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The rough with the smooth

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

There are some breweries whose rise to prominence are a source of irritation (Innis and Gunn, anyone?) but we really wouldn’t mind if every pub in the country was selling Thornbridge. That’s just as well, because it seems to be getting that way.

In recent weeks, we’ve had the opportunity to try a whole lot of Thornbridge’s beers. In this post, though, we’re going to highlight one that works briliantly and one that really doesn’t.

First up, the success story. Exposed is a stout brewed with pink peppercorns and strawberry. It sounds gorgeous even just from the description on the bright red and pink pump clip. For starters, it’s a good solid stout. With nothing else done to it, it would be a winner. The subtle addition of exotic flavours, however, makes it something really special. If we hadn’t known, we wouldn’t have been able to name those additives, but they were certainly there providing beguiling, tantalising hints of their presence in a tingle on the tongue here and a raspberry/cider sourness there. This reminded us of a Belgian beer, only Thornbridge have got the recipe bang on, first try, rather than needing 200 years of experimentation to get the spicing sorted.

Then, sadly, on to a beer which didn’t work as well. Halcyon is a 7.7% strong IPA made with green hops. Sounds exciting, right? It certainly smelled incredible — exactly like sticking your nose into a foil packet of hops when home brewing. Sadly, it tasted like sugar syrup laced with hop tea, astringent and overbearing.

We guess the latter is the price you pay for successful experiments like the former.

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Posted in beer reviews, real ale | 21 Comments »

De Garre, Bruges

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

De Garre, a stone’s-throw from the market square in Bruges, comes across nonetheless as being aimed more at locals than tourists. The menu is in ‘Nederlandse’ only, for one thing. That’s not to say it’s unwelcoming for English speakers or tourists, though.

De Garre tripel is the house brew. It’s a very spicy, alcohol-fuming beer which was almost too boozy and raw, but very welcome on a stormy night.

We also took the opportunity to complete the Struise cannon with Rosse which was, sadly, a bit of a dud — sweet rather than spicy and with a vaguely cardboard-y off flavour.

Round three included Deugniet, which tasted like lemon barley, and Hopus from Lefebvre. Hopus is advertised widely and comes with a very elaborate presentation — the beer is in a tall stem glass, the dregs in a shot glass, with a stern warning from the waiter that the yeast is ‘powerful’ and might ‘mess you up’.  It tasted a lot like a cask ale, maybe because of the bottle-conditioning and the earthy yeast flavours. From something at 7.5%, however, you expect more than to be reminded of a 4% British session ale.

Posted in Belgium, beer reviews | 5 Comments »

Actually in Bruges

Monday, March 1st, 2010

We’ve just come back from a long overdue weekend in Bruges. Summary: why have we been settling for Brussels for so long when a city this beautiful and this friendly was only another hour away?

On Friday, after a longer-than-necessary train journey (Eurostar’s been up the creek since the big train crash near Brussels a few weeks ago) we were ready for a beer, and so went straight to Cambrinus Bierbrasserie. It was cosy, busy and with a huge menu of well-chosen beers. As one punter said to us: “You English guys like beer, right? Well good luck because here, we got four hundred of ‘em!”

They have two house beers, blond and bruin, which both tasted like bang-on exemplars of those ’styles’. They weren’t challenging, but nor were they at all unpleasant. How do the Belgians do it so effortlessly?

Next we moved on to offerings from De Struise, appealing both because of the reputation of the brewer and the need for something coming in at under 6% to keep us in the game. Kloeke Blonde had that dusty hop flavour we associate with Poperings Hommelbier, but was slightly sour, and very interesting too. Struise Witte certainly wasn’t a Hoegaarden clone — it had pear and/or pear drop flavours, and was also rather dry.

And, finally, Pannepot was flavour of the month a year or so ago. Late to the party, as ever, we decided to give the 2008 edition a go. Wowzers. This was like a very fruity stout with an intense, slick creaminess and no sharp corners at all, despite its strength (10%).  Proper dessert beer and a great way to wrap up a long day.

There’s more on Bruges to follow in the next week or so.

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Posted in Belgium, beer reviews | 8 Comments »

Community beers

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Jame and Lizzie Brodie, who run our local brewery, kindly gave us a box of their beers last month, and we’re slowly working our way through the ones we haven’t tried before. The first thing to note is that either free beer tastes better or, across the board, Brodie’s beers have improved since they first launched. We enjoyed their Eat 17 IPA last year, and their Ho Ho Ho at Christmas, and the first of the new lot we’ve tasted were excellent too.

Old Hopper’s Ale is brewed with hops from East London (Cable Street, in fact) picked by residents in Tower Hamlets Community Housing. The beer gets its name from the fact that many of them spent summer holidays as children picking hops in Kent. It’s a nice story and a really impressive beer, with a good solid hop flavour that isn’t astringent or grassy.

Pink Pride is a light beer (3.4%) with a little raspberry in it and an excellent example of a refreshing and balanced fruit beer. The raspberry is there but not overpowering, perhaps adding just a little sourness. Grapefruity hops give it a crisp finish. It tastes and feels a lot like a cask ale, a great achievement for a microbrewed bottled beer.

It’s accompanying story is slightly more vague than Old Hop Picker’s.  It was apparently made “with the help of London’s gay community”. We can’t work out if this is a brilliant marketing trick  or an act of commercial suicide. However good the beer, a lot of blokes might feel a bit vulnerable shouting to the barman in a crowded pub: “Can I get a bottle of Pink Pride, please? Yes, that’s right, the gay beer. The one with raspberries in.”

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Posted in beer reviews, bottled beer | 13 Comments »

Beer festivals are growing on us

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

At a loose end, we decided to pop to Manchester for the weekend, taking in the National Winter Ales Festival, of which Tandleman was one of the organisers.

After startling him with our unannounced arrival (he made a very effective bouncer) we made our way upstairs to the main hall. Our first impressions were of a relatively young crowd with the kind of male-female mix you’d expect in the real world. The atmosphere was like that of a large, busy, if rather brightly lit pub. Or, with people sat on the floor in groups, was it reminiscent of a music festival? We felt very comfortable and soon completely forgot we were in a wedding banquet hall on an industrial estate in a city we hardly knew.

We headed straight for the German rarities. Uerige Sticke Alt, which we’d been wanting to try for a long time, had the trademark Uerige bitterness, although after such anticipation, it was a little disappointing. Schlenkerla Urbock (or did the label say Eichbock?) (6.5%) was clear and syrupy and, frankly, balanced too much towards sweetness for our taste.

A brief detour to Bohemia next with Bernard Kvasnicove took the idea of unfiltered beer to the extreme:  there was a bit of wood in it. It was mellow and, again, sweetish. It wasn’t warm, but it could have got away with being two degrees colder.

Lowenbrau Buttenheim Bock didn’t taste as strong as 6.5%. It was very nicely balanced, clearly a well crafted beer, and far from bland, but we wanted a bit more zing.

We went closer to home for the next round. Broughton 80 Shilling was bland; Acorn Gorlovka Stout astounding. What a contrast. We were sceptical as to how a 5% beer could lay claim to the ‘imperial’ moniker but this beauty did it, through hop bitterness, chocolate intensity and a very heavy, chewy body. It was the stand out beer of the evening.

JW Lees Darkside was really interesting — so fruity and sour that if someone said it had plums or maybe even cherries in, we’d believe them.

Red shield, White Shield’s weaker, blonder, cask-conditioned cousin, could have borne a lote more hop aroma and came off as a bit boring in comparison to, say, Dark Star Hophead or Marble Pint.

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Posted in Germany, beer festivals, beer reviews, czech republic, real ale | 10 Comments »

Marble Madness

Monday, January 25th, 2010

After reading various people raving about Marble for the last couple of years, a visit to their brewpub was always going to be a top priority for our visit to Manchester.

First up were, pints of, er, Pint and Bitter which we found to be very similar. Both were bitter and grapefruity almost to the point of astringency, but not quite. Differences did emerge after a few more comparative slurps — Bitter was marginally darker in colour and balanced a touch more toward malt than hops. We were very impressed by both.

Lagonda IPA looked similarly yellow at first glance but was sweeter, fuller bodied and noticeably stronger at 5%.

Then something that wasn’t yellow: Stouter Stout, which was profound. Thick, roasty, chocolatey and filling — damn near a perfect specimen.  Trying Chocolate next to it was a little surprising, being silkier but actually less chocolate-like.

We’ve had Ginger before and it was just as good as we remembered. We took the advice of the chaps at Blogobeer and also tried it mixed with Chocolate and it was indeed delicious — not unlike Jamaica Ginger cake. Yum.

The enigmatically named Brew #14 was yet another yellow bitter ale, but this time with a more English hop character, very evident dry-hopping and some pear-drop character.

Dobber, despite being 5.9% and a little heavier and fruitier, was, yes, you’ve guessed it, yellow and hoppy.

As for the pub, it’s a great building and has a real buzz. We ate in the back room and service was a little slow but friendly (had someone failed to turn up for their shift?).

In summary, a good pub, with great beer, but (like Hopback) they could do to make the differences between some of their many yellow beers a little less subtle, or simply ‘consolidate the range’ as a management consultant would say.

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Posted in beer reviews, pubs, real ale | 10 Comments »

Homage to the white bits on the map

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Announcing the arrival of an Icelandic blogger to the scene the other day, Knut used the catch-all term ‘the white areas on the map‘. As anyone who saw this satellite image in the papers this week will know, Britain has temporarily joined the club, and so it seemed the perfect opportunity to get into the spirit of things.

Here’s what we did yesterday:

  1. Put Johan Johansson on the stereo.
  2. Had a hot bath.
  3. Rolled in the snow.
  4. Got back in the hot bath.
  5. Ate a salad of pickled herring, potatoes, beetroot, apple, onion and sour cream.
  6. Drank the bottle of Nøgne ø God Jul we were given by Knut before Christmas.

We enjoyed the beer a lot. It’s a classy, complex drop which is nonetheless easier going than Harvey’s Imperial Stout. We got something different with every mouthful but the overall picture was of treacle with a hint of wood smoke. We liked the fact that, although very dark, it was deep brown rather than black. The head was so far off white that, for a moment, we wondered if there might be saffron in the beer.

Additional notes: We didn’t roll in the snow for very long because we felt like a right pair of twats. The music eventually proved too pretentious for us and we put ABBA on instead. The table we ate off was bought from IKEA. After this bizarre interlude, we went to the pub for a bottle of Fuller’s 1845.

Update: here are Beer Sagas’ reviews of Nogne ø beers, and here’s the Beer Nut on Nogne ø God Jul Islay Cask edition.

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Posted in beer reviews, bottled beer | 4 Comments »

Pretty wits all in a row

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Our own Belgian style wheat beer

As with koelsch, if you drink one Belgian wheat beer in the middle of a session with other beers, you’d be hard pressed to tell one from another. But, drink them together for comparison, and you can really appreciate the subtle differences.

We took Bailey’s folks to the Dove a while back and, as his Mum is a fan of wheat beers, helped her work through a few from their impressive selection.

Steenbrugge wit was like a drier, more lemony version of Hoegaarden. Next to Steenbrugge, Blanche de Bruxelles seemed to taste of honey, a flavour we’d never noticed before. Florisgaarden was the most interesting of the three, with a pleasing aroma and taste of juniper, which we really liked.  Quite a surprise from the big boys. We’ll be nicking that idea for the next Belgian-style wit we brew at home.

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Posted in Beer styles, beer reviews | 5 Comments »

Overheard at the Rake

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

“Have you got a nice stout?”
“Well, there’s the Dark Star, but that’s 10.5%. How about Anchor Porter?”

“Have you got anything south American?”
“Er…. Quilmes?”

“We want some sour beers. Have you got anything by Cantillon?”
“Yes, but it’s about £8 a bottle.”
“That’s fine. One bottle, two glasses, please!”

“Why are you having a lager again, mate?”
“Coz I want something cold and refreshing, with bubbles, that doesn’t make me feel like my Dad.”
“Goose Island IPA is cold and refreshing, and your dad wouldn’t like that.”
“Stop trying to make me drink your old man beers.”

“How long would you keep a barley wine for, in the cask?”
“Well, we keep ours for up to six years, but you could definitely keep it longer, if it was filled properly.”
“Oh, I know our filling techniques, and they introduce way too much oxygen.”

“What do you have that’s a normal strength and comes in a normal pint glass?”

Whilst eavesdropping, we also worked our way through a few beers, including Sierra Nevada Unrivaled, a rye beer with a hint of smoke that actually tasted how we’ve always imagined rye beer ought to. It’s a late contender for beer of the year — very complex and utterly delicious, with citrus hops and fruity, nutty, spicy flavours, too.

Doggie Style delivered an American style IPA (heavy body, lots of hops) at only 4.7%. It’s yer actual session beer, that.

Goose island Christmas Ale (7%) was a final treat. It was £9.50 for a large bottle. It was like malty golden syrup with a touch of orange. Nice, but not as nice as something like 1845. We wonder if some complexity got lost on the Atlantic crossing?

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Posted in American beers, beer reviews | 15 Comments »

Christmas Beer from Norway

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

It’s always nice when you hit upon a single word review of a beer: Oreos would do it for Ringnes Jullebok, one of a pair of Norwegian Christmas beers we were given by Knut Albert a few weeks ago when we met him in London.

At the time he described it as the most interesting Christmas beer from the big industrial brewers. Ringnes is the Norwegian arm of Carlsberg, he explained, and told us not to expect too much from the beer.

It looked lovely — transparent, dark, with an off-white head — but didn’t really have enough going on to justify its strength (9%). Boak didn’t like it much at all, having an aversion to overt sugariness in beer, but I enjoyed its smooth, lingering chocolate flavour.

Now we just need to find an opportunity to drink the bottle of Nøgne ø Christmas beer before Twelfth Night. If it’s bad luck to leave up your decorations after then, surely the same must go for drinking Christmas beer?

Bailey

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Posted in beer reviews | 3 Comments »

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