Revolutions 'Clash' London Porter

If ever there was a beer whose packaging was really going to leap out and sell the beer to me I think this one from Revolutions Brewing Company would be it. Not that I think it's particularly state of the art, because I wouldn't know, or even claim to know, state of the art design if I fell over it in the street, but it just looks great.

Of course it could all be a ruse, a cunning trap to lure innocent people like me who think 'The Clash: must be good!' into buying a sub-standard beer. I can never keep the cynical me far from the forefront. Well, actually, maybe I can. One way to do it would be to drink beer; this one in particular, because once you get to the point where you've poured it out and the cool packaging is forgotten, it really is marvellous. Powdery cocoa-heavy chocolate, smoke and a lovely soft bitterness.

London calling? Well, it might well be, but if it is calling, Yorkshire is not only calling, it's shouting. And with beers like this, it has a lot to shout about, probably with some singing and dancing along to old vinyl, naturally.

4.5% abv. £2.84 (50cl) from Beer Ritz.

Kernel India Brown Ale

Just to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. I hope you're both well...

This was supposed to be a post for #seasonstweetings twitter tasting, as set up (over a week ago now) by the irrepressible Phil over at Beersay. My crazy busy December meant I failed completely to get any seasonal beers in, but when you have to make do with The Kernel it's hardly a sacrifice! In fact, had I not already done my Golden Pints for this year, it may well have been a contender for a mention somewhere.

It all starts with a gorgeous creamy chocolate aroma with the faintest touch of hazelnuts and pine/citrus (orange) hops. It's a soft, thick luxurious duvet of a beer, scarily drinkable and rarely has 33cl seemed such a small portion! There's milk chocolate in there but the nuttiness balances out the sweetness, and that's what this beer represents to me - complexity and balance.

Marvelous. Happy Christmas everybody!

Horses and Hops

I had a couple of decent beers the other evening. One I picked up recently from the newly opened Flipping Good Beer Shop, and another I'd had stashed in the cellar for a few months and came across it while I was having a bit of a sort out (if you horde beer/wine/whisky like I do you know exactly what I mean.)

First up was the Sadler's Hop Bomb. I probably served it a bit cold, because there wasn't much on the nose at first, maybe a touch of elderflower but if I'm really honest, it didn't hang around long enough to warm up and allow me to savour the aromas - it's far too quaffable for that! It's 5% abv; strong I suppose, if you like your beer at a more 'sessionable' strength, but quite low for a modern IPA and I thought it was all the better for that; it's less about the sweet tropical fruit than vibrant fresh apricot and white grape flavours, all leading to a gentle sherbet finish rather than harsh bitterness.

5% abv. £2.65 (33cl) from The Flipping Good Beer Shop.

The other was the Welbeck Abbey Brewery Dark Horse, not one that is part of their core range - I think I'm right in saying it's a seasonal/experimental brew from earlier in the year.

There's lots of well-done toast on the nose along with a touch of red and dark fruit. On the palate it is plummy and rich, but keeps its balance rather than descending into a heaviness that its 4.8% abv couldn't support. There's marmite flavours and a lovely sweet hint that comes through on the finish. It would be a hard one to put into a style category - is it a dark ale, a hoppy mild or a lighter Black IPA? When it tastes this good, I for one don't really care!

4.8% abv. £2.60 (50cl) from Hops in a Bottle.

Oakham Citra

I put this one off for ages, and now I'm struggling to work out quite why, because I'm pretty sure it's something I'd pick up again. I think it was partly because Oakham JHB used to be around a lot in the pubs I frequented (not least because I lived in one) and, while it was brilliant at the time, I became tired of it, even if that was more of a fault of its pale (sorry) imitators than JHB itself.

There's bags of grapefruit-led citrus fruit on the nose, tempered with enough tropical fruit to keep the attacking edge off but not so much as to stop it being refreshing. The palate's all about the juicy fruit from the hops; the grapefruit is back with a touch of soapiness, although far from being so much as to be off-putting, and again there's support from tropical fruit, all without it careering off into over-sweet passion fruit territory. It's all really clean and fresh, no wallowing about in cloying sweetness for this beer, it just merrily leads you into grabbing the next one.

4.2% abv. £2.07 (50cl) from Waitrose.

Thornbridge 'Saint Petersburg' Imperial Stout

I couldn't let this one go past without singing its praises. What a winter beer, and not the tacky tinsel variety, there are no badly scrawled doodles of Father Christmas in a compromising situation with a reindeer, it's just the sort of beer that makes you feel cocooned away, protected from all that cold November darkness. Magnificent. Probably to the point where it'd make you feel great in the height of summer too.

On the nose there's lots of chocolate maltiness, with a hint of dried and dark fruits lurking behind; raisins ans plums. It's almost like a savoury version of a fruit and nut bar. Full body hardly does it justice, it's almost chewy. There's more dark chocolate on the palate and on the finish it's all rounded off beautifully with cleansing bitter coffee.

Cosier than a 15 tog duvet. Embrace the dark...



7.4% abv. £3.10 (50cl) from Hops in a Bottle.

Thornbridge 'Wild Swan'

So there's me getting myself ready for winter; I have seductive visions of viscous imperial stouts and single malts that have the bonfire reek my clothes used to pick up from helping my grandad with fires in his back garden when I was little. Then what happens? Well, the small Waitrose in Nottingham starts to stock, and discount, Thornbridge Jaipur and White Swan - the latter being one I don't remember having tried previously. This served as a timely reminder that there are no rules; good beer can be enjoyed at any time of year, and, well, it had to be done really - so here's to the summer?

It pours very pale. It's described on the bottle as a 'white-gold pale ale' which I'm not about to argue with. The head was fluffy, light and long-lasting. On the nose it's all grassy hops. There's none of the tropical fruit you get in Jaipur or Punk. Using a wine analogy it's a lot more like a Sancerre to Jaipur's Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc; it has a mineral, flinty edge while retaining the clean citrus fruit from the hops. Once past the initial hop-hit the malt comes through with crystal clarity, it took me right back to getting my nose into a handful at the brewery in the summer.

This was a beer I expected I'd be indifferent about but it really does pack an immense amount of flavour into a low-ish alcohol beer. It's well worth picking up if you want something you can enjoy without getting your head into a fog that's perhaps more appropriate for a weekend!

3.5% abv. £2.09 for 50cl in Waitrose. It's also on a four for three deal at the moment.

Adnams 'Southwold Winter IPA'

I love winter; long evenings staying cosy in the house with a good film, a good beer and a good whisky. Ideally I'd go for an imperial stout with a whisky to match, but Adnams' idea of a Winter IPA sounds like a rather excellent concept too. When I worked in a London Oddbins next to a video shop we used to try and come up with wine and film combinations, asking people what film they'd rented and trying to recommend an ideal wine. I might branch out and try for a triple combination, the ultimate whisky and film accompaniment to a beer - I'm sure I can put the research in for this one.

Back to the beer. It poured cloudy, I'm not sure if that was my fault but I'm rarely particularly picky about clarity. I loved the brilliant orange colour though. There's a slight soapiness on the nose, but it was potentially a bit cold when I first poured it - a good film beer has to last the length of a film after all. There was plenty of rindy-orange flavours, like mixed peel, and a spicy, perfumed finish. All good, but for me a little understated. I'd love to try a more powerfully-hopped version!

There was a bit of a danger of expecting too much from this one, as my little self-indulgent opening paragraph suggests. It is, after all, a beer brewed for a supermarket chain so is it fair to expect something so different as I had in mind? Perhaps, but thinking more objectively this is a great beer for the money, and it might well lead to more adventurous offerings in the future. A beer like this with a more powerful spice kick like the Otley O-Garden would be fantastic. The whisky was a SMWS Glen Moray and the film was Se7en. Good for a starter but as the nights really draw in I'll be looking for my whisky to have more sherry, smoke or even chocolate orange flavours - like the Ben Nevis from the Glenkeir range - Christmas in a glass.*

6.7% abv. Expect to pay around £2 (50cl), sorry, lost the receipt. Marks & Spencer exclusive.

* A bit of a work plug but it's a delicious whisky!

Fuller's 'Bengal Lancer' IPA

Big breweries are much maligned in beer blogs and the like, but just because a brewery is big doesn't mean it can't make interesting beer, even if far too often they don't. White Shield; 'from the makers of Carling' as the advertising slogan doesn't run,  is perhaps the most extreme example of this, but Fuller's seem to me to be one of the bigger British breweries that offer something special. Having lived most of my life north of Watford Gap it's not a brewery I'm actually that familiar with, but what beers of theirs I have tried have put many operations that espouse the virtues of their small size and flexibility as as asset to shame.

It seems to be a recurring theme of mine that when I try new IPAs I'm actually looking more for how the malt supports the hops flavours and gives the beer structure and backbone. For me far too many beers use hops rather too indiscriminately, almost forgetting that beer is a complex drink, not just a sort of one-dimensional strong hop cordial. There's plenty of leafy hop aroma, all backed up with smoky spices and that all-important biscuity malt spine. If I were to be critical, I found that there was a little too much sweetness, but I realise that's just my taste rather than a fault with the beer, some people will like it more because of that.

Celebrity endorsed, and (rather curiously) made for the Swedish market, but don't let that put you off. 5.3% abv. £1.99 from Ocado.

PS: Apparently it's vegan too, no nasty fish bits required!

Meantime IPA

75cl bottles of beer, a truly fantastic idea. They're great for sharing, and in the case of both the Punk IPA I had the other week (which I am pleased to say was back in tip-top form) and this one, they're even better to share with someone who wasn't that keen and so let me drink it.

For me Meantime brewery are ticking all the boxes. They're making good, well-packaged beer, which is widely available. I love reading about the weird, the wonderful, the eye-wateringly expensive, and the hard-to-find, but unfortunately that's often as close as I get. However it's reassuring to know that even in those monuments to mediocrity, the British supermarkets; decent, flavourful beer is getting a look in.

The IPA pours a coppery-orange colour. On the nose the Meantime IPA's fruit was restrained at first; grassy nuances of tropical and citrus fruit were there, but I served it pretty cold which I think subdued things a little. The punch came on the palate in the form of an explosion of pithy bitterness. For me some IPA can end up with so much forward tropical fruit that they end up being a bit cloying, more like pop than beer - or maybe Um Bongo? This has far more complexity, the biscuity malt doesn't just feel like an afterthought, although taking away some of the sweetness does seem to make it moreish and disguise the alcohol. Ah well, that's what Friday evenings in front of the rugby are for.

7.4% abv (75cl). I got this from Sainsbury's, I think I paid about £5.50 for it.

Adnams 'Spindrift'

Having cracked open an old favourite bottle of wine last week it was good to see Adnams stock its more up-to-date vintage. At the other end of the 'favourite activities' scale I found myself in Sainsbury's the other day, and sought succour in the beer aisle - or, as it turned out, the 'ale' section which was lurking in the wine aisle. It was an Adnams beer that caught my eye. It's a brewery I'm not that familiar with - one of the sister pubs to the one I used to manage used to have Broadside on hand-pull but it's not something I particularly remember having seen a lot of in Nottingham.

I was musing recently that some beers don't seem to make the transition to bottle that well, but if this is one that was originally brewed with cask in mind then, for me, it translates very well. On opening the grassy and lemony-hop aromas leap up at you, although they're a little more restrained on pouring, when the malt comes through a little more. On the palate it's impeccably balanced between the malt and the hop flavour, the caramel and biscuity malt providing backbone to the light body and the hay and citrus hop flavours. All in all a most enjoyable summer beer.

I feel I have to mention the blue bottle. I thought it was pretty cool, my wife thought it made it look like an alcopop; although she really liked the beer. On the other hand, crisp and refreshing are not flavour descriptors - as marketing terms they're best left firmly in the court of those who make drinks that don't taste of much and need chilling down so far as to make sure you can't taste anything. Adnams perhaps need to have a little more confidence in how good their beer is? It's never easy is it?

A lot of flavour packed into a 5% beer. Worth a go; a cure for 'supermarket blues' perhaps? £1.79 (33cl).

Hawkshead 'New Zealand Pale Ale'

NZPA started life as a British export in the late 19th century. Although popular myths suggest that it was shipped to Lions rugby players in 1888, in fact it was more the coaching staff and press core that used to drink it at the time, the players themselves having developed a preference for a chilled glass of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc - a local beverage very popular at the time and now, sadly, confined to the three for a tenner bin at Asda. A few ships were unfortunately wrecked on the Australian coast at the time, allowing the locals to sample the now famous beverage. This actually led to the Australians developing a deep mistrust of hop-flavours, something that is only being overcome in very recent brewing history.

OK, so I made some made stuff up. Although by all accounts it's no worse than the rubbish peddled by Tui* with regard to their 'East India Pale Ale.' Back to the beer in hand though, this is from Hawkshead's well-hopped collection, made exclusively with New Zealand hops, and, rather like the wines do at their best, it does seem to encapsulate that vibrant Aotearoa freshness, something I'd imagine it would be more difficult to do if the beer, rather than just the hops, had come half way round the world. As you might expect it's fruity on the nose, but it also shows a certain tartness which gives it a nice contrast rather than it turning into a tropical fruit punch. On the palate it does a great job of staying the right side of crisp and clean, at no point do the fruit flavours overpower the beer; passion fruit balancing nicely with crisp green apple. Despite not being shy of exhibiting a powerful punch, it's a beer without harsh edges; drinkable and extremely tasty.

6% abv. £3.10 (33cl) from Beer Ritz.

* Pronounced 'twee' as in sickeningly corny, which makes sense when you see how their advertising works.

Edit: I thought I'd add a soundtrack. A British remix of a kiwi band that the friends I met in New Zealand introduced me to. A soundtrack to summers since, despite it being winter when I was there - well it was a mild enough winter to turn the snowboarding part of the trip into a skydiving one! Motueka rocked.

Skinner's 'Betty Stogs'

Melissa Cole was on fine form yesterday, launching herself at the sexism of certain breweries' marketing techniques over on her blog. It was great to see lots of support in the form of comments and re-tweets from people I talk to in the beeriverse on Twitter. I've mentioned it before but I think it's something that is worth re-iterating. In order to convince a new generation of drinkers (of both sexes) to drink beer, the sexism and schoolboy humour really ought to stop. I'm not talking about censorship or some sort of ban, I just think that good beer should be treated with some respect; it deserves better.

That's not to say that everything has so be constantly and slickly managed by an expensive PR company, but breweries should have, and be seen to have, some pride in their product. The fact is that bottle labels and pump clips are often the first thing a prospective customer encounters, and if they look shabby and out-dated then it will discourage a generation of extremely brand-conscious drinkers for whom sophisticated drinks advertising campaigns are completely normal fare.

If you think it's harmless, and that the casual sexism and cartoon images contained on many labels and pump-clips are just a joke, then fine; but when the 'real ale' selection in your pub is reduced, and a new bar fridge is put in chock-full of Smirnoff Ice, then you had it coming.

Breweries; leave the alienation of women to the big brands like Foster's and Carling - please let them go under rather than something that's worth being proud of. Of course, if you're not really proud of your beer, then feel free to put a large picture of a dog-turd on the label. I suppose at least it's not sexist.

And so to beer, and why that rant is somewhat relevant. My other half was in the supermarket the other week and gave me a bell to say 'Have you tried...' I said I hadn't, and so she bought it. I would have stopped her if I'd have thought a bit more. Skinner's are responsible for, amongst others, the travesty that is 'Cornish Knocker' and, as I think I probably illustrated above, I would avoid of their beers because I think if they're prepared to associate themselves with that sort of branding then I don't think they'd particularly care about their beer.* I'm not saying that's how it is, but that label is the only impression of them that I have and therefore, before drinking their beer, have nothing else to judge them on.

The 'Betty Stogs' pours a pleasant reddish-amber colour and the head didn't hang around very long. On the nose there's a touch of lemon but mainly I got caramel biscuit aromas - kind of like Jacob's Trio if anyone remembers them! On the palate there's an initial light fruitiness; citrus in particular and there's not much to the finish. I think this is just a beer that doesn't translate that well to a bottle. I'm sure it would be a perfectly enjoyable session beer on hand-pull, but like many similar beers it doesn't work so well in a different format. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it keep pubs open after all.

4.0% abv. £2.09 (50cl) from Beers of Europe (I don't know what my wife paid for it.)

Edit: Stephen Beaumont has weighed in on the issue too. It's not just the 'real-ale' stereotype, it happens everywhere, as you can see from this Session #66 post from The Pour Curator (aka Greg).

* Since I've not tried it then I won't pass judgement on Cornish Knocker as a beer. Simon over at CAMRGB did here though.

Magic Rock 'Human Cannonball' IIPA

Since I left the pub trade a huge number of breweries have started up, completely changing the face of the UK pub and beer scene. Many of these escaped my notice since I was immersed in sitting wine exams and trying to get my head round grape clones and rootstock types. Since I started beer blogging and re-discovering British beer in particular, Magic Rock have been one brewery that has been constantly recommended and raved about, but I've just never got round to trying. The day after IPA day was therefore IPA day squared, a chance to relive #downDIPA perhaps?

Given I'm not a massive fan of Imperial IPA as a style, I was impressed by this one. It was getting close to its best before date, which might have affected the freshness, but if so I suspect it mellowed rather than deteriorated. It poured a deep reddish-amber colour, and there's bags and bags of hops on the nose, delivering rich citrus and tropical fruit. On the palate the hops are, relatively for a double IPA, held back; which I think gives the beer a better balance, allowing some of the caramel sweetness of the malt to come through. On the basis of this my appetite for Magic Rock beer is well and truly whetted, I'll continue to be on the look out for more of their beers.

You can have a bit of a read of the story behind Human Cannonball here.

It's a very well disguised 9.2% abv. I got this one from Beer Ritz, although I'm not sure what I paid for it. Slurp are charging £3.90 (33cl.)

Durham Brewery 'Bombay 106' IPA

I don't think I had any involvement in IPA Day last year, it was a bit early in my blogging days so I probably wasn't aware of it in all the hubub. Anyway, here I am celebrating my first IPA Day. A day to celebrate what is probably my favourite style of beer. What's not to like?

First up was a beer I've been looking forward to trying for ages. Much as I like the American styles of IPA it's British IPAs that are my first love from way back, and in the wake of British performances in the Olympics which have actually stopped my usual cynicism in its tracks it seemed doubly appropriate. As far as I'm aware Durham Brewery (admirably in my opinion) won't sell their beers through supermarkets, so this isn't something you're going to find outside of specialists or on-line. Look out for their #sourpower day to celebrate the release of the really exciting sounding Diabolus that's happening on the 6th of September.

Enough pre-amble, on with the beer. It's bottle conditioned and leapt out of the bottle after opening so it didn't pour very clear, although I just about managed to miss my phone and hit the glass with only minor spillage! Crisis averted I dived right in. It was well worth the wait, a really excellent, unashamedly bitter beer. None of your new world tropical fruit in this one; there's some lemon and grapefruit on the nose but it's just luring you into a false sense of security before the steely metallic flavour on the palate hits you with everything it has. Short, sharp and definitely to the point. The finish is crisp, the mineral hop hit doesn't hang around long enough to get unpleasant, rapidly moving on to spices; pepper that urges you to try more.

Obviously IPA Day deserved more than one IPA, but the Bombay deserved its own post. A superb beer; BrewDog's 'Olympic Beer' will have to wait.

7% abv. £3.36 (50cl) from Beer Ritz.

Credit: IPA Day logo, with the date 'corrected', taken from Martyn Cornell's Zythophile blog. His posts debunking IPA myths are well worth a read.

Meantime Chocolate Porter

Despite outward appearances this blog hasn't become sponsored by Meantime Brewing Company, but of the last few beers I've had in bottle, two of the ones that have captured my imagination just happen to have come from them. I've also got a whacking great big bottle of Meantime IPA awaiting my love and attention, so don't be surprised if they pop-up again.

On first pouring I got more of the porter aromas and very little chocolate. I though it might just be too cold, having just come out of the fridge, and so I left it in the snifter to get a bit of air and warm up a bit. I'm very glad I did. The aromas dramatically changed as the beer warmed, by the time I actually took a sip I felt like I'd been dipping my nose in chocolate for a while - I did rope in the assistance of a 'thirst-quencher' in order to enable resisting temptation. It's a lovely luxurious beer, the chocolate isn't overly sweet, meaning it stays drinkable rather than cloying. I'm not a massive chocolate fan, but I really enjoyed this, the chocolate and fudge-brownie complementing the porter elements rather than overpowering them and the balance is preserved. This is further helped by the dark chocolate laden bitter finish. 

6.5% abv. This was a gift from my wife. I was very grateful; as I was grateful for her generosity in helping me with the tasting notes. Her verdict: 'I'll have that again as my drink at Christmas.' Praise indeed. I thought the bottle warranted a mention too. I really like the Burgundy/Champagne touch in the bottle shape, it's eye-catching, which I suppose is just the ticket if you want your beer to make its way to someone's home rather than sitting on a supermarket shelf.

Turn To Red

Red beers seem to me to have a bit of an identity crisis. Rightly or wrongly the drinking public associate colour with flavour. When I worked in a bar in Australia the Guinness was viewed with suspicion by some, and it was suggested that it 'did strange things to you' despite it being 1% abv lower than the XXXX that was the 'standard' beer. In the minds of some, a dark beer is something warming and wintry; beer to ward of the chill, and pale beer is the summer or warm weather alternative; beer for the garden. It's an easy stereotype even if the preconceptions aren't always backed up in reality, a little like the 'brown is boring' tag. IPA and other big hop-hit beers are the darlings of the 'craft beer scene', praises being sung from rooftops here and across the Atlantic, so where does this leave red ale - ignored and lonely?


Anyway, to beer. Since we seem to have skipped summer in favour of a second, slightly warmer, winter, I wondered if a few red beers might be seasonally appropriate. I had Buxton 'Kinder Sunset', Great Newsome 'Pricky Back Otchan' and Welbeck Abbey 'Red Feather' kicking about so, with a nod to  Killing Joke's debut EP, I thought I'd compare them.

I have had beers from Buxton before and always enjoyed them, although apart from the Moor Top that I had on my way up to the Thornbridge Brewery the other week I can't remember what they are. I'll never make a ticker, it's a good job I've got Untappd to keep an eye on me. The Kinder Sunset pours a deep ruby red, and it has sweet cherry fruit on the nose and flavours like the toffee off a toffee apple. I found the soapy hops a bit off putting, it's one of those things I like in a beer in small doses but sometimes it's too much. (5% abv, Slurp sell it for £2.75 for a 50cl bottle.)

Given the reputation that Buxton have I was pleasantly surprised that I preferred the Great Newsome 'Pricky Back Otchan'. The hops were less soapy, and there's a delicious minerality to it, an almost metallic dry bite that I really enjoyed. It's a bit less red-coloured than the Buxton, possibly veering away from the red theme, but it's as close as I had. Again there's plenty of malty, biscuity aroma. (4.2% abv, £20 for a case of 12 50cl bottles if you can pick it up from the brewery.)



Last up was Red Feather from the Welbeck Brewery. A tasty brew, enough body despite its relatively low alcohol to give it some structure. This one is definitely all about the malt, there's lots of sweet biscuity flavour and a touch of spice, all backed up with chocolate and caramel. (3.9% abv, £2.70 for a 50cl bottle from Hops in a Bottle.)

Red beer; difficult to pin down to a style maybe? Given it seems we have a love of getting everything labelled and neatly compartmentalised - placed into a genre - maybe that's why it's a bit tricky. It's a bit like reggae-dub-punk-metal-industrial-gothic-synthpop bands I suppose...

Worthington's 'White Shield' IPA

When I popped the top on this one I wasn't sure whether it was worth taking a few notes or not. It's not like I was going to be able to tell anyone anything different about it. Once I'd got going though I thought another voice in its favour was no bad thing. So much is written criticising huge industrial brewers that it's quite therapeutic to have a beer like this that's not only faultlessly made, as big brewery products generally are, but interesting to boot.

Football on, seventies M&B dimple mug full of Burton IPA - not a bad place to find myself of an early evening. It pours brown, with reddish hints, and retains its head well. I'm still not sure how much yeast has to be put in to get the bottle fermentation going in order for it to qualify for being 'bottle-conditioned' and get the little sticker, but when poured quite vigorously it was clear, and I couldn't see any yeast hanging about in the bottle. What initially got me was how much malt aroma there was; lots of shortbread biscuit backing up the grapefruit of the hops - there's no way you'd mistake this for an 'American' IPA. On the palate there's layer after layer of complexity; dried and citrus fruit, toffee, spices and orange peel. There's a faint reductive 'spent-match' quality to it too, which, like petrol aromas in Riesling, I can imagine is not everyone's cup of tea, but I thought it added a little to the beer. Similarly the finish has some of the soapiness that I know puts some people off cask beer, but in this case it actually works - it not being too dominant. This beer's all about the balance of flavours, not too much, not too little.

Much as I may disagree with many things they do, and stand for, I know the people at Molson Coors aren't daft, so here's hoping they carry on letting the brewers keep this one as it is. I'd be happy to re-visit it every now and again, and I hope others are too; you'd miss it if it were gone.

5.6% abv. £2.15 (50cl) from Ocado (I think, seems to be a pretty standard price though.)

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.

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...

Kelham Island 'Pale Rider'

I've had to put my oak exploration beers on hold for a few days. I'm full of cold and I wanted to do it properly - if you can't use your nose you can't taste anything, it is after all 'the most acute human tasting instrument.' *

I do have a beer to write up though, while I'm waiting for my olfactory receptor cells to recover and reading about Nobel prize winners.  I had a bottle of an old favourite of mine, Kelham Island Pale Rider, last week. A mate of mine used to run the New Barrack Tavern in Sheffield, and this is a beer I fell in love with on returning from a year of fizzy lager (with some rare but very notable exceptions) in Australia. Going back to beers you have a nostalgic fondness for is always dangerous, but I didn't have the expectation levels I would if I'd seen it on draught (which would probably lead to pant-wetting levels of excitement), and so I thought I was pretty safe.

In the end I suppose I was right, it's simply not the beer I remember it being on tap. However it's got a decent hoppy bite that grabs the side of the tongue, a good fruity complexity, showing lemon sherbet and a touch of soapiness in the mid-palate, all polished off with a moreish bitter finish.

It's still a good beer, one I'd be only too happy to drink again, and aside from the shift from draught to bottle, I can't help wonder how much my perception of it has shifted in the interim years while I've been refining my taste buds. (I know that sound horribly pretentious but I have sat an awful lot of wine exams since I used to drink in the NBT - and I'll concede it could be I've just been getting older and more picky!)

* The Oxford Companion to Wine