Wednesday beer — Mondo Colouring In

Could you ever get bored of IPA? Will you ever get bored of IPA? Is there a kind of IPA that bores you to tears and makes you want to rip up your membership card of the great world of beer and return the celestial vouchers of beer appreciation by first class post? What is it that might rankle with you when it comes to IPA? The inclusion of fruit, spices and whatever else is hanging around and begging to be used in the kitchen? Or maybe it’s mixed fermentation, a Yeti-like yeast strain or the complete loss of hope when a soda IPA comes along (as it will)? I’m being rhetorical, not being me or you or anyone, but just wondering what it is about IPA that has made it the punchbag and the leaky cauldron and the three wise men of beer all rolled into one? 

On the other hand, I could just enjoy an IPA, which is what I have done with Mondo’s Colouring In, a 6.2% extra pale version of craft beer’s constant presence, that according to the sleeve notes has been dry-hopped with Mosaic, El Dorado, Enigma and Simcoe (oh and yes there is oats in the mash). Mosaic indeed, if the chopped chives alongside ripe mango on the nose is anything to go by. This is the kind of aromatic that is almost green in its sensuality and — to take a different tack — it is perhaps reminiscent of chopped spring onion with orange and mango embedded in it. More chives when I drink it, alongside a suggestion of orange, mango and blueberry, followed by a full-bodied mouth feel and a dry and lightly bitter finish. If this beer was a canvas the hops used would be bright and bold colours with splashes of reds, greens, blues and oranges, the kind of artwork that you would hang in the hallway to remind you that no, you won’t be getting bored of IPA. 

Wednesday Beer — Augustiner Helles Lagerbier Hell

It is now nearly two years since I was last in Germany and nearly two years since I had a large glass of the pristine Augustiner Helles in front of me, a beer whose pale golden sheen suggests a sprightly nature, a fine-minded creature that glistens in the glass like a drop of golden sun; a fawn, perhaps, in a sun-dappled glade in a forest, scattered bursts and trills of birdsong the soundtrack. I love the lightly toasted grain on the nose, the spritzy hint of bitter lemon on the palate and the appetising dry finish that also harbours a rerun of the saintly and dainty lemon note. For me this is a quenching, refreshing and satisfying bittersweet beer best drunk in a one-litre Maß, which is how I last had it nearly two years ago at that wooden cabin-like bar that Augustiner Brewery has at the entrance to Berlin’s Schönefeld airport, a weird juxtaposition of Alpine/Bavarian rusticity standing in contrast to the slickness of Schönefeld’s bland airport chic. I always try and have a final beer here if I have the time and even though it is not Bavaria it feels just right to drink this wonderful beer as a farewell to a country I know I will want to keep going back to. Sure, if anything from Schönramer were on offer it would be an almighty tussle what to drink and I would probably drink beers from both of them and hope that I had an aisle seat on the plane (mind you, when in Berlin you go to Foersters Feine Biere to drink Eric Toft’s beers), but for me there is an iconic and symbolic nature to my final beer on German soil — this is a beer that I have drunk both in bars in Munich and Berlin, but also from the bottle, bought from a corner shop and swigged as I join other pedestrians in their street drinking or on a railway platform waiting for a train to Regensburg from Nuremberg in 2015. It is an everyday beer, an easy-going crooner of a beer, undemanding but always demanding of my attention such is the completeness of its aromatic and flavour profile. I know I can probably find bottles of it in the UK, even now, but I shall wait until I am next in Germany, whether Berlin, Munich, Bamberg or somewhere entirely new and then shall drink deeply of it, Maß glass in hand. 

A log cabin in Berlin

Wednesday Beer — Lost and Grounded/Burnt Mill Big Thaw 2, 6.8%

Enough hops for you?

When I first started writing about beer back in 1996 my beer tasting notes basically followed what everyone else at the time was writing — the beer was malty, hoppy, fruity, very drinkable or various combinations of the theme. Then I started visiting breweries and began making connections, especially when it came to putting my nose in a big sack of hops. And given others were using the descriptor, I started to use the phrase hop-sack quite often, as in these words on Brakspear’s Live Organic sometime in the late 1990s: ‘Almost like putting your nose in a hop-sack.’ Sometime in the next decade, however, I stopped using it after a newer crop of beer writers suggested it maybe it was redundant given that very few people that we were writing for had smelt a sack of hops, so that was that.

I thought of the descriptor the other day when engaging with this exceptional collaboration of a West Coast-style IPA from Lost and Grounded and Burnt Mill. I felt the aromatics were resinous, oily, tropically fruity (mango, guava) and — here we go — had a raw hop note, a straight to the source character, as if there was no filter between the hops in their raw, pelletised state and their presence in the beer. I thought-hop sack with fear (because I have a visceral fear of using cliches), though the aroma from pellets is less intense than that of whole flower hops. But you would know what I meant if you had ever put your nose in a silver foil-like bag of hop pellets. Beyond the expression of the hops, this beer is a delight to drink and to study and to have and to hold, with its pizzazz, zest and general air of hop and malt showtime on the nose and the palate. It’s bold but light and has a good mid-palate malt bridge between the tropical fruit at the front and the suave piny bitterness in the finish. This is a beer that is bilingual in the way it talks the language of malt and hops with equal articulation. Hop-sack? Whatever. 

Wednesday beer — Cheshire Brewhouse Gibraltar Porter, 8.1%

Here is a porter from Cheshire Brewhouse, based on a 1889 recipe from Mew Langton Brewery, which plied its trade in Newport on the Isle of Wight and was eventually acquired by Strong in 1965 and shuttered four years later. It’s a muscular, robust kind of porter with plenty of toffee, dark fruits (currants, raisins) and coffee on the nose, while it has more coffee, chocolate, a charred dark fruitiness (maybe dark plums in a crumble?), a slight roastiness and berry notes on the palate before finishing sweetish, dry and bitter. It is also soft and silky in its mouth feel —I see it as a reclining kind of beer, which is what you would be doing on your comfortable divan after several of these. 

As I drank and thought about this beer, another strand of thinking emerged, on porter, about how modern porter represents heritage, resurrection, revivalism, survival, sleekness and elegance, creaminess, soothing hands on the brow, sullenness, versatility, generosity, history, bats flitting through the twilight, the hug of remembrance and comfort and solitude and fortitude that darkness brings and then I came to the word changeling, the old idea of a newly born baby being replaced in its cot by a wily, rough and corrupted substitute.

I then moved onto thinking about how our modern tastes might not have liked porter in the 19th century and that its contemporary re-imagining is almost like a changeling in reverse, the wily, rough and corrupted porter variants of the Victorian age being replaced by a more pleasing and sweeter-smiling child. And then further along the thought process I ask myself the question — are all the traditional and historic beers that today’s breweries are playing with resurrected changelings?

Changeling or not, this delicious porter is available from www.cheshirebrewhouse.co.uk

Wednesday beer — Bitburger X Sierra Nevada Triple Hop’d Lager, 5.8%

Who would have thought it, boring old Bitburger whose beer is easy to drink but can cause a sigh of desperation if it is the only beer on the tap — who would have thought that the brewery would have combined with Sierra Nevada towards the end of 2019 (for the second time), ordered in locally grown Cascade, their unique hop blend Bitburger Siegelhopfen (also locally grown), alongside Chinook and Centennial to come up with this elegant lager, dressed up and pomaded as if ready for a night on the town, but cool enough to have a copy of Kafka in the side pocket. I suppose I’m being unfair to Bitburger by calling them boring, as its signature beer is crisp and refreshing, slightly bitter in the finish but — I suppose here’s the damning word — rather inoffensive, even if it’s one of the best selling draft beers in the German market. But what about this beer, I hear from an echo in the cave that is beer writing these days? Ok then, I detect guava and a suggestion of lavender on the nose, accompanied by a floral headiness, plus some spice in the background. Swig after swig reveals tropical fruit (that guava again) alongside a breadiness (or the aromas of baking you get when standing across the road from a bakery), plus herbal suggestions and a lingering bitter finish. This is a friendly and fulsome beer, which engages itself with the palate reminiscent of the joy of two old friends meeting for the first time in ages — I now have a plate and a knife and fork and on that plate are the words ‘boring old Bitburger’. Anyone got any condiments? 

Available from www.adnams.co.uk/beer/bitburger.htm

Wednesday beer — Duration Doses, 5.1%

What does this beer from Duration do to me when I drink it, apart from making me dramatise my inner feelings about the superbness of Noble hops and the refreshment and pinprick of joy that superlatively lagered beers bring to my soul as it turns its furrowed brow towards the gentleness of southern climes? Every gulp of this German Pils, made and laid to rest but not forever in the middle of the Norfolk countryside, carries a nod to my imagination. It makes me think about long forgotten debates in long-forgotten monasteries about the weight of a feather against that of a soul; it makes me think of the spirits that guard wells and pools and small rivers and whose presence on the earth is a whisper compared to the roar of the Severn Bore; it makes me think of the glimpse some have had of a forgotten land whose folk speak an unknown language but who are there between us and the land in which they live; it is a beer of magic and tall tales and old lives and yet as modern as the glimmer of chrome in a gleaming bar and as relevant as the sun that comes out each day to shine. 

Yes, it is a pale golden sheen in colour, and has a fresh floral note on the nose, which is almost mineral-like in its freshness, enticing and enchanting, as if you’ve caught a glimpse of something beautiful reflected in a pool and yearn and cry because you know you cannot really experience it. That mineral-like and floral note of the hop character extends itself onto the palate alongside a light, lemon-sweet presence and a bracingly dry finish with echoes of bitterness that hang around like the gruff voice of a god who has suddenly taken its leave. This is a heavenly beer with an angelic presence on the tongue, even with the soft growl of bitterness in the finish — it is not an ethereal beer, a beer of the fae folk, more like a beer that reminds me of the growing sound of approaching thunder that never seems to break, but remains comfortingly and cosily somewhere beyond the mountains that you know you will go to one day and perhaps never return from. That is what this wonderful beer says to me. 

You might or might not be able to get this beer online at the moment as it is out of stock on the brewery’s website, but I can guarantee it will be worth waiting for when we can walk out in the sun without fear again. This btw is going to be my regular Wednesday beer, something which I have just drunk or something that I once drunk and made me think about it in a way that many beers don’t. 

What do I see in a glass of porter?

What do I see in a glass of porter? A barista-influenced cream-flow foam, 2-cm high, undulating in its surface, collapsing slowly, like the Roman Empire, a province at a time. What else do I see, a dark, dark, dark blackness, a dark night of the soul, a night in which the old moon is dead and the new is waiting to be birthed, a darkness of invisible hands and beasties imagined and conjoined, the lacing of the foam as it subsides coating the glass like a congenial virus, a puzzle of foam, a query, a cantankerous head of foam refusing to vanish. So what does it taste like? Burnt toast with a thin layer of butter and marmalade that suggests acridity, fruitiness and sweetness and then within nanoseconds there is a dryness that crackles and cackles like a coven of witches rehearsing for Macbeth; there’s a chewiness, an appeal for mastication, as well as a creaminess suggestive of softness and childhood. And what does it taste like? A cover disturbed, aromatics of mocha, chocolate, toast and fruit (cheap marmalade if caught from the other end of the breakfast table). Someone, and I cannot recall who, suggested that this beer could be closer to porter’s original outlook on life. I’m not sure, I will leave that to the beer historians and their soaked volumes of statistics from a time that went long ago. Whatever, it’s a damn good beer, unflinching in its approach to acridity, and dense in its character on the palate. Oh and I’ve been drinking Burning Sky’s Robust Porter.

Resin. Pine. If a lion could speak.

Do you know what this guy is saying? Me neither.

Resin. Pine. I type in these words, my laptop resting on a pine table, which actually smells of nothing (apart from the beer I spilt on it a few minutes ago and the aroma like the day will soon pass away). These are words whose meaning has been gnawing at me for a while, not exactly the eagle pecking away at the liver of Prometheus but still gnawing away; these are words that are liberally thrown out like corn-seed for the birds when it comes to describing aromatics on a certain type of beer, usually an Imperial IPA (or Double if you so wish). Today I have drank deeply of a beer that I am certain hits the resin/pine bell with the same certainty as a prop forward wielding a hammer on a high striker in an out-of-town fairground. However, I’m puzzled. What does it actually mean? Heaven knows I’ve used it enough but I’m beginning to wonder if it is just my inner xerox reading about the resiny character of an Imperial IPA and then going on to faithfully repeat it? Am I reading the text or is it reading me? Or is it a weakness on my part? I have judged extensively in Britain and Europe and often been told by fellow judges that they have a genetic disposition for diacetyl or oxidisation; I do not doubt them. Do I lack a genetic disposition for resin or pine?

For initial guidance I turned to a file with tasting notes going back to the late 1990s. In 2000 I was at Adnams with the then head brewer Mike Powell-Evans. We tasted a test brew of Fisherman’s Ale (a replacement for Old Ale, which itself was replaced by, er, Old Ale) and the word resiny popped up. In July 2002, whilst researching my first book West Country Ales, I used the word resiny as part of the description of a beer called Speckled Parrot from the Hayle-based brewery Wheal Ale (it was based in a bird park, hence its name). Also in the same year I used it in a description of Fuller’s Vintage when I tasted several one Monday morning with John Keeling.

Then there was this from my Big Book of Beer in 2005 (the italics are my contemporary emphasis): ‘Hoppy aromas are fruity, resiny, aromatic, citric, peppery, herbal, spicy, lemony and floral. It’s possible to pick out Seville orange marmalade (sometimes even lime), tropical fruits such as lychees and passion fruit, resin (think varnish).’ That is what I believed at the time, even though the idea that varnish, a sticky, chemical-smelling creature you paste over the floor-boards, could have a warmth in the aromatic stakes, seems kind of odd. I know the connection when I smell it but there has to be a better word or is it somehow beyond our reasoning?

Then there’s pine. Sometimes it makes me think of a chemical cleaning fluid for the loo, an exaggeration of what we think as pine, almost in the same way a drag queen is supposed to exaggerate certain aspects of femininity — and then this leads me onto considering that a lot of descriptors we have for beer are linked to artificiality or synthetic recreations; fruity aromas and flavours are closer to the sweetshop or artificial flavourings than the real thing, for instance, when we think of raspberry do we think of the raspberry artificiality we might get in a cheesecake rather than the real thing picked from the garden in the summer, but then does it matter? (An afterthought: raspberry sours get closer than any old common or garden raspberry beer)

I would say it does. Despite writing my first article about beer 20 years ago (though there was little in the way of pine about then), it still bugs me, puzzles me, tears away at me like an itch; a twitch almost in the gap of the curtain of my knowledge. Maybe it’s like the fruity, malt and hoppy descriptors I started reining back on 12 years ago (after many late night discussions with other beer writers about the paucity of the language we used); but then on the other hand I do wonder if infinite breakdowns of the flavours a beer conjures up on a writer’s tongue (woodruff, bay leaf, white pepper, freshly laundered sheets, uncle Tom Cobleigh’s just polished shoes for instance) might be too off-putting to your casual type starting to dip their toe into the indie scene; it’s almost as if the beer is deconstructed into a sum of its parts that lacks romance (and I do think beer can have romance).

And so going out into the field and trying to understand resin and piny I headed off across the road to one of Exeter’s four Spoons and ordered a couple of cans of Sixpoint’s Resin. The nose was soapy, rich and herbal (perhaps bay leaf and sage), while I was reminded of a Bakewell tart-like spiciness (and almond creaminess) plus a sweetshop-like herbalness (cough mixture, liquorice, mint humbugs) and of course there was the obligatory grapefruit. Was I in a forest full of pine trees after a rain shower (in my limited experience whilst out shooting a few years ago I can recall a freshness, a one-note freshness unlike the broad symphonic cascade I get from Imperial IPAs deemed to be piny)? I don’t think so. Was I on my hands and knees daubing floorboards with varnish? Perhaps. I enjoyed the beer however.

Yet I am still left bemused by the resin/pine conundrum and think about Wittgenstein’s assertion that if a lion could speak we would not be able to understand him; that is how I feel about the lion in the glass when it comes to Imperial/Double IPA and its claim to be resiny and piny. I don’t think I can always understand what this lion is saying. 

Elgood’s Coolship Dark

And yes, that’s a Staro glass,
it was given to me by the local curmudgeon,
who has thankfully left the area

Aged, received in December, sent to me from the brewery in lieu of an article on British sours that will appear in All About Beer soon, late December, and when it’s poured it’s still and limpid in the glass reminiscent of the kind of pond that poor old Ophelia drowned herself in (and which Millais put onto canvas), and as a digression I recall the first time I read Hamlet I thought what a ditherer he was, couldn’t make his mind up about anything, give me Falstaff or even Malvolio anytime — very dark chestnut/mahogany in colour, like a stained, ancient piece of furniture that’s been in the family for centuries. An agreeable handshake of dark stout like sweetness, burnt notes, treacle (or is that toffee?) alongside the angular, yoga poses of sourness, all making for an initially uncomfortable introduction but then it’s all ok, the kind of feeling you get when you settle into the yoga pose and know that what you are doing has got to be doing you some good. There’s a mustiness and earthiness on the palate, as if I had just gone into an old stable on a hot summer’s day and caught the aromas of horses and their actions long gone, but there’s also a grapefruit-like acidity, a stout-like boisterousness, a long day dawning of quenching zestiness; it’s a dirty beer, a beer that slinks along with a scowl on its face, a beer that kicks up the dust in the road (the mood of Dos Passos’ USA perhaps), a beer that ululates to be matched with a big fat sweating pungent slice of Stilton or maybe it’s a beer that can be enjoyed on its own, a lonesome pine of a beer, that highlights the day as the sun moves across the sky. I rather like it.

A heady stroll on a blustery clifftop

First bottled beer from Burning Sky is a beautiful beer, a ramped up version of the brewery’s saison, called Saison à la Provision, which is then aged in white wine barrels, now that’s the kind of thing I like, something that’s a bit different, something that’s not mild and bitter or stout and porter or a lot of hops chucked into a boil because they’ve travelled a long way across the oceans or the introspection of crystal that makes whatever beer that’s newly launched different apparently (not that I dislike those kinds of beers, apart from the ones where crystal keens its deep mellow moan, but I just want something different something that takes my palate out for a heady stroll on a blustery clifftop where the wind booms and the sea churns), and yes this was sent to me, for the purpose of entry in a book out later in the year and thankfully it’s a beautiful beer, did I mention that already, and I drank it at the weekend, pleased as the proverbial punch with its juicy, voluptuous, Seville cathedral-like mouthfeel, as if the beer was taking up every corner and every angle and every space of my palate, spreading its acidity, its citrus fruit, its restrained sweetness, its quenching character, its moussec-like carbonation, its gentle not-up-the-nose carbonation, and if I really want to split hairs about it, I would say that this for me is closer to a gueuze than a lean and austere saison, maybe the wine barrels have added that body I associate with a gueuze, but it’s still a beautiful beer, the memory of which is still haunting me several days after I drank it.

Dose

Dose. How nice it looks, like the glow of a hearthside fire, in which one sits in front of reading an MR James ghost story, secure in the knowledge that such things do not exist though the beer in the glass is corporeal and firm and believable; how snug and inviting the beer in the glass looks, a glow and a warmth that lifts the soul even though the next stage of your commitment to the beer is yet to come. Dose. As if in contrast to the soft glow of the beer in the glass, the nose is an assertive sergeant-major, a firm fruity (raspberry, but then you already knew that) toffee nose with a hint of dried rucksack that leads—even in the middle of winter—you to think that Sumer Is Icumen In; and then you taste it and think of the waft of ripe raspberries smashed against the side of a sun-warmed wall (brick perhaps), more toffee (strictly caramel this time), a creaminess that strokes the hand and a Robinson Crusoe sense of dryness in the finish. The beer in the glass is a big wrap around the world in its sensuous, fruity, malt-sweetness, and slightly sour group hug. Dose: this has been Thornbridge and St Erik’s Imperial Raspberry Stout. Dose. The beer in this glass has a darkness, a depth of darkness that you could drop a stone into and never hear its impact on the ground, falling, falling, falling, falling through space and time; but once you’ve got past the darkness and any feelings of vertigo, the senses are lit up with a rainbow bridge of flavours and aromas, a bridge that needs to be crossed. Dose: and then I think it has a Bruckner-like sensibility, in that it brings together fudge-like caramel, luscious liquorice and creamy coffee notes, and then there’s a piney-hoppiness, that hoves alongside a big fat alcoholic musical motif that is symphonic in its intensity. It rises and falls, here quiet, there robust in its challenge to the palate. A complete beer, a beer that sends you off to bed with the expectations of the sort of dreams that all of us wish for. Sweet dreams. Dose: this beer has been Sharp’sQuadrupel.

Clean vs dirty

Some beers squeeze their way into the house, they’re from Sharp’s and they do more than make me think about how they taste. First of all, there’s Equinox, a 3.8% session beer with orange peel in the mix. I’m not thinking breakfast beer here though, it’s something that takes me into another space as the nose carries the delicate breeze of orange notes that occur when you dig your nail into the pith; it’s not a big orange blast, but something fine, something just there, something shimmering on the far horizon. Alongside this subtlety, there’s a corporeal sweetness from the barley, both notes combining to suggest a mythical beast along the lines of orange flavoured toffee. I would call it a clean nose, in which the constituent parts all harmonise together, Bloch’s Piano Quintet no 1 perhaps? On the palate the beer is more forthright with the ghostly oranginess and a honeyed sweetness and a cracker-like dryness in the finish that is accompanied by a zestful orange note. A complete beer, a refreshing beer and above a clean beer — where clean doesn’t mean lacking in flavour, but more that the flavours have a wholeness, a unity to them. And when the word clean appears on the scene is when I start to think about the idea of clean vs dirty beers.

Continuing on the theme here is Land Shrimp Pale Ale, famously made with woodlice, creatures I would squash without thinking about it when I was younger. This has a good carbonation, a zip and a zap of fizz when the top is popped. Hazy orange in the glass, fruit gum, orange flavoured, on the nose — not a big bazooka of aroma, but there it is, to be joined by pineapple. Mouthfeel is initially creamy, followed by a sprightly dance of carbonation, a good two-step action. Pineapple, orange and no woodlice — I don’t really know what to expect; further gulps bring forth an earthiness or is that the mind playing tricks on me? There is a good appetising dry finish with bitterness and subtle pepperiness in the background; plus a hint of chalk. There is still the cleanness of what I come to feel is the signature of Sharp’s beers.

This then brings me to think about the idea of clean vs dirty beers. I remember writing once about how Kernel’s beers were dirty and the better for it and I would say the same with Sharp’s from the clean perspective. It reminds me of something Alastair Hook said to me years ago about lager — about how he was trying to have his beers show off the flavours and aromas of the raw materials he was using. That’s the definition of a great lager. With the cleanness of the beers of Sharp’s, you also get to smell and taste the raw materials, but with the ale yeast adding that extra dimension. Clean vs dirty — it doesn’t have to be divisive.

An over-ignored Tasmanian Tiger eager to go for a walk

There’s nary a pop as the bottle top is popped, no hiss, no gentle pssst as what I would expect the noise the CO2 would make, eager to escape like a genie from this earthenware style bottle. Has it been released too young is the thought that burrows its way through my brain?

There is an appley cider sourness to the aroma, which bridges over to the palate; the tasting notes for the beer say vanilla and coffee and that is what I would expect from a beer billed as a strong dark porter — and then I think Brett? However, it’s still and viscous even though its end of life date is only next summer and the abv is 7.5%. Perhaps it’s meant to be still, but the stillness means initially that all the flavours hang separately; a wardrobe of badly picked colours and shaped, nothing that you would want to wear at the same time. It’s just I would like carbonation to be the wardrobe mistress.

Those were my first impressions. 

As time takes hold, takes me by the hand, there is a character and a cough and toughness to this beer that really makes me want to explore it further — it couldn’t any further from Box Steam’s other beers. A toughened, leathery toffee/treacle character that has pepper in the background and roast ground coffee beans that have been left for some time to lessen the freshness of the coffeeness, which is fine as I wasn’t expecting a big coffee hit; then here they are, the mellow vanilla notes are a nice big hug from someone close to you. It’s not overly sweet and the Brett is a delightful surprise but then I wonder if it is deliberate? Definitely Brett and it works pretty effectively with the vanilla and cocoa notes. It’s an interesting and exciting beer that nudges me like an over-ignored Tasmanian Tiger eager to go for a walk. Thank you Box Steam for sending this beer to me — I did think I knew what to expect but I am glad my expectations were confounded. Oh it’s called Evening Star and I think it’s rather special.

Impermanence

The beauty of Teignworthy’s Edwin Tucker Victorian Stock Ale 1999 (12%) is that you cannot get hold of it anymore. Why is this a beauty? It’s because it’s similar to a play or a piece of music that is only heard several times, not recorded and never played again and then just remembered fondly by those who were there. It’s about impermanence and shining brightly for one moment, an antidote to an age where everything is recorded for the posterior of posterity and — sticking my neck out here — beers like this are perhaps the closest brewing gets to a flash of light seen far out at sea, or a flurry of words or musical notes once heard but always remembered. This was brewed in 1999 when my son was one year old, when the farmhouse we then lived in ran out of water briefly and when I joined the British Guild of Beer Writers. It’s about deep malt-forward flavours, the influence of age and oxygen, the stillness of the beer, the sherry like sweetness, the strange marmite and sweet orange marmalade combo that allays any fear of the unknown on the nose; it’s about thickness on the palate, a fudginess, smoothness, creaminess, all of which allows the saltiness of cheese to bring a different note to the song that is being sung. It cuddles and comforts an aged Edam, confronts and then contours itself around an equally aged Cheddar, while for the slices of molten, slipping-into-the-abyss, slide-over-easy slices (if you can call them that) of Pont l’Eveque, it is as natural a fit as James Joyce was to being a chronicler of the ineluctable seesawing of life and all its constituents.

30 beers

Sharp’s: big boys, the men that sold out, the multinational, the unmentionables; but hold on there’s also Stuart Howe, the head brewer, the man who writes a great blog, who writes about how he will put meat and offal in beer and then does it; the man who brews Doom Bar and keeps it consistent, whatever you think about it, and the man who took me to Orval several years ago (that makes me biased I presume but I wouldn’t seek the hospitality of any one brewer unless I rate the beers that he or she makes).

Come and taste 30 beers goes the invitation and how can I resist and so there I am at Sharp’s in the company of fellow beer writer Tim Hampson, both of us in return in the company of Stuart and his sidekick Carl Heron. Out in the yard there is a container full with a beer that I helped to brew back in January, Panzerfaust, a beer part of which was pumped into this container and has been left to spontaneously ferment since then. There’s an aluminium bucket on the top to keep fruit flies out but all manner of other bugs have wheedled their way in and at the moment there’s a vinous, dark malt, alcoholic nose on the beer and I hope to try it one of these days.

Our 30 beers odyssey begins with Doom Bar, forest fruits on the palate, rounded, dry and bittersweet and great with cured meats. Worthington’s Red Shield is fudge and vanilla and doomed to be forgotten. Sharp’s Own is roast and chocolate and old school, as is the plummy Special, with its brisk brush of deep fruitiness. Here comes Single Brew Reserve 2012, a brunch beer with an appetising aroma of tropical fruits that have been sunning themselves on the kitchen counter. Carl’s first WIGIG is Hecheweizen, a Belgian blond witbier with a bunch of herbs in the mix — spice and bubblegum, which suggests the beer also undertook a visit to Bavaria.

We also try some of the beers from Molson-Coors’ craft range, including Franciscan Well’s Friar Weisse, IPA, a Coffee Porter whose nose suggests ground coffee grits and a stout aged in Jameson barrels (smoked bacon/mackerel and a blood-like metallic character) — there is the feeling of by-the-numbers craft brewing; then there is Blue Moon and its associates Agave Nectar, Blackberry Tart, Rounder and Short Straw and oddly enough it’s the orangey Blue Moon, which comes out best.

Yes please. Cornish Pilsner, one of my favourite beers of the last 12 months, juicy, lubricious and luscious, or how about Chalky’s Bite, which is fluffy and Riesling (German) like (we also have a 2006 vintage that time has given a sherry/oloroso note). Now emerge some of Stuart’s 52 creations including Citrus Tripel 2010 (a big sexy aromatic beast), Chilli IPA 2010 and Heston’s Offal Ale, which has developed a Marianas Trench depth of port-like flavour in the three years it was brewed. 

Dubbel Coffee Stout is a toffee apple taking a bath in treacle with a shower of mocha; Spiced Red is jammy and strawberry like held together with a spine of bitterness, Honey Spice Tripel rings and chimes with Riesling like notes, Quadrupel is soulful and lush  and we rise a glass to the much missed Dave Wickett with DW.

We keep going. A couple of surprises gents, says Stuart, and two big bottles of Bass Celebration beers are brought to the table. 1982 is meaty, vinous and slightly smoky, but not that lovely; though 1977’s Jubilee’s Strong Ale is cognac fiery, Stilton cheesy (in a good way) and has a bitter finish that lingers like the curl of smoke from a detective’s cigarette in a 1950s pulp novel. It is rather gorgeous and demonstrates the importance of time in beer. That’s it apart from 3000, a limited edition Blue Moon strong beer that leaves no trace and Turbo Yeast Ten Zuiden van de Hemel — a distilled beery thing of 22% with dustings of doughnut sugar on the nose and a ferociously spirited sense of its own malice towards those who would drink too much of it — 12 hours on I could still taste it.

30 beers in a day, it can be done. 

Westward ho

Back in 2002 I spent several months diligently travelling around Devon and Cornwall visiting every brewery (apart from Sharps for some reason or other) for the purpose of my first book West Country Ales. It was great fun and it gave me a snapshot of the beer scene in the west as it was at the time. Challenger seemed to be the most popular hop, but several breweries were using US varieties including Mount Hood, Willamette and Cascade. There were IPAs, most of which were low-alcohol session beers in the tradition of Greene King’s, though Teighworthy at Tuckers Maltings produced a citrus-tinged East India Pale Ale (they also brewed an Arctic Ale and a Russian Imperial Porter). That was then. Now, all manner of beers are being brewed in the West — sure there are trad bitters and some are very good, but there is also a sense of exploration (and maybe bandwagon jumping as well…) and consolidation.

The reason for this train of retrospective thought? Last week I was sent some beers by Penpont in Cornwall, a brewery that first came to my attention last year after they attempted to brew a white ale, which was apparently popular in south Devon around Newton Abbott in the 19^th century (I think they left out the pigeon droppings, which were supposedly to be added to the brew). 

So here goes. The immediate impression of Penpont Porter (5.8%) is as if someone has sprinkled an earthy, not so sweet cocoa powder on the top of the nose of this creamy but slightly acidic (in a good way) beer. 19^th century porter says the brewery, but who knows what the beer of that time tasted like? Meanwhile back in the present, there was a ringing, singing tone of bitterness going on in the finish that brought me back to take another taste. I swooned over the juxtaposition of the sweet, slightly bitter chocolate character in the mouth and the accompanying acidity that sat in the middle of the palate; meanwhile I doted on the nuttiness that wasn’t too overwhelming (hazelnut dipped in cocoa perhaps), the nudge of mocha coffee, and the boost of bitterness that made me think that this beer would prove to be an excellent appetiser for something like a juicy frankfurter. 

Then there was 1127 (6.4%), Penpont’s take on Abbey beer. The nose was sweet and crystalline, leathery and petrolly (Riesling?) with a chime of delicate fruitiness (no single fruit but just a universal fruitiness); it was aromatic on the palate, aromatic woodiness perhaps; it was sweet and boozy; dry, vinous, berry-like; with a fat mouth feel — I discovered that it went furiously well with an artisanal Red Leicester, urging out the cheese’s elemental creaminess.  I liked it. 

Finally, there was An Howl Reserve IPA (7%), which sadly I wasn’t so impressed by. This felt a bit flat in the glass, with a cut apple greenness on the nose, with some accompanying solvent notes; on the palate it was boozy, thick and viscous, bittersweet, with some banana and papaya, with a dry, bitter and boozy in the finish. It wasn’t a disaster but I wasn’t moved and it also made me wonder, what on earth is an IPA these days? Does anyone really know?

So there you are — a couple of excellent beers along with something that could be called a work in progress perhaps. Maybe it’s time for me to update West Country Ales.

Pure Evil

Thick and vicious in the glass the darkest shade of chestnut brown before it becomes as black as the actions that lead men to Hades; that tingly, tick-tock of  ripe orange infused with the merest hint of vanilla (or was I imagining it, being brought on by the colour of the beer?), the bracing bitterness, the spiciness of the hop, the come again come again call of the hop, which clarion-like bangs away on the soul of my palate for what seems an age; it’s 8% but it’s as light as the conscience of a serial killer, as drinkable as a drink should be; the fruit of the Sebright Arms Homebrew project, in which a local artist called Pure Evil has worked with the pub and Redchurch Brewery and the result is this raucous, Rasputin-like ursus of a beer. 

I look forward to tasting the next one, in which a local tattoo studio creates a milk stout.

Iceland — the country that is not the Kerry Katona ad

The phone goes and a woman at the other end of the line says she’s from Customs & Excise. ‘Are you expecting a parcel from Iceland?’ Yes I reply, it’ll be beer. ‘How strong will it be,’ she continues. I don’t know, I say, it’s a mixture, I’m being sent them, I write about beer for a living. This perplexes her (but at least I don’t get the best job in the world comment), but once she’s sure that this is not some dodgy deal it’s all sorted. And the next day the delivery man struggles up the path, a terrier trying to nip his ankles, with two cases from Borg Brugghús, about whose Brio I have written about before here. I only wanted a couple of cans and a branded glass for the purposes of photography, but Óli at the Reykjavik-based brewery said that they would be sending me a few extra beers as well, whether I liked it or not.

And I am glad he did what he did as when they arrived an intriguing variety of beers popped out of the cases, including a barley wine, wheat beer, imperial stout (two kinds), porter and an IPA. Dare one whisper Icelandic craft?

As for Borg it’s a micro owned by Egill Skallagrímsson, one of the biggest breweries in Iceland (I suspect there aren’t that many). As I researched a bit more into beer in Iceland, I found out that ‘strong beer’ (that is, beer above 2.25%) wasn’t allowed to be sold until the late 1980s, though apparently it was ok for brennivin, a distillation of potatoes containing about 40 percent alcohol and often called the Black Death, to be sold — I did read somewhere that the relative cheapness of beer compared to brennivin meant that legislators thought that the common people would get legless all too often (nothing really changes does it?).

Anyway that was then — there didn’t seem to be much concern about ‘strong beer’ now as several of the beers I tried were 9% onwards, which was the strength for Imperial Stout Nr 15, which had a rich wonderfully expressive espresso coloured head under which lay a bubbling fornication of mocha coffee, chocolate, treacle toffee, earthy hop (as in the small of wet earth). And to drink it was to lie in a storehouse of more coffee, spirituous chocolate, milky sweetness with a dryness spreading around the palate like radio waves girthing the globe. I think I liked it.

The beers continued Everest-like in their climb with the 10.5% Júdas Nr. 16 Quadruple, which again had that morning glory espresso-coloured collar of foam spread across the beer’s surface like a temptation. Soft zephyrs of milk chocolate drifted across the nose on first pass, but then there was the sternness of a rye cracker or even Marmite, plus a vinous note that was suggestive of an old wine barrel (funnily enough I got pineapple chews on another bottle). It was fiery and fruity on the palate with nougat, cherry brandy, woodiness, toasted marshmallows (one for the camp fire?), sugared cold coffee and a juicy full mouth feel. Yes please.

And finally, another Imperial Stout, this one with the designation Nr 8.1 and 13% worth of alcohol (it was also aged in French Cognac barrels). This was a beauty, as dark as the darkest thought that comes to you in the middle of the night, while the stygian theme continued with the nose, though this time with an added grape-like ferociousness and plenty of cognac character. I took a swig and there it was a rich dark knight smoothness and creaminess, more chocolate, liquorice, some hint of apple sourness, mocha coffee, a soothing hand on the brow with the flavours bombarding the palate with the frequency of a metronome. This was a dessert beer, a massive spread of a beer that was leathery, bible black, tobacco road, ancient lights and old books all rolled into one glass. 

Whether these are Icelandic craft or not they are truly remarkable beers that pulsated with flavour and favour. And next time the Customs & Excise woman calls I’ll be able to tell her a bit more about Borg. 

Dark Star/Bristol Beer Factory Southern Conspiracy

Pale and pure Helles gold in colour, New Zealand hops leap out of the glass with the grace of a gazelle filled with the joy of life unaware that the same skill will be called on to escape a lion the next day; a joyful crushing of white grapes in the hand, the imagined fragrance of the scented, sage-like brush of the Corsican marquis. Hey it’s 7% but in the mouth the feel is elegant, full without being coarse (a greatcoat as designed by Paul Smith perhaps), grape must sweetness, gooseberry jelly delicacy with a nod towards sourness and earthiness, grapefruit, adult parma violets even, all trifled with by the hard-backed dryness of the desert, white pepper bitterness, both contributing to a finish that thunders at the back of the throat, the echoes of the hooves of herd of wild horses long after they’ve passed. I was sent this from Dark Star’s brewmeister Mark Tranter, who was very proud of what he did with Simon at BBF. The use of the white wine casks in which the beer has aged is a bit of a change from the usual whisky/rum/brandy cask finish and it does give the beer a lighter touch than its abv would suggest. Its beers like this that remind me of unorthodox bands I would hear on John Peel late at night, fusing this and that and making sense of the mix. If there’s ever a moment when I feel a bit bored with what’s going on in beer then something like Southern Conspiracy beats me up and throws me on the floor and suggests I go outside to carry on the discussion, a suggestion I willingly comply with. 

Kent

Don’t really know Kent. Seen more of it from the window of a Euro-star than anything else, though went through Canterbury many years ago and saw it through the glass of a ferry-bound coach. Never been to Faversham but I have been to Whitstable; I managed to avoid the oysters; never been to that seaside place where whelks are definitely the dish to die for either. Been to one brewery. Back in 2006. It was Westerham Brewery for the MOS Live magazine; wasn’t used in the end though they paid me handsomely and sent a snapper out there (it happens, ‘the mix isn’t right’, ‘our competitor just ran the same story’, ‘the editor doesn’t like men in beards’ etc).

‘It’s a wet, grey winter’s day in the heart of rural northern Kent. The trees are bare and lifeless, buffeted by a freezing wind hurling itself straight from Siberia. The fields around Grange Farm at Crockham Hill are ridged and furrowed, waiting for the first shoots of spring. Ahead of me lies an elegant Queen Anne farmhouse and behind it a jumble of barns and stables. A brace of horses are led steaming to their quarters after an early morning gallop. It’s a timeless, comforting scene – a little piece of old England untouched by modern life.’

So that was my vision of Kent and the article continued.

So Kent, why Kent? I recently bolted down Gadds’ Dogbolter with the ferocity of a man whose first name is Thirst. I’ve enjoyed Shepherd Neame’s Celebration. Kent continued to hove into view with the arrival of Shepherd Neame’s Double Stout and IPA in the postbox (the postman won’t deliver to the door anymore because of our dogs, one of which, a 10 year old horror of a Parson Jack Russell, has a penchant for biting packages). Two beers, both of which I am told are just the first of the brewery’s trawl through the archives.

In the silence of a late Sunday afternoon, I poured a glass of the Double Stout and it was a soothing and smooth cranial massage on the temple of the weekend’s end. I loved it. I loved the chocolate (milk) and creamy coffee nose; I also loved its undertone of raisin/current fruitiness. I loved the luxurious mouth-feel with more chocolate, coffee and dark fruit. I loved its darkness and its sense of the earth at night. I look forward to more.

As it happened Westerham also sent me something of Kent, a mini keg of British Bulldog, which I haven’t had for several years — but looking at my tasting notes then I espie: ‘Earthy, oily, citrusy, hint of tropical fruit, cereal crunchiness in background. Dry, bitter, hangs onto the throat.’ I have yet to open it but I will be interested to see what I get. I was also sent a mini-keg of Spirit of Kent, which, during the summer, became the brewery’s first permanent beer for several years; it uses nine different Kent bred and Kent grown hops. This I did breach last night, aiming to bring some Kent to the dark Exmoor chilliness of night. There was a distinct swing of the compass about the nose, as it touched all points citrus sweetness (mandarin), earthiness and pungent hop sack. The palate carried a refrain of similar mandarin sweetness (orange jelly for adults), a muscular earthiness (think big Burgundies), a slight of almond and a dry bitter finish. A Spitfire garnishes the pump clip and I can think of no better analogy for this beer than the purring beauty of that aircraft’s Merlin engine when in full flight.

So do I know Kent? Probably not, but it’s a bit clearer now.