The World's Best Bad Beer?

What's the most under-rated beer ever? Well , how about Watney's Red Barrel? Perhaps being too young to remember it is a good thing, but I've never tried it. It's just something that gets talked about (a lot) as the basest of beers, a sort of benchmark from which the only way is up. When I first started going to pubs cask beer was the norm, not an exception. The first pubs I regularly drank in with my mates, the choice seemed to be mild or bitter; lager didn't really figure, perhaps it was expensive. I do have more experience than I care to remember with 'smooth' type keg beers, the entire purpose of which seemed to me to be to take a beer and give it an additional, unpleasant chemical taste. We used to describe it as 'bitter flavoured lager' in one of the pubs I used to work in, although I think any claim it has flavour is something of an exaggeration.

Curious? *

But things are always relative. Just as the next series of 24 had to feature more torture, explosions and killings (more than seven anyway - see 4m30 in if you don't get the reference) then for some breweries their next release has to be proclaimed as better, and therefore gets more hyped than the last, and there surely comes a point where the beer can't live up to the press.

Since Watney's Red Barrel is almost a synonym for bad kegged beer I wonder exactly how bad it can be? As opposed to just tasteless.

Have a look at Scotland's most under-rated beer over at the beercast for a (slightly) more serious approach which made me think of this.

* Picture taken from Martyn Cornell's blog article here.

Penlon 'Ewes Frolic' Lager & 'Tipsy Tup' Pale Ale

A gap in the terrible weather today and a great time was had by the family down in Saundersfoot. As a bonus we swung by 'The Quay' for a half of 'Firewater' which, from what I can work out, is just cask Worthington's which has retained an old nickname back from when Firewater was actually one of the beers served at the pub. Since it's served via a jug from firkins tucked away behind the bar you're hardly besieged by branding telling you exactly what it is you're drinking, so I guess it's pretty easy for an old name to stick.

The 'Ewes Frolic'  and 'Tipsy Tup' are two from a selection of Penlon beers I picked up from Ultracomida; a coffee-shop/wine-shop/deli in Narberth. It's not quite as local as the Preseli beers I tried the other night, but they're brewed not too far north of here in Ceredigion. The 'Ewes Frolic' is a bottle-conditioned lager which pours clear up to a point (I shared it, my wife got the clear half). There's enough citrus hop character in there to get your mouth watering and it keeps its lager credentials with its light body and good, clean, smooth finish. It wears its 5.2% abv well. Although I was a little suspicious of the addition of 'a teaspoon of corn syrup' to get the bottle maturation going I enjoyed this one - it certainly didn't end up with the sweet corn taste you can sometimes get in an American adjunct lager.


The 'Tipsy Tup' is a pale ale, and again it's bottle conditioned. It pours a not dissimilar colour to the lager, with a good thick head to it. It has a touch of soapiness on the nose, but not enough to make it unpleasant, in fact it provides a good counterpoint to the gentle pithy bite of the hops. I thought this was at least as good as the lager, it would make a really good session beer - in fact it'd be great if the Cresselly Arms would get this in cask as the new Firewater! 3.8% abv.

Just as an aside if you do have these beers in bottle they do have quite a heavy sediment, if you don't like yeast in your glass let it settle for a good while and pour very carefully. They do actually recommend decanting into a jug then into your glass, presumably so you can see the sediment better while you pour as well as get a good head on your beer.

I'm not sure on the individual prices since the receipt isn't entirely clear but I got a selection of four Penlon beers for £10 from Ultracomida.

All of the Penlon beers I got are vegan friendly.

Iechyd da!

New Project.

Partly due to reading some interesting blogs by the home brewers of Twitter (I'm looking at you David) and partly just due to wanting to understand a bit more about how brewing works, I'm thinking about having a go at brewing some beer at home.

I'd rather not take up space in the house if I can avoid it, and having a baby crawling around the place means it wouldn't be a great idea to give her something else she can get into which she isn't supposed to! I do have a cellar though, and if it's feasible to get a small set-up in there it would be ideal.  I first mentioned it to a few people the other week, and Graeme of Chromosphere blog fame kindly suggested brewing lager would be a better idea because of the cooler temperature. From what I've been told/found out so far a starter kit would probably do the job, but it sounds like I'm going to have to make sure there's a lot of yeast available.

At the risk of sounding like I want to get everyone else to do my research for me, I want to get everyone else to do my research for me (Well, not entirely). So where do I start? Any pointers/helpful websites I can be directed to etc. would be appreciated.

Here's where I am so far:

1. I have a space, although I obviously need to do some sorting out! You can't see it in the picture but there's a tap in the garage next to the cellar.
2. The Flagon & Cask home brew shop is near me so I should hopefully be able to get whatever equipment I need quite easily.
3. My mate Darryll's used some sort of brew kit before, I'm hoping he'll be able to help.

That's it. Go!

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...

Williams 'Ceilidh' Lager

Sometimes it seems a shame that there is not much of a voice for lager. There's much clamour about cask ale and American style craft beer, and even to people not familiar with either they are obviously different - they often look different, and the bolder flavours can make them taste very different too.

I thought Williams Ceilidh was a great beer, but lager, more than any other style, might well be lost amongst the vast number of beers on the market. Lost once in the sea of mediocrity that is mainstream lager, passed over by cask-orientated pubs that might well not be able to sell interesting lager if it comes in a keg (the chances are that keg lines are tied up to 'must stock' beers.)* It might even be overlooked a third time by those amongst us that love big flavours, the hop-heads and the flavour explorers (and I'm not claiming innocence in this!)

It did get entered in this year's SIBA Craft beer in Keg competition, where it won a gold. I hope that's a good sign for the future. Who else is going to stand up for a well-made, flavourful, domestically brewed lager? On pouring it doesn't look much different to most lagers. There's plenty of body, a citrus hoppiness that's subtle rather than being an IPA punch, a gorgeous satisfying biscuity-malt sweetness and a fresh lemony-citrus finish. Now all we need is some summer sun to get outside and drink it in.

4.7% abv. £1.79 (50cl) from Beers of Europe (I'm not sure it came from there, it might well have been from Gauntleys, one of my local wine shops, but I couldn't remember what I paid for it.)

* I've not blogged in a while, mainly because I've been busy, but partly because I've drank nothing that inspired me to write. Changing to lager from more traditional beers (that some would have us believe are the only ones worth drinking) was what got me going again.

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.

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.

Guilty Secrets

My first contribution to The Session (#57)

I had to have a think about this one. I grew up in Yorkshire, where obviously all the beer was perfect (hmm). It wasn't until I went of to University that I got my first exposure to indifferent beer – and then that weird fizzy stuff which, I had to have explained to me, was lager.

It occurred to me to think about the guilty pleasure side of things. When I worked down in a London Oddbins which was next to a video shop, we used to try and match wines or beers with films, so I think what I'm asking is what is the ideal beer to go with the kind of film you might flake out of concentration (and probably consciousness) in front of, an accompaniment to the cerebral level required to fully absorb the delicate nuances of a mid-nineties Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster.* The film you rent to watch with some friends, that you're probably going to talk across rather than actually watch.

The great thing about great beer or a deep, complex wine is that it encourages thought, reflection and deliberation. However, if at all times you are analysing or deliberating and, almost by default, ignoring everything else life has to offer, then you are missing what it really does best, which is enhancing life. Even us beer geeks should sometimes ignore the beer, ignore what's playing on the idiot box, and enjoy the company we're in.

Recommendations? Polskie piwo dobre – 'nuff said (that's the limit of my Polish, and even then it's probably wrong!)

* For the record, it was Pirates of the Caribbean which stopped this sort of thing. Un-watchable no matter how many beers I'd had.

The Session #57 is hosted by Steve at Beers I've Known

Victory 'Prima' Pils

Looks like a wheat beer - cloudy, straw-yellow and a short head retention, but got some big hoppy nose going on there, and when you taste it, there's a whole lot more. There's a herbal whiff of the more specialist Amsterdam café, and it snatches a bit of balance back from the big hop bite with a touch of sweetness in the finish. On further investigation, once you get past the hoppiness there is some spice (ginger) and lemon. Light bodied without overdoing the carbonation. All this contributes to a really rewarding beer, and it's refreshing enough to be deceptively quaffable.

I'm not sure how this is a 'German Style Pilsner,' I don't remember having had a German beer that was this intensely hoppy. The hops and malt may be German but the style? Although in the light of recent controversy surrounding the Oxford Companion to Beer (mainly surrounding Martyn Cornell's comments and how they were received) I think sometimes it's not that bad a thing to remain blissful in ignorance. I think I'll stick to drinking and thinking about it.



5.3% abv, £2.49 (355ml/12 fl oz - whatever they are) from Beers of Europe

I had to check up on the abv since it's not actually on the label. I'm surprised they get away with bringing it into the EU without it, but apparently there are reasons for this lack of information that go back to 1935 and post-prohibition laws, and some state legislatures still ban alcohol content labelling. Of course, the Surgeon General's warning about alcohol is still there despite them not telling you how much is in it. Crazy world indeed. More in this feature by Joe Strange.

Pabst 'Blue Ribbon' Beer

I've had a couple of days of dealing with internet things I don't really understand so it was nice to get back to beer yesterday evening. I'm not really claiming to understand beer either, but since it makes me feel better then I don't really mind. Having said that I am grateful to all the beery people I follow and chat to on Twitter for dispelling some of my ignorance, and I'm also very much looking forward to the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Beer. This gratitude also makes articles like the hopelessly uninformed one from Peter Preston in this morning's Observer all the more irritating.

Pabst Blue Ribbon is a pale yellow lager with a gentle lead-in sweetness, and a soft floral/blossomy finish. A decent enough apéritif beer, I suppose it ticks the boxes but it is not exactly an inspirational beer.

On the subject of uninspiring beers, according to the Pabst website they used to brew, or at least one of their subsidiaries (G. Heileman Brewing Co.) used to brew 'Carling's Black Label'. I was under the impression that Carling was a Canadian brand rather than American, so somewhat confused by that. The ignorance turns a full circle, but I suppose without ignorance we'd not have the fun of learning. Worth drinking to.



4.7% abv, £1.69 from Beers of Europe

Williams Bros. 'Caesar Augustus' Lager/IPA Hybrid

- A what?

- Lager/IPA hybrid - you know?

- No bloody idea what you're on about.

- Look at the back label then...

The first one of the Sainsbury's beers I picked out was brewed as a lager then had hops chucked in - presumably to give it more character. Fair enough.

Here's what Williams say about it:

"We use the term lager/IPA hybrid because we cold ferment this beer with a classic lager yeast. The initial fermentation takes at least two weeks, after which we lager (store) the beer at zero degrees for a minimum of four weeks, during which we add a chock load of classic IPA style hops and allow the two to marry - fanfare!"

The result? A really good beer. Gentle, floral hoppy notes, the lagering seems to have rounded out the flavour - holding back the aggression you can get from some IPAs. A crisp, clean citrussy beer with enough fizz to give it a pleasant, creamy texture, and a light, sweet, honey-like kiss on the finish.

One thing I've always liked about Williams bros beers (and I've reviewed a couple on this fledgling blog) is that they can do the subtle well, they don't feel the need to have 'shouty' flavours, character through a melding of different flavours rather than letting one go mad. Of course, I've not tried the Profanity Stout yet (I'm thinking that sounds less subtle.)

This is a really excellent beer, a bridge-builder if you like, that could be enjoyed by hop heads and lager drinkers alike. If this is the standard of the Beer Hunt beers than everyone is in for a treat!

4.1% abv. £1.89 (50cl) at Sainsbury's