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beer reviews

Our shopping list for 2009

This year, we finally got our hands on Zywiec Porter, Baltika Porter and a few Goses, after much hunting. But there are still a few beers our there in the wild we’d like to track down. Here’s our hit list (and please feel free to tell us of any sightings, especially in London).

  • Fuller’s Brewer’s Reserve — we think we saw this behind the bar at a pub in Borough, so hopefully this will be an easy kill, without us having to trek out to Chiswick. We’re unashamed Fuller’s fans and this one sounds intriguing.
  • Uerige Sticke — thanks to Tandleman, we now know when and where we need to be — a nice mission for next December?
  • Thornbridge Bracia chestnut honey beer, recently raved about by beer writers like Zythophile. We love Jaipur IPA and we found their St Petersburg imperial Russian stout glorious.
  • Brewdog Chaos Theory — sounds intriguing — a mix between a wheat beer and a schwarz. Not so much chaos as harmony…? or anything that we haven’t already tried!
  • Galway Hooker — mentioned on the odd occasion by the Beer Nut and recognised as a corker by various authorities.
  • Something from Japan other than Asahi — Michael Jackson’s 500 Beers (our standard text when we were first getting into beer) lists all kinds of fascinating-sounding Japanese microbrews. Surely the next big thing, now American beer is becoming commonplace in the UK…?
  • Estrella Damm Inedit — probably not that great a beer, but we’ve got an interest in Spain, and would love it if a proper beer scene developed there.
  • American beers that aren’t Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Great Divide, Rogue or Goose Island, great as all of those are.
  • Any of the apparently very exciting Italian microbrews on the market these days. Shock admission: we’ve never been to Italy. That might be a good starting point…

Don’t bother commenting if you’re just going to say “X beer isn’t worth the trouble”. Sadly, we need to find that out for ourselves, or we’ll forever wonder what might have been.

16 replies on “Our shopping list for 2009”

If you’d only paid the odd visit to my pub this winter, I’d have given you one from my stash of Fullers Brewer’s Reserve… they’ve all been given away now though!

If you want to make a start on Italian beer the place to do it is Bir & Fud in Rome.

We should try to schedule a visit to Uerige to get some Sticke. I’ve never had the pleasure either.

Galway Hooker is one of my, sorry, was one of my favourite session beers, and it’s something I miss. I hope we don’t talk it up too much though 🙂

I’ve also never been to Italy, but as it happens I’ll be off to north Italy (can’t remember where now) on business at the end of January. TIme to start scouting!

I’d be happy to give advice for Northern Italy – Milan/Parma/Bologna. Lots of friendly brewers, bars and shops, but you have to know where to look.
There were some nice Italian beers on at the Pig’s Ear this month – but you weren’t there, were you?

And look out for the BrewDog raspberry imperial stout, there will be a limited bottled edition next year.

The Sticke-tradition is not limited to Uerige.
Füchschen has a similar beer for Christmas, Weihnachtsbier. Available from the 10th of november in bottles, and only on december 24th on tap.
Schlüssel calls it Stike, without c. Available on the last wednesday of march and october.
Schumacher has Latzenbier, 3rd thursday of march, september and november.
And Uerige, as already mentioned, 3rd tuesday of january and october.
In all cases, it is a stronger version of the standard alt, at the same price.

was only having this convo last night! for me, strangely enough, Galway Hooker stilll remains high, along with more of Thornbridges stable. I have never had an Italian Craft beer so im with on that. As for the Brewdog..hmmm not sure yet….

Brewdog Chaos Theory isn’t a mix of a wheat beer and a schwarz – they were the other two beers in the competition (Bad Pixie and Zeitgeist).

Chaos Theory is a copper-coloured IPA that also goes under the name of Not Just For Christmas when on cask (it’s been around pubs in Nottingham since before Christmas)

As for American beers, give http://www.beermerchants.com a try, they have Port Brewing, Lost Abbey, even some Three Floyds. And Beers of Europe have a good range from Stone.

Leigh — not convinced by Brew Dog? Interesting. How come…?

Haddonsman — I wonder where I got that idea from? Must have read it somewhere and scribbled it in the notebook. Memo to self: double check these things in future….

The Sti(c)ke tradition is not even limited to Dusseldorf. Some of the Kolsch brewers do something similar. I stumbled across the 6.0% 1396 Jubilaumsbier der Stadt at the Gaffel Haus in Cologne old town one random midweek lunchtime a few years ago – a beer sold apparently just on one or two days per year. Nevertheless I would agree with you that zum Uerige on sticke day would be a fantasy destination. Of course, some of the mystique is is lost now that you can just look up the dates on the internet (thanks Treinjan above!) rather than it being a reward for regular customers with inside knowledge as it apparently used to be.

For the Japanese beers, the foreign beer festivals at the Wetherspoon’s pubs might be worth trying, as they’ve had beers from the Yo-Ho brewery. I seem to remember they’ve had the Yona Yona Pale Ale and Tokyo Black Porter. Both of those are good beers worth trying, and certainly a far cry from Asahi “Super” Dry.

For more US microbrew a trip to Copenhagen (or, failing that, Gothenburg or Stockholm) might be worth trying. There’s a fair bit of US microbrew available there. Flying Dog, for example, is available even in some ordinary corner stores. And those three cities have other attractions as well.

Galway Hooker, kegged as the brewer intended, should be available at the Porterhouse Covent Garden from Thursday as part of their festival of independent Irish breweries.

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