Victory 'Hop Wallop'

It could be I'm missing the point somewhere, but it strikes me that in some cases the whole 'hop flavour is good' thing gets pushed so far as to leave a beer that actually has very little character or complexity. Yes, it's undeniably packed with flavour, but it can be one-dimensional, even (dare I say it?) boring. Hops and nothing else.

There is precedent. Twenty years ago varietal Chardonnay was almost synonymous with white wine. Liberal use of new oak was fashionable, and when this had been followed through to its logical conclusion we ended up with white wines that had no fruit character. Wines were flavoured more with oak chips or even oak extract than the grapes they were fermented from in the first place. It was more like biting the twigs than enjoying the fruit.

That said, experimentation is a great thing, and without creativity we'd be without an awful lot of very good beer. Would Sabbath be around if Hendrix hadn't been? Slayer without Sabbath? Napalm Death without Slayer? Anaal Nathrakh without Napalm? OK, it's stretching the analogy, but my point is that, while you might well not get on with music, or beer, that pushes the margins that bit further, it's still a good thing that it exists. As the ever-motivational Olympic motto goes: 'Bigger, faster, more expensive...' (or possibly not.)

Me? I'm undecided on the whole Imperial IPA thing. I love the hop flavours but it's the lack of interest that bothers me. Yes, there's loads of pine on the nose and grapefruit pithyness on the palate of this Hop Wallop, but it almost tastes a bit extracted, sort of wrung out rather than loved! I don't find myself dwelling on it, savouring the beer while enjoying discovering new flavours as it warms. It'd stand out in a crowd and I'm sure at a beer festival or if you were judging it as part of a big line up it's attract your attention, but does that necessarily make it a great beer?

8.5% abv. £3.39 (355ml) from Beers of Europe.

Transatlantic Taste Test

Possibly a bit excessive on the grandiose title, but I like alliteration, and putting 'Burton Bridge and Sierra Nevada Porter' in the title line would have been far too long.

One of the fun things about tastings of whatever tipple is trying to challenge preconceptions. Blind tastings are particularly good for this, and the greater the preconception, the better it works, be it 'I don't like Chardonnay' or 'lager is all tasteless fizzy rubbish.' Although I didn't try these two beers blind (my wife did, as a spurious, unscientific control group of her own), I have to admit to a couple of ideas as to what differences there might be between them.

The Burton Bridge is black, but shows deep reddish brown/garnet colours when you get some light through it. There's a fruity aroma but without heavy alcohol sweetness. I though there were aromas like the skins of plums (fruity, but bitter), the wife chipped in with cherry.  On the palate the bitter chocolate and roasted coffee notes cam through a bit more, along with a touch of mixed peel. The finish is clean and decidedly bitter - and this becomes more ferocious as you get down to the bottom of the bottle (it's bottle conditioned).

The Sierra Nevada unsurprisingly is more aggressively fizzy, and with a lot more chocolate on the palate, and less fruit character. It's certainly a less challenging beer, that sweetness and a bit more headiness from the higher abv making it more approachable, but I thought it lacked a bit of complexity compared to the Burton Bridge. Having said that I thought they were both good beers, and a lot more similar than I expected them to be. If you want a porter to be mellowing and not shouty and aggressive then they do the job. The missus preferred the Sierra Nevada, so I think an honourable score draw is a fair result.

Burton Bridge Porter. 4.5%. Not sure what I paid for it (I got it from Weavers in Nottingham) but The Real Ale store charge £2.60 (50cl).
Sierra Nevada Porter. 5.6%. £2.29 (35cl) from Beers of Europe.

Craft Fiction

Jules: This was Craft Beer! You know what "craft beer" is?

Vincent: Yeah, I think so. That means the beer came down from Heaven..
Jules: Yeah, man, that's what it means. That's exactly what it means! The beer came down from Heaven.
Vincent: I think we should be going now.
Jules: Don't do that! Don't you fucking do that! Don't blow this shit off! What we just drank was a fucking craft beer!
Vincent: Chill the fuck out, Jules, this shit's just beer.
Jules: Wrong! Wrong, this shit isn't just beer.
Vincent: Do you wanna continue this theological discussion in the car, or at the jailhouse with the cops?
Jules: We should be fuckin' dead now, my friend! We just drank a craft beer, and I want you to fucking acknowledge it!
Vincent: Okay man, it was a craft beer, can we leave now?

Later...

Jules: I just been sittin' here thinkin'.

Vincent: About what?

Jules: The craft beer we drank.

Vincent: The craft beer you drank. I drank a good beer.

Jules: Do you know what a miracle is?

Vincent: An act of God.

Jules: What's an act of God?

Vincent: I guess it's when God makes the impossible possible. And I'm sorry Jules, but I don't think what happened this morning qualifies.

Jules: Don't you see Vince, that shit don't matter. You're judging this the wrong way. It's not about what. It could be God sent the beer, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my fuckin' car keys. You don't judge this shit based on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God's touch. God got involved.

[Don't take this too seriously. I'm enjoying the ongoing discussion, as well as indulging myself with hyperbole (it is the day after the superbowl after all.) I also apologise for murdering Tarantino's dialogue. Remember, craft beer is where you find it...]

Odell IPA

Caution: Contains Wine Tangent.

Decent New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc can be a great wine to use as a starting point to get people into tasting wine properly. It usually has loads of accessible tropical fruit flavours, making it very drinkable, and more often than not it has a characteristic gooseberry flavour that can easily be identified when you come back to it. When I run wine classes it therefore becomes a useful tool to get over that barrier of 'all white wine tasting the same' or 'I can never pick out any of these flavours/aromas that people go on about.' This has also lead to it being hugely successful.

Why the wine spiel? Well, it occurred to me that something like this Odell IPA has certain characteristics in common with Kiwi Sauvignon. It's not so extreme as to be unpalatable to your average lager drinker, but still has a kick of hops that once you said to someone 'this is what hops can do' they'd experience that moment of revelation and rush down the street shouting 'eureka!' Well, perhaps not, but hopefully you see my point. Lots of zesty orange on the nose and palate, with tropical fruit and a mouth-watering bitterness (similar to the acidity that's so important in a good white wine) and a lovely smooth, not over-carbonated texture which makes it both mellow and moreish. Good enough to fall in love with? Well it has been suggested (with thanks to Boak & Bailey).

7.0%. £2.99 (355ml) from Beers of Europe.

Growlers Galore

This is my contribution to The Session #60, as hosted by the Washington Beer Blog.

I can't really write about growlers, I even had to look up what they were*, although I had a vague idea. My knowledge of American beer culture is obviously way behind the times.

I don't even own one. Well, unless you count this fella...

Maybe next time

* I wouldn't recommend doing this with a google image search... Some terms are not the same all over the world.