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.

New bottles.

Quick post, popped into Tesco tonight and bought a few of the bottles new to their shelves.

Castle Rock brewery 'Diamond Reign'  a Jubilee pale ale 4.1% 500mls £1.50.

Wandering down to the 'world beers' section where they are having a run of 'price drops' on quite a few of their bottles i bought:

Sierra Nevada 'Torpedo' extra IPA 350mls 7.2%  £2.18

and for some reasons also in the world beer section are:

Newcastle Brown 'Founders Ale' a 355ml pale ale 4.8% £1.51
Newcastle Brown 'Summer Ale' a 355ml golden ale 4.4% £1.51

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.

Kaiserdom & Krombacher Dark lager

The two new dark lagers i picked today, and i'll  review them together

Starting with the Kaiserdom Dark, 4.7% abv 500mls, its has a very dark brown/red colouring and a nice brown head. The Krombacher Dark, 4.3% abv, seems a little lighter, marginally more see through when held up to the light.

Aroma was reasonably strong chocolate malts, nutty, and light coffee for both, but the Kaiserdom seemed creamier. They also had similar light to medium carbonation, medium bodies.

 

The two have chocolate, light bitter coffee, some sweetness all in common, the main differences were that the Krombacher, maybe its because of the lower abv, seemed thinner and lighter. It was a little creamier but less bitter overall.  However both were enjoyable, easy drinks for the evening.

The shelves weigh heavy with more new beer!!

After my last post about exclaiming surprise at the new bottles in my local Tesco, the choice has become even wider this week.
It looks like the Goose Island lines are starting to get through, with their IPA finding its way into my trolley, it was the only one of theirs there so hopefully Honkers Ale will soon make an appearance.

In the 'European/World' beer section was two new German dark lagers, Kaiserdom Dark 4.7% abv, and Krombacher Dark 4.3% abv which both took my fancy and joined the Goose bottle. They also had the Hoegaarden Rose, and another called Mongoose Premium Beer but neither took my fancy.

In the new Stout section they now have the excellent Meantime's London Stout, and one 'Glencoe Wild Oat organic stout' although there was only the ticket and no stock currently. This seems to be brewed by 'Traditional Scottish Ales', and they also had 2 others of their ales listed but not available.

Marsdens VSOP is in good supply but now no sign of the Brewdog Alice \porter, shelf cleared! 
In the Welsh section new arrivals also from the Conwy Brewery, first time i have seen their beers in a supermarket other than briefly in an ASDA. These were the 'Honey Fayre' a 4.5% golden ale with honey, and 'Celebration ale' a 4.2% bitter which looks familiar to me but i'm not sure that i have had it.

Good job it was pay day today, i can start planning!!

Refreshed Tesco beer line up

Whilst away on holiday, more about that later, my local Tesco seems to realised they have a bottled beer section and refreshed it, some might say dramatically. That might be a little OTT but considering one new line occasionally is all that changes here, to see 10+ new lines was a surprise.

As well as moving them all down the aisle, and it looks like Fullers my have lost out here as some of their range seems to be relocated to a top shelf above canned products rather than in the mix with the rest of the bottles.
First noticed was Brains newly launched 'Original Stout' , recently blogged by Brew Wales here. As we discussed there we wonder how it will affect the current stout they offer, Brains Black, which is quite decent. I'll try for a side by side tasting i think later this week.

I picked up these bottles today

Gales 'Summer Breeze', Brewdog 'Alice Porter', Nethergate 'Old Growler' and Williams Bros ' March of the Penguins'.
I left behind for another day: Morland 'Old Golden Hen', Marstons 'Oyster Stout', Wychwood 'King Goblin', Castle Rock ' Elsie Mo', Worthington 'White Shield', Shepard Neame '1698', St Peters 'Cream Stout'.
They also had at £1 a bottle Badger 'Golden Champion'

Some i've had before, some i haven't, and i know a lot of these are available in other supermarkets, but its good to see Tesco springing a bit of life into my shelves. And seeing as i think i read somewhere that they will soon be supplying Goose Island beers also its all good news.

Edit: i forgot, they also had new - Hook Norton Double Stout, and Youngs Double Chocolate Stout.

Tesco Finest Belgian Wheat Beer

Following a timely and informative post from the Pub Curmudgeon i found a reason to pop down to my local Tesco's. At 4 for a £5 I picked up a few of the Morland Crafty Old Hen, Fuller's Bengal Lancer and ESB, and Adnams Broadside.  I've not tried the Crafty Old Hen before mostly due to its usual price of £2.79, and because its a Greene King bottle, i seemed to have an aversion to paying that price for a bottle of theirs, i tend to find their bottled beers tasting very similar to each other.
Anyway as i clunked my way down the isle with my basket, in the 'world beer' section they also had reduced several bottles, one of them being their Finest range Belgian Wheat beer.

Recently i've been buying quite a few wheat and abbey beers, they've been my 'go to' beers, i have a Tesco express around the corner as well the main store (it is Tesco after all) and having cold Hoegarden or Leffe has become a frequent thirst quencher. Seeing as the weather was so bloody nice today i thought ahead and pictured myself, kids in bed,  enjoying a large cold wheat beer. The Finest Wheat beer is normally about £3.30 but now in promotion it was about the £2.20 mark for a 750ml 4.9% abv bottle which seemed good value, and worth trying.

Brewed by the Huyghe family in Belguim its a lemon yellow slightly cloudy beer, with hints of sherbert, lemon and coriander. Very crisp, quite dry and short in the mouth it had a reasonable amount of lemon and orange pithy dryness, vanilla, quite floral, banana. Its was okay, nothing outstanding, reasonable for the price i suppose.
Would i but it again? Well if it was still at that price maybe, in the Express store but they dont sell it there, in a main store there is a better (!) selection so i would doubt it.

Terrible label also, bad font, bad graphics, looks like some GCSE kids knocked it up for a project.

Anchor Porter Vs. Tesco Finest Traditional Porter

This is less a taste test, more a 'one bottle after another' evening.
I settled down to watch the new Star Trek movie finally and open up another in the latest Tesco Finest range. The Traditional Porter is produced and bottled by Harviestoun , Scotland and is 6% 330mls.
Colour wise its a very dark brown verging on black, nice light brown head that quickly goes. Aroma was chocolate and light coffee. Nice and smooth, again light coffee and chocolate malts, with a slight bitterness staying at the back of the throat. Enjoyable overall.

I then opened the Anchor  Porter  ,5.6%  355mls, and wow, what a difference, all round really. Immediate aroma is immensely enjoyable but i struggled to put a name to some of what i was getting. Creamy, sweet chocolate, almost treacly smell, lovely. Colour again is almost black with larger light brown head. Taste - quite malty, coffee bitterness but a full mouthful of flavour, sweet rich fruit. Extremely good beer, and i defiantly pick some more up when i next see them.

The Harviestoun porter was quite nice , nothing wrong with it but it is dwarfed by the Anchor, even with less abv it drinks much higher such is the flavour.

And the movie was quite good too.

Tesco Finest Brewdog American Double IPA

Yes thats right, a Tesco Finest Brewdog beer collaboration!!!

On my weekly shop this morning and amongst the almost never ever changing line up on the shelves was a new bottle. I noticed first the labeling and almost mistook it for the newish Brains   IPA  bottles until i saw the Tesco Finest label at the bottom.

Tesco Finest Brewdog American Double IPA

Produced for Tesco by Brewdog its a 330ml 9.2% American Double IPA and yours for £2. None of the usual Brewdog ethos or angsty spiel on the bottle, just lets you know that its an american craft style with west coast hops, lots of them. Must of been an interesting meeting between their buyer and the brewdogs guys i reckon!

I have never had any US craft beers or any double IPA's before but from the beer blogs i'm expecting massive hops and bitterness from this, and i really enjoyed their Punk IPA.

Its has the aroma of unsurprisingly grapefruit, melon and a wiff of alcohol, its colour is light amber (doesn't come across in this photo) with a small creamy white head. It also has the massive hops bitterness, fairly low alcohol warmth hit, and there is some caramel and floral aspects too.  So one sided though, its all hops and nothing else, not sure i would have more than one just because its not that its not interesting, its just unbalanced to my mind. It in no way seems like a 9.2% beer though, and i just wish Brewdog put more of their other beers on Tesco's shelves.