Sierra Nevada legitimately coming to Australia

Hello esteemed readers and wall pissers, welcome to 2011. Exciting news for those down under. Sierra Nevada, the iconic brewery which is often stated to have started the craft beer revolution will now be legitimately imported by Phoenix Beers via refrigerated container.

Previously "grey imports" of the signature Pale Ale (SNPA for those with the lingo) have been smuggled in through Europe with a product landing in Australia that was well past its best and generally in pretty shit condition. This dodgy conduct with grey imports has caused a bit of a stir with the US based brewers over the past 12 months. I have not commented on the issue here at PIUTW as I couldn't be bothered. Anyhow Phoenix Beer has stepped up and will have SN beers available through it's online International Beer Shop.

With it’s elevated status in contemporary beer culture, there is great demand in Australia for Sierra Nevada products hence the 'healthy' grey market which has cropped up. Legit imported Sierra Nevada will be the freshest available and will note Phoenix as the importer on the label. Grey or dodgy imports will have other importers on the label and other suspicious acts such as the best before dates removed.

While this may not be of interest to a number of US and UK based readers it's important for us down under as our geographical isolation often leaves us with only our local craft beer scene when it comes to quality. To be honest our local craft beers are good but are way overpriced due to our heft excise laws.

BTW SNPA will be retailing for $25 a six pack, so do the maths and work out how much mark up is on the beer. I recall paying $8 for a six pack when in New York in 2009.

For a more comprehensive and serious account of this exciting news, pop over and visit the good folk at Australian Brews News who I blatently stole this story from.

Busy Bee

I have been pretty busy of late and have no time for blogging. This also means that I have had no time for drinking either! Today marks a significant unloading of projects for me which should hopefully see me back on track again next week. I also have an important announcement which (fingers crossed) I should be able to make some time next week. (I'll give you a hint, it's exciting and will change the shape of this blog, well the content anyway!)

I would also like to add that my local Tesco now stocks Anchor Steam. Yesterday I made the most of my stuck at home/tube strike situation and picked up a few bottles of Punk IPA, SNPA and Anchor Steam. I plan to drink these tonight.

Yet another NYC Offie - not really

You have probably guessed by now that my wife does not really like hanging out in pubs while I try every imaginable beer that is on offer. In these circumstances, off licences and supermarkets are a god (I have left god in lower case on purpose, to imply it was noun would mean that I am 'one' of them) send. In this case it was a supermarket and I made three purchases.

1. Smuttynose IPA (5.6% abv) - pretty boring text on the label, but a picture of old people on the front inspired me to purchase this product. This was one of the better beers I had the pleasure of experiencing while in NYC. It's good in the fact that you can taste that the beer is more complex than just pinecones and is actually balanced by a nice maltly beer. This beer actually has some British pedigree and was awarded a gold medal as the best American beer at the GBBF in 2004. Anyhow while drinking this I had some corn chips (Tortilla chips if you swing that way) and watched some more trashy US television. The Burger King guy is pretty scary. He has a constant shit eating grin and a massive head. I don't now why he likes square butts though?

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2. Stone IPA (6.9% abv) - yet another quality beer with some semblance of balance. Having not tried arrogant bastard or ruination before, but hearing all the rumours I prepared for an onslaught of the dreaded pinecone flavour of c-hops. To my surprise it was not as aggressive as I thought it would be and was actually really good. The beer is best described as Light-medium malt character with a heavy dose of hops! This beer has balanced but still abundant hop aroma and crisp hop flavor. I watched some reality TV with this one - who is Kim Kardashian and why is she famous? She has a nice rack though, pity its counter-balanced by her ass.

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3. Sierra Nevada Torpedo (7.2% abv) - Is the 'Extra IPA' offering from Sierra Nevada and tastes like a beefed up SNPA. In reality its probably not all that different and certainly retains that house astringency that I find all Sierra Nevada beers tend to have. It was good though and I am glad I tried it, but I probably wouldn't bother again. While I pay full respect to the contribution that Sierra Nevada has made to the US craft brewing scene, I tend to find there beers a little bit safe/conservative when comparing them to some of the beers coming out of the newer/smaller breweries. I say this having spent only a few days in the US, but seeing this on the shelves at my local Tesco would still rock.

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Anyhow I will leave you for today with a picture of a brewery draymen's truck from Yuengling brewing. Which is America's oldest Brewery. I didn't find any of their beers in my travels, but hopefully will track some down in the near future.
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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.

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?

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.

Australian Beer Etiquette

Most countries with beer cultures have unwritten rules about how to act and behave in the pub. To many who travel to Australia from the USA or Europe (UK excluded), the culture and behavior of drinkers may be, somewhat in lack of a better word, "foreign". Australian readers will be familiar with these rules, but for everyone else they are as follows;

1. Always keep your beer in your hand, touching your plate or as close to the edge of the table as possible. Don't leave it in the middle of the table as this can become confusing when many people are drinking at the table.
2. Free beer should always be consumed at a pace greater than that of a beer which had been bought by you or someone in your shouting party.
3. Never accept a beer if you do not intend to shout on that evening. Shouting "next time" is not acceptable no matter how much interest is involved. This leaves the rest of your drinking party agitated and they will say bad things about you after you leave, or if they've had a few this may lead to violence.
4. Even worse than the previous rule is accepting beers from the drinking party and then just buying one for yourself when it is your turn. If you make it home without at least one broken bone you should consider yourself lucky!
5. If you are falling behind in the rounds, complaining that you ate too much is not a legitimate excuse. You should have foreseen the night of drinking ahead and not filled your beer stomach with food. The beer stomach must be kept separate from the food stomach at all times.
6. If the beer is served in a stubbie, pouring it into a glass to drink is simply not acceptable.
7. It is a well understood obligation that slower drinkers in a shout must attempt to keep pace with the faster members of a shout, so as to avoid bad feelings and cries of "Hurry up," "Beer Queer," etc.
8. Changing drinks on people during a shout is considered poor form. I.e., shouting everyone VBs then asking for a Crownie or other "boutique" beer on the return leg.
9. Guinness is to be served in an appropriate receptacle, i.e. a pint glass. Anything else is simply unacceptable.
10. When drinking, it is bad manners to talk up your drinking ability when you are not going to perform. This includes the oft observed phrase, "I may not be able to drink much beer, but I'd kill you on Vodka / Bourbon / Scotch," etc.
11. NEVER, EVER drink so slow as to allow a beer to warm up.
12. Beer from a tap must be drunk in the largest available beer glass of the establishment at all times, e.g. middie to be superseded by a schooner, pint to be superseded by a stein.
13. Toohey's or any brand of American beer should never be attempted to passed off as actual beer, unless obvious insult to the recipient/recipients is intended.
14. One's perceived beer drinking ability should not be in any way overshadowed by the frequency with which one visits the lavatory for urinary purposes. The idea is beer consumption, not beer retention.
15. Stubbies must always be bought over cans unless there is storage or transport issues.
    Knocking over someone else's beer will only be tolerated if there is a full replacement on the table in an acceptable amount of time.
16. Ambient temperature has no bearing whatsoever on the desire to consume beer. The day being "too cold" is never an excuse to get out of beer drinking.
17. No matter how much money is earned by each of the party members the same shouting rules apply, unless one of the more "well-off" members insists on re-shouting. However, this in no way implies a future obligation to repeat the form.

When in Australia, if you follow these simple rules and you will be OK.
Moving from Australian beer to UK beer. I have to commend Jeff on the delicious pint of Tetley's Dark Mild (3.2% abv) I had during my lunch hour today. A rare beer to see in London and a beer that is actually improved by the use of a sparkler. I also had some draught Sierra Nevada Pale Ale last night at Bodean's BBQ. For those who have not heard of this restaurant chain, they serve mediocre Kansas City, MO style BBQ and SNPA on draught. Pity it cost me £5.95 per pint though!

Australia vs the USA

I am pretty busy this week and do not have time to write long witty posts about controversial issues. What I will do though is give a teaser into an upcoming post. At Whole Foods, Kensington on Saturday I bought a couple of bottles of an old favourite of mine - Little Creatures pale ale. I have been told by many people that Little Creatures pale ale (LCPA) is almost identical to Sierra Nevada pale ale (SNPA). I disagree and although similar, I think they are totally different beasts. I plan to pick up a bottle of SNPA from Tesco during my weekly shop this evening so I can reveal the truth. That's right, a side by side comparison of the two beers. Stay tuned.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (5.6% abv) is a style defineing American Pale Ale from the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. The beer was one of the first examples of an American Pale Ale which uses Cascade hops for flavouring. Another point of note is that it is one of the USA's best selling craft beers. The colour of the beer is a deep amber with a medium level of carbonation, intense bitterness with a strong refreshing aromatic citrus taste and aroma. I think that this is among the list of my all time favourite beers and APA has to be one of my favourite beer styles.

And guess what makes this beer even better. All I have to do to get my hands on a bottle is stroll down to my local Tesco and pick it up! The website is here: http://www.sierranevada.com/beers/paleale.html I even managed to find a review online for you to marvel over!