Marks and Spencer Single Hop Varieties Cascade, Citra and Sovereign

Marks and Spencer's continue to take the best beers from breweries across the country and re-brand them for their stores.
Seeing another beer trend/bandwagon/niche they have released some 'Single Hop' beers, using the hops Sovereign, Citra and Cascade.
All these bottles are £2.69 which is a lot compared to most supermarket beer prices, but they are also 1 pint bottles not 500mls.

Produced by the Elgoods brewery the first was Sovereign, a 5% golden ale. Good golden/orange colour, sweet toffee aroma, and this followed on, i found it a bit too sweet, cloying with toffee and honey, bits of kids sweets from your memories. Not for me.




Second up is Citra, an IPA from Oakham thats 4.9% abv which is a little higher than their own well known Citra beer at 4.2%.
More yellow in colour, lovely hop aroma of grapefruit and gooseberry, bags of fruit flavours with that expected bite of citra hops. Very enjoyable.










Third was from the Castle Rock brewery, Cascasde single hop, 5% abv. Light golden in colour, light grass aroma and sweet oranges, pleasant drink with light body, easy, earthy malt holds up flavours well, making this a very good pint.

Of the three the Citra was head and shoulders above the other two but I did enjoy the Cascade too, leaving the Sovereign trailing far behind in last.

Jacobi Brewery of Caio 'Winter Warmer'

When the sun came out a fortnight ago and ushered in Spring we went for a walk in the Brecon Beacons, there is a mountain centre and walks at Libanus, and it includes a tourist shop, a cafe downstairs which serves some excellent food, this time we didn't eat there but I positively salivated over another's steak and kidney pie with some wonderfully aromatic red cabbage.

A good sign is that there is usually queues for the food, and they sell local beers, with bottles from the Breconshire Brewery which I didn't see until I'd paid for our drinks, although those included one from the Carmarthenshire 'Jacobi brewery of Caio'.

This was an English strong ale 5% called 'Winter Warmer'.
This was a deep copper red colour which had a half finger of head that stays, looks good.
The aroma was strong rich and fruity, whilst the raisins, toffee, a very malt sweetness and heavy alcohol body, is matched with good hops providing a lingering bitterness.
Its not a classic heavy winter beer such as Adnams Broadside, it lacks the body of that but it was a good strong bitter that was enjoyed. And it probably would have paired very well with the pie and red cabbage if I'd had that. Missed opportunity!

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.

Spam

The word verification system on blogs and websites annoys me greatly, but like some other beer Bloggers I frequently read I am unfortunately going to have to turn it on due to the increasing amount of spam I'm currently receiving.
I had only ever had a trickle coming through but over the last couple of weeks its massively increased in frequency on a daily basis.
I'll remove it at some point in the future to see if the torrent has subsided to its previous trickle, until then its here to stay.

J.W. Lees Manchester Star Ale

Wow, surprise here. Not one I'd seen before, and only picked it up on a spur of the moment trip to Morrison's.

J.W. Lees Manchester Star Ale, I didn't note the abv or style when i bought it, I was in a rush and quickly put in the basket as one I'd not had before.
Answer: Porter, 7.3% and damn delicious.

I got a frothy off white head, the aroma was light and roast chocolate, and sweet dark fruit.

Good body for the style, and lovely rich fruit, plum, raisin, coffee, and a little spicy too.

Good carbonation as you can see from the photo, this is a really, really good beer and next time I'm there I will pick up some more without a doubt.

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!