Category Archives: Brewers

Day 19 – Still no dark beers and I’m Steamin’.

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Seventh time in nineteen days that I’ve had a different bottle/can to the one being tasted in the video for the official Beer Hawk case! The most annoying thing being they’ve got a dark beer and I’ve not. And I was certain whoever curated this case had to have included at least a … ? Dark IPA, an Imperial stout, a porter perhaps? Well they have, and it’s a bottle of Two Roads Espressway, an oatmeal stout brewed with roasted coffee beans, in the ‘official’ case that is, just not in mine.

My spirits fell even lower when I thought I’d just got a bottle of Anchor Steam Beer (£1.99 a bottle in Tesco). Closer investigation revealed that, although it was from Anchor, I’d got a bottle of Dry Hopped Anchor Steam Beer (£2.85 330ml, Beer Merchants). I’d never seen one of these? Reason being, I discovered, that they were first brewed in 2016 and are only available between September and December. Now if the Anchor website is to be believed, and I do, that means I must have one from a very early batch of this brew. Like many other beers in this case it has come via importers James Clay, and the date on the bottle confirms my thoughts with it’s BBD of August 2018.

The bottle and label will be familiar to those who’ve had an Anchor beer before. It’s just got ‘Dry Hopped’stamped over the normal label. Other interesting features on the bottle include – ‘Use Opener’ printed on the crown cap! How else you going to get it open? You can only do it with your teeth for so long before the old molars start to crumble.

The beer? I quite liked it actually. It’s a take on the California Common, just a bit more extreme. The beer is a deep Amber and is slightly hazy. You get a nice head on it as it pours and a malty aroma. It tastes malty, almost malteser malty, along with some juicy ripe fruits. It’s quite sweet until the end when a quite strong bitterness takes over. You really have to let the bitterness subside between sips, otherwise all you would get is the hoppy bitterness.

To be fair, I quite enjoyed this beer. It might not be an esoteric one, but it’s certainly pleasant, in an undemanding, yet nicely bitter way. Craft beer? Best ask those who reckon they know. It’s certainly a slightly different take on a recognised, traditional Californian style. All I will say is that Anchor have been making beer in San Francisco since 1896.

Verdict – Please, please Beer Hawk, tell me you have put at least one bottle of dark beer in my case?

Day 18 – Real ale or craft beer? Does it really matter when it’s this good?

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It seems that whilst everyone else is poring over the CAMRA Revitalisation Project proposals at the minute, I’m stuck with my Beer Hawk Advent Calendar, and I’ve started, so I’ll finish; only five more beers to go! I didn’t realise how much was going to be involved, blogging every day for nearly a month. It’s been interesting, almost firing from the hip on a daily basis, and I’ve been intrigued by some the feedback.

If you ask me what I think about the CAMRA proposals? I think my initial reaction is that it doesn’t go far enough, yet I hear reports of branch chairs saying that they will not be a part of CAMRA any more? Personally, I think that’s sad. Almost as extreme as the reaction I got from the twitterati when I suggested that a distinctive and traditional, regional German beer may not be ‘craft’.

Some of you will know that I’m a proud and active CAMRA member who is trying to promote diverse styles and dispense systems of distinctive and quality beers, including both traditional and cutting edge, progressive brewers, at the same time as upholding the traditions and values of the organisation. These thoughts all came together with Day 18’s beer – Real ale, in a can!

I’m not entirely bothered whether this unpasteurised, unfined and unfiltered ale is, by CAMRA’s definition, a real ale or not. It is without doubt the best beer to date that has come out of Beer Hawk’s case. Fresh, fresh, fresh, pale, pale, pale, hops, hops, hops, tasty, tasty, tasty, and hazy. Nay murky, something that would put many a traditionalist off. Thing is, it’s not a pint of Timmy Taylors that’s designed, and expected, to be bright, it’s something else entirely, yet they are both excellent examples of the brewers art. Both something to be enjoyed, just like a true motoring enthusiast can equally appreciate a vintage Bentley alongside the latest BMW hybrid i8.

Verdict – Drink Moor Beer! in fact drink Moor Beer Company Nor’hop (4.1%). Please forget about the real ale/craft thing, it’s just a cracking drink in a can. Thank you Mr Justin Hawke & Co., this is just so good, and I hope you find the thieving so and so’s that nicked your Lambics.

Day 16 – Never been done before!

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Todays Advent Calendar beer was created (2008) specifically as an accompaniment to food by Spanish brewers Damm and Ferran Adriá, the chef patron of the intergalactic restaurant that was elBulli who at the height of their vogue, received 1 million bookings per year for only 8,000 covers! There’s a cynical Guardian article of July 2010 article which suggests the financially struggling Señor Adrià was only in the collaboration for the money? That may well have been the case, as the restaurant closed it’s doors 12 months later in June 2011.

James Clay who import the beer into the UK say it’s brewed with wheat and barley malt, accentuated with coriander, orange peel and liquorice. What did I think? Well it’s definitely interesting. In my simple terms, it’s some sort of hybrid Lager/Wheat beer. For a Wheat beer it’s very clear, a slight haze at best. It’s very pale in colour too. The nose is gently aromatic with a hint of citrus sharpness which carries through into the taste. Amongst the lemony oranges, I also got a bit of banana, a gentle spiciness, maybe a hint of cloves and a honey like maltiness at the end. It carried a nice head as well which laced down the glass.

It’s quite a light refreshing sort of drink, and it has a gentle acidity that would work well with food, the same sort of acidity you would get in a dry white wine. I did wonder when I saw Ascorbic acid (antioxidant) was one of the ingredients on the bottle label? In small quantities it may be imperceptible, but I reckon the acidity running through this beer might owe something to this additive?

I get the food accompaniment thing, but they’ve overplayed this with the, obviously designed to look like a wine bottle, bottle, the 750ml one even more. It’s a bit like a Sam Smith’s pub, in so far as they’ve removed all the branding and it’s only when you look closely that you see who the brewer is. Clearly they wanted to distance this product from the mass produced Estrella Damm Lager. Having said that, out of all the Spanish mass market Lager beers then I would go for Estrella Damm every time, when in Rome and all that. I wouldn’t pay the premium they put on a pint of it over here though.

Verdict – Apparently Inedit means, ‘never been done before’? I think this one falls into the category mentioned yesterday; weird stuff they couldn’t shift.

Day 15 and I’m stuck in Belgium ???

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Day 15 of the Beer Hawk advent calendar sees another offering from a Cistercian Order of Strict Observance, this time it’s a Westmalle Tripel  from the Trappist Abbey of Westmalle, Belgium. It’s quite a strong brew (9.5%) which I‘ve drank previously, and has a BBE Sept 2018 date on it. So, it’s going in the pantry with the other strong ones, to be sampled on a day in the future. That might not be that far ahead, but it certainly won’t be before Christmas because I’m setting off to Belgium tonight to go and ask the monks whether they think their beer is ‘craft’ beer or not? They’ll probably look at me daft and think what in God’s name is he going on about, it’s beer, Abbey beer, but we’re Trappists so it can therefore rightly be called Trappist beer, of the Belgian variety, as opposed to the couple of Dutch Trappist monasteries, and the odd one or two elsewhere that also brew beer.

Everyone is now thinking, ‘He can’t be serious, can he, going to Belgium to ask whether it’s ‘craft’ or not’? The answer is no, I’m not! But I’m 100% certain that if I did, just like you, the monks would truly think I was barmy. Thing is though, I really think they would just say it’s beer, their beer. And I would tell them I thought it was very very good beer. Seriously, I would recommend anyone who is interested to have a look at their website, it really is a nice introduction to their life and work, including a section on the brewery.

This is the third strong Belgian ale to emanate from my Advent Calendar, which sort of got me wondering about the prices? I started to compile (not scientifically viable) how much each bottle would cost. If it was available on the Beer Hawk site then I used their price, if not, the first online shop that came up on a Google search for that beer. Surprisingly, four were not available on the Beer Hawk site and two more were shown as out of stock? Anyway, after 15 days, the mean price per bottle equates to £2.69, which extrapolates to roughly £65 quids worth of beer in the full case. It is possible that a late run of more expensive bottles would increase this average, I doubt whether I’m going to see a flurry of bottles at £8 or £9 though. I’m also doubting whether I will see a dark beer neither? Value for money? Well the case was advertised at £75 (inc P&P), although Mrs C reckoned that with discount, at the death, she got two at £65 each (my son has the other one).

I know you get discounts on cases and the like, but overall, I don’t think that’s too bad, we pay over the odds for everything at Christmas, and I don’t begrudge anyone earning an honest crust. There is of course the theory raised in the comments on Boak & Baileys post about my thoughts on Früh Kölsch to be addressed – Ordering mystery boxes is a mug’s game, full stop — 30 per cent OK beers, 50 per cent weird stuff they couldn’t shift, 20 per cent stuff you can get in the local corner shop. (To generalise rudely.) You might have started to formulate an opinion from what you’ve seen already? Me? I’m going to leave answering this until the end, I’ve noticed the door to Day 24 is twice as large as the rest?

Day 12 – Kölsch

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Opening the window for Day 12 on the Beer Hawk Advent Calendar revealed a bottle of Früh Kölsch. Now I know people have recently been slating me for banging the Craft beer (or not) drum, but I make no apologies here. Kölsch, made in Cologne by a brewer with 112 years of tradition is just NOT Craft and deserves no place in a Craft Beer Advent Calendar. It would however fit precisely into a curated selection of quality and distinctive world beers, sub-category Traditional German Regional beers.

Kölsch strictly speaking should only be brewed in Cologne, something ratified by the Kölsch Convention of 1986 and later accreditation as a product of (EU) Protected Geographical Indication. Essentially, you can make it to the same recipe wherever you want, but you can’t call it Kölsch unless it comes from Cologne.

I’ll stick my hands up here. I’m not really familiar with this style of beer. I recall hearing somewhere that it doesn’t stand being bottled and the only place to drink and really appreciate it is in Cologne, so I’ve never bothered. On that basis I’m going to reserve judgement. I could sense the potential in the beer, but this particular bottle didn’t float my boat.

To me it just didn’t feel carbonated enough, there was a bit of a head on the pour but it soon went flat and lifeless until it looked like a glass of Chardonnay. The only signs of life were a few trails of carbonation effervescing their way to the surface, you really had to hold it up to the light to see them. Tastewise, it had a crisp fresh lemony taste, almost like a wine spritzer. A bit of hop taste and a delicate bitterness. I could tell all the flavours were in there, in a very subtle, delicate way, but I could also detect a slight sweetcorn taste. I know that shouldn’t be in there, so maybe I got a Friday afternoon sort of a bottle? The bottle was well in date, by the way, BBD 20-07- 2017, although the sweetcorn hint would probably be produced during the brewing.

Verdict – I won’t be trying this again until I go to Germany, when It will be a must do (along with lots of other things).

Advent Day 11 – Hop Devil!

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Today Beer Hawk have Nøgne in their Day 11 Advent Calendar, whereas, for the fifth day out of eleven I have something entirely different to the beer they taste in their video blog. Disappointed? Not really because I’ve got a bottle of Victory Beer  Hop Devil and I’ve liked the beers from this brewer that I’ve tried previously. In fact, I think I’ve had Hop Devil on draught in Leeds city centre before. Probably in North Bar.

What started out in 1995 in Pennsylvania is now quite a big brewer who produced close on 150,000 Barrels in 2015, including ten core beers and more than fifteen seasonal brews that cover virtually every style of beer you can imagine. Their strap line is European tradition – American ingenuity, which accords directly with my thoughts of what craft brewing actually is.

I’m loving the scary Green Man inspired Hop Devil on the label, it’s suggestive of what might be contained in the barrel, it also foregrounds Victory Beer’s ethos of only using hop flowers and not pellets. I think it’s also a nice link to the Old World that gave us this style of beer, along with the all powerful earthy connection that anything made from nature has.

Deep Amber in colour, a malty almost tobacco like aroma, along with hops, lots of them. It didn’t hold any head after the pour. The tastes were lemony citrus and ripe fruits and a nice balance of toffee malt flavours. I also got a (bitter) almond like flavour and a few spicy notes. It’s quite smooth in the mouth and leaves an after taste a bit like bitter cream soda. Overall, balanced flavours, but you could tell it was all of it’s 6.7% ABV. Victory Beer’s website tells me that the beer is hopped with Cascade, Centennial and Chinook –  powerful American hops in a powerful American style IPA, no surprise there then.

The acid test, would I drink it again? Yes, by the case load, it’s yummy.

Criticisms – the bottle was only in date by two months (BBE 02-17). Would I be buying something from a bottle shop that only had two months date left on it? Not unless it was in a reduced case I wouldn’t. Having said that, eleven days in, this is the first bottle from the Advent Calendar that hasn’t had a very long date on it. Despite the variations from the official Beer Hawk case showcased in their video, I’m still enjoying my selection.

Day 9 – Bellerose Bleu – Definitely Surfine

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No AB-Inbev owned beers again today! It’s another independent supplied by trade only beer importer James Clay of Halifax. That’s the second one from them in the box, maybe they have a monopoly on sour beers in this case (Day 1)?

This is an unusual one that’s billed as a cross between a French bière de Garde and an English IPA? The brewery is a little unusual too. Based in Lille, it was originally founded in 1998 by a bevy of French actors after they made the film, Germinal. I’m no great cinematic aficianado, but I do know that Gerard Depardiue is the one who looks like his nose has been crudely made from plasticine. I also know he likes a gauge or two, so that bodes well. Anyway in 2002 it changed hands and name before undergoing the same process again in 2005 and now belongs to International Breweries and Beers, a French importer/exporter.

There are two Belleroses; Red (6.5%) and Blue (4.5%) which is only available on the UK market. I have the latter here and I might have just picked the stronger, original version given a choice?

There’s a nice head developing when you pour it out and there’s a slight haze in the golden coloured beer. The main aroma is sour and acetic, but when you taste it, it’s not as sour as you think it was going to be. The flavours I got were lemon, peppery, yeast, sweet caramel malt taste and a mellow sourness. It’s quite smooth and silky in the mouth and afterwards you get a wave of sweetness followed by a lemony bitterness.

Overall I thought it was a well balanced drink which matches up to the declaration of ‘Surfine’ on the bottle – superior, or of very fine quality. I didn’t think it was really a craft beer from a craft brewer though, more … something a little different from an obviously accomplished French brewer who only brew a couple of beers. It just shows you don’t have to brew zillions of wacky things to be good.

Verdict – fifteen beers left, I hope they will continue to be as good as this one which is definitely more ‘de garde’ than ‘de IPA’. Vive La France!