Hooky Dark

Even though it is silly season, I have been keeping a level headed approach. Sadly that means I have not been drinking as much as I should be as I hate seasonal drinkers in pubs. They are the worst kind, clutching their pints of Peroni thinking they know what good beer is and overlooking the brilliance on offer on the handpumps.

My mate Chris (with the big head) used to be one of these types, but I have slowly brought him round and now he is borderline open minded. Anyhow, Chris is planning a pub crawl tomorrow from Hampstead to Highgate and wanted to borrow my CAMRA London pub walks book. He had a narrow window of time in which he could pick up the book on Wednesday evening so I arranged to meet him at the Melton Mowbray on High Holborn with the view of getting a pint of Fuller's London Porter in. Sadly when I arrived he had already ordered me a pint of Discovery, despite the fact that it could have snowed at any minute! To be fair they didn't have the Porter on and had Fuller's other seasonal beer Jack Frost which I don't really care for, but I am willing to be open minded!

Anyhow we ended up going round the corner to The Castle for a second pint and after negotiating my way past Peroni drinkers, I finally managed to 'secure' two pints of Hooky Dark (3.2% abv) which is the Hook Norton Brewery's Mild offering. This beer was lovely and certainly carries a lot more flavour than it's abv suggests. The conditioning was reaching the end of it's stretch though and some oxidized flavours were starting to come through. I don't understand how The Castle can keep 7 handpumps on all the time when they have a predominately lager drinking crowd?

Anyhow, my year at work here is about to wrap up and a few of us are heading down The Gunmakers for a beer. This will be my last post till the new year as I am off on a beer adventure of sorts (ok, I am following my in-laws around Europe, but there will be beer). First stop is Munich for a short one nighter on Monday followed by 3 nights and xmas in Salzburg, 3 nights in Vienna, 3 nights and New years in Prague, then a short hop to Amsterdam for 2 nights, Brugge 2 nights and finally Paris 2 nights and back at work on Jan 8. I should have lots to blog about on my return, but hopefully in a revamped format for episodes post NYE.

For now, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Tim

Rosey Nosey

Another beer I probably should not have bothered with, but seeing as I was faced with the option of Bombardier or Rosey Nosey (4.9 % abv), I opted for the latter. It was late on Sunday afternoon and I was hanging to get some lunch in. I managed to persuade the Aussie delegation sleeping on our floor to join me at The Queens Head on Brook Green for a meal and a couple of pints. I ordered the Bangers and Mash which was excellent and the pub was packed. Obviously the credit crunch is not affecting business here! The pub has also recently been refurbed and no longer smells musty, and it is now a lot lighter/brighter than it used to be.

Anyhow, Rosey Nosey is brewed by Bateman's and has a novelty pump clip featuring a life like beard and a glowing/flashing nose. They had this on at The Gunmaker's last week and one of the chaps commented that if Jeff grew his beard back, he would look the same. I tend to agree, but is Santa really a Geordie?

Website

Whitstable Bay

As I mentioned in another post, my brother in law is in town. Being an average Australian fellow, he has not had any exposure to real ale before and I thought a light refreshing ale with a 'down under' flavour would appeal to him. In this sense, I picked up a couple of bottles of Shepherd Neame's Whitstable Bay Organic Ale (4.5% abv) from Morrisons.

This beer is organic and is brewed with organic British malt and organic hops from New Zealand. For those who are slightly out of touch, New Zealand has the most exciting and promising new varieties of hops in the world. The new varieties such as Nelson Sauvin and Saaz D put the US varieties to shame and readily available despite the alleged 'world hop crisis'.

Anyhow, moving back to the beer! It has a slightly sweet malt flavour, with a nice dry bitter aftertaste. the kind of beer that you want after mowing the lawn on a hot summers day (which need not apply in the UK!). Anyhow, the verdict from the brother in law? "It's ok, but not as good as Tooheys Extra Dry". You can't win them all!

Whitstable bay is brewed at Shepherd Neame's brewery in Faversham. they have a website which is pretty good. I am also on the lookout for some of their delicious Porter which started to get distributed last weekend.

Bangla

As my brother in law is in town with his girlfriend for a few days we decided to take them on a trip to Brick Lane to sample some of London's finest curry. Our destination was Aladdin, which apparently was praised by Prince Charles at some point or another. The other benefit of this particular establishment is its BYO - or Bring Your Own grog for those philistines who would not be familiar with the term!
I snuck out to the off licence nearby and picked up a few bottles of Bangla (5.2% abv) which I thought was a little more authentic than the other usual Indian inspired choices. I have to report back that This beer is really nice compared to your generic Indian lager. It's thick and malty in mouth feel and texture and has a crisp bitterness which cuts through the spice and oil of good curry. My only criticism is it did have a slight acetaldehyde aroma and taste, but then again lots of Real Ale has this as well, especially if it has not been kept properly or is served too early. Anyhow, more information is available at their website. http://www.banglabeer.co.uk/

Christmas Ale

I am not normally into tacky seasonal beers and this beer is really no exception, but I was a sucker and bought M&S Christmas Ale (6.2% abv) none the less. Brewed by the Cropton Brewery in Yorkshire for Marks & Spencer, this is like Christmas in a glass. It's a strong, warming ale that is supposedly Christmasy as it has added Christmas spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves and a citrus tang. Surely if these flavours where supposed to be in beer we would have them all year round and not just in novelty Christmas beers.

The beer was extremely flat and uninspiring and basically, not my cup of tea.... I ended up giving half of the bottle to my young brother in-law!

Ticker's wet dream

I forgot to post this the other day when talking about Brouge. It appears to be a menu card with tick boxes. That right, a tickers wet dream with several prizes to collect as you drink your way through the menu. Personally, the thought of drinking so much Belgian beer turns me off, but not as much as the encouragement of tickers. But then, I have become an accidental ticker! As I have mentioned before, this blog will be getting an overhall in format and appearance in the new year.

Thwaites Nutty Black

Work has been insanely busy this week. The end of our corporate financial year, combined with a multinational, multi-corporation, multi-million dollar project that I am working on escalating into its final stages has left me rather stretched and tired. Thank god I have tomorrow off work! Combine this with my brother and law visiting from Australia with his girlfriend, and the in-laws flying in for Christmas and you have one flustered Timmy! To escape the carnage that is unfolding around my desk and in particular, my inbox - I decided to sneak out for half an hour and head to the oasis that is the Gunmakers.

Being silly season, it was actually quite busy at 3pm on a Thursday, with a crowd of city type's enjoying their Xmas lunch and giving the staff a hard time. I wandered in with my Andy McNabb novel under my arm anticipating a nice read. I ended up not reading my book at all, but having a pleasant chat with one of my colleagues who frequents the pub, and a couple of other regulars over a pint of Thwaites Nutty Black (3.3% abv). For those who are unprivileged in the way of Thwaites, Nutty Black is a new product - OK, well it's not new, but it is Thwaites Dark Mild rebranded. It's a nice beer, but like any beer - it is made better by the circumstance and surroundings in which it's consumed.

Anyhow, it is safe to say I am back in the office now and stealing a few precious minutes to tell you about it. Website

Rochefort 10

The 'other' beer I had while dining in the Brouge bar last Saturday night. It's strong (11.3% abv), tastes like plums and raisons and gets served in an oversized wine glass. I had some cheese with it which was nice, but not spectacular. I can't remember what kind of cheese it was.

A tickers description;

"Reddish-brown colour, with a very compact head and an aroma of figs, feels like honey in the mouth. The alcohol profile is a major component in the flavour of this rich ale. It is very similar to 6 and 8, but has much more of everything. Some may find the high alcohol content to be disagreeable"

Geeky Stuff:
The brewery is located inside the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy, near the town of Rochefort, and has been brewing beer since 1595. There are approximately 15 monks resident at the monastery. The monks are very secretive about the brewing process, and the brewery is not open to the public, therefore much of the information publicly known about the brewery comes from only a few sources.
Like many strong Belgian beers, those produced at Rochefort age well and can be cellared for at least five years whilst maintaining quality. Each of these beers is brewed to the same recipe, with the only difference being the alcoholic content. The water for the beers is drawn from a well located inside the monastery walls.
As with all other trappist breweries, the beer is only sold in order to financially support the monastery and some other good causes. The monks will not increase production based on demand or profit motives, but only enough to support themselves, resulting in a fairly limited supply of beer availability. In practice, there is currently no shortage through regular channels. Also worthy of note is that these god botherers have not sold out to a larger brewery yet.

Website

Maredsous 8 Bruin

On Saturday night my wife and I headed out to Richmond to catch up with some friends over dinner and drinks. The venue, which I discovered much to my delight was a new Belgian place called Brouge. Unlike other pseudo Belgian café's in London, Brouge is classy and is on par with any number of fancy/posh restaurants that my wife like to drag me too. The service was as good as the leather bound 'volume' which was the beer menu. I opted to initially try the draught serving paddle, which consisted of 8 x 50mL tasters of their draught beer products. I won't go into too much detail about these, but they were Hoegaarden, Leffe Blonde, Stella 4%, Fruli, Belle-Vue Kriek, Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss, and two others which I can't recall right now (a framboise and a bruin).

Anyhow, for my first 'proper' beer I ordered a Maredsous 8 Bruin (8% abv), which I thought would be a good accompaniment to a steak. The beer is nice and is actually quiet drinkable for its strength and I actually enjoyed this beer. As a few may have gathered, I really do not appreciate beer just because it is from Belgium, and think that beers such as Chimay, Duvel and Orval are highly over-rated. Anyway halfway through the beer, I decided to change my mind from the steak to the Moules Frites with garlic croûtons. it was delicious.

Maredsous is a Trappist monastery and the monks of the abbey used to make beer. This can be seen as a good thing, however the greedy souls at the Duvel Moortgat brewery started brewing Maredsous beers under licence in 1963.

Schöfferhofer

I was at Düsseldorf airport and waiting for my flight back to London Heathrow. To calm my nerves and to dull my anticipation of my bag getting lost somewhere in Terminal 5, I sat down with my colleague Stef and enjoyed a nice glass of Schöfferhofer Hefeweizen (5.0% abv).

As far as wheat beers go this one is certainly an easy drinker, with a nice slightly tart flavour and fruity ester profile. I guess by this I mean you get the usual Banana, Clove combo but a hint of citrus as well. It went down nice and killed the hour or so I had to wait for my flight. I must have been drinking a little slower than usual as Stef finished his glass first, before rushing off for his shuttle back to Paris. Waiting in airports is not very exciting, much like this post. http://www.schoefferhofer.de/

Newcastle Brown Ale 2

Ok, I am only posting this due to the fact that I enjoyed this particular bottle in the Gateshead Hilton Hotel, in Newcastle itself. I whisked my wife away for the weekend as it was our first wedding anniversary. Why Newcastle? Well we got married in Sydney, in a small church which overlooks Sydney Harbour Bridge. As we could not go back to Sydney, I decided to do the next best thing and visit the Sydney Harbour Bridge's smaller cousin in Newcastle.

We also went to posh noshery 'The Fisherman's lodge' for a nice meal. It was good weekend, before I had to return to Wuppertal on Monday.

I originally blogged about Newkie Brown back in February. You can read about it here.

BTW - we had our office Christmas party last night. It was a good night, but the beer was crap - Stella or Becks. I had a chronic headache this morning because of this. I did manage to get a couple of pints of Fuller's London porter in at The Counting House before hand though. Good times!

Shepherd Neame Late Red

I was back in the London office again on Friday and it was pretty quiet so a few of the lads decided to sneak off early and get a few pints in. As we were taking an earlymark, we decided to go slightly further afield and hit up the Rugby Tavern - a Shepherd Neame tied house in Bloomsbury. I was highly anticipating the opportunity to get my hands on some of the house porter, but it is still being brewed in Faversham and I had to settle with a few pints of perfectly conditioned Late Red (4.5% abv) - the Autumn seasonal.

The Rugby Tavern is a small and cosy pub which had a nice log fire going, which is rare for central London. It is tucked away down a side street so you won't just stumble upon it, however it's proximity to several great pubs such as the Lamb mean that it is rarely heaving with punters and the service is both friendly and attractive. Website

Modelo Especial

I was back in London briefly last week and met up with my wife at the new London Westfield shopping centre. For those of you who do not know much about these Australian style shopping malls, they are modelled from the original Miranda Fair, which is a stones throw from my oldies place in Sydney. Anyhow there are a few restaurants which offer various gastronomique delights, one being Wahaca which brings Wagamama style service to mexican cuisine. Anyhow, from the menu I ordered a Modelo Especial (4.4% abv) which to be honest, tasted like cats piss. I guess that its from Mexico and is on par with Corona and other such tastless offerings.

I would not recommend this beer! The food was pretty poor to boot. I can do better at home with an Old el Paso kit. Website

Frankenheim Alt

It seems that the most widely available Altbier in Wuppertal is Frankenheim Alt (4.8% abv) and as far as Alt's go it is very good. Not as good as Uerige Alt which is my favourite, but certainly a good representative of the style. Still in the Kornmuller restaurant, I ordered this is an attempt to deliberately offend my Cologne dwelling colleague! Sadly my German friend actually had a sense of humour and my desired effect was not realised.

Frankenheim is not brewed in the Altstadt like most Alt biers, but is brewed in nearby Neuss by an old-established independent family brewery. It's a pale bronze colour with a good bubbly head, and richly earthy aroma with a touch of hop sharpness. The palate is very clean, light and biscuity with some sweetness and a splash of citric fruit, and a Weetbix-dry hoppiness develops in the finish, where nicely tangy, peppery and slightly nutty notes linger. Slightly lackluster compared to interpretations of the style by other breweries in Düsseldorf.

http://www.frankenheim.de/

You may have noticed that I have used the term weetbix rather than weetabix. that is because I am Australian and weetbix is the brand for this popular cereal down under. Weetabix are just try hard UK knock offs, just as Marmite is a poor mans Vegemite.

Gaffel Kolsch

As I have said previously Wuppertal lies in the vicinity of both Cologne and Düsseldorf and as my German colleague resides in Cologne he insisted that we get a few Gaffel Kolsch's (4.8% abv) down our neck whilst visiting a nice traditional restaurant called Kornmuller (which happens to be in an old 18th century corn mill).

Like all good Kolsch's it maintains a crisp bitter taste, while delivering a soft fruity aroma. I really am not a big fan of the style. I think if you are going to go to the effort of brewing one, you may as well as brew a nice German Pilsner, but then since Kolsch style beers have been brewed in Cologne since the 11th century (ok they were slightly darker back then), who am I to argue? http://www.gaffel.de/

Sausalito's House Lager

As I have been neglecting the blog due to work travel, I thought I would pop in a quick post. Work has seen me be located in Wuppertal Germany over the last couple of weeks. As mentioned this place being in close proximity to both Düsseldorf and Cologne has both Kolsch and Alt beers being widely available. I went to dinner with a colleague of mine to a Mexican restaurant called Sausalito's. I ordered a pitcher of their home made house lager expecting something unique, instead I received a pitcher of lime juice with a fair whack of tequila in it. Apparently there is beer in there somewhere, but all I could taste is pure alcohol, plus Ice and Slice! It was easy drinking but tasted like shit. It also included a straw!
Sausalitos has a website: http://www.sausalitos.de/ If you watch the video on their home page you could confuse the Mexican joint with a strip club.