Saturday, March 28, 2009

Brutality at its best

A name like Brutal Bitter might get you into trouble these days. Couple that with 6.9% abv and you're certain to piss someone off, especially if you live within the reactionary reach of the Portman Group or Britain's Independent newspaper. It has taken a while for the mainstream media to get a hold of Brewdog's wrangling with the Portman Group - this has been a talking point in beer interest circles for quite some time, but now it has escaped into the world and it is saddening to see that those who chose to bring it to the attention of the wider public are as ill informed as those who took umbrage with Brewdog in the first place. Thankfully we have Pete Brown to take these people to task.

Rogue Brewing Company should consider themselves very lucky indeed that they live in a country where strong beer that is cleverly marketed is not seen as a worrisome thing which will result in the inevitable destruction of the very moral fabric of society. Of course there are parts of America where alcohol of any description is decried - Alabama comes to mind, but generally you will not note the level of hypocrisy that is levelled in Britain when it comes to sharply marketed strong craft beer. After all wine is lauded in every foodie supplement and not a mention of the mind bending alcohol levels is made. I find it very strange indeed that wine is thrown back by the half bottle by many people without a second thought, while the mention of a beer that weighs in at 9% sends the very same people scurrying under the table. Nobody would drink 750ml of 14% ale by themselves, yet the same volume of wine disappears with little thought or effort at all. I'm sure a beer like Brutal Bitter would get the same reception from the hand wringers as Orkney Brewery's Skull Splitter - it sounds aggressive and nasty and totally unsuitable for the public to cope with. No doubt they would want to drink pints and pints of it with the intention of getting smashed. Perhaps millionaires might enjoy getting hammered on craft beer, but let's face it, if the average person wants to drunk he/she grabs numerous tins of something cheap and nasty and gets on with the job. They are not going to spend 3 or 4 quid on a sufficient number of 330ml bottles of craft ale to do it. Why the hand wringers at The Portman Group and other nanny state organisations don't see this I have no idea.


The beer itself is typical Rogue with plenty of orange/citrus notes, an intense bitterness and a substantial rich malt backbone to bear the strain of the hops. The alcohol is evident but only in the background where is warms nicely, but otherwise lets the malt and hops get on with the show. Why it is called a Bitter I don't know. It's not Bitter as I and a couple of million British beers drinkers know it, but that's not a problem. My only sadness about discovering its true nature was a fleeting thought that an American brewer was attempting to brew this classic beer style because it is always fun to see what Americans make of a straight up interpretation of old beers styles rather than pimping them to extreme levels that are so common at the moment.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Rising Tides

It's been a great few weeks on the Irish craft beer front. It started with the first Irish stout to be pulled from a cask in an Irish pub for over 50 years during the St Patrick's Day celebrations, and this week we have the 6th Independent Irish Beer and Whiskey Festival being held at the Porterhouse. I chanced an invite to the press launch and must confess to thinking this was the first festival of this kind, being unaware of the previous ones. During conversation with Oliver, one of the Porterhouse founders, and the head brewer Peter, I witnessed Oliver turning to Peter and state that they should never have stopped holding these festivals. There appears to have been a hiatus between the last festival and this one, but Oliver's earnest tone clearly displays his love of the craft brewing in Ireland. He is firm believer of the rising tide lifting all boats and as a result, despite the Porterhouse's huge success, they refuse to be complacent and actively seek to help other craft brewers who do not have the luxury of a brew pub to sell their beer, relying upon the caprice and greed of the average Irish publican who for the most part is not the micro brewer's friend.

On the whole, the Irish craft brewing scene is an open collection of people, almost all of them will allow you to root around their breweries and offer you a glass of the very freshest craft beer from a conditioning tank. Yet the Porterhouse lads have come across some very strange attitudes over the years in their attempt to share some of the vast experience they have at producing and marketing craft beer. One brewery (now defunct) reluctantly dealt with them, guarding their 'trade secrets', and was generally very secretive about their operation, yet they still expected the Porterhouse to sell their beer. This is the antithesis of the current craft brewing scene in Ireland and might go some way to explaining why that brewery has been dispatched to the annals of Irish craft brewing history.


It's not very often you get the chance to talk at length with a master brewer so I, along with a few other keenly interested individuals, grabbed the opportunity to get some technical information out of Peter the Porterhouse head brewer. Snippets about recipe formulation, dispense systems and general problems with getting keg carbonation just right were touched upon and eagerly devoured. Interestingly Peter appeared to hint at a small degree of envy towards the length of time the head stays on a pint of Guinness. I was quick to reassure him that while a Guinness head might stay around longer, the head on a pint of any of the Porterhouse stouts looks far more appetising than other stouts, having a more luscious appearance and richer colour. It's interesting to note that even the most successful micro brewers might cast an envious eye towards St. James's Gate once in a while.

The beer available consisted of the best that Irish micro breweries have to offer. It was wonderful to have them all in the same place it is inevitable that much good will come from the attention drawn to this small niche in Ireland's multi billion Euro beer market. The beer that interested me most came from the boys at Galway Hooker, who kick started the Irish craft beer scene again with the introduction of their iconoclastic hop driven pale ale a few years ago. Dunkel weisse is their latest venture which fills a gap in the Irish Craft beer scene in that no other brewer has made this style of beer before. It fills the need quite well with a refreshing spiciness mingling with a light roast character. The biggest surprise of the night was Clotworthy Dobbin from the Whitewater Brewing Co. This beer had received extensive hype last year when it was given very high praise from an international voting panel. I tried it in the bottle shortly afterward and wondered what all the fuss was about, but it has become clear to me why this beer was so well received having had a pint of it from keg; it is full of wonderful hops backed up superbly with rich chewy malt. Clearly this beer doesn't do too well in the bottle. Another very satisfying beer came from Messrs Maguire who offered a malty bock from keg. At only 4.7% abv it wasn't exactly in bock territory but didn't suffer at all as a result. The last time this beer turned up it was 6%, but apparently caused problems in the bar it was served in with punters getting smashed on it rather too quickly.

There were many other beers available but I couldn't hope to get to them all on a work night, but I plan to drop in tomorrow and have a few more. The official judging for the beer of the festival was carried out today. I don't know who won, but keep an eye on Aran Brew where Laura (that's her looking coy on the left) will no doubt announce the winners because she was part of the judging panel. Everyone who can should make an effort to get to a Porterhouse and sample some of the wonderful beer on offer. I speak especially to those in and around London who might be able to get to the Covent Garden branch because this is a golden opportunity to try some quality Irish craft ale. I'm not sure how much of it will arrive in London, but at the very least you might get to try some Galway Hooker Pale Ale and that alone will make it worth the effort.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Real pumps and real ale

A number of pubs around Dublin have what appear to be hand pumps on the bar, positioned in view of all but utterly useless, serving only as a perverted tease to poor cask ale lovers like me. My latest encounter was in Gibney's of Malahide where these three prominent pumps sat upon the bar. I have no doubt they are left there as an attractive feature adding, in the mind of the average money grabbing Irish publican, an authentic air to the bar. Not that they would have the first clue what to do with a cask if it was given to them, but they almost seem to understand that things were not always as they are now, once beer was pulled from these archaic devices and it wasn't a few degrees above freezing when committed to the glass.

You can imagine my excitement when I got wind of the news that The Bull and Castle, that bastion of great beer and progress, planned to have a cask stout on for the St Patrick's Day festivities. I was optimistic that the cask would be emptied very quickly indeed but others in the Irish beer lovers group were not as bullish. I am glad to say that I was correct, the beer was gone is twenty four hours - quite an achievement in an Irish pub where cask ale does not exist. Fair enough, it was a public holiday and there were a great many tourists about the place but it was still very impressive. I managed to grab a pint just as the cask neared its end and was thoroughly satisfied with what I got. The stout in question was Leann Follain brewed by The Carlow Brewing Company. It weighs in a 6% abv so wasn't exactly a session pint but I still sank my pint quite rapidly and went for more. Dark roasted malt was to the fore made all the more enjoyable by the warmer serving temperature and perfect carbonation. It was just super to get a pint of stout in an Irish pub which didn't freeze your hand to the glass when you carried it back to the table. There were a number of teething problems with the set up that will no doubt be ironed out, but Geoff, the tireless and industrious manager of the bar, has assured us that more cask will be available in the future. Unsurprisingly the brewers he has spoken to are very happy to provide him with cask ale because it is far easier to produce than keg, dispensing as it does with all the filtration steps which strip the beer of some flavour.

This is the start of something fabulous in the Irish beer scene.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Tangfastic

I thought I might be a little sneaky and steal a march on The Beer Nut and Laura who will doubtless post very soon about their trip to the Cantillon Brewery by cracking open my single bottle of Cantillon Gueuze before they make it to print. This bottle has hung around in my cupboard since the now legendary ICB trip to Copenhagen for the European Beer Festival. I grabbed the bottle eagerly when I saw it on the shelf knowing full well that it is not available in Ireland and likely will not be for quite some time.

I love tart/tangy things. You know those fizzy cola bottles and other teeth rotting type tangy nasties? Those are my preference when it comes to sweets. In fact I love vinegar. I enjoy it on salads in various guises and I adore the acetic vapours that stream from a bag of steaming chips fresh from the chip shop. With this in mind it should be little wonder that I really get off on Lambic beers and this one in particular really hits the spot. It is almost acetic in its intensity with a wonderful lip smacking acidity that cuts through everything and lingers, tingling on the sides of the tongue for an age after the mouthful. I have tried other Lambic style ales over the years but this one fully delivers in a way that the tamer ones do not. The only beer I have tried that surpasses this for outright acidity is Stevns CCC from Norrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen which was uncompromising in its intensity and left even me pulling very funny faces.

I am always left a little perplexed by lambic because it contains flavours that I adore but at the same time signal death to any of my home brewed beers. I marvel at the cocktail of micro fauna that contribute to the incredibly intense and complex flavours in these beers, yet render them so enjoyable. Perhaps I'll swab down The Beer Nut next I meet him in the hope that some of the resident house yeast from Cantillion has ensconced itself upon his person and I might culture it here in The Black Cat Brewery and brew some of this tangfastic beer for myself.

Friday, March 6, 2009

The Session - Love Lager? Sometimes.

Lager's a safe bet, isn't it? Even the slightly fuller flavoured ones are acceptable to the non beer enthusiast if nothing else is available. For my part I started drinking mass produced Irish ale when I became legal, it rot my innards and I was a one man bio reactor the next morning so at some point I migrated to Heineken. A step up? Hard to say, but the gastrointestinal issues resolved themselves only to be replaced with neurological ones. I don't go for all that chemicals in the beer stuff causing hangovers; ethanol is the most dangerous chemical in beer and it is the diuretic effect and nasty metabolic by products that cause your brain to shrink from your skull and tug rather painfully on the nerves in your cranium. So, lager is not nasty, even the mass produced stuff. Sure, it doesn't taste of much and in many cases I rather go without than chug down a few bland beers, but the common view that the most popular lagers in the world are full of 'chemicals' just isn't accurate.

Almost every country in the world that brews beer produces a lager of some form. It is usually very light in colour and tastes of not much at all, but that doesn't matter because if you are visiting that country you are likely at your leisure and there is a very good chance it is hot and if you are Irish it is a great deal hotter than Ireland. That's almost certain, and in my experience my tolerance for light flavoured lagers served bone chillingly cold goes up quite a few notches in that environment. In many cases I would go so far as to say it taste good. This is all part of the beer drinking experience and might go some way to explain why light lager is so very popular.

From the point of view of the consumer, mass produced light lager's appeal comes from its easy going nature; it doesn't ask much of you and if it is brewed with care it'll hit the spot rather well. The curious thing is that for the brewer it couldn't be more different. Lager, particularly a light one, is very unforgiving of bad practice in brewery. There is nowhere to hide the funk of a bad fermentation or sub standard conditioning, alterations in colour are as easily detected as a change of hue in a glass of water and complicated equipment is required to use the adjuncts that us craft brewers so readily harry them about. In short, it hard to brew good lager but consumers love it. The demand for mass lager is so great that the expense and effort put in pays off many times over.

There is the old adage that it is better to drink the beer in a country with a questionable municipal water supply than the stuff from the tap because no known pathogenic organisms survive the brewing process. This is solid advice because the pathogens living in tainted water would make my Irish ale induced sufferings look very insignificant indeed. I suppose the most fearful place we might think of for this kind of problem is Africa. I have never been, and have never tried an African an beer until now, but it should be little surprise that lager is available on the Dark Continent. Bell Lager of Uganda surprised me somewhat because I anticipated that if would have grain other than malted barley in its make up; but no, it is an all malt, very refreshing, lightly effervescent lager with a nice dash of hops and a classic European nose. The label gives me gives me pause for thought with respect to my earlier words on chemicals in lager though; it states that the beer contains 'permitted stabilisers and correctives'. Hmmmm, what exactly are they and who has permitted them?

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Winter warmer still required

Winter returned to Ireland this week. After a brief period of Spring warmth a cold front has come crashing into this small island nation and generally we don't cope terribly well with this sort of thing. I could complain about this I suppose - the walk to work is that bit more challenging, but instead I decided to counter the near sub zero temperatures with a toasty 'Barley Wine Style Ale'. This politically correct nomenclature is no doubt due to a pedant's confusion over exactly what is in the bottle. On this side of the Atlantic this beer is merely a barley wine. If my memory serves me well I recall reading that Old Foghorn was one of the first strong ales to be produced in America when Anchor Steam started producing craft beer. Perhaps this explains why it is more like an English barley wine that the super IBU versions that are best typified by Sierra Nevada's Big Foot. I much prefer Old Foghorn because it has a wonderful soft dry hop aroma and flavour without any of the intense bitterness in other American barley wines. It is lush and chewy with wonderful sweet sugary malt character, little of the 8.8% is betrayed in the body which is pleasant and not overly viscous. This beer was one that jumped out at me from the pages of the glossy beers of the world books I loved to read a few years ago realising at the time that there was almost zero chance of finding the beers in Ireland. I think it was talked up quite a bit and also was quoted as coming in a nip bottle which I thought rather quaint, but this bottle is a full 355ml American bottle measure which is all the better because it is wonderful stuff.