UK beer in the new era

Those Wild Beer Co sours are fine (though not, I think, the best WBC beers) but like Matt I've had enough not-good UK sour beers that I've given up on buying them. UK Craft Beer continues to suffer from a structural requirement to brew something re-tweetable and therefore stunty IMO. Anyway, wrong thread I guess.

― Tim, Friday, 23 September 2016 12:29 (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My findings are that some of the retweetables are indeed unworthy. But others pull it off. While WBC themselves haven't quite topped their seasonal sour blends (as said already, Modus Operandi is a great red beer and they do a killer saison) with a recent lemon beer falling well short, The Kernel have made a great raspberry sour (tasted at the London Craft Beer Festival) and a stellar damson sour (tasted the other day), each with a complex and distinguished palate and none of the niggly blandness you get with most sours the likes of *cough* Siren come out with. The best beer tt and I had at the LCBF full stop was a Buxton*/Lervig collaboration called Trolltunga, a gooseberry sour that sang to your throat on the way down and invited maybe a few too many refills. (Speaking of Norway, Aegir pulled off a brilliant red sour AND a great gose - watch out for them). Six Degrees North have a sour beer offshoot/affiliate called Lindsaymans (probably a play on Lindemans) whose regular 'goze' was good, but when mixed with raspberries turned into something outstanding.

*I was surprised given how other Buxton sours I've had have only been decent

Anyway, we don't just need to talk about sour beers; we can talk about boring hoppy hop-filled hopmonsters as well, to your taste. Or mead.

glad this thread exists.

here are some uk beers i like, or foreign beers that i buy in the uk:

omnipollo - this swedish brewery is prob my favourite in recent months. i've yet to have anything of theirs that wasn't great. really good strong ipas.
mikkeller - obvious choice but actually kinda hard to get in london - i feel like the increased prevalence of local london breweries has led to fewer interesting choices
beavertown - but if we are going to have fewer choices i'm happy with these becoming v prominent. so much better than terrible camden or meantime.
kernel - still p much the best pale ale, not just in the uk either
siren - i always think their beers are underrated - not had the sour you mention tho
to ol - have liked most of their beers that i've had
weird beard - as mentioned on the other thread, always interesting

never seem to see good ambers or black ipas anymore, which i find annoying. speaking of which, it's a pity brodie's beer seems to be so hard to find in london. for a while it was like the only place you could get it was the old coffee house in soho.

in homage to my presence in the landscape i favour stout esp.of a coffee or chocolate tendency

i have also realised that the reason i like fruit beers is that they remind me of fruit juice -- which i mostly like better than beer

My experience of 'sours' is so far limited to a mouthful of something or other someone at the Craft Beer Co. said I simply must taste. It didn't immediately seem like something I'd want to drink, but maybe I should give it another chance.

I also don't much like heavily hopped beers. I really prefer old-style bitters with a malty taste (e.g. Harvey's Sussex Bitter, which is a favourite), and also stouts and porters. Last week at two different branches of Wetherspoon's I had Dorking Brewery Black Noise (porter) and that was really nice.

Golden ales I tend to steer clear of, because the concept seems boring, but I have found myself pleasantly surprised by a few of them. I had something called Sunbeam a few weeks ago and it was delightful.

never seem to see good ambers or black ipas anymore

beavertown black betty is still around, no?

had a great double coffee stout from high wire.

have been trying to get hold of a kernel single hop just to prove how unrefined my palate is but no joy yet. nb i haven't tried very hard.

yeah black betty is the first good one i've had in a while - had it in the gun on well street, nice little pub.

a lot of things marked as black ipa taste like stouts to me. i like stout fine but it's not the same.

There were two or three at my local deli for a while, all decent and unstoutish, but I can't remember the others, will see if they're still there.

As hinted at by the quote at the top of the thread, my interest in beet has changed a lot in the last couple of years - this is partly, I imagine, as a result of my no longer being in that line of business, but also I've just been drinking less beer in general (getting more interested in dear old wine and spirits as it goes, also interested in reducing my personal stocks of lard).

All of that has meant that when I have a beer drink it's likely to be one of two or three that day (rather than ten), so if my drink is not a good drink that's much higher impact. That means I'm less inclined to take a chance and more inclined to cleave to the reliably delicious. And I have never had a UK craft beer I like more than a well-kept pint of Harvey's Sussex Best; that's exacerbated by the fact that the last few prevailing trends in craft just haven't been to my taste (can't be doing with extreme bitterness of hopmonsters, most sours and barrel-ageds I've tried just taste nasty).

On a positive note, I really like Orbit beers, my only reservation about them is their persistent referencing of alt-rock. But their Kolsch, Nico, is just stellar without being in any way unusual. I like some of the beer made by my old mates at Five Points (who've been going round being called / calling themselves normcore) when not too hoppy...

Yeah this thread is about beet, isn't it?

Beavertown is okay but every pint is just exorbitantly expensive even by craft beer standards and the little cans look like they are for children.

where are you drinking - it is like a fiver afaik which seems to be standard for craft beer.

It's a fiver minimum but tbh I still object to paying even £5 for a pint. A lot of the stuff that's onsale in that price range doesn't really merit it, a lot of generic metallic tasting/overhopped American-style pale ale. It does the job okay but there's just so much of it that's basically the same.

The craft beer I like and don't resent paying extra for is the stuff where you can tell the brewer's put a bit of effort in to make it taste of something, like the smokier or oakier end of the spectrum, which isn't something you really get with Brewdog or the millions of things that taste like it. There's a sea of mediocre cask ale out there but like Tim I still think a really great cask ale can be better than almost anything, but you have to wade through a lot to get to it - I think I just prefer booze that's been kept in wood rather than metal.

I have to assemble some furniture later today but I'm definitely rewarding myself with a beer shop afterwards.

Moor Raw! Could drink that all day out of their tiny cans.

i kinda miss the days when i could drink my first draft of budweiser and announce "it's the king of beers!" to one and all and actually mean it -- you have ruined me and that's a fact

not to go all camra v people with beards but i'd correct "sea of mediocre" to "sea of vile".

i like pump ale but personally give me an average pale ale over some of the dire sweaty sock stuff that passes for real ale in most pubs, any day of the week. since craft got more popular there does seem to be nicer pump ale as well, for sure, but god the standard ones are horrendous.

not sure "it's all the same" is ever a convincing dismissal either.

the price thing is less weird to me, beer in dublin was always really expensive growing up, i guess i began drinking in pubs at the height of the boom. also like if i drink 1000 pints before i die the extra cost of buying what i like might be £500 or something. sorry next of kin.

xp More or less like anyone else but richer and less useful. Sounds like a king to me.

It's weird to me that Camra are now the non-beardy ones.

lol yeah that just occurred to me

weird and surely false

Yeah it's just beards all the way down now.

beards v beards and tattoos

UK beard in the new era

Spending a year drinking a different beer every day ruined good old standby pump ale for me, now if I see the doom bar badge my heart sinks. Or maybe I just don't like doom bar.

the stuff where you can tell the brewer's put a bit of effort in to make it taste of something

I've had some really nice beers from a brewery called Clouded Minds. Their Hazelnutter (Hazel Nutter?) is described as an American brown ale but also contains hazelnuts. I had it several times at the Toll Gate in Turnpike Lane last year. It was lovely but I haven't seen it since.

Or maybe I just don't like doom bar.

It's terrible. Tastes anonymous and even watered down. I don't think I ever drank it when it was independent but it may have changed since the brewery was taken over.

I didn't notice much difference but I never liked it much.

A lot of those regular on-everywhere cask ales really are bad, I agree (these days if given the choice of Doom Bar or Adnams best I'd choose not to bother) but not all - I will very happily drink Tribute, for example.

It's not all the same but a lot of it might as well be - I think I'm trying to separate the beer that actually feels *crafted* from the more generic stuff that gets sold as 'craft' beer and doesn't usually justify the price. The difference between what, say, Anspach & Hobday put out and a lot of yr standard Peckham Pales, which can be perfectly nice and drinkable but don't taste radically different to similar beers being brewed all over London. And that's not mentioning the godawful London Fields Brewery type stuff that really is just overpriced shit for yuppies who don't know any better. But you get fake artisan bullshit in almost everything so why should beer be any different.

I agree that the craft beer thing has improved the quality of cask ale available, or at least prompted pubs to be a bit more discerning about what they get in.

yeah i agree there's some boring stuff. i think the big offenders in blandness are like meantime and camden tho. i barely distinguish the taste of those from a heineken or whatever. they're not awful just v bland.

i forget to mention redchurch brewery upthread - i love their beers and their taproom was one of my favourite places to drink when i lived in bethnal green. great music.

my favourite pump ale is prob timothy taylor - landlord.

There are some good Meantimes but the standard pales and lagers they sell in most places are pretty generic.

Redchurch is pretty great, and I like Kernel as well. In general the biggest benefit of the whole craft beer boom has been the widespread availability of 3% session beer that doesn't taste like piss water.

Sometimes a bland lager is exactly what you need though: entirely reliable and it doesn't impinge on anything before it hits your bloodstream.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fs4LusZmrlU/T33viXfCjqI/AAAAAAAAAMM/tztwNKUmZuM/s640/sam-smith-vegan.jpg1.jpg

(can't find a picture of the genuine 3D article: scrubbed from the internet)

Yeah a bland lager on a really sunny day works in a way that no other beer does in that situation.

I mistakenly had a sour recently and it was viscerally upsetting , they are creeping in gradually and insidiously much the way that the volume of horrible music creeps up whenever I go into a shop, while heavily hopped beers encroach like overpriced city carpentry classes .

I like ambers the best, genial and rambling! but I am in need of new recommendations

they definitely have their place

xpost

A huge variable with cask ale is how well it is kept. There really is a massive difference between a beer that's in top condition and the same beer, but poorly kept. It may not taste absolutely foul but it can taste really mediocre and may lead to the conclusion that that beer is intrinsically bad. Mind you, while I've had a good pint of the usually to be avoided Adnam's Broadside, I've never ever had a good pint of Doom Bar.

Haha I was in a pub last weekend and accidentally bought a sour and basically ordered another pint straight away. They're not clearly labelled a lot of the time, last night in the pub I nearly ordered one and the barman just said "I wouldn't if I were you, it's fucking disgusting, buy a good beer instead".

I hope you tipped him

a friend of mine will sit and pints of sour beer. it disgusts me. like 5/6 in a sitting.

xpost

I wonder how it's possible to tell when a disgusting sour beer goes off?

Every so often something comes along in life and I think this is a prank, but these sours, with names that don't indicate anything to do with there being sour times ahead, you have to be alert, but at the same time alertness is an opponent of reverie, if i have to be alert to the foul play ahead then the moment is killed

Landlord is a safe pair of hands, to guide you through the glen

Anyway I have a number of entirely unresearched and unproved (ie TRUE) theories about craft beer:

1) that (as hinted at above) many breweries have twitter / facebook shares as the core of their marketing plan, and in order to make that interesting to people they are forced into pursuing wacky combinations
2) that the scale of production in smaller craft brews is such that it's possible to get enough people to buy 1 bottle / enough pubs to buy 1 cask to justify doing a brew; the difference in volume between a test brew and a proper brew is very small (in fact I have heard of some breweries only having test brew kit
3) that regularly brewing artisanal beer to the same recipe (or few recipes) is a bit effing boring, and trying to sell repeat orders of the same brews to retail outlets is even more boring, and that messing about with recipes is more fun
4) the combination of the above make this industry unusual in the context of the new wave of urban artisanal industries because unpredictability is not only rewarded but actually programmed in to the approach, and drops in quality aren't all that damaging: if you didn't like your bottle of loganberry porter from Bristleface in Beckenham, that doesn't mean you won't like their ginger and yuzu saison.

Taken together, these conditions are likely to produce a very uneven beer "scene" (but one that's very good fun if you have the energy, opportunity and cash to keep up with it).

always baffled & amused by lambics & other sours more than anything but imago being a partisan suddenly makes sense of them as maximalist monoliths to be held in awe

I'm not much of a beer connoisseur & I'm still pretty fond of the stodgy cask ales I have long been used to: wainwright, old peculier, landlord, pedigree, hobgoblin &c. but I have generally enjoyed all boom in IPAs & microbreweries despite the dross. been hooked on the beavertown tang lately, esp neck oil. feel sorry for everyone drinking in london

enjoyed all the boom

but these sours, with names that don't indicate anything to do with there being sour times ahead, you have to be alert, but at the same time alertness is an opponent of reverie, if i have to be alert to the foul play ahead then the moment is killed

Landlord is a safe pair of hands, to guide you through the glen

IRL lol, partly because these sentences reminded me of some short fiction I read recently (by Gert Jonke fwiw).

Or maybe Saramago.

Saeramago.

kinda feel like a beer now

Oh man alive I have a bottle of good sherry in the fridge and I have been wishing the work day away just thinking about it.

https://www.grandcruwijnen.nl/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/400x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/e/m/emilio-hidalgo-oloroso-seco-villapanes.png

But before that I've gotta get busy with an icy tumbler of this:

https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/vinemedia/wp-content/uploads/20150211015652/Casa-Mariol-Vermut-Negro.jpg

Zero beero for me.

ah vermut, lovely!

had some of this when in holiday in seattle recently & it was stupidly thirst quenching in the sunshine
http://21st-amendment.com/assets/Hell-or-High-Watermelon-3d-can-copy1-230x449.png

Should really have contributed to this on Friday.

Can't compete with your fancy London ways, or any other reasonably sized city tbh, but Hereford sort of does all right. Star is the Hereford Beer House, Jonny used to work for Brodies and BrewDog at various times and it's really an off-licence with a couple of kegs. But his fridges are quite excellently stocked, so a list of British beers I have loved (since I started doing Untapped to remember them 6 months ago):

Beavertown - both the Phobos and Deimos collabs recently have been great and disappointing at the same time, barrel aged Weizenbocks where the source beer is identifiably great but the BA isn't quite enough. Bloody Notorious is a big improvement on Bloody 'Ell, the orange is strong enough to support the DIPA. 8 Ball is maybe the consistently best rye of a British brewery? But their star is 'Spresso, the harshest but tastiest coffee stout on the UK market. Heavy Water was pretty great too (sour cherry stout) but impossible to find these days.

Magic Rock seem solid enough on the surface but don't make enough of an impression to seek them out imo. Vinification, High Wire, Common Grounds and maybe Contortionist are the only ones I'd go back to?

Thornbridge are far too up and down for my liking, although Love Among The Ruins and Days of Creation were truly great sours the only beers of theirs I'd seek out are the raspberry Imperial stout, and Serpent.

I haven't really explored Kernel outside of the table beer and the ipa. I should really pay them more attention.

Don't see much of Weird Beard, but love their Sadako range (with the tequila BA working far better than it should). Weird Brodmance was pretty great and their novelties are at least drinkable (A Lemon Tree My Dear Watson, A World Without Dave, Pankot Palace).

I have been disappointed by nearly everything I have ever had by Wild Beer Co. Not their fault, I have just haven't been impressed with anything except Cool As A Cucumber which is as good a summer beer as it is possible to have.

I really must explore Moor more.

I had two beautiful hefes from pressure Drop during the summer called Wu Gang Chops The Tree. I know nothing else about them, but I really should investigate.

BrewDog are arguably improving, but only in stupidly rare editions - Black Hammer was pretty tasty, the Vietnamese coffee Black Eyed King Imp was pretty good and the Ballast Point collab BA was excellent (even if it was a task to get through), Tokyo* absolutely did not disappoint and the Paradox Islay BA was exceptional. It's just a pity about all their regular beers.

Tiny Rebel are a Newport/Cardiff brewery that are beginning to take off round here - Cwtch is probably the closest they have to a house beer. Some tweaking needed on pretty much all the line but I think they'll come good soon and will take off.

Odyssey are a Hereford brewery working out of the Beer In Hand. After 3 years they still aren't getting things right and I'm beginning to doubt they ever will. The breakfast stout is probably the most successful of theirs?

A one off I had was Omnipollo's Chocolate Ice Cream Brown Ale, which was great in the summer especially as an ice cream float.

Cloudwater might secretly be the stars of the scene. I really don't think I've had anything I didn't love, though the DIPAs have been of varying quality (v3, then v6, then any of the others).

mmm breakfast stout

Question from a savage: Was Brewdog canny in offering shares in 2011 before a tidal wave of what they had wrought diluted their market share? Or am I mistaken, as a savage, in their timing or their influence?

Their market share may have diminished (I don't know about that) but the market itself is growing massively.

I suspect it's a combination of canniness and luck. You're right about dilution but that's still only in fairly major centres and amongst non-savages. It's BrewDog that have got into the supermarkets and the public consciousness. Whether they'd have done that without the share issue raising funds to hit that big a PR offensive is probably the question (see also novelties and/or 'scandals' to keep them in the public eye).

it's a pity brodie's beer seems to be so hard to find in london. for a while it was like the only place you could get it was the old coffee house in soho

Brodies is generally available at the Cross Keys in Endell St.

A lot of craft beer is insufficiently beery for my taste (i don't want to drink IPA that tastes like Lilt), but I agree with the sentiment that it has improved real ale, esp. in London. It also seems to have led to an increase in pub re-openings or renovations. Sitting outside the reborn Prince of Wales in Wood Green drinking Five Points Pale Ale this weekend was a treat.

Beavertown knows what's up imo

The 'Lupuloids' can they've just come out with is maybe the best they've ever made. Not too unreasonable at 6.7% plus hey the top of the can is pink. Easily stands toe-to-toe with the best American IPAs from the Alchemist, Ballast Point, Dogfish Head etc

I have always wondered what 'the new era' was.

I thought it was the new ILX era.

Was it actually the craft beer era?

I think of myself as liking beer and knowing a little bit about new craft beer but this thread shows how far I really am from any such expertise.

I think you probably do know a little bit about it.

I note with a mixture of admiration and horror that one former ilxor notched up his 2500th different beer on untapped this weekend.

I assume that it's a reference to the Beer in the new era thread (now over 9 years old!) which is largely US-based, though the proximate cause for this one was an upswing in beer discussion in the London thread.

xp Crsml by any chance?

I drank some of the Beavertown Lupuloids at the developmental stage (Declaration 1 & 2, Sgt O'Mors, Doctor Enigmaticus, Cpt Hasta) and they were all pretty good - don't know which one the new core beer is based on though.

AF: yes, I realize this title is a reference to that one, but I had always wondered - for 9 years, apparently - what that new era was.

xpost I have only been on Untappd since Valentine's Day and have 268 distinct beers. That feels like a lot, although 2500 puts it into perspective.

i know v little about beer but love beavertown (my local brewery) neck oil and gamma ray as every day beers. they did a blood orange-brewed beer earlier this year which was excellent. love kernel, and wu gang chops the tree, by pressure drop, which reminds me slightly of a weiss beer, my go-to kind of beer before the new era.

I drink a lot of five points pale and Fourpure's pilsner, which is the best pilsner imo

Also had a delicious Norwegian pale ale called Thirsty Frontier in Lisbon last week which I guess I won't be able to find in London

I only know about eight adjectives to describe the taste of food and/or drink with and one of them is "crunchy", I'd like to improve on this because some of the beers I drink are quite fancy and I sometimes worry I'm not selling them v well

oh yes, five points is great

some beers are pretty crunchy imo

Thirsty Frontier - only in cans according to a quick Google.

i had a can of thirsty frontier last night! you can buy it in clapton craft. was nice. that brewery is generally reliable.

i also had a can of mikkeller's peter pale and mary - that's one of my main go-to beers at home, a really nice fairly light pale ale.

on saturday i had a kernel black ipa, which was welcome given my complaining upthread, and i tried that new beavertown, lupuloid. i didn't think it was great tbh - it was fine but too sweet. i prefer gamma ray or neck oil.

Oh ok

Maybe it is time for me to spend all of my wages in hop burns and black on a Monday night

Is HB&B local to you, Sgt. B? (It is to me.)

(I really like The Beer Shop in Nunhead, is why I ask.)

The great off license near Seven Sisters tube, next to the Sainsburys, has Beavertown cans cheaper than I've seen anywhere else (£3.50 for two neck oil, iirc), and stocks more local beers, if there's any fellow Tottenham dwellers about.

I am, but see above re: beer-hating savage. Though at that price I may chance my arm (my girlfriend is less of a savage, anyway).

Is HB&B local to you, Sgt. B? (It is to me.)

Yeah I'm near there on the Dulwich side, Bossman wines on Lordship Lane has started stocking cans of crafty stuff that I like lately and is mostly a fair bit cheaper, but H B&B has a really big choice and also occasionally sends e-mails indicating that someone called "ken c" has won some kind of chili/karaoke endurance contest there

Hooray for having a beer thread I can contribute something to! I'll drink anything with "saison" or "gose" on the label, find sours and wheat beers hit/miss and tend to skip on IPAs. Favourite UK breweries would be Brew By Numbers and Wild Beer Co but the one I find most interesting is probably Buxton.

a man after my own taste

we're drinking beers tonight. Ticketybrew (yes, I know) have done a Münchner that, while not especially sour (and yet, quite hoppy), does a decent job of...hmm. nah, jury's out. the hops are a bit askew. it's quite refreshing but the finish is wrong

Anspach & Hobday - The Sour Dry Hop - now this is MUCH more like it. feels like a hoppy sour beer with the two integrated rather than harshly juxtaposed. much subtler and smoother hoppy notes and a fuller body on the sour. thumbs up

Pressure Drop - Wu Gang Chops The Tree - it's ok. preferred the previous one. this gets a shout-out upthread i think, which surprises me a little - it's a bit too sweet and bland

sweet and bland is where i live, louis!

Beavertown knows what's up imo

The 'Lupuloids' can they've just come out with is maybe the best they've ever made. Not too unreasonable at 6.7% plus hey the top of the can is pink. Easily stands toe-to-toe with the best American IPAs from the Alchemist, Ballast Point, Dogfish Head etc

Otm although I've only just started, every time I pop a can of strong a/ipa I think "omg this is the best thing ever", which changes to "well that's enough of that" by the end. Will see how this one lasts.

Here goes #2. Must be good.

Yeah this is super drinkable for something so strong. A bit of astringency but not crazy hoppy, malty sweetness, maybe a bit of citrus. Sorry, my glossary of beer flavours is limited and predictable. No idea what the oats are meant to impart...

Had my first Lupuloid last night. Sturdy, very drinkable but also deliciousness enough that you want it to sluice around the mouth a few times before swallowing. The strength, for a man who, since parenthood, has mostly fallen on the wagon, ensured I was asleep by 10.30pm.

Yeah I was surprised I managed two cans without falling over, or being woken by the baby at the usual 7am with a thumping headache.

7am? LUXURY.

Well I didn't mention the 2am or 4am wakings. (I know, save it for the people making board. Fucking breeders with their children in bars and children in the beer thread.)

imago have you tried this time travel beer?

http://www.beergonzo.co.uk/buy/beer/mad-hatter-brewing-co-tzatziki-sour-p1463

I had a Siren Sea and Sky last week, suitably enough while on holiday in the Shetlands. If you like gueuze beer with a salty tang, I can recommend it highly.

I also sampled the local brews, Valhalla and Shetland are the two breweries up there. The former were more memorable, including a couple of smoky, light golden beers, which sounds like a contradiction but actually worked very well.

imago have you tried this time travel beer?

http://www.beergonzo.co.uk/buy/beer/mad-hatter-brewing-co-tzatziki-sour-p1463

― minimal hat spiritualism (seandalai), Wednesday, October 5, 2016 12:40 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this could be fun! although i'm usually much harder to impress when they're aping the berliner weisse rather than the belgian gueuze. if i find it i'll give it a try for sure

That tzatziki sour was... Not for me. Not even close.

btw let it be known that I had a few sips of Rodenbach Grand Cru again the other day, and yeah it's the greatest beer ever

dear sour beer upstarts, this is your target

Just been sampling the Beavertown 'Sour Power' farmhouse red (a collaboration with Arizona Wilderness and Mikkeller) and measuring it up against RGC for strongest test conditions - and I'm delighted to say it really holds up! A great effort, very nicely balanced with a strong sour kick powering through the initial bitterness. Not as perfectly integrated as its control, if we're splitting hairs, but I'm not sure it's trying to be. A very fine beer. Beavertown had been good for a functional if mostly dull IPA up until this point, feels like a bit of a gamechanger

i think beavertown gamma ray is pretty great. on tap it's really lively.

had a really nice estonian porter last night, by a brewery called pohjala. been drinking a lot more dark stuff - had a thornbridge raven on friday and on saturday i had an omnipollo imperial stout made with vanilla and marshmallow - not as wacky as that might sound, was very strong and coffee-like.

and a nice mikkeller pilsner with my dinner yesterday evening.

I don't know if Gamma Ray has changed or my expectation for beer, but the first time I had it, which I guess was 3 years ago, it was a revelation. It's still a decent option though.

the Beavertown brewery is worth a visit if you are in reach of Tottenham Hale, straight from the cask in 1/3 or 2/3 measures and pretty cheap with it.

Wild Beer Co's new lobster and cockle beer cannot be good, surely.

lol

Gorblimey.

I will be waiting for someone I trust* to taste that before I go anywhere near it.

*basically nobody anymore

I had a banging pint of gamma ray at the weekend, thinking about it is ruining my Tuesday

I have one of their weird new IPAs in the fridge that I probably shouldn't drink tonight

You should drink it

Drink the beer

Don't listen to Hand.

Unless you want to.

There's a £45 'rainbow' package of weird collaborations on offer at the local Oddbins, featuring some really enticing sours and goses (including Beavertown, I think, and also a slightly saner WBC effort). When we've dispatched the Danish sours we bought yesterday we'll probably grab the lot and report back

yeah I drank the "Beavertown Lupuloid IPA", it gets the thumbs up

It was very zingy

The one I had was fantastic.

Had a pint of Gamma Ray last night, it's fine and perfectly enjoyable but I don't really get why people like it so much compared to other similar beers.

This IPA arms race has jaded us all!

it is the best of the commonly available pale ales - like it's approaching meantime prevalence. there are others i prefer that are less commonly available.

i dunno if there's an issue of how it's kept either but i have really come to love it since moving to clapton, the windsor castle 5 mins from my flat always has it and drinking there has made me rate it really highly.

yeah I think I just don't really like pale ale any more

I must go to the Windsor Castle some time, it has been on my list for a while

does the windsor castle sell crisps these days?

Regarding all Beavertown beers, even when it is well kept, it is almost always much better from the can.

Gamma Ray tastes like Lilt with sherbet lemons dissolved in it to me

or are you thinking of this - https://www.magicrockbrewing.com/beer/high-wire-grapefruit/?age-verified=0c490bf0fc

Haha.

i'm not gonna lie i drank the whole can

I had an Engine Vein from the Cheshire Brewhouse last week, a genial experience, nothing fancy just a beer in a glass and a serene feeling, i take my hat off!

Ah "100% natural pink grapefruit flavour" the key ingredient of any great beer. I've never had a good British fruit beer; only the Belgians seem able to do it well. See also: chocolate, honey, coffee, vanilla, etc; I'm generally of the opinion that malt and hops are flavour enough for beer.

I would generally agree with that opinion but I am a great fan of Titanic's Plum Porter, better (I think) than the Wiper & True one which seems to have been getting some attention recently.

the fruity Leffes I've tried over here in France have each been cloying and terrible in their own ways. The Leffe "Des Vignes" for instance I think literally just contains a shot of sweetened grape juice in each bottle. It's less part of a beer continuum than the "sirop" culture that kids over here grow up with. The adults have their aperitif, which might be a glass of wine or a beer, and the kids have water with a spoonful of grenadine or mint or lemon syrup stirred in. Beer in France is seen as a continuation of this really, I think - it's not supposed to be complex, or "serious" or even high quality. It's like one step away from an alcopop.

Had a Wild Beer Co Sleeping Lemons last night - it was good but not mind-blowing, I think I'd built up my expectations a bit too much. Or maybe I'm just getting bored of gose.

The export version of Sleeping Lemons is far superior.

that magic rock beer is not a fruit beer. nor are really any of the beers discussed here.

Fruit beer rockism!

the fact that puritanism extends to griping about sweet beer proves that the northern predilection for puritanism runs deeper than religion. i blame the winter

sleeping lemons is the least impressive WBC I've had

had a To Øl blueberry sour yesterday, was very nice

the fact that puritanism extends to griping about sweet beer proves that the northern predilection for puritanism runs deeper than religion. i blame the winter

runs deeper than anything

Fruit beer rockism!

i'd say i'm trying to distance myself from fruit beer rather than create a canon!

I'm about as Southern as they come and fruit beer as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

yeah but like an ale with some notes of fruit in it is not "fruit beer". fruit beer is like fruhli or something.

i mean i get the need for puritan pejoratives, eg "sherbet" etc etc so people can define themselves in the way they choose to but that doesn't mean they're accurate.

fruit lambics would have you very confused then

pecheresse and chill tbh

both lindemans and timmermans (and also boon) make fruit lambics that could convert a john smith's advert, and some british breweries are catching on

by northern here I mean northern european, i.e. most beer drinking cultures

this seems a good day to remind you all that "Turkey, heresy, hops, and beer came into England all in one year"

1526 to be precise

did the turks bring the hops too?

Legitimate concerns.

Back in the boring world of IPA, Stone cali-belgique is consistently impressing me even more than lupuloid. "A california style IPA with a belgian twist" fine ok whatever,

.

where i buy??

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyCy8ylWgAAYCJt.jpg

never drinking their beers again

where i buy??

Greensmiths on lower marsh nr Waterloo, er the internet?

have just obtained the motherlode

Brewed in Berlin so hopefully available in offies in countries more European than this one. Xp.

Sitting with a can of Tropigamma just now and it mellows the sharper characteristics of Gamma Ray noted above by changing the fruit bias to more mango/guava.

the motherlode is being held over. we may begin it tonight.

for now we're drinking an Alechemy (they're Scottish) - Bring Out The Imp, a very powerful and liquoricy imperial stout with a slight Belgian buzz. very good

oof though it's a killer

guys is he ok

surprise buckfast

Wait what's the motherlode? Given we appear to buy beer in the same shop now.

alechemy is based in an industrial estate near where I grew up which is a funny thing and I bought some of their beers on the strength of that but don't recall liking any of them - hop bombs as usual

this is it, matt: https://honestbrew.co.uk/rainbow-project/

they've only got a few left. one is a seafood and gooseberry gose. get your copy now.

I'm glad you are enjoying those LJ but my goodness they *all* sound awful to me.

oh I haven't started yet. full report to come. so tweetable

Sold out now. I've tried Upside Down (disappointingly a Hoegaarden-a-like and little more) and a trial version of Black & Blue which I tried without knowing the concept and was very strange - agressive peppercorns at the front and back but a smooth NOTHING taste across the middle.

sold out on the website but a few left in blackheath oddbins, for matt's benefit

will verify these claims as and when

at the risk of being accused of puritanism, they all sound like the beer equivalent of a pumpkin-spice latte or a chicken tikka masala pizza

the truly discerning ponce will draw distinctions. pumpkin-spice latte is fantastic; chicken tikka masala pizza is shit. case-by-case basis, my friend

and that's not to completely rule out chicken tikka masala pizza when done perfectly, although almost every curry/pizza hybrid i've had has been somewhat woeful

Yeah those all sound revolting except the Dortmunder Adambier which is intriguing.

sadly they are not selling them individually. i asked. ;_;

blackheath oddbins do a tasting every month (yesterday was this month's) - could be a FAP lol

Partizan's 'Royal Beer', a barley wine, was nice if a little on the retiring side of these things. It was very smooth and had a pleasant flavour. Fireworks yet to come, I feel

didn't really like the look of those motherlode beers - but equally strange that say "coffee" would be an unusual flavour for stout. or again that pumpkin-spice latte would be arbitrarily cited as a definite bad thing in a thread about some different drinks.

I'm actually quite down with the idea of a beer that tastes a bit like coriander and cardamon or whatever.

Me too but seafood and gooseberry seems to cross a line, even though I say I'll try anything once.

what if it has sea gooseberries floating in it like a kind of bubble-tea beer:
https://seagooseberry.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sea-goosberry.jpg

esp.if the bar has fancy lighting:
http://www.seawater.no/fauna/ctenophora/images/IMG2014-4999.jpg

I'm into it

Gap in the market, quick get in there.

A friend bought over a can of the brewdog "neon overlord" chilli/coriander/mango IPA last week and my god it was literally undrinkable

Sitting with a can of Tropigamma just now and it mellows the sharper characteristics of Gamma Ray noted above by changing the fruit bias to more mango/guava.

picked up two cans of this from the amazing off license by seven sisters yday, going in on them tonight

the tropigamma is extremely like orange juice, i mean i assume it's meant to sound like "tropicana" - i had a glass last night but didn't love it.

there's an estonian brewery called pohjala which i've been trying lately. some seriously good dark beers, the imperial baltic porter is one of the best drinks i've had in a long time.

http://pohjalabeer.com/en/beers.html

a friend (= former ilxor carsmile steve) gave me a taste of his wild fermented beer last night: he says "acquired taste", i say "literally the nastiest thing i ever had in my mouth and let me tell you i've had some things in my mouth"

= hannsens oude gueuze

he (= a well known expert of beer) recommends it, i do not (but basically the only reason i like chocolate or coffeee or fruit beers is bcz chocolate and coffee and fruit are all better than beer)

oh that's a pretty good one

you'll be wanting the boon oude gueuze next

you know, i don't think he will

oude is a scary signal post to a variety of dutch secret culinary weapons

oude where's my beer

Siren/Garage Project - Blacklight Banana - a very well-balanced imperial stout with the right level of banana. Much better than say Banana Bread Beer and I'm no hater of that. Perhaps a little unremarkable as is usual for Siren but very tasty.

Coming up next are some heavy hitters

Wild Beer Co + 8 wired - Black And Blue - well, here it is! And it's great. I don't get the pepper/nothing/pepper vibe as ascribed to its prototype - it's a pretty intense lambic from start to finish, perhaps with a lighter texture than is standard but a firm peppery buzz through the finish, and almost no sweetness at all. Another sour triumph!

Btw, all the collaboration partners in this are from NZ - it makes a certain sense (high levels of wacky, high levels of intoxication)

OK, my poor vegetarian gf is missing out now, because the Hawkshead Brewery / Yeastie Boys - Kai Moana Gose is WONDERFUL. Less extreme than 'seafood-infused gooseberry gose' might have you dread, it's sumptuous and refreshing, with perfectly-balanced hops complementing the yoghurt buzz and the seafood swirl. It's got a fantastic texture and for all its subtlety there's something magical in there somewhere. The Trolltunga gooseberry gose by Buxton and Lervig (iirc) was the star of the craft beer festival I went to a while back, so it really does seem a winning method that I expect and hope to see much more of. I'm not even joking about all this, btw - this beer is great, and I'd even recommend it to more normcore drinkers in a way I wouldn't do for the preceding WBC effort.

Sounds like the beer equivalent of tilapia,cockles, and crab with a Thornton's and camembert sauce

Well remembered, but these folks know what they're doing

it was epoisses rather than camembert if we're splitting hairs

Keg Tropigamma superior to the can.

Glad to hear the Black & Blue has improved, Wild Beer Co are sending me some of the proper batch (and, God help me, the lobster one).

Odyssey's Grievous Angel is far and away the best beer they've ever produced and easily top 5 of the UK craft beer wave. Astonishing.

What's it like?

What are some good red ales? That's my favourite tipple. I had some Dunbrody Red last night. It was daycent

Grievous Angel's a chocolate coffee brown ale, but the balance of flavours is exquisite. Nothing dominates (maybe chocolate is just ahead, but it's a proper cocoa nib flavour) and it still tastes like beer (which many competitors forget).

Tropigamma... works, doesn't it? v nice.

Speaking of gooseberry goses, I'm currently drinking Magic Rock's Salty Kiss in my local pub. By no means the best exponent, but more evidence that the gooseberry gose is taking over. And it's pretty tasty, really. Magic Rock have a lot of work to do in general but this is encouraging and I've gotten it three times now.

...and more Magic Rock now, in the form of their contribution to the Conventionally Disgusting Motherlode - the Upside Down Rainbow Yellow Ale, which tastes a bit like every other Magic Rock beer ever except significantly nicer - must be the Fork Brewing collaboration kicking in. A very pleasant light sour witbier with turmeric and tropical fruit notes. More sour, more complex (as you'd hope) and far fruitier than Hoegaarden IMO.

Wild Beer Co have sent me some of the lobster one. I am drinking it just now.

I'm going to be diplomatic and say it's a completely failed experiment rather than flat out revolting. It tastes of something. Unfortunately the thing it tastes of is not very pleasant and isn't any of the ingredients. It's slightly salty but DOESN'T TASTE LIKE BEER.

haven't had magic rock in ages. their "big top", which they've stopped making, was an all-time favourite.

had my first schlenkerla of the winter at the weekend:

http://www.schlenkerla.de/indexe.html

SCHLENKERLA.

tt loves that stuff. idgi. it's probably the one extreme beer flavour i just can't do

obviously, blackheath oddbins have it too. best shop in south london probably

it is pretty intense/obnoxious but i love it once winter comes along.

I struggle with rauchbier, and I think we've established I'll drink anything.

imago's crown now, I'm afraid.

in a blind taste test i reckon all of you would approve of the seafood gooseberry gose mentioned upthread. all of you. each one.

You silly sausage.

have any of you even tasted Hawkshead's stuff before? not sure i have

p.s. the last two, most ilx-friendly, motherlode beers are incoming

over a caprese soup

Burning Sky (with Liberty Brewing Co) did 'Descent into the Maelstrom', which is a bit of a misnomer, because the strong, well-hopped initial taste gives way to a refreshing sweet citrus glow. probably the least impressive beer so far but not *bad* per se

Last but not least, Beavertown / Tempus Project - Universal Mind, a strong but well-balanced smoky porter - I know I just called out smoked beer as undrinkable but this dials it back enough and undercuts it with sweet earthy rich tones (those marsala barrels kicking in) and a lasting taste. Very flavoursome - I certainly approve. If you like smoky beer then this is a killer (especially at over 10%).

have any of you even tasted Hawkshead's stuff before? not sure i have

Rolled the dice on a can of this at the weekend - first time in ages I've poured a beer away half-way through (sure I remember liking some of their beer in the past, mind):

http://www.northernmonkbrewco.com/sites/default/files/styles/400_by_600/adaptive-image/public/beer/nmbco_-_tom_joy_nm1386_.jpg

Made up for it with some very palatable Five Points dark beers (also learned that the Five Points Railway Porter makes really top-drawer cottage pie liquor).

Oh and the Orbit Altbier (amusingly named "Neu") is delicious. I like Orbit beers a great deal.

am finally drinking a tropigamma

wtf. ban hops

would you like some beer with your hops sir? and perhaps some slightly incongruous fruit?

tt has an einstok white. fucking furiously envious

tropigamma isn't gigantically hoppy.

einstok beers are shit.

but if you want to drink budweiser pale ale and praise it cos it's from country x your options are various.

a big grapefruit-hop hybrid that didn't even have any grapefruit in it

einstok is really nice and has a slight sour buzz that makes it all come together

nothing like any sort of budweiser

so heated rn

i didn't like tropigamma at all - but cos it was too fruity, not too hoppy. they named it after tropicana and even to look at it it's really dense and unbeerlike.

had gamma ray again this evening - always great. neck oil also. wasn't hunting them down they're just good basics.

gamma ray is not unpleasant i agree

Kernel raspberry London sour tonight over crisps - extremely refreshing, fine saison base, the sour and the fruit perhaps lacking some of the depth and intensity of their damson sour but still a fine effort. I recall it from that craft beer festival a few months back, where it had a starring role - bottled perhaps less stellar but I must emphasise still an extremely tasty light sour

A kind word for Belhaven's Scottish Oat Stout, tonight over popcorn - it's really really tasty and actually rather sophisticated, dulling the usual stout sweetness and giving it a rounded, bitter quality.

I really liked Tropigamma! But not as much as their blood orange thing over the summer, which the bloke at the great offie in seven sisters says sold as quickly as he got it in (and he also admitted buying a case for himself)

tt just returned from the black heart with four bottles of trolltunga (see OP)!!!! oh my god

it's so, so great. get it while you can. everybody's doing gooseberry sour now but this is the north star. three cheers for buxton/lervig!

what did you drink it "over"? i have to know.

one of papa john's finest pies

you had a papa john's on xmas eve? is everything okay?

yeah I had a bottle of Trolltunga a couple of days ago and thought it a v good example of the form

drank a Blacklight Banana by Siren yesterday which is a sweetish imperial stout. claims to feature coffee beans "stored in bourbon barrels" pre-roasting which I struggle to believe would make any discernable difference tbh. decent anyway

you had a papa john's on xmas eve? is everything okay?

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Sunday, December 25, 2016 9:42 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

night of the 22nd!!

last night we were lazy after present-wrapping so had crisps with dips lol

and ya the blacklight banana will have been appreciated, it's not bad at all

got a big haul of mostly american and scandinavian beer at an off licence in dublin yesterday. to-ol's christmas stout is nice, slight note of orange and cardamon but mainly just a good winter drink. have a few mikkellers and some seasonal sierra nevadas also - might be a basic admission but i love the sierra nevada christmas beer.

At the Toll Gate, Turnpike Lane, last night: Long Man Old Man old ale. Very good. I've realised that I'm more or less certain to love anything calling itself 'old ale' (whereas, for example, anything called 'ruby ale' I tend not to like very much).

Partizan's saison kriek one of the best of its kind I've had recently. tt bought a bottle the other day and we're drinking it now - extremely refreshing, quite dry, really noticeable if understated sour kick, fruit very subtle. Low alcohol content might raise suspicions but this is pulled off very smartly

not UK per se but I am looking at a Mikkeller Spontanberliner w/ Passion Fruit and I wholly recommend etc etc

https://scontent.flhr2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/16797653_1381153738617820_5068002515587798665_o.jpg?oh=af2156377b04e0017b1d0e20a762b947&oe=5935AC31

Wild Beer's new brewery mockup looks like the postapocalyptic version of Spurs' corporate hospitality area

never noticed before that their logo is EVIL OVERLORD

pity that one lone ghost sitting on the edge of the fire pit

isn't drinking beer supposed to be fun

it looks like a community centre.

a lot of the places craft beer breweries choose to decorate or host are really awful, like crappy mdf tables etc. give me a pub with a few good taps anytime.

when it's a little venture in a repurposed quasi-industrial space then I can appreciate ramshackle furnishings but the pretentious back to clean and hard basics realness of brew dog frinstance is a fucking atrocity

i like the purity bar in birmingham

'the english restaurant' in spitalfields is my new favourite pub of all time

such a lovely place

they have many belgian classics - i'm currently drinking a bottle of the straffe hendrik quadrupel which i bought at the barman's recommendation - it's excellent and if we're extending this thread to the continent then i'd advise trying it (should you be a fan of strong, complex ale)

Beavertown's Tempus project is shaping up very nicely indeed! Screw Tropigamma, this is where it's at. Their Moonshiner berliner weisse and their El Mariachi gose are both *excellent* - refreshing and intensely flavoured. Just get the price down next time

Fierce Beer from Scotland have done a nice tropical sour, the Tropical Tart - refreshing and authentically tangy with good fruit and a nice nutty aftertaste. Also pretty cheap as these things go

Thornbridge are far too up and down for my liking, although Love Among The Ruins and Days of Creation were truly great sours the only beers of theirs I'd seek out are the raspberry Imperial stout, and Serpent.

From aldo's megapost upthread. I can confirm that Days Of Creation, a prizewinning lambic red, is astonishing. They've more or less matched Rodenbach, except with notes of stilton and (as my friend noticed) strawberry supplanting the earthier cherry of Grand Cru. Cost me £17 for a bottle but worth it tbh as a one-off. Now do it again but cheaper. One of the best beers I've ever drunk

Now, in a stunning pvmic, I'm about to tuck into Timmermans' pumpkin special :D

Oh - raspberries, not strawberries! xp

Too many ales are too strong %. Something like 4.5% should be the max. Below 4% is what it should be. It's so rare to find bottled ales that low today. I'm not sure why they're cranking it up so high. Belgian ales is a slightly different affair, but english ales are session ales, I'm baffled by the 6% ales I see.

there've been strong English ales since almost literally forever though?

Yes, the sub-4% standard is a legacy of the first (and second?) world war I think. Stronger ales respond better to bottling: the pasteurisation process knocks the body/flavour/mothfeel/whatever out of most things below 4%, so you end up with thin, bland beer. For sub-4% to work, it's really got to be unpasteurised on draught.

I agree with that, but tbf there are some p decent low ABV beers about these days, purposely brewed with flavour in mind, e.g. Redemption's Trinity

early 19th century stouts were often over 7 percent.

Drinking Love Among The Ruins right now for tt's 29th. Thornbridge, it is safe to say, have cracked the code

Also, she is 'doing' my eyebrows right now what's going on

http://i.imgur.com/uAT8T6l.jpg

get a haircut ya hippie

back to london, and we've got ourselves all manner of beers to get through, starting with Chorlton's 'summer/blanc double sour' and 'sour death' ipa....holy shit, why haven't I drunk their stuff before? it's lethal

Sour Death about as sour as any hoppy beer has a right to be, and the summer sour is....a concentrated blast of malevolence, more pls

let's rep the Marble Brewery of Manchester and their Sister Agnes cherry sour effort - pitched halfway between a Flemish Red and a barley wine, with most of the good points of either

I suspect I'd prefer the ether tbh.

(But yes I'm pretty keen on Marble beer, in the main)

siren's 'acid jam' perhaps the first siren to really hold my attention

Imo it's pretty astonishing but a really difficult drink.

Had Beavertown's Brose - a rose-derived sour - at the brewery the weekend before last. AVOID.

The blood orange IPA, however, is even nicer off the tap.

I've a bottle of Brose but haven't summoned the courage to open it yet.

There's a limited run of Hamerton Earl Grey Black IPA out there right now and it's excellent.

So I drank the Brose. Kind of weird tasting, not as sour as I'd have liked and the rose was oddly sweet. Like a massively inferior Acid Jam.

WBC's Yadokai effort has finally been drunk then...it's very good. Also faintly redolent of Acid Jam, but obviously with a sake-meets-abbey-beer weight to it all. I wouldn't call it subtle, but it's arresting.

There's a limited run of Hamerton Earl Grey Black IPA out there right now and it's excellent.

― Matt DC, Saturday, May 6, 2017 1:02 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

enjoying this right now. it's really good and i say that as a sceptic of anything that isn't sour these days. in fact i prefer it to the beer tt is drinking right now, siren's new grapefruit sour. she disagrees. but what is indisputable is that siren won't come close to topping 'acid jam' for a good long while

we also have the brosé lying in wait, like some dismal portent of oversweetened doom

my mouth puckered just reading that, lj

"brosé"!!! is that pink wine for dudes????

it's a rose-themed ale from beavertown and it is BAD BAD BAD

oh timing!

it's by no means offensive and I'd even say a bit refreshing, but nothing special for a speciality sour - the sour base is nice but the 'rosé' flavour doesn't quite do enough to stand out. enjoyable though, and the sweetness doesn't kill it

but i'm a sour beer nut, and stevie, well,

sweet and bland is where i live, louis!

― A bear made of Tetris blocks (stevie), Friday, September 30, 2016 8:44 AM (eight months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:P

rosé-themed, not rose-themed, btw

rose nectar sour would be one of those things you simply wouldn't know the greatness or shitness of until you tried it

but i'm a sour beer nut, and stevie, well,

haha, yes, true!

someone was telling me about a tangfastics-brewed beer the other day. oh brave new world with such things in it etc etc

oh god, beavertown's tempus project has seriously gone too far now

we've moved onto their 'appelation' bramley apple saison

my feelings are perhaps akin to what stevie's would be, except i'm supposed to like this stuff

tangfastics beer courtesy of mad dog, whom i've always been a bit skeptical of. would still taste, probably

yeah, i'm tempted too tbh

correction: 'applelation' ffs

aiui Haribo sicked their lawyers on Mad Dog and they had to recall all of the Tangfastics beer so you'll probably not find one now

I drank their granola breakfast stout last night, it was just OK tbh

Beavertown's X Trillium IPA is pretty good as IPAs go. Probably the most impressed I've been at Beavertown yet

! my local shop is not carrying it

I went to the Beavertown festival on Friday - it was p great. Ticket paid for all your beer, many, many breweries from all over the world present. Slightly weird being at an event where the event is drinking rather than anything else, but it was good nonetheless, I would go again.

My beer festival this year was Ales Tales, a Belgium-only festival. It was superb, obviously

brick brewery's rhubarb sour is a low-key pleasure, endlessly drinkable

OK, Partizan's Mango Ceylon Iced Tea saison, achieved with nothing but barley, yeast and hops, feels like a bit of a paradigm shift, in UK terms at least. Not the best beer I've had recently but one of the most boldly-realised

Rhubarb sour? Nice

Rhubarb sour sounds right up my street but I had a rhubarb cider recently that didn't taste of rhubarb at all, so I dunno.

Rhubarb does well with some sugar so maybe fermentation makes sense!

I assume rhubarb cider was fermented. Sorry I mean hard cider

Recevied some extras in an international trade:

Cloudwater NW DIPA Galaxy: well crafted, soft and delicate, holds a respectable position against the upper echelon of American IPAs.
Cloudwater Mormora Sour: a kettle sour with 2 infusions of Mormora coffee. Not disgusting, but certainly not something I'd seek out.

honorable mentions:
Modern Times x Cloudwater Roots of Coincidence Pale Ale: a colloboration brewed at the former in San Diego. Had notes of haribo grapefruit on the finish.
Mikkeller x Cloudwater Staring At The Pie NEIPA: also brewed at the former's San Diego brewery and billed as a "Key Lime Pie hazy IPA", what started out intriguing was plagued with some unwelcome flavors on the finish.

Please send any more Cloudwater cans you find to me ASAP.

Awesome stuff there

Pics of cans / bottles ?

No pics, sorry! I'm usually pretty good about pics too.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUzrjg2U8AAMuui.jpg

"neckstamper" "apa" (american pale ale apparently) - is, despite itself, very very nice

Wow, so the Beavertown part-takeover has really affected the quality of the drinks. Lupaloid and Bloody ’Ell both limp versions of their previous selves, tasting a bit Pilsner-y to my tastebuds.

You say it like they were ever all that!

We recently stumbled across (genuinely - didn't know it was on until we were in the middle of it) a mini craft beer festival in Deptford. Winning beer was, comfortably, the latest Redchurch sour (cherry I think?) which threatened to take the skin off our mouths

So much love for the Redchurch sours

tt is taunting me rn with offhand comments about how the pub she's celebrating half term with her colleagues in is serving Thornbridge sours ffs

Mine's a Lemsip :(

Get well soon, slugger

redchurch has gone into administration i think. a shame as the beers were great and i had some good nights in the brewery space over the years.

i haven't been big into many of their beers until now but pressure drop's 'play the dane' is a v good hazy ipa. i had a very good pohjala gose last week also.

agreed that Beavertown has dropped off. their pale ales (including the once ineffable Lupuloid) have that slight metallic tang that afflicts brewdog. not a huge diff between them now imo.

Yeah, used to be an easy-to-find (in Brighton at least) and reliable beer when you weren’t near somewhere with more choice, and I had hoped that now they were available in supermarkets in other places it would be a handy option, but…

fav UK brewery at the moment is Yonder (https://www.brewyonder.co.uk) - mostly saison/witbier styles with foraged ingredients, closest comparison is probably Wild Beer Co

Campervan Brewery Neon Blitz - Blueberry Berliner Weisse dry hopped - delish with a nice tropical bite

Not quite on the level of their Himalayan Gose but really nothing is

Speaking of Wild Beer, we've just opened a Dr Todd...

...and they have fucking taken things somewhere truly insane. Amazing. Beer of the year

Obviously RateBeer hates it. Fucking CAMRA squares

RateBeer was acquired by ABInBev so I plead that you not give them any traffic in the future. Thank you. Untappd is probably the best current arbiter of public opinion.

ah ok ty for the h/t

Untappd is a great little app.

I went to the Wild Beer Co. headquarters a while back. It's on a dairy farm in Evercreech and the shop, a low barn, concealing essentially a cave full of great discs of cheese, was unmanned. You have to ring an old-fashioned buzzer, titled 'push green button for cheese.' Easily one of the best places I've ever been to. Beer was great, too.

I had some innis & gunn mangoes on the run IPA last night, lovely flavour + nice and strong and I like the small cans so you don't look like a typical pisshead walking with one in the park. Shame it's a limited edition thing.

Redchurch alive and kicking apparently, and their table sour is truly wonderful - has that full round vinegary punch lacking in so many weak canned sours that I find myself slogging through (you know the sort, delicate herbal weisse-style bores where the effort's misplaced and the flavour's negligible)

I'm drinking a bottle of Boss Brewing Nutjob 4.5% Peanut Butter Pale and have to report that you should probably learn from my example and not do this to yourself, it's like diluted vinegar that's been left out too long then put in a sodastream.

HIT OR MISS – RHUBARB PASTRY SOUR (contains LACTOSE) – 4.6% ABV

A super-fun, summery collab with our neighbours DOH Bakery! This sour uses superfresh rhubarb, lactose, vanilla and hibiscus for a sweet and tangy pastry treat!

i now have 3 breweries within a 10 minute bike ride of me producing beers of just astounding quality. (and the occasional cursed batch like the above.) crazy times.

Which three?

https://www.howlinghops.co.uk

https://prettydecentbeer.co

https://www.gravitywellbrewing.co.uk

Our local brewery is Turning Point, and everything they produce (barring an ill-advised “mango sorbet” sour) is utterly fantastic. Top tips: Yellow Matter Custard (vanilla), Milk Foley (strawberry), Gravediggers Biscuits (coffee porter), and their perennial best seller, Disco King.

The major local craft brewery here in Glasgow would probably be Overtone and similarly they make some consistently fantastic beers. I can't keep up at the moment though as they've been doing at least two new releases a week for a while, so I'm about 2-3 months behind. If you're a DIPA or a TIPA fan then any you see by them should be a good buy especially.

I had one Turning Point last year when I did an order from Yorkshire Craft Beers I think, which was really great, but haven't kept up with them. Heard of Gravity Well and Howling Hops, but never tried them. Pretty Decent is a new one to me. Will keep them all in mind.

Despite loving the flavours and viscosity, I can't really cope with DIPAs and our local breweries (southern Hampshire) all seem to be heading more in that direction.

The Overtone beers I've had are all lovely.

I got a mixed case from Howling Hops last summer when they were doing huge discounts and they were all solid if unspectacular.

Only had a couple of Turning Points and they've been heavyweights (and coincidentally collabs) but pretty good especially the Tripel with Torrside.

I've liked everything I've had from Overtone, and particularly remember a cold brew coffee IPA.

Odyssey are my locals I suppose but I only really get to drink them during the football season because it's when I'm in town. Some amazing beers, I'd say a couple of years since anything really outstanding but consistently great.

Apparently Wild Beer have taken to calling their annual sour brew 'Coolship'. Not had one yet. Might be time

Been enjoying the newest sours from my two most local breweries Brick (guava) and Villages (yuzu) - perfect sunny weather drinks and reasonably light. Also had a few really nice beers from Arbor (based in Bristol) lately, the session ale (Pocket Rocket) is delicious.

I like Wild Beer's small batch brews but there's nothing exciting in their core range any more. I'd still drink them but would probably pick something else if there was an option.

I have to bite my tongue giving them money though after the crowdfunding fiasco.

I've been picking up some of Wild Beer Co's smaller batch stuff like you mention lately for keeping a while. I've always liked what I've had from the more wild/barrel aged etc 'special' side of their production, but not sure I've ever bothered with the core range.

I missed the crowdfunding fiasco though, what was the story there?

Back in the day Millionaire certainly, and to a lesser extent Bibble and Ninkasi, were probably as important as Jaipur in setting the benchmark for what the big names in the burgeoning craft beer market were capable of.

They were absolutely whoring themselves around to the macros at the beginning of 2017 saying they'd sell up if the price was right and could they please build a new brewery and taproom. When they didn't get any takers they crowdfunded over £1M to pay for it instead. Current status of the new brewery 4 years down the line is "still looking at potential sites".

These days I just drink <6% NEIPAs and sours that taste of dessert (sorry Tracer!)

If it has the letters IPA in it I'm avoiding unless there's literally nothing else. Gotta have hard rules

Anyway, currently in Bethnal Green dicing various taprooms. Boxcar isn't really calling out. Will keep browsing the map

Five Points it is. Feels like a decent call

Five points pale is a high point of the genre imo

Had a really good Best Bitter and an excellent Mild from Boxcar in the past so maybe that's where their strength lies.

https://i.ibb.co/qFn5DSF/IMG-20210627-183354.jpg

This is the one. Awesome

Isn't Mother Kelly's in Bethnal Green? That's a brilliant taproom.

I almost entirely drink IPAs these days, along with the odd blonde or pale or sour. Keeping in mind that I'd happily die before ever again drinking e.g. London Pride, Theakstons, Deuchars, Doom Bar, what are some more interesting British non IPAs that I should look out for? Non small batch preferred so I have a chance of finding it.

Attic Brew's Fig. 2 sour a genuinely complex and worthy addition to the UK hoppy sours canon

Kernel's raspberry sour once again a murderous beast, kiu

louis is the tombot of beers

is he a sour fascist too lol

two tribes have a completely acceptable range of non-hop-monster beers including a very pleasant lager and they are all available at my corner shop, the proprietors of which have decided their muslim scruples will allow them to sell alcohol after all. finally this house is starting to feel worth it. who needs crossrail.

Hey look, a different beer thread! I'm going to be in Leeds for a week at the end of the month, and my sister offered to pick up some beer for me, but I have no idea what to tell her to buy! There are more than a few pubs nearby, and some of them do carry-out, and some of them have cask ales, and some of them have good selections of craft and Belgian and etc., but it's all pretty foreign to me. Any suggestion for a good go-to to have around the house? Northern Monk x? North Brewing Co. y? I'm (way too) used to hoppy high ABV IPAs, too.

Northern Monk and North Co are both great. My two favourite northern English breweries at the moment are Vocation and Turning Point. From elsewhere, Tiny Rebel, Deya and LHG (Left Handed Giant) are both very good: we've currently got Tiny Rebel's Lush (cask) and Deya's Steady Rolling Man (keg) on tap at the pub where I work, and the latter is so popular that we've stopped swapping it out for other keg beers. (NB I work at the best pub I've ever visited in over 40 years of going to pubs, 30 minutes north of Leeds. We have six cask pumps and eight keg pumps, immaculately well kept and all sourced from independents, plus a good selection of cans in the fridge. Come and visit!)

Was in York and Newcastle a couple of weeks ago but the best UK beers I had were probably by Edinburgh's Vault City, who know their way around a fruited sour in a way that most UK breweries simply don't (i.e. full, rich flavours rather than gimmicky buzz)

Next time I'm up north I'll have to pay Knaresborough a visit...

Elusive and Burnt Mill kings of WCIPA at the moment. Verdant and Deya for NEIPA, also Black Iris are great.

Some decent core beer from North and Northern Monk but better in the specials ranges so harder to predict what you'd see. For my money Sonoma by Track is better than e.g. Sputnik/Transmission or Faith from those two.

Full Circle are my quiet tip for the best North East brewer but unsure how far out of area you can get their stuff.

Brew York have some good beers in them but are easily distracted.

SMOD might be the best in Yorks (ok S Yorks) but Neepsend and Abbeydale both worthwhile.

Torrside are banging but might be too far away.

Oh yeah I definitely had some good stuff from Verdant in the (iirc) porter/brown ale dept

Tiny Rebel got "me too'd" a few years ago and IMO their beer went right downhill afterwards. Too many gimmicks and adjuncts and not enough solid beers - I still maintain a test 1% beer I had in their Cardiff bar was the best thing they've ever made.

Actually Wylam are worth a shout although they got "me too'd" as well but seem to be riding it out.

Josh, if the pubs are on untappd then I can look at the check-ins and make recommendations.

Awesome, thanks already to everyone! I'm going to get googling. FWIW, the closest walking distance neighborhoods are ... Headingly and Meanwood? Next closest (but too far to walk, I think) are Chapel Allerton and City Centre.

I've no taste for modern beer these days but I did enjoy an hour or two in the Terminus Taproom and Bottleshop in Meanwood the other week.

We've got Verdant's Headband on tap at the moment, and their I Played Trumpet On That Tune in the fridge.

Left Handed Giant's King Of The Woodland, a 12.5% Imperial Stout, is exceptionally fantastic, and very popular while we had it on tap; given its strength, we mostly sold it in thirds and halves.

Headband is always great but I think Roy, I Want A Hilux is the best Verdant around at the moment. Haven't had the latest rebrew of fruit Car Side Exhibition but that's always a banger.

Actually, based on release dates Putty should be almost drinkable at the moment. And Allen, come to think of it.

King of the Woodland is brilliant, yes.

Josh I'm trying to parse your sitch. You're going to be in Leeds. And your sister is picking up beer for you? Does she live there?

Yes yes and yes.

This is what we’ve got on tap tonight.

Cask:
Vocation Heart & Soul Session IPA 4.4
Black Sheep Best Bitter 3.8
Turning Point Night Lapse Coffee Porter 4.8
Tiny Rebel Lush Session IPA 4.0
Roosters Buckeye Pale Session 3.5
Roosters Yankee Pale Ale 4.3

Keg:
Schneider Weisse 5.4
North Co Atlantis Pale Ale 4.1
Berliner Pilsner 5.0
Schöfferhofer Grapefruit Hefeweizen 2.5
Hogans Medium Dry Cider 4.5
Deya Steady Rolling Man 5.2
Verdant Headband Pale Ale 5.5
Deya Better Daze IPA 6.5

What are you having?

the coffee porter

See, that's a great question, because my instinct would be to gravitate toward the styles of beers that the US does really well: Pale Ale, IPA, etc. But the more interesting thing for me to get would probably be the bitter, or a cask ale (is that the same as a real ale?). Or based on your recco, the Steady Rolling Man. I'm sure the porter is great, but for some reason when I'm out I never order dark beers.

mmm cask porter sounds yummay

Yes in the UK cask ale is pretty much real ale (or "beer") (honestly) (as opposed to lager). In a pub the ale barrels are kept unrefrigerated in the basement, and the beer is pulled up to the taps by essentially a huge siphon. It can go bad in a few days, like milk.

For some reason it's blowing my mind that your sister lives in Leeds JiC! I don't know why, and I don't know why I didn't know that before.

Deya is a great brewery.

Magic Rock is in Huddersfield, which is a like a 20 minute drive away from Leeds i think.

Oh and Cloudwater in Manchester is ridiculously good if you like pale ales.

Yeah, she's a professor at University of Leeds! Been there for ... 15 years? I lose track.

Magic Rock and Cloudwater both victims in the UK craft beer wokeism wars (not fond of the term but hey it's the world we live in) - the former over their investment by Lion which sees people just shout GENOCIDE JUICE whenever they get mentioned, the latter over alleged racism towards Stacey at Rock Leopard and also from connections with serial pariah James Watt (BD made Cloudwater's supermarket line).

Anyway from Mike's list Schöfferhofer is amazing and I always have half a dozen in the beer fridge. Also that Berliner is very solid.

I'm not personally a fan of Black Sheep (well not Riggwelter, but then I'm not a fan of the beer that begat it either), but a nice cask pint is always a pleasure. The deya/verdant lineup is great.

Yeah, the one beer on our pumps that I would never, ever drink is Black Sheep. Then again, it's the only cask ale that my partner Kevin ever drinks. Just not my thing at all, but then he doesn't care much for the hoppy stuff. It's the only cask ale that we never swap out, and it has a lot of fans.

The cask pump on the far left - currently Vocation Heart & Soul - is reserved for gluten-free. Oddly, it's often my favourite pump.

I'm a massive fan of Cloudwater (I've even got the t-shirts and branded socks to prove it) - absolutely love their beers, both the plethora of TIPAs, DIPAs, IPAs, Pales & other cans and their fancier Barrel Project stuff. I hadn't heard of issues with Rock Leapard, what's the story there aldo?

Ah aldo I never knew any of that :(

Rock Leopard, I mean.

My main beef to date with Cloudwater is how unbelievably expensive it is

I was just about to post exactly this

I’m assured the prices do accurately reflect the production costs of all their wacky adjuncts but idk man

I buy directly from them and pricing seems fair for what you're getting. There are certainly cheaper breweries, but I don't think it's a huge price difference and CW quality is top notch. £8 for one of their TIPAs is money very well spent for me. Are they expensive from other retailers?

Their Pales are £4-5, IPAs £5, DIPAs £6, TIPAs around £8 and Imperial Stouts £8-9. Barrel Aged stuff is £17-18 for 750ml. That's about par for the course, no? Very similar pricing structure at say Overtone, Neon Raptor, Verdant, Pollys etc etc etc.

Howling Hops has very comparable pale ales (imo) for much less money. I’ve stanned for them before here I think and they are local to me so I may be biased but they’ll do a mixed 12-pack for just north of £40.

Their 9.5ABV stout is £6.50.

I'm a self-confessed massive Cloudwater fan, so apologies if I'm too defensive, I am genuinely interested. Just don't want to have to get my "I <3 CW" tattoo removed. Other breweries are available...

Sorry, was out all day yesterday.

Cloudwater were already in some people's bad books for trying to move to an exclusively B2C model in the first waves of lockdown, but then in June last year Stacey brought messages into the big Facebook group (the one we're both in, Krakow) where Paul referred to him as an Uncle Tom. To be slightly generous to Paul it's not a view he appeared to have but one he ascribed to someone else (memory say it's Watt, as this was a squabble over BD and CW contract brews and where they happened) but using it was utterly needless.

Anyway, when called out on it Paul doubled down and made excuses rather than apologies and it drove wholesale admin change in the FB group and that was why the name of it changed too.

CW farm out all their supermarket line to Brewdog as contract brewing in Ellon, so if you're Watt-phobic then that's something else to consider.

As this thread has demonstrated though, it seems to have been largely forgotten.

I've been a real fan of CW over the years and although nothing touches the era of the V series DIPAs the New Zealand series in 2019 was brilliant. I sort of lost touch a bit when they changed their labelling so that you couldn't work out what things were without taking cans out of the fridge and reading the back (meaning putting glasses on, trivial I know but hey) and completely lost track of what they were putting out over lockdown so should probably take a look at some point.

I remember all that Aldo, but unless I'm mistaken it wasn't Paul from Cloudwater, it was an entirely different Paul in said group, one of the admins at the time. It was at the time of the Brewdog & Cloudwater controversy, hence them being at least mentioned in the fallout from it all, but I don't believe they were involved per se.

Rock Leopard continue to work with Cloudwater, as far as I see. Their collaboration Step Up was re-brewed and released again not long ago and Rock Leopard have released a bottled, barrel aged beer that Cloudwater seem to be the only place stocking and could perhaps have been picked from CWs barrel stock given the sound of it.

You know I've just done a search and you're right. I may have been besmirching Paul J unnecessarily in that case for which I apologise.

Yet another E London craft brewery, Pretty Decent Beer Co, has made some really nice oat/wheat/barley/hops beers. They all have stupid names. “You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Oat” NEIPA is fantastic. They do quantity discounts.

Just ordered another 12 pack from Pretty Decent.. less than £40

I'm on their monthly subscription, recommended.

There's an article in the Times this morning including news that Wild Beer Co. apparently called in administrators on Friday, which is pretty shocking and sad news if true.

The article in question, avoiding their sign-in requirements: https://archive.ph/Lr8CP

:/

Beavertown and Brewdog must die

(obv they can't and won't)

Shout out to Deviant & Dandy's No Figgity imperial stout while I'm here btw. Tonka bean in beer won't be for everyone and it definitely fits aldo's 'bloggable' description but it hit the spot for me

thought I saw the brewdog expose doc because it was linked in this thread, apparently not. if you want to hate brewdog even more then knock yourself out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamxzvGm8YQ

aldo's 'bloggable' description

No recollection of what this is.

Tonka is fine but I've drunk far too many Low Key beers to get excited about it any more.

Had a lovely afternoon a couple of weeks ago with Roberto from Cult of Oak where we cracked open 6 (count 'em) of his near-impossible to find beers. Then he offered me a couple of bottles to take away, one of which was one of the last three in existence, which is when the afternoon got expensive.

Having been unable to buy Holy Goat releases after coming off the preference list, I'm prepping a Year One vertical at my local in January sometime including all the super rare ones like the Hanging Bat exclusives.

Tempted to do a Foehammer/Goblin Cleaver back-to-back tonight as iirc they were very similar and according to the can have less than 1% between them.

i like beer

D'you like coffee?

i don't like coffee beer

I'm supremely jealous aldo re. Cult of Oak, that sounds amazing. I want to come to your Holy Goat tasting. Where's your local?

For reference the beers were Lexington I and Ii, Cannae, Lysander, Mega Colab Rum & Raisin and Blood of the Golden Spurs ON KEG.

Beer In Hand in Hereford is bit far even for that kind of vertical. I also might be doing the only UK Rexday next year as me and Stu are the only people with bottles.

Speaking of which I am in Glasgow next weekend.FAP?

I can conclusively report Goblin Cleaver stomps all over Foehammer, which it makes taste thin even at 11%.

Sorry aldo, I left your question hanging there.

I'm buried in the midst of December retail servitude and can't really face any additional socialising this weekend, much as I'd love to. Just pretty exhausted, sorry.

No worries, it was pretty short notice and December is a busy month.

On the way back down the road dropping in to Top Out (in their second last week of trading) and Tempest to pick up their barley wine drops.

New Bristol Brewery have done some things with cinder toffee and stout that shouldn't be legal. Now I am about to go on a hike and I'm drunk! Hurray

Happy birthday imago!

Ty I'm about to do the THORNBRIDGE BREWERY TOUR BITCHES

^which ruled

Anyway, props to Little Earth Project for not only being the first brewery I've seen to name a beer after a Half Man Half Biscuit song, but to have said beer, In A Suffolk Ditch, be a fully credible and very barnyardy fruited wild red ale

Think Pomona Island had a HMHB beer but I can't remember what it was called. Their Songs About Fucking beer was their peak I think.

Lmao, someone at Pomona Island has very ILXy tastes, I was very impressed that they recently named a beer after a bit from Severance ("This Music Dance Experience Is Officially Cancelled"), although it was a drab-looking IPA so I didn't actually get it

enjoy your sourpatch kefir porters

observation based on being in glasgow for 1 day

scotland is way less obsessed with IPAs than england is

Where have you been beer-wise, for the purposes of this thread?

Drygate Brewery and West Brewery - so, two craft ale taprooms (although this one is def going for 'beerhall', shame Oktober isn't until tomorrow)

(my 'guess the city' was Cumbernauld btw. fuck me that central building is something eh)

I know this won't go down well on this thread, but I'm quite addicted to Brewdog "Lost Lager" in Blood Orange. It's on a three 8-packs for £23 offer at Morrisons and say no more!

they probably just add whatever chemical additive goes into vimto orange, yet it works.

to be fair there is probably a brewdog beer out there I'd enjoy, but it will always be a mystery which one

a Dill Pickle Gose at Pretty Decent Brewery/Taproom in Forest Gate.

they added dill and cucumbers to the brew apparently.

wasn't bad, but then again I had to psyche myself up before I took each sip.

that's increasingly the way with flavoured craft beer IMO.