A big, busty, boozy babe

I haven't had much luck with strong Italian beer. Most of the time it is merely a stronger version of a bland thirst slaker that curiously manages to taste of just as little.

I picked up this 'Birra Artiganale' in a fabulous Roman shop richly stocked with a truly mind boggling selection of wine, olive oil, pasta, meat, cheese and chocolate. Predictably the beer selection was limited, but it gave an inkling of the small yet tenacious craft brewing industry that is taking shape in Italy.

The marketing is crass (this is but one of the beers I bought. The others included a busty red head and curvaceous brunette) but it is not entirely surprising coming from the land of Silvio Berlusconi. I can't imagine that the matronly woman on the label would be invited to one of Berlusconi's infamous 'bunga bunga' parties. He likes his women younger and slimmer if the tabloids are to be believed.

La Tabachera is a big hitting beer - the 10% abv is evident on the nose and on the tongue, but is surprisingly light for such a big beer. It is warming with whipped cream foam that faded all to quickly. The colour is an attractive copper, something not very often seen in Italian beer and more surprisingly it throws a chill haze demonstrating the brewer's commitment to unflitered ale. There's plenty of sweet honey malt to keep up the interest without any cloying, no hops to speak of but a slight chemical note bordering on industrial makes it hard to fully enjoy things.

This beer certainly stands out from all other Italian beer, even the handful of craft ales available. You can't help but think that the future of Italian craft beer rests on the ample shoulders of this woman and her equally well endowed friends.

Doppelgänger

Does this label look a lot like Pilsner Urquell, or is it just me? It provoked a double take on my part when I spotted it out of the corner of my eye in the local Spar. For a moment I thought it was some manner of re-branding by the big Czech brewer, but soon realised it was a lookalike attempting to piggy back on hard won marketing of Pilsner Urquell. Interestingly this beer is brewed in Slovakia by a no doubt once proud independent brewer that is now owned by Heineken. I wonder if Slovak brewers are at all jealous of the huge success enjoyed by their once countrymen in the Czech Republic? Zlaty Bazant isn't quite as enjoyable as Pilsner Urquell; it is harsher without the effortless mellow character that I like in latter, but the nose is similar with wonder floral hops and the body has the same satisfying and distinctive malt found in lager from around those parts. Overall it's a heavier, boozier affair with a bit more DMS too, giving a slight veggie note that I don't particularly care for.


I suppose I have fallen into an inevitable comparison with Pilsner Urquell, but that's what you get when you market your beer in a perilously similar way to one of the most enjoyable lagers in the world. Sadly it was also inevitable that the comparison would be unfavourable.

Just Peachy

One of the finest aspects of the many hop varieties available to brewers is the myriad fruit flavours and aromas that these little green leaves add to beer. Citrus notes are very pleasant, as are tropical fruit flavours such as mango. Golden Glory from Badger has a 'floral blend of aromatic and bitter hops', but there is no way that these hops alone can account for the fruity smell and flavour. The beer reeks of peaches and melon - surely the result of the addition of some fresh fruit or essence. I have never come across an ale with such a fruity aroma and flavour and find it hard to believe that it stems from hops alone. There is no mention on the label of fruit being added during the brew but the 'unmistakable peach aroma' is acknowledged.

Despite the fruity kick in the face, this beer is quite pleasant. It is sweet but not in the sickly way that Blandford Fly assaulted the palate. The body and bitterness blend well with the sweetness and make this an enjoyable experience. Summer is undoubtedly the time to fully appreciate this beer - it is refreshing, but the pong from the glass really takes some getting over.

It looks good, tastes good and, by golly, it does you good!

I'm doing well in the low alcohol beer stakes. Manns Brown Ale satisfied me earlier and now a few cans of Mackeson Stout picked up during a trip to Northern Ireland are doing the job just as well. I've had an interest in Mackeson stout ever since my father declared that one of my first attempts at a home brewed stout tasted like it, and recited with gusto the now defunked Mackeson advertising slogan: "It Looks good, tastes good and, by golly, it does you good!" He remembered clearly the days when this stout was recommended to nursing mothers and anyone else in need of nourishment. Nowadays such statements fall foul of all kinds of advertising standards political correctness insanity despite the obvious truth to the statement. It is nutritional, and taken in moderation is a valid and welcome part of anyone's diet.

Looking back it is no surprise he drew the comparison between my stout and this one. Mine was made from heavy, sickly bitter sweet dark liquid malt extract and finished up with a high final gravity, providing plenty of residual sweetness. That's what Mackeson stout gives up too - a sweet/bitter mix with plenty of body. The full body and sweetness comes from the addition of lactose, a sugar that brewers' yeast cannot metabolise, leaving it in the finished beer. Once again, like Manns this little beer is satisfying and full despite the wee 3% abv. I must admit to having more respect for Manns because the brewers have made the beer satisfying through skilful use of malts and mashing, while brewers of Mackeson stout use lactose to pad things out, which let's face it, is cheating. It is a shame that Inbev now produce this lovely little beer because it is the very antithesis of big industry, in its little can that provides all of one unit of alcohol.

Beer, but not as we know it

Ginger is featuring a lot in my beer drinking. This time it's a bit different. This is ginger beer in the true sense of the word - an alcoholic version of the stuff bought in the local shop. I suppose it's a viable form of beer - it's all too easy to get trapped into the restricted thinking of beer being composed solely of malt and hops, but ginger beer has neither. Most of us can live with our beer being spiced with vegetative items other than hops, and can also countenance grains other than barley, but is this stuff beer in the sense we understand it? I don't really care to be honest.

The ginger leaps from the glass and pulls the hair from your nostrils, making the eyes almost water. I love this in decent ginger beer. The heat on the tongue matches the zing in the nose, but it's sweet - too much for me, but to make things worse there is an unpleasant after taste that is the unmistakable faintly bitter note of artificial sweetener, which is a shame. Perhaps a dose of hops might fix that...

Recognition

M&S can always be relied upon to provide some of the tastiest nibbles on the high street. Sadly the beer selection often does not match the quality of the food on offer. In Ireland we generally don't get the beer that is on sale in the UK. I do not know who decides which of the available M&S beers make their way to Irish shelves, but he/she must be influenced by sales alone because until recently only the blandest of English ale made it. I imagine their thought processes were along the lines of the Irish not being interested in English ale, what with all the Guinness we have to drink over here. In part they are correct - except that the Irish are in fact much like the British in that the beer of choice is lager, every bit as cold and bland as that on sale in the UK. Being persistently disappointed by the beer on offer has curtailed my trips to M&S, but last weekend I hit pay dirt in one of the larger stores in west Dublin. I was greeted with a wide range of beers from around Europe, not to mention some promising English ale. I grabbed a few and headed for the till.

Another strange aspect of the beer from M&S is the mysterious nature of it. Rarely is the brewery listed on the bottle - we merely have to accept that M&S source only the very best of food and drink. This practise left Irish beer lovers trying to figure out who was brewing the M&S Irish Stout that was on sale all over the UK. It turned out to be The Carlow Brewing Company, and true to their selection strategy, they couldn't have picked a better stout. Another example of this was their Cornish IPA, which turned out to be St Austell's hop packed Proper Job  - a beer not made available in Ireland.

The guessing games are over now. On these most recent bottles full recognition is given to the brewery, and not before time. As a result we now know that their solid Norfolk Bitter comes from Woodeforde's. While the silky sweet Cheshire Chocolate Porter comes from Unicorn Brewery of Stockport, and their rich malty Southwold Winter Beer can be attributed to Adnams and is likely a derivation of their Broadside recipe.

It is important to know who brews the beer we drink so we might give recognition for great achievement, or know to steer clear in the future.

Sweet Fire Fly

My last run in with an ale spiced with ginger was a hit and miss affair. The colour was great, as was the dry warmth the ginger added, but it was gassy and thin. Blandford Fly from Badger is an eqully mixed bag, but for different reasons. Once again the colour is alluring, as is the distinct ginger whiff from the rich foam. On the tongue the ginger asserts itself as a none too subtle heat that lingers on the roof of the mouth. The carbonation is just about right, and this, coupled with full body makes for satisfying drinking. Something didn't quite sit right though. The mild bitterness seems to fight against a distinct sweetness that grew more unpalatable with each return to the glass, until, with half the bottle gone, I declared myself sick of it. Where does this sweetness come from? Maple syrup. I hadn't given the label my full attention and did not notice it on the blurb, so was quite surprised when I scrutinised the bottle more carefully. I don't see the need for it. The ginger addition was well balanced adding a nice zing, but the sweetness overpowered my ailing palate. Perhaps the beer would not be the same at all without the maple syrup - it is very likely responsible for the full body I enjoyed. It seems like a strange combo too, making the beer like some manner of dessert. Perhaps a small glass, just after dinner is the way to enjoy this strange ale.

No better Mann

Brewing beer with low alcohol content and therefore utilising small quantities of malt during the brew, but still managing to make the beer satisfying is quite a challenge. English brewers are rather good at it, knocking out any number of moreish ales at 3.5% abv. However most of these beers are at their best on cask and do not take well to being captured in a bottle. Young's Bitter comes to mind - gorgeous on cask but thin and gassy in the bottle. So, how have brewers of Manns Brown Ale managed to produce an ale of a mere 2.8% abv that is very satisfying despite being shoved in  a bottle? It's a trick I would like to learn. I don't like the way that the label seems to push the beer as a mere cooking ingredient because it holds its own very well as a stand alone drink. There is surprisingly rich roasted notes, but more importantly the malt satisfies, and this is often the big let down in beer of this strength. What am I saying, 'this strength'? This stuff is far weaker than the average pint of session ale on offer in Britain which makes its drinkability all the more surprising.

Surprise delivery

I've been away awhile. Haven't much to write amount in truth. I had the privilege of working Christmas day in the lab, which proved to be more depressing than I thought it would be. I was kept busy with incidents of gastroenteritis, no doubt a result of poorly prepared Christmas dinners. I didn't get out to a single pub over the holiday season either. A couple of days before a roaring open fire in the windswept West of Ireland did my heart good as did a lively wedding just after New Year. There was little in the way of interesting beer to be had until a surprise delivery from the nice people at CAMRA arrived. It seems the lads at Realale.com fixed their delivery issues by using a courier that I suggested to them. So bottled real ale is flowing in my house once again. I grazed on the delivery over the last week or so and declare myself quite happy with it.

Hobson's Choice proved to be a golden ale I could really get on with. I have griped about English golden ale in the past, with good reason, but this one really bucked the trend with lip smacking bitterness, full body and rounded malt.

Cheddar Ale's Totty Pot started a little weak wristed but soon gave up the goods upon warming - treacle like roasted notes were the reward for not rushing.  

Grumpling Old Ale was a solid, if uneventful ruby ale. Plenty of malt and fullness but fairly typical of many other ales. There are a lot of these ales in CAMRA deliveries, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying them.

Palmerston's Folly was unusual for a winter selection - a sweet ale with a decent dose of wheat made for refreshing drinking, but seemed incongruous among the heavier ales.

The most striking ale came from Wiltshire in the shape of Chimera IPA - heftily hopped with English fare and authentic at 7% abv. A fine beer with uncompromising bitterness and malt to match.

Deliveries are bimonthly now, instead of quarterly so I can look forward to even more tasty beer this year than last. True, there are quite often a dud beer or two to be had but on the whole my CAMRA beer instalment is well worth anticipating.

Out with the old...

Some American wheat beers do not measure up at all. The very worst of them seem to use the requisite measure of wheat that might be anticipated in the more traditional wheat beers found around Europe, but then neglect to use a suitable strain of yeast. Often a standard ale strain is used that contributes little to the flavour and leaves a beer with an insipid palate, lacking any of the usual wheat beer flavour. Speakeasy's White Lightning springs to mind in this category and Sierra Nevada's wheat beer was guilty of this to a degree, but it wasn't the worst of them by a long stretch. The brewers a Chico must have become a little self conscious about the poorer quality of their wheat beer when compared to the rest of their generally outstanding work because the SN standard wheat was replaced with a Kellerweis.

This one ticks most of the wheat beer boxes when it comes to aroma and flavour. It looks the part too, holding on to rich foam and pouring a hazy gold. Plenty of banana and cloves along with a pronounced phenolic note suggesting that a very flavoursome yeast was put to work. Initially the phenol was so strong it bordered on the sort of intensity I suffered in home brew that went bad. But this passes after a few sips leaving a more authentic Bavarian style wheat beer, a cut above most other American attempts.

I suppose the question has to be asked if American brewers actually want their wheat beers to taste like Bavarian clones. The lack of spicy character in most suggests that this was a deliberate attempt to make a beer style all of their own. This seems to be the case to me because experienced American brewers know exactly why Bavarian wheat beer tastes as it does; the yeast strain is key to it, yet many American brewers deliberately neglected to use these strains resulting in a beer with a very different, and for my money, far less satisfying flavour. Sierra Nevada saw fit to change the profile of their wheat beer. It is a change for the better, but it makes me wonder what was key to their decision. Sales I imagine, but perhaps the previous incarnation is just an unsustainable style of beer.

Ginger nut

I can't recall having a ginger ale before. Of course I've had the alcohol free version many times - it's a favourite of mine, especially Fentimans interpretation. (Their cola is pretty damn good too, and something of a curiosity to me because I find it tastes exactly like cola bottles, which is great, but I would never have considered cola bottles to be a very authentic cola containing foodstuff, but Fentimans cola is definitely more natural than other of the major producers, so perhaps the humble cola bottle deserves more respect).

Anyway, back to the alcoholic version. In Keystone Brewery Gold Spice the ginger is  vaguely present in the form of a mild, yet pleasant dry heat in the back of the throat. Even without the ginger this would be a dry beer; it has little residual body and an irrepressible stream of bubble sustaining frothy foam throughout. The bottled yeast were clearly hard at work during the conditioning of this beer. There is English hop character in there somewhere too, both aroma and a distinct bitterness, but the intense condition makes the carbon dioxide burn a little and a metallic note creeps in with it. The best part in the colour of the beer; it really lives up to its name, sporting a stunning golden hue with brilliant clarity.

This beer arrived with my last CAMRA beer club delivery, but disaster has struck. CAMRA recently outsourced the distribution and selection of their beer club to realale.com  - a company I recently visited in London and were very impressed with, however they claim to have had bad luck with deliveries to Ireland in the past, with missing boxes and broken bottles occurring all too regularly. One or two of my deliveries suffered this fate, so realale.com are struggling to find a more reliable courier firm. The problem is that most couriers want to charge a fortune for delivery to Ireland. The cost isn't much of a surprise -  the average box of goodies from CAMRA weighs in excess of  20 kilograms. So it looks likes no more deliveries for me in the near future until they broker a better deal. I must confess to being a little irritated.

Light surprise

It's always nice to see a new beer on the shelves, especially when it turn turns up in an unlikely place. I spotted Wolters Pilsener in my local Spar convenience store while wandering around on mundane domestic duties. The green bottle frightened me right off, as all victims of noxious light struck beers will no doubt understand. But on closer inspection of the stock I spied six packs of the beer, with the bottles huddled tightly inside, shielding themselves timidly from the skunk inducing light. I grabbed a pack and made off home.

It is very light for a traditional pilsner - only 4% abv and sadly this comes through in the palate. While the classic lager malt and slight DMS are present it has none of the malt fullness usually found in such beers and all flavour is rinsed from the mouth far too quickly.

Perhaps I am scrutinising this beer to closely. In different conditions, a long, cold draught of this stuff would hit the spot nicely and the low alcohol content might tempt you to try another. It sure beats most of the other light flavoured lagers that we all turn to on holiday in sunny climates, but knowledge of its country of origin sets you up for a fall. Perhaps it would make a good mystery beer.

Spanish concentrate

I can't say I've had much luck with Spanish beer. My recent trip to Barcelona introduced me to some interesting craft beer, but on the whole things aren't that inspiring when it comes to Iberian offerings. While snooping around the Playa del Ingles I stumbled upon the fancy part of their supermarket, a small section full of very expensive chocolate, pasta sauce, cold cuts and various other treats. In amongst all this was a very small beer selection, mainly consisting of strong lagers that no one in their right mind would drink while enduring Barcelona in August. I grabbed a few bottles and stashed them for consumption in a more suitable climate. Dublin in November fits the bill.

The heavy alcoholic nature of these beers suits a colder climate but alcohol is about all you get from them. Both taste damn near identical, with perhaps more sweetness from Legado de Yuste - likely stemming from the corn mentioned in the ingredients, and a slight cardboard note from Cerveza Especial, but there is little else going on. If I wanted to be cruel I'd say that these beers could be arrived at by taking a measure of the standard Spanish lager, be it Estrella or San Miguel and concentrating the solution through thermal means to produce a lager of just under double the average strength. As a result the beer would be more alcoholic, sweeter and fuller bodied, but that's about it.

Bringing that Belgian funk from Brooklyn town

This bottle of Local 1 has spent the best part of a year in my beer fridge. Not for any reasons relating to maturation and such, merely a matter of waiting for the right moment. Monday evening last week fitted the bill; it had been a mother of a Monday in the workplace and I had some tasty cheese and cold cuts left over from the weekend. The popping of a cork from a generous bottle of beer such as this is always very satisfying. The hazy golden beer eagerly filled the glass only to retreat rapidly again leaving little foam, but the lively effervescence brought a distinct Belgian funk to the nose along with a malt sweetness that translates into a honey sweetness on the tongue.

I suppose this beer is a take on the Belgian Tripel - the label speaks of raw sugar additions from Mauritius which serve to thin out the body and make the beer very drinkable despite the hefty 9% abv. It works very well in this sense. The '100% bottle refermentation' make this a lively beer and I imagine the cork cage has its work cut out containing the pressure. The carbonation sits nicely, and carved through the heavy cheese and other oily treats I had with it.

As an aside, you might have noticed yet another dark, flash washed out, shadow strewn picture of a beer bottle accompanying this post. It's not ideal, but at the time of drinking I just want to get the beer in the glass and enjoy it. I usually throw down a few notes, but breaking out the camera and taking a picture often ruins the moment for me. Does anyone else who indulges in this beer blogging lark feel the same, or am I just shamefully uncommitted?

Dark beer and dark evenings, all fit for writing

The Beer Nut's musings on the joys of 'having written' gave me much to think about yesterday. I agree with him entirely, particularly about the joys to be had from a disciplined approach to writing. Sadly, I don't feel as disciplined as perhaps I should be, and my rigidity of thought with respect to how important it is to be disciplined and my apparent lack of it, is a source of consternation to me. I mean, take a look at Ron, he's a blogging machine, driven by what precisely I don't know, but you know he just loves it. Not just the having written aspect but the process of cramming all those facts and anecdotes into his posts. Mark Dredge is similarly prolific, but he just wants to write, it is essential to his well being and his beer blogging is a means of combining two things he enjoys. If you query The Beer Nut about why he blogs, he'll give you a glib answer along the lines of the need to document the beer he drinks, but it's clear there is far from mere ticking at work on his pages - you just don't have to write that well to make a list of conquests. The beer community is the better for it.

I'm glancing to my back garden while I painfully hammer out these words. Things are starting to stir. The tail end of hurricane Bill is heading this way, the depression slowly moving eastward across the country, promising heavy rainfall and a night of blustery mayhem that will no doubt slaughter the impressive sun flowers my wife has tended to over the summer. Much like other beer lovers, on evenings like this my mind turns to dark beers, particularly stout.

I am shameless in my promotion of American dark beers, but I feel this enthusiasm is entirely justified by the shear quality of those I have tried. The uncompromising nature of American brewing suits stout particularly well, mainly because flavour is packed into them but not in an overpowering one dimensional hop bomb way. It's just full, rich, complex roasted goodness with the occasion always just right measure of hops. The strong pedigree that this Oatmeal Stout traces its family tree from whet my taste buds from the off - Goose Island's IPA is a world beater, and the stout delivers in a similar manner. It's a cliché to say that an oatmeal stout is smooth, that's the very reason the oats are added, but this one really is. This may well be as much to do with the perfect carbonation as anything else. The one thing I didn't expect, but welcomed greatly was the quite pronounced smoky, phenolic note on the nose, very similar to Islay scotch. The smoke didn't follow through onto the palate, instead was replaced with wonderful bitter chocolate, coffee and a long lingering bitterness. I'm not surprised really, the damn label even looks tasty, and is the most striking manifestation of Goose Island packaging I have seen.

I feel much better now, having written.

Berliner Weisse for kids?

This bottle of Berliner Kindl Weisse has hung around in my fridge for quite some time now. I didn't worry about it going bad, the lactic acid content took care of any spoilage issues, but also the right moment to drink it just didn't present itself. It is a style of beer I've been eager to try for quite some time with the promise of a sharp tang and low alcohol content. Sadly this brand of Berliner weisse left me a tad unsatisfied.

What little I now about Berliner Weisse is this:

• Low abv (2.5 - 3.5%)
• Very low IBUs (3-8), no aroma hops are added, and often the beer isn't even boiled, with the hops added during the mash.
• A good measure of of unmalted wheat is used in the grist.
• There should be a pronounced lactic character without any acetic notes.

Everything you need to know about this history of this beer can be found at Ron's, of course. I was keen to see if it really measured up in the taste intensity stakes, like Cantillion's Lambic and I thought I was in for a treat if there is any truth in the stories about barman in Berlin looking at you curiously if you don't drink the stuff "mit schuss", the idea being that it is intolerable without some syrup to ease the palate somewhat. From the off I was determined to drink it without any flavour additions but need not have worried as this particular Berliner weisse is very tame indeed - almost to the point of a slightly sickly blandness. The lactic character is there alright, but it doesn't bite and leaves a vacuum on the tongue where you might expect the pleasant acidic tingle to satisfy. The carbonation wasn't as high as anticipated either - three to four volumes of CO2 are common, but the malt was reasonably with a grainy/bready contribution.

This lack of flavour and intensity has led me to believe that I have got a form of Berliner Weisse Lite on my hands. The cheeky sprog on the label makes this seem even more likely. Perhaps Barry can shed some light on this beer from his newly adopted home in Germany?

Kilkenny City: Epic Beer Fail.

Well what do you expect from a small town with a Diageo run brewery sitting at its very heart? It's called a city for some reason. I ran through the various explanations I had heard for this designation; a cathedral, a castle, sufficient population, but in the end you can't help but come to the conclusion that it is a town, and a delightful one at that. It has a distinct medieval feel, mainly from the large amount of old rock and stones about the place. There are plenty of cobbled streets and ancient walls, as well as the castle, of course which sits on the river Nore and has no doubt seen a fair bit of action over the years, what with the bellicose nature of the natives.

Diageo's St Francis Abbey Brewery was closed last Saturday when I dropped into town with my wife to quietly celebrate my 30th birthday. I had nosey around the outside of the of the brewery, but nothing of interest was going on despite Diageo's claim that Budweiser is brewed 7 days a week on the premises to satisfy the seemingly unquenchable Irish thirst for this uninspiring beer.

Kilkenny is a town of pubs and churches (much like many Irish towns), but the quality of them is very high. The beer in the pubs sadly is not; the usual fare of Budwesier, Guinness, Smithwick's, Carlsberg and Heineken. I couldn't help but try some Kilkenny Irish Ale while there because it was one of the first beers I tried all those years ago. It was a go to beer for me around a decade ago when it was launched, but very few drank it and it was something of a gamble when ordering it in a Dublin pub. It tasted of far less than I recalled - unsurprising really because back then Kilkenny was damn near a speciality beer. Nowadays, to my more experienced palate, it tastes of damn all. The overriding flavour was nitrogen, I reckon. I also sampled some Smithwick's over the weekend, and came to the conclusion that it and Kilkenny Irish Ale are one in the same, save for the nitrogen adulterant.

The weekend wasn't a complete beer wash out, mind. Thanks to Laura I found The Wine Centre, a blissful oasis in this beer desert. When I walked in two guys behind the counter were discussing the merits of Fuller's ESB. My kind of place! It contains a very respectable selection of world beer, more than enough to keep the average beer geek content, and well worth visiting if you're in town. Laura alerted me to The Wine Centre after I had arrived in town, but fearing things would be a little barren on the beer front I brought a few bottles from home to stock the mini bar and aid my comfort while in the hotel. These included some Zeitgeist from Brewdog, and a bottle of Fuller's Summer Ale. I can't recommend the Summer Ale at all; it disappoints in so many ways, but Zeitgeist proved to be top notch, full of roasted malt and very clean. But it can't replace Brooklyn Lager, despite what some Irish Twitterers have suggested.

Cobweb ale

I dusted the cobwebs off my brewing equipment yesterday. Literally. Too long a stint in the attic draped them with silken threads. Another golden ale was my plan yesterday, but this time with a little more body than the last one. To this end I added 10% dextrin malt to the grist, which will fill out the body but will not alter golden colour I desire. It looked like this:

3.9 kg Maris Otter
400 g Carapils

35g Northdown 60 mins
15g Cascade 20 mins
15g Centennial 10 mins
15g Centennial 0 mins

Mashed at 66 C

40 IBU

Saf o5

OG 1.040

I made modest additions of calcium sulphate and calcium chloride to boost the calcium in my liquor and add some fullness. I had to make some major adjustments to my tap water because a grist that pale will not tolerate 200 ppm alkalinity, which is what I found in my water. I used lactic acid to bring the pH down to around 5.5 which corresponds to alkalinity of around 25 ppm.

While brewing I sampled two ales from this quarter's CAMRA beer club delivery. Interestingly, in the literature with the delivery CAMRA almost apologised for the inclusion of a golden ale, noting that a great many of them are not up to standard. I have whinged about this for quite some time, having been plagued with entire deliveries from CAMRA of listless, thin and gassy golden ales. Crop Circle from the Hopback Brewery was the worrisome golden ale in this delivery, but it can't be dismissed as bland. In fact this ale packs quite a bit of flavour, with a harsh hop character. Lemons strike you on the nose and the addition of maize to this beer gives it a lighter body. Along with this I tried Potholer from Cheddar Ales. This is my kind of English ale. Full biscuit malt with lip smacking, well rounded hop bitterness, topped off with rich foam and a mouth watering copper hue.

This is American beer

July fourth rolls around again. There is no real need for celebration in Dublin but a number of theme events are held around the city. It seems only fair that a nod is given, what with the warm American embrace our very own St Patrick's Day enjoys across the pond. None of these events are related to beer sadly, but that must surely change in the near future because there is vast selection of excellent American beer available in the city. Most of it is in bottles but a willing publican would not find it difficult to muster all these bottles together and stage an American beer festival all of our own.

American craft beer is excellent. No qualifications or caveats are required. American craft brewers are leading the way with a spirit of adventure without compromise, creating the best beer in the world. In celebration of this intrepid journey I opened a bottle of Flying Dog's Gonzo Imperial Porter. I sampled this beer in Copenhagen last year and was torn by it. A beer as black as that should not smell like an IPA. It just shouldn't! Thankfully I can say I have grown since then. Become more open minded, and had a whale of time in the process. From the bottle the hops are greatly subdued but still present. Luscious brown foam tops the ominous black lurking beneath. Treacle, tar and some smoke fill the mouth all rounded off with big body and warming alcohol. Unsurprisingly it is damn bitter, but perfectly balanced. A impressive beer that perfectly mirrors the no fear attitude of American craft brewers.

Not quite dark enough

Brown ale always leaves me cold. As does its less sun tanned Irish cousin red ale (your Irish cousin will always be redder and less tanned than you are). Perhaps I desire too much, but a straight up brown ale lacks flavour. I tried some good brown ales in my pre-blog days but they were from the Dogfish Head stable and heavily adulterated. The first was Raison D'Etre, a very complex ale made with raisins. The second was their India Brown ale, again tinkered with, but this time with copious quantities of hops. More recently Brooklyn Brewery's brown ale didn't hit the mark either. For me brown ale becomes interesting when a brewer takes the bull by the horns and adds a decent measure of roasted malt and transforms a limp brown ale into a porter or stout. The vast majority of brown ales cannot stand alone. The metallic notes particularly irk me.

Cooper's call this beer their Dark Ale, but it's a brown ale, I'm sure of it. Aside from the deep brown colour it also has the metallic flavour I associate with these beers. And yet I cannot gripe too much. It has porter-like qualities in the form of port and malt loaf, yet it is also slightly stout like too. It has a lingering bitterness and distinct alcohol heat despite the modest 4.5% alcohol content. As with all Cooper's beers it has copious amounts of yeast in the bottom of the bottle - far too much. I agree with my father who says there is eating and drinking in bottle conditioned ale but I couldn't bring myself to put quite that much in the glass. So, something of an in-between beer with too much flavour to be the brown ale I dislike so, but not quite enough to push it into true dark beer territory.