Pick and Mix Functionality Now Live!

Its taken a little while longer than we would have liked but we're happy to announce some important functionality additions to myBrewerytap.com.

Firstly we're pleased to announce that individual Pick and Mix functionality is now live on the site. You can now select up to 16 individual bottles per case from the beers we hold in physical stock.

The pick and mix section of the site contains many rarer UK beers and imports from the US craft brewing scene which we enjoy sourcing and drinking ourselves, have a look here to see if there are any beers you've been wanting to get hold off. The section will expand and be ever changing as exciting new beers become available to us so please keep checking back to see what stock we have in.

Secondly we are now able to offer Multi-Case Shipping Discount on orders of more than one case from the same brewery (or Pick and Mix). Our standard shipping rate is £5.99 per case, but subsequent cases will now be charged at the lower rate of £3.20 per case.

Lastly we are now able to offer International Shipping to the EU countries listed below.

Channel Islands / Scilly Isles, Southern Ireland
Belgium, Luxembourg & Netherlands
Denmark, France, Germany & Monaco
Corsica
Italy
Spain
Greece & Portugal
Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden & Switzerland
Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Romania & Turkey
Bulgaria, Canary Islands & Gibraltar

A full list of areas and rates is displayed here.

Unfortunately due to different US State legislation we are still unable to post to the US for the time being. We are however investigating the possibility of adding more international destinations including the US to the site in future.

We hope you'll agree that these changes are a welcome addition to the functionality of the site, we're constantly looking for ways to improve the shopping experience for customers and are always happy to receive feedback. If you have any comments good or bad, please let us know: sales@myBrewerytap.com

Keep up to date with all our latest news via Twitter and Facebook .

US 52 Week Beer Club Final (4th) Quarter

The selection for the Final Quarter of our US 52 week beer club is now finalised. As with the last release we've decided to bring the shipping date forward, once again partly due to the beers available to us but also as we are keen to start planning and sourcing the beers for next years US 52wbc.

The final case once again contains some excellent US beers, as well as some great seasonal brews from well known US breweries there are two great beers from Great Divide Brewing from Denver, Colorado. We've also been able to include two big bad US barley wines in Flying Dog's "Horn Dog" and Sierra Nevada's revered "BigFoot".

We hope you have been happy with the quality and range of beers we have included in our first ever US52wbc and and very much hope you will renew your subscription for 2011/2012.

As before it will be a fixed subscription club, which due to demand we've increased to a cap of 100 members. Please be aware that we intend to re-visit a few of the classic US beers you have received in your first subscription (such as Goose Island IPA) as we feel these are too good to leave out for any new members.

We expect to be opening subscriptions to the club in May/June time but keep checking our Twitter and Facebook pages for official news on the launch of next years club.

The fourth quarter tasting notes are below, the beers will ship next week after the bank holiday.

Guest Blog #9 - Danny Gazzi on Spring 52wbc

As an introduction to this review, I’ll explain where my beer tasting is coming from.

My favourite type of beer is a well-kept draught cask bitter. Always has been, probably always will be. For many years I didn’t drink bottled beer at all, finding it gassy with an unpleasant aftertaste, which was probably the pasteurisation.

Then, when working in Belgium, I discovered Belgian bottle beers, which were much nicer, and realised that the best ones were usually bottle conditioned. I started trying British bottled beers, and found some good ones. Again, the best were usually bottle conditioned. My favourite was the supermarket own brand Morrisons The Best, brewed by Freeminer, which was discontinued a couple of years ago. So I searched for a replacement, and this brought me to MyBreweryTap and its 52WBC.

I use the following scoring scale for the bears:

1 – Unpleasant. I wish I hadn’t finished the bottle.

2 – Not very good. An average, bottled British beer.

3 – Good. I’ll stock up with some of these if it’s on special offer.

4 – Very good.

5 – Wow! Very enjoyable, and memorable.

I’m glad to say that none of my previous 52WBC beers has merited a “1”. Only one of them has reached a “5” so far.

So, on to the Spring Case, which MyBreweryTap has kindly sent me to review.

On opening the case, I was pleased to find that they are all 500ml bottles this time, but a bit disappointed that only 2 of them are bottled conditioned; previous cases have had 3 or 4. More about these two in a later review. I’d never encountered any of the beers in bottle before, and only one of them on draught.

1. Inveralmond Brewery, Lia Fail

Pours dark brown with a good head.

Rich aroma which reminded me of a good Belgian brown ale. A rich, malty, sweetish taste, as you’d expect from a dark Scottish beer. Slightly thin finish, but then its 4.7% ABV compares with 7%+ for a typical Belgian.

I couldn’t detect the chocolate tones that are mentioned on the label, but it’s a very good Scottish Heavy. 4/5

2. McMullen Brewery, AK XXX

Pours mid-brown with a good head (I poured it too quickly, as you can see from the photo), and a good lacing down the glass.

Pleasant, hoppy aroma, possibly due to the whole leaf hops. Quite well balanced, but it would be a better session beer with a bit more bitterness.

At first,I thought it had a bit of that characteristic “bottle taste”, but that soon vanished. 3/5

3. Saffron Brewery, IPA

Pale brown with practically no head, and what there is soon vanishes.

Little aroma and little taste, with no finish and a thin mouthfeel.

It’s a nothing beer, although it still made me burp. By coincidence (?) it’s the weakest beer in the case at 3.6% ABV, but I wouldn’t have thought that this was a drawback.

It’s an organic beer. Now, all the organic wines I’ve tried have been good, but I’ve been less impressed with organic beers. It may be something to do with having to take greater care of the grapes to make up for the lack of preservatives, but with barley it doesn’t matter; I don’t know. But back to the Saffron, I was left asking myself why bother brewing and bottling it at all. 2/5

But I’d like to try it on draught on a warm summer’s day. It might then make a good session beer.

4. Stringers Beers, IPA

Pours pale brown with a good, white head. Little aroma. A plain and bitter taste, with a bitter finish, but it is very good. There’s very little I can say about this, except that I like it. The brewer’s notes claims tropical fruit, then marmalade, before the bitter finish. How did I miss all that? I’ll have to revisit it.

Apparently, it features Amarillo hops. I don’t claim to be able to identify the hops used from the taste, but I’m willing to try an learn. 4/5

Overall, that was a very promising start to the case. I’m looking forward to the rest.

Thanks to Danny for the excellent review, more to follow...

You can sign up to the 52 Week Beer Club here, we still have a small number of mixed cases of the same selection available here.

Spring Update/Magic Rock Brewing

Firstly I'd like to apologise to anyone who might be reading for my pathetically lazy upkeep of this blog. In my defense I have been pretty busy, as well as helping run myBrewerytap.com and my day job as a graphic designer I have for the last 6 months been in the process of starting a brewery.

As you can imagine this has taken a lot of organisation and effort but we are nearing completion of the installation and ready to start brewing soon. I am in the process of resigning my old job as a graphic designer and working full time for our new brewery "Magic Rock Brewing". I will also continue as a director of myBrewerytap and continue to do what I can to make myBrewerytap the best online beer shop in the UK.

As different business entities myBrewerytap.com and Magic Rock Brewing will be for the most part kept separate and while there will be some cross over (mBt will retail the Magic Rock bottles) mBt will continue to be an un-biased market place for UK breweries to sell their beer. If you'd like more info on Magic Rock Brewing please check out Mark's blog here.

myBrewerytap's sales since Christmas have been great and we've been paricularly pleased with the response to our pick and mix stock list. With this is mind we have decided to push ahead and invest in the development of pick and mix functionality within the main site. What this means is as well as buying full and mixed cases direct from many breweries around the UK, you will also be able to pick and mix individual bottles from the beers we hold in physical stock. We are comitted to sourcing the best beers we can for this part of the site, and will endeavour to bring you the rare, unusual and best beers that we can get hold of.

As this functionality comes on line we will be looking to invest in more stocks to complement the range as well as more excellent mixed cases and special offers. We are also implementing a 'multi case discount' across the site, meaning that if you want to buy more than one case from a brewery the second case will be at a discounted shipping rate.

We are also getting closer to implementing international shipping on the site. This will initially be to EU countries but we'll be looking at the feasibility of expanding that worldwide as soon as possible.

The other big news for this summer is that after the fantastic response we have received so far we are definitely going ahead with our popular US 52 Week Beer Club for 2011. I've had some really exciting conversations with our importers and am confident we can continue to source an eclectic mix of new and old favourites from the US and push these fantastic breweries products who we feel are at the forefront of the world beer scene. We still have to decide the format for this years membership but there will definitely be more than the 50 spaces available last year, and there will definitely be some amazing US beers included. We expect to be offering subscriptions late May/June, if you're interested please watch the usual places for info..

Our current best selling US mixed case featuring 15 bottles is available here.

Spring 52 Week Beer Club preview

Its time for another release of our 52 Week Beer Club. We hope you enjoyed the winter case featuring many darker ales, we had lots of great feedback about the beers Acorn Breweries “Gorlovka” and Hawkshead Brewery’s “Brodies Prime” proving particularly popular.

As the days are now getting lighter and to get you in the mood for warmer weather this case see’s a return to predominantly lighter ales and bitters.

Below is a preview of the beers in this quarters case. Let us know what you think! any beers you'd like to see in future cases?


We're just in the process of consolidating and packing the beers, and the cases will ship to 52wbc members early next week. The case will also be available to buy as an individual mixed case here.

If you'd be interested in guest blogging the contents of the case, please email me richard@myBrewerytap.com

Guest Blog #8 - Rachel Soens on Winter 52wbc (part 2)

Espresso Stout by Dark Star Brewery
Wow, this Stout has the strongest scent of coffee ever. However it was utterly lovely. I would happily drink this after a meal instead of an actual coffee. I’d happily munch biscuits with this stout. In fact if I was feeling particularly naughty on a camping trip I might be tempted to have the Stout for breakfast! Totally delicious and one of my favourites.

Black Dub by Wensleydale Brewery
Now this Stout was one definitely on our favourites list. Rich and yet light at the same time. Very easy to drink and very tasty. I would love to try a drop of this in a steak pie and the richness would enhance the meat and enrich the gravy. Tom wants to try it ice cold in the summer.


Bitter by Butcombe Brewery
This Bitter had a dark stewed tea colour. A properly bitter bitter if that can be a description. I would really enjoy this in a bitter shandy. I would also like to try it in a rich gravy with plenty of tomato in a sausage casserole. Good hearty food would complement this brew.



Black Pearl Stout by Wooden Hand Brewery
This Stout has a very rich scent; it is very heavy, very very heavy, like a treacle pudding after a big roast dinner. I couldn’t drink many as it’s very filling. It would be a lovely winter warmer. I found the more I drank of the bottle the more I enjoyed it. A nice comfort drink after a long walk in the cold.

Highlander by Fyne Ales
Even though this bottle of bitter had lain in the fridge for a couple of days untouched when I opened the bottle the liquid frothed up and out when I took the lid off. However the Highlander was instantly forgiven once I tasted it. Delicious! As tasty as Connor McCloud himself. I could quite happily make this a regular tipple. My favourite out of the entire crate. I would love to try a little of this tipple in a beer batter for battered fish.

Stocking Filler by York Brewery
Tom says this Dark Ale reminded him of a mince pie. Perhaps my taste buds are playing up because to me it tasted like smoked chicken, (which I once tried in Lancaster – very nice). Well Tom loved it and would get it again. I thought it was okay but wouldn’t fight him for a bottle.



80 Shilling by Williams Brothers
I liked this bitter very much indeed; in fact it’s fighting the Highlander to be my favourite out of the crate. It is light even though it had a slipperish texture on the tongue. I will definitely get this one again. It reminded me a little of a Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut bar with it’s lovely chocolately aftertaste.

A big thanks to Rachel for reviewing the beers. If you'd like to guest review our next mix please contact richard@myBrewerytap.com

You can sign up to the 52 Week Beer Club here, we still have a small number of mixed cases of the same selection available here.

Guest Blog #7 - Rachel Soens on Winter 52wbc

"Well the last few weeks have been eventful. I’ve had a birthday, been offered and then started a new job, various laptop problems, then MyBreweryTap kindly sent me a crate of marvellous booze to review. I was a kind bunny sharing the (mostly) delicious liquid with my other half, Tom. I apologise for the shaky photos of the bottles, I was trying out my new camera (I mentioned i’d recently had a birthday didn’t I and was excited to try out my new toy). As you will be able to tell from my reviews I love to cook and when tasting beers I’m always thinking of different ways to incorporate the flavours within my cooking as well"

Zeitgeist by Brewdog Brewery
This Black Lager was far lighter on the palate and stomach than I expected. As I poured it into the glass the dark colour brought an expectation of heaviness, however the brew is a delicious molten horlicks tasting brew. It has a warming aftertaste that I really enjoyed with definite coffee and dark chocolate overtones. The hint of liquorice is very mild luckily for me as that is not my favourite flavour. Many people when cooking a chilli dish throw in a couple of pieces of dark bitter chocolate to enhance the flavour. I would be really interested in trying some Zeitgeist as an ingredient in a chilli based dish. It would need to be a strong flavoured meat perhaps beef or venison to complement each other. Over all I thoroughly enjoyed this lager.

Dunkel by Freedom Brewery
This dark russet lager was not what I expected at all. It was extremely light compared to it’s colour and easy to drink. Perhaps a little too easy to drink for my taste buds but thoroughly enjoyed by Tom who is more of a Peroni type drinker than a real ale lover. I found the aftertaste was stronger than the initial flavour. The more I drank of it the more I liked it with the aftertaste working well with the initial tasting and the toffee flavour becoming more apparent the more you drank. I would be quite happy knocking this back all evening as it wasn’t too heavy and would make a good party booze. i.e. being able to have a bit of a dance round my handbag between gulps.

Brodies Prime by Hawkshead Brewery
I found this dark premium ale to be very spicy and bitter. It smelt very fruity like a malt loaf. Although light on the stomach the aftertaste reminded me of a Fishermans friend. I found the taste that strong that I could not recommend drinking this when eating all you would taste would be the aniseed flavour. I’m afraid Tom thought it tasted of soap however we still managed it, (waste not want not!). Not one of our favourites.

Gorlovka by Acorn Brewery
Oh dear, yet another liquid Fishermans friend. The aftertaste is not as strong as Brodies Prime although the liquorice flavour is extremely pungent. The bitterness was making the back and sides of my tongue tingle and the liquid had a bit of sparkle to it. I may be tempted to try this if I had a bad cough. Forget a hot toddy, try a Gorlovka instead! Also be aware this is much more alcoholic than it tastes you could accidently end up on your back, but on the bright side your cough would have disappeared.

Holly Berry by Three Castles Brewery
This Ale was an odd one. I loved the flavour, reminded me a little of Leffe. Very pleasant to drink if you didn’t smell it first. It smelt of lemon, but not delicious lemons. Not the sort of lemons that you slice and pop in a Gin & Tonic, not the juicy tasty lemons that you quarter and squeeze over your smoked salmon, not the sharp lemon in a scrumptious summer tart. No, unfortunately it was the lemon that you smell in cleaning products. One whiff of this ale and you are immediately transported back to primary school and being forced to smell the lemony dirty dish cloth the dinner lady insisted on wiping your table with when you are trying to eat your fish fingers and peas. Shame because the ale tastes lovely! As long as you don’t inhale when drinking this is a lovely lovely drink.

JHB by Oakham Brewery
I didn’t spot the citrus in this Summer Ale until the second sip and then it was like a slap in the face. However a playful friendly slap if that is possible because this ale is delicious. Very, very much a summer ale. I could see myself on a warm summers evening enjoying this drink Al Fresco with a fabulous fish based salad. This would also make a fab shandy with cloudy lemonade."

Many thanks to Rachel for reviewing the beers, I'll post the second part of Rachel's review shortly. If you'd like to guest review our next mix please contact richard@myBrewerytap.com

You can sign up to the 52 Week Beer Club here, this mix is also available as an individual mixed case here,