American dark beer rules!

The American brewers are really doing something right with their dark beers. There is a richness and depth of flavour that puts so many other stouts and porters in the shade. Sam Adams Holiday Porter was my last American dark treat. I have The Beer Nut to thank for that, and he similarly steered me towards this one too. The richness of the malt in Sierra Nevada's Stout suggests that it isn't just your run of the mill base malt holding the show together. Much like the Holiday Porter I suspect there is a measure of richer malts such as Vienna or Munich to beef things up a bit. On the nose it has the familiar sharpness of roasted barley and perhaps some other dark grains, but it is only upon a deep satisfying slurp that the hops creep up and bite you. When I brew my own stouts I rarely add any late hop additions because I think that the rich dark grains should run the show, but the hops work very well indeed here and meld perfectly with the roasted grain. It's chewy as hell too, with a wonderful body and smooth dark chocolate texture that makes you wish the glass will never end. American brewers are teaching me so very much about dark beer and just what it can be. In many cases they have gone way over the top in their reinterpretation of classic beer styles, but they can clearly produce superb beer when they don't get too carried away with making classic styles their own.

(I should add that while The Beer Nut's palate for dark beer is finely tuned and essentially flawless, it malfunctions rather badly when the beer is adulterated with nitrogen.)

Yay! More session ale!

I stumbled upon this in Marks and Spencer the other day. I was very pleased to find it because as I have said before I love session ale but can't get my hands on any of the stuff. As with many other Marks and Sparks products this beer is repackaged for the chain store and distributed to their outlets. I'm very happy they decided that the Irish people would enjoy a session ale and treated myself to a four pack, which was very reasonably priced unlike most English ales that make their way to Ireland. I can't get too excited about this one though, because as I suspected it's a fairly easy going bitter, quite typical of many I have tried from the bottle. It is a little fizzy and metallic but nicely bitter without any hop aroma. At only 3.2% abv and served in the curious (to me anyway) 440ml can this is a superb measure of tasty restorative beer and a most welcome addition to the Irish market.

The can is worth a mention because I rarely drink beer from cans, not because I disapprove of them, but merely because decent beer in Ireland is not generally served in cans. Many people believe that the can contributes a metallic note to the beer, but having studied packaging technology I can assure you that this is not the case because the inside of the can is covered in an inert lacquer that protects the can from corrosion and the beer from tainting. Cans are by far the best form of storage for beer because they are light, sturdy and recycling of them saves far more energy than the recycling of glass due to the massive amount of energy required to purify aluminum from the the ore. Having said all that, I still prefer my beer from bottle and despite all the environmental considerations bottles will likely remain the preferred container for beer in the future.

Redemption

So this is what the brewers at Gulpener are doing when they aren't vigorously buggering wit beers with artificial flavours and sweeteners. Their Chateau Neubourg Pilsner is a solid flavourful foamy lager with the classic slightly DMS nose. There are some hops mixed in and around the standard lager character and the malt isn't lacking either. While it's not on a par with the richer Czech pilsners, it is a perfect match for the better quality Dutch lagers and is eminently refreshing. The label says it's all malt and the rich lingering foam backs this up. It comes served in the same blue bottle as their multi grain wheat beer, Korenwolf, which I find very appealing. There was no hint of the awful skunking that occurs with green bottles, but this could down to the use of sneaky adulterated hop products that do not degrade in the light. I'm long over due a post on the chemistry of skunking, but finding the time to do a properly researched piece is proving difficult at the moment with wedding preparations and other brewing exams to do. Still, at least I find the time to drink good beer.

Good News for People Who Like Bad News

Tragedy has befallen The Black Cat Brewery. No no, Oscar the brewery cat is fine, but an alteration to my brewing technique, in an attempt to optimise the brew day, has ruined two batches of beer. I should have known better because hot wort really doesn't like to be aerated. I was all too aware of this but thought I was gentle enough with the swifter transfer of the wort in order to speed up the run off from the mash tun. The upshot is 50 litres of beer with a particularly unpleasant flavour, that my beer suffered from in earlier years, but I managed to eradicate. It is a peculiar flavour that I can't stomach, but other home brew chums of mine seem to be unable to taste it. The only positive I can take from it is the identification of the source of an off flavour, and it is always nice to figure out where particular flavours, good or bad, come from.

The Great Irish Stout Challenge

Could you tell the difference between the main four nitrogenated Irish stouts? Last week a small group of us from the ICB community attempted to do it. In case you aren't aware, the 4 main stouts are Murphy's and Beamish of Cork, Guinness of Dublin and and the relatively recent edition of O Hara's stout from the Carlow Brewing Company. O Neill's pub on Suffolk Street in Dublin was the only venue where this experiment could be carried out because it is unique among Dublin pubs in that it serves all of the Irish stouts on draught.

I wasn't very confident going into this experiment because the only one I thought would stand out was O Hara's due to its fuller flavour, and so this proved to be the case, as I managed to identify it on the first sip. The others were more difficult until I got to the last which turned out to be the chocolate containing Murphy's and was easily picked out from the rest. As for the remaining Guinness and Beamish, I was stumped. I couldn't confidently tell them apart and so took the dodgy strategy of distinguishing them on serving temperature. One was far colder than the other and I surmised this was Guinness as it is often served at shockingly cold temperatures not befitting of a dry stout. I was wrong.

It was a fun evening and I recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a beer lover and as an educational introduction into blind tasting. The instigator of this game, Dave, has done some statistical analysis on the Irish Craft Brewer site. He can explain the significance of the choices we made far better than I.

The Session

The Session this month is about beers for a special occasion, perhaps a brew you've had stashed away for a while just waiting for the right moment. I rarely do this with beer mainly because most of my friends are not beer lovers and I haven't got anyone to share a special beer with who might fully appreciate why I lay a particular beer down for a couple of years. One beer that does come to mind as a celebratory beer was a few bottles of the 2003 vintage of Thomas Hardy's Ale. I opened a bottle of this a few few years ago at Christmas thinking it was the perfect beer to drink with the Old Man on a cold winter evening. We had previously taken quite a shine to the super strong Samiclaus Lager over Christmas so believed that Thomas Hardy's Ale would be just our thing. Sadly, this proved not to be so as it was too rich for the both of us and we didn't really enjoy it. So, two years later I have dug out another bottle of this potent ale from my beer stash to see if it or I have changed in the intervening period.

Not a sound came from the cap as I eased it from the bottle. This would be a cause for concern in just about any other beer, but not this one. It poured totally flat even with an attempt at a little agitation and the deep ruby colour settled out very quickly indeed. It smelled strong. At bottling it was rated at 11.7% but according to a few beer textbooks the strength can go up a point or two thanks to the massive residual extract contained in the bottle. I tentatively took my first sip dearly hoping that my palate had matured enough in the intervening years to appreciate this beer. The alcohol smacks you in the mouth initally but once this is dealt with the rich viscous body gives up very potent beef broth and mollases. My other half took a very tentative sip declared it disgusting and said it smelled of 'cow nuts' - a form of enriched feed dished out to cattle in the West of Ireland. Lucky cows, because I really enjoyed it this time round and fortunatley have another few bottles put away. Perhaps I'll save them for a special occasion and actually enjoy it this time.

Mc Lager

Mac's Gold All Malt Lager of New Zealand isn't quite as generic as the derogatory title of this post suggests, but I couldn't resist the pun and the beer is damn near as harmless as the myriad other lagers that appear out of the Southern hemisphere. I say near to harmless because it does have a reasonably satisfying malt aspect and the bitterness lingers a little longer than I anticipated. But I am drinking it warmer than the tongue numbing temperature that it will be served in its homeland and this might account for some of the flavour. I have no doubt it tastes of nothing at all when served as intended which is a shame because it has something to offer and should be permitted to speak.

It is capped in a manner I haven't come across before that is no doubt very handy on the beach or on the move, but a rethink might be order because this is the first beer I have transported home that opened during the journey. As a result I drank it sooner than anticipated while it was still in a fit state, but this is a major flaw in this cap design and something that should be attended to by the brewers. It doesn't matter how much quality malt or hops you stuff into a beer if the bloody thing is stale by the time to gets to the consumer, which is something this beer runs a real chance of falling foul of.