Pleased To Meet You

If you haven't worked it out it's the name of the pub, or should I call it a bar. Pleased To Meet You is a relatively new craft beer hotspot in Newcastle I have been meaning to visit for a long time. It seemed everyone's been, except me, so I had to do something about it.

Before I start I must mention that this isn't another one of those bars you wished you could sit in for an entire day and try the bulk of the beer range getting merry in a sort of beery paradise. This is more of a bar you wished was situated next to your house, so every few days you could pop in to try something new, whether it be more beers from the taps, new whiskies, wines or even cocktails. You could devote an entire evening just to getting to know gin, or you could continually chase the changing guest draft beers. In short the emphasis on choice here is epic, with an atmosphere that's very charming and friendly.

So where to start, cask or Keg? Way more was on offer than could possibly be consumed in a sitting. The likes of Dark Star, Thornbridge and Marble were out in force while Tyne Bank and Mordue held the local front. A few beers down the line and the urge for something different arose. Amble Butcher's Chorizo and saffron mash with a De Struise Westoek XX is a half decent combination. This weighty 8% Belgian strong ale has a sweetish body and lots of tart wild yeast character with dark fruit. Classic Belgian to the core. Rustic, nuanced and unpredictable. More of a random wildcard pairing given the menu advises pairing this dish with 'gutsy red wine or a powerful hoppy IPA' but it worked ok.

Next up was the dessert named 'coffee and doughnuts' with my chosen beverage Dark Star 1910 Porter. This beer is one clean cut hit of Espresso with bitter dark chocolate that contrasted my doughnuts quite well. The menu suggests pairing an imperial stout but I honestly thought a heavy barley wine or rich Belgian strong ale would do better at lapping up all the sugary deliciousness of this dessert.

Next up a beer from the menu under the category 'peculiar' meaning not really fitting in a style category. This I like. Bristol Beer Factory Vintage 2012 sort of comes across a tad like a well aged old school barley wine but at 6.6%. Nice dried sultana and apricot esters over underlying woody notes. Probably excellent with a nice medium strength cheddar that's all about the texture.

The wife enjoying a Mojito IPA, a combo of rum and Jaipur IPA

So after a cracking evening was time to finish by turning to the extensive whisky range. Scottish, English, Japanese, American......

Again, this is probably worth another visit.

Beer and Jambalaya

Three beers from the fridge

One pan of Jambalaya

But which one to pair with it???

This is another one of those posts that arose out of coincidence. So it was Saturday night and the wife was cooking Jambalaya. I was pondering over which beers would be the better match for this Southern American dish. It later occurred to me that Mark Dredge had covered this way back in 2011, coincidentally using an almost similar set of beers. Nothing wrong with repeating an experiment I thought, so let's get them all opened.

Well it was almost a repeat. A big difference here was that this Jambalaya recipe was taken from the Hairy Bikers, and does not involve scotch bonnet chillies (like Dredge's Jamie Oliver one). In other words, the Dredge was obviously pairing beers with a much hotter dish. Jambalaya is a kind of mixed meat spicy risotto and in Dredge's 2011 experiment, the unexpected winner was the underdog, none other than your staple macro brewed Budweiser lager. For this reason my equivalent, the Graffenwalder Pils was the favourite to conquer in tonight's pairing challenge.

Grafenwalder Pils.

Shoppers at Lidl supermarket may be familiar with the 4.8% Grafenwalder Pils. Brewed probably in some random UK-based factory owned by a faceless corporation. At only 85p per can it's not a bad take on your standard pale lager. Heavier and less neutral than Budweiser with a touch of cooked corn/DMS about it which I don't mind too much. With Jambalaya I immediately noticed what Dredgy was on about. The clean refresher certainly works with this.  The lager sits back whilst cleansing carbonation provides a nice contrast.

Arbor Triple Hop #8 (Mosaic Nugget Simco)

A nice, hoppy, bottle-conditioned 4% blonde ale. Plenty of soft fruity citrus and pine going on here. The slight yeast haze brings a smoothness combined with soft carbonation. For some reason it seems a bit thin, but nice flavours with the Mosaic thing obviously dominating. Enjoyed this greatly with Jambalaya, the nice citrus theme complements the mild spice nuances of the dish nicely. This beer might not have the cleansing power of carbonation Grafenwalder had but for intensity and flavour harmonies it sure hits the mark.

Maui Brewing Aloha B'ak'tun

Now for something different. Aloha B'ak'tun is a 7% Belgian stout aged with chocolate and spices.  I never realised when I bought it that it was a Christmas beer, and a bloody good one at that. Christmas beer meets stout. Cinnamon spice leads to big sweet dark chocolate and coffee, alcohols warmth and Christmas spice. For me this is my favourite stand alone beer of the three. However with Jambalaya the mix is crazy. Bitter dark chocolate contrasts the spice brilliantly yet everything else meanders off in various directions. Very complex but doesn't completely work. It also seemed a bit weird drinking this on a sunny July evening.

So in conclusion this was a close one between the Arbor and the Grafenwalder. I honestly thought that if this dish had chilli kick the 85p lager would have walked it. But because both beer and food were on the moderately subtle side myself and the wife both agreed that Arbor Triple Hop worked the best.

Behold the next Panda Frog; Pandamonium IPA

Shed fully assembled and ready for craft brewing...

check

Hat...

check

Excessive quantities of US hops...

check

That's right, another Panda Frog project has been released into the wilderness. Pandamonium IPA (I just couldn't resist that name), soon to be kegged and bottled, is the sixth instalment of the Panda Frog saga. 5.5% and 80IBU. Brewed in the style a classic Californian IPA, Pandamonium is bright and vibrant with plenty of that classic grapefruit kick and smooth resiny pine. Great fun was had brewing this one, especially the hour-long weighing out of hops interval. Officially the 'brewing my dream IPA' long time fantasy has been fulfilled and the results were most pleasant. But don't just take it from me, hunt the stuff down now.  

Kernel and Curry night

Beer and curry, a difficult combination to beat. Beer and pizza comes close. Tonight's chosen beer, The Kernel Pale ale Mosaic is a single hop variety IPA from the much reputed Kernel brewery in London. The curry was by none other than Alnwick's newest and finest Indian restaurant and takeaway Mivesi.

The thing about bitter beers with spicy food is that it only seems to work up to certain extremes, beyond which it becomes painful. For me this combination edges towards the pain threshold but works well enough that it doesn't matter so much. The Sri Lanka curry offers coconut, tropical and lemon flavours that complement the beer well whilst intensity wise nether hop bitterness or spice seemed to dominate. Overall a nice yet rather intense pairing that almost borders on the 'intense bitterness with intense spice = pain' theory.

I found the Mosaic hop to be quite fascinating and complex, combining a little of that galaxy esque floral melon and passionfruit with soft citrus and a bitter lime edge. The aroma is very pungent with a smooth bitterness and there's a slight earthy dimension to it to. This is obviously one of the new breed of super hops that can act great as a stand alone hop variety in a beer. A good offering from The Kernel, though you would never guess it was a single hop beer.

Down memory lane

Is it me or does chap on the label look more cartoony than he used to? That aside I'm sure this beer used to look darker.

Basically McEwan's Export goes a long way back in my beer-drinking history. It's been a hell of a long time since I last re-visited it so, seeing it on the supermarket shelves the other week, I thought 'what the hell' and picked up a bottle of the first beer I ever tried. So before Mordue or Daleside brewing, before Rob's beer quest university days and the rest of it around 70ml or so in the bottom of a tumbler glass was all my dad would allow me. The dark brown liquid with the frothy white head poured from a can. To be honest I never liked the taste much, but I felt like a big man drinking it. An acquired taste you may say. Eight or so years later I would be exploring new beers like Carling, Stella or Newcastle Brown.
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My first year university days involved a lot of beer consumption. As the grant for the term came in I would visit the local Booth's supermarket to stock up on bottled beers. Bottled ales from around the nation would adorn my bedroom shelves from the Waggledance to the Old Peculiar. Yet the odd four pack of McEwan's would always be tucked away at the back, four red cans to conveniently take to the next house party or stash for the odd camping trip.

Towards the end of the night is when the McEwan's would come out. The sub on the bench role is how I used to think of it. Once I'd lost the will and abilities to ponder over the nuances of a Black Sheep Riggwelter or the closest local micro's 'Real ale in a bottle' (the word 'craft' in those days existed only in America) the McEwan's would be cracked open. Often accompanied by lashings of Bells Whisky it was almost like a chill-out beer - cheap and requiring little effort to appreciate. The correct terminology, taken from a former, great blogging master is neckable grog.

I think everyone needs neckable grog in their lives from time to time which is partly why I picked up this bottle. I have never tried the stuff from the bottle but pouring it out into a glass for analysis was almost like studying ancient ruins yet somehow the nostalgia wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. In fact I remember it  different to this, darker with more deep grainy flavours. I suspect it might have been toyed with over the years. The aroma and initial flavour is of sweet, burnt cinder toffee. Sweet, grainy, crystal malts follow into the finish. It's obviously heavily filtered with a prickly carbonation (a common feature of many triple filtered, pasteurised supermarket bottled beers) but there's still a very subtle underpinning of English hops.

All in all it's not a bad beer. Looking back at all I've tried between now and my first taste poured from the red can I've had a lot worse. The blandest mass market lagers. The vinegary pints, the half stale on the way out pints, diacetly bombs and ropey, vegetal and even explosive bottle conditioned beers. All of them fall short of this. McEwan's Export is the sort of beer you'd be happy to find in some distant beer desert abroad at a Scottish themed bar, or at someone's party in a working men's club where options are severely limited. Yet sadly that's probably the best praise I can give it. Happy memories though.