Waterloo Dark

Got this from Bruges! Last one from the haul. Lovely dark colour and big off white fluffy head. Smell is dark fruits and a slight sweet Brady smell, probably yeast. Taste is of dark fruits but it is a bitter Belgian beer! The high ABV is apparent with a little booze warmth. I think it's a really good beer, awesome label too.

Mikkeller/To-Ol Coffee IPA

Yes, coffee IPA. Weird ain't it? Got it from Doncaster Beer Festival. Poured quite a hazy burnt orange colour, not much head. Smells of earthy hops, then with a strong coffee smell, sort of like Sainsbury's own brand instant coffee. Tasted quite sweet, then the coffee becomes quite prominent, instant black coffee is how I'd describe it. Not much of the hefty 10.8% ABV either. Probably not everyone's cup of tea (geddit?). But I liked it!

Mikkeller 1000IBU Ultramate

Got this from Doncaster beer festival. Pretty amber coloured, touch hazy. Uber hop smell, grapefruitage. Small head. All you can smell is the hops. The insane bitterness hits you immediately and lasts for ages. Slight touches of malt here and there, but it is mostly bitter with a bit of hop flavour.

If you don't like hoppy beer, steer clear of this one.

Williams Bros Alba

Got this from Trembling Madness, amber ish, not much head. Smells rather malty with a touch of tree. This is meant to be a spruce and pine beer which was introduced by the Vikings a few years ago... It tastes tree-ey like the pineage in some hops, there is also a fair amount of malt sweetness. I suppose a purely tree based beer wouldn't quite work. There is a fair bit of heft in the alcohol but it is not evident in the taste. Nice overall! To come, is a couple of Mikellers from the Doncaster Beer festival which was great. My favourites being Steel City Shakti Clag and Titanic Harry Senior. Non beer related, new blogger layout is rubbish.

Doncaster Beerfest!

Doncaster beer fest tonight looking very forward to it, will be great. Shall post about it once I've recovered! Some great looking ales on!

I haven't posted that much because I have been taking advantage of the nive weather and drinking a Cask from next door but one so not much to review.

Marston's Mocha

Marstons can often be a safe bet, with Pedigree and Old Empire being liked by pretty much every real ale drinker. But this can make those beers, as great as they are, a touch normal. Mocha is an exception. Being a brewer the 'crafterati' often scoff as being boring, this beer rivals the loudest advertised flashy coffee beer. This dark brown porter ish beer has a rocky off white head shouts dark chocolate and coffee. I.e. mocha and there is even more in the taste. If you do not like coffee, you shall not like this beer. I love it, it's great, a fair %6 though so would be a struggle to session.

Sam Smiths India Ale

Sorry I haven't blogged for a bit, been a touch busy. This is one from Trembling Madness, went again on Wednesday and got a few more interesting beers! Well firstly, I love the bottle it is all old fashioned, saving it for homebrew. The smell is a touch hoppy, with a hint of pine and citrus, but it is mostly a chewy malt aroma. The taste is rather malty, biscuity and chewy, very nice. Not particularly hoppy, but it isn't an IPA unlike some people think.

Minikeg of Lord Marples

I have bought a minikeg of one of my favourite session ales, Lord Marples from Thornbridge. It is settling now, very posh design on it. Deciding when I shall open it, when I do open it though it must be drunk in 3 days.... what a shame....

Great Divide Titan IPA

Another one from Trembling Madness. Pour a dark orangey colour, not much of a head. Uber hopiness, much piney and citrus and fuitage. The taste is very fruity, a touch sweet with a nice malt backbone then a whoompf of hop bitterness... The bitterness does however become overpowering as the beer warms up.

Thorne brewery closing.

Damn it. Their parent company is selling the brewery to 'a new venture in Norfolk'. It was a great brewery, Thorne Pale was one of those beers that as soon as it goes on, there is a queue for it. Hopefully someone else brews it!

Great Heck Slaughterhouse Porter

Was at Cask last night and they had a favourite of mine on, Slaughterhouse Porter, won the best porter prize at the Doncaster Beer Fest last year.

It is quite light coloured for a porter touch lighter than coke and it is clear, very dark red and smells of dark fruit, caramelly with a bit of roasted malt thrown in for good measure. And the taste is dark fruity with the coffeeness of the malt. Very nice beer! Even went back to it it was so nice.

In First Place: Raw Dark Peak Stout

Such a good beer I think. Smooth aromas of coffee, and roasted malt, Roasty and coffee taste. Great malt backbone with just enough bittering hops. Could session this easily, very drinkable.

The actual winners were:
1st - The Leveller
2nd - Heaven and Heck
3rd - Dark Peak Stout

Was meant to go to BrewDog Nottingham...

Decided against it for a few reasons, for some reason Nottingham is a pain to get to despite only being an hour away by car. Instead went to York.

Had a Dark Star Espresso at the Tap, a favourite of mine, the coffeeage is supreme, and goes well with rediscovered month old Oreos. After a taxi trip with a pervy taxi driver pointing out all short skirts within 100m of the taxi we set off for Trembling Madness. Everywhere was insanely busy (Totally forgot it was Saturday, my ipod even said it was Wednesday!). No chance at all of getting a seat upstair, bit gutting I wanted their pie. So bought a haul of beer instead. Got a Durham White Stout (looking for that one too), Sam Smiths India Ale, Titan IPA, Brooklyn Monster Ale, Oakham Hawse Buckler, Kernel Columbus Summit IPA and a Hollows Ginger beer for mummy.

We then set off to find a pub, stayed on the same street though. Yorkshire Terrier was packed, so we went to Ye Olde Star Inne, only outside seats available, luckily it wasn't cold but they didn't do food outside so we just had a beer. It was a good pub meant to be the oldest in York, dating to 1644(?) looked old with beams and what have you, would have liked it to be a Free House but I have a feeling it was a GK. We had a GK Tolly English Ale, one of the new 2.8% beers, it was alright had a nice fruitiness to it and the biscuity flavours but was rather watery, and more expensive than I would want a 2.8% beer, £2.85, the Dark Star at the Tap was 5p more.

It was then back to the Tap for pork pies and beer, Malt Shovel Mild, very nice a lot of roastiness, Cuthroat Porter, a very flavoursome porter, Jaipur, some bog standard Bitter and then home time. Nice trip!

In Second Place - Springhead the Leveller

This is a very nice beer from Springhead, deep dark brown with almost no head. Bring your nose to the glass and you get a barrage of coffee, coffee and a bit of nuttiness and toasty malt. This is my type of beer.

In Third Place - Great Heck Heck's Angel

Was at a Battle of the Brewers in Cask last night, the breweries were Raw, Great Heck and Springhead, chaps from the brewery popped round also. They had 2 beers each, I had them all and this post is the beer I felt came 3rd .

Looking on a few beer websites, this beer doesn't have good reviews, I disagree with every point (apart from the smell!). I may disagree because apparently they now use Cascade hops. Anyway, it is very pale with a nice fluffy head. Major citrus and fruit smell, lovely just how you want a summer beer to be (still alright on a dreary Febuary night in Doncaster). The flavour is very pleasant fruity hint sand hoppy flavour and a rather robust bitterness that I like but maybe not to everyones liking. Great session beer.

I shall post 2nd and 1st soon!

Government, why you tax my beer?!

Reading this article on the Beeb, yet another piece on binge drinking. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16466646

There is a good bit in there about encouraging drinking in pubs rather than letting people get rat arsed at home. However something that I don't get, is our tax on beer is 12 times higher on average than in Europe, yet to tackle our 'binge drinking culture' (apparently a binge is 3 pints in a day... oops!) they want to either increase tax AGAIN or judging from the comments on the article demonise drinking.

Aye the amount of binge (actual binge 7+ pints in my opinion) drinking is too high. But it is still a tiny minority who forget how their body works on a Friday night. Why should the rest of us have to pay for this? Why are these taxes blanketted across all beer, every brand, be it real, nitrowee or of wife beater ilk. Surely the problem lies with the big brands and cheap spirits in clubs and special brew, etc. No one really gets gazeboed on real ale or craft beer, drunk aye but not A&E worthy. Personally I feel full as if I've eaten a huge meal after 5 or 6 pints of ale on a night out to a nice pub and stop, my friends agree. So why not target tax? No one is binging on Chimay Blue yet that will be about £7 a bottle in a bar if new plans go through, and this is in the North, Lord knows what it'd be in the South. I was watching the Beer Hunter on youtube and Michael was at a Bateman's pub and a pint was 95p for good honest beer, I go to Cask (reasonably priced) and pay £2.30 after a 15% CAMRA discount, and for my lager drinking friends, will have a proper German Helles for £3.50 a pint. If the tax goes up, the young drinker who is constantly demonised no matter how responsible they are will have to save uo what little money we have to go out to a nice pub and enjoy eachother's company. This is not very English is it?

Furthermore, increasing the drinking age to 21 because it seems to have worked in the States.... Please be brief. Everytime I go to the States there is a constant sense of utter prohibition for under 21's, this never really works and can have bad consequences. For example there was a trend when I last went over there where teenagers at house parties got a big bowl filled it with booze and percription medicine and near enough killed themselves. They never get a taste or education so then just go mad. While in Europe where the drinking ages are generally 16, or even none existant or lower for alcohol strengths lower than wine. And the drink problem there isn't anywhere  near as much as here, infact the people who cause a lot of their drink related issues are drunken Brits!

When we compare cultures, in Europe children are introduced to alcohol at a younger age with watered down wine or weak beer at meals. Here, we do that, but at Christmas or birthdays, and maybe on holiday and a cheeky swig of Dad's beer at the pub. In the States, it's nothing until you are 21, in Walmart they had a challenge under 40 thing going on and people are at a risk of just going mad. However due to our increased Americanization (in the ivory towers at least) we seem to be moving more towards utter prohibition and lack of education, when we should be going back to the way our drinking culture used to be, not getting demonised, I'm 19 but remember going to the pub for a meal and having a shandy, no chance now is there! So bugger off Nanny State and let me have my good British product, not the eurourine which causes the supposed problem.

Needed a rant, apologies.

BrewDog 77 Lager

I don't usually drink lagers. they tend not to be flavourful enough for me (well macro brands anyway), but I saw BrewDog's 77 Lager on sale on their online shop, £15 for 24 cans so I bought a box, came in two days too!

It's a bit darker than your regular lager with a big rocky head that lasts a fair while. There was something in the smell that one rarely gets in a regular lager, hops! Actual hoppy smell, citrussy, from Moetoka and Amarillo hops, then a nice malty backbone from the pale malt, caramalt and Munich malts that are used in this beer. Not too fizzy either which is something that puts me off lager too. Really nice if you didn't know it was a lager you'd think it was an oddly crisp pale ale. It is also pretty easy drinking, not watery but the 4.7% ABV makes it a nice, easy to drink beer. Also, goes great with pepperoni pizza.

Staying on the BrewDog topic, BrewDog Nottingham opening on the 25th, can't wait!

Delerium le Guilotine

Got this along with the Kernel as a gift. Dark Amber hazy with loads of bubbles rising up with a ridiculous head which lasted ages. Smells very sweet, almost like sweet bread that you can get in America with the obligatory candyness from the Belgian yeast. This beer is 9% and I couldn't really notice the alcohol in the taste or smell.

As for the taste, mega sweet beer probably not to everyone's taste as with many Belgian beers the smellnis a fair indication of the taste. The malt comes through as the sweet bread you can smell, much fizz also. (once you get past the head anyway). I liked it but if you don't do sweet beer.... Probably not for you.

2 beers left, think I need a beer trip, BrewDog have an offer on their lager at the moment, £15 for 24 330ml cans. So of course 24 cans are on their way!

Oktoberfest

Thinking about going to Oktoberfest this year, oddly enough it is in September, and all together cheaper than the GBBF... They do beer by the litre, I very much hope there is Dunkel, not as fizzy.

Boerken

Wow, Belgian yeasty beer if I have ever had one. The bottle neck is so long it's like a handle for a small mace. Dark browny red, big head that lasts a fair while. Smells caramelly and Belgian. Tastes rather sweet with caramel and the Belgian Yeast sweet chewy taste. Can't really taste the 9% alcohol. Not quite as good as other Belgian beers but if you are in a rough bar, the bottle doubles as a weapon. Lovely beer.

No head on London Pride?

I do like London Pride, but I noticed that when you pour the bottle, even quite aggresively, there is almost no head, and what head there is, swiftly dies. Hmmm, I like a good head on my beer.

Hmmm low on Belgian

Don't have many of the Bruges trip beers left, have a Tempelier, Waterloo 8, Boerken and The Baby. Very hard to decide which to have next! Well, I can't finish the DeGarre baby sized bottle myself, well I could but it is probably not a wise thing to do.

Kernel Nelson Sauvin IPA

A big beer from a great new brewery. Bottle was a present bought from Trembling Madness.
As soon as the cap if off the tropical fruit smell is evident from the hops. A dark amberish cloudy beer  which just smells great, if anyone wants to make Nelson Sauvin aftershave, I shall buy. A fair old head which lasts a while.

Tastes rather fabulous, the fruitiness is there along with a hoppy bitterness, sort of marmaladey. There was some sweetness which I think was malt but there was no real malty taste though, such is the character of single hop IPAs with new world hops. The alcohol was not a factor in the taste at all, despite being 7.2%. Top notch brew will need to find more Kernel beers, seem to be rather good.

Afternote: I want a Fuggle single hop IPA.

Great Heck Vanilla Porter

I went to Cask last night for catch ups and belated birthdays with the chaps. It was meant to be the chaps but the snow last night reduced the number to me and the chap that went to Bruges with me. There was a band on, surprisingly good blues band. He had got me a bottle of Kernal Nelson Sauvin IPA and a Delerium Le Guilletine. A fair bit of mind reading must have occured as I was somewhat curious about Kernel Brewery.

There was a great beer that I had never seen before, Great Heck Vanilla Porter. Was 4.5%, dark almost black with the odd hint of light coming through. Almost no head, and what head was there soon left. The aroma was VANILLA. With a hint of the dark chocolatey coffee-ey malt, but mostly vanilla. This pretty much covers the taste too. It was like a vanilla yoghurt, but beer. A great beer, unexpected because a lot of the time the vanillage is pretty light and delicate, this stuck and could taste it to till the end of the pint. Great stuff!

Bar Bar Brune

This one is a little Belgian number. First had this at a campsite in France, drinking 3 or 4, wondering why I could no longer play pool, realising it is an 8% beer.

Pours a clear dark reddy brown with a huge head, it is a honey beer so the aroma is sweet with a hint of the sweet honey, not smelling that much like honey from a jar but I suppose not everyone likes a strong honey smell. It was sweet malt and sweet honey, no hops are evident. It tastes sweet with the smooth honey sweetness dominating with the malt.

It is a lovely treat of a  beer, be cautious if you value dental health, it's very sweet for beer. Not what I'd usually have but really nice none the less.

Durham Redemption

I shall  start off by saying Durham brewery is an epic brewery. And Durham Redemption is an epic beer. It is a 10% Ruby Old Ale, brewed in Dec 2010. It is very ruby coloured, lovely clear (before I put the lovely sediment in) deep red. Smells of deep dark fruity, bit of booze (it was room temp) with an edge of cherry or wine. A big off white head.

Tastes gorgeous, those deep dark fruits again, like berries and raisins. Plus a lovely caramel flavour softened with the hefty alcohol which isn't that noticeable but adds a like warmth.

Actually one of the best beers I have ever had. If you see it, get a bottle. it shall not disappoint.

Bass

Let me tell you a somewhat sad story about one of our nations old favourite. Bass Ale.
Once upon a time there was a grand Empire, on which the sun never set. The troops of this Empire were thirsty and were dying drinking the potent and toxic local arak in India. British men like beer, fact. India is too warm to brew beer back then.

So the old brewery town of Burton on Trent brewers made a new, strong and heavily hopped ale which could withstand the journey to India. Barrel upon barrel was loaded into Indiamen destined for the thirsty troops. Bass was one of the largest brewers doing this. Salt, Alsopp and Hodgins being amongst the other large breweries sending the India Pale Ale to the subcontinent.

Time went on and the power in the world shifted west over the pond (damn Suez), the Empire reduced to a few far flung islands. But what of the beer? Salt and Hodgins are gone, Allsopp, well... http://www.eabl.com/brandsinner.asp?cat=allsops&subcat=brands. Bass? Bass lived on. But later into it's life the brewery was bought out by a large American brewing company. So Bass declined. Into what we have now, a bog standard bitter, bit better than Smiths. Even has electric pumps. So from gracing pubs and Bass signs still able to be spotted, it is now a somewhat apathetic tipple in my opinion. I think they could do with having a one off release using their original recipe.

The Great Sheffield pub crawl

Sheffield and the good old North may be grim, but it is great, and I mean GREAT for beer. Go there by train, as in the station, there is the legendary Sheffield Tap, a restored taproom, lovely building and a superb beer list. 12 on draught and hundreds of bottles, great staff who can help you out in the likely event you've not heard of most of the beers, slightly pricey though.

Get on the tram going to Shalesmoor and at Shalesmoor there is a proper old fashioned pub called The Wellington. Has a few rooms a fab bearded barman, and a friendly doggy. They even make their own beer in the brewery in the back. Really good beer too (Little Ale Cart) last time I was there it was the best stout of the day by far. Then make your way down to Kelham Island, not a far walk. You shall then have a choice of a few fine pubs. Closest is probably The Kelham Island Tavern, which is the only pub to have been voted CAMRA best pub of the year, twice.... In a row. They have plenty of beer, 14 I think, regular Acorn beers on, Gorlovka I believe is a regular. They do food too, I always drink in the beer garden, tis very nice.

Then there is my personal favourite, the Fat Cat. The bar isn't huge but there is plenty of beer on, plenty from Kelham Island brewery which is next door, with Pale Rider on all the time, a smashing brew. Truly fantastic. They sell pork pies made with Kelham beer, best pork pies I have ever had and they do really good food, steak pie is great and just a fiver! The prices in the Fat Cat are rather good, about £2.30 a pint. You could then, depending on the day and time, pop into the nearby Kelham Island Brewery shop, stock up on their beer or others which are local. I think if you carry on that way there is another pub called the Riverside which has another 8 beers on. There are even more pubs along that tram line, think the next is the stop after the one after Shalesmoor. Will write a blog if I visit them!

Sheffield is great for beer, give it a go!

Chimay Grand Reserve

As you may recall, in December I went to Bruges and found a rather large beer shop. In this beer shop there were big bottles of Chimay Grand Reserve. If you aren't familiar with Chimay, it is the most common Trappist beer i.e. made by Belgian monks of the Trappist order (you'd have to make and drink beer to stay sane as a monk). The Grand Reserve is a special version of Chimay Blue (the strongest and my personal favourite, you can get Red at Morrisons though).

You may be able to spy the bottle out in the Bruges post. It was that dark reddy brown which was rather cloudy, but it's meant to be due to the Belgian yeast in the bottle. It tasted like the Blue with all the rich dark fruit and slightly chocolatey flavour with a touch of bitterness, but amplified. Proper good.

Give it a try if you are lucky enough to find any.

Lindesfarne Mead

Maybe not beer, but probably the only alcoholic beverage which predates it. Feeling in a Skyrim mood, I cracked open my bottle of mead which I bought from the House of Trembling Madness. Twas lovely. Very honeyey. but not sickly sweet, very balanced and strong enough to just want one bottle!

Bruges

Went to Bruges before Christmas! Forgot to write about it. Me an Ashley went, there was meant to be another chap coming but the fool didn't check his passport.

We went from Hull from King George dock on a Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company ferry, The Pride of York. We had a four man room twas roomy and had storage beds. There was a booze shop so got whisky but couldn't pick it up till the morning we arrived at Zebrugge. So we had to settle on the overpriced bar on the ship and watched the band, and I didn't win a blasted thing in the casino. It was so bad I was considering.... Lager. That was a long night! Couldn't talk as it was so ruddy loud.

So we arrived in Zebrugge, the first sight that greets us are a row of windmills. The Europeans seem to be obsessed with them, every time I am on the continent they are the first things that greet you. We hopped on a coach and headed towards Bruges. The trip was somewhat unremarkable. But then we arrived at the drop off point, which was totally different from the years before. Eventually a taxi was found, after many simply driving past us to what we later realised was an unsigned taxi rank. Despite it being a Merc, the thing was shaking apart due to the small mountains on the road also known aas cobbles.

We got to Markt square, too early for lunch/Christmas market or alas, beer so I had a cunning plan, to see the closest attraction. Twas the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a church with baby Jesus blood in it.

Then after we found out to see the 'blood' we had to wait for a veneration (not that bothered about it) we went for a very expensive hot chocolate twas nice. We asked the waiter where the best beer shop was, we were in luck, a five minute walk away. It was heaven. The walls were lined with bottles of all sorts of Belgian beer. 60 euros later and:

Not all of that was from that beer shop though. It was then approaching opening time for a bar I heard about on Trip Adviser, callede Staminee De Garre. Fabelled for their beer, De Garre, also legendary for being an arse to find. Luckily I am good at finding things so it was found almost immediately, after going into the obligatory chocolatier, and Bruges gift shop, which sold beer. We were there about 15 minutes before opening time, so we were stood above something which resembled (and smelt) like a medieval open sewer.

So after a while standing about the door opened, and we were greeted by a tiny ground floor, very olde worldy. We sat down and at this point we noticed there was an upstairs which seemed equally tiny, be warned if you want to visit this place, come at opening time, 12:00ish. It fills up within 15 minutes of opening! We then ordered 2 De Garres. We had hit the holy grail of Belgian ale. Very strong, but lovely, 11% Belgian blonde ale perfection. Came with cheese too.

After another 'halve' we had had enough of this potent stuff, but wanted to take some home. We were in luck, they do sell bottles of it... Very big bottles!

So That was De Garre!

We went to the market, purchased Christmas presents, had a lovely cup of mulled wine, then we were peckish. My prior Trip Advisor research paid off again in a big way. We went to a beer restaurant called Cambrinus. My Lord. The beer list was as thick as may arm and they had a three course dinner where everything was made with beer, cheesy croquettes, beef stew and creme brulee, all with a different beer in. Twas properly good. The cripple loos however,  tad treacherous there was an open door to oblivion in it. But anyway, we struggled to decide on a beer so we ordered the one advertised on the placesmats, Hopus an actually bitter Belgian ambery ale, strong again (hard to find anything under 8%) was lovely again!

We found yet another beer shop, you can probably imagine the outcome. We decided to get a bus back to the train station as it is quite obvious which one to get, it says station. The buses are weird, they had two doors. There is a good bar in Bruges train staion, sells Corsendonk and Tempelier amongst others but they had put a night club next to the bar and it was open! This is at 15:00, so we are sat in the bar , which is shaking from the music next door, the club being full of annoyingly trendy 15/16 year old Belgian children drinking cherry lambic!

That was Bruges! We got back to the ship for a lie down and a tot of whisky and had another agonizing night of 'entertainment'. But I won at bingo. It did however, take 4 and a half hours for the ship to dock due to silly fog, and the lock doors at the port fell off their hinges so we used a different dock. Still broken I think! And by the way, God Save the Queen: