Shopping

I was reading the great posts on their recent Munich trip by The Beer Nut and The Bitten Bullet, and decided that as I was over the other side of Cardiff for a meeting I should do some beer shopping. German beer shopping, after reading their exploits.

As always this involved heading to the Cardiff Beer shop/Discount Supermarket, but again, despite good intentions to only buy a few German beers, I was swayed by their great choice and ended up with a bit more than intended.





The first I decided on was a name I recognised from their Munich posts, although I couldn't remember the opinions presented.

Ayinger  Ur Weisse  5.8% Dunkelweizen
Hacker-Pschorr  5.5% Hefeweizen
Oettinger 4.7% Helles




These two on the left will be my first US Craft beer in a can experience.
Ska Modus Hoperandi IPA 6.8%
Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA 7.1%







 Moving back to Europe I got  a classic, the Tripel Karmeliet, an Abbey tripel weighing in at 8.4%.
Back to Blighty and one from the Kernel, always reliable, although this is a collabaration beer with Brodies, a black IPA and 6.9%.

After two good beers from Hardknott I went for a hat-trick and got their Cool Fusion, 4.4%.

In the shop they were also doing a deal on the beers from the Brains Craft brewery, 4 bottles for a fiver. Whilst i was a little underwhelmed by their Barry Island IPA, although a fairly decent beer, I had wanted to try some of their newer offerings. The cask versions do not seem to make it round my way so this was an opportunity I took.




Weiss Weiss Baby, 5.9%
Colonel Williams, the Martyn Cornell collabaration East India Pale Ale, 6%.
A Pils from the Hills, pilsner 5%.
Boilermaker, an IPA brewed with Penderyn whisky infused oak chips, 6.5%. I did hesitate over this one as whiskey beers are not my thing but thought I'd make up the foursome with it.

So after a little run of night shifts this week I'll have to decide which to start with.
As always, any comments on these beers appreciated, good choice? bad beer? let me know.

Williams Brothers Fraoch Heather Ale

I've been meaning to buy this for ages but on the occasion I've been in Morrison's I seem to have always passed it up at that time. Thankfully, last visit I did not.

I really liked this, and surprised myself in doing so, I thought it would be some 'quirky' beer which you just have to try and tick off, maybe you might like it but just because it is that quirky heritage beer, and probably never buy it again.

But actually I really quite enjoyed it and have indeed bought it since.

This beer is from a recipe that they say 'allows you to literally pour 4000 years of Scottish history into a glass', during brewing they add sweet gale and flowering heather into the beer, and it then is poured and allowed to infuse further in more heather. 5% abv, 500mls.

Pours a gold/copper colour, a lovely floral aroma, honey sweet notes, light but not thin body.
It has a great rounded flavour, the malts are sweet, the floral heather perfumes your mouth, its incredibly smooth. And I will be buying it again. You should too.

Brewdog Dead Pony Club

Why cant I get this in a shop nearer to me?


Brewdog's 'Dead Pony Club' a 3.8% American Pale Ale, which absolutely kicks even though its deceased, expired, bereft of life, ceased to be.

Beautifully light pine and grapefruit hops aroma, a light breeze floating in, sucks you in.

Light in the mouth, but sings around it, well carbonated, there's a slight herbal edge but fruit and pine crash in, alongside mango and some spice. With the Simcoe and Citra hops you get the bitterness it needs, but really this is a great beer considering the abv.
Certainly one of their best 'regular' beers, just wished I could get it more easily.

SainsburysTap Room Brewing Co. beers

Two beers bought from Sainsbury's recently when in London, both in the 'Taste the Difference' range and made for them by the Tap Room Brewing Co. from Rochester, New York.

First up was the American Pale Ale, 5.3%  355mls, 'pale Ale US craft beer' described as having a ' complex hop aroma with deep flavours'.
Mmm, think I would have to question that.
There was little hop aroma, it was more malty toffee sweetness, very little bitterness. On plus side, good carbonation, nice head, but far too easy to drink, there was nothing in it to savour and hold in the mouth or contemplate.

When I logged into my Untappd feed I commented 'Rather dull, where's the hops?' so obviously that was my immediate impression. Tellingly someone commented back 'Exactly what I thought'.




 
Onto the second from the range, the IPA. Must admit at this point I was not hopeful.

Its 6.3%, 355mls, had an aroma that was cream, toffee and some spice to it.
 Again good carbonation and good head, this was a bit better although thin in the mouth. It had a better balance of the malt, some fruitness and spice, but rather light on the bitterness, at least there was some in this beer though.



When I bought these I also picked up a Brewdog Dead Pony Club which is 3.8% American Pale Ale which kicks this two beers all over the park, in every aspect.

Stuff

So last friday my wife gave me an early birthday present.
This year its my fortieth but due to family stuff going on she brought one of my present forward a few months.
A brewery tour, THE brewery tour. Fullers Brewery.

I'll do a proper post soon, but thought I'd post a picture of some of the goodies I bought from the shop.
I also visited the Lamb pub and brewery in Chiswick, which was pretty good also, and had one of their taster trays.

Nice article in the Guardian today on stouts in preparation for St Patrick's day on Sunday.

Tomorrow I will be drinking only English beers in readiness for the six nations clash between England and Wales. I'm joking of course but we had better not lose or I face another year of gloating from my colleagues.

The Gower Brewery, Gower Gold, and the GreyHound Inn

(A very late post, sorry, should have been out last year!)

 The Greyhound Inn, Llanrhidian, is home of the Gower Brewery in South West Wales.

Back in July last year, after months of rain the school holiday's were starting and we feared the worst - Weeks indoors with kids going slightly crazy.
But the sun actually came out and we grabbed the tent, headed for the Gower and pitched up. We had cracking weather in the end, a great holiday, and discovered an excellent pub that also happened to brew its own beer.

On the first Sunday we went to get a meal at a local pub, recommended by someone on the camp site, only a little drive and certainly worth it even if its further than the closest pub to the campsite.


The Greyhound Inn at Llanrhidian turned out to be home of the Gower Brewery, and I managed to have a chat with one of its co-owners the landlord Chris. A genuinely nice guy who is obviously passionate about the beer they are brewing there. The other co-owner I believe is another local landlord also called Chris (another reason why I should have written this when it was fresh in the mind)

The kids enjoyed themselves in a nice clean wood play area, and we all enjoyed the food, quality pub food, well priced, and nice to see good choices and properly cooked  and well portioned children's meals (mine eat well!).

So whilst a bemused bar staff watched me photo, create and upload to Untappd, I started with their Gower Power, an IPA that is 5.5% abv. Classically smooth, with a good spice hit, moderate hop profile, orange in the colour and on tongue, a very promising start.

Next up I tried the Gower Gold, a golden ale, 4.5% abv, which was singing out of the barrel fresh. Wonderful citrus aroma from the Cascade hops, juicy tropical fruit, with grapefruit sharpness.
This was a cracking find, made my lunch, no, made my day supping this in the beautiful sunshine in a beer garden.

The best news, many months later, was that my local Spar shop has started stocking this in bottles so I can sup it much more regularly.

Anyway, back to that day. Their bitter on pump was called Brew #1, 3.8% and as suggested by the name, this from the recipe that was their first ever beer. A classic bitter, nowt wrong with that.
I also had Sampson's Jack, another bitter but stronger at 4.2%, and this was straight from the cask. Dry and fruitier than Brew #1. 


Overall this pub would have been a great find for us on our holiday, good food, pleasant environment, large outside area with a clean and safe kids area.
It was just it was a massive bonus for me that it houses a great microbrewery, producing some really good beers, and one excellent one in 'Gold'. That I now can buy it at the end of my street is great also.
Hopefully the Gower Brewery will continue to expand, perhaps putting more of their range into bottles (and into my Spar!), and getting their beers into some of the number of new craft beer establishments in Cardiff, you can only wish them the best of success for the coming year.

Photography advice please!!!

Okay so this blog is mostly about beer for me, but also about photography, in that taking shots of the bottles and beers is one of the skills I'm trying, as an amateur, to learn. If you look at some of my past photos, what i consider some of my better ones, I think I'm doing okay, and the set up I use is pretty DIY, basically because of cost.

But I'm still have trouble with reflections in the glass,sometimes I manage to minimise them but then some shot, like the one below, really show and are ruining the shot.

So any advice on how to avoid/correct this would be very gratefully received.

a thursday night in Cardiff

is where you found 4 nurses a couple of weeks ago, braving the snow and ice under foot to moan continuously about the state of the NHS whilst drowning themselves in ale. As long as its good ale I said.

We always start in Weatherspoon's 'The Prince of Wales' , because it is near the train station, an ideal meeting point, plus it gives me a chance to use some of those CAMRA vouchers that otherwise just hit the bin (only because I have nowhere to use them easily). It has a mixed clientèle its fair to say, you know what I mean, and its a large cavernous space and always busy.
I opted for a pint from a local brewery, Cardiff's Bullmastiff, a very dog themed enterprise whoose beers I've not always got on with, although their Welsh Black stout is pretty good.
This time it was the ESB 'Old Snarler' at 5.1%, copper coloured, smooth but basically bland and malty sweet.

I rushed the others to drink up, the plan i explained was straight up the road to maybe the Queens Vault, then to Zero Degrees and then to my real reason for a meet up, trying out new bar 'Fire Island''.

The Queens Vault was, I thought, a Brains pub on my first visit, its got that sort of decor and atmosphere that I associate with a Brains establishment. But its not, its one from JW Bassett. And no, i've no idea either.
Anyway it had a couple of Felinfoel beers on, one from Penpont in Cornwall whose bottles I'm familiar with, and a great surprise in one from Tiny Rebel. I had struck gold early.
FUBAR, the 4.4% golden ale packed with citrus, tropical fruits, great aroma and body, balanced sweetness (toffee) and bitterness.

Onto Zero Degrees, the few times I've been there I've always been impressed with their beers, rarely having a bad one. This time i went for their new beer, a dunkelweizen called "Stormin' Norman". One sip and i was sold. I think I bored my friends from all the gushing I was doing about it too.

It was beautiful in its aroma of banana and cloves, low bitterness, a good mouth-feel with caramel, and just dark deliciousness all round.
Whilst in Zero Degrees I bought a half, at £3.50, of their Barley Wine 'Comet', an 8.7% abv syrupy dark brown glass. Strong alcohol presence understandably, figgy but it seemed flat in flavour, or rather it seemed like it needed more time to mellow and develop. Perhaps though, sipping it whilst devouring the wheat beer gave it an unfair comparison, as others have rated it highly, including one of my friends that night.

And into Fire Island then, after reading Travels with Beer late last year, and then reminded by Craig I was determined to head in there. For a history and excellent photographic review read that first link, on this night there certainly seemed over 8 handpumps in use, possibly into double figures. I forgot to look at the bottle selection completely, in awe at the choice in front of me (yes, starting to feel a little drunk also at this point! that excellent pre drunk feeling). Thank you to Untappd and ipod notes to make this post happen!

I started with the house beer Tiny Rebel's Beat Box, an American Pale Ale, 4.5% abv, good and refreshing tasting, it zipped in my mouth, good use of hops, lovely citrus bit, this went down SO quickly.
Onto my second dark beer of the night, Dark Nights by Buxton brewery, an American Porter 4.6%. This was good, not sure what an 'american' porter should be like, but if this was labelled as a black IPA I wouldn't have argued. Pretty dark coloured, almost black, fruity and caramel aroma, plenty of hops and juicy fruit in the mouth, with the dark coffee roast you expect with darker malts. Excellent beer.
Another darkish beer next, from a brewery I'd not heard of before, called sinist*r by the Anarchy Brew co.. They're a new brewery that have been going about a year or so, based in Morpeth, Northumberland and this is their brown ale, 4.3% abv which was roasty!, mid to dark brown, dry and toffee, quite nice.
I thought i'd head back into the hoppy side of things and got in a Summer Wine Brewery 'Rouge Hop' which was 5% and really quite good. Great flavours of berries, sharpness, citrus, grapefruit, balanced with toffee and a good body.

To finish of the evening I went back to the real reason I came out, to get some more beer from Tiny Rebel. I went for one I'd had before, one which pretty much defines the brewery, in design, style and taste, their Urban IPA. It is fresh, great bitterness that puckers your cheeks, sucks out moisture and replaces it with flavour, in with juicy peach and mango, a great use of hops.

Fire Island is a very welcome addition to the beer scene in Cardiff, the run of pubs we did I can see us repeating very easily, your guaranteed great beers all within a short walk of each other.

And the DJ (a guy with a laptop) even granted my request for 'more Velvet Underground' after playing one of their tunes. Top night.
 (apparently some Aphex Twin was too far a request though!)

Co-operative Wheat Beer

I had cause to pop into a Co-operative store this afternoon, on my way to a short meeting in Cardiff, and I needed a couple of items for a Thai chicken noodle soup I was planning to make with the remains of the Sunday roast. However for a supermarket it was pretty poorly stocked, no fresh coriander, red chillies or lemon-grass, nor were they available in jar or tube form.
There also was nothing too interesting on the beer shelves, other than this Wheat beer, 500mls, 5% abv.

The only brewing information on the label is 'made in Germany'.
A cloudy yellow which produced a good frothy head easily, a little citrus aroma, some sweetness also.
Taste wise was light, easy enough to drink, but lacking those typical hefeweizen flavours, only the barest hints of any banana, not especially yeasty or giving any type of spices. Overall very disappointing.
What makes it even more annoying is that I drove past the Cardiff beer shop on the way home where I'm sure any of the wheat beers on sale would have kicked this beers arse all over town.

its alive!!!

Its been over a month since my last post, and its not been due to any particular reason, just a combination of pre Xmas lack of time, work, an addiction to an app game, and just a thought to have a breather for a few weeks. Beer consumption over Xmas was actually lighter than previous years, mostly due to my work schedule, but I still managed to enjoy a good few.

I've still been reading blogs by others, and it was kinda nice to sit back and just see what others were saying and not put yourself under any sort of pressure or obligation to get a post out there. Not that its really like that, but I wouldn't want it to ever feel like that. My blog started as just a record of what I was drinking and some photos and that's how it should stay.

A few things I'll just tidy up from last year before normal service is resumed.

I didn't do the 'Golden Pints' this time, but I will say something about my 'Welsh Beer of 2012'. Although the beers I tried from Tiny Rebel were probably the standout beers from Wales last year, for their range, flavours and sheer drink-ability are outstanding, I unfortunately didn't get much experience of them outside of the GWBCF. Yes I need to get out more.

So for the fact that its a great beer, one I enjoyed over and over again (thank you to my local Spar for stocking it) I'm giving the award such that it is, to the Gower Brewery 'Gower Gold', a golden ale with great use of cascade hops. Full review soon.

Secondly, back this time last year one aim of this blog was to post more about Welsh beers and breweries than the previous year. Well I certainly improved the number, probably up to 35% but I will continue to try and better that this year.

Those who liked the Aldi beer Arcobrau Winterbier should get down to their local store, mine is selling it off at 99p a bottle. Predictably though they are again for Burns night rolling out these beers.

(a somewhat late) Happy New Year!

Broughton Scottish Oatmeal Stout

I was actually given this last Christmas as part of my 'secret santa' present if I remember correctly, but that could be completely wrong as my memory is dreadful my wife keeps telling me. At least I think she's my wife, that's what she tells me.

It was one I was looking forward to, as it was one listed in the '300 beers...' book I have, the other beers in the boxset were reasonably good also.

Broughton's Scottish Oatmeal Stout is 500mls, with an abv of 4.2%.

Perhaps I was expecting to be amazed by the beer, built up my expectations, but it was rather ordinary to me. Still though quite drinkable.

The body seemed a little thin, other oatmeal stouts have been heavier in the mouth. It pours with a nice brown head with aromas of rich roasted malt and coffee.
 
 I got again the malt and coffee, chocolate, but it did not taste or feel as smooth as an oatmeal stout as I thought it would. Rather too fizzy, with a light bitterness on the finish.

Stone Brewing Co. Pale Ale

Stone Brewing Co, a giant in the US brewing industry, the largest in Southern California, have several beers that are probably well known to most of the beer drinkers who read this such as their 'Arrogant Bastard Ale', 'Ruination IPA' and the 'Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale'.

This is their 'Pale Ale', 5.4% abv.
A deep amber colour, nice white head, strong caramel aroma, with pine and a lighter citrus hop.
Taste, on a medium body, is of initially some sweetness but then the oily pine bitterness comes through, its sticky also, marmalade oranges, with a good toffee malty body.

Cracking beer, a great example of the American Pale ale, why do supermarkets stock some of the rubbish they do when they should be stocking this I really don't know.

Brains Barry Island IPA

Quick review, drinking as typing.

This is from the 'craft brewery' of Brains, run alongside their main South Wales brewery. This beer was brewed in conjunction with Simon from the You Tube 'Real Ale guide'. Described as an 'American Style IPA' it is 6%, 330mls, and available currently in Tesco's across South Wales.

Marmalade orange body, very small head that soon goes. Nice but light aroma, some orange, a little pine, tropical fruits. Taste is on a medium body, obvious malt backbone, toffee sweetness, with gentle citrus bitterness that takes a while to come on, it needs time to break through but its nice when it does.

Overall its a nice beer, I wouldn't go so far as to say its an American style IPA, the malt and sweetness is too forward while the clean hop punch in the face bitterness you would expect is lacking, but I certainly enjoyed it.
Nice labelling too for the 'craft brewery' beers so far also.

Wye Valley Dorothy Goodbody's Wholesome Stout

A surprise during the weekly shop today, Tesco had rearranged their beer isle again, but also had quite a few new bottles, and timely too as a fair few could be indulged for International Stout Day.
They had the beer reviewed below here, but new stouts also were Belhaven Black, Glencoe Wild Oat Stout, Brains 'Jack Black Oatmeal Stout' and Castle Rock Black Gold.

The Welsh contingent has also been increased with a new one from Tomos Watkins 'Blodwens beer', two each from Great Orme and Conwy, and Brains have extended their range on the shelf with bottled versions of  Organ Morgan, and from their 'craft' brewery the Barry Island IPA.
They also had three of their 'Simply' range including a 'Dark Ale', which were 3 for £3.

Lets get back to the black beauty in hand though, a beer that's often listed in 'best beers in the world' books, Wye Valley Brewery's Dorothy Goodbody's Wholesome Stout.
4.6% abv, 500mls, and I got it as part of the 4 for £6 deal but individually I think it was about £1.89.

Although it got a good head for the photo I did have to pour it from a little height to achieve this as it was not appearing otherwise. The aroma was a little difficult because I have a cold currently, but I got the light coffee and roasted malts easily.

The body is light to medium for a stout, dry, coffee again, light hints of milky chocolate, cream.
It sounds strange to say its just an ordinary stout as it ticks pretty much all boxes you would expect, and then it seems odd then if I say its not terribly exciting. What was I expecting? what is it missing? perhaps a little more body if I was being overly picky, but this is a beer I would drink again any day, absolutely. Contradictory yes, but its only beer.

Hardknott Code Black

I've been a bit hit and miss with Black IPA's so far, but scored a big fat hit here.

Hardknotts's Code Black is 5.6% abv, 500mls, and I handed over £3.29 for it. Although seen on the blogging merry-go-round alot I had not seen any bottles myself before, and I also got their Colonial Mayhem, the mild that weighs in at 8.1%!

Pours quite lively as you can see, lovely mocha head, an aroma that was sharp fruit and malts, some coffee. The body was thinner than I was expecting, but lovely tropical fruits, something that's burnt (if that makes sense), perhaps the coffee. The lightness moves round the mouth very well, and a long bitterness, although not a harsh one, carries on.

Hugely enjoyable.