Operation Winter Beaver

As I’m sure you’re all aware, the nights colder and longer winter is setting in. For this reason every year I decide to make a few visits to my favorite beer shop the ale cellar in Darlington, a humble corner shop like outlet with walls filled with beer and glassware from around the world. Here I usually spend great lengths of time scoping the selection picking out both well known classics and beers not tried yet whilst trying not to spend too much money. In fact of recent times the Ale Cellar has got even better, bringing in superb beers for both Meantime and Samuel Smiths, check it out on http://www.alecellar.com/, you can even order online.
Anyway as my very own home brewed ‘Panda’s Christmas reserve’ ale is slowly maturing, I hunt for more examples of great winter beers to help celebrate the season. Obvious ones like Fullers ESB and Black sheep Riggwelter are easy to find and great full bodied winter warmers but various other gems can be found outside the supermarket range such as Sierra Nevada Celebration, a Trappistes Rochefort or perhaps a Daleside Morocco Ale. But what is it I question that makes a great winter ale? Must it be dark and full bodied? Heavily spiced? In fact some Christmas beers such as Wylam breweries legless Santa have been quite pale. So definitions are quite broad with some beers marrying well with the season naturally without being designed as Christmas beers.Melissa Cole reviews in the recent edition of Beers of the world covers some good ones. I myself will be looking for some new releases with the little budget I have available.

Discovering the Fox

I'm sure that all beer fans out there would have seen the debut episode of Neil Morrisseys Risky business mentioned in my previous post. Yes, I thought, eventually a program to raise awareness and respect for real beer, and I suppose it does. However some areas were disappointing (as a CAMRA member it is my duty to moan). Firstly were the gimmicks, I mean who has bath in beer!? Its just a waist of good beer. Secondly what is the point in getting some guy who's known for drinking beer in quantity and speed alone as a taste advocate. At this point in the show I was questioning weather they had lost the plot in favour of just trying to give the show a laddish persona? Furthermore no real brewer would simply homebrew up a test batch on a 5 gallon home brew system before asking members of the public if they liked the free samples. They obviously have no ideas of the unpredictability’s of home brewing compared to commercial brewing.

Apart from these points I admired their passion to succeed, and it was only the other day I managed to find a bottle of Morrissey fox blonde ale on the supermarket shelves. From my sources I have heard these blokes have been using some pretty nice brewing kit, under supervision from staff of Roosters Brewery in North Yorkshire. This explained why the beer itself was very much on the bitter side especially in the finish. Very pale in colour It opens well, clean and balanced with soft malt presenting apple and peardrop, before the finish brings mouth puckering bitterness and dry hop resins that bring almost a touch of astringency. Interesting beer though, from my guess very simple in design, which isn’t a bad thing, but my parents didn’t like it much. Overall I would recommend it to fans of dry German pilsners.

Small dying market?

I will always remember the lecturer at University who told me on repeated occasions that British cask beer is a small dying market. But to be honest I have struggled to believe this. Recent news has told of nothing but survival of small independent breweries in the current economic crisis. In reports from both CAMRA and Alistar Guilmore Small brewers have began thriving in the current credit crunch, these have included reports that brewers such as Allendale (Northumberland) and Mordue (Tyneside) have struggled to keep up with demand. Further more if this was not so at the Daleside brewery in North Yorkshire I would not be working in my current position. But the reasoning behind such survival has been put down to various theories. Take for example pricing, the price of a pint of standard mass produced lager at the pub is equivalent to that of a cask conditioned ale, considering that the drinkers have less money they thus want more for their money. Secondly in the current age real beer has gradually gained recognition, in America more obviously than over here. But the UK has seen more and more brewers springing up in various areas as well as more pubs selling at least one cask product or even just expanding the beer range alittle (believe me Iv seen it in my area). Beer festivals are frequent and conducted in all areas of the country and events such as Beers of the World live have aimed to bring the experience of craft beer enjoyment and understanding to a wider audience.
Coincidently this can be compared to the food market. Today health conscious customers want to know more about what they eat and are attracted to products that are not packed with artificial colours, flavours, starch adjuncts, trans fats etc, etc. One can easily argue that this can be applied to beer. Even more good news is that late this year will see more beer related programmes on TV thanks partly to Neil Morrissey and Co's new documentary about opening a brewpub in North Yorkshire. So finally after all these years of wine stealing the limelight of being the greatest respected fermented beverage (mostly due to social snobbery) Beer can finally gain back the respect it deserves.

I'll drink to that. Cheers!

More or less?

Greetings again readers apologies for the late post. Of recent times I have been given the opportunity to do my first official Beer journalism work, and by that I mean writing for an official beer magazine, Beers of the World. As a guest taster I have had to taste and review 9 imperial stouts (although one was a porter). Many of these I had been hunting for a ages now, so it was a great privilege. The list included:

Samuel Smiths Imperial stout: An old favorite of mine and looks like a baby at only 7%abv. Nicely drinkable, roasty and elegant as always.

Great divide Yeti Imperial stout: A bold masterpiece that perfectly integrates huge caramelized malty flavors with brisk hop and roast malt bitterness.

Zywiec porter: A lovely middleweight dissert like beer with soft creamy textures. Scored highly but seemed out of place as the only porter.

Brew dog Rip Tide: A nice assault of hops balances this one leaving slight dryness.

Brooklyn Brewery Black chocolate stout: Bold, elegant and smooth with dominant roasty dark chocolate notes. Not the masterpiece I had hoped for considering Roger Protz gave it full marks

Left Hand Brewing Imperial Stout: Sweet malty flavors signature. Plenty of toffee, candy and caramelized crystal malt influences.

De Struise Brouwers. Black Albert: This one I was particularly fascinated by. All the usual funky yeasty character you find in a Belgian ale well integrated into a 13% abv stout that exceptionally drinkable.

A Le Coq. Imperial extra double stout. 9% abv. 2003 vintage: Drinks more like a port wine with virtually no carbonation, but tends to grow on you with an intriguing lethery/ oily texture and big ‘alcohol soaked fruit’ like flavors.

Dogfish head. World wide stout: Basically an 18% abv monster of a stout that attacks full on with warming alcoholic flavors and tastes half way between a brandy an a stout/barley wine. The thing is, after hearing so much about Dogfish head and hunting them for so long I was intrigued to get hold of one. But the term used by one of my Uni mates from Canada often used, ‘over the top’ seemed somewhat fitting for this example. Another term, ‘insanely over the top’ also fits as the palate blasts one with a whole spectrum of malty and warming alcohol flavors all at once. However although overpowering at first the beer does seem to grow on you and develops into a lovely warming after dinner drink of huge complexity.


Overall the two highest scoring were the Black albert, creative and elegant, against the bold and beautiful Great Divide Yeti Imperial stout from Denver Colorado. In fact most of the American examples seemed to aim for a similar effect of boldness to the palate, Left hand seemed to go alittle on the sweet malty side, whereas Dogfish head seemed go for the stronger the better approach. But do you really need to push things to the extreme to make the best extreme styles? Examples from Zywiec and Samuel Smiths proved this wrong whereas Great Divide Yeti suggests extremism could be the way forward in the style. In my opinion there is always wrong ways and right ways to develop massively flavored beers. For this the brewer needs to keep in control various elements of brewing for example the temperature of fermentation, the quantities of colored and roast malts used and the level of attenuation. But a major factor of imperial stout brewing as with other high gravity beers is time, as such beers can take years to develop in character.

The beer before time

Greetings all and as we know it is the start of a new month and thus a new beer style of the month. This time I have taken the option of another age old British beer style, originating from London, that became the most popular beer style in the UK during the Industrial revolution. As with IPA porter helped fuel the British empire, except where IPA was sent abroad Porter was drank in-land. Originally the beer was created from an innovative beer called 'entire butt', a beer brewed to mimic the palate of blend of beers called three threads, a blend of old and young beers that had to be blended by the publican in the cellar (as they had no beer engine and thus no hand pumps) before serving. The popularity of entire butt amongst the porters of London eventually gave the beer its current name.

But after the 1830s the style went into decline as the public slowly turned their favour to lower gravity less aged beers such as mild or pale ale. Today the style is recreated by craft brewers across the globe, commonly crafted from grist combinations that include pale, crystal, chocolate and black malts often bittered with old style British hops such as Fuggles, Bramling X or Northdown. In fact from word of mouth I have heard recent praise for the porter made by the Daleside brewery which I work for, by CAMRA members, and currently my home brewed example of the style is slowly maturing under the stairs.