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.

Advent Calendar Day 17 and it’s all a conundrum?

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I didn’t open yesterday’s beer, not because I didn’t fancy it, more like, I went out to collect a parcel at at two o’clock and didn’t get back in till gone half eight. I did however have a couple of stunning pints of Arbor Ales Smac My Brew Up (4.8%), on cask, in the excellent Mews, Wetherby, along with a few more on my travels – bus and walking, obviously. I didn’t realise three blokes could miss so many different buses in one afternoon?

Anyway, Day 17’s offering from Beer Hawk’s Advent Calendar is a Schneider Weisse Tap 7 Unser Original, from G. Schneider & son, brewers of Kelheim, Germany. A Bavarian Weizen, which appears on virtually everyone’s bucket list of beers to try before you die/best beers in the world. It’s easy to understand why, it’s a classic and a unique style.

You can by a 500ml bottle for £2.49 on the Beer Hawk web site, but the one I got is a 330ml bottle, so I feel a bit short changed if I’m honest. Mind you, a 500ml bottle would never have fitted in the Day 17 slot in the box. I had a quick look on YouTube and the Beer Hawk team had the same beer as well. I also had a look at Day 16’s video, which hadn’t been posted when I wrote yesterdays commentary. I was quite surprised to discover that the official Day 16 beer wasn’t the bottle of Damm Inedit I received at all. Daniel the Beer Hawk beer writer and friend, were trying a bottle of Brewdog Santa Paws? This sort of evidenced the claims in Day 15’s post that emanated from Boak & Bailey in so far as, 20% of the case will probably be available in your local corner shop. Santa Paws is indeed readily available in LS23, the home of both myself and Beer Hawk, at the local Morrisons store at 4 for £6. So if they had run out of Santa Paws why didn’t they send someone the two miles or so, to Wetherby Morrisons and buy a few more bottles? Or is Boak & Bailey’s notion that, the case will probably contain 50% of weird stuff that they couldn’t shift, also correct? But if that’s the case, why go to all the trouble of producing twenty four entertaining, and very professionally done, video tasting notes, and then send a different beer out? And why can’t Morrisons do Jackhammer at £1.50 a bottle? Surely the finest of Brewdog’s mainstream products?

Verdict – I eventually managed to squeeze the can out of the Day 18 slot and I’m really looking forward to drinking it whilst watching the Man City – Arsenal game this afternoon. There’s a clue or two in this post to indicate in which fine UK brewing city this real ale is made. In fact you should be able to work out the brewery from what I’ve said?

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?

Advent Calendar Day 14 – Hopefully Carlsberg UK will be bringing it to a supermarket near you?

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Total disaster with this one! I nicked the rim of the bottle opening it. No one’s fault, these things just happen from time to time. I think there was only one clean shard of glass that fell onto the counter, so I carried on undeterred. Please don’t do this at home though, just sling the bottle, just in case. I’m glad I’m not of the Snowflake generation, and could therefore carry on regardless of this accident, because I really enjoyed Day 14 of the Beer Hawk Advent Calendar – Brooklyn Scorcher IPA.

This 4.5% brew is billed as a session beer, as opposed to some of the stronger American IPA’s. I think I liked this beer because you actually get a bit of where it came from; a traditional English IPA. If you wanted to do a taste off to see how things evolved you could start off with an English IPA like Worthington’s White shield, a Scorcher IPA and, just sticking to the contents of my case, something like the Elysian Brewing Company Immortal IPA or the Victory Beer Hop Devil. I reckon this would nicely demonstrate how the IPA style developed when it went transatlantic. The Brooklyn Scorcher IPA probably being nearer to an English IPA than the more malty, hoppy IPA’s I received on Days 5 or 11, yet still with the dial turned up in these departments. I guess this explains why it’s only available in the UK and Scandinavia and not made for the (US) home market.

It’s quite lively and makes a nice head. Subtle aroma of hops and tastes citrus, piney, maybe a tiny hint of grapefruit. There’s a soft caramel malt taste and a nice bitterness. The only strange thing was the second pour was hazy. Now that doesn’t necessarily bother me, I just expected it to be bright. Obviously there was some sediment in the bottle, suggesting only a light filtration.

Pricewise, I found it on the interweb priced between £1.95 to £3.77, depending where you looked, most online stores were just above the two pound mark though. I didn’t think that was bad for a really nice, easy going refreshing drink. I haven’t seen it in any supermarkets near where I live, but I would really like to.

It got me thinking a bit when I couldn’t find the beer for sale on the Beer Hawk web site? I then discovered that Carlsberg UK have taken over the distribution rights for Brooklyn starting on 30th December 2016. The previous UK distributor being James Clay, the Halifax vintner, who are importers for quite a few of the other beers in this case. Should one be bold enough to suggest that Beer Hawk have banged out all their existing stocks of Scorcher in the Advent Calendar, knowing that they will get no more from who are obviously one of their existing business partners? I quite like a conspiracy theory, now and then.

Verdict – If you are looking for a powerful US style hop monster IPA, this isn’t what you are looking for. If you want something that’s different and subtly bolder than a traditional English IPA then I reckon you will enjoy this beer. I would love to see it in Morribog’s sometime soon.

Day 13 and I’ve not got the Monk on!

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And it’s another European beer; Belgium; Trappist –  Rochefort 8, a beer brewed in a brewery associated with the Abbey of Our Lady of Saint-Remy, Belgium, a Trappist monastery, sub-category of the Cistercian order.

After all the activity on various social media accounts yesterday, I probably shouldn’t go anywhere near the word ‘craft’. Instead, shall I just say that I don’t hold with using ‘craft’ as an outdated, catch-all term referring to any interesting, distinctive beer. I’ve nicked this notion from Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog recent post, and I’m indebted, not for their verbal support, but for actually sorting out in my own mind the process I’ve been going through. Their verbalisation of what I’m thinking, or trying to say, is much clearer than my own!

If I’m honest, do I know what ‘craft’ is? Maybe I’ve an idea. Does anyone actually know? One of the critical tweets I saw yesterday said something along the lines of, ‘trying to define craft is like trying to find Zeuss on a mountain top playing chess with Jesus.’ So why are we doing it then? And why is it so controversial when we try to define it?

Looking back to where I set off with this series of posts, it all started with an Advent Calendar given as a present. I’d no intentions of going anywhere specific with the posts, I just thought I’d let things go where the box took me. It’s proved fascinating for me and I’ve learned so much, I just love discovering things; about myself and others. If you’ve read any of my posts, you’ll see one of my mantras is, ‘Different isn’t wrong’.

Only thing is, ‘Different can be wrong’, especially when it’s so confusing to the average person who doesn’t know what ‘craft’ is/was/might be/going to be. It’s so confusing that I reckon you could sell anything labelled craft these days, and people, ordinary everyday people, will buy it in total ignorance. I’ve been watching the progress of a craft beer advent calendar elsewhere and seen nothing but very steady, traditional, British ales come out, I didn’t know you could still get Manns Brown Ale?

This mysterious protectiveness around the term ‘craft’ seems almost reminiscent of the Medieval Guilds, who stuck together, withholding and protecting key bits of information, which if released meant that anyone could do what they did. Me? I’ve always tried to be inclusive, in everything I do; as a husband, father, neighbour, professionally, and just as an ordinary bloke.

I didn’t drink my Belgian Trappist ale, it’s gone into the pantry along with my other esoteric, artisanal, boutique ales. You know, those that can benefit from some time in the bottle and will stand a while in the dark, and maybe improve, mature, or at least change a bit.

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Verdict? A pretty decent bottle of ale to get in an Advent Calendar case, probably best part of what, nearly four quid in a bottle shop.

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).