Taste

What’s that you’ve got in your glass, I ask Magic Rock’s Stuart Ross. Salty Kiss comes the reply, with incan berries added at three weeks and then aged in Tequila barrels for about three months.

We’re at the launch of Unhuman Cannonball at Craft Beer Co in Islington and it’s good to catch up (I first met Stuart when he was at the Crown Brewery in Sheffield and we bonded over our love for Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing, which is the only home-brewing book I have ever read with the intensity I usually accord to Hemingway).

He offers me a taste. It’s vinous, delicately sour and lightly salty, there’s a background hum of sweetness and I can just about taste something Tequila-like in the background.

Later on, next day, I’m thinking about the beer and how some drinkers would taste this and say that it wasn’t beer; then I start thinking about the variety of flavours and different directions brewers are now heading in, whether it’s about making their own interpretations of Gose, adding all manner of ingredients, letting this or that yeast in, or replicating their favourite hangover cure in a sour way (when I was interviewing Beavertown’s Logan Plant last year we were talking about Lemon Phantom Sour and he told me it was based on ‘that wonderful hangover cure, Lemon Fanta!’).

If you’re of a traditionalist persuasion, whether it’s keg or cask, then these might seem non-beery flavours, a strangeness in the way brewing is being done, a wayward exclamation of the arts and crafts of brewing, the cliffs of god that need to be climbed on your knees when a nice comfortable escalator will do. Go away, you might want to say.

On the other hand, such flavours and cravings are here to stay, but immersion in the sanctuary of beer can send one off on a crass course towards thinking that everyone, just everyone, thinks the same.

At tastings I have seen people who know their own minds about Pilsner Urquell, Doom Bar, London Pride or Peroni express surprise at their first experience of Saison Dupont or Westmalle Tripel and actually rather enjoy this experience, and with this in mind it’s easy to forget that when you chat and collaborate with those of a similar ilk, that not everyone has their palate calibrated into this brave new world of flavour, for that is what it is — a brave new (rediscovered, some might say) world of flavour, a grave bold cure away from what some might recognise as beer.

And after I taste the Salty Kiss, I return to my Unhuman Cannonball (lemon-gold in colour, juicy, bracingly bitter, forward facing in its grapefruitiness), another beer that traditionalists might care to dismiss — and then I think back to the tasting I had done earlier in the day when someone had asked me what constitutes beer? There and then, aloud, I had mused that beer is an alcoholic beverage made with malted barley, hops, yeast and water but that it might include other grains, and could have spices, fruit, vegetables or meat extract within, and might not have hops or might have more hops than was thought decent, or it might be aged in wooden barrels or even within clay (as I tasted a couple of years ago in Rimini from Birra del Borgo). 

And that is what I like about what is going on in beer at the moment — brewers might not always get it right but the search for (or the rediscovery of) different flavours and aromas is a great thing. Musicians and writers and bakers and builders use traditional forms to express their soul but if they discover a new way then it’s right that they take that path. Brewers can do the same.

Guess

And so I get bottles from Magic Rock Brewery, one or two of which I have already dissected here — but here I am again sitting at the kitchen table and this time enjoying a glass of their High Wire. American Pale Ale with a nod to the West Coast it seems like to me. And I sit there drinking it and thinking that it reminds me of something else. The nose has a flourish of passion fruit cheesecake, scented, slightly risqué in its creaminess, as well as a musty dustiness that reminds me of the smell when my son’s wet suit is hanging up to dry (ozone perhaps, brininess); or maybe — a thought strikes me — it’s more like a stable (formerly stacked with dry hay) through which a wet dog has passed through. Don’t blink: it’s a pleasant aroma, providing a thought-provoking contrast between the kids’ tea party giggle-fest of the passion fruit and its friend the cheesecake with the more grown up seriousness of the space in which something wet is placed (or has passed through). The passion fruit cheesecake note is also on the palate along with a sensuous oily character; this makes for a full beer, a big body of flavour, though then there are sherberty, sweet notes that help to keep any inclinations towards obesity in the mouth under control. As well: orange marmalade, oh, lightly toasted white bread with a thin skin of marmalade, oh again, not orange but pink grapefruit. Breakfast anyone? The finish is dry and appetising with passion fruit notes making a welcome return. It’s a deeply satisfying beer, robust in its flavour. This is what I would call artisanal — I am deeply satisfied by the flavour — it’s why I drink and keep company with beer.

And so then I try the beer that High Wire reminds me of. The passion fruit is on the nose again, but then it feels like this passion fruit fancies slumming it as a mango and then loses its dignity completely by turning into a scented tropical fruit salad. Ripe fruits, I’m reminded of, ripe fruits sitting in the fruit bowl brushed and caressed by the sun of a late summer’s day. This other beer that I thought High Wire reminded me of is brighter on the nose than High Wire, but not as sultry perhaps; brasher, noisier, a celebrity with pretensions to intellectualism perhaps (Joey Barton?). There’s a spritzy tingle on the palate, a feel that has the light covering of pink grapefruit and again that ripeness from the nose. But hark, what is this, some vegetal notes Barton their way into the background (broccoli water perhaps?) and then it fades away too quickly. It’s inoffensive, has a quick finish, acceptable but I like High Wire for its robustness, its swagger and general sense of style.

And when I mention the closeness of High Wire to Stuart at the brewery he confirms what I thought and says that it was based on this beer, but as it was not as it is. I suspect you can guess what the beer is.

You can do Magic

Magic #1 

I had spent my whole life avoiding the music of the Grateful Dead but a year ago during a visit to Magic Hat in Burlington, VT it caught up with me. Not very impressed, sounded like I expected it to sound: hippy trippy guitars, self-indulgent hippy nonsense, going-on-far-too long and utterly concrete-dull in its ability to attract. On the other hand the visit to Magic Hat went down a treat even if I found their blend of hippy vibe and carny extravaganza a bit too much at times. The whole place was a mixture of Dr Seuss and Willy Wonka plus a bit of 1950s B-movie horror — the aforementioned Grateful Dead eternally jamming on the speakers and incredibly inventive tap handles inducing a zany swirling cacophonic vibe. Lots of stuff to buy, including frisbees, bottles, t-shirts and some books (though not 1001 Beers sadly) and massive papier mache figures hanging over the brewing area (the brewery sponsors the local Mardi Gras). It was honest and open in the great American way, treating brewing as showmanship and I think some Brit breweries could learn from it (no Grateful Dead please). The beers? The night before in a bar in Rutland VT I had #9: I wasn’t blown away — blackcurrant plus vanilla, and some apricot tart notes. Shrug of shoulders. This time at the brewery I got it — rich apricot skin on the nose, a luscious apricot character and gorgeous flowery elegance (a tired keg the night before?). Amongst the others I tried were Circus Boy, an unfiltered Hefe-Weiss with cloves and a slightness of banana on the nose; in the mouth it was chewy, elegant, peppery and refreshing, leading to a dryish finish; Single Chair, whose tap featured a Lilliputian ski chair, was fragrant and flowery with a dry finish; Hex had a fresh bath salts style nose and was sprightly on the palate, bearing forth a sweet caramel/toffee character with hints of smoke and wood; the finish was dry grainy and bittersweet. Blinking back out in the sun I felt rather discombobulated. 

Magic #2 

Stuart Ross at Crown

In 2008 I was in Sheffield for pub research and booked into the Hillsborough Hotel. After a day going round pubs I got back at about 9.30pm looking forward to an early night. Stuart Ross of the in-house Crown Brewery had a different idea and invited me to the cellar to try his beers. We both bonded over Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing, one of the best beer books ever, and drank beer. I remember a red IPA though wasn’t taking notes, but I did think that he was going places. A couple of years ago I was at the Crown again and he gave me a bottle of a smoked Oktoberfest, which I thought brilliant. Now Stuart is over at Magic Rock Brewery and I was sent several of his beers. They’re all excellent though the one that really impressed was Cannonball, an imperial IPA. The aroma alone was to die for — it was like sticking your nose into a freshly opened pack of New World hops. If you’re going to be drinker friendly there were passion fruit, grapefruit and pineapple notes, but on the other hand: the aroma was primeval and erotic in its abandonment; Isadora Duncan dancing Diaghilev; Ur-hop; sweaty almost but not in an unpleasant manner; alcoholic; a muted Cointreau with some caramel sprinkles (only a few); and the earthy smell of cow skin minus all those intervening aromas of shit and whatever else. The palate was velvety, like licking and perhaps biting into ripe orange skin, then there was grapefruit juice, alcohol, a sweetness that was soon kept in its place by a slap of dryness; some soapiness in the mouth feel (Saaz?) as well plus a slight woodiness in the background. The finish was grainy, toasty and lime-like with more bitterness. Rather excellent and I wish I’d tried it on tap at the Craft Beer Co last week, but I suspect I will see it around a lot more.