If you have even the slightest interest in beer, many of you will know that home brewing, especially in the US, is becoming a big deal.Once seen as a bit of a maligned past-time as the preserve of old-men who were too tight too buy their mates a round at the local, it has instead become a massive past-time; many of the US brewers (most notably Sierra Nevada's Ken Grossman) starting out as home-brewers.
I have actually been in possession of a home brewing kit, albeit a basic Coopers kit, for a year but i have wanted to revisit it recently. So i have decided to put it to good use but add something extra.
I wanted to add an extra twist to the basic bitter recipe by adding a bit of summer zest to the beer. After the Malt has been dissolved in hot water, i will add some kaffir lime leaves and lemon peel to give the beer, hopefully a more refreshing taste for the coming summer months.
Will update on this when fermentation is complete and i can have a preview taste before being bottled, but hopefully it will accentuate the typical citrus flavours you get in a English bitter.
Oh, and this is in memoriam to one of the greatest saxophonists of all time who sadly died over the weekend:
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Monday, 20 June 2011
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.
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%.
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).
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| 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%.
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| 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).
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Review: Badger Golden Champion
I'm going to continue the Pale and Blonde Ales theme for a while on this blog, it just seems too warm to be focusing on milds and bitters at this stime of year. Whereas with my first review i looked at a distinctly eclectic beer, whereas here i'm looking at what would at least seem to be, a more traditional English summer ale.
Badger's Golden Champion is an interesting ale. It styles itself as a: "delicately strong and refreshingly light" ale, with the great tagline: "summer in a bottle". This bodes well, as i am currently sitting in a very humid north London and i need something to slake my thirst.
And from the off it is a great summer drink. It is fresh and light, yet it has a sweet and malty taste which doesn't dominate. A good thing too as the malt gives way to a fruity and crisp after taste. Badger added an extra ingredient in the form of elderflower. I love this as it goes back all the way to a time where there were no hops to flavour ale, all that was used was the ingredients around them such as honey, heather and, like here, elderflower. This gives it an extra something, a certain something or other, that brings out all the fruit flavours. Bitterness follows through to give a certain amount of balance.
But this ale is not perfect in its own right. I can be a tad too sweet, especially due to the elderflower which, if anybody has tried elderflower cordial before, is very sweet. There is also a hint of a little too much carbonation. This could be from the bottle, but it is a little annoying.
Overall i would give this an 8/10. It is a great ale for a time like this, a hot and humid summers evening, but it i just a little over-balanced in terms of sweetness for it to quench my thirst properly.
Cheers
Badger's Golden Champion is an interesting ale. It styles itself as a: "delicately strong and refreshingly light" ale, with the great tagline: "summer in a bottle". This bodes well, as i am currently sitting in a very humid north London and i need something to slake my thirst.
And from the off it is a great summer drink. It is fresh and light, yet it has a sweet and malty taste which doesn't dominate. A good thing too as the malt gives way to a fruity and crisp after taste. Badger added an extra ingredient in the form of elderflower. I love this as it goes back all the way to a time where there were no hops to flavour ale, all that was used was the ingredients around them such as honey, heather and, like here, elderflower. This gives it an extra something, a certain something or other, that brings out all the fruit flavours. Bitterness follows through to give a certain amount of balance.
But this ale is not perfect in its own right. I can be a tad too sweet, especially due to the elderflower which, if anybody has tried elderflower cordial before, is very sweet. There is also a hint of a little too much carbonation. This could be from the bottle, but it is a little annoying.
Overall i would give this an 8/10. It is a great ale for a time like this, a hot and humid summers evening, but it i just a little over-balanced in terms of sweetness for it to quench my thirst properly.
Cheers
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Review: Thornbridge Kipling
Of the myriad of brewers that can be found within the UK, none has really had much of an effect on the use of new hops (i would like to state at this point that this is not a plug) as Derbyshire's Thornbridge. Originally set up by Steffano Cossi and Martin Dickie (who would go on to set up the now infamous BrewDog), the brewery has, in my opinion anyway, been radically transforming the brewing landscape with the bold flavours and use of new world hops.
So in the spirit of those new world hops, Thornbridge have brewed a rather interesting beer called Kipling. According to them it is the first beer to brewed in the UK using Nelson Sauvin hop. Nelson Sauvin imparts a tropical fruit flavour, and is favoured by many American, and an increasing number of British, brewers.
So how does it measure up. I'm already a big fan of Thornbridge's Jaipur IPA, and this is slightly similar. Kipling styles itself as a South Pacific Pale Ale, yet it seems to be in the same vein as Sierra Nevada's flagship Pale Ale. This is due to the dominance of the Nelson Sauvin hop which imparts that hit-you-round-the-face tropical fruit flavour the beer. I got this in waitrose after seeing they had Thornbridge in stock and was delighted to see it there. It came in a 500ml bottle and has an abv of 5.2%.
The initial aroma is complete tropical flavour. You've got mango, grapefruit, passion fruit and even a hint of Papaya, which is always nice as it gives off an almost mellow aroma. When you actually get down to tasting it, as you'll probably want to keep on smelling it for a while, There is a definite bitterness to the brew. Although you get the fruit flavours, the bitterness runs down you throat. It's a nice counterbalance to the large fruit flavours in the brew and adds balance (which can only be a good thing), you don't want to be constantly bombarded with fruit flavours, you're drinking a Pale Ale, not a fruit beer after all.
But as you go through the beer, it starts to give you grassy notes and the malt really comes through. Not in a big way, but it comes through just enough to give it that little bit of sweetness that it deserves.
By the end of the beer, i really wanted another one, but it would probably be good not to (it is 5.2% after all) as it's not exactly a session beer like Castle Rock Harvest Pale, but it is extremely quaffable nonetheless. Overall i would give it a 9/10, although it is un-doubtably a great beer it isn't one you would have for a session.
Hope you enjoyed the review, please post any constructive (please no spam) comments in the comments box below. Or even suggest what i should review next. Cheers.
So in the spirit of those new world hops, Thornbridge have brewed a rather interesting beer called Kipling. According to them it is the first beer to brewed in the UK using Nelson Sauvin hop. Nelson Sauvin imparts a tropical fruit flavour, and is favoured by many American, and an increasing number of British, brewers.
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| Kipling in its bottle |
The initial aroma is complete tropical flavour. You've got mango, grapefruit, passion fruit and even a hint of Papaya, which is always nice as it gives off an almost mellow aroma. When you actually get down to tasting it, as you'll probably want to keep on smelling it for a while, There is a definite bitterness to the brew. Although you get the fruit flavours, the bitterness runs down you throat. It's a nice counterbalance to the large fruit flavours in the brew and adds balance (which can only be a good thing), you don't want to be constantly bombarded with fruit flavours, you're drinking a Pale Ale, not a fruit beer after all.
But as you go through the beer, it starts to give you grassy notes and the malt really comes through. Not in a big way, but it comes through just enough to give it that little bit of sweetness that it deserves.
By the end of the beer, i really wanted another one, but it would probably be good not to (it is 5.2% after all) as it's not exactly a session beer like Castle Rock Harvest Pale, but it is extremely quaffable nonetheless. Overall i would give it a 9/10, although it is un-doubtably a great beer it isn't one you would have for a session.
Hope you enjoyed the review, please post any constructive (please no spam) comments in the comments box below. Or even suggest what i should review next. Cheers.
Monday, 30 May 2011
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).
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).
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