it's all gone crafty!

(Adopts booming voice)
Yes it's craft craft craft here at Tesco.
You too can be hip and happening, drink cool beer, and not need hang around in craft beer bars with people that have tattoos and strange facial hair.
Now that Tesco is stocking more more more craft beer from small independent breweries such as Greene King, Marstons, Fullers and Brains. Gasp at the range, bask in the coolness of a beer produced in a shed/nanobrewery round the back of the car park of the megamassive main brewery.


Don't miss out, go craft craft craft beer crazy!!!!!!

Ok so a bit piss takey but it's how my mind worked when I went into the mega super massive Tesco yesterday. 'Oh new bottles' I thought as I looked on the shelf, and quite a number of new ones too. Quite a few were 'craft lager' but a red ale and a hefeweizen also. 

If stocking Brains Craft beers most shop's will only have Barry Island IPA and Boilermaker, so it good to see some new ones, 'Bragging Rights' which is a braggot style ale and quite nice, and ' Ides of Marzen'.

Looking at the other bottles though you soon notice they are all from the larger breweries, mentioned above.  Over the last week a few bloggers have been commenting on the Sixpoint beers appearing in Wetherspoons (and I hope to get some soon) and it possibly being a turning point/milestone for craft beer (and I hope it is) I look at these on the shelves and do wonder. With the power and foot already in the door that these big breweries have, and the almost instant ability to supply the 'latest trends' you see small independent producers could always be struggling against the tide.

Anyway enough thinking it hurts my head. What about the beers, and yes I did buy some of them, like you I like to try new ones when I see them.
The two Marstons 'Revisionist' label beers I got were the red ale and wheat beer. Both being fairly innocuous, the wheat beer being a bit spicy but otherwise bland as a very bland thing. The Brains Craft marzen was nice but I prefer the 'Bragging Rights', nicely spiced and balanced.
I also picked up one from Greene King 'Suffolk Strong' because it says its been blended with their old ale 5x.

Fullers Brewery Tour Weekend, and Lamb brewery, Chiswick

So as I said in this post we went on the tour a few weeks ago. We only spent the one night in London but crammed in plenty of beery goodness.

We started by having lunch in the Crown and Anchor, which was a Young's & Co pub but now seems to be part of a small group under the name of 'Convivial London Pubs'.
This was quiet at the time, with some very friendly and helpful staff, happy to give us the directions to get to the Tour. He also suggested we later visit their sister pub 'The Lamb'.
A great jalapeño burger washed down with a fresh Wandle by Sambrook's Brewery was a good start.

Onto the Fullers Brewery then, I'm not going to go through the whole thing here, I suspect a lot of readers here have either been on a tour before or are reasonably knowledgeable of the workings of a brewery. It was very professional in the set up of the tour, I think the sheer size of it amazed me most and I'd recommend the tour to everyone.

There are more photos of the brewery here on Flickr.


Entering 'The Hock Cellar' is where most people want to be though if your truthful, your served half's of many of their excellent beers, from pump or bottle.
They suggest you start with the lower abv beers and work your way up to the stronger ones, but most people went for their favourites it seems.
I  started with the ones I'd not tried before, Gales Spring Sprinter the seasonal golden ale 4%, Gales HSB at 4.8% (Horndean special bitter) which was really nice, a lighter bodied ESB. I then  tried most of the Fullers they had on offer, they were happy to open bottles too. And as you'd expect all were in great condition, London Pride never tasted so good!
My wife went for their Honey Dew, Discovery, Golden Pride and Bengal Lancer, her favourites being the first two.





Later on after food we went to the The Lamb as previously suggested, as it houses its own microbrewery in-house. I opted for the taster tray, 4 of their own brews and 1 from another pub in the group housing 'The Botanist Brewery'.

Their 'Helles'  (not a favourite style of mine) was very nice, 3.8%, well carbonated, fresh and light, good malt and some butter. The Hefeweizen, 5.5% I felt was a poor example, very little of the characteristics you expect from the style.
Up onto the American Pale Ale quickly then which was pretty nice, 5%, on Untappd I commented 'Peach, lychee, soapy, dry'. They nicely picked the ball up again with that one, and carried on well with the Imperial Stout. This was a lower abv at 5.5% for an IS but held a good body, nice and smooth with chocolate, coffee and just the right amount of bitterness, a well made stout.

The Botanist Brewery (which is housed very near Kew Gardens) provided a nice finish, a strong ale/red ale at 6.2%, rich and malty, chewy malts, with good hop profile. I'd certainly recommend The Lamb if your in Chiswick high street as a great place to drink, its was very popular that night also.


We then went back to the Crown and Anchor as they had some live jazz on, i think my wife was a bit on beer overkill by this point and wanted a different form of culture! A great quartet playing New Orleans style jazz, with patrons and staff dressed up in 'day of the dead' costumes and make-up.
I had a bottle of Anchor Steam beer, and then a pint of Sharps Cornish Coaster whilst tapping my feet into the night.

Tesco (and Aldi) beers offers

The Tesco 4 for £5 seems to be back on, stocking up for Xmas for £1.25 a bottle seems like a good idea.

Most of the main shelf fillers, Fullers, Badger, Thwaites, Adnams, Brains, are on offer, plus many others. One new to the shelves and in the offer is Bath Ales 'Ginger Hare'. Some good winter warmers included are Adnams Broadside, Fullers ESB and 1845, and Morelands 'Old Crafty Hen' which normally retails at £2.79!

Brewdog's Punk IPA is also on the offer which means 4 bottles is currently cheaper than you can get their Punk four pack cans at Sainsbury's.
Also new was cans of Sapporo 'imported', which are huge, 600mls + and look very special, just like the price of £2.25, but seriously, check out the can!

As well as some of the above i predict a few Thwaites Wainwright and Fullers Bengal Lancer might be sitting in my shed before too long.

Also popping into my inbox was news that Aldi this week are stocking Banks's Ultimate Curry Beer!! I checked it out on ratebeer i see no reviews for the bottles for over 5 years, a line revived from the back of the brewery obviously. £1.49, 500mls, it used to be 5.3%, wonder what it will be now.

bit of a beer round up no.1

I've been busy, or working nights, or the wife is using the computer, so a few beers over the last couple of weeks have escaped being blogged about so i thought a round up post was in order. 


Lets start with a goody.
Fullers 'Golden Pride'  (8.5% abv) was picked up at Waitrose a while back, a beautiful reddish brown colour with lovely aroma of berries and caramel. 
Full bodied in the mouth, a little oily too, warmth and reasonable amount of alcohol come through with flavors of sugars and rich fruit, a bit malty with a dryness also. Really good.




From Scotland and quite well known, and usually found in beer collection books, next was Williams Brothers Kelpie seaweed ale. I don't know if its the suggestion after reading books and reviews but the fresh sea breeze aroma really is there! A dark ale with a light salty chocolate taste, earthy aroma and taste also, this was a different beer one i would have again but not frequently i think, could become a little monotonous on the palate.
 







Fullers Chiswick bitter was a new one on me, and a very pleasant introduction was made. Small creamy white head, beautiful fresh orange pithy bitter aroma. Good malty and hop balance, crisp and some dryness also, lovely beer.



 



After really enjoying the Anchor Porter a while back i was quite looking forward to their Liberty ale that i bought at the same time. A yellowy orange in colour and good creamy head on top. Quite bitter but not a sharp fresh bitterness, its quite a heavy body in the mouth and lasts, ?some pine. I was a little disappointed with this, i was expecting to be wow'd like when tasting their porter or when i first had Sierra Nevada's Pale ale, but its still a good complex beer.





The last of the beers i picked up at the Cowbridge festival this year was Otley's O-HO-HO which i assume is their Xmas beer from the title. Thus i also assume it would be rich fruity dark ale like most other Xmas/winter ales, so was pleasantly surprised when i poured a fresh orange'gold coloured beer with a minimal head. Immediate light aroma of sweet oranges, like pulling satsuma's out of your stocking!! Dry, citrus hops, a crisp beer with hints of spice and a delight to drink. Made me rethink what a Christmas ale should be really, although i would be just as happy to drink this on a hot summers day, it would be a real thirst quencher i believe.