Reidsdale Stinga

I picked up a bottle of Sully's Reidsdale Stinga from the Old Cheese Factory whilst recently visiting my parents farm. The beverage is an old recipe that has been revived and could be best described as a gruit ale that is spiced with stinging nettles.

I haven't much more to say about the beer, but wanted to mention Stinga in passing as its one scoop that the ticker freaks who read my blog will not be getting.

BTW - My hop garden is starting to come alive. The established Columbus planting is now being diversified with Pride of Ringwood, Chinook and Victoria

Fuller's Vinatage Ale 2008

I had two bottles of Fuller's Vintage Ale kicking around my flat, enticing me to drink them. Last Sunday I could hold out no longer and drank the younger of the two bottles. The 2008 Vintage is still a little rough around the edges, but there is a beautiful barley wine starting to shine through. Upon tasting the elixir, my wife exclaimed "It doesn't taste like beer, it's more like Hennessy, XO or a sweet dessert wine". I tend to agree with her. The beer is very grape like in character with a strong alcohol warmth/sweetness that is hot, but not cloying. I assume that the longer the beer ages, the more mellow and smooth the overall flavour becomes. Anyhow to test this theory I have a bottle of Fuller's 1999 Vintage Ale sitting at the top of my staircase. I plan to drink it when I have something to celebrate (like when I can finally confirm that I am moving back to Australia). Let's hope that day comes soon!

A Barrel of Fun

Innis & Gunn have been brewing their oak aged barrel beers for a while now and I have commented previously that I am not really a fan. In an effort to help me change my mind, Nicky one of their marketing types sent me their range of bottles hoping that I would say nice things about the brand. While I am not going to be nice, I am not going to be bad either. It seems the range has been bolstered by the addition of two new products; a Rum barrel aged and a blond which is a the original that has aged for a shorter period in the whisky barrel. The original brand still tastes rather boring as per my original post and could be confused with a light ale with a shot of whisky poured in. The blond ale is even more bland however, the rum aged on the other hand is a different beast. While it still tastes like a weak flavourless beer that has had some run poured in, it also inherits a big whack of vanilla and oak from the barrel. These flavours are present in the whisky barrel aged beer, but it's plain and boring. The rum barrel adds a higher level of complexity that really works. That saying I think darker styles of beer are better suited to oak aging and that in the scheme of things the practise of barrel aging beers is going to be more of a trend or fad than the next big thing. I say this, although I am willing to be proven wrong...

A bit of catch up

Life has been hectic lately and my regular lunchtime posts have become ever more irregular. Luckily, today is ticker Tuesday so I can eliminate my backlog in pretty much one bludgeoning swoop. To keep it interesting I won't go on about my pub binges with Peter and Co. at The Gunmakers, or my adventures at The Parr's Head and The Havelock- they were standard pissup affairs.

Interesting beers;

Thornbridge Halcyon (7.7% abv) - this hop monster IPA uses fresh green hops as opposed to dried stable hops. Judging by the hop haze this beer had, I will assume there were a lot of hops added as well. I won't go into too many details, but Darren over at Blog o'Beer posted some good stuff here.

Dorothy Goodbody's Golden Ale (4.2% abv) - This gem from the Wye Valley Brewery has a strong wheat malt taste which I don't really appreciate. It's an easy quaffing beer though and I have a bottle of the stout at home still to get through which should be more to my taste.

Casablanca Premium Lager Beer (5.0% abv) - The wife and I met up with some friends in Kew and went to a new Moroccan restaurant (Tangine) that has just set up shop. It was a warm day and I had worked through a couple of pints of Staropramen and a summer ale from Hog's Back before getting into this beer. It's your standard malty premium lager affair and probably the tastiest alcoholic beverage to come out of Morocco. The food was pretty good too. I had the lamb shank.

Sam Smith's Pure Brewed Lager (5% abv) - One of the best lagers brewed in the UK. This beer really suits the the warmer weather and went down a treat. I should drink this more when I visit Sam Smith's pubs. I have suffered with and been let down by Old Brewery Bitter for way too long, and I usually opt for Alpine Lager in the lager stakes. Could this be the most under-rated beer in Britain?

Ben Nevis Organic 80/- (4% abv) - A beer I really enjoyed.... malty and full of melanoids with minimal hopping this beer went down a treat. I am not really that big a fan of 80/- beers in general, but like any beer style when you get a good interpretation of the style you get a good beer. Anyhow, it's brewed by Bridge of Allan Brewery somewhere in Scotland.

Well that sums up the most interesting beers from the last week. Instead of the usual Nokia quality photography, I have offered you the reader a nice collage for the first time ever. I also went to Krakow over the bank holiday weekend so I guess I will be ramming the virtues of Polish beer down your neck for the remainder of the week!

I am also running a poll and I would like to solicit your opinions.

Off Licence - NY Style

We flew into JFK Terminal 8 and made our first schoolboy error almost immediately. One of my wife's colleagues had told her to get an airport shuttle into town from the transport information desk as it was cheaper. Bad move. It took us an hour an a half to get to our hotel on the Upper West Side. A taxi would have been more direct and cost approx. The same price as they have a fixed cost between JFK and Manhattan. Anyhow, putting this aside we arrived at our digs in the mid afternoon and promptly headed out exploring the Upper West Side (UWS) and Midtown areas before jet lag put my wife out of service. On the way back to the hotel I popped into the NY equivalent of an off licence to pick up some booze. This was a funny experience as I was carded by a kid who must not have been a day over 16. The fact that I have a large proportion of gray hair and I am on the wrong side of 30 should have been enough, but obviously they roll a little bit differently in the States. So the missus went to sleep and I watched a 'Rock of Love, with Bret Michaels omnibus whilst drinking my purchase.

First up was Magic Hat #9 which is a not quite pale ale. Basically it tastes like your typical west coast US pale ale (Columbus and Cascade) but has an apricot like twang. My guess is that they add apricots to the boil and this adds some flavour to the beer. It's odd and takes a bit of time to get used to, but it's not unpleasant either. I followed this up with a bottle of Blue Point Hoptical Illusion, which is a 6.8% IPA that tasted like bitter pine cones and not much else. It was OK, but not really all that balanced. Blue Point is a small micro based on Long Island New York. Apparently their beers are hard to come by even in NYC, so I guess I was lucky to stumble upon them. I also had a bottle of Blue Point Spring Fling (6.0% abv) which tasted like a balanced and toned down version of the Hoptical Illusion. It had very little aroma and a slightly astringent grass like taste but I guess this is par of the course with these US pale ales. To top off the evening (I was pretty tired at this stage, even though it was probably only 9pm) I had a bottle of Sierra Nevada ESB (5.9% abv). The ESB stands for early spring beer and it's a US interpretation of the English ESB style. It's OK and it tastes like pine cones. I think every beer I had in the US tasted like pine cones! Not necessarily a bad thing, but it gets a bit boring after a while. Anyhow by this stage the hop demon and the alcohol was amplifying my jet lag and I wandered off to bed, but I did manage to see Bret Michaels choose his final two 'love matches'. If only off licences were this good in the UK!

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BTW - Bret Michaels is the former lead singer from '80s hair band Poison. He looks old and hagged and now wears makeup. He is also bald, but uses strategically placed bandanna's and hats to hide the fact that he is wearing a wig. A true hero for all you aging Generation X rockers.

I'm Trapped

For reasons I will not go into, I am trapped at home today - a prisoner in my small flat. I'm not going to let my situation get in the way of the greatness that is ticker Tuesday though!
To kick start the beer diary week the wife and I headed out to a local tapas bar in Brook Green. The food was pretty good and they had a few different Spanish lagers on the menu. I ordered a Mahou which is as good an example as any. I had this last year when I was Barcelona and in the video attached to the post is one of the best beer adverts I have ever seen. You can check it out here if that post predates your readership to the blog. Anyhow on Friday evening a few of the lads from the office headed to 'The Apple Tree' for a few after work pints. They had Bath Gem on and we proceeded to drink through the remains of the cask. They then put Fisherman's Tackle (4.1% abv) on which was a better beer than the Gem in my opinion. I can't find any information about the beer at all online and the pump clip was just some writing in chalk. Can anyone fill in the blanks here?
On Saturday evening I cracked open a bottle of UBU Amber Ale from purity Brewing Co. This US style amber ale was a little underwhelming after the Flying Goose I had from the same brewery last week, but still a nice drop. My beer drinking on Saturday was limited to just the one bottle of beer as I helped the missus finish off a few bottles of wine that have been loitering around for a while.
Sunday was the day of the hop monsters. My usual "Come Dine With Me" session was halted due to our television reception going down leaving me with only books and my wife's company for entertainment. Luckily I had a bottle of Mikkeller stateside IPA in the fridge. This 7% abv US style IPA from Denmark is extreme. It has to be over 100 IBU's of pure bitterness and makes your teeth feel like they are dissolving. Because of the lack of balance I didn't really enjoy this one - too hardcore my session drinking sensibilities. To make matters worse, I followed it with a bottle of Port Brewing 2nd Anniversary which is a 9.5% abv American Barleywine. This over the top hop monster was bordering on the point of undrinkable. It was thick, chewy and cloying and tasted like I had been chewing on a bunch of pine needles. I guess for some that would be ideal, but it's not really my cup of tea.
Anyhow that's pretty much the story of my drinking for the last week. Kind of lame really, but some interesting ticks there if you get excited by that sort of thing.
The next instalment of ticker Tuesday will be in a fortnights time (that's two weeks for you Yank's). It should be a good one as I am off to New York on Friday morning. I have a list of things I want to do while there (including Blind Tiger and Brooklyn Brewery) but can anyone fill me in on any other must do attractions that have to be on my list?

Today is Ticker Tuesday

Today is ticker Tuesday. Basically in this post I will cover some of the beers I have had over the last week or so. I was reviewing the photos from my phone and realised that I had more than just a couple.

Last Thursday night I went for a drink with Mike, a guy I used to work with. He suggested 'The Castle' just off High Holborn. I had not been there since I was served a dodgy pint. Anyway not much has changed, the place still has 9 handpumps and is chock full of people drinking Peroni. Mike has become allergic to beer lately and has moved onto cider, which left me to hold up the fort in the beer department. I first got my teeth into a pint of Bushy's Helmsman which is a 4.5% copper coloured bitter that had lost most of it's condition and was starting to taste a little ordinary. Obviously this one has not been a big seller! I forced it down as technically while it was past it's best, it was in no way stale.
Next on my list was Titanic White Star (4.8% abv), which is a hoppy golden coloured bitter and was in very good condition. I didn't tempt fate and squeezed in a few of these and didn't bother to see what else was on offer.

Friday was a pretty quiet day in the office so a few of the lads headed down to Ye Olde Mitre for a pint over lunch. The inner ticker came out and I gravitated towards the guest ale which was Pirates Gold (4.0% abv) from Cornwall's Wooden Hand Brewery. It's funny how you can go to a region and not find any of the local beers, but head back to London and they are everywhere! The beer is a fruity bitter and suited the afternoon which was cold. I still think the old Mitre is over rated. I look forward to returning once Fuller's take the reigns.

After work on Friday (ok, well it was 3.45pm), a colleague of mine Gareth and I headed down the street to The Gunmakers for a couple of beers. It really was a slow day. I won't go into too much detail as I think I have covered all Jeff's offerings before. Anyhow I had a pint of Batemans XXXB and a pint of TT Landlord. I think I will stick with the Landlord in Future as I am not that big a fan of the Bateman's and I had a pint of Harvey's Best the week before and I am not really a huge fan of that either. I like the pub though and it seems to be busy nearly all the time now with a solid set of regulars, some of whom I am getting to know.

On Saturday I was conned into seeing 'Marley and Me' with the missus. Well I'm not totally whipped and there is a plan in place here. I go and see one chick film, this builds me up some points so we can see Terminator Salvation, Fast and the Furious 4 or X-Men Wolverine next time we go. After the movie I raided my beer collection (I have a rather large stash of bottles) and enjoyed some Saison 1900 and a bottle of Sierra Nevada Stout while watching 'Come Dine with Me'. Watching foodie TV had me craving for some decent nosh, but our pantry was bare. Rather than do a Tesco run, we went to a local Vietmanese joint 'Saigon Saigon' where I enjoyed not only very good Vietmanese cuisine, but a couple of bottles of Saigon Export. This is an interesting beer that has only a very mild bitterness and a subtle honey like malt sweetness that works well with the caramelised flavours and spices in the food. A good general food pairing.

Sunday was Boat Race day and we headed down to Furnival Gardens to watch the race. We got down there, grabbed some food and staked a position on the barrier wall. After about ten minutes it started to rain - not fun. The wind also briefly picked up and it was freezing cold so we headed back to the flat to watch the race on TV. A much smarter option. Back at the flat I inspected my beer stash and selected two Bath Ales - the Gem and Barnstormer. Either my palette is loosing it's touch or these beers are basically the same. Come to think of it, the Gem was slightly more fruity. Still nice beers to drink while watching the race. I don't really have any allegiance to either of the two schools as I didn't go to either. Plus I don't like the religious origins of OxBridge and prefer the secular nature of UCL where I do have an affiliation being a former staff member. Putting religion aside the last beer I had on Sunday was Mad Goose Pale Ale from Purity Brewing Co. This beer was nice, but had an abrupt wheat malt taste that I don't like. I prefer all barley malt beers, but I liked the hop character. I have a bottle of Purity's Amber Ale in the fridge at home which I will eventually get around to.

Anyhow I apologise for the congested and disjointed post. Maybe I am still a ticker at heart?

More IPA Challenges

Over the weekend I continued my IPA challenge. This time I pitted Goose Island IPA up against Little Creatures PA, Snake Dog IPA and Meantime Pale Ale. Overall the Goose Island is a good beer, but does not have the bitterness and density of flavour to compete with Snake Dog IPA (which is still the best beer I have had this year). The Goose Island IPA is similar to Little Creatures PA - actually almost the same. They are refreshing but don't have that strong bite I like in an IPA. The Meantime IPA was bottled in a mini champagne style and hit well below the mark of the US and Australian beers. I think it's a better beer on draught than bottled, but then Meantime have a few different Pale Ales including their IPA, London Pale Ale and this Pale Ale.
I don't normally consider my self much of a hophead, but I think my palate is coming around to the US way of doing things. Luckily I am off to New York over Easter where Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA is well up on my list of things to do, along with visit the Statue of Liberty, World Trade Centre memorial and Times Square.
Oh, I almost forgot, you can learn more about Chicago's finest Goose Island at their website: http://www.gooseisland.com/

Samuel Smith's, The Famous Taddy Porter

A post solely for the tickers out there who liked The Beer Diary circa 2008 before I became preoccupied with shooting darts at CAMRA.

Samuel Smiths Taddy Porter (5.0% abv) is a remarkably drinkable porter and was a suitable night cap last Friday after an evening in The Old Parr's Head. I won't intellectualise too much about the beer as basically I'm not very good at it, but I have embedded a video of some other chap below who seems to know his stuff.

I should point out one thing that really irks me about Smith's bottled beers. The food pairings in the label are usually utter rubbish. The Taddy Porter in particular suggests;

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"Oysters on the half shell, Rockefeller or Cajun style, clams, mussels, crab cocktail, lobster bisque and other shellfish, smoked mackerel pâté, veal with green peppercorns, porterhouse steak and of course chocolate. Serve at 55 degrees in nonik or tumbler"

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Surely these dishes are better paired with an IPA or brown ale than a porter. What are these chaps schmokin?

Anyhow for more info on Samuel Smiths just check out this website.

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Dim Sims

It's about time that I mentioned the greatest culinary marval of all time - the humble Dim Sim.

What's a Dim Sim I hear you ask? Wikipedia describes a Dim Sim as;

"a Chinese-inspired meat dumpling-style snack food popular in Australia. The dish normally consists of a large ball of pork or other meat, cabbage and flavourings, encased in a wrapper similar to that of a more traditional dumpling"

Up until recently they had been rather difficult, if not impossible to track down here in the UK. Jumbuck's Pies on Shepherds Bush Green have started stocking these Australian delicacies and I felt the urge to get a few down my neck after work last Friday evening. They well and truly hit the spot and I will be sure to get back there again in the future for another round.

Anyhow, every culinary masterpiece needs a beer to accompany it, and on this occasion I had a bottle of Brakspear Oxford Gold - which is a golden coloured organic bitter. The slight crystal malt character in the beer played well with the caramalization of the cabbage in the Dim Sim and the bitterness and carbonation scrubbed out the grease just nicely. The Dim Sims were really just a prelude to the Thai extravaganza that awaited me later that evening at the Old Parr's Head where I feasted on Yellow Curry Chicken and Mee Goreng. I should mention that I had a pint of Hop Back Summer Lightning with my dinner, but it really is not that exciting a beer. I think Friday truly is my gastronomic day of the week. Only four more working days to go!

St Ives

On Friday the wife and I headed off to St Ives down in the far south of Cornwall. I have always wanted to go to Cornwall. When I was young my Nan gave me a cartoon map/poster of Cornwall and told me loads of stories about how pirates used to bury treasure all along the coastline and hide stuff in caves. It was pretty exciting when I was ten. Actually compared to the spreadsheets I have been working on this morning, it's still pretty exciting. Anyhow as I don't own a car we hired a little convertible (207cc I think?) and hit the M4, M5 and A30 keeping a lookout for pirates and buried treasure. OK the pirate jokes were funny until we past the Reading turnoff where my wife was starting to be offended by the latest nickname I had given her ('Seaman Stains'). We finally pulled into the driveway of the B&B in St Ives at about 4.30pm, dumped our bags in the bed and went exploring through the old town. St Ives is a bit of a beer desert. There are a few pubs, but they are pretty ordinary. The Sloop came highly recommended by our hosts, however as we walked into the bar we were issued a reception that would normally be reserved for a black at a KKK meeting. There was no violence, but everyone stopped, stared and generally made us feel like out of towners. I think this is another case of a pub that people think is good just because it is old (circa 1316 or something). The Dove in Hammersmith is another such pub that falls into this category. They are old and have a lot of history, but the beer is usually just on standard and they are not particularly inviting. Rant over!

Anyhow, we retreated to a St Austells tied house 'The Lifeboat' which was marginally more friendly. I had a couple of pints of St Austells Tribute and a pint of HSD (the breweries strong ale). Neither was overly impressive. By default they had a sparkler on their swan necks and both beers had a subtle sulfur note on the aroma which I don't really like. Brakspears Bitter has this as well and it's off putting. Anyhow after getting a mixed grill down my neck for dinner we retreated back to the B&B for an early evening. I should also add that the surf was not very good. The banks were rubbish and the swell was just mush. I miss the beach back home, as well as the smell of sunscreen. It was nice to not be at work on a Friday though. The picture below is of Porthmouth beach in St Ives. It was taken from the top of the outcrop on the point called 'The Island'. As you can see surfing in the UK is pretty much a waste of time!

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In Defense of the Keg

Much debate has been raging lately over the provenance of carbon dioxide. It seems that some CAMRA brain washing tactics have worked and a significant number of members believe that only beer which comes from a natural secondary fermentation produces good beer. Those of you have read this far will probably realise that this is pure horse shit and good beer can be served from a cask with a blanketing aspirator/breather or from a pressurised keg.

The case in point I will be making is Meantime Pale Ale (4.7% abv). On Saturday evening after our mission to North Greenwich, the wife and I had planned to have a Belgian dinner at The Dovetail and then pop into a 30th birthday party being held in a nearby pub. Due to elephantitis like swelling in my wife's ankle we ended up staying closer to home and I piggy backed the missus round the corner to The Havelock. The Havelock is a nice little gastropub owned by Lawrence Dallaglio that also happens to serve good beer (it is a pub after all). The pub has 4 cask ales on, and has 8 keg beers including Meantime Pale Ale. From my seated position at the bar, I noticed an alarming trend. For each pint of real ale that was dispensed, 4 pints of the kegged Meantime product was sold. Actually the Meantime beer was far outselling anything else in the pub. I ordered a pint and found it to be similar in carbonation to cask ale, but tasted incredibly fresh with brilliant hop aroma. So is this beer shit just because it's not naturally carbonated? The customers voting with their wallets certainly didn't think so. After my pint of Pale Ale, I opted for a pint of Sam Brooke's Wandle which is a cask conditioned best bitter. This beer was incredibly bland after the Meantime beer and when I commented about this to the barman he agreed and replied that it was a freshly plumbed cask as well.

The point I am trying to make is that just because a beer is not cask conditioned does not make it rubbish. Sure a lot of the mass produced mega lager is not the most flavourful of products, but then a lot of cask conditioned beer is pretty ordinary too (btw, I'll name a few poor cask conditioned ales if asked). I think we as consumers should be open minded and not be so troubled by the provenance of carbon dioxide which CAMRA seems so fixated on. Great keg beers do exist and examples from Meantime and Lovibond's Brewery are clearly paving the way for a new generation of keg products. So taking a leap out of Wychwood's marketing - What are you so afraid of beardy wierdy man?

Strong Ales

I think most people know that I like session beers. For me a critical factor of how good a beer is can be determined by how many pints I can drink of any one beer before I pass out, get in a fight, or be sick. Obviously the higher the number, the better for various sociological reasons. Due to seasonal availability, I have been drinking a lot of rather strong beers lately. These are beers that would make any US based drinker proud, often with an ABV above 6.5%.

Two of these beers which I have come across in recent weeks are neither new, glamorous or exciting, but they do happen to taste rather similar. One is Bottle conditioned and brewed by London's leading regional brewer, the other is filtered, pasteurized and mass produced by a Dutch owned Scottish brewery - but production differences aside they are remarkably similar, well to my tastes anyway.

The beers in question are Fuller's 1845 (6.3% abv) and McEwan's Champion (7.3% abv) - both are strong ales which have a distinct burnt/roast sugar taste and are not particularly well balanced.

Saying that, I am going to be positive today and not slag them off too much. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I'll let you guys decide.

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St Germain and the 'JT'

We have been having a series of all day departmental meetings at work recently. To celebrate the conclusion of these we let off some steam at St Germain pseudo French restaurant near Farringdon Station. Now these sorts of venues are the ones I aim to avoid - usually at all costs. As it was an all expenses paid affair, it would have been rude not to attend.

The beer list included the usual Belgian suspects - no surprises there. An inclusion that I had not seen before however was Vedett (5.2%abv). This beer is brewed by the masters that also produce Duvel and it comes in a similar style bottle. This is where the similarities to Duvel end. The beer is thin and dry and really, really bland in the Dortmunder export style. It tastes exactly the same as Carlton Cold - hardly a complement. Best avoided.

To refresh my taste buds and actually deliver something worthy, I scanned the beer menu. CAMRA activists would be most disappointed at the lager dominated selection with Chimey, Duvel and Hoegaarden rounding out a token ale selection.

I made a bold decision and ordered Brooklyn Lager (5.2% abv) for my team members. This beer is a nice Vienna style lager that I could easily spend a long time raving and waffling on about, so I won't. I will recommend that everyone tries this beer, even if you are a CAMRA activist. Once upon a time you could source it in Tesco, but those days are gone and you need to refine your search a little now, but it's still out there.

The food was ok, but hardly worth raving about, I also had some wine which I found rather one dimensional. I won't rant about that too much either.

After dinner a few of us went around the corner for a few more pints at The Jerusalem Tavern. In general this is a nice little pub, but I am continually finding it more and more over-rated and the beer going progressively downhill. I had two pints of the St Peter's: Organic Best Bitter and Ruby Red Ale. Both were rather uninspiring and not well kept. The Organic Best Bitter was a fresh cask and it was flat as a tack and about 15 degrees - way too warm. What happened to cellar temperature?

I am not going to head back to the 'JT' any more, there seem to be better options in the area and I can afford to be fussy. Also, I question how they get their beer up from the cellar? Do they have an electric pump moving it? I am obviously amused by thinking about these simple things.

At least I had some people to drink with though, much more exciting than my previous Friday night!

http://www.vedett.com/

http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/

The Great Irish Birthday Continues

Just another quick post to thank our friends at Splendid Communications and Guinness for giving me gifts for their 250th birthday. This time I arrived home to find a T-shirt, 5 pens and 5 badges waiting for me. As I like all beer and not just beer that is cask conditioned, I think I am a good advocate for beer in general - Good, Bad, Real, Mass Produced, Whatever. It pays to be open minded, and I happen to enjoy the odd pint of Guinness on occasion.

If anybody London based is interested in a pen and/or badge then drop me an email and I'll hook you up.

Dupont Saison

I have not got much time today due to an all day departmental meeting, but I thought it was worth pointing out that I think Dupont Saison is highly overrated. After hearing so many people rave over this style, I bought a bottle whilst in Brugge in January.

Anyhow, I didn't think it was much chop. I think I would get a similar result if I mixed half a pint of Hoegaarden with a half of Leffe blonde.

Over-rated.

Battle of the IPA's: AUS vs USA. The results are in....

Over the weekend there was a showdown. Little Creatures Pale Ale (LCPA) from Australia in the green and gold corner, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (SNPA) from the USA in the red, white and blue corner. Allies in Afghanistan and Iraq meet to slog it out over the neutral ground of my flat in Brook Green, London. I should not big this up as a competition as really both these beers are awesome, but there is national pride at stake here. While they are extremely similar beers and probably made with almost the same grain bill and hopping regime, the experiences of the two beers are completely different.
I won't intellectualize each beer individually but concentrate on their differences.

Colour: They are both amber, but the LCPA seems to be slightly lighter in colour.
Carbonation: The LCPA has only very mild carbonation, although this could be a consistency issue. Bottles I have had in the past have been more carbonated. The SNPA was strongly carbonated at a level similar to US mega lager.
Aroma: Both had a similar citrus aroma, however the LCPA's was stronger and contained a pineapple/passionfruit note which was absent from the SNPA. I think LC uses chinook hops as well as cascade.
Body/mouthfeel/taste: I am lumping all these together. Overall they taste different. SNPA is very malty and has a chalk like bite. I think they use water that is a lot harder than the water used in LCPA. SNPA tastes a lot more bitter (perceived bitterness) because of this as well, but I bet these beers have very similar IBU levels. The LCPA tastes thinner, but more refreshing. You could drink more of it.

Which beer is better? Well they are both awesome beers, but different animals in the glass. If I was only having one beer and sipping on it, I would choose the SNPA. If I was drinking all day long in the Australian sun, then I would choose LCPA.

I should also note that I have deliberately called these beers IPA's rather than APA's. Although both of these beers appear to use American hops and would fall within the style guidelines for an APA - they are basically IPA's. Style guidelines are stupid - keep it simple.

Friday night booziness

My Friday nights usually involve a beer with the lads after work and then quickly home to take the Missus out for dinner. Last Friday night was supposed to be no different, but it saw me getting pretty smashed at home by myself before going to dinner. A sad thing I know, but I dealt with it.
The story starts with me salivating at my desk at 4.30pm hanging to get down to the pub for some more of the Tetley's Dark Mild which I had sampled over lunch time. I had a slight problem though - the office had cleared out and I would have to drink alone. Usually not a problem as I know several regulars at a few of the pubs around the office, but since having a borderline argument with one such twat over my lunchtime pint I retreated home collecting a few bottles from Waitrose on the way. Once home, I contacted the Missus to see how long she will be whilst I poured myself a pint of St Peter's IPA.
"I am playing winglady for Tracy*" was the reply from the other end of my mobile, "she has met a really hot guy and I'm facilitating. I am having one more drink."
Fair enough I thought, Tracy is a nice enough 30 something spinster who deserves to be happy too. So I booted up my PC and happily watched episode 6 of "Oz and James" on BBC iPlayer. I had to pause my viewing twice; once to visit the dunny, the second time to get another beer. It seemed as good a time as any to crack the bottle of Cooper's Vintage Ale 2007 reserve that I picked up in Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago. This beer was good. Actually very good, and it was nice to taste a beer brewed with Australian water. It's the terroir I tell myself while absorbing Oz Clark's attempts to intellectualize beer while James May tries to pass whitty criticisms. The iplayer viewing ends and it is time for another beer. They were going down rather easy. First the 5.5% IPA followed by the 7.5% Australian strong ale - a Fuller's ESB was exactly what I needed. There was nothing interesting on the TV so I watched the second episode of "Ross Kemp: Return to Afghanistan." I check my watch, still no sign of the missus. It's pushing 8.30 now so I give her a call - she is on the tube will be home in 20 minutes. Great I scheme, rubbing my hands together like an evil villain - plenty of time to drink that bottle of Budvar dark I have stashed in the vegetable crisper.
By the time the missus arrived home I was starting to feel a little tipsy, and she was not in much better condition. I decided a curry would be the cure, so we trotted out to my favourite London restaurant: "The Raj of India" - home of the best Kingfisher this side of Favisham. By the time we left the restaurant I was pretty pissed, but boy did I have fun even if I was drinking alone for most of the evening. I'll let you know if Tracy ended up pulling when more info comes to hand - it is probably more interesting than my Friday night was, but I thought I would share anyway.

* Name changed to protect the innocent!

Beercasting

I tried to listen to a few different beer podcasts a few months ago but could not really find anything that was really entertaining. The best one, and the only one I still listen to is Craftbrewer Radio hosted by my fellow countrymen Graham Sanders and Ian the Cellerman. Quite frankly the show sucks and Sander's ego is bigger than... well bigger than any witty noun I think of right now! Why do I still listen? Well I do like that it has an Australian perspective, and tells the story as it is. For far to long the Australian beer related internet community has become a hot bed of myths and bullshit. A quick browse over at Australia's largest community, aussiehomebrewer.com yields a whole lot of rubbish posts and stuff that is basically untrue. At least Graham and Ian are outspoken enough to cut through the bullshit and get to the truth - a feat which often leaves them high and dry with the established community.

One thing that Craftbrewer Radio does that really annoys me though, is Graham's insistence on mispronouncing just about every brewing related term.

Graham, if you are reading this wort is pronounced wert. Say these words: world, word, worth. Now say wort? It is not that difficult, and it is logical. Other words he regularly butchers are Hefe as in the German word for yeast. He thinks it's heff, rather than huffa. He also has problems with Schwarz, claiming it is swash rather than schvartz. Anyhow the main one I wanted to identify before moving on is rauch. Graham thinks it is roush, sad isn't it. Next time you wish to say this word, you should think of the German word reich, and substitute the 'ei' for 'au'. Makes sense now doesn't it Graham??

Speaking of which, I picked up a bottle of Schlenkerla rauchbier (6.5% abv) from Whole Foods last weekend. I had never had a Bamburg smoked lager before and after my olfactory senses became familiar with the bacon aroma, I really enjoyed this. I think it would be the perfect beer to drink at Christmas in Australia when we tend to favour cold cuts of smoked meat rather than the traditional roast. It would be an ideal match. I pray to St Arnou that one day Sander's will sort out his words, but until then, I will just shut up and drink another beer.

http://www.schlenkerla.de/

Golden Glory

My wife picked up this bottle of Golden Glory (4.5% abv) whilst at Tesco a couple of weeks ago. I originally had no intention of posting about it until I was looking it up on the Hall and Woodhouse website today. The beer itself is quite dry with a definite wheat beer like taste, but what intrigued me was the intense fruit aroma that this beer emits. I originally interpreted the aroma to be of passionfruit and thought that it must be hopped with some new whizz bang New Zealand based hop. I was wrong, this beer is actually fortified with peach extract - thats right peach extract. Now why would anybody want to do this, I don't know? I suspect that the original beer was too shit to sell so they have jazzed it up with some fruit extract to make it palatable. When the warmer months roll in I'll consider looking this beer up again but for now I'll maintain my position that fruit extracts have no place in beer.
For those interested the beer was pretty uninspiring, but I guess most of you know that already...