The Euston Tap and Sierra Nevada Torpedo

Haven't blogged for a while due to exams and all; revision is a killer. But i am now free to drink as much great beer as possible until i go away to Kavos where there will a lack of good beer for sure.

The Euston Tap, albeit in colder climes

As most in the English beer scene know, the Euston Tap has become something of a mecca for beer lovers in London and the home counties due to its friendly and knowledgeable staff as well as its amazing beer selection.

They serve both cask ale and keg beer, which will no doubt annoy some CAMRA members. I treated myself to two cask beers in the form of BrewDog's The Edge and The Redemption Brewery's Trinity. Both absolutely amazing beers form two very young breweries.

The BrewDog was my first and was in the mild style of ales. This often has a reputation for a lack of flavour, boring socks and sandals problem. But here that was simply not the case. It is incredibly low strength at 2.7% a.b.v. and made up in flavour what it did in taste. For such a low alcohol beer it was incredibly malty, there was an almost sourdough like taste to the beer, this was followed by coffee taste with a fruity after-taste. An excellent beer.

The second beer i had was the Redemption Trinity. Redemption are one of the newest breweries in London and they have some real guts behind them as they ride the wave of new London breweries like Sambrooks and Kernal. Trinity derives its name from the three types, the trinity if you must, of hop. They are all American and it is a pale ale in the style of the American Pale Ale. The nose is dominated by tropical fruit, as is the palette and it makes for a bloody refreshing beer at only 3%.

Better than it's younger brother

The Euston Tap also stocks bottled beer, albeit rather expensive at  minimum price of around £3.00 (making it possibly the only downside of this great craft beer bar), but quality does come at a price. I purchased a Sierra Nevada Torpedo and a Goose Island IPA. The Goose Island will have to wait, but for now, the Sierra Nevada. Most people will be familiar with Sierra Nevada's classic pale ale and it is very good, a store cupboard favourite for me; yet this i a wholly different beast. It is incredibly strong at 7.2% but the alcohol never really comes through. On the nose is an almost tutti-fruitti smell. like a sweet shop. The palette has some nice maltiness, and this is complimented by a massive explosion of tropical fruit and grapefruit. It is a roller coaster ride of flavour and one of the best bottled beers i have had for a long time. The only problem is that it is too drinkable, not good at 7.2%, you could get shit-faced pretty easily on these (although you would look more dignified than half the paint-stripper-cider drinkers).

Introduction

Hi and welcome to A Bottle or Two. As you may notice this is my first blog post so things are looking a bit sparse at the time of writing but bare with.

I started this blog primarily because i saw a lack of beer blogs that seem to be centered on the bottled beer market, although this is not to say i will only look at beer that comes in bottles, it will mainly be about bottled beer.

Bottled beer seems to be a real emerging market in terms of beer itself, be that real or cask ale (whatever you want to call it is fine, just don't drag me into that argument), Bottled beer is a great way to take home a bottle of your favourite tipple from the supermarket, or increasingly order in from a dedicated online retailer.

So who am i? I'm a student from London (yes i hear the howls and cries of "get a job"). But unlike many of my peers i prefer beer that is unusual or not from a massive corporation. That is not to say that beers such as Stella, Heineken and Carlsberg make me throw-up, they just aren't as good as say BrewDog's 5 A.M. Saint, or Fuller's Discovery, but they are bland and who wants to be a slave to a massive corporation anyway.

Though i will state now that one of my favourite beers is Guinness, whatever you say about how it isn't as good as it used to be; if served properly after a long days walking, in the middle of Ireland, on a mountainside, then you can't really beat it.

So here's to many future blog posts and the enjoyment of bottled beer. Hope you enjoy (please do, otherwise the others will laugh at me).