The World's Best Bad Beer?

What's the most under-rated beer ever? Well , how about Watney's Red Barrel? Perhaps being too young to remember it is a good thing, but I've never tried it. It's just something that gets talked about (a lot) as the basest of beers, a sort of benchmark from which the only way is up. When I first started going to pubs cask beer was the norm, not an exception. The first pubs I regularly drank in with my mates, the choice seemed to be mild or bitter; lager didn't really figure, perhaps it was expensive. I do have more experience than I care to remember with 'smooth' type keg beers, the entire purpose of which seemed to me to be to take a beer and give it an additional, unpleasant chemical taste. We used to describe it as 'bitter flavoured lager' in one of the pubs I used to work in, although I think any claim it has flavour is something of an exaggeration.

Curious? *

But things are always relative. Just as the next series of 24 had to feature more torture, explosions and killings (more than seven anyway - see 4m30 in if you don't get the reference) then for some breweries their next release has to be proclaimed as better, and therefore gets more hyped than the last, and there surely comes a point where the beer can't live up to the press.

Since Watney's Red Barrel is almost a synonym for bad kegged beer I wonder exactly how bad it can be? As opposed to just tasteless.

Have a look at Scotland's most under-rated beer over at the beercast for a (slightly) more serious approach which made me think of this.

* Picture taken from Martyn Cornell's blog article here.

Purple Moose

Do some beer styles just not 'translate' that well from draught to bottle? Whenever I'm in the pub I almost always have one of the beers that are on tap. Exceptions would be rare, usually imported beers that I know wouldn't be available on draught or from the usual places online where I buy beers to drink at home.

I don't think it's the same thing as I come across in wine classes. Some wines don't show themselves too well in a rather sterile, 'classroom' environment; most quality wines are made to go with food, and actually don't come across that well compared to a modern fruit-driven, 'TV wine' when they're sampled on their own. I might be wrong but, while there are many great food matches for beers, there are fewer of them that are made specifically to go with foods. I think it's maybe a bit more like 'dance' music that might be great in a club when played through a large PA, but somehow falls a bit flat when it's on your home stereo. Or maybe it's like a recording of a gig you really enjoyed when you were there but, when you watch/listen again, you wonder quite how you didn't notice how bad the sound was at the venue?

I don't blame breweries for wanting to get their products out there; selling bottles is a brilliant way of raising the profile of a brewery. I think that coming up with and producing a recipe for a beer that works on draught is the best way to go about it; the beer should be as good as a brewer can make it in the medium it is created for - it's just unfortunate that sometimes it doesn't do itself justice served in a different way. Simon has mentioned a similar thing over at CAMRGB, where, when trying one of these same beers, he concluded his interest was piqued a lot more by stronger bottles beers when drinking at home.

The three Purple Moose beers I had to try were a present from when my parents visited North-West Wales a while back so I don't know any prices. 

Snowdonia Ale: There's a smack of pale malt on the nose, it's a lovely, fresh aroma, with lots of meadow hay and meadowy notes.The palate is light and floral, and it's very drinkable, with a touch of sweetness and umami notes on the finish. 3.6% abv.

Madog's Ale: Pours a lovely red-amber colour. This has a bit more of a spicy, metallic aroma, and is more pithy than the Snowdonia. The sweetness of the Snowdonia is gone, with the hops coming through a bit more, there are hints of orange, and again, marmite in the finish. 3.7% abv.

Glaslyn Ale: Once again the nose is dominated by the malt, the hops on the palate are a bit soapier, and it's more fruity than the other two; showing red apples and honey with a more rounded character. 4.2% abv.

So three beers which, while I think would be perfectly good session beers on draught, at home are decent enough, but don't really exhibit a great deal of character. What I do like is that they share certain elements - it suggests there is a 'Purple Moose' flavour profile - which means they are far from being another homogenised beer. 

Skinner's 'Betty Stogs'

Melissa Cole was on fine form yesterday, launching herself at the sexism of certain breweries' marketing techniques over on her blog. It was great to see lots of support in the form of comments and re-tweets from people I talk to in the beeriverse on Twitter. I've mentioned it before but I think it's something that is worth re-iterating. In order to convince a new generation of drinkers (of both sexes) to drink beer, the sexism and schoolboy humour really ought to stop. I'm not talking about censorship or some sort of ban, I just think that good beer should be treated with some respect; it deserves better.

That's not to say that everything has so be constantly and slickly managed by an expensive PR company, but breweries should have, and be seen to have, some pride in their product. The fact is that bottle labels and pump clips are often the first thing a prospective customer encounters, and if they look shabby and out-dated then it will discourage a generation of extremely brand-conscious drinkers for whom sophisticated drinks advertising campaigns are completely normal fare.

If you think it's harmless, and that the casual sexism and cartoon images contained on many labels and pump-clips are just a joke, then fine; but when the 'real ale' selection in your pub is reduced, and a new bar fridge is put in chock-full of Smirnoff Ice, then you had it coming.

Breweries; leave the alienation of women to the big brands like Foster's and Carling - please let them go under rather than something that's worth being proud of. Of course, if you're not really proud of your beer, then feel free to put a large picture of a dog-turd on the label. I suppose at least it's not sexist.

And so to beer, and why that rant is somewhat relevant. My other half was in the supermarket the other week and gave me a bell to say 'Have you tried...' I said I hadn't, and so she bought it. I would have stopped her if I'd have thought a bit more. Skinner's are responsible for, amongst others, the travesty that is 'Cornish Knocker' and, as I think I probably illustrated above, I would avoid of their beers because I think if they're prepared to associate themselves with that sort of branding then I don't think they'd particularly care about their beer.* I'm not saying that's how it is, but that label is the only impression of them that I have and therefore, before drinking their beer, have nothing else to judge them on.

The 'Betty Stogs' pours a pleasant reddish-amber colour and the head didn't hang around very long. On the nose there's a touch of lemon but mainly I got caramel biscuit aromas - kind of like Jacob's Trio if anyone remembers them! On the palate there's an initial light fruitiness; citrus in particular and there's not much to the finish. I think this is just a beer that doesn't translate that well to a bottle. I'm sure it would be a perfectly enjoyable session beer on hand-pull, but like many similar beers it doesn't work so well in a different format. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it keep pubs open after all.

4.0% abv. £2.09 (50cl) from Beers of Europe (I don't know what my wife paid for it.)

Edit: Stephen Beaumont has weighed in on the issue too. It's not just the 'real-ale' stereotype, it happens everywhere, as you can see from this Session #66 post from The Pour Curator (aka Greg).

* Since I've not tried it then I won't pass judgement on Cornish Knocker as a beer. Simon over at CAMRGB did here though.

Tomos Watkin 'Cwrw Hâf' & 'OSB'

Cwrw Hâf from the Tomos Watkin brewery over in Swansea is apparently 'A Taste of Welsh Summer.' Well indeed. In the six days we had in Wales we had six days of what I heard a local describe as 'Pembrokeshire sunshine.' Maybe the taste of summer reference is a nod towards the percentage of water in beer?

Anyway, the constant deluge of rain didn't stop me sniffing out some Welsh beer, although I didn't get to as many pubs as I might have liked - although that was mainly because of having to drive. I got these two from the Spar in Narberth. The Cwrw Hâf is perhaps a little more of a commercial style than the more locally brewed beers I tried, it's not bottle conditioned and it's simple, but tasty. Initial aromas are of citrus, particularly lemon, and there's a good refreshing bite and a sweetish, clean finish. It's not a particularly complex beer, and I think that means it wouldn't really benefit from being bottle conditioned, sometimes it's fine to keep things simple! 4.2%.

'OSB' or 'Old Style Bitter' is a bit more full-bodied; it's a copper coloured bitter with a spiciness and a bit more pithyness/orange peel flavour to it, along with more expressive biscuity malt. Good head retention. Again it's not going to register as one of the world's most complex beers, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. A drinker not a thinker? 4.5%.

Not entirely sure how much I got these for, I think it was about £3.60 for the pair. Well worth it if you want something tasty for sheltering from the south-west Wales rain!

Iechyd Da!

Preseli Brewery

This is the first lot of locally-brewed bottled beers I've picked up since I got down to Pembrokeshire. Preseli are based in Tenby. The Narberth Spar had five of their bottle conditioned range, and I got three (picked pretty much at random) for £6.50 - from £2.49 each.

The Baggywrinkle is billed as 'A traditional hoppy bitter' and it pours an orangey-brown colour. It's a decent enough bitter but I'm not sure I'd describe it as particularly hoppy; plenty of ginger-snap biscuits and the odd smoky note. Most of the aromas I got reminded me of a mash tun rather than bags of hops. There's a bit of pithiness on the palate and it's got a really earthy finish. Overall I thought it really could do with more bite. 4.5% abv.

The Powder Monkey is another bitter, but I thought this one had more character; with lighter, citrus fruits in there and the malt integrating a little more into the flavours making an altogether more rounded, balanced beer; although once again I'm not sure I'd describe it as 'full-bodied,' which is how it's described on the label. It seemed something of an exaggeration, although the bit about the crisp finish was far closer to the mark. 4.2% abv.

Last up was the 'Rocky Bottom' Golden Ale. I thought this was the best of the three, it had the most character, with some more spices and some of the promised wild berry fruit coming through. It still had that faint earthiness, as if some of the malt hadn't really integrated fully into the beer though. 4.5% abv.

If I were being critical, taking myself away from the holiday if you like, the Preseli beers I tried weren't all that inspiring, but I would try them again (or more of the range) for a few reasons. Firstly because they weren't out and out bad; I don't feel people will drink these beers and think they're being taken for mugs, although at the moment they're probably not offering anything more than the Brains that is ubiquitous in this part of the world - unless you subscribe to the idea that bottle conditioned beer is automatically better. I also think it's good to at least try and support local businesses when you're staying somewhere. Finally I'd give them another try because I think they're a small enough operation to make progress not only realistic, but likely. Yes, they are commercial enough to appear in local supermarkets, putting them right in the firing line, but that doesn't mean that they can't progress. Good luck to them.

Iechyd da!

Thornbridge Brewery Tour

A few of us went for a tour of the Thornbridge brewery yesterday, along with  a stop at the Monsal Head Hotel, or at least the Stable Bar bit, somewhere I first visited for a bit of refuelling on my way to my stag/beer and walking weekend in the Hope Valley. If you've never been up there then you're missing out. You might be be prepared to accept indifferent beer because of the view, but you don't have to, the Buxton Moor Top was amazing; session beer for hop-heads, with a great supporting cast courtesy of the Wincle brewery. Frankly, even if the pub was horrible it'd probably still get a good review from me by virtue of a couple of Michael Jackson books being scattered around as reading matter.

I won't go into details of how the beer is brewed - there are people far better qualified than me talking about brewing on many a blog, so I'll just put a few photos below so those of you who want to have a bit of a look at the shiny stuff can do so. It's certainly an impressive site, wearing its modernity and its craft beer credentials with all the pride, if not all of the volume, of one of its ex-employees.

As for the beer, well we got to try the Lord Marple there and then, and all of their regular lines are available bottled form the brewery shop. I also bagged myself a few Thornbridge Hall beers, which is the brand they are labelling their experimental brews under - reviews of those to follow anon. They're brewed at the older, original brewery site. After finishing the tour we headed over to the Sheffield Tap to make sure we got the whole Thornbridge experience - we're nothing if not dedicated - Jaipur and the superlative Kipling on hand-pull rounding off the afternoon's tasting experience nicely.

Thanks very much to Thornbridge for a fun and informative tour and some excellent beer - I'm looking forward to the Thornbridge Hall beers and a return trip to the Tap. Cheers!

More Michael. Style!

Tasty bits.

Shiny stuff! (Mash tun)

Mmmmm, hops...

Brew lab.

Sam. Getting thirsty.

More shiny things.

Bottling line, for about 30% of the beer.

More tasty bits!

More shiny stuff. They've got something like 300 awards!

Some fizzy keg rubbish...

...we found hiding in the cold store.

Harviestoun 'Bitter & Twisted'

Is it the water? The weather keeping them indoors? Whatever it is that keeps the Scots making great beer and the world's finest whisky (a 16yo sherry-cask Glen Scotia provided an ideal accompaniment to this) I hope it continues for a long time - at very least until I shuffle off this mortal coil anyway. Harviestoun are currently vying with Williams in terms of being my personal favourite Scottish brewery. My review of their Wild Hop IPA* has been gobbled up with the loss of my old blog but I thought it was one of the best beers in Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt, along with the Williams Bros' entries (see here for Simon's review over at at CAMRGB).  Even years of working for Scottish and Newcastle wasn't enough to scare me off beers from north of the border (used to be a big fan of this on hand-pull). I've heard vague rumours that there's a brewery up near Fraserburgh somewhere, but they seem to keep really quiet. If it were me I'd try and get some more PR, get in the press and stuff, but what do I know?

So, the beer. If you've ever had a home made lemon cheesecake, with ginger nut biscuits mixed in with the digestives to make up the base, then you already know what this beer tastes like without trying it. It's got a great balance of biscuity malt and tangy citrus hops, and all at a very reasonable session strength. Much as I hate supermarkets, it does instill bit on confidence in the future of British Brewing when they're prepared to stock proper, decent beer like this. All right, it's not shouty, and it's probably not as exciting as the latest must-have hop-bomb from across the pond, but like I say, it's a proper beer. Job done.

On a side note, I'd had a few days off the beer before trying this, and I love how alive your palate gets after a few days rest. Even if the rest of your body is tired beer's great for invigorating the mind and the soul. Although I'm sure you knew that or you probably wouldn't be reading this.

4.2% abv. £1.99 (50cl) from Ocado

Tempting as it was to put Therapy?'s Potato Junkie as a music match (don't click on that if you're easily offended) my favourite electronic artist has a tune called Bitter and Twisted so it'd be rude not to post it. (Hat-tip as ever to Mark for beer and music matching!)



* Is this still about? It's not on their website.

Badger 'First Gold'

I have a vague theory that labels indicating hop varieties will become much more commonplace. Perhaps not to the point where single variety beers become as common as seen in wine, but to the point where they are used much more as a shorthand, an indication of what the beer might taste like. In wine this has tipped over to the point where it has almost become meaningless. There are many wines on the supermarket shelves that, while ostensibly being varietals, only pay a sort of lip-service to the flavour potential of the grape variety.

That said, this beer confused me a bit. I'd suggest we're not really at that point of hop-variety shorthand yet,  and so for a beer to be varietally labelled, and not particularly to demonstrate the characteristics of that hop, was rather surprising.

Poured reddish-brown. There's a slight hazelnut aroma. The palate is mellow, malt dominated, with a faint orange pith background and there's a smokiness to the finish. Overall just an average bitter. In contrast to the Oldershaw Caskade, if you were to ask me what first gold hops taste like on the back of this beer, I'd be struggling to answer.



4% abv. £1.59 (50cl) from Waitrose

Nottingham 'Robin Hood' Beer Festival 2011

I went to the Nottingham Beer Festival last night, a Nottingham Camra organised festival - and a very well organised one at that. £12.50 gets you in, ten beer tokens (3 of which get you a half, 2 for a third of a pint) and a glass to put the beer in. There is a massive range (over 900) of beers, more than enough to keep you busy for the whole weekend should you feel so inclined.

What I think set this festival apart from, for example, Camra's Great British Beer Festival was the focus on it really being a Nottingham festival - local brewers and local bands providing a focal point, and a real festival feel rather than it being about beer geekery and nothing else. Small criticisms but I did think it wasn't that easy to find a specific beer if you were looking for it (although it might just have been me chatting rather than trying that hard), and if Camra are trying in any way to lose their image that they are often maintaining on numerous blogs is so outdated then that T-shirt stand should go - it's embarrassing.

Despite my rather scatter-gun approach to tasting the beers on offer I didn't have any that I didn't enjoy. I was looking for a couple in particular, the Brass Castle 'Bad Kitty' and the Magic Rock 'High Wire' but apart from that I tended to go for the ones I thought would have enough of a flavour punch to keep me interested - hops away!

Black Iris 'Intergalactic IPA' - The fledgling brewery's new brew, and a very good one too. Pale with a delicious hoppy bite. 6%
Brass Castle 'Bad Kitty' Porter - Excellent vanilla porter, like a vanilla and dark chocolate milkshake but without any cloying sweetness. Rich and satisfying. 5.5%
Empire Brewery 'Bedlam' - tucked away in the back of the entertainment tent, pale golden ale. 5.9%
Magic Rock 'High Wire' - American IPA style beer, great finish, long on the hops! 5.5%
Maypole 'Kiwi' IPA - One of the local brews but with Sauvin hops from Nelson, NZ. Really floral and with a citrus finish. 5%
Nottingham 'Knight's T'Ale' - A new one from the Nottingham Brewery, a traditional coppery bitter. 3.9%
Raw Pacific Ghost IPA - Another big, citrussy American style IPA, but made with NZ hops. 5.9%
Severn Vale 'Seven Sins' - Since we were waiting for Seven Little Sisters to come while chatting to Nigel who was engineering the sound this seemed the natural choice. Lovely dry stout - marked contrast to most of the big hoppy beers I went for but possibly all the more pleasant because of that. A  SIBA champion. 5.2%
Springhead 'Roaring Meg' - Although I'd tried this before I wanted to have a beer that was pulled through a sparkler (Northerners eh?). A more traditional style pale ale, not so much of a hop monster, and rather mellow for a 5.5% brew.

Had I had more time I'd have sought out Thornbridge, Dark Star and Blue Monkey beers, but there's only so much you can get through, so maybe next time.

Cheers to Nottingham Camra!

Sadler's 'Worcester Sorcerer'

I enjoyed this one from Sadler's Ales - the packaging is a bit cheesy, not sure what Gandalf is doing there. Did he drink ale as well as having a go at the halflings' leaf?

Anyway, Lord of the Rings aside it's a really good, flavoursome bitter. Plenty of hoppy bite with a sweetness from the malt that gives it a good complexity, and all at a mere 4.3%. Moreish, and just what I'd want from a proper pint (or bottle as it is in this case) of bitter!

4.3% abv. £1.89 (50cl) from Sainsbury's

Black Iris Brewery, Derby

I had the chance to have a look round the new Black Iris brewery in Derby last night. It is at the back of the Flower Pot pub, a proper, independent (the owner has two pubs) boozer/live music venue not far from the city centre.

Black Iris' beer is a work in progress project, but they have released three - a pale ale, a bitter and a stout. Bearing in mind these are the first releases from guys who are learning on the job they have done really well - I'm glad to see that they intend to learn the basics, ie. get these styles of beer right, before leaping into more experimental projects. Each of the beer recipes only uses a couple of different hop varieties - again so that they can get an idea of how the hops effect the end product.

Here's the artwork for the first run of beers as designed by a local tattoo artist.

Nick, a proud Dad, and a small but perfectly formed brewery:

   

Note: This is actually a post from my old blog which kept going wrong, but I thought I'd add a bit and move it over (19/11) as it's something that not many people would have seen.

More backstory from This is Derbyshire here. You can also get more news from Black Iris on Facebook. Their Intergalactic IPA was a highlight of Nottingham Beer Festival for me.