Moorhouse Premium Bitter

Tied house beer festivals bring out the worst in beer geeks like me. I can't be satiated when I am onto a good thing - I always have to keep digging. I can understand how people become hardcore tickers, and browsing through the archives of my blog sometimes make me feel like a ticker! I think I will mix the format of this blog up come the new year, but for now it stays. It was my new years resolution after all.

Anyhow, it was Rich's shout and after harassing Dillon (The Ray Quinn look-a-like who runs The Victoria) we settled on two pints of Moorhouse Premium Bitter (3.7% abv). The beer is a amber coloured session quaffer and is smooth with a hoppy flavour. think John Smiths with a malty smoothness and a hoppy aftertaste and you will be close to the mark. Not a remarkable, but very drinkable and probably better than similar beers such as Brakspear Bitter. Well it doesn't have that sulphery smell that the Brakspear Bitter has.

Moorhouse has been brewing since 1865 and has been owned by such legends as Thomas Fawcett (the maltster). More history can be found on the website.

Triple A

Not anti aircraft artillery, but the beer style. I am not limiting myself to Belgians either. Over the last couple of weeks I have been drinking an unusual number of Tripel's and Triples. I am not really a big fan of the beer style as I don't really like the coriander and funky fusal alcohol tastes which define the style. Some people describe these flavours as complex, but they aren't really and are more artifacts of sloppy brewing techniques and warm fermentation's. Anyway Here is a list of the beers that I had;

- Westmalle Trappist Tripel 9.5%

- Brakspear Triple 7.2%

- La Trappe Tripel 8%

- Kasteel Triple 11%

OK the Brakspear beer has nothing to do with the Belgian offerings and had a really nice almost sultana style sweetness and chocolate nuttiness that was really nice. I actually ate some Cadbury's Fruit and Nut with this one - it was a good match for all you food and beer pairer's.

Actually the Brakspears Triple was remarkable similar to two Belgian Bruin ales I had;

- Trappist Achel Bruin 9.5%

- Gordon Finest Scotch Highland Ale 8.6% (this is actually Belgian!)

So there we have it, a bit of a consolidated ticker post. To summarize - Belgian Tripel's were pretty shit, most of the Kasteel one went down the sink. The Brakspears Triple and the Belgian Bruins were nice - even though they had rather extreme abv's. I should note that I had a few BrewDog punk IPA's last week and appreciated the weakness and sessionability of it's 'modest' 6% abv.

Duchy Originals Organic Ale

A unusually warm mid Autumn day saw myself and my wife out for a stroll and some lunch along the Thames path between Hammersmith and Putney. Intending to grab some lunch we decided to pull into "The Crabtree" which is basically a gastro pub which prides itself upon calling itself, a "bar and fine dining hall". Any pub that goes into the 'above' gastro game should be offering 'above' pub level meals and 'above' pub level service. Upon going to the bar to order some potato wedges and a nachos (hardly fine dining), I was told there would be at least an hour wait on food. Now this is a pub that is trying to pass itself off as a restaurant. How would a restaurant go if it told its diners that they had to wait at least an hour for basic food? Its inexcusable - and lack of available staff or its unexpectedly busy is not an excuse. To all gastro Owners out there that suffer from this "PULL YOUR SOCKS UP". Anyhow, I managed to order a beer and a glass of wine for the Mrs.

Duchy Originals Organic Ale is an interesting beer to say the least. The beer itself is nice, an amber ale/ESB that gets the style right and ticks all the boxes, no complaints there. What is interesting is the source of organic ingredients.

A bit of background on Duchy's Originals:

Duchy Originals was started in 1990 to market the produce of the Prince of Wales all-organic farm at Highgrove. The concept of the farm was to prove (or not) the commercial viability of organic farming and if successful, to encourage others to follow suit. As if proving the profitability of organic foods were not enough, as if employing 100’s of people directly and indirectly as well as seasonal workers were not enough, the company also gives away all it’s profits to charity (the Prince of Wales charity incidentally). To date, this sum comes to millions from the 70+ products in their range. This ale is the first alcohol based product they have produced. To show how deeply the Prince and his achievements are embraced by the Organic community, the Soil association has made him their patron. Moving stuff indeed, I wondered if he offsets/deducts his donations to charity against his genuinely profit generating interests, but that's besides the point!

So the malt used in brewing comes from HRH's property, but who brews it? Prior to the brewing of this organic ale, the organic barley from Prince Charles' estate was used to make Wychwood Circle Master. This was brewed by on contract Brakspear's of Henley until they closed in Autumn 2002. After the acquisition of Brakspear's by Wychwood, and the emergence of the Duchy originals brand, HRH decided to commission Wychwood to brew Duchy Originals Organic Ale and the results in the beer you are reading about today. My only beef has more to do with the Crabtree than the beer itself. My pint was served in a plastic pint glass rather than a proper glass one. Sure the crabtree has a large beer garden, but it was hardly busy and it was even less likely to get broken. I hate drinking out of plastic and basically its unacceptable - once again the Crabtree need to get their act together. Anyway I am starting to rant. The bottom line HRH's beer is as good as his ears are big, and the Crabtree is as good as a fart in an elevator.

Linky

Brakspears Bitter

Last Friday it was raining and miserable and the guys from the office wanted to sneak a quick pint into our lunch hour. Normally we would head to The Mitre or The Clock Tower, but a couple of the guys wanted to go slightly further afield (a whole block further) and check out The Gunmakers.

I quickly obliged and opted for a pint of Brakspears bitter (3.4%), which Jeff (the manager) had put on the night before. The beer is fresh and earthy tasting with a hint of sulpher on the nose(fuggles hops?) and is really the ideal session bitter or lunchtime quaffer. In fact, in contrast to my normal Friday afternoon I was super productive!

The Brakspear Brewery produced fine ales from 1711 till 2002. The Wychwood Brewery bought the brand and moved production to Oxfordshire where they continue to brew the beers with the traditional double drop method which distinguishes the Brakspears beers from many others.

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!