Chilli-off

Friday evening, and I thought I'd do a chilli-themed Transatlantic Taste Test. Two quite different beers, with a chilli link. The first is from the Cave Creek brewery in Mexico and the second from Fallen Angel down in Sussex. The theory was that I could get to taste the beer once the initial shock of the chilli spiciness wore off.

Chilli wraps for tea!

Cave Creek Chili Beer is billed as a premium lager with a quite a big, not particularly scary looking chili added. It's a golden colour, the head collapsing almost immediately on pouring. Once the bottle's open the chilli provides a surface for the Carbon Dioxide to be released, so it bubbles away in there (a bit like a floating etched logo). The aromas are all green chilli and the taste, unsurprisingly, reflects that. Although it's a lager it didn't taste a great deal different to the Fallen Angel Fire in the Hole that I reviewed back in October. After the chilli heat had worn off (well, sort of) and I began to taste the beer underneath it seemed to be a pretty standard, sweetish adjunct lager, certainly nothing spectacular (unless you like your beer to have that distinctive sweetcorn taste).

There's the little fellow...

According to this video (thanks to Carl for pointing this out) you are supposed to eat the chilli. I did, and it didn't taste of anything. I'm not sure if that confirms my suspicion that it wasn't a particularly spicy chilli in the first place, or if it had been there long enough for all the flavour to go into the beer.

Next up was the Fallen Angel Black Death. This one's a bottle conditioned stout, Camra sticker and all, so I was expecting something quite different, and perhaps a bit more serious. However, given it's made with Naga chillis with a Scoville rating of 850, 000 I thought the spice might take a bit of getting through! If I remember rightly the Fire In The Hole (its little brother) suggests drinking it in shots. I didn't.

More chilli head than beer head?

From an initial sniffing it was easier to get some roasted malt and coffee aromas from the Black Death - as you'd expect from a stout - although there was loads of green chilli the beer underneath was much more obvious than in the Cave Creek. Again it poured dead flat. Once I'd allowed my palate to adjust (hammered it with chilli) some sourness came through along with another, bigger, chilli hit.

Overall I remain unconvinced. I love chillis, but I think that the reason beer is so great with spicy food is that it provides a contrast, and when the beer you want to quaff to complement the chilli high just adds to the high it doesn't quite work. I'm not sure that these aren't just novelty beers, to be consumed at student parties and the like, so maybe actually taking a bit of time to taste them isn't what they had in mind. Still, here's to someone brewing the world's first Chilli Gueuze!

Cave Creek Chilli Beer, 4.2% abv. £1.79 (33cl)
Fallen Angel Black Death, 5.2% abv. £2.29 (50cl)  - prices from Beers of Europe.

Nom...

'I don't like beer'

Sorry, that's kind of a tabloid attention grabbing headline, but I was commenting on Boak & Bailey's excellent post about bad beer not saving beer and an analogy occurred to me.

When I run introductory wine tasting courses, I start by asking people about what wines they like. I appreciate that this can be a pretty difficult situation. You're in a room full of people you've never met before, on a course you've signed up to on the basis that you want to learn about something - rather than knowing something - and you're asked to pass comment at the outset. At this point, someone usually says 'Red. I don't like white wine.' (or, of course, vice versa). I love this sort of comment, because it means that there's someone who is ready to be enthused.

Beer's problem? It all tastes the same...

I alternate weeks. Red wine one week, white wine the next, and I have never known anyone flat out refuse to drink one or the other. I've also never have anyone end the course without becoming more aware of the incredible variety of flavours that wine of whatever colour can offer. Notice the beer comparison yet?.

There's no doubting there are people out there who think that food is at its best from McDonald's, Nescafé is good coffee, Blossom Hill is a sophisticated natural product full of Californian sunshine, and all a beer needs to be is 'refreshing.' This is fine, as is the fact that most of these people aren't interested in being disavowed of these preconceptions. However, 'moving people onto beer,' from wine, spirits, WKD, (insert your own pet hate as a beer fan), isn't inherently a good thing. If they move from tasteless wine to tasteless beer that's not gaining some sort of loyalty to a sector, that's just fashion. I'm always referring to the range of flavours in beer and spirits when I'm in wine classes and tastings - once their taste buds are woken up people don't look back, and with a bit of luck they're lost to the marketing people forever.

Don't like beer? Game on, I love a challenge.

Edit: Check out this 'Case for Beer' Infographic.

Traquair 'Jacobite' Ale

The first of my 'barrel aged' beers, for trying to get my head round oak and its influence on beer, isn't barrel aged at all, but it is from the UK's only brewery that is still using unlined oak barrels to ferment their beer in - the Traquair House Brewery up in Scotland. In the wine world this technique is sometimes used for white wines, as an easily controllable way of imparting oak character, and less frequently as a way of 'finishing' partially fermented reds (after the removal of all the skins etc.) to soften the wine.

The beer pours an almost black deep brown, the brown showing when you hold it up to the light. There's a tan coloured head which deteriorated rapidly. The aroma is dominated by malt; treacle and molasses. On the palate the beer is noticeably heady and quite sweet. It's full bodied, almost to the point where it feels chewy and sticky, with intense chocolate flavours. The treacle also returns on the palate, along with buttered malt loaf and black forest gâteau (hat-tip to my wife for that one!) The finish is sweet, and mellow.

In terms of the oak effect it's difficult to say. According to the label there are spices added, and it's also a very big, robust beer. The website says some of the barrels are two hundred years old, and I'd suggest that at that age, while they're not artificially lined, use has almost resulted in a lining of its own. There are flavours of vanilla in the beer, but since that's a spice it's impossible to tell if that's added or from the wood.  I would suggest that the beer has been mellowed out by the wood contact though, allowing it to carry its 8% abv a bit better, and the toast flavours do seem to complement and enhance those primary malt flavours.

£2.50 (33cl) from York Beer and Wine Shop.

A Waste of Good Beer?

Since I started learning more about wine and spirits I've found oak a fascinating subject, and so I thought I'd attempt to do a bit more exploration of how it effects beer. It seems to be something of a divisive subject among beer enthusiasts judging by posts such as this one on Rob's beer quest, and Ghost Drinker's defence. If, as has been suggested, 'there is no such thing as a great barrel aged beer' then I'm going to have a go at finding one anyway.

Normal size Geordie bloke, whacking great big barrel,
still nowhere near 10,000 gallons though.

My initial thought is that, like most things, oak used well will contribute to the character of the beer. Judiciously used it should add complexity to rather than detract from the 'primary' flavours that come from the base ingredients. I'm not claiming to know anything about how beer works with oak, hence the exploration. However, from my wine and spirit studies and tastings I think I've got a fair idea of what flavours could possibly be imparted from an oak barrel, and I apologise if I have to dip into wine vocabulary and terms. I'm also going to try and find out how the barrels are used, to get away from a simple 'barrel aged' statement, which I think can be pretty meaningless - as I've mentioned before. The devil's in the detail - a beer like Dogfish's 'Red and White'* which has been matured in a 10,000 gallon oak tank is going to pick up relatively little (if any) flavour due to the ratio of liquid to surface area of wood - certainly compared to a beer matured in a smaller barrique sort of size (like the smaller ones in the photo.)

The beers I've got for this mini experiment (at the moment) are from Harviestoun, Innis and Gunn, Traquair and Tullibardine. Since I love Scottish beer in the first place I suppose the question is whether it will be ruined by the barrel? The plan is to taste the beers as I normally would but I'll try and decide what difference the barrel ageing (or in one case, fermenting) has made by way of a conclusion.

* Thanks to Phil for pointing this one out.

Glass Envy

It was my fault for not ordering it in something else, but I was sat in the pub the other afternoon with a certain amount of jealousy directed towards my two mates' tall, elegant Pilsner Urquell glasses. Nothing wrong with the beer, although it was nothing spectacular, but served as it was it just looked... dull.

Suitability aside -it just looks thirst-inducingly great!

I'm hoping that the message gets through to pubs that good beer deserves good presentation, and a glass-washer-scratched nonic simply doesn't do any beer justice. I'm not saying that every brewery should go so far as Sam Adams did with their 'scientifically developed' glassware, especially since the bit about tasting sweetness at the front of your tongue is not so much a disproved theory as a never was theory. It'd be impractical for every beer in a pub to be served in its own glass, and I'd rather a pub rotated beers for interest than kept the same lines for presentation's sake, but decent glassware is important. I'd be interested to hear people's preferences.

Personal favourites for draught beer by the pint? Just on aesthetics rather than bringing flavours out I liked to use tall, straight sided glasses like the Senator when I was a bar manager, but I also have a fondness for handled mugs like this Haworth, and I'd be happy to be offered the choice of one of those two in a pub.


Ben McFarland wrote an interesting piece on the Guardian: Calling Time on the Pint Glass, and even calling time on the measure, back in January if you missed it.

Oak Aged

In the wine world there are loads of meaningless phrases bandied about that are not tied down by regulation. Some of them are actually useful in context but others less so; old vine (how old?), reserva (only legally defined in certain countries so meaningless elsewhere), cuvée (on Champagne, meaning a blend - which all Champagne is.)

What has all this got to do with beer? Well the phrase 'oak aged,' as pops up from time to time on beer labels, strikes me as being a particularly good example. It is so vague it becomes simply another tool of the advertisers, used to infer some sort of adherence to tradition. How big is the barrel? How heavy is the toasting? How many times has it been used previously? Even the species of oak used can make a difference. The barrel on the right is from the cellars of Concha Y Toro in Chile. If you can't make out the detail it's specified as American Oak, medium toast.

On the left is a rather different Italian botti, this one's from the Petrolo estate in Tuscany. A huge container that may well have been used time and time again, vintage after vintage, to the point where any flavours gleaned from the oak are negligible. The wine could be described as oak-aged, but equally, if a similar container were used, you could refrain from using that description and it's doubtful anyone would be the wiser.

I'm running the danger of this becoming a post about the basics of oak's influence on wine, so I'll get back to the point. If a phrase which, at first glance, might appear to be quite a useful consumer guide* can be so easily shown to be so vague, or confusing, as to be almost meaningless, then could that happen with others as they are used more and more? I can certainly think of one example where the fact that the beer comes from an oak cask is only useful as an advertising slogan.

Craft beer anyone?

* Somewhat ironically, un-oaked has actually become rather more useful.

Hog's Back 'Traditional English Ale'

I have had this one before, and though I wasn't too impressed with it I gave it another go on account of it being delivered by mistake. Free beer always tastes better after all. Or not. It's a brown beer. Now of course there's nothing wrong with a beer being brown, but there is when it seems more to be a flavour profile than a colour, when it becomes a way of describing an unchallenging, middle of the road beer, then that's when I object.

As a parent of a six-month old daughter I find I also end up with objections to pink. Again, pink's just a colour, there's nothing to worry about surely? But when you are buying a pack of baby spoons and the nice lady needs to ask 'boy or girl?' with regard to cutlery for an infant, then something doesn't sit right. If you've no idea what I'm on about then check out this article about marketing science (c/o Pinkstinks). Or, if you can bear it, check this out - it's kind of a 'Guess the number of damning social constraints we can enforce on you from a young age' puzzle.

Oh yeah, beer...

Well it's about choice. Going into 'Toys'R'Us' and absolutely everything in the girls' toys aisle is pink is equivalent to walking into a supermarket's 'speciality beer' section and being faced with an awful lot of beer that is essentially just a minor variation on a theme. I used to work for someone who complained that Fosters we sold wasn't as good as the Carling they used to sell. But really, are the two that different? And are they that different to their competitors - and by the same token can't a similar thing be said about those speciality beers? I'm picking on this one in particular but the whole idea of traditional=good really doesn't excite me.

For me it's just lacking something, kind of hanging around in no-man's-land without knowing what it wants to be. Maybe with a further kick of spice or fruit or something it would be better, but as it is, not too impressed.

Bottle Variations

It strikes me as odd that there isn't more variation in bottle sizes.

I worked for a while in pubs in Queensland, where the tradition is to drink pots; about a third of a pint - so the beer doesn't get warm - as the pseudo-Australian rubbish lager ad says 'well you wouldn't want a warm beer' and, in the case of XXXX 'Gold', you probably wouldn't want it cold either. I can only imagine how horrible it would be warm. Brakspear 'Oxford Gold' is a decent enough beer but if you sold it in wee stubby bottles, like French picnic beers I reckon it'd go down a treat in the summer. Just a thought.

It was the  Oxford Gold that lead me off on this tangent, which might suggest that the beer itself wasn't all that exciting. Perhaps a bit unfair, it's not exactly a beer particularly suited to a November evening.  However my point was more one of whether tradition sometimes interferes with selling a summery-style beer in a different way that might appeal to new drinkers. The same applies to the Cotleigh 'Golden Seahawk' I tried recently too - a beer I've seen described as bland - which I would say is unlikely to appeal to many beer geeks who've seen it all before. Do we need more mid-strength pale ales with a bit of a hop-kick in the finish? They might though be good beers to entice lager drinkers away from their favourite fizz. But would the the packaging help or hinder that?

 

Brakspear 'Oxford Gold' Organic Beer 4.6% abv $1.87 from Waitrose (50cl)
Cotleigh 'Golden Seahawk' 4.2% abv £1.89 from Sainsbury's  (50cl)

Goose Island 'Honker's Ale'

Been off radar for a while since I've been busy doing the uninteresting things that I am hoping will earn me the money to continue my exploration of all things beer-related. It's also been a rather indifferent week on the beer front after the excitement of Stout Day and The Session.

So this post is due to, but not really inspired by, Goose Island 'Honker's Ale' which is apparently inspired by visiting English country pubs. All well and good making beer in an English style, but there are plenty of English beers out there that, although they are faultlessly made, are in the end just not that interesting!

Lovely brown colour with a hint of orange. It has a vague roasted malty nose, and there's a sweetness to start, which doesn't linger into the finish since it's taken away by a kiss of hops.



Not the sort of beer that inspires, although it was more interesting than the Lone Star by Pabst, and Samuel Adams Boston Lager, both which almost made my hop-thirsty palate feel like I hadn't drank a beer. Again, not unpleasant, but indistinguishable from many of its contemporaries. In its defence the Sam Adams had some richness that reminded me of some German Oktoberfest beers, but lacked the punch that the real thing has.

 

Apologies if this all comes across as a bit negative, since I don't like posting negative reviews, but it strikes me that with the Craft beer scene in the USA thriving, and feeding a similar resurrection of interest in different beers over here, it would be a shame if these sort of beers are held up as examples of a new beer scene in the US. And perhaps more worryingly it did make me wonder what sort of beers are ending up state-side and our friends in the US are thinking 'this is OK, not exciting, but OK... I hope my Sierra Nevada's cooled down so I can have that next.'

Goose Island Honker's Ale, 4.3%, £1.59 (355ml) Beers of Europe
Lone Star (Pabst), 4.7%, £1.59 (355ml) Beers of Europe
Samuel Adams Boston Lager, 4.8%, £1.59 (255ml), Waitrose. Also £30 a 24 bottle case at Majestic.

Oakham Ales 'Bishops Farewell'

The spectacle of beer advertising aimed at women came up again today courtesy of Greg at The Pour Curator and an innocent question about Sunday dinner from Emma Cole on Twitter. I have mentioned it before and frankly the whole thing is hardly worth dredging up again because it should be fairly obvious to anyone with even half a brain how patronising most of this stuff is, but hat-tip to Melissa Cole, not so much dripping sarcasm as standing in quite a deep puddle of it. I've yet to try Chick Beer or Uptown Girl - don't hold your breath.

I have, however, tried Bishops Farewell (sic) from Oakham. It's a pale blonde, hoppy beer, along similar lines to many that I tried at the Nottingham Beer Festival recently. Floral and pithy on the nose. Lots of citrus on the palate, and with a slight soapiness that I felt knocked the clean edge off the finish. Although this is probably bordering on the sacrilegious I think I might have been better off drinking this one cold rather than at cellar temperature, and I'm pretty sure it'd come across better on tap. Still, one of the more interesting pale ales that's generally available at the moment.



5% abv, £1.99 (50cl) from Sainsbury's

Great Newsome 'Stoney Binks'

I picked this one up as part of a set while I was at the Beverley Food Festival at the beginning of last month.

I hadn't come across the Great Newsome Brewery before, and beer from a relatively new brewery (2007) from near where I grew up was far too tempting to pass up as an opportunity! The unusual name comes it being named after a local shale bank off Spurn Point.

This is one of their occasional beers,  an attractive amber ale with a malty nose and a hint of cinder toffee. There are toasty notes on the palate and a slight toffee sweetness which nicely balances the hint of orange. This isn't one for the hop-heads, don't be expecting a big hop kick, but it is a moreish, mellow, relaxing drop. Most enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the others now!



4.1% abv, 50cl. Not sure on the price since I bought it as part of a set, although it's available for about £1.55 (£18.50 for 12 if you can collect) at the brewery.

Hunter's 'Full Bore' Strong Ale

There's a lot of fuss on the Twittersphere (is that the right preposition?) at the moment about the government's increase in duty as applied to beer above 7.5%. The claim is that it will stop people drinking beer that's too strong - I am assuming the likes of Special Brew. Anyone with half an ounce of sense can see that this is not going to work (White Lightning anyone?) but what it will do is reduce the sales, and the stocking, of some really interesting artisan beers, especially 'specialist' imported beers that, and it may be because I don't hang around in the classier streets, I don't see people walking down the road swigging from a can.

If the tax was fair, then OK, but it means there is more duty on these beers than wines that are half as strong again - Blossom Hill anyone? I'm guessing that the House of Commons Cellar has a lot of wine, but not a lot of Belgian beer. Anyway, more of that here, and please sign the e-petition.

All of which brings me round to Hunter's Full Bore. I think that a beer that comes out at 8% should have massive amount of character to balance the alcohol. There is dried fruit in there, and a caramel sweetness, and it's certainly not a bad beer, but it's not really that exciting. So this isn't as good as a beer that's been brewed along similar lines by monks in Belgium for hundreds of years, it's no Westmalle Dubbel for example. But I guess the point is that if the tax man kicks the arse out of the market for potentially interesting beers that can be dwelt upon rather than knocked back, then we are going to miss out on the imports, and miss out on our brewers who will be less likely to brew this sort of beer, and therefore get better and better at it. In the mean time Carlsberg will carry on, and the Brew is unlikely to be influenced by the burgeoning domestic craft brewing scene.



£2.12 (50cl) at Sainbury's

I also tried McEwans Champion Ale recently. Certainly makes the Full Bore taste good. Deep brown beer with bunt toast aromas and flavours, a harsh, artificial, sweetness which really doesn't have any fruit flavours (like in the Full Bore) to back it up. Bitter finish but unfortunately a really inelegant beer, the hops simply fail to complement the sweetness, seeming almost completely at odds with it. Not at all clear what this is the champion of, but I wouldn't fancy tasting the competition!



7.3% abv. A quick internet check and it's available for £1.65 in Asda - I didn't buy this one.

Fallen Angel 'Fire in the Hole' Chilli Beer

Spurious attempt to clear my cold/cough/bad chest/man flu the other night. This is one of two chilli beers that Fallen Angel brewery - I'll review the Black Death at a later date.

No head, amber beer, poured with a slight haze (I'd had it flat in the fridge due to overcrowding). Left a load of yeast sediment in the bottle, and there was a noticeable fizz - lots of secondary fermentation going on.

Loads of fresh chilli aromas. A real prickle on the tongue rather than an out and out fizz. Great sourness from the fruit and a gentle warmth. Reminded me somewhat of gueuze beer in terms of how the fruit came across. Really interesting and different, although a whole 500ml serving was a lot - if it were me I'd be inclined to go for a smaller bottle size - but only personal preference.
Not the first time I've had this one and no doubt it won't be the last, I first picked this up at the excellent chilli festival in Brighton. Love this one as a chilled, refreshing change.



4.0% abv (50cl) £2.29 from Beers of Europe

PS. While on the subject of chilli products, there's a new Doritos flavour out: Jalapeno Fire. Generally the more mainstream snacks come up with all sorts of claims about how hot they are and are nothing of the sort, but these do actually have a bit of flavour to them (even if it isn't really jalapeno) and I thought they were pretty good!

Nottingham 'Robin Hood' Beer Festival 2011

I went to the Nottingham Beer Festival last night, a Nottingham Camra organised festival - and a very well organised one at that. £12.50 gets you in, ten beer tokens (3 of which get you a half, 2 for a third of a pint) and a glass to put the beer in. There is a massive range (over 900) of beers, more than enough to keep you busy for the whole weekend should you feel so inclined.

What I think set this festival apart from, for example, Camra's Great British Beer Festival was the focus on it really being a Nottingham festival - local brewers and local bands providing a focal point, and a real festival feel rather than it being about beer geekery and nothing else. Small criticisms but I did think it wasn't that easy to find a specific beer if you were looking for it (although it might just have been me chatting rather than trying that hard), and if Camra are trying in any way to lose their image that they are often maintaining on numerous blogs is so outdated then that T-shirt stand should go - it's embarrassing.

Despite my rather scatter-gun approach to tasting the beers on offer I didn't have any that I didn't enjoy. I was looking for a couple in particular, the Brass Castle 'Bad Kitty' and the Magic Rock 'High Wire' but apart from that I tended to go for the ones I thought would have enough of a flavour punch to keep me interested - hops away!

Black Iris 'Intergalactic IPA' - The fledgling brewery's new brew, and a very good one too. Pale with a delicious hoppy bite. 6%
Brass Castle 'Bad Kitty' Porter - Excellent vanilla porter, like a vanilla and dark chocolate milkshake but without any cloying sweetness. Rich and satisfying. 5.5%
Empire Brewery 'Bedlam' - tucked away in the back of the entertainment tent, pale golden ale. 5.9%
Magic Rock 'High Wire' - American IPA style beer, great finish, long on the hops! 5.5%
Maypole 'Kiwi' IPA - One of the local brews but with Sauvin hops from Nelson, NZ. Really floral and with a citrus finish. 5%
Nottingham 'Knight's T'Ale' - A new one from the Nottingham Brewery, a traditional coppery bitter. 3.9%
Raw Pacific Ghost IPA - Another big, citrussy American style IPA, but made with NZ hops. 5.9%
Severn Vale 'Seven Sins' - Since we were waiting for Seven Little Sisters to come while chatting to Nigel who was engineering the sound this seemed the natural choice. Lovely dry stout - marked contrast to most of the big hoppy beers I went for but possibly all the more pleasant because of that. A  SIBA champion. 5.2%
Springhead 'Roaring Meg' - Although I'd tried this before I wanted to have a beer that was pulled through a sparkler (Northerners eh?). A more traditional style pale ale, not so much of a hop monster, and rather mellow for a 5.5% brew.

Had I had more time I'd have sought out Thornbridge, Dark Star and Blue Monkey beers, but there's only so much you can get through, so maybe next time.

Cheers to Nottingham Camra!