UK beer in the new era

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!

omg YES, had some of their stuff recently, was incredible

I was an early adopter and have been aging their first year's beers (including the 4 that were <150 bottles) but the time has come. I'm donating them as a 3 night vertical at the local bottle shop next month.

fucking HELL Holy Goat's Wrath Of The Tyrant Norwegian Imperial is incredible. there's one of their Flanders Reds here, might have to get it

We indulged in the big Blender Maelstrom bottle last night. Really excellent but absolutely not something one should do often, for health and cost reasons

got a supermarket delivery substitution - a 10-pack of Faith pale ale by Northern Monk. These cans often explode with a very powerfully loud bang when you open them, with such force that you can be left with a very sore finger as well as a puddle of beer to mop up. This has happened to me numerous times with this brand now. The only safe way to open them is to place them in the sink and stab the can on the opening with a screwdriver. Absolutely fucking lux if you can manage to get 3/4 of the can into a glass.

keeping well stocked for the visit of mad nathan's antifootball crew

if you're fucking with a northern monk, don't forget to carry a screwdriver, got it.

they've been ready to kick off since the last viking raid

that priceless "haha - got you there, ya dickhead" moment when a can blows up in a psycho-thug's hand and completely soaks his clothes and his dignity, that's the point when you run!

can't be doing with this drawn out tension every time I open one. PTSD is one of the key reasons I'm drinking again ffs!

I heard there's a special way you can tap the cans to reduce the fizz, but this may be absolute bollocks.

maybe the tiniest puncture hole with something like a watch-maker's drill could slow release the pressure? Would need to set up a safety perimeter and have rapid response team of medics on site, honestly I have never seen a can explode with the force this does - it's much louder than champers.

We live in hope https://news.sky.com/story/brewdog-owners-call-time-on-craft-beer-pioneer-13507398

Heard yesterday that Overtone have gone into administration. Pretty surprising news.

BREAKING: Sharp's Brewery in Cornwall, maker of UK's best-selling Cask ale, Doom Bar, to close, 50 jobs lost. US-Canadian owner Molson Coors, say it's financially unsustainable. Meanwhile MC investing heavily in relaunch of Carling Black Label. Fate of Burton brewed bottled version unknown.