Famous British reserve

Is Fuller's Brewer's Reserve No. 1 supposed to be about 30% cheaper than the Vintage Ale? I was surprised. Though there's probably something seriously wrong when I pay over €6 for 500ml of beer then make off into the night giggling at my crafty steal.

Anyhoo, this is a new one from the iconic Chiswick brewer, and is presumably the first in a series of limited edition ales they're planning to produce. As I mentioned not so long ago, barrels are in. This 7.7% ABV ale has served nearly a year and a half in whisky casks. To be honest, I don't think they did it a whole lot of good.

You get a very clear amber ale with an off-white head. The nose is slightly sour and lambicky, and there's a definite tartness on the first sip. However, it really makes you work to find the vanilla and whisky notes, unlike 1488 which shoves them right in your gob. On the plus side, I enjoyed the slight scotch-like throat burn, but overall I think I'm siding more with this Englishman than this one.

Having expected some sort of huge sticky, woody monster, I feel I got off lightly with what's really quite an understated easy-drinking ale, one which also rewards slow sipping. But I do think the price is just a bit on the high side. At €10, Fuller's Vintage 2007 represents better value, in my opinion.

One for the road

The time has come for the second part of my Sunny Islands With Bad Beer series, or at least the research end of it. This time I won't be blessed by the gods of wi-fi so you'll be spared the real-time details of my agony. I'll just be concentrating it into one or two posts in a fortnight-or-so's time.

My send-off beer this time round came from an off-licence I complained about last year: D Six in Harold's Cross. A year on, they've definitely put the effort in on their beer selection. It's not Redmond's class, and the friendly staff clearly wouldn't know Kwak from Coors Light, but the selection is some-way decent, and they deserve credit for that when so many others just go for tray-upon-tray of Heineken and Bud.

The beer in question is 1488, another one from the enigmatic Traditional Scottish Ales Ltd of historical FK7 7NP. Associations are drawn on the label with the Tullibardine distillery, in whose oak casks it is matured, but once again there's no clear indication of where the stuff's actually brewed.

As Thom said, it's a beer of contrasts. I acknowledge and repeat his accurate detection of a sherry flavour in amongst the oak and malt. There's very little gas and a sweet/sour Jack-Daniels-and-lime sort of aroma. What Thom describes as a lactic tang I'd say is a tartness, resembling the more involved sort of lambic. It engenders a mouth-watering lip-smacking finish which rounds off a very smooth and flavourful beer which sinks surprisingly easy given the 7% ABV and the hard liquor associations.

So that's my lot for now, as the darkness falls on this sunny island with limited quantites of good beer.