Ardbeg 'Renaissance'

This post, like many, was inspired by a conversation on Twitter, in turn inspired by a post by Ghost Drinker, who had been thinking about whisky.

As I mentioned before on my post for this month's session, I'm a malt fan. When I've had the money I've amassed something of a collection of the weird and (hopefully) wonderful, some of which I've drank, some of which I have lurking in the cellar.

Since the discussion revolved around Ardbeg, I was reminded of a couple of things. The first was was the Lord of the Isles, which I was lucky enough to try after we'd managed to get a bottle in for a customer. To show his gratitude he brought in a sample for us to try in the shop - which was much appreciated! The other story didn't have such a happy ending, we had limited runs of Cask Strength Ardbeg 'Renaissance,' which was a ten year old bottling that was also released at three previous stages of development; the 'Very Young,' the 'Still Young' and the 'Almost There.' These being new and exciting I parted with my hard-earned £30 or so, grabbed myself some of this stuff from the shop and consumed it with relish (well, a drop of water anyway). Current price of the 'Very Young' is now a cool £325 in Royal Mile Whiskies. Still, to quote the over-quoted Tennyson poem, 'tis better to have loved and lost' etc...

I've still go two of the expressions. The question is, should I drink them? Especially since now I know they're worth more a lot more than I paid for them (looks like being about £100/bottle), I no longer have ignorance's bliss as an excuse.

Liefmans 'Glühkriek'

Here was something that was a bit different to the norm; mulled cherry beer, a beer we had to pop into the microwave to heat up before drinking. It didn't look a lot different to other cherry beers, albeit quite dark, and the head did three rather different things in the three different cups we warmed up (one retained, one went flat, the other frothed up - go figure!) Serving recommendation was 70°C.

Lots of warm spice dominate the cherry flavours. Clove, cinnamon, a touch of nutmeg. Overall it's quite medicinal - kind of like the original cherry menthol Tunes - it probably helps you breathe more easily or something. There was also a herbal note to the finish.

I'm not particularly a fan of mulled wine, and really I didn't feel this offered enough variation on that mulled 'theme' to stand out on its own as a product. In a blind tasting I'm not sure, with the spices being so dominant, that you'd necessarily taste an awful lot of difference. I thought it probably needed something a bit more pithy in there to add interest.

I'd be interested to hear if someone is a mulled wine fan and has tried it, but of the three of us that tried it the other night none of us were very impressed (in fact my wife thought it was undrinkable.) Apologies if that's a bit negative - I'd usually shy away from doing a negative review like this - but it's the first time I've tried this as a style so it had to make the cut so to speak!

It came directly from a supplier so I'm not sure of the price. It's 6% abv, 75cl.

Marston's Pedigree (Sort of)

A post from Simon over at CAMRGB HQ got me thinking about the whole dispense thing - it was interesting reading stuff from Tandleman about Camra's apparent willingness to think about thinking about possibly maybe putting the idea of having a think about voting to concede that some, although not all, obviously, keg beers might not be the collaborative work of Pol Pot and the Golgothan shit demon.

I don't really care about the dispense system for a particular beer. I'd happily let the brewers chose how to serve their beer - the clue's in the fact that it is their beer. It seems a bit strange to suggest that they'd go to all the trouble of brewing a beer without a suitable way of serving it in mind. I am happy to defer to their expertise.

On the other hand, it would really disappoint me if a way of serving beer were to be dismissed out of hand, or disappear altogether. Tandleman also mentions that BrewDog* and others have decided not to bother with cask again, which, if it's true, is frankly quite pathetic for any brewery that claims to be innovative. Closing cask off entirely sounds more like sulking than innovating, why not keep your options open?

So what has this rambling got to do with Pedigree? I used to work in a pub that served Pedigree, and I didn't drink it in there, but I did drink it up the road at the next pub which had a much smaller turnover. Same beer, both kept 'correctly,' but tasted different simply because of the variables involved. Others much preferred it the other way round. Which was 'better?' Well, neither, and I suppose some people would see the variation as an irritant, but I think it made things just a bit more interesting, and interest, while a bad thing if you owe Tony Soprano/Mastercard/insert other loan shark's name here, money, is generally a good thing.

*Supported, however anecdotally, by my being told today that the new Nottingham venue hasn't got a cellar. I'm guessing a keg room  - used to have those in a couple of pubs in Australia I worked in, no casks conditioning in those.

I Almost Always Drink Beer, But When I Don’t…

This is my contribution to The Session #59, as hosted by Mario over at Brewed for Thought.

The first thing to declare is that it's not necessarily true, or at least not all the time. Certainly at the moment while my other half is rarely drinking I am tending towards beer. For me beer offers a range of flavours to be explored and I enjoy doing the same with other things, particularly wine (I have spent two years studying for the Wine and Spirit Education Trust's Diploma) and, through personal preference, whisky. At other times I am happy to explore other things - a friend of mine became UK ambassador for Armagnac, which I found fascinating too.

If you regard this as heretical then that's fine, but I'd hope most people who really appreciate beer do so for the flavour, and so why close yourself off to other things just because they are made from grapes, or have been distilled?

So with this in mind I have already got a regret for 2012. I've had to let my membership of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society elapse because of that bane of all flavour explorers - cash! For those of you not familiar with the SMWS, they buy individual casks of whisky (occasionally other stuff) and bottle up those single casks as a one-off. So every whisky they put out (unfiltered, at cask strength*) is part of a genuinely limited run, when the cask is gone, that's it, it will not, and can not ever be seen again. Their tasting notes, as compiled by a tasting panel, are the most enjoyable stand-alone tasting notes I read anywhere (and that's across all genres). Having been a member for a while, and having been to some of their tasting sessions, I have had some of the most amazing whiskies, and I hope to be able to return to the fold soon. If you are interested in whisky at all, check out the website and have a look into joining - particularly if you think you'd be able to make their hosted tastings, they are fantastic evenings out.

I will continue to enjoy the whisky I have left, and to be inspired into running better wine tasting evenings and writing better beer tasting notes by these guys - cheers for the good times!

A Caravanserai on the Silk Road aka 35.58: 26 years in cask, one of 294 bottles.

* Geek note: All the bottles are packaged in the same way, simply with a number for the distillery, and a number for the cask, along with a few details of the cask itself. Between us, me and a like-minded friend managed to work out what all the distilleries were for ourselves (too much time on our hands.)

DeuS 'Brut des Flandres'

Happy new year everybody. I finally got round to cracking open the DeuS which I've had since the middle of November. It's been a rather hectic time of year, and I'm hoping (cash permitting) to be able to get some more tasting and blogging done now it's all calmed down a bit. Anyway, this seemed a good place to start after the rather unpleasant drive back from Yorkshire in the pouring rain on New Year's Day.

Pale amber, with a slight haze. It was extremely lively, a lot more beading than you would expect from a sparkling wine, which meant it had good head consistency. I didn't serve it quite as cold as they recommend (they say ice cold, but I did want to actually taste it) which probably contributed to how frothy it was. The initial smell on opening (pre-pour) was of hops, but once poured and smelled it was more yeasty, with a zestiness and a distinct herbal aroma (oregano) and ginger.

The texture is really excellent, and that carries the full body well. There was a hop-bite on the sides of the tongue but the biscuity yeastiness, and particularly the ginger came more to the fore on the palate, with a faint touch of piny soapiness. I thought the spice/ginger was a little overpowering, meaning it lacked balance.



So there we are. A beer unashamedly making itself out to be Champagne-like in style, but I felt it lacked the balance of many good Champagnes. In terms of the price it's hard to compare it. I got given some Champagne on New Year's eve which was probably at a similar price range to this which was hardly even drinkable (I didn't drink it) and so it's better than that, but if you compare it to most beers than it's really expensive - and it certainly isn't as good as, for example, Krug NV (OK, that's unfair, but it does say Prestige Cuvée* on the label).

The acid test is usually whether you'd buy it again, and I think for me the answer would be no. If I were buying for a celebration there are plenty of excellent sparkling wines about (even I, with my limited wine tasting recently, tried two really good ones at an Australia trade tasting back in November) and if it was just for me to indulge myself, then I think I'd rather go for a couple of bottles of something else. Still, I'm very glad I tried it.



11.5% abv. £14 from Waitrose

* Begs the question, blend of what? I'm assuming they must blend together different beers prior to the secondary fermentation.