Going mainstream

It looks like the puritans at Shepherd Neame have taken their hatred of beer to a new level. Time was, their crazy clear-glass bottles were shipped in a box, so there was an outside chance you could dig into a fresh one and get a beer that hadn't been lightstruck. Lidl occasionally get Shepherd Neame beers in on special and I've noticed with the last few that they've been stacked on cardboard trays, wrapped in clear plastic, letting the light have its evil way with the hop flavours through two layers of packaging. That's devotion to the cause of ruining beer, Shepherd Neame. I salute you.

Latest in the pile-'em-high, skunk-'em-fast series is Early Bird, a very pale and watery-looking ale of 4.5% ABV. The label makes great claims of hoppiness, and while hops are definitely present, they're not the dominant feature. Above all, to me, this beer is carbonic. The nose is a blend of noxious CO2 and pungent lightstruck hops. It's a bit calmer on the palate, tasting primarily of fizzy mineral water infused with a stinging acid bitterness, plus just a smidge of toffee malt somewhere in the middle. This is no way to put a beer together: little more than fizz and skunk. My guess is that Shepherd Neame are not, in fact, sending teams of tasters around to supermarkets to assess the quality of their finished product. If it involved drinking beers like this it probably counts as an unsafe working environment.

Sticking with supermarkets, I gave another one of the new Marks & Spencer range a whirl recently. After a yucky experience with the Cropton's Yorkshire Bitter I had passed over the Lincolnshire Best Bitter, until I noticed that it's brewed by Bateman's. I don't think I've ever had a Bateman's beer I didn't enjoy. This one is lighter than 4.9% ABV would suggest and, despite the lovely caskalike loose-bubbled head, is actually quite gassy. I had to walk around the earthy flavour a couple of times before I got what it was: this beer is very similar to the excellent Bateman's XXXB, only lighter of body. There's some sweet caramel at the front, but the funky depth is what really stood out for me. The problem, then, was I wanted it to be fuller and stronger; to be, in short, XXXB. However pleasant a beer may be, it's never a good thing when it reminds you how much you'd prefer to be drinking a different one.

Still, it's good to see that M&S are heeding my continued wheedling and putting the English ales from their new range out on the shelves of Irish shops. I mean, it's only a matter of time now until we get the Cornish IPA, right?

Dark enough

December is upon us, a long way from the scorching heat of July in Manchester (all right, it was freezing cold and pissing rain, but you get the idea). At the door of the Marble Arch pub, Tandleman proffered to me a bottle of Lees Moonraker and one of the brewery's trademark "Get A Grip" pint glasses. Both have lain dormant as the seasons passed, waiting for the right moment.

With the start of winter proper, hail, fog and all the rest of it, that moment has definitely arrived. I should point out that I was singularly unimpressed with Moonraker the first time I had it. The phenols leapt out of the glass and assaulted my senses in a most improper fashion. So there was more than a little trepidation as I approached the hopefully-tamer bottled edition.

It pours a deep and murky chestnut shade, mysterious and alluring. A sniff reveals those phenols, but they're much more toned down compared to what I feared, though there's still more than a hint of marker pen about the aroma. None of that on tasting, though. Instead it's all about the spices: I got an eastern sort of vibe, with ginger and allspice. This sits on a solid base of chocolate-coated toffee, you know the really hard ones? The finish is heady and warming, with 7.5% ABV providing a rush of alcohol into the sinuses. About half way down I realised that the heat and complexity make this far more similar to a Belgian dubbel than any other English strong ale I've had. And it's definitely another beer which works better from the bottle than the cask.

Continuing the winter theme, I ramped things down a notch with the relatively lightweight Rosey Nosey from Bateman's, one of my favourite British breweries. At a piffling 4.9% ABV, I wasn't expecting a similar sort of warmth from it, and I was right. There's sort of a spiced candy nose and the taste is subtle (for a Christmas ale), letting the hops do all the work, rather than any exotic flavours. It's quite bitter, bearing a striking resemblance to the brewery's excellent XXXB, with added subtle floral overtones and a dry finish.

It's not a beer to get excited about, and certainly not one to save up one bottle of for the Big Day. Rather, we have a plain-spoken sessionable winter warmer which, quite frankly, I'd be happy to drink all year round.

Serving the other Dark Lord

I think I've yet to encounter a Bateman's beer I didn't like. The darker ones like Victory and XXXB have this fantastic chewiness combined with a heady warming aroma that tickles my malt sensors right where they like it. To such esteemed company, I now add their ruby ale Dark Lord.

Well, they claim it's ruby. I had to hold it up to a lightbulb to see any trace of red. It's denser and darker than many a stout I've met, with a beautifully thick creamy head and only a gentle sparkle adding to this impression.

The nose is quite sour, suggesting the tang of yeast to me, even though it's not bottle conditioned. This is followed by a mostly sweet taste sensation: luxurious chocolate and smooth caramel, but there's a zingy bitter fruit thing going on, a spiced plumminess that reminds of nothing so much as Westmalle Dubbel or similar top-notch dark Belgian ale.

Getting all that into a sinkable 5% ABV package is no mean feat.

British Summer Time

I'm weekending up north at the moment and staged a minor beer raid on a local supermarket. Not Sainsbury's, so I wasn't actually expecting to find much of interest, here where a certain tonic wine from Devonshire is the tipple of choice for many. But there behind the stacks of alcopops and a veritable Aladdin's cave of tramps' brews ("I say, Jeremy, shall we go for the Tennents Super or the Carlsberg Special this morning?" "Why not something delightfully continental, Tristran, from the extensive Polish selection?") there was a well-chosen core collection of English ales: the best of Fuller's, plus Black Sheep, Young's Double Chocolate and the like. Hardly ground-breaking, but there was nothing like this when I lived in these parts. However, nobody wants to read more "Northern Ireland is making progress" headlines, so I'll stop.

There was an old favourite of mine, Bateman's XXXB, but I passed on it to try another from the same brewery: Combined Harvest. It would usually take a lot for me to pick an English golden ale out of a line-up, but a beer made from barley, wheat, rye and oats presented just enough of a gimmick to pique my curiosity. Unwisely, it's presented in a clear glass bottle, but there was only the very faintest whiff of skunking on opening. It pours to a limpid orangey-gold, with a big head that dispells quickly leaving just a light skim of foam. Marmalade is the governing feature here, both in the aroma and the foretaste. Big, tart, zingy orange notes turning to just a hint of citrus hoppy bitterness at the end. The fizz, while far from overpowering, is just right to add to the refreshment power of this beer, and I'm delighted to discover another member for that tiny pantheon of good, interesting, English golden ales. An instant beer-garden classic.

On Friday, before I left Dublin, I nipped in to the Bull & Castle to give another recently-arrived English summer beer the once-over. Raspberry Grand Cru is from Meantime, a London brewery I have a lot of time for, and whose darker beers I've particularly enjoyed. This one wrong-footed me from the outset with its pale orange hue. I was expecting something, well, pink, like a Belgian raspberry lambic. But they haven't gone for fruit here, preferring instead to aim for the sourer flavour I associate with mature fruit lambics, and Cantillon's Rosé de Gambrinus in particular. But really there's not enough of either characteristic for my liking. The sourness finishes up as dry, without any real lip-smacking tang, and the fruit flavour is on a par with that found in an ice lolly. These miniflavours are buried under a massive 6.5% ABV for which there is no excuse, not with this rather thin and gassy body. More Meantime beers have just arrived in Ireland, and I'm really hoping they've made a better fist of them than this one. Expect reviews soon.

Still, where UK summer beers are concerned, one out of two definitely ain't bad.

What did you drink during Live8, Daddy?

Banana Bread Beer. Fascinating stuff it is too: it's basically a pale ale, and quite a light one, despite the label's claim to be beer in the "liquid bread" style of brewing (the guy who wrote that needs a good dose of Westvleteren to show him what liquid bread really tastes like). What makes this stuff really special (and the name kinda gives it away) is the kick of real, fairly-traded (kudos for that) bananas. It has to be tried to be appreciated properly. This isn't a subtle hint of banana tones, nor is it a big overpowering banana-in-your-face. It's a very gentle incline towards bananas, gradually accumulating on the palate until you finish your pint and say "Mmm. Bananas". And it is a pint too: a full 568ml, which is a very nice touch.

It does suffer a bit from the trouble with Bateman's, but that's more to do with my ineptitude than anything else. Practice, dear boy.

You really won't know if you like this stuff or not until you try it. And you should try it.

The trouble with Bateman's

The trouble with Bateman's XXXB is one of temperature. "Serve cool but not chilled" it says on the label. Having conducted extensive experiments in this I know why: too cold and you lose the flavour, room-temperature and the bitterness (which is its major positive characteristic) becomes overpowering. Having rejected the chill-then-let-stand method as insufficiently precise, I have discovered that ten-minutes-in-the-freezer is the best approach.

The great thing about Bateman's is that Aldi flog it for €1.99, though I suspect that it's not really a pile-em-high product here in Dublin. Since Redmond's of Ranelagh sell it for €3.75 a pop, however, I know where I'm going to be stocking up for as long as I can.