Down DIPA

Last night was The Campaign for Really Good Beer's Twitter event, #downDIPA, and it was brilliant to see the CAMRGB logo on a bottle of beer. For some more thoughts on CAMRGB have a read of Matt's account of the DIPA night here.

Fame at last!

It's a real shame that the guys at Arbor couldn't get behind the 'event beer' if you like. I'm only saying that because one of the great things about the Impoff evening was the irrepressibly enthusiastic Elly Bell from Durham brewery really pushing it and getting people excited. Unfortunately, due to the condition issues with the Down Deeper I think Arbor probably felt that they couldn't do a similar thing. Like I say, it's a shame it turned out that way, but I can't fault them for having a go and brewing the Down Deeper specially for the event. Cheers guys!

I did try the Arbor; while it has been suggested that it might improve with a bit of cellaring I thought I'd give it a whirl. It would have seemed odd to participate in the event the beer was created in honour of and leave it sitting in the cellar! As advised I poured it warmer than fridge temperature. It looked a bit like scrumpy cider in the glass. There was a bit of stewed fruit aroma; apple crumble mixed in with the skunk-weed hoppiness. I actually got it to open up a lot more by chucking in a bit of taste-free 2.8% lager that we'd bought for a party we had last week (it's basically fizzy water). Once I'd done that the pine and grapefruit aromas really came to the fore along with buttered crumpet flavours.

Next up was Hardknott Queboid, billed as a Belgian style double IPA. It pours darker than most IPAs, brown with a reddish hint. There's a hint of smoke on the nose, complementing the big hop aromas. It's a mighty mighty beer lurking in the guise of a Belgian brown ale. The power of the malt balances up the hops beautifully, it's deep and rich, with restrained sweetness and a hint of Belgian ale's dustiness. As it warmed in the glass I got spices, with some cinnamon and fruit cake. It really is a magnificent beer. It's been a while since I had a beer that I really fell in love with, but this is up there with the best beers I've ever had from a bottle.

The final beer of my evening was Nøgne Ø's Imperial IPA. Again it's darker than you might expect, looking rather more like a traditional English IPA. It's a full bodied, almost chewy beer. There's lots of treacly sweetness which isn't really lifted up enough by the hops for me, the hops sort of wallow around in the alcohol. I can't help thinking it was a bit overdone, they might have been better aiming for the 8% abv that the Queboid weighs in at rather than 10% - it didn't wear its alcohol particularly well. Add to this a not altogether pleasant, almost blue-cheese like, finish and I've got to say I wasn't too impressed overall. While I can be a harsh critic at times, when my wife tried it she seemed to think I was trying to poison her, but it wasn't that bad.

Am I an Imperial IPA convert? Well, perhaps not, but the Queboid was so good that it sets a benchmark, and I now know how good double IPAs can get, I'm definitely keen to try more. A couple of highlights from what I can remember from the Twitter time-line were Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA (c/o Roberto) and, from various people, the Red Willow Ageless. Two more for my 'must try' list!

Arbor Ales 'Down Deeper.' 10.2% abv, £2.94 (33cl)
Hardknott Queboid. 8% abv, £3.12 (33cl) Both from Beer Ritz.
Nøgne Ø Imperial IPA. 10% abv. £5.50 (50cl) from York Beer and Wine Shop.

It's Coming...

This time around, the revolution will not be televised.

It might, however, be Tweeted. I think. Probably with the hashtag #downDIPA (I might not have thought the political implications of this through.)

With a special 'Down Deeper' double IPA from Arbor Ales (along with a menu of other hop-monsters) it's set to be a pungent weekend! Check out the event page on the CAMRGB website. The Arbor brew is available for order from Beer Ritz.

I do need some convincing. I've not been particularly impressed with double IPAs before, finding them a bit cloying and somewhat one-dimensional, but I thought since I'd not actually tried an awful lot of them I'd have a go. On this blog I've reviewed Victory 'Hop Wallop' and Mikkeller 'I Beat yoU' in addition to having BrewDog Hardcore at their Nottingham opening. I've got Nøgne Ø Imperial IPA here already, and, along with the Arbor Down Deeper I've got Magic Rock Human Cannonball to come off the list. So here's me being prepared to be converted over the weekend!

Join in: CAMRGB on Twitter. and don't forget #downDIPA. Hops away! (Yes, I am expecting a lot of hop puns...)

Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout

At the instigation of Phil of Beersay fame, and because I don't have any Temptation for Friday's Durham Brewery promoted '#impoff' (Imperial Stout Twitter tasting) I ended up drinking a Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout yesterday evening.

It pours with a gorgeous deep tan head which retained well as I drank the beer. There's dark chocolate, a faint soapiness and a slight lactic/milky coffee note to the nose. On the palate it's both dry and rich, with lots more coffee, bitter cherry and pine hop flavour. It holds the alcohol well, not spirity. (Possibly dangerous that!) Good balance with the chocolate & touch of vanilla. Coffee keeps coming as you drink it, along with more spicy notes. On the whole a fine beer. It's not overly exciting, but certainly impeccably made. Sometimes it's easy to get carried away with the power of some modern beers when you're tasting them but for me they have to have a corresponding amount of character to back up high abv. I'm just not sure this needed to be 9%.

A Duvel glass came out due to discussion
centred on a previous blog post!

On poking round the website it was interesting to see that Nøgne Ø don't appear to brew a 'non-imperial' stout and I wonder if they could get a similar amount of character into one without the abv. It was a flippant comment at the time but I mentioned to a couple of people on Twitter that it could maybe have done with some time in an old PX sherry/whisky butt to add character, and given the guys at Nøgne Ø have aged a similar beer in Cognac barrels, it suggests I might not be alone in that thought - this I'd love to have tried.

£4.75 (50cl) from York Beer & Wine Shop.

Thornbridge 'Raven' Black IPA

Every now and again a beer leaves you reaching for Roget and looking for more superlatives to throw at it. At times like these I generally feel like a review can never quite do it justice. I'm sure I'm not the first person to be blown away by how great Thornbridge's Raven is. Simon over at CAMRGB seemed pretty keen and if you didn't check his review out, you should.

I got lots of berry fruit and dark cherry on the nose, along with hints of chocolate and orange. Bags of rich fruit on the palate; cherry again and some dried fruit balancing well with the coffee and roasted malt flavours. The slightly grainy texture sets it up well too. A genuinely intriguing beer, big enough without being excessive. The bitterness of the finish seemed to move around to the mid-palate and almost dance with the lemon and orange hoppy fruit. Highly recommended.

6.6% abv £3.05 (50cl) from Hops in a Bottle.

Good Beer, A Valuable Thing?

Value is a tricky thing. The opening of a brand new, and relatively expensive bar in Nottingham has drawn attention to this via that medium-for-the-indignant; Twitter.

"£3.50 for a half pint?! WTF? This won't be my usual place, I guarantee!! [closely followed by, my emphasis] Gone to a real pub - picked up copy of Nottm Drinker. Article about @BrewDogNotts. Quotes from them are so pretentious!"*

c/o BrewDog Notts Twitter feed

It was only the opinion of one Camra member, and shouldn't be held up as representative of the group, but the first tweet was re-tweeted by Nottingham branch, and as far as I am concerned that represents a certain level of agreement if not outright approval of the sentiment. It's a statement that assumes all beer is equal, hardly what you'd expect to be endorsed by Camra. From the 'draft' list they put up on Twitter yesterday I'm struggling to see which one it was that was £3.50 for a half, but I'm guessing it may have been an imported beer and so not on this particular board. So why did I put the pic up? Well, it shows the paradox (pun intended). The Paradox Jura is an equivalent price of £3.50/pint for a 5% beer, but I would defy anyone to find a beer that is that complex for that kind of price. Or, drawing away from mucking around with the alcohol equivalents, how good a wine are you going to get for £3.50 in a pub? You'd be lucky to get a glass of the wine world's equivalent of Budweiser - well made, but hardly exciting.

Not for £3.50 you aren't...

I'm not a member of Camra, and from an outsider's perspective it seems there is a lot of emphasis placed on the price of a pint. Membership discounts, discounts in discount pubs, all that kind of stuff. It's all wrapped up in championing the rights of the consumer. All well and good. But is cheap beer really that good for us as beer drinkers? Campaigning for cheap beer surely plays into the hands of those who make lots of the stuff doesn't it? Those whose volume of sales makes up for lack of profit per pint. I'm not talking about allowing ourselves to be ripped off at will, or paying way over the odds, but maybe it's worth thinking about it before having a rant about prices. A pint doesn't have an intrinsic worth. In a capital based economy and society, it's worth what people are prepared to pay for it - as are most things. Once again I find myself on the side of good beer rather than cheap beer. Can I afford to drink Paradox Jura, or even any of the other great beers on that list,  all the time? No, but I'm glad it's there, and on the rare occasions I get to go out and challenge my palate it's great to think there is something different around, something that does just that. If it means that I don't get to drink as much when I'm out, then that's fine.

The competitive nature of the system has an somewhat unfortunate side-effect of encouraging lowest common denominator products. So much of 'business management' is about profit through marketing and driving costs down rather than producing something that has its own merits. Every little doesn't really help.

How can you buck this trend? Ironically enough there are brewers that have designed their beers specifically to win Camra awards, and then shoved their prices right up. I'd like to think, however, that there are people who just want to brew the best beer they can, and hope to turn a profit at the other end - almost like a horse drawing a cart, or is that too revolutionary a concept. Still, maybe there's an upside of all of this? Maybe there'll be more Hardknott beers and the like to go round for those of us who like beer as a treat? And if any of this makes me sound like a beer snob, then maybe I am. You'll certainly not see me at the bar in Wetherspoons asking for my Camra discount.


*Link to Nottingham drinker is here if you want to judge the merits of that second tweet for yourself.

Sierra Nevada 'Summerfest'

Once again the craft/keg/real/cask thing reared its head with Jeff Rosenmeier from Lovibonds sparking a debate by declaring he made 'craft beer' as opposed to real ale or the like. All of this is thrashed out on both sides over at Des de Moor's blog. The root of the issue seems to me to be beers that are good but aren't easily labelled (not literally) or placed into a category. What must the Campaign for Real Stout* be thinking about this?

Personally I think it's a problem that stems from labelling/categorising outliving its usefulness. If you are looking for a record in a shop (remember record shops?) it's useful to be able to look in a specific section; Indy (almost by its very nature), Drum & Bass, Metal etc. but when it gets down to rather pointless debates about whether something is tech-step or neurofunk, groove or thrash, grindcore or death-metal,  it all outlives its usefulness. If you don't know what I'm talking about then pick your genre on Youtube and read some comments, or better yet, don't - it gets very annoying.

All of which brings me back to a beer, the Sierra Nevada Summerfest. I've no idea if they are still 'small' enough to be officially defined as a craft brewery (I suspect they are, even if only to remain 'craft') but if their beer's good, then their beer's good and I'm happy to drink it.

Pours with a slight haze. Gentle hop aroma without pithiness; citrus. Light-bodied with grapefruit on the palate. Fine carbonation - here my beer vocabulary lets me down a bit - if it were a sparkling wine I'd describe it as a delicate mousse, which it isn't but hopefully you get the idea; small, delicate bubbles rather than big fizz. This, for me, sums up how a lager should be. Yes, it's easy-drinking, and not the most challenging beer in the world but it does have flavour, and no matter what category you might want to put it in, in the end I'd just go for it being good beer.

5.0% £1.86 (35cl) from Waitrose

A final thought: Is this a responsible beer to make? If all lager was this good we'd have nothing to moan about, and given it is one of the two great national pastimes we'd only be left with queueing. Damn these Americans, bringing their good beer over here... Back to Jeff I think.

*Yes, I made that up.

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.

Oldershaw 'Caskade'

Yes, I can spell, and so can they. It's a pun, see?

Anyway, a single hop beer I got from a local farm shop that comes from just up the road in Grantham. I kind of fell out with Grantham having been stranded there after the mickey-mouse outfit that is East Coast Trains managed to make me miss my connection the other week, thus turning a long day of wine tasting into a long, freezing, evening on a platform. This could well be redemption in a glass.

Unsurprisingly this is a good demonstration of what cascade hops can bring to a beer. Light (natural) carbonation, and a zesty liveliness that I think is often missing in bottle conditioned ales of this style. Lots of floral and grapefruit character and a little spice. I sure die hard hop-heads wouldn't find it that exciting, but, like the Thwaites IPA I had last week, I think there is a place for tasty, lower strength brews that go down a treat in the summer. The problem for me is that so many breweries have jumped on the band-wagon without making a beer that actually tastes of much, so fair play to Oldershaw for not falling into that trap.

It's Camra credited too - although I'm still interested to find out how this comes about. See discussion on 'a certain symbol' on the CAMRGB website.



4.2% abv, I can't remember how much I paid for it. A quick google and it turned up on The Real Ale Store for £2.90, which seems a bit steep, but I think it's limited/seasonal so I'm guessing there's not a lot about. (50cl)

The 'Golden Pint' Awards 2011

This one's prompted and organised by Andy over at Beer Reviews, all self-explanatory. (Or at least if it isn't I've failed to work it all out.)

1. Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer: Blue Monkey BG Sips, best session beer I've had in ages.
2. Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer: Currently the Williams' Profanity Stout, although since I've got a bottle of Deus Brut Des Flandres knocking about I'm hoping that's better given how much the wife let me pay for it.
3. Best Overseas Draught Beer: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap at the Bread & Bitter, if only because I was drinking it to celebrate the birth of our first child!
4. Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer: Delirium Nocturnum
5. Best Overall Beer:  Brass Castle 'Bad Kitty' probably equal with the BG Sips (#1) so I allocated the two pretty much at random - maybe a summer and a winter winner. Also fair play to these guys for avoiding isinglass for guilt-free veggie beer drinking.
6. Best Pumpclip or Label: I'll defer to The Pour Curator on this one, if you don't read his blog you should have a look. Some stunning artwork on there.
7. Best UK Brewery: Black Iris, Derby. Totally biased since I was party to their opening night through some friends, and spoken to them a few times since. and they're just top guys.
8. Best Overseas Brewery: Huyghe, because of #4, and because the pink elephant always does it for me.
9. Pub/Bar of the Year: The Pipe & Glass, South Dalton
10. Beer Festival of the Year: Robin Hood BeerFestival, Nottingham
11. Supermarket of the Year: Sainsbury's (due to the Great British Beer Hunt)
12. Independent Retailer of the Year: The York beer & Wine Shop, source of my first ever Hardknott beer.
13. Online Retailer of the Year: Beers of Europe, prompt & knowledgeable.
14. Best Beer Book or Magazine: Isn't that what the internet's for? I suppose the Oxford Companion to Beer has provided a lot of reading material without me actually reading it. Roll on the second edition.
15. Best Beer Blog or Website: Tough one, I enjoy so many. But I'll go for HardKnott Dave, I think because he writes from a different perspective to ones I've experienced in the wine & pub trade.
16. Best Beer Twitterer: Simon Johnson. Entertainment.
17. Best Online Brewery presence: Summer Wine Brewery. Enjoyable blog,and tweets.
18. Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Bavarian Obazda & fresh pretzels with Hofbräuhaus Oktoberfestbier. We had it for an Oktoberfest party that I never got round to writing about.
19. In 2012 I’d Most Like To… Better the best beers of this year!
20. Open Category: Steve at Beers I've Known, and The Campaign for Really Good Beer. Kudos.

Cheers, all the best beverages for 2012.

'Premiumisation...' and Anchor Porter

Apologies for using a crass marketing term but it's something that's been going on in the industry for a while and it's also something that I think gets to the point often discussed in beer blogs and on the Twitter hop-vine. There has been a move, particularly in the spirits category, towards more interesting drinks, ones with provenance, history, and (at least according to the sellers) flavour. I would suggest that 'Fancier Pints' and the burgeoning UK 'artisan' beer sector are far more a part of this than they are a product of campaigning from consumer groups such as Camra.

Take an example like Grey Goose vodka, as made by a Cognac Master Distiller, with water filtered through volcanic rock (and however much marketing blurb you'd like to insert here). All well and good and it's good as far as vodka goes - I tried it a few years ago courtesy of a rep from the parent company, Bacardi (hardly a small artisan company). The fact is that it sells far more as a statement than a flavour choice. It's a bit like the vodka version of a Ferrari, everyone knows it, everyone knows it's expensive, but it's arguably a cosmetic thing. Another example from closer to home (for me) is in the wine industry where (anecdotally*) some winemakers have seen a big upsurge in sales by considerably bumping up the prices.

The Campaign for Really Good Beer has been attacked by some for not knowing what it stands for. Firstly I would have thought the clue was in the name. I think part of the charm, and maybe even its raison d'etre is the very fact that it defines good beer by something as simple as whether the the person drinking it is enjoying it. Although I'd suggest part of the fun is to be able to describe the beer and argue its merits - and maybe even cut through some of the bullshit?

So educate your palate so you can trust it. Try new things but don't be fooled, because people in marketing never miss a trick, they're coming for your microbrew.

* Remarked upon by the guests at an Australian wine day this week.

...and the beer.

I also tried Anchor Porter recently, and I really enjoyed it. Not too intense a flavour despite its 5.6% abv.

Good creamy-brown head that stayed around, not too fizzy.

Bitter chocolate, mocha, touch of sweetness on the finish. What I like about it is while it has plenty of character, nothing is too dominant, and so it has a lovely balance. Moreish to the point of being dangerously drinkable.



£1.85 (355ml) from Beers of Europe

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.