Ales at home - what I discovered....

Hullall,

           firstly I should point out that I have been a little short of funds yet again, although I am off to South West Scotland before and on payday so am hoping things may improve next month. I should also admit that I have been out a few times, if not more, this month, and have really enjoyed those trips. In the meantime I also bought a number of canned and bottled beers on Thursday the 5th to have with my anticipated beer tasting, although, I had already cancelled it due to a lack of attendees, feeling unwell, and a leak in my Kitchen ceiling. The latter two have now been sorted so it seemed unwise to miss out on sampling almost all of the products purchased.......

The first one I tried was from Nottingham or Derby based brewery Black Iris. I had purchased their Nottingham Pride Pale ale which came in at a sensible strength of 4.5% and was an ideal starter. Pale, as described, and cloudy, as preferred, this was a gloriously easy drinking soup which very much tickled my taste buds.

Next up were two bottle conditioned bottles from Torrside Brewing. Their first was the Craft Hoodlums, a gloriously murky broth at 4.5% again, and wonderfully well balanced. I have to admit that my years in the beer selling trade has rather tainted my appreciation and indeed expectations of bottle conditioned beers but the two from Torrside restored my failing. Their second, the excellent Citra at possibly 5.0% was also once again glutinous (in a very good way) and proved an excellent start to that night's session.

There was a can from the wonderful Turning Point Brewery and their wonderful Circle Game, a Simcoe IPA whose strength alas I failed to record - I did however remember to photograph the blonde hazy mass of this wonderful concoction. On a similar note was the Cloudwater Citra Cy18, one of the many Yakima Chief hop series that was released recently. One of the complaints I made a year or two ago was the lack of any specifics of their ingredients - although - this is scarcely the point in this instance. What I can advise is that I have found almost all of their recent output incredibly refreshing, often bitter and reassuringly tasty. This trend was not abandoned in either this or their beautiful Horse DIPA at 8.5% which I supped last night - an excellent blend of hops and fruity flavours was very easy to enjoy.

Next was a fantastic can of the Neonraptor Hippo Launcher DIPA at 8.0%. As I noted on Faceache, whilst I recognise its an easily used word, I had to confirm that this was an excellently fruity DIPA. Brilliant design on the label as well.

I only purchased one small can - that being a 330ml ATOM and Salt Brewing DIPA called Hailte, or similar. I mentioned that it didn't list the hops used but I would point out that ATOM regularly use no or almost none of such ingredients. Possibly due to the involvement of Salt they were listed as HOPS in the ingredients and as with both of the similarly listed Cloudwater cans this was in no way an effect on the enjoyability of the flavour. In fact, the numerous listed herbal flavours perhaps made it a more enjoyable and quaffable ale.

There was also a can of Verdant, a 6.5% Pale Ale called Have we met before?, which in addition to the four excellent hops used I suspected the addition of London Fog 111 yeast helped me to find this especially enjoyable.

The 6.4% Citra Fog IPA from Burnt Mill made equally good use of the Citra involved, as well as being yeastily and frothingly cloudy to stimulate the taste buds further. The best of the new material however was a 5.5% saison from Wild Horse Brewing Co from Llandudno in Wales. Using an interesting mix of hops in Lemondrop and another I cannot at present recall (but which had a German sound if memory serves), this proved to be an excellently drinkable and reassuringly bitter, sweet and slightly but only marginally sour ale which met the description of its name perfectly.

Finally comes two interesting ales from Wander Beyond in Manchester. Soma was an 8.6% DIPA with a hint of lactose making a fantasticly easy to drink yellowy cloudy broth of fabulousness. The artwork on the can was likewise superb. Their final can was the La Catrina spiced Imperial stout, a fabulous mix of ingredients creating a murky depthed slab of ground like black horror which I have been very slowly and carefully supping for over an hour. A mixture of different sweet, spicy and tobacco themed ingredients balances out so well in this absolute cracker.

Once again, despite an understandable influence of DIPAs, I have managed to buy and try a marvelous selection of strong and hoppy and, increasingly, fruity and also sweet beers from a number of breweries, showing the British public that all of them, regardless of size or reputation, can produce an excellent and diverse range of ales..

Now to arrange to try the bottles of 86, 87, 88, and 1994 Thomas Hardy Ales that I have in bottles in the fridge.....

Your very good health!

Wee Beefy  
 

Supermarket craft

Afternoons,

      I apologise for using the c word in the title of this post. Its just that I thought entitling it Supermarket cancer or Supermarket c*nts may provoke something of the wrong reaction. Worse still, I could have entitled it Supermarket Christmas. Eeeurrgh. That makes me shudder....

Anyhoo, as am bereft of funds I popped t'asda to grab some essentials and a few cans of beer. Alas they had run out of Bass but Ringwqood Razorback was on offer at 95p for 500ml so I got two of them, and then I found some beer in the "craft" (whatever that is) section which was £1.25 a 330ml can for a 5.6% West Coast Pale ale from BadCo. I don't mind their output, although its not a go to brewery, so I bought a can and took it home. Its only when I looked at the can in detail I noticed it said on the front "Brewed exclusively for Asda".

I immediately feared crystal malt. Its not a pathological fear you understand, but it is valid. I can on rare occasions, even detect it in disappointing potations, and share a dislike of it with many in the drinking and brewing circles that I rotate in.

One thing I don't know is, why would anyone add it to a "craft" (whatever that is) beer? Is it cheaper than pale ale malts? Or does it just remind less up to date drinkers of mass produced golden ales? Looking down the ingredients the beer has a decent hop line up, summit, cascade (not sure if UK or US) and chinook, but in the malt list was Light Crystal. I feared the worst.

Light crystal may explain why the beer retained its pale colour - because I have found that other supermarket own brewed, i.e in secret, pale ales, are bitter coloured. Am not sure if crystal malt is to blame, but lets assume it is. And to be fair to BadCo the hops were prominent, and I could appreciate them. And this was better than Razorback, so all is fine.....

Back in August Wee keefy, horrified at my spending £6.00 a can on Verdant and Cloudwater soups, took me to his to enjoy some supermarket own brand "craft" (whatever that is) ales. I was assured that they cost as much for 4 cans as one of those ones that I wasted my money on did. The selection was laid on mainly to prove a point, and stimulate a blog post. Alas, no point was proven, except that they in some cases, tasted five times less good than Verdant beers. The interesting thing though, was the ingredients used.

Having got them from Aldi or Lidl or Rialto, which is a shop I have made up for vaguely alliterative reasons, the four tried were Red Rye captain pale ale, a 4.6% pale with "notes of caramel and toffee", Twisted knots, a 5.5% American IPA with " a grapefruit aroma" and notes of "citrus zesty fruits", Bitter Iron IPA at 5.4% and Plunged Orange pale ale at 6.0% which was "refreshing" and featured "tangy orange sweetness".

The red rye captain was the joint worst - it was hardly pale and worse still featured what I can only guess was crystal and caramalt, to mask the pale colours, and hide any vestige of hops.  The twisted knots was better, mainly because it featured a decent line up of hops including Columbus citra and centennial (but also Dark Crystal malt), and the Bitter Iron IPA was the second joint worst, featuring as it did a more underwhelming hop load but crystal malt again. The best of the four was the Plunged orange pale ale which managed to hide some of the sweetness of the orange with Rakau and Mandarina hops, and also managed to avoid the temptation of using any type of crystal malt whatsoever.

The thing is, churning out hoppy pale ale in a factory is never going to hold the same appeal for me. And I have to admit that. And I also have to pay more for the beer that I like. Which means, funnily enough, that I also drink less beer than I used to (although its generally stronger, so am not trying to claim any health benefits).

I think the positive thing though, from this brief snapshot of supermarket own brand beers, is that things have really really improved in the last five years, and that this improvement has likely been started by the likes of Lidl and Aldi. Although am never going to seek them out, its good to know that I still have some beers to go to when funds run low.

Many thanks to WK for his generosity, and kudos where kudos is due, to the supermarkets mentioned for taking the time to work with brewers (identified, and sadly in secret) to produce decent beers at a knockdown price. Now, where's that can of Verdant and Equilibrium Keep Left....

Cheese

Wee Beefy