And not a bitter in sight

After a one-year hiatus by the festival, and ten years by me, I was back at The Great British Beer Festival last week, for the Tuesday afternoon trade session. The big change is that the venue is now Birmingham rather than London, spread across two halls of the gargantuan National Exhibition Centre. I detected a certain change in ethos too. Once upon a time, there was a corner reserved for high-end international beers, American in particular, and that's where what passes for cool kids in our pastime could be found. But while there was a token set of casks from the east coast USA, the Brewers Association no longer organises a bottle bar, and the American, German and Dutch/Belgian bars were somewhat sidelined, in a corner away from the main action. That, of course, meant that the main action was all lovely British cask beer, which should be the whole point. With a mere hop from Birmingham airport, I was in early and ready to get ticking.

The nearest bar to the entrance was full of awards nominees, with judging for Champion Beer of Britain happening nearby. Here I found my primary target for the day: Oregon Trail IPA from Elusive Brewing. It's become quite the cult beer in Britain recently and I had never seen it in the wild. In proper west coast style it's bright and golden, and is shockingly bitter at first, going beyond mere grapefruit into raw lime peel and concentrated pine resin. A rapidly-arriving finish adds an unwelcome savoury note of caraway seed to the picture. It's very dry and sharp, and needs its full 5.8% ABV to give it substance. As a result, while it's far from balanced, it's not harsh either. Still, my half pint was tough going and I think this may be an acquired taste. It has several points in common with Thornbridge's mighty Jaipur, but lacks that one's subtlety and (dangerous) drinkability. Maybe I'll have a better time when next I encounter it, but first impressions were that, in hop terms, this is too rich for my blood.

Before moving on, I thought I'd better have a go of the one mild that was in awards contention: Penzance Mild from Penzance Brewing. As it happened, this was later crowned Champion Beer of Britain, and while I'm sure the competition was intense, I think it was a very deserving winner. Right from the outset of the aroma, this ruby-russet beer is the last word in 3.6% ABV luxury. Heady roasted grain vapours mix with fine milk chocolate, creating an effect like bourbon cream biscuits. The texture is full and silky, making it feel wholesome and nutritious, like a throwback to when beers were treated as medicinal and, obviously, tasted better than nowadays. There aren't any surprises in the flavour from all this: it continues with darker chocolate, warm cookies and plump currants, given a tiny pinch of cut-grass bitterness in the finish. This is absolutely majestic stuff, fully deserving to carry the flag for mild, and for British cask beer generally. Do not miss it if you see it on the inevitable victory tour.

Liberation's Herm Gold had also found its way onto this bar, though I don't think it was in the running for any gongs. A shame, really, because it's a very decent golden ale. It has a touch of the beeswax bitterness of the best golden English bitters -- looking at you, Timothy Taylor Landlord -- plus an altogether more modern (whisper it: American) burst of lemon and lime. But not too much, of anything. I found it a perfect refresher at around my half way point, and would very happily lean into a session on it, in different circumstances. Golden ale is a highly unfashionable style, but when it's on point like this, it can be amazing. A new campaign, now that mild has been saved?

My token visit to the American cask bar landed me McGowan's Cream Ale from Brightpath Brewing in Pennsylvania. I'm sure I've said before that I've never really seen the point of this beer style. Like American Light Lager, it was created by the 20th century's giant industrial breweries to cut every corner available and make something that still counts as beer as cheaply and profitably as possible. That the craft movement has attached some retro credibility to it is bemusing. Anyway, this one was lovely. What they've done, right, is hop the hell out of it, so you get a 4.5% ABV blonde beer with a delightfully spritzy citric aroma and flavour. It's palate-cleansing, easy-drinking, and plenty characterful to boot. While it has lots in common with America's pale ales, I got a sense of witbier about it too, albeit rather more intense. I'm glad I gave it a go.

And from the continentals, there was the opportunity to try the three-brewery Trappist collaboration, produced at La Trappe, with input from Zundert and Tynt Meadow. The Three Rules of Authentic Trappist (lest you be in any doubt that there are such) is a dubbel of 7.4% ABV. It was served on keg and I found it a little cold and thin for that. I think the flavour suffered too, and it didn't seem as characterful as any of the classic Trappist dubbels. Still, it managed to hit the necessary style points, with a raisin fruit side melding with chocolate cake. It's slightly tannic, making it dry where I would have preferred more dark malt sweetness, and the alcohol expresses itself as a portwine heat in the finish. It's not bad, but I was prepared to be much more impressed by it than I actually was. I don't know how much of a rarity this is, but you aren't missing a lot if it doesn't come your way.

When I went downstairs to the main floor, I was as surprised as you to find myself heading first to the Greene King bar, but I had reasons. The first of these is their own mild, XX, and while this doesn't seem to be a particularly rare beer, it has always eluded me. Could the fact that I'll generally avoid Greene King pubs when there's any other choice be connected to that? Maybe. Anyway, here it was in all its 3% ABV glory, and I got to scratch the itch. This one is properly black with stout-like garnet hints where the light shines through. The aroma says fudge to me, and the flavour continues that way, with a sweet mix of soft buttery toffee, some condensed milk and a light layer of chocolate or mocha. It's thin too, and I initially had that flagged as a flaw but, really, the sweet flavour profile needs this lightness of touch; any thicker and it would be hard work to drink. What's missing is the roasted grain and the dark fruit to give it an extra dimension or two. I can see how this would stand out amongst the other prosaic Greene King offerings, but it's far from a superstar. It won't be getting me through the doors of any of the brewery's pubs.

The bigger itch at Greene King was 5X. This is a genuine rarity, used as an ingredient in some of their blended beers, but you need to go to a special event to find it on sale, and I had missed it at GBBF before. At this point it was still a bit early for a third-pint of a 12% ABV beer but I didn't want to chance it running out. In the glass it's a very dark brown colour, and the hot solvent aroma is the first indication that it's not really meant for drinking. Bizarrely, it's very thin, which I was not expecting, and neither is it especially sweet. Instead, this is very fully attenuated and tastes quite vinous, with the cherry and redcurrant of a light Italian wine, leading quickly into a rough and stale old-cork finish, with acrid splinters of young and sappy wood. It does not taste matured, or rounded, or seasoned, or any of the other positive adjectives I had planned for it. While it has some features in common with English barley wine, there's a surprising lack of refinement. Sipping through it slowly, I was glad to get it finished, to deem it done.

Second place in the Champion Beer of Britain had gone to Sarah Hughes brewery, for their Snowflake winter ale, and that was next. This is 8% ABV and gives immediate cosy vibes from its chestnut colour and toffee aroma. On tasting, that unfolds into strawberry and raspberry, but without their tart, cleansing qualities. While that's fun to begin with, it wears off quickly. I found the sweet side grows rapidly and the beer turns sickly and cloying too soon, even with only a half pint to contend with. I see what they're trying to do, and it's not the first time I've found a beer in this style hard to drink. But I thought that a medal-winner would show rather more finesse. Sometimes a lack of subtlety is needed for the win, or at least for second prize. Maybe I'm the real snowflake here.

Time was running out and I needed to stop idling my way through the menus and grab the beers I knew I'd regret if I missed. Siren was next, and a variation on their magnificent Broken Dream stout, called Recurring Dream. This brings the ABV down to 4.6%, from the quaffable original's frankly dangerous 6.5%, and it was served here on keg. Trying the two side-by-side would have been interesting, had time allowed, but I did get the impression that this has a lot in common with it. The coffee is in full 3D Technicolour, beginning on an aroma of freshly roasted beans and proceeding to be enjoyably dry and free of gimmicks. The flavour's coffee is toasty, not sweet, and there's a balancing chocolate character to add a little fun while keeping things classically composed. With session-strength stouts seeing a bit of a boom in the UK these days, it's right and proper for Siren to be getting in on the act.

Having ticked off a Channel Islands beer early, Manx was next, represented by Kaneens brewery and their Dhoo "black beer". What type of black beer? Let's see. It's a light-bodied one, even at 4.6% ABV. When the internet tells me it's a Schwarzbier I don't disbelieve it. What I have noted as thinness therefore becomes lager-cleanness. There's a gentle hint of plum in the flavour, and a dash of chocolate too, so this probably could have passed as a mild if the brewery so chose. The finish goes a bit funky, unfortunately, adding a rough stale-sweat tang to the end. I had been enjoying the beer up until then but found it going a little off course here. On another day I might have welcomed it, but next to the general high calibre of the day's dark beers, it was disappointing.

Time for one more mild, and it's local brewery Green Duck with their Bostin' Mild, fully appropriating the regional beer style of the West Midlands. And it's a basic one. I liked its dark mahogany colour, and its ease of drinking, helped by a mere 3.4% ABV. The flavour is dry and uncomplicated with a burnt toast effect scrubbing the palate but not much else going on. If anything, this tasted more like a Schwarzbier than the one before. Clearly, it's designed to be sunk by the pint, so sipping a half at the tail end of a day's drinking means, I now realise, that I didn't really give it a fair shake. One to come back to, for sure.

And that's all I managed to... wait... Theakston's has made an Old Peculier tie-in IPA? What? I spotted this on my way out the door and inched towards the exit with it in hand. I don't think Peculier IPA really has anything in common with its part-namesake: it's a 5.1% ABV amber-coloured cask IPA, brewed with an unlikely combination of Simcoe, Cluster and Bullion hops, plus some of the brewery's home-growns. It absolutely works, however, being a little on the sweet side, but allowing the malt heft to soften the hops. There's plenty of modern, new-world, hop zing, but instead of a pithy, piney bite, there's creamy and dessertish lemon posset or curd. It's beautifully mellow and, not for the first time that day, I found myself wishing I could settle into a slow pint of it.

But that's where I called it a day. Commentary on the good points and shortcomings of the festival and its new venue had started before I was even home, and I'll leave that to others. I had a jolly day out and feel I managed a happy cross section of the sort of British beer I like, with a couple of interesting foreigners to add colour. That's all I was after.

Time bending

It's hard to discern what "Vintage" means on the label of Beoir Chorca Duibhne's Vintage Ale. No information is given on the label, other than it's "warm & dark" and 5.7% ABV -- not even a year, which I thought would have been an essential part of the concept of vintage. I'm fine with warmth and darkness, though. Let's see where that gets us.

The beer is ruby rather than black in the glass and smells a little roasty like a porter but with a forest fruit element, like... no I'll save that comparison. There are no sudden twists on tasting. Cocoa and coffee are the beginnings, a mix of sweet and dry, and then there's a gorgeous yet understated mix of blackberry, red cherry, pipe tobacco and liquorice. The bitterness rushes over the tongue before spreading a candyshop sweetness across the palate.

My first impression, referenced above, was that it tastes like English old ale, a beer style that's very nearly dead and unappreciated by every beer writer except me. It's drier and roastier than the classics (Theakston's Old Peculier, Arundel Old Knucker) but it does share that dark fruit and chocolate character. I love it, and I don't care that "vintage ale" is a bit of a daft name for it, though in fairness old ales are rarely old. It's wholesome, deep and complex, offering the fun bits of porter, bitter, brown ale and schwarzbier without fully committing to any of them. This is a beer to enjoy on its own terms, and I did.

Galway Bay provides us with another temporal anomaly in the form of Counting Off The Days. This is an imperial stout of 12% ABV, and although they don't say it, I assume it's the beer which goes into barrels to emerge later as Two Hundred Fathoms. Since they now make flavoured variants of Two Hundred Fathoms I guess it's only fair that they let us try a completely naked version as well. There's understandably very little of it in circulation (although...) and I have the brewery to thank for sending me an unlabelled can earlier in the year.

It's hella viscous, the bubbles struggling to make their up through the dense black liquid on pouring. They settled to a thick cream-textured head the colour of a nicotine-stained pub ceiling. The aroma suggests big bitterness to come: hot tar, Balkan tobacco and green veg boiled to mush. Yummy. But there's much more than that. The flavour is quite busy, with the green-hop acidity rubbing up against luxurious chocolate and a whole lot of booze. It's fun, but I can tell it's not really designed for drinking fresh. Everything going on needs to calm down and mellow out. It would be very interesting to see what happens when this ages without the barrels. If I see any for sale you can expect it on Stash Killer! in seven or eight years from now. For the moment, it's an interesting curiosity, a precursor to what will likely be a superb vintage of Two Hundred Fathoms, but not something I'm clamouring for the brewery to make into a regular release.

And that's time, everyone. Come back soon.

Don't I know you from somewhere?

It's the same story every time I'm in a Fuller's pub: I have whatever's on draught, but there's always a selection of those beautifully-shaped Fuller's bottles staring at me from the fridge. I've (almost) never resorted to buying one, however, partly because bottled beer is poor value in the pub and partly because I've heard they're not very good. Yes, Jack Frost, I mean you.

Nevertheless, when another of them -- Fuller's Old Winter Ale -- popped up in my local offy I reckoned it was time to finally satisfy my curiosity about it. 5.3% ABV and mahogany-to-amber, so very much in the English old ale bracket so far. That's where the comparison ends, though. The aroma is slightly caramelly, but the taste is dominated by hop bitterness -- acrid at the start, turning tangy at the finish. Not good. Yes there's a bit of toffee malt but not nearly enough for the winter warmer it purports to be, instead offering a hollow and quite watery middle.

This stuff is a very long way from the smoothness I adore in English old ales of my previous acquaintance, and I'd take mainstream fare like Hobgoblin and Old Peculier well ahead of it. And in a Fuller's pub: back to the ESB, no question.

Reuben has similar thoughts here.

Lemon soap

Happy Bloomsday!

In tribute to Mr Henry Flower c/o Westland Row Post Office, a bottle of Hogs Back Gardener's Tipple. Interestingly, for this sideline observer of the UK beer scene, the proud proclamation on the back label is "Brewery conditioned, for all the taste without the sediment". As a selling point that's a new one on me, but is there any truth to it?

Well yes. A gorgeous limpid red amber beer with a very gentle carbonation and lots of hard caramel on the nose. The body is firm enough to transform that into full-on toffee on tasting, with a spicy piquancy which I'd guess is hop-related, though it's very much a malt-driven beer. Rich and unctuous, yet wonderfully refreshing at just 4% ABV. British session beer, in a bottle, at its best.

Onwards and upwards to the 6% ABV stonker in the Hogs Back range: OTT. It's a dark ruby shade, jet black unless held up to the light. It's another complex one, with an almost vinous nose, offering a touch of port next to treacle and toffee.

The first thing I get from tasting it is smoke: a sweet and aromatic buzz reminding me a lot of Theakston's Old Peculier. Under that there's chocolate, spices, and a touch of butter. It's a filling after-dinner beer though drinkable enough to follow the first with another.

Whether the sediment that the brewery so zealously seeks to avoid would have any adverse impact on the flavour of either of these assertive ales is debatable. I reckon there'd be little lost through bottle-conditioning, though at the same time there's nothing missing from them as-is either. Clearly these are beers which should just be consumed and enjoyed without any scholastic musings on gas provenance.

Aladdin Sainsbury's

I took a trip north on the bank holiday Monday a few weeks back. The euro was riding high against sterling so I had very few qualms about going to the beer section in Sainsbury's and putting some strain on a trolley axle. They have quite a few own-brand ales and I think I came away with one of most of them.

First up, Basics Bitter, a whole 2.1% of alcoholic goodness goes into this red-amber affair. It's very fizzy but, on first impressions, is convincingly beer-like. Give it a few seconds, however, and the facade starts to crumble. That caramel sweetness is probably not malt-derived but is more likely down to the addition of actual caramel (there's no ingredients listing, so no way to find out). Most of the rest is wateriness, but dig deep and you may just find a whisper of an echo of a trace of hops bitterness.

Honestly I don't know what the point of this beer is. Something for non-drinkers to torture guests with? It's too thin even to cook with.

Onwards and upwards to the "Taste the Difference" range. Shepherd Neame's porter wasn't an option, but I did take a punt on the Kentish Ale. In the comments of a previous Shep rant, arn pointed out that this is probably a rebadge of Early Bird, a beer I didn't have a great time with a while back. I couldn't say for sure if this is exactly the same, but it certainly has the fizz-to-skunk ratio right. Lots of pungent green crunchy vegetables, a massive carbonic dryness and plenty of burps. All that said, it tastes like nectar next to the Basics Bitter: the joy of actual real hops and (somewhere) proper malt. Not that I'll be buying it again or anything stupid like that.

For real hop action I turned hopefully to the Taste the Difference India Pale Ale. Brewed by Marston's, of whom I'm not a big fan, but at 5.9% ABV it should at least have been interesting. But it wasn't, really. The hops are only just detectable and have to share the stage with Marston's distinctive sulphurous Burton flavour. And even these meagre talents get buried under the boozy malt weight. It's a lot of work to drink and the rewards for doing so aren't up to much.

People round these parts tend to regard Sainsbury's as a cut above in the beer stakes. And yes, in the trolley with this lot there was also a significant quantity of Clotworthy Dobbin and Old Peculier: stalwart favs of mine. But then when I read what Tesco UK are up to with their own-brand beers I think that beer shopping up north is perhaps best done at more than one venue. Or, y'know, a proper off licence.

XB me

A shortcut through Marks & Spencer the other day took me across the booze ghetto that all Irish supermarkets have now established under threat from the government of being forced to erect physical barriers between the alcohol and all other stock, as allowed for in last year's Intoxicating Liquor Act. On my way, I noticed a staff member unloading a trolley full of Sussex Bitter onto the shelves. It's one of M&S's bottle conditioned range and a beer I'd not seen on sale before. There was no price tag on the shelf, but an opportunity to give two fingers to the government's attempt to stamp out impulse buying of alcohol in supermarkets is not to be passed up. I took a bottle to the checkout.

It wouldn't scan. The cashier went off to investigate and came back in deep discussion with a troubled colleague. The gist of their conversation was that this wasn't on the system, that it was only for sale in the UK, and that it should never have been shipped to Dublin, never mind put on display. So, after waiting patiently for five minutes for my beer I was informed they couldn't sell it to me. And I know that if I asked someone higher up why the beer I wanted isn't available to Irish customers I would be told that there's no demand for it. Reasoning as circular as a tub of M&S mini scotch eggs.

The fact that, according to Thom, Hepworth's M&S Sussex Bitter is actually worth drinking barely factors at all. Back home I sought consolation in a bitter from my stash of personally-imported English ales.

Theakston XB does not share my bitterness. In fact, the dark amber ale is surprisingly sweet -- filled with strawberries and redcurrants. The aroma is heavy caramel, but the beer itself is quite light, almost verging on thin, I'd say, with an unfortunate amount of fizz for a bitter. Still, there's the caramel and the earthy English hop character that reminds me a lot of Old Peculier, but in a lighter, 4.5% ABV, mid-week kind of way.

And at under £2 in Sainsbury's it was a hell of a lot cheaper than the Sussex Bitter would have been. The thought of all that M&S beer sitting in a yard waiting to be collected instead of being enjoyed is galling, however.

Data systems and why I love them

Over the last year or so, Superquinn's attitude to beer has been that of a skittish yet inquisitive kitten when faced with a new Object in its midst. The supermarket chain had always been very positive to Irish beer, and I remember fondly the days when they would have shelves resplendent in beers from the Kinsale, Finian's, Dublin Brewing, Irish Brewing and Carlow Brewing ranges. Sadly, only the latter of these brands remains in existence, and Superquinn's selection suffered as a result, reverting back to the macro rubbish that everyone seems to prefer.

And then, around the time of last year's rugby World Cup, we started to see some new and interesting stuff appear for a few weeks, then be gone just as suddenly. Deuchars IPA was one of the first, then Theakston's Old Peculier. Maisel's. Samuel Adams. Paulaner. Competing supermarkets took up the call and we have now a modest yet highly gratifying range of decent beers on our supermarket shelves. I don't buy many of them -- the independent retailers are far more interesting -- but this, I firmly believe, is where the revolution in Ireland's beer market will happen: in the aisles of Tesco, Dunnes and Superquinn.

So I barely batted an eyelid, a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed my local Superquinn had added Samuel Adams Boston Ale to their selection. €1.95 a pop: good enough; better than buying a basket of six anyway. I took my bottle to the checkout.
*bip*... *bee-bawwp*
"Oh, it doesn't like that."
*bip*... *bee-bawwp*
*brrrrrring* "This won't scan in for me."
The supervisor with a face like a bag of spanners inspected the barcode. "Naw, you have to buy six of these, see."
They weren't shelved in six packs (see above right), and they were priced individually, but I was in too much of a hurry to fight it.
"No, it's fine, I'll leave that aside then." And on I went.

And then, a week or so later, I was back in Superquinn.
*bip*... *bee-bawwp*
"Oh, that's not scanning in right... It's free. Company policy."
That's more like it.

On pouring, it looks a lot like the amber Boston Lager -- it's far from an unattractive colour, but I don't buy beer to look at it. The first taste also resembles its stablemate: that Malteser-like sharp maltiness, though sitting on a slightly less carbonated base. It is, in fact, much less fizzy than most of the bottled American ales I've had. The hops kick in later, and don't quite cut through those big sticky malt notes. What this needs is some of the floral, tannic, English hop flavours to raise the bitterness a notch and add a fruity complexity which would sit very well with the beer underneath.

Still, I'm liking it and I'd buy more. In fact, I'd even deem it worth my while arguing with Spanner-Face Manager about company policy to get a stash of this for free. Compliments don't come much higher on this blog...

Ale and Arty

On a recent trip to the UK I conducted a selective raid on Sainsbury's and came away with three new finds:
Theakston's Old Peculier is a familiar name, but I hadn't actually tasted it before. I'm a big fan of the normal Theakston's and was very interested in trying the premium product. It's very good and has the wonderful round warmness of England's best ales.
Duchy Original is a bit of a gimmick: an organic ale made with ingredients which may (or may not) have come from the Prince of Wales' Highgrove estate. The label is striking and of a very high quality. The beer, alas, is not. When it comes down to drinking, this is a very ordinary bitter. I'm generally in favour of organic produce on principle, but I have yet to encounter an organic beer which is better than its non-organic competitors: sad but true.
Lastly, Meantime Chocolate from the Greenwich Brewery comes in an interesting ship's-decanter-style bottle and, as the name suggests, is a chocolate beer. It's not a stout, though. It's a strong ale with an equally strong concentrated chocolate flavour - rich and bitter, with coffee overtones. Not something one would get through lots of, but an interesting variation on the usual chocolate theme.