Of significant import: part 1

Every year the Bières Sans Frontières bar at the Great British Beer Festival seems to become more and more integrated into the main part of the festival. Last year saw the end of its own separate website, and this year there was no separately published programme: the beers being listed in the main CAMRA booklet for the whole event. A sign that CAMRA is taking more seriously the role that foreign beer plays in bringing drinkers to the festival; or just a way of making sure the corporate brand is appropriately applied to one of the Campaign's outlying vassals? I don't know. It doesn't matter. What matters is that, once again at the GBBF, there was a fantastic array of cask, keg and bottled beers from all over. The US is generally the centrepiece of this (for the serious beer geeks at least) and this post is about what came over from Stateside.

Memories of 2008 and the amazing Lost Abbey Angel's Share I had from BSF that day meant I had no qualms about going straight for another of their thumping barley wines as soon as the doors opened. This year it was the 2009 edition of Older Viscosity: 12.5% ABV and matured in bourbon barrels; dark dark amber and pancake flat; silky smooth and brimming with rich sherry aromas, tasting of cherries, chocolate and vanilla in equal proportions. Just my kind of beer, though not everyone around the table was into it. I blame the ridiculous received notion that beers over 12% ABV should only be consumed after 1pm. Pah!

To match it with something similarly strong dark and heavy for the wife, I picked Stone's Smoked Porter With Vanilla Bean. She liked it, but it wasn't to my taste at all: the vanilla tastes jarringly artificial and sticky, leaving next to no room for the lovely dark malt and smoke. I was much more impressed by Stone's Arrogant Bastard (can you believe I'd never tasted this?): it starts out with a caramel and treacle weight, but then lifts off suddenly on a cloud of fresh and juicy hops. Magic.

Last of the dark Americans was Rogue Mocha Porter, a surprisingly fizzy affair, but using it too good effect: pushing out lots of lovely sweet chocolate and dry roasty stout flavours.

IPAs were of course in abundance, though none really stood out for me. The St George IPA from Virginia, hopped entirely with Fuggles, was one of the best, believe it or not, with a lovely sherbet tang to the orange bitterness. Big Eye IPA ramps up the sherbet even more, and while I really liked it, there's just a little bit of a bum soapy note right where it leaves off. I expected better things from Opa Opa IPA (I'm not sure why), but it proved slightly harsh and not very interesting overall. Then, purely on name recognition, I had a Northern Lights pale ale from Starr Hill, a brewery I know through its blogging ambassador Mr Velky Al. I like the caramel sweetness with which this begins, but the hops were just too brash and brassy at the end, I'm afraid. Sorry Al.

Trophy beer for this post, however, was one Impy Malting pointed out to me, and upon which she has written lavishly here. American Flatbread is the brewery and Solstice Gruit the beer: an intense cocktail of sultry incense, tart berries and heady perfume. Madly tasty and one of the best unhopped beers I've had. That's the way to gruit.

Foreign beer from closer to home next...

Up the Badger's Arse

Deveney's off licence in downtown Dundrum has set up a regular series of themed beer tastings -- a laudable effort at broadening the horizons of south Dublin's beer drinking public. I went along to the first one on Friday, just to give some support, of course, and nothing at all to do with the free beer. My fellow ICBeebie Ken lives nearby, so I dropped in on him beforehand to sample a very tasty pale ale he had cornied in his shed (Ken's brewery goes by the name of Badger's Arse, and you can see him impressing Oz and James with his coffee stout here).

When we eventually got to Deveney's, Ruth had queued up her samples -- from J.W. Dundee, Goose Island, Speakeasy, and Sierra Nevada: the USA being the evening's theme. We offered constructive criticism on the order of tastings and then got to talking beer and the specialist beer market in general. She said that the importer who dropped off Samuel Adams Triple Bock told her not to open it as it would scare the punters. I'd noticed it around before, in its sleek non-descript nip bottle with the outrageous €9.99 price tag, and reckoned it wasn't worth satisfying my curiosity. The Samuel Adams range are a mixed bag -- for every classic there's at least one stinker, in my experience. €9.99 is just too much of a gamble for that brand. But with minimal goading, Ruth agreed to pop one open for us.

Mind blowing, is the operative term. This totally flat, super-thick 17.5% ABV beer is a walking tour of dark ale flavours, with a fully live and interactive cast of characters. We start at chocolate: heavy, bitter, 80%+ cocoa, dark chocolate. From there we pass through rich coffee and maple syrup (an actual ingredient) into fresh liquorice, tawny port, fine cigars, and back to steaming hot chocolate puddings. The whole experience put me in mind of the Lost Abbey Angel's Share I had at the Great British Beer Festival, except instead of coming from a cask in a different country available for a couple of days last year, this came from an off licence a few minutes' bike ride from my house. Magnificent, and worth every cent being asked. Ken agreed, and Ruth had two sales on her hands immediately.

The bonus is that the teeny blue glass bottle has a cork. One sip goes an astonishingly long way with this, and after a small post-prandial glass it can be put back in the cupboard, like any good digestif.

This is just the sort of beer we almost never see in Ireland. Get your hands on it now.

Finally, thanks Ruth and thanks Ken for the beer and a fun evening. If you're at all local to Deveney's, be sure and sign up to their mailing list via deveneydundrum@eircom.net. If the tastings go on like they started it'll be well worth your while.

Bières Avec Frontières

"I didn't come to England to drink foreign beer" is my normal attitude to, er, going to England, and it's one I heard from Merideth (all the way from California) standing chatting by the Bières Sans Frontières bar at the Great British Beer Festival on Tuesday. However, the range of cask-conditioned American and continental rarities on offer meant I was making an exception this time round. Well, nearly.

A lot of the stuff I was interested in was in the upper ranges of beer ABVs, so I thought I'd take it easy to begin with and have a YoHo Tokyo Black, a mere 5.5% alcohol. It wasn't terribly exciting, the thick tarry texture being the most interesting aspect. On the flavour there were some caramel and coffee notes, making me think of an English mild. Very mild, in fact. It all had me needing something with a bit more flavour.

Fearing the supply wouldn't last long, I followed with a third of The Angel's Share from Port Brewing in California. Aye, not bad. Or rather, one of the best beers I've ever tasted. There's quite a light touch on the bourbon barrel, lending it a whisky-like character but without any of the cloying sweet or woody characteristics of Scottish whisky-aged ales. Amazingly, at 12.5% ABV it comes across no more boozy than a typical wine at this strength. I don't think I need go into a list of the flavours coming from this immensely complex ale (think vanilla, think raisins): I can't hope to do it all justice. Just be aware that the finish is incredibly long, and that anyone who has ideas about wine=good while beer=bad needs a glass of this. Phew.

The palate needed a bit of clearing after that, and I was thirsty having spent half an hour sipping my tiny glass, taking a wander around the cavernous venue as I savoured. So next up was a light and hoppy east coaster: Freshchester Pale Ale from Captain Lawrence in New York state. It's basically hops-and-water, a real beer for the maltophobe. The flavour is acidic and raw, and I can imagine this would be tempered when served from the keg. But on cask it's green green green all the way, with a light body ensuring it remains drinkable. Tasty, and just what I needed before tackling barrel number 2.

Tsarina Esra is an imperial stout from De Molen, the Dutch brewery I visited last year. This one was being served from the wood, and definitely had an oakier flavour than The Angel's Share, with the whisky and vanilla flavours one might expect. However there's also a very nice liquorice bitterness to it, as well as the perfect creamy silk texture. Utterly delicious.

I don't see De Molen Amarillos anywhere on my BSF beer list, but I was handed some by Maeib (thanks!). Were you guys sneaking beer into the country's largest festival? Anyway, it's gorgeous too: those wonderful manadarin notes of American hoppy beers with a sharp lip-smacking tang. Much less work than any American double IPA I've had.
(Late late edit: I just realised I had this at the brewery shortly after it was bottled. It was good back then too.)

My mention of goats-in-millinery a few weeks ago prompted a recommendation for HopDevil, from the Victory brewery in Pennsylvania. Cheers, lemasney, I enjoyed this. It's a wonderfully balanced IPA with all the bitter complexity of Goose Island IPA and the maltiness of Brooklyn's East India Pale Ale. A damned near perfect example of the style.

The last US beer of the day completed the barrel set. I'd missed Dogfish Head's 90 minute IPA, but their Palo Santo Marron was still on. This thick black ale is brimming with light fruit flavours: I got cherries and chestnuts in abundance with a hint of raspberries and a tasty smoky caramel finish. With the strong stuff out of the way, my palate was in need of a complete reset and I reckoned only a lambic would do it. I opted for Girardin Lambiek and was glad I did: a textbook mouth-waterer.

Up at the German and Czech end of the bar I chanced a dark beer from the middle of the Czech Republic: Bernard Černé. After all that had gone before I was a tad disappointed. This dark keg lager is quite dry and schwarzbier-like. Just a bit too charcoally for my liking. I won't be rushing back to Prague on the strength of this one. Before I headed off to nab some token English beers, Tandleman served me a Keesmann Herren Pils, the soft creamy flavour of which reminded me of why this style is still worth drinking. I don't think I've ever had a pils this good. It's not a style I thought it possible to enthuse over, but that's what I like about festivals: I learn stuff.

Next up, I go around the corner and into England.