Drink Along - Cotleigh Barn Owl

After all those golden ales we’ve been drinking, this one comes as a shock to the system. It isn’t golden, or see-through, or highly carbonated! What the hell! It’s getting colder outside though and as much as we try to deny it, the nights are starting to draw in whilst the mornings get lighter. Despite being in the summer case, this style of beer feels kinda right.

The aroma is pretty complex. I get a lot of German Rye bread, the tangy, almost sour, savoury quality you find in that horrible German Rye bread. There’s toffee and treacle; malty sweetness that tag-teams with slight roasty notes to create something akin to Nutella. It smells good. Actually, no, it smells great.

But then when you drink it, it’s a little disappointing. It’s all a bit thin and empty, the body isn’t there and the finish is all metal and tannic astringency. That aroma sets you off thinking about big barley wines, roaring fires and cold toes; but the flavour just doesn’t deliver. Booo!

I mean it’s far from bad, don’t get me wrong. That toffee, chocolate, rye and roast follow through into the mouth and they’re nice. They’re pleasant, and the finish does become increasing balanced-out as you drink down the glass. That aroma though, it just promised so much more.

Let’s finish with two questions. Yep, two. What do you make of the beer? If you had to assign it a style, which would you pick? I – putting arguments as to whether or not it’s a single beer or a style aside – can kinda see this as an ESB. The malt profile hits me all very-small-barley-wine and that just makes me think Extra Special Bitter.

You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Oakham Ales Inferno

When Oakham Citra is on form, I think it’s one of the best cask beers around. Ditto JHB. So, in much the same way as when we tasted Dark Star Sunburst, the bar of expectation is raised a little higher this week.

Oakham Inferno is a golden ale of 4% alcohol; it’s brewed with pale malt and five different US hop varieties. In the glass it's a vibrant gold with a loose white head. The aroma is lead by American hops, I’m getting cascadey grapefruit and citrus and a background of pine and slight resin. There’s a leafy, almost dank quality to the aroma that suggests extensive dry hopping has taken place.

The initial flavour doesn’t offer much sweetness; in crash those hops, bringing grapefruit pith and peel, some of that piney quality and perhaps some lemon. There’s a lovely grainy quality towards the backend and then a big hit of bitterness. That bitterness is great at first, but quickly builds and threatens to become too much. A slight suggestion of something metallic and then it’s gone.

And as you get further down the glass that bitterness does get a bit much. There’s almost a salty quality to it - like we saw with the Blond Witch.

Nice though, I liked it. It’s not Citra or JHB, but it’s pretty decent.

You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Moorhouse's Blond Witch

"Moorhouse’s first ever ‘Blond’ ale, this beer is as light as you can get with a lager colour (minus the bubbles). Drinks to the strength of any good White Witch."

So ... looks like Moorhouse’s could do with a bit of advice on the marketing front. Far too often I find myself reading a beer description on a brewery website and screaming internally: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!

I managed to glean from the bottle that this one is 4.5%, is hopped using fuggles and has a sweet-malty and citrus-hoppy flavour. Seriously though, some basic information about the flavour of your beer and how it was made, surely it’s just obvious that that needs to be on your website? Maybe it’s there and I didn’t look hard enough.

To me the aroma is quite muted. I don’t get much citrus at all – but then I wouldn’t expect to from fuggles – instead I get a slight spicy hoppiness and lots of sweet, biscuity malt. First taste is good, some real sweetness up front, a gentle spicy hop character and then a firm bitterness that lingers around nicely after you swallow.

Halfway down the glass, beer is warming up and things are changing a bit. That bitterness is getting big, maybe too big, it’s overtaken the sweetness and I’m left with an almost saltiness immediately after every sip. There’s some buttery flavour lurking in the background too, I don’t know if it’s just me or if there is some diacetyl there, but it’s not very pleasant.

I’m being a bit harsh here because this is pretty drinkable if not mind-blowing, I can imagine this working really well from a cask and the grassy, spicy notes from those fuggles hops are actually quite nice.

In seven words: sweet, malty, bitter, grassy, spicy, buttery, decent.

Is that buttery, margarine flavour just me or is that something that’s definitely in there?

You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Williams Brothers Seven Giraffes

For some reason I haven’t really tried many Williams Brothers beers. There always seems to be something more rare or more interesting to try instead, so I never get round to them. They’ve got a reputation for making good beer and, truth be told, if it wasn’t so easy to get hold of their stuff, I’d probably be more active in trying to track it down.

Seven Giraffes – no, the name makes no sense to me either – is a pale ale brewed with seven different varieties of malted barley, lemon zest and elderflower. It’s 5.1% and immediately has me asking myself: why would you use seven varieties of malted barley?

The aroma is initially quite unpleasant; to me it’s got that classic cider-like aroma that typifies homebrew kits made with large percentages of white sugar. Given a while that seems to blow off slightly, and through comes a lot of malty sweetness, perhaps some honey and then a little alcohol. No sign of that lemon zest and elderflower.

Flavour is initially very sweet, malty and honeyed; a bitterness builds in the finish, going far enough to balance out that sweetness. That initial cidery flavour is nowhere to be found – what was that all about – there’s some slight alcohol warmth and a feeling on strength that’s magnified by a smooth, thick mouthfeel. This reminds me of a heller bock, I think lager fans will enjoy this and it might work better served at a colder temperature.

Despite the initial impression, I quite like this. It’s not really the sort of thing I usually go for but I found it pretty enjoyable. Still no sign of that elderflower and lemon zest though ...

What did you make of this one? You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Ilkley Mary Jane

Quite looking forward to this one to be honest. I had it from cask at Craft Beer Co on their launch night a while back, and it was fantastic. Simple and elegant, uncomplicated but just really well put together. I’m always dubious as to how well sub-four-percent beers really work from the bottle, so it’ll be interesting on that front too.

Here goes ...

Ilkley Mary Jane is a 3.8% pale ale that’s brewed with large amounts of Amarillo hops (YUM!). It won gold medals at the Northern SIBA competition in 2009/10 and a took a bronze medal at the national finals.

Colour is golden and bright. Aroma is full of toasty, biscuity malt and then very ripe fruits. I get an almost stewed fruit aroma that follows through into the taste. It’s making me think yellow and fruity: peaches, mango, apricot, maybe some tangerine; things like that, all when very ripe. There’s some of that grainy, malty character in the taste too and then it’s all wrapped up and rounded off by a gentle bitterness. Lovely.

I’m really impressed actually; this is flying down, it tastes great and it’s only 3.8 %. I know from homebrew attempts that it’s difficult to pull off beers at low ABV in a bottle; there’s nowhere to hide, mistakes shine through because everything is pared down and scaled back, but this really pulls it off.

Top stuff, no?

Find out more about the Drink Along here

Drink Along - Ossett Yorkshire Blonde

The Oval test match getting washed out, evening runs in the pouring rain, taking an umbrella to work just in case, is it really the middle of August? A golden ale like Ossett Yorkshire Blonde almost feels out of place today, maybe something like a strong stout is more suitable. Anyway, no use complaining when there’s important work to be done ...

Yorkshire Blonde is a 3.9% “Lager-Style Beer” that’s hopped with “a generous late addition of Mount Hood hops”. In the glass it’s the colour of lemon peel, pale and bright; there’s a small little head that doesn’t last long.

Here’s a question: why make a “Lager-Style Beer”? Why not just make a lager?

The aroma is very subtle to me, maybe I’ve got the beer too cold but there’s very little to smell at all. As it warms up I get some lemonade aroma and, call me crazy, but ammonia. Ammonia like the smell you get with hair dye – if you’ve ever spent a morning waiting for the other half in the hair dresser, you might know what I mean. Weird.

In the flavour there’s some initial sweetness, this is broken up nicely but the bitterness in the finish. I’m not sure what happened to that generous late addition of Mount Hood, but they don’t seem to have made it into my glass. There’s a lemony tang going on; with the sweetness and thin body it reminds me of lemonade. I said this about one of the other beers we’ve tasted, but if you told me this was a lager top, I’d probably believe you.

There's a biscuity, toasty, malty character that comes through pretty strongly in the finish.

This beer is kinda just there. The ammonia, hair dye thing is odd, but, that aside, it’s difficult to really like or dislike a beer like this. It’s just there.
I bet it’s much better from cask.

Thoughts?

Find out more about the Drink Along here

Drink Along - Hewitt's Un-Hung Hero

So the piercing-blue eyes of a fella stare me down from behind the decapitated heads of two horses. Sometimes the bottle label grabs you and pulls you right in, other times it doesn't.

Un-Hung hero is a 5% pale ale that's brewed with Cascade and Northdown hops. The bottle text warns off those that like their beer fizzy and bland; ironic really because this is one of the most carbonated bottled beers I think I've ever drunk. The head is billowy and pillowy in the White Shield mould and sticks around throughout.

The aroma is great, it screams CASCADE at the top of its lungs, lots of really fresh hop aroma, grapefruit pith and peel and freshly squeezed juice. It's one of those aromas that you don't focus on long because it makes you just want to drink the beer.

But that's where the positives kinda end for me. The taste is dominated by a fruity sweetness that moves into green apple - a sure fire sign of acetaldehyde. Usually formed through oxidation or an incomplete fermentation, acetaldehyde is a compound that's almost always unwanted in beer. Imagine biting into a really crisp, cold, fresh green apple; that's the exact flavour I'm tasting here and that's the flavour of acetaldehyde.

Right in the background there's a husky, cereally, biscuit flavour that's coming from the grain. It's nice, but not enough to turn this bottle around.

Faults like this in a beer can be limited to a bottle or a batch. Just because the bottle I got wasn't perfect, doesn't mean the others were the same. How was yours?


Find out more about the Drink Along here

Drink Along - Hawkshead Red

I've just been out for a run. London is hot tonight - the sun might be in, but it's still mighty hot out there. This beer is in danger of lasting about thirty seconds because I am THIRSTY.

Anyway, this one stands out in the case because it's Hawkshead. I've heard a lot about Hawkshead, but I'm yet to try their beer. 'Red' is 4.4% ABV and is made with "English hops, malted barley and yeast". Could mean a lot of things then.

Today's glass is a nod towards the trip to Pilsen and Prague that I'm just back from ... in case you were wondering.

The aroma here is full of sweetness, hard-boiled candy sweetness, some caramel, toffee and burnt sugar. This follows through into the taste, lots of hard-boiled sweets and caramel; it feels sticky and sweet and like a whole shed-load of crystal malt was used to make it. There's a slight spicy, grassy hop note in the background that I immediately associate with English hops. It then finishes with a slight burnt sugar dryness and a bright, short-lived, punchy bitterness. There's some metal right at the end there too.

This reminds me of the Shepherd Neame beers I used to drink back home. It reminds me of them a lot!

Decent. Not really my sort of thing, but pretty decent.

And, to end, a question. Is this a summer ale? Drinking this one I'm instantly cast into autumn: browning leaves on the ground, the fire being lit down the pub for the first time - a beer that's not quite a winter warmer, but one that's nudging you in that direction.


Find out more about the Drink Along here

Drink Along - Dark Star Sunburst

Dark Star are one of my favourite breweries. They're one of the best breweries in the UK. It's a shame therefore that some of their best beer never makes it into bottle. Sunburst, however, does.

Sunburst is brewed with Maris Otter pale malt and a multi-cultural blend of Cascade (USA), Styrian Golding and Challenger (UK) hops*. It's lager-gold in colour with a slight haze which, when you consider it's a filtered beer, is a little confusing. I get that grapefruit flavour that's synonymous with Cascades right at the end of the tail, before that comes lots of lemon, like lemon balm or lemon curd maybe, lemon but thick in texture, lemon muted by sweetness. Lemon sherbets before you get to the fizzy bit! And then after all that hop comes a grainy finish, a little like biscuits, a little cereal, right at the end there as it starts to dry out. I think that grainy flavour is a product of Maris Otter malt, it just seems to have character about it that other pale malts don't.

The bottle says "enjoy from the fridge for extra sharpness". I've read that two or three times and I'm still baffled by what it means and how it could be true.

More of that lemon sherbet is showing up as the beer warms, it's interlaced with that Cascade grapefruit flavour and it all sits on top of that biscuity malt. Very nice indeed. As it gets warmer I'm either going mad or there's a kinda almondy, marzipan like aroma there. That will sound nuts**, but if you're drinking along, it might make sense.

This is a solid, pleasant, well made beer. The fact I'm not going mad for it is because it's Dark Star, and when you're drinking Dark Star your expectations are raised a notch or two.


* Note: Cascade are actually grown in the UK too, so there is a chance that they aren't from the USA. I always imagine Alan Partridge when I think of Sytrian Goldings - an interesting bit of trivia about Styrian Goldings is that they're actually derived from the Fuggle hop, not the Golding hop. I always imagine Partridge attempting a joke about "Styrian Fuggles" to an audience that just looks bemused in response whilst he chuckles to himself. Just me then ...

** Pun most definitely intended!

Drink Along - Lymestone Foundation Stone

This is another one that stood out from the summer-case-crowd through the strength of its branding; simple in design but well executed with a modern feel to it. Foundation Stone is a 4.5 % pale ale that’s made with pale and crystal malts and Boadicea and Pilot hops.

It’s lager-golden in colour, really pale, the aroma is quite muted but there’s some malt there, bready and biscuity notes from the malt backed up by some toffee and caramel. The flavour is dominated by the finish and comes and goes quickly. There’s not much up front at all and then in sweeps this pretty hefty bitterness towards the end; it’s a sharp, bright, punchy bitterness that reminds me of something you’d get from a noble hop. Right at the very end it dries out and you get some of that malt coming through, sort of grainy, sort of cereal and then it’s gone.

Perseverance brings a gentle peppery hop note that appears just before the bitterness, you have to go looking for it though. And, whilst we’re looking, I get a slight lactic tartness too, in the flavour and then in the aroma as a sort of yoghurty, sour milk character.

I’m struggling for things to say about this beer, help me out ...


Find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Meantime Wheat

German hefeweizen (or wheat beer if that’s easier) was a bit of a gateway beer style for me. They don’t tend to be very hoppy or very bitter, they’re usually quite sweet and they’re different enough from lager to get make you curious. I guess approachable would be the word I’d use, enough to pique an interest but not palate-shocking enough to scare you off.

Meantime Wheat is a decent enough example of the style, brewed not in Germany but in East London. It’s 5 percent ABV and uses wheat and pale malt, perle and northern brewer hops.

Wheat beers should be drunk with the yeast in. I find this adds a richness to the feel of the beer and gives it a thicker, more velvety texture. When served from a bottle in Germany, the beer will be poured almost completely into the glass before the last few drops are swirled around the bottom of the bottle to pick up as much of the sediment as possible, this is then thrown in too. When pouring, it’s also important to be quite aggressive, you want to create a big pillow of head to sit on top of the beer.

Meantime Wheat is a glorious, glowing amber colour with a white fluffy cloud of head on top. I’m thinking that more must be at work in this beer than wheat and pale malt – how else could that colour have been achieved? The yeast-driven phenols are there but they’re not easy to pick out as one of the traditional banana, clove or bubblegum. I get some orange notes and a sort of hummy, pear drop flavour that I’m really struggling to describe. The body is a little thin, there’s a caramel, toffee sweetness lurking in the background and it feels like it needs more body for that to be brought forward. Combined with the heavy carbonation, I can’t help but think of seltzer water.

I don’t really drink much wheat beer these days; that’s the thing with a gateway, you tend to move on into the house. When I do though, it’s more often than not with food. Wheat beers work really well with desserts I think and one of my favourite combinations is a banana-forward wheat beer with banana pancakes, delicious.

So, am I being a bit tough of this one, what do you think?


Find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Bitter End Lakeland IPA

Our first beer in the 52 Week Drink Along is Bitter End Brewing Co Lakeland IPA. This bottle stood out from the rest of the summer case through the strength of its branding. You can tell the bottle label has been designed on a budget but the information is clear, the presentation is distinct and the styling suggests a modern beer from a brewery that cares about the quality of their product above all else. Top marks so far.

Bitter End are based in Cumbria and have been brewing beer since 1995, their mission statement says: “We pride ourselves in making innovative, progressive and exciting full flavour beers, which are not to be confused with mass produced, bland, tasteless beers”. Sounds good to me. Lakeland IPA is made with pale and crystal malts, cascade, simcoe and first gold hops.

The beer is pound-coin-golden with a white head; immediately after pouring I notice heavy carbonation with lots of tiny bubbles billowing from the sides of the glass. The aroma is subdued but I can detect lemony citrus with a sweetness behind it – imagine the smell of a concentrated lemonade syrup.

The first few mouthfuls are dominated by syrupy sweetness and by those lemony citrus notes; combined with that heavy carbonation I’m immediately thinking shandy! The fizzy drink style shandy you get in two litre bottles, the stuff that’s only something like 0.1% alcohol. Half the glass is gone and it’s perfectly enjoyable, just not what I was expecting at all.

As the beer warms I’m getting more hop aroma and flavour; a pungent, dirtier hop flavour that could be coming from that simcoe. There’re are no faults in this beer, it’s very clean and tidy, I’d guess a California ale yeast strain is at work here. And as it warms further it’s getting better and better, that hop flavour is coming through stronger, I’m getting a floral quality to it now – something along the lines of cut flowers, and then there in the finish there’s a grainy, biscuity flavour coming from the malt. I’m really enjoying this beer as I empty the glass.

If we’re talking IPA, I want more hops. Add to that the 5.5% abv and I’m going out on a limb to say I find this closer to an American Pale Ale than an American style IPA. The bitterness is right but I’d like the beer to be drier, that sweetness becomes a bit too much at times and I think a drier finish could tighten things up and further improve drinkability. Don’t get me wrong though, I think this is a great beer, faultlessly made with some good hoppy presence and nicely balanced malty backbone.

Over to you ... what do you reckon?