was overseeing an admirable range of ales. No Pollards alas but that was coming on - so I had a pint of the Dark Star Espresso again. I also had two pints (against my better judgement) of the excellent Marble Lagonda. A perfect blend of hops sitting on a fabulously complimentary malt background made this tasty and refreshing and pleasingly hoppy.
I finished on half of dear old friend Thornbridge Halcyon. Just as lychee peach and melon like as I craved, and still best supped in halves. A fantastic end to the evening.
A few things made me think after this - firstly, the Lagonda. Its £3.00 a pint on cask at DAda. Its £5.20 a pint on Keykeg at the Sheffield Tap. Now, there is a slim possibility that it's a stronger version on at the Tap, but that doesn't explain the £2.20 difference. Both beers are below the HSBD levee and, I think, the traditional excise standard (who knows if that means anything nowadays!).
I can't see the Keykeg version competing with, let alone being better than, the cask version. So why is it so expensive, comparatively? I suspect we'll never know, but am open to suggestions that the fault lies with more than one party in this respect.
In other news, I have contacted Thornbridge, and they are to brew a 3.1% mild with lots of caramalt and chocolate malt and only Target Hops. Its to be called"Madness" and will be served in specially rebranded John Smith oversized WMC pots that hold about 700ml to accommodate foam.
Obviously the above isn't true, but it made me laugh.
Finally, one year ago today we had to have our cat Bruin put down. In tribute to him that day I opened a bottle of Durham Temptation. Alas the beer failed to deliver the joy I expected, as I wrote here so tonight I have opened a three year old version to try and pay my respects. This version is much better carbonated and despite that weird, possibly bretty molasses aroma, and a disconcerting flavour of cheap cola, it has a very pleasing leather and coffee and treacle taste that reminds me of Courage Imperial Russian Stout.
A fitting tribute to the wee hairy boy.
Cheers.
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
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.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Wee Beefy's beer tasting bites.
Hello again,
last night me and Davefromtshop did our inaugural 2012 beer tasting in my salubrious abode. Here are the details of that epic festival of the taste buds and the salient points rescued from the nonsense we came out with in rating said drinks.
The line up.
Its worth pointing out that optimism had decreed that a much lengthier roll call of beers were to be supped. We only had about 4 pints on our crawl first but I have to concede that really a beer tasting should be done an empty bloodstream (not literally of course).
In light of that here is the original line up, including the ones we didn't get round to - any beers not marked BCA are assumed to be not bottle conditioned beers :
1. Dark Mild, Dunham Massey Brewery 4.0% BCA
2. Evensong, Durham Brewery 5.0% BCA
3. Stout, Dunham Massey Brewery 4.2% BCA
4. Ape Ale, Blue Monkey Brewery 5.5% (BCA? need to find the bottle again!)
5. Yeti, Tatton Brewery 4.5%
6. 300 Ale, Chiltern Brewery 5.0% BCA
7. Pils, Flensburger Brauerei 4.8%
8. Kahuna NZ IPA, Summer Wine Brewery, 6.0%
9. Traditional Porter, Harviestoun 6.0% NOT TRIED
10. Torpedo, Sierra Nevada Brewery 7.2% NOT TRIED
11. Vintage Ale, (2004) Fullers Brewery 8.5% BCA
12. Temptation, (2007) Durham Brewery 10.0% NOT TRIED (much to do with the previous beer's magnificence)
As you can see there was a hint of optimism in my choice of taste overloads, and we finally gave up after the Fullers around 01.30 AM, having truly run out of steam.
This time we didn't worry ourselves about scoring, more entering into a detailed review of each beer and an overall assessment. Alas, the passage of time and accumulation of alcohol meant I can't honestly say that we picked a winner! The Fullers Vintage was seven years of wonderful perfection, however, interestingly, it was slightly flawed. Not only did it take about 45 (albeit heavenly) minutes to drink, but somehow in the maturation process, almost all trace of hops had disappeared.
By way of comparison, last year we had tried a bottle that was less than 2 years old and it was perhaps the finest bottled beer I ever tasted. However, picking the best time to open one is complicated further by the fact that the hops and malts and recipe change every year. So, given the above, and mindful of the authority afforded to me by this being my blog, I would have to say that after careful consideration the winner was the Chiltern Brewery 300's Old Ale.
We attended a tasting (by accident, just by turning up at their shop) in September 2011 and the insights into the beers and the knowledgeable staff showed what a slick operation Chiltern Brewery are. For more details see Chiltern Brewery bottled beers. I'd hate you to think that this swayed my decision, so I will attempt to validate my choice by explaining that the 300's wins because it was 5.0% and yet tasted a little bit like a beer double that, or one that had been aged at length. I think the fact that it punched so high above its weight, and had all the constituent ingredients of a strong but balanced English old ale means it outshone the Fullers. Although if there had been a "wow factor" to judge, Fullers would have easily walked away with first prize.
Other highlights were the Dunham Porter, The Ape Ale and the Durham Evensong. Interestingly though, there was no top accolade for the much anticipated Summer Wine Brewery Kahuna NZ IPA. I had expected to be bitten by ferocious hops and I wasn't disappointed, but, having tried and loved their draught offerings on numerous occasions now, what did disappoint me was the over reliance on the massive hop flavour, with seemingly not much else in the mix.
Both me and Dave were fairly certain that the hop in question was nelson sauvin, although it could have been green bullet as well. Either way there seemed a lack of balancing flavours. Having decided on the hop's identity we couldn't shake ourselves from the thought that this was a nelson sauvin attack more than it was a celebration. Yes, it was worthy of a buzz brewing descriptiopn like unapologetic, but that could be applied to BrewDog Hardcore IPA (in fact, I worry it may actually already be so) for example, a classic of its style. Kahuna, I concede, was more a bold experiment that didn't quite work. Which was a shame.
Overall, this was one of a couple of beers that fell short of expectations (those old chestnuts!) - perhaps a few less dry hops and some more balancing malt would have made this IPA an incredible beer. The only other disappointment was the Tatton Yeti, mainly because it did not live up to the promise of the blurb on the label (a fireside copper ale needs a bigger flavour and more lasting finish if its to work) and, against the quality of the Tatton Ale I tried the night before. Having said that, even though I can admit to a certain, ahem "tiredness" starting to befall us, there honestly wan't a bad beer.
Finally, for a snippet of the mumbling chaos of beer reviewing at gone midnight, I was going to have attached a short video, however the only one short enough to upload in under 25 minutes is very late on when, erm, clarity of thought and clear pronunciation of words has become more challenging. Instead I have posted the above picture of a glass of beer. This will have to do am afraid! You can rest assured however, in the absence of video evidence, that a robust assessment of each beer was carried out, to our very great enjoyment!
Happy beer tasting,
Wee Beefy
last night me and Davefromtshop did our inaugural 2012 beer tasting in my salubrious abode. Here are the details of that epic festival of the taste buds and the salient points rescued from the nonsense we came out with in rating said drinks.
The line up.
Its worth pointing out that optimism had decreed that a much lengthier roll call of beers were to be supped. We only had about 4 pints on our crawl first but I have to concede that really a beer tasting should be done an empty bloodstream (not literally of course).
In light of that here is the original line up, including the ones we didn't get round to - any beers not marked BCA are assumed to be not bottle conditioned beers :
1. Dark Mild, Dunham Massey Brewery 4.0% BCA
2. Evensong, Durham Brewery 5.0% BCA
3. Stout, Dunham Massey Brewery 4.2% BCA
4. Ape Ale, Blue Monkey Brewery 5.5% (BCA? need to find the bottle again!)
5. Yeti, Tatton Brewery 4.5%
6. 300 Ale, Chiltern Brewery 5.0% BCA
7. Pils, Flensburger Brauerei 4.8%
8. Kahuna NZ IPA, Summer Wine Brewery, 6.0%
9. Traditional Porter, Harviestoun 6.0% NOT TRIED
10. Torpedo, Sierra Nevada Brewery 7.2% NOT TRIED
11. Vintage Ale, (2004) Fullers Brewery 8.5% BCA
12. Temptation, (2007) Durham Brewery 10.0% NOT TRIED (much to do with the previous beer's magnificence)
As you can see there was a hint of optimism in my choice of taste overloads, and we finally gave up after the Fullers around 01.30 AM, having truly run out of steam.
This time we didn't worry ourselves about scoring, more entering into a detailed review of each beer and an overall assessment. Alas, the passage of time and accumulation of alcohol meant I can't honestly say that we picked a winner! The Fullers Vintage was seven years of wonderful perfection, however, interestingly, it was slightly flawed. Not only did it take about 45 (albeit heavenly) minutes to drink, but somehow in the maturation process, almost all trace of hops had disappeared.
By way of comparison, last year we had tried a bottle that was less than 2 years old and it was perhaps the finest bottled beer I ever tasted. However, picking the best time to open one is complicated further by the fact that the hops and malts and recipe change every year. So, given the above, and mindful of the authority afforded to me by this being my blog, I would have to say that after careful consideration the winner was the Chiltern Brewery 300's Old Ale.
We attended a tasting (by accident, just by turning up at their shop) in September 2011 and the insights into the beers and the knowledgeable staff showed what a slick operation Chiltern Brewery are. For more details see Chiltern Brewery bottled beers. I'd hate you to think that this swayed my decision, so I will attempt to validate my choice by explaining that the 300's wins because it was 5.0% and yet tasted a little bit like a beer double that, or one that had been aged at length. I think the fact that it punched so high above its weight, and had all the constituent ingredients of a strong but balanced English old ale means it outshone the Fullers. Although if there had been a "wow factor" to judge, Fullers would have easily walked away with first prize.
Other highlights were the Dunham Porter, The Ape Ale and the Durham Evensong. Interestingly though, there was no top accolade for the much anticipated Summer Wine Brewery Kahuna NZ IPA. I had expected to be bitten by ferocious hops and I wasn't disappointed, but, having tried and loved their draught offerings on numerous occasions now, what did disappoint me was the over reliance on the massive hop flavour, with seemingly not much else in the mix.
Both me and Dave were fairly certain that the hop in question was nelson sauvin, although it could have been green bullet as well. Either way there seemed a lack of balancing flavours. Having decided on the hop's identity we couldn't shake ourselves from the thought that this was a nelson sauvin attack more than it was a celebration. Yes, it was worthy of a buzz brewing descriptiopn like unapologetic, but that could be applied to BrewDog Hardcore IPA (in fact, I worry it may actually already be so) for example, a classic of its style. Kahuna, I concede, was more a bold experiment that didn't quite work. Which was a shame.
Overall, this was one of a couple of beers that fell short of expectations (those old chestnuts!) - perhaps a few less dry hops and some more balancing malt would have made this IPA an incredible beer. The only other disappointment was the Tatton Yeti, mainly because it did not live up to the promise of the blurb on the label (a fireside copper ale needs a bigger flavour and more lasting finish if its to work) and, against the quality of the Tatton Ale I tried the night before. Having said that, even though I can admit to a certain, ahem "tiredness" starting to befall us, there honestly wan't a bad beer.
Finally, for a snippet of the mumbling chaos of beer reviewing at gone midnight, I was going to have attached a short video, however the only one short enough to upload in under 25 minutes is very late on when, erm, clarity of thought and clear pronunciation of words has become more challenging. Instead I have posted the above picture of a glass of beer. This will have to do am afraid! You can rest assured however, in the absence of video evidence, that a robust assessment of each beer was carried out, to our very great enjoyment!
Happy beer tasting,
Wee Beefy
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