Turn To Red

Red beers seem to me to have a bit of an identity crisis. Rightly or wrongly the drinking public associate colour with flavour. When I worked in a bar in Australia the Guinness was viewed with suspicion by some, and it was suggested that it 'did strange things to you' despite it being 1% abv lower than the XXXX that was the 'standard' beer. In the minds of some, a dark beer is something warming and wintry; beer to ward of the chill, and pale beer is the summer or warm weather alternative; beer for the garden. It's an easy stereotype even if the preconceptions aren't always backed up in reality, a little like the 'brown is boring' tag. IPA and other big hop-hit beers are the darlings of the 'craft beer scene', praises being sung from rooftops here and across the Atlantic, so where does this leave red ale - ignored and lonely?


Anyway, to beer. Since we seem to have skipped summer in favour of a second, slightly warmer, winter, I wondered if a few red beers might be seasonally appropriate. I had Buxton 'Kinder Sunset', Great Newsome 'Pricky Back Otchan' and Welbeck Abbey 'Red Feather' kicking about so, with a nod to  Killing Joke's debut EP, I thought I'd compare them.

I have had beers from Buxton before and always enjoyed them, although apart from the Moor Top that I had on my way up to the Thornbridge Brewery the other week I can't remember what they are. I'll never make a ticker, it's a good job I've got Untappd to keep an eye on me. The Kinder Sunset pours a deep ruby red, and it has sweet cherry fruit on the nose and flavours like the toffee off a toffee apple. I found the soapy hops a bit off putting, it's one of those things I like in a beer in small doses but sometimes it's too much. (5% abv, Slurp sell it for £2.75 for a 50cl bottle.)

Given the reputation that Buxton have I was pleasantly surprised that I preferred the Great Newsome 'Pricky Back Otchan'. The hops were less soapy, and there's a delicious minerality to it, an almost metallic dry bite that I really enjoyed. It's a bit less red-coloured than the Buxton, possibly veering away from the red theme, but it's as close as I had. Again there's plenty of malty, biscuity aroma. (4.2% abv, £20 for a case of 12 50cl bottles if you can pick it up from the brewery.)



Last up was Red Feather from the Welbeck Brewery. A tasty brew, enough body despite its relatively low alcohol to give it some structure. This one is definitely all about the malt, there's lots of sweet biscuity flavour and a touch of spice, all backed up with chocolate and caramel. (3.9% abv, £2.70 for a 50cl bottle from Hops in a Bottle.)

Red beer; difficult to pin down to a style maybe? Given it seems we have a love of getting everything labelled and neatly compartmentalised - placed into a genre - maybe that's why it's a bit tricky. It's a bit like reggae-dub-punk-metal-industrial-gothic-synthpop bands I suppose...

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.

Thornbridge 'Raven' Black IPA

Every now and again a beer leaves you reaching for Roget and looking for more superlatives to throw at it. At times like these I generally feel like a review can never quite do it justice. I'm sure I'm not the first person to be blown away by how great Thornbridge's Raven is. Simon over at CAMRGB seemed pretty keen and if you didn't check his review out, you should.

I got lots of berry fruit and dark cherry on the nose, along with hints of chocolate and orange. Bags of rich fruit on the palate; cherry again and some dried fruit balancing well with the coffee and roasted malt flavours. The slightly grainy texture sets it up well too. A genuinely intriguing beer, big enough without being excessive. The bitterness of the finish seemed to move around to the mid-palate and almost dance with the lemon and orange hoppy fruit. Highly recommended.

6.6% abv £3.05 (50cl) from Hops in a Bottle.