Nectar Ales Black Xantus: Open It!

Some people are just nice and want to give you bottles of beer because they think you will like them. This happened to me when I was in San Francisco. A tweet arrived saying something along the lines of ‘I’ve left some bottles behind the bar for you.’ I never met Bill (I don’t think so, anyway, although I don’t remember much of SF as I was either completely wasted or disgustingly hungover with very little in the middle UPDATE: I did meet Bill! It was in City Beer Store where I was at my drunkest! Sorry Bill and thanks again), the guy who left them, but I’m incredibly grateful. The first was a Russian River Damnation 23 (an oaked tripel) and it was sensational. The second was Black Xantus by Nectar Ales.

It’s an 11% imperial stout with coffee, aged in bourbon barrels and hopped with US Fuggles, which is just my kind of thing. It pours a dark brown with a chucky head that you can’t help but dip your finger into. Immediately it bursts with bourbon and throws out vanilla ice cream, oak, coconut and milk chocolate. One mouthful and I’m in love (and lust): imagine an amazing chocolate milkshake with bourbon and you aren’t far off. It’s a smooth glugger, packed with chocolate, iced coffee, fruity and roasted coffee, lots of barrel and a little liquorice. It’s – here it comes – awesome.

Simple as that. I don’t know much about the brewery or the beer but it doesn’t matter. The beer is excellent and I’ve finally got around to drinking it. The joy of Open It! is that it isn’t necessarily about drinking the superstars or the rarities of the cellar (though this may well be a rare superstar...), it’s about drinking the beers you’ve been meaning to drink.

There’s still time for people to take part in Open It! and lots have already been drinking something good from their selection. Just look at twitter to see what people have been drinking.

Lovibonds Dark Reserve No.2

The text arrived along the lines of: 'Are you going to be in tonight? If so, I’ve got a beer for you.' Two hours later Pete turned up with an unlabelled bottle and handed it over as if giving you a photo of his new born child. He will later admit that he thinks this is the best beer he’s brewed so far.

Aged in a Jack Daniel's barrel, Lovibonds Dark Reserve No.2 is an 8% (ish) dark ale. The aroma gets you first, a heady mixes of chocolate, oak, vanilla, cola and coconut and this transfers through to the flavour with a surprising roast bitterness adding a big backbone to handle to barrel. There’s a flicker of sweetness with some caramel, then it’s bourbon, roasted nuts, dark chocolate, spice, then it’s burnt-bitter and roasty with some way-away floral hops adding a peppery kick. And it’s all done with poise and delicacy so that it doesn’t taste like licking the inside of a JD cask, instead it adds character and complexity. It’s one of the best barrel-aged beers I’ve had in a long time and a stellar example of when a barrel can make things even better than they already are. My only thoughts are that a touch more body would propel it forward and give it a little extra to wrap around your tongue, making it more luxurious which a beer like this should be.

Unfortunately Pete won’t hand deliver to everyone because he’s too busy brewing or something, but it’ll be on sale soon, either from the tasting room in Henley or online. It’s a good one and Lovibonds are doing some interesting things at the moment, including 69 IPA, a US IPA, and Sour Grapes, a British lambic. Plus it's all keg and bottles.

Hardknott to like Aether Blaec

It seemed timely that as I was about to open a bottle of Hardknott Ӕther Blӕc I was reading a post by Dave about the labeling of the newly branded beer and how the best before date is an ‘irrelevant and contradictory semantic’ for beers like this, which are perfect candidates for cellaring.

My bottle, number 68 out of 456, had the old label on, a rather less dramatic design compared to the new one, which I think looks great. The beer is a stout aged in 30 year Caol Ila whisky casks, 8% ABV, according to the new label (the old says 6.7% - to dispel the rumours of grogging, Dave wrote this post). In the glass it has a fantastic chocolate aroma with waves of sweetly phenolic oak and Islay beneath, subtle but still self-imposing, the kind of intriguing deftness which makes you stick your nose so far into the glass to smell it that it comes out with beer on the end. I jabbed a still-swirling glass under Lauren’s nose (as I always do) and she got it too: “Smoke, like that BrewDog one.” The beer is silky smooth, chocolatey and roasty before the barrel creeps in, delicate but still unmissable, adding a perfect depth without tasting like a pint of stout with a shot of whisky crudely added. In some barrel-aged beers the barrel bit of it is just overpowering but not here, and instead it adds so much to the overall enjoyment. Phenolic but not TCP; a dry, almost-savoury quality which I love in beers like this; hints of berry sweetness to tease the playful wisps of smoke; a bitterness which develops throughout, spiking the end with something new; every mouthful enjoyable and interesting.

I didn’t know what to expect from this beer but I was hugely impressed. Pete Brown tweeted that it’s ‘either beginner’s luck, or one of the best wood-aged beers yet.’ Whichever it is, I want some more bottles, and maybe that way I can put the semantics of ‘best before’ and ‘best after’ to the test. 

Hoppy and Roasty

Double IPA festival yesterday. It was pretty nuts. Most beers were around 9% and bragged tongue-wrecking IBU levels. Everything was served in 4oz pours; enough to enjoy it but not enough to pickle you too quickly (though there were a few stumbling around early afternoon - that's another thing, it started at 11am).

Pliny the Younger was the big one (in many ways). An 11% triple IPA released once a year (the Friday of SF Beer Week) by Russian River. But this came alongside an overwhelming list of big beers. Of course, I had Younger as soon as I arrived (it's good but I need some more of it now). Ballast Point's Dorado was excellent, Bear Republic's Five Zero and 11 were very good, a couple from Drakes were superb (Drakes are a very good brewery, one I didn't know about until the trip), Moylans' Hopsickle (140 IBU!) and Triple Rock's IIMAXX were hop bombs.

The interesting thing was the difference between these beers of the same style. Some were sickly sweet and jaggedly hoppy; some were citrus and fruit; some were floral and herbal and dry; some just drop-kicked your face; some were a confusing mix of the above. Drinking just one style is a great way to pick out the subtle differences in each brew (although these beers are not especially subtle...), even if towards the end they did start to converge towards just 'hoppy'.

After the DIPA fest I went to an Alesmith event at City Beer Store (that's an awesomely cool bar). The Alesmith IPA was spectacular but I was there for Speedway Stout - the regular one and barrel aged. They are both sexy looking beers, darkest brown with one of those chocolate milkshake heads. Regular is silky smooth and rammed with roasty coffee flavour and dark chocolate; the barrel aged is an incredible oaky, vanilla, bourbon, chocolate monster with subdued coffee and great depth. Amazing beers.

After this I went to the Toronado where New Belgium's La Folie tasted like a bloody mary and then I nearly fell asleep at the table (jet lag sucks).

That was a good day drinking. I met and got to drink with so many cool people, which is the best thing about this trip. And a lot of people there are brewers from the area, proudly pouring their stuff while also happily drinking other breweries beers. It's good to have that in the beer scene.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrel-Aged Beers

Barrel-aging beers has been the brewing in-thing for the last few years. I’ve had plain oak, god-knows-how-many whisky-barrels, rum-barrel, cider brandy barrel and wine barrel and each adds its own unique quality, some of it from the wood and some from what aged inside it.

Whisky barrels are the most common and the affinity of the grain makes them natural partners. BrewDog’s Paradox series is a great way of showcasing how one beer can be changed dramatically by aging it in different whisky barrels, and the finished beers are understated but still full of character. American versions tend to be more punch-you-in-the-face with bourbon - Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout is probably the quintessential casing point. Whether subtle or not, I have a bit of a thing for the barrel: I love what the aging can add if it’s successful; I love the extra texture, the wood flavour (oak, vanilla, coconut, a dryness), the spices and sweetness, smoke and earth. But what exact characteristics are transferred from the whisky into the barrel and then in turn from the barrel into the beer?

To try and find out I opened some beer and whisky side-by-side. First, BrewDog’s Paradox Springbank with the Springbank 10 whisky and then Harviestoun’s Ola Dubh 12 with Highland Park 12. Here’s a video (my first in ages) of me opening the Ola Dubh and Highland Park.

The Springbank whisky has distant smoke, a slight saltiness, a floral lightness, dried fruit, spices and ginger. The beer carries over the earthiness and the salty-smoky flavour as well as fruit beneath and some of that spice and coconutty wood to round it all off. I think this is one of the best in the Paradox range with a great balance of sweet and smoky.

The Highland Park 12 is so smooth, it has a great sweetness to it and then hints of earthiness and smoke. It’s incredibly well-balanced, I think. The Ola Dubh 12 is packed with raisins and smoke swirls around inside it adding great complexity. The woody barrel dryness also comes through, lending a near savoury touch at the end. It’s a great beer and a great whisky.

Tasting beer and whisky side by side is an interesting challenge. The barrel imparts certain characteristics into the beer, some of this is from the wood itself (a texture-thing as well as a flavour) and some is from the whisky; some of the whisky flavours are probably dulled by the wood, but others will be amplified. Oak, vanilla and coconut are prominent in barrel-aged stouts and these are from the wood. Smoky flavours seem to elbow their way through to the front of the beer, even when it’s subtle in the whisky, and extra sweetness folds itself in, balancing the roasty-bitter stout (for it is most often stout in the whisky barrels). As for other flavours... I guess I need to drink more beer and whisky!

I’m trying to learn more about whisky. My interest in it has come from drinking beers aged in whisky barrels. For me, it’s the wood character that interests me the most in the finished beers. I love the vanilla and coconut flavour and the toasted oak quality. Lovely. My enjoyment of gueuze is based on the savoury-woody quality that adds such fantastic depth to the beer. Gadds Reserved Barely Wine is a great example of a barley wine aged in an old red wine barrel, another twist on aging, this one with wild yeast character.

Innis & Gunn

Innis & Gunn was one of the first beers I found myself drinking regularly when I made the switch from lager to ale. Since then I’ve found that it’s been the beer which has continually been able to convert others. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s because it looks a bit fancy? Maybe it’s just because it tastes so different to cans of lager. Maybe it’s the creamy sweetness that does it. Who knows.

In my early drinking days I got all excited about every new Innis & Gunn in its lovely box. I think I’ve had eight different I&Gs, including an IPA, Blonde, the Rum Cask, the Triple Matured, Canadian Oak and a couple of ‘vintages’. My favourite was always the Cask Strength version which was 7.7% and came in a red box. I served it with a vanilla crème brulee once and that was simply perfect.

But I hadn’t had an Original for ages and my taste has changed a lot since then. It also seems that my memory has warped and turned the beer from wonderful to weird, something I used to like but not anymore. But I couldn’t remember so I bought a bottle to find out for definite.

It had probably been two years since I had my last bottle of Original I&G and I expected to be taken straight back to my first taste of it but instead it just tasted alien. It wasn’t as sweet as I remembered but it was everything else I expected - oaky yet smooth, slightly buttery and toasty with a definite citrusy finish to it – yet it just didn’t taste right. A few years ago this was such a familiar flavour but I didn’t really enjoy drinking it this time around (maybe I just didn’t like it, maybe it was because it didn’t taste how I wanted it to, maybe I was expecting not to like it...).

It seems that I&G is a polarising beer in a love/hate kind of way (I think it’s the buttery sweetness that gets the thumbs up or down). I love it for getting me started on other beers but the taste just didn’t live up to the memory that I had of it. I’ve got another bottle in the cupboard so maybe I’ll give it one more try before I completely write it off. But the question is: Innis & Gunn, yes or no?

And here’s some bonus material: a video I shot in July of the Canadian Oak I&G (sent to me by R&R). I remember enjoying this one a lot more than the Original.

Ode to Zephyr

I’ve been waiting for months. Desperate to try it. The idea put me in a whirl. An IPA, 12.5%. Whisky casks from 1965. Fresh strawberries, tart and sweet. Time. I wanted it. I needed it.

I finally got it.

Sentences are redundant with this beer. Unnecessary. Frivolously time consuming. It promises a zephyr and you get the cool breeze of elegance. Have I ever had a beer with so much going on? Will I ever again? Complexity is too weak a term. Complex squared. Each sip is a cotton candy minefield, a padded spike, a punch and a kiss. It defies language. It twists your mind. A dirty secret. A dichotomy.

A zephyr. A hurricane. A beautiful dance between the two.

Golden pink. Strawberries. So many strawberries. Biscuits. The finest champagne you’ve tasted. But better. There’s more going on. A lot more. It’s an IPA. It’s got hops, but only just. They linger in earthy, oaky dryness. A whisky barrel. The strength hides until the end. A warm afterburn. How many other things? It’s a challenge. More with each sip. A rollercoaster. A rare moment when beer is more than beer. Tart strawberries. Sweet strawberries. Vanilla. Smoke. Coconut. Oak. An unmissable creaminess. Electric carbonation. Wood. Fresh fruit. Will it get better? What will happen to this masterpiece in a few years? Will it grow bigger, better? Will it mellow and sweeten? Could it develop more complexity? Complex to the power of three? I must have another. Dare I open it? Maybe I should save it. Can I wait? The big bottles come soon. I’ve been waiting for it.

Once is not enough.

It’s a work of organic art; so many variables placed together at their own mercy and given time. What if…? Is it magic? Is it fate? Free will verses determinism. Layers of life, of history, left in the end to create itself and rise into something new. Something even more complete than its glorious parts. A work of art packaged inside another work of art. Something incredible.

This post was in part inspired by this wonderful piece at Impy Malting. The beer kind of does this to you. It has a magic all of its own. And look closely at the picture. My tattoo says it all.

My Visit to Thornbridge Brewery

What makes a few breweries rise up above all the others? What makes them special and unique? What makes them who they are? If you ever get a chance to visit Thornbridge Brewery you’ll find the answers to these questions. I first met the guys from Thornbridge at The Rake a few months ago. I had a lot of great things to say about them. This week I went ‘up north’ to the brewery with Matt, the same Matt from this Beer Night, to have a look around. It started early. Very early. I decided the best bet would be to train it there and back, but this meant eight trains overall. Eight. We arrived at Dronfield - home of the mighty Coach and Horses pub - at 10am and Kelly Ryan, the brewery manager, was there to greet us and drive us to work/the brewery (his car is so retro-cool, by the way, that he had Metallica on tape playing as we started driving!). Kelly is an amazing guy (he even sent me a text to remind me to bring a sandwich for lunch). He’s literally overflowing with beer knowledge, passion, love and enthusiasm. And he doesn’t stop. I think he only walked when we were there to slow him down, the rest of the time he was running (actually running). Reluctant Scooper has been to visit for a brew day (his article is so brilliant, you must read it) and he uses the term ‘ceaselessly bounding’. That works for me. The brewery is in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall and it’s a stunning place to go to work. The brewery is tucked away inconspicuously out the back. There’s a small brewhouse, an office, a lab and a few storage units. Inside the brewhouse is all the stuff you need to make beer (I won’t go into all that, read it in a book or here). Dave Pickering was in there brewing and Matt Clarke was running around, sorting out casks. At Thornbridge they brew one beer a day and have up to six fermentation tanks doing their stuff. The best thing: this place smells amazing! It’s full of that gorgeous ovaltine malt from the mash and there was a constant orange and tropical fruit hop sweetness. Lovely stuff. I couldn’t do math or science in school, it just didn’t stick. English was more my thing. After spending a day at Thornbridge I wish I’d been able to get the sciences because they make it sound so cool (they are number one in the periodic table of cool). I was completely fascinated by the whole scientific side to beer and it’s given me a greater depth of understanding about this stuff that I love to drink. And Kelly doesn’t make it geeky either. All the talk of science-stuff was glamorous; it wasn’t white coats, it was leather jackets. They were brewing Jaipur while we were there and we got to spend some time with Dave as he was brewing. He’s a really great guy, full of that same Thornbridge passion and knowledge which fills the air. And he was patient too as we kept asking questions about what he was doing and getting in his way as he tried to do his job. (He fancies brewing a smoky beer to go with the summer barbeques and he also said about making a small beer alongside Bracia, here’s my idea: take the small beer and age it on smoked oak chips. I have no idea if that’ll work or if it’s even possible but it sounds mighty good to me!). Dave managed to keep us quiet for a while as we cleaned out the mash tun. I went in with instructions of ‘push it towards the hole’. ‘I can do that’ I thought. I climbed a ladder and looked down. It was a pit of spent, hot, wet grain that looked like dark porridge. And it was pretty far down. It was at this point (the top of the ladder, no turning back) that a few things dawned on me: 1. I am terrible with heights. 2. I can go up ladders but not back down them. 3. I have a fear of sinking sand. Shit. ‘Just jump in’ Dave said, which was easy for him to say standing on the hard floor. With vertigo making everything swirl, the heat from below increasing the tension and a certain amount of pride at stake, I clambered up onto the narrow rim of the mash tun. Completely unstable and fearing a rather nasty fall (which only exacerbated the vertigo) I jumped in and slowly sunk about a foot, encased in a round tank, hot grain closing in, still sinking, not stopping. I gripped onto the side for dear life, the heat engulfing me, pulling me down. I almost yelled for help. But thankfully I stopped sinking. I was stable. I couldn’t move my legs but I wasn’t going further down. And I actually started to like the comfort of the heat through the wellies and the sweet smell of the grain as I began pushing and shoveling. Matt stood at the other end as I shoveled the hot stuff at him, frequently overzealously, burning his hands and making a real mess. Oops. With the tank clean I had to get back out again and I remembered my fear/inability of getting down ladders. Oh boy. I still had to climb out of the mash first, precariously balancing on the edge, trying not to look down as I made an awkward crab shape and tried to shuffle on to the ladder. I pretty much burnt my hand on the copper but I wasn’t letting go. I got a foot on the top wrung, then the other foot made it. It was a pretty sorry sight seeing me sweaty, shaking, covered in grist and coming down a ladder backwards, but I made it! We looked around the brewery some more and saw a few special things, including the sherry and Madeira casks that were used to make the Alliance trilogy. And you want to know something super-cool? These giant oak casks are now filled with Bracia! Yup, I know, how flipping awesome does that sound! We saw the special ingredients for one of their next brews: cocoa nibs, star anise and mandarin peel. We smelt plenty of hops (it may be geeky but I just love smelling the different hops). We tried some St. Petersburg stout aged on cocoa nibs which Stefano (the head brewer and all-round cool guy who had been busy in the office until then) declared to be very good (this declaration is a great sign for a beer; his tasting of it seemed to last forever, I was hoping that by saying I thought it was great I hadn’t made a complete palate faux pas, but a smile soon appeared and his eyes lit up. Phew.) We also got to check out some yeast which is analysed after every brew (fun science stuff which involved looking into a microscope!). They were checking some Jaipur yeast. Here comes a brutal yet beautiful truth of brewing Jaipur: the yeast dies to make it. It’s the ultimate sacrifice. It makes that beer and clearly realises that it has reached a certain pinnacle in its life and it can do no more. There’s something wonderfully romantic about that, I think. And we were even part of a little beer tasting in the office which allowed us to try three beers by Odell’s in Colorado. There aren’t many of their beers in the UK so this was pretty cool. The star was undoubtedly the IPA. Great stuff. When Kelly and Stef taste other breweries beers’ it’s clear to see why the Thornbridge beer is so good; their palates are sharper than Gordon Ramsay’s knife (and his tongue) and they pick up scents like hunting dogs. They swirl and sniff and pull out what they get, one flavour or aroma after the other, chasing them around the glass, searching for them. In the office we got to speak to Stef more. There were discussions of funk (Brettanomyces, that is) and barrel aging and I had a load of questions about the move to the new, bigger brewery. He is sorting it all out and the next few months are going to be crazy-busy for the guys up there. But the move will mean more beer so we’ll be able to get their stuff in more places and slake our thirsts much easier. They’ll also be able to knock out more bottles (they are playing around with bottle conditioning too, trying different yeasts, etc – more science stuff) which is a great thing. I am already excited about going up to visit the new place once it is up and running (eight trains you say?! I don’t care, I’d travel on double that to be there!) After work we hit their pub, the Coach and Horses. This is a dreamy place which is run by Kelly’s lovely girlfriend Catherine. We were in awe of the beer selection - bottled and cask. There were five Thornbridgers (not a typo) on cask and we started, in the only way possible, with Jaipur. It was just simply perfect. Biscuit and toffee malt base and then tropical fruits and hops-a-plenty giving a crisp and elegant finish. I could drink this all night. It was served through a sparkler though, a thing curious to my southern eyes. I asked for my second beer without the sparkler and to be honest I couldn’t taste a difference. It did however look better with the sparkler fitted. Kelly changed out of his work shirt and then it was just three mates at the pub talking about beer and music and TV and films and laser eye surgery and Korean food. Kelly then brought out his homemade lambic. Yeah, he ‘brews’ at home too. He’d taken some of their Blackthorn Ale (I was drinking that when he brought the lambic out, very nice indeed) and popped it into a bottle and left it to do its stuff for 18 months (there was some other detail to it, something about taking it from the pipes, I don’t know – Kelly, help me out here!). And it was really good. Creamy yet sharp yet sweet. Nice one. Dinner came next. Kelly, Matt and myself ordered three dishes and shared it around (it was a sharing kind of day). The oxtail was rich and oh-so-juicy, the brisket was like butter and the belly pork with Toulouse sausage and beans (a deconstructed cassoulet, if you like) was just brilliant (wicked crackling!). The menu is great, the food is proper pub grub and delicious and the portions are huge - this is a must-visit place. With dinner I had a pint of McConnels, their vanilla stout, which was magical (and made with real vanilla pods). It’s smooth, rich and roasty with a sweet hint of the vanilla. I’d wanted to try this for ages and wasn’t disappointed. Sadly there wasn’t time for dessert because we had to go. We didn’t want to, that’s for sure, but we had to. We did have time to split a bottle of Bracia before we left - a great way to end the day. And what an amazing day it was. A tiny insight into what’s going on up at Thornbridge and what’s to come. It was truly exciting and fascinating. It has made me taste better, think better and understand beer better. I now know the back-breaking effort that goes into making their beers, I’ve seen where it all comes from, I see everything that they do in the minute detail that they do it. I left invigorated and it has made me realise just why I love beer. Why it means so much. Why I spend the hours that I do searching for it, drinking it, reading about it, talking about it and writing about it. It makes all of that worthwhile when you see that there is so much passion on the other side and you see what the beer means to its brewers in places like Thornbridge. Innovation, passion and knowledge are their tag lines and you cannot fail to go anywhere without these being entirely evident. They know so much, they clearly love what they do and they want to try new things. There is so much energy around the place, it just feels right being around them, it feels comfortable and we felt welcome even though we were interrupting their hectic day with silly questions. But they all had so much time. And they are so generous too. Beer is for sharing and when you’ve got such great knowledge it just spills out and you cannot fail to learn an awesome amount from them. And the beer stands up to all of this. It is second to none. You just have to see the piles and piles of awards they have stacked up in the office to know this. You just have to try the beer to know this. On the train home I was sad to have left. I wanted to keep a piece of what I felt at the brewery with me. I wanted that feeling every day. But then I realised something. And it’s here as I sit down now with a Jaipur. We do get to feel a part of the brewery, we do get to experience it and we get it every time we drink their beer. That beer that we have in our hand is prepared with so much passion and enthusiasm that we taste the essence of the brewery, something special deep within it, something intangible, something missing from so many other beers. Their beers are ‘never ordinary’ - they are spectacular. They are special. The brewery is special. The people are special. Thornbridge is a remarkable place. And I thank them for allowing us that little insight into their world. If you want to buy their beers then go to beermerchants as they have the widest selection available that I've seen, including the Alliances, Bracia and the ever-so rare barrel-aged St Petersburgs. You can also get mini-casks from the brewery. And Kelly Ryan has a blog which you should be reading here.

A Beer Night

Beer nights rock. A few of us get together, everyone brings a few different bottles, we share them, discuss them and then for a little bit of competition we score each out of 10 to see which beer ends up the highest. It’s a great excuse to drink a load of quality beers with your mates.

There will always be a few expected stars in there and a few duds (that’s how we do it), but you never can predict just how well any particular beers will do and often completely different styles of beer receive similar scores. You do find yourself basing marks on the other scores you’ve already given (‘how many did I give the last beer? Because it wasn’t as good as that…blah blah blah…’). There’s nothing too scientific about it, it’s just guys drinking beer and awarding each individual one they drink a score.

Here’s what we had in the order we had it. We didn’t plan an exact route through the beers, although certain ones were placed at certain points for comparative reasons. And we saved the really big boys until the end. There were three of us - Me, Matt and Sean – and we were in Matt’s flat.

1. BrewDog. Chaos Theory. 7.1%. Matt’s choice.

We all loved this IPA but it was marked fairly conservatively as it was the first one up (you don’t want to set too high a benchmarch). It’s hopped with just the Nelson Sauvin and all that mega concentrated fruit flavour booms out the glass. It’s got that addictive IPA quality about it. This was the prototype version.

Mark: 7.5
Matt: 7.5
Sean: 7
Total: 22

2&3. BrewDog Zeitgeist Prototype vs. BrewDog Zeitgeist ‘Real’. 4.9%. Everyone’s choice.

Us three Men of Kent spent the previous evening knocking back Zeitgeist at the beer’s launch so we wanted to do an immediate comparison between the old and new. The new was smoother, with a greater depth of flavour and topped off with those citrusy hops.

Mark: Prototype: 6, Real: 7
Matt: Prototype: 5.5, Real: 7
Sean: Prototype: 5.5, Real: 7
Total: Prototype: 17, Real: 21

4. Westvleteren 8. 8%. My choice.

I’ve had it in the cupboard for a while now and thought I’d crack it open to share (beers like this are so much better to share with fellow beer lovers). I wanted this early in the night while we were still fresh. We all knew the mythical status of the brewery and the respect it garners from the beer world so it was surrounded by discussions of psychology (which I’ll write about soon) and how we expect greatness from such beers which then affects our perceptions of them.

None of us had tried this beer before. It pours a deep ruby colour and the nose is all dried fruit sweetness and tea bread. It’s very complex with each mouthful picking out different flavours. It tasted very fresh and clean, a slight bitterness to end, lots of sweet tea, something oaky, candy sugar… there’s a lot going on. It’s really drinkable and moreish but despite the complexity it has a simple, fresh quality to it.

Beer Advocate has this as the 8th best beer in the world. Is it? We didn’t think so. Maybe it gets better with age, maybe we just didn’t fall under the Westy spell. It’s a very very good Belgian beer, just not the best.

Mark: 7.5
Matt: 7
Sean: 6.5
Total: 21

So it scored 21, that same as BrewDog’s Zeitgeist. Are they the same in reality? No. But Zeitgeist gets marks because it’s a beer that you can drink lots of, one that can be enjoyed all the time. Westvleteren is completely different, almost incomparable. Maybe we even marked the Westvletern down because it didn’t live up to the heights of greatness that we anticipated.

5. Becks. Alcohol Free. 0.05%. My choice.

A dud thrown in for fun and deliberately placed after the Westy 8. The marks speak for themselves but here were a few quotes: ‘it smells like arse’, ‘pointless’, ‘like licking copper pipes, but at least the pipes might have mould on that would taste of something, and probably the most succinct, ‘fucking shit’.

Mark: 0.5
Matt: 1
Sean: 0.5
Total: 2

6. Okell's. Aile. 4.7%. Sean’s choice.

A ‘Smoked Celtic Porter’. It’s got a great looking cappuccino head, there’s a hint of charcoal and bonfire in the nose but the smoke is really lulling and gentle. It’s very smooth and drinkable. We all loved this beer and we all were sad when the bottle was finished. Superb.

Mark: 7.5
Matt: 7.5
Sean: 8
Total: 23

7. Whim Ales. Dr. Johnson’s Definitive. 5.0%. Sean’s choice.

None of us had seen or heard of this beer before and we will probably quickly forget it; it was just okay. A fruity dark ale, some spice, cereal and dried fruits. Probably affect by following up the excellent Okell’s Aile.

Mark: 6.5
Matt: 6
Sean: 6
Total: 18.5

8. Stone Brewing. Ruination IPA. 7.7%. My choice.

I didn’t know when to bring this big gun out. It has a ruining effect (100+ IBUs!) on your palate and I didn’t want us to all just be tasting pine, orange and grapefruit for the rest of the night. So we had it before dinner, figuring that the food would clear our palates.

This is one addictively good beer. It’s brutally elegant in the cyclical nature that it makes you drink: sweet first then bitter which blows up in your mouth, then you want the sweetness again to ease the rampant hops and so on and so on… Incredible. Sean is a dark beer guy and Ruination IPA may well have changed his life forever (it changed my life when I first had it!).

Mark: 9
Matt: 9
Sean: 8.5
Total: 26.5

Next up: Dinner.

Matt’s lives right by a fish and chip shop so we just went there for something cheap and sustaining. I had burger and chips, Matt had sausage and chips and Sean devoured two huge battered sausages and chips (although did later complain of blurred vision). In keeping with the scoring, here’s what we gave the food:

Mark: 6
Matt: 6
Sean: 5
Total: 17

9. Desperados. 5.9%. Everyone’s choice!

A beer with huge sentimental value for all of us. We have demolished a fair few kegs and bottles of this trashy-delicious beer. It’s a tequila beer that you serve with lime. It’s quite unique, kinda sweet and limey. The flavour is just so familiar to all of us that we were gushing with Desperados-induced memories throughout. This scores highly because we love it for its sentimental value (plus it just tastes pretty good! Our trashy beer of choice!).

Mark: 7
Matt: 8
Sean: 8
Total: 23

Yes, it scored higher than Westvleteren 8!

10. Rogue. Dead Guy Ale. 6.5%. Sean’s choice.

A copper coloured maibock. Loads of apple and spice. Fairly drinkable but unfortunately it just wasn’t anything special, and by this time we were all getting pretty discernible, wanting nothing less than awesome (that’s what a Desperados will do to you/us!).

Mark: 6
Matt: 4
Sean: 4
Total: 14

11. Fuller’s. Vintage Ale 2004. 8.5%. Matt’s choice.

We stepped it up from here. This beer is older than the friendship between Matt and I which he bought it in our first year at uni together. We had two and opened one almost two years ago before we left uni. This is a sentimental beer that has been loving looked after.

It was bottle number 05325. Russet coloured with a big sherry and dried fruit nose with caramel and vanilla. It’s gorgeously complex with honeycomb, dates, marmalade, liquorice, oak, sherry and cherry… every mouthful gave us more and more flavours and complexity. We all agreed that it was probably the best beer that we’ve each tried. The sad thing is that we’ve had it for almost 5 years and now it’s gone forever!

Mark: 9.5
Matt: 9.5
Sean: 9
Total: 28

12. Goose Island. Bourbon County Stout. 13%. My choice.

I’ve had this knocking around for a while now and thought the beer night would be a great time to open it. If we thought the Fuller’s was unbeatable then this gave it a fair old fight. It’s an amazing beer. Black, oily, huge boozy bourbon nose, vanilla and coconut. It’s thick and rich, woody, vinous, chocolatey with a berry sweetness. It’s complex and warming and flipping good. I’ve got another hiding away for a few years time.

Mark: 9
Matt: 9
Sean: 9.5
Total: 27.5

13. BrewDog. Paradox Isle of Arran. 10%. Sean’s choice.

We probably should’ve had this before the Bourbon County as it’s fairly similar just a lot more mellow and toned down. It still stood up to the plate but it was stuck in the shadow of the beer before. But this is one of the best beers I’ve had this year and I love it. It’s chocolate and vanilla and coconut and cherry and ginger and berries and it’s superb. It’s like the Bourbon County’s little brother who may not be as strong and up in your face but is probably more intelligent and complex.

Mark: 9
Matt: 8
Sean: 8
Total: 25

14. Port Brewing. Wipeout IPA. 7%. My choice.

Another big IPA, this one to end off the night. This is hopped with Amarillo, Centennial, Cascade, Simcoe and Summit. It’s golden with a huge orange pith and juice aroma. It’s rich and boozy with hard-hitting, dry tangy hops which just keep getting more and more bitter. There isn’t too much sweetness either, which can be a problem with beers hopped to the eyeballs. A good IPA but after the glories of the Ruination anything big and bitter was going to fall short.

Mark: 7.5
Matt: 7
Sean: 7.5
Total: 22

And that was the end of the beer night. Although, there was still one bottle hanging around, but it only seemed fitting to have it in the morning with…

Breakfast... Sausage and black pudding sandwiches. Proper food and just the job to deal with the after effects of the night before. The breakfast scores:

Mark: 7.5
Matt: 8
Sean: 8.5
Total: 24

And with breakfast we had…

15. Mikkeller. Beer Geek Breakfast. 7.5%. My choice.

A rich coffee stout, bitter and roasted and full of proper coffee flavours. It has a great grassy/earthy hop finish which perfectly matches the coffee and dark chocolate notes. I thought this was a great (breakfast) beer, but it was probably marked down overall because of our slightly delicate states.

Mark: 7
Matt: 5.5
Sean: 6
Total: 18.5

So there it was. Great fun and a load of great beer. A strong and varied line-up and really interesting to compare so many different styles and flavours. The Fuller’s Vintage was champion of the night but the Goose Island was very close behind and the Ruination was right up there. I guess the big shock was Westvleteren not making the top five and Desperados being in there. The best beers are the best beers, and we agreed universally, but there is also something very important about sentimental value. The Top 5:

1. Fuller’s Vintage 2004
2. Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout
3. Stone’s Ruination IPA
4. BrewDog’s Paradox Isle of Arran
5. Okells Aile and Desperados (joint fifth)

In last place:

Becks Alcohol Free (that was kind of a gimme)

And breakfast beat dinner.

After breakfast we went to the White Horse in Parson’s Green and had a few great beers (Meantime IPA off tap was brilliant) and then out to a Belgian restaurant for dinner (I had Delirium Tremens off tap to start and a Rochefort 8 for main). Then we went to another pub and none of us ordered a beer. I’m guessing we were all feeling pretty beered-out!

The Next Big Thing Will Be...

In recent years the US craft beer movement has super-sized beer all round. Beer is brewed to extremes of strength and bitterness. There has been a lot of barrel aging, mainly oak barrels which previously held whisky or bourbon. ‘Old’ styles have been brought into the 21st century – imperial stouts, new-skool IPAs, porters. Bottled beer choice has got wider, while limited edition cask beer in brewpubs achieves major notoriety. Beer release dates are talked about as if they are the opening day of the summer’s most anticipated blockbuster movie. Certain beers are creating legends of themselves. But what I’m wondering is what is next. Here’s a few possibilities…

Is sour the next big thing? Beer forums seem to be predicting that sour is the new bitter. I don’t know about this one, and I’m not convinced by wild beers and lambics yet (I haven’t had one which has made me fall in love with it). I haven’t quite acquired the taste for tart, dry, acetic, sour beers. They could be the next (logical?) step but I don’t see them becoming mainstream, at least not in the UK.

There’s bound to be more barrel aging. Maybe with the use of different barrels like brandy, cherry brandy, calvados, wine and madeira explored further. Aging styles other than imperial stout could soon take off too. Or perhaps there will be blends from different casks - the same beer but half of it aged in bourbon and the other half aged in cherry brandy - then mixed together.

On the topic of blending, maybe the next craze will be the pimping of the black and tan. IPAs with stouts; double IPAs with imperial stout. Maybe kriek and porter; lager and dark lager; two different vintages of the same beer; lager and bitter (?!). I made a snakebite at a beer festival once with an 8% cider and an 8% ale – I can’t honestly remember what it was like (it was the last beer of the night and seemed like a good idea!). Maybe this kind of thing is best left to personal experimentation.

And what about new styles of beer? Black IPAs, imperial lagers (is such a thing even possible?!), 10% ABV bitters, malty-sweet wild beer, vegetable beers, savoury beers.

Belgian-style beer is cool in the US, so maybe we will see more British brewers copying Belgian styles? Or US brewers Americanizing Belgian beers, creating bigger versions of the styles (turning the triple up to a quintuple or sextuple?!).

I think the market for ‘special’ beers will increase as will the production of ‘vintage’ beers. This’ll probably mean more one-off brews, better bottle conditioning for super longevity and more expensive single bottles. Beer as commodity.

On the reverse of the vintages, what about ultra-fresh beers designed to be drunk within a few days or weeks out of the fermentation tank. Especially designed to grip hold of that fresh hop aroma and flavour.

One trend I’d like to see is more single hop beers showcasing the unique qualities of just one hop variety, perhaps using the same base beer with each brew having a different hop added to it.

Super-sessionable beers, like milds and golden ales, to be drunk in the pub.

Will cans be the new bottles?

What about the use of ‘active’ ingredients? Look at BrewDog’s Speedball. Or the use of things such as ginseng, taurine, omega-3, vitamins and minerals. Just the thing for those searching for something more nutritious or more ‘out-there’.

And beer will hopefully become more global with more access to beers from all over the world. This will be helped by collaborations between brewers from different countries.

Is this what the next year-or-so has in store? What do you think?

Thornbridge Brewery

Yesterday I met Stefano and Kelly from Thornbridge Brewery. It was a meet the brewer event held and arranged by lovebeeratborough. Basically, we beer fans turn up and get to listen to the chaps from the brewery talk about their beers while we sit there drinking them. It was brilliant fun!

Thornbridge Brewery’s tagline is ‘Never Ordinary’ and I like that; it’s fun, playful, open, experimental, forward-thinking. Hearing these guys talk about their beers, enthusing passionately, eloquently, intelligently, articulately, is fascinating. They are more like rock-stars or movie-stars, with their good-looks, cool dress sense and long, dark hair, than they are brewers. Stefano, the Head Brewer, is Italian and has this shy-blasé-cool thing going on, he’s softly spoken but everything he says I want to listen to. And Kelly, the Production Manager, a New Zealander, is like a mate you haven’t met yet, instantly friendly and a guy you’d love to sit down with and ’chat beer’ for hours. Seriously, these guys make the whole science of brewing super sexy and they know so much; they speak the language of beer like poets.

The first beer we tried was Seven Heron, a 3.8% pale golden ale created by Melissa Cole (a partner with LoveBeer and a cool beer writer). The beer is light and quenching with plenty of nibbling hops to finish. A good way to ease us in to the sampling session.

Next came Jaipur, their most known beer and a quality drop. It’s a 5.9% IPA hopped with Chinook, Centennial and Ahtanum. There’s a big malty base beneath the biting hops, with lots of grapefruit and tropical fruits. I’d had the bottled version which was ‘softer’, fruitier and more buttery caramel malt, but the cask stuff was super. Jaipur is one of the best British IPAs around right now (Punk IPA, Meantime and Skrimshander are up there for me too). They call it dangerously drinkable and have even verbalised the name - I am Jaipured – as an expression of drunkenness.

A special edition of Halcyon, a very gluggable 7.7% IPA, followed. It was a 2008 vintage of a new idea at Thornbridge (the idea, if my fuzzy head remembers correctly, is to take the big base of Halcyon and add a different hop to it each year creating a vintage which shows off the qualities of that individual hop and the hops’ terroir). This beer is wet hopped with Green Hereford Targets (there’s some Derbyshire Fuggles in there too and they use a Belgian yeast) and was fantastic; unbelievably fresh with citrus fruits and strawberry aromas, biscuity malt and then great aromatic hops.

Things stepped up from here and went into awesome mode. The chaps brought out Alliance, an 11% strong ale which was only bloody brewed with beer mega-star Garrett Oliver! But they didn’t just bring one, there were three… The normal Alliance; one which was then aged for another two months in Pedro Ximinez Spanish oak casks; and one that was aged for three more months in American oak casks which previously held Madeira. We had them in a vertical-style tasting and that was insanely good. The base beer is stunning, fruity and bold; the sherry cask took on a dried fruit quality and a big richness; the Madeira cask was nutty and full of juicy stone fruits. Matt, my date for the event, loved the original one best, while I was torn between the other two, changing my mind with each sniff and sip of the gloriously intoxicating beers. This was an incredible and unique experience and fascinating to see how barrel-aging imparts its own characteristics. Wow-inducing.

We valiantly continued. Next came Handel which was around 6% (I don’t remember the specifics; I was already reminiscing about the Alliance) and created in collaboration with a young American girl who visited the brewery to try her homebrew on a larger scale. This was another special beer, a one-off. It had all the qualities of a Belgian beer with the spicy fruit aromas suggesting it’ll be thick and syrupy, but it’s actually wonderfully light and drinkable, surprisingly so. It’s a Euro-American mix and a damn good one.

One more. And it ended with a bang: Bracia. I had tried this the week before and adored it. It’s 9%, thick and dark, brewed with Italian chestnut honey (which is surprisingly bitter) and bottled conditioned with Champagne yeast. This is one of the best looking beers I’ve seen in ages with its deep brown head (excuse the poor picture quality; I was in such lusty admiration of the beer that I had to hurriedly snap it). It has amazing aromas of chocolate and honey, loads of nuts and coffee. My tasting notes from home even features the word Pfwoar! There’s a load of dark chocolate in the mouth, bitterness, some berries, smoke and a hint of something zingy and fresh. It’s boozy and strong, rich and complex and there’s a fascinating earthy/beefy/savoury note which will make it a brilliant match for chocolate desserts.

And that was that. We stayed around after chatting to Stefano and Kelly which was great. They are so friendly and approachable and hearing them talk about their beer is brilliant; they speak with pride and love and their enthusiasm is contagious. It’s fascinating to hear about the brewery and their set-up, the way they have progressed and the way they think as brewers. They stand behind the terms ‘Innovation’, ‘Passion’ and ‘Knowledge’ and spending just two hours with them and their beers, these terms shine through: when you hear about it from these guys, beer is not just beer, it’s a whole lot more than that.

Afterwards we went down into the Rake to drink some more of their beers (they are on tap in there all week so make sure you hurry down, if not you can buy their stuff from Utobeer in Borough Market). Between us we had a Seven Heron (lovely), a Halcyon (fantastically drinkable, big), Jaipur (much hoppier off cask compared to the bottle, but brilliant for that reason) and we were lucky enough to grab a cheeky half of Saint Petersburg Imperial Stout (7.7%) which was mind-blowing: rich and creamy, smoothly chocolaty, just gorgeous.

Then I had to go home and I left for the train suitable Jaipured. Thank you Thornbridge and LoveBeer, I had a fantastic time.

BrewDog’s IPA Adventure

The awesome guys at BrewDog are at it again, this time they’re going back to the origins of the IPA.

They’ve found a 200-year-old IPA recipe made with English malts and English hops, which they’ve brewed, placed in big oak casks and sent it to sea along with James, BrewDog’s Managing Director (it should be in safe hands as it’s his dad’s trawler - the one in the picture - and James himself used to be a captain!). When it returns it’ll be further conditioned in Champagne bottles and sold to celebrate their 2nd birthday.

IPAs are big business now and the style has developed massively from its simple origins (brewed strong and hopped heavily to survive the long sea journey from England to India). There are loads of IPAs being brewed in England and around the world, but they can hardly be associated with the beer that would’ve been tasted 200 years ago. IPA is now the name for a beer which is around 5-6% ABV; full of biscuity, caramel malts; has a load of tropical fruit flavours and a big hit of crisp hop bitterness at the end. The American C-hops have seen the style develop even further - first over there and now over here - with their zingy citrus flavours, pine and grapefruit. And these new style IPAs have been vamped-up into double and imperial monsters, testing the limits of bitterness and strength.

This BrewDog beer will be a huge rewind in the tradition of the style: it’ll be an Old IPA, the first that we’ll be able to taste as modern beer drinkers. It’s certainly a beer with a big story!

BrewDog are charting the adventure on their blog and the first update went on today (the original announcement is here). Keep following the blog, it’s a great one; funny, witty, intelligent and the videos are great!

And if you like this… Pete Brown did a similar thing last year when he recreated the original journey of an IPA and took a cask brewed in Burton-on-Trent, England, to Calcutta, India via sea. He’s writing the book about it now, which I can’t wait to read. He also has a tremendous blog that you should be reading (he's got all about his journey on there).

Bye 2008 and Hi 2009!

I’ve had a good beer-year. I’ve drunk a lot of great stuff, I’ve learnt a lot about beer, my tastes have developed and my palate has matured and all of it has left me thirsty for more.

The best thing about beer is the memories which it helps to create. I can remember the worst beers I’ve drunk as fondly as the best; I remember days out specifically by the beers I tasted; I remember particular nights in the pub with friends where the beer was gulped between laughter and conversation; I remember being massively undercharged for a very expensive double IPA at the Pig’s Ear Beer Festival and it being beautiful; I remember the pork scratchings at the Great British Beer Festival; I remember finding two Greek craft beers on a tiny Ionian island; I remember ordering a beer and diet coke on holiday and receiving them together, in the same glass; I remember heated discussions about beer with beer lovers, excited ramblings, and lectures directed at my lager-loving chums; I remember all the times that I’ve told my girlfriend just how good my current beer is (and I remember how she always listens and how she always remembers what I say). I've also forgotton quite a lot of stuff too...

This isn’t a ‘Best Of’ kind of list; it’s a compilation of those beers which have stuck in my mind because they have been the most enjoyable and memorable throughout 2008.

Anything IPA from BrewDog. Punk IPA is the best IPA currently being brewed in Britain. And one of the best bottled beers available in the supermarket. Massive American C-hops and as juicy as a tropical fruit salad with a big backbone of maltiness. And Chaos Theory - a prototype beer that’s going into production for 2009 - an aggressive copper-coloured IPA with a sweet tropical fruit nose, a load of toffee and caramel malt and then a tidal wave of tangy hops to finish, with pineapple and grapefruit dominating. It’s so good because it’s so addictively moreish.

Anything black from BrewDog. The collaboration with Danish Beerhouse for their Coffee Imperial Stout is a brilliant beer: thick and creamy, rich and strong. Sweetly oaky flavours, some berry sweetness, loads of coffee and dark chocolate, smoke and leather and a hint of zesty citrus to finish. It made my day when I cracked open the first bottle of this. RipTide was the best ‘standard’ stout I drank all year (by standard I mean a stout that isn’t imperial, barrel-aged or which doesn’t have anything else in it, e.g. coffee). It’s liquid velvet – the beer equivalent of a big Californian Zinfandel. Then there’s Tokyo which is a glorious beast. And how could I leave out the Paradox beers. The Imperial Stout base is so drinkable, but when added to different whisky casks it grows into something altogether new and exciting.

Cains' Fine Raisin Beer. In the bottle this is a really good beer, malty and sweet and very easy drinking, but it qualifies for this list because of the Great British Beer Festival where it was on tap. It was the most memorable beer of the day, so easy drinking, clean and delicious.

Curious Brew’s Brut. Lager fermented with sparkling wine yeast and made at Chapel Down winery in Kent. It’s a pale amber with champagne-style bubbles; light but full flavoured; biscuity, creamy and clean; an apple sweetness comes through and the hop finish is crisp and smooth.

Badger’s Poacher’s Choice. This beer wasn’t one of the best that I’ve had this year, but it’s on the list because it made me smile from first sniff to last sip. It’s a moreishly fruity beer, giggle-inducing, full of creamy berry sweetness which was like blackberry crumble and blackcurrant chewy sweets. Intriguing and fun.

Stone’s Ruination IPA. A monstrous hop explosion and probably the freshest, juiciest tasting beer I’ve ever had. A mouthful of oranges and grapefruit and a brutal slap of bitterness.

Robinson's Chocolate Old Tom. A crazy-tasting beer rammed full of sweet milk chocolate. I had this after the Pig’s Ear Beer Festival and it was all I could taste the next day!

Fuller’s London Pride. Always will be on the list. My go-to beer and the beer I opened to celebrate finishing my Master’s (at 2.30 in the morning while I was watching baseball). Golden Pride out of the cask at the Jugged Hare was pretty special too.

And the ‘most interesting beer’…

BrewDog’s Storm. An 8% IPA aged in Islay whisky cask. The aroma was a punch of smoke, medicinal and harsh, although I thought I could detect the faintest suggestion of tropical fruit in there, as well as some oak. It’s a mindfuck. Insane. It’s so smoky and peaty from the barrel, then there’s a big hit of tangy hops and a long, earthy, woody, dusty, smoky finish. It’s intriguing in the same way as a car crash in that you can’t stop looking and going back for more. And it’s somehow moreish. I still haven’t really decided if I like it or not. The best thing about it is the way it makes me think and how it challenges what I thought I knew about beer, giving me flavours that I’ve never before experienced in a beer. I’ve got another bottle in the cupboard which I’ll try again soon.

While I’m at it here’s another category.

Best beer books…

To write stuff you need to read stuff. Looking up at my shelf I thought I’d give a nod to the books which have impressed me most this year.

First is Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham’s Good Beer Guide West Coast USA. This is like beer porn to my young eyes. I read about these glorious delights that await me but I cannot yet get to them – I become a beer voyeur; watching, waiting, reading, fantasizing. New Years Resolution – to save really really hard to be able to afford a trip myself.

Next are two older books, but ones which I have only read this year. These are Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion and Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table. Michael Jackson is simply the greatest beer writer ever (who sadly died in 2008). He can express his thoughts on beer in the most succinct and fabulous way, in a style which leaves me feeling awe at how he manages to place one word after another to create such perfect sentences. And Garrett Oliver, which I’ll admit that I’ve only read a few chapters of so far, but as soon as I started on the introduction I could feel myself easing into his big open arms with his fantastically simple, warm and effective prose and evocative writing skill – it’s a big old book and one I can’t wait to get totally lost in.

Bring on 2009 and all the beer it has to offer me.

Christmas Beer: The Results

The BrewDog Coffee Imperial Stout was one of the very best beers I’ve had this year. Seriously good. Thick and luscious, rich and strong and big on the roasted coffee bitterness. It was the perfect start to the day, and just so happened to work perfectly with milk chocolate pennies.

As billed, the Bad Pixie came next as was the perfect follow-on from the big stout – light, zingy, refreshing. Next was a bottle of Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic. Electric red with a sharply sour nose of citrus, lemons, leather, cleaning chemicals and just a welcome whiff of cherry. The flavour was just the same, all big and sharp but tongue-smacking and drinkable – perfect for getting the tastebuds going. Curious Brew’s Brut landed just before the starter and it was fantastic: light and delicate, as quaffable as they come; a real treat of a beer.

The headline act - the star with top billing and the best action scene - was Innis & Gunn’s Triple Matured, and it was the perfect partner to the turkey. I was delighted with how well this pairing went. The buttery richness of the oak, the big fruitiness, the slight sharpness, an earthy, spicy quality all combined stunningly well. The food enhanced the beer; the beer enhanced the food. That’s what a good match-up should do.

I finished the afternoon opening more presents, so I decided to open a little package of my own from the beer cupboard: Fuller’s Brewer’s Reserve. Bottle number 11255. A deep russet brown with thick head. Big buttery nose with boozy oranges and sweet candy. Loads of toffee and bready malt inside, then oak comes and adds a woody sweetness. The whisky warms throughout, surrounded by plenty of fruit and a hint of cherry brandy. There’s hops at the end too, more fruits and more orange. Gorgeous and I think it’s going to get better and better over the years.

There was more in the evening, but to tell you the truth I don’t remember exactly what. I know there was a can (shock! A can?!) of Mild in there and I’m pretty sure I met with my old friend Sam Smith… It was a good day.

Harder, Faster, Bigger, Better… Double my IPA!

Our tastes change and develop. And because taste is subjective, everyone is different. My favourite cheese used to be a mature cheddar, now I want the mouldiest, stinkiest, creamiest blue I can find. A few years ago a sprinkle of curry powder was too much, now I want whole chillis, freshly ground spices and I want my mouth to tingle. I started drinking my coffee with ½ a heap of granules plus two of sugar, now it’s no sugar and three times the coffee. Booze too: Malibu and coke is now bourbon and ice; beer was lager; white wine was mixed with lemonade; Guinness started with a dash of blackcurrant to soften the roast bitterness…

But what is common about all these?!

The more we have them, the more we want them as we ‘acquire’ the taste. These acquired tastes are for those things which are unnatural to our palettes: spicy foods, dark chocolate, salty oysters. To begin we have sweet chilli sauce, milk or white chocolate, fish fingers…

But tastes change.

I got into beer by drinking lager-pop. I’d have bitter shandies. I eased into Guinness, with a shot of blackcurrant cordial. I started on ales by having smoother, sweeter dark beers, and for the last few years it has been these dark beers that I have regularly leaned towards. I love them for their richness, the sweetness, the flavour of the grain, the taste of autumn fruit, dried fruit, caramel, chocolate or coffee. I preferred them for their relative lack of hop bitterness. And I was always searching for bigger and stronger beers, winter warmer’s, barley wines, Belgian triple’s, anything black and imperial. I was a malt monster.

But my taste is changing.

It seems there are two growing divisions in the beer world. These aren’t divisions away from each other, rather two interweaving and developing trends. Both are towards the extremes of flavour; one is for IPAs and the other for stouts. These new imperial or double IPAs are mega-hopped and massively bitter; the imperial stouts are thick, strong beasts, often aged in some-kind-of barrel to impart bourbon/oak characteristics. You just have to look on Beer Advocate at the best rated beers in the world right now to see this, and the trend seems to be growing. It started in America as they brought older styles to modern drinking.

We all know the history of IPA, which was shipped from England to India with added strength and hops to stop it going off on the boat trip. While (imperial) stouts have a similar-ish background, being brewed in London in the 18th century and transported to Russian Czars. For this reason it had to be extra-strong and well-hopped to survive the distance and the extreme cold. The styles have been around ever since, but it’s only in the last years that they have become the phenomenas that they are. Any why? Because tastes change.

In beer, the change has come as drinkers want ‘more’. More booze, more grain, more hops, more character, more flavour, more extremes, more history, more age, more more more. It’s the IPAs which have really piqued my interest of late. IPAs never really did it for me. That was until I tried BrewDog’s Punk IPA (available in Tesco’s – a perfect modern IPA) and their Chaos Theory (simply amazing and currently available on their website, but hurry!). After these the malt monster in me transformed into a hop-headed thrill-seeker.

The bitterness in these beer is high, but that’s what makes them so awesome. They have a supreme drinkability which makes you want to go back for more and more. In the mouth you get the sweet caramel grain then the hops flood in and ambush your palate, making the saliva glands gush, as the tropical fruits, citrus and pine flavours come through. It’s intoxicating what a few extra hops can do to you. For me, they work because the beer develops in layers: massive malt (it has to be massive to attain the extra higher ABVs) followed by the wave of juicy hops. The reason the ‘best beers’ are the ‘best beers’ is because they are so well balanced. It’s easy to go extreme on a beer, but it’s surely much harder to make it good. The same applies to food. Look at the top chefs in the world and their food – it challenges what we think we know about eating and food combinations, but it works because of the chef’s skill and supreme palate make it work.

I find it fascinating how our taste buds change, especially with stronger flavours. Blue cheese, slippery-salty oysters and coffee are foods which take some getting used to. The same applies to stronger, bigger beers. And the limits are always being pushed. Sam Adams’ Utopia is brewed at around 27% (it’s a beer!). Your ‘standard’ imperial stout now comes in at around 10% and if it isn’t aged in a bourbon barrel for extra complexity then why bother? And where a mass-produced lager may have 5-20 IBUs (International Bitterness Units – the scale of measuring a beer’s bitterness) and English bitter 20-40 IBUs, there are some double IPAs which measure in at 120 IBUs and beyond! That’s enough to make your taste buds explode!!

Barrel-aged stouts are incredibly exciting and complex and they are brilliant to sit down with on a cold night, swirl around a snifter and sip for while. It’s sophisticated, it’s smooth, rich in flavour, it’ll make you think about the world, think about the barrel it came from, the history that it has. But a double IPA is like a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs and twists and turns. It’s fresh, fun, intoxicating and exciting. It makes you want more and more as your taste for it develops. Who knows where it’ll go from here!

BrewDog

BrewDog. Where the most exciting beers coming out of the UK right now are being made right now.

They’ve got a superb lager, two pale ales (one of them an imperial monster), an amber beer and a stout (a big boy’s stout at 8%) - check out their choice here. They also have their Paradox selection, which is imperial stout aged in whisky casks. Barrel aging is the ‘in-thing’ in brewing right now, the BrewDog difference is that they’ve used a variety of casks through the different ‘editions’ of their Paradox brew, with each barrel imparting its own unique characteristics through the aging. This is a great selection on its own, especially for somewhere which only started making beers in April 2007. But they don’t stop there… They move upwards and outwards, way beyond anything any other brewer is doing in the UK right now. And here is where they get awesome.

Tokyo is a 12% imperial stout brewed with jasmine and cranberries and aged in oak. Just reading about that one makes me dizzy with excitement.

Speedball is a cheeky new one, a very different kind of strong ale brewed with guarana, Californian poppy, kola nut and Scottish heather honey. I don’t even know how this one works, it’s mind boggling!

And another, which is coming soon: Zephyr. When I first read about this one I literally screamed because my brain couldn’t cope with that much excitement. It’s an imperial IPA, aged in an old (1965 old) whisky casks with fresh strawberries added. I just want one now!

They are also selling three prototype beers (three of each for a bargain £12.99 delivered – I ordered mine yesterday, get yours here) which in their own words are ‘to see if any of them are good enough to make their way into the BrewDog 2009 line up’. The selection is between a black lager, a wheat beer brewed with juniper berries and lemon peel, and a heavily-hopped IPA.

The newest venture involves us, their beer drinking fans. They are going to make a beer democratically chosen by online voters. Each Saturday, starting yesterday, for the next five weeks, they give the ongoing choices in the development of a beer. So we choose exactly what happens along the way.

This week there was the choice between what style it should be (including a black IPA which is a new one to me!), next comes the malt and target alcohol level, then hops, followed by the ‘specialty process’ (the stage where the beer potentially becomes something insanely interesting) and finally the name and packaging.

What a unique and brilliant idea?! I’ll be voting each week and I’ll certainly be buying whatever the finished result is, even if it’s just to see what the beer drinkers’ choice can do. And check out the video blogs, they are funny guys - it’s clear to see where all the personality of their beer comes from.