Duvel Tripel Hop Series

Monday 25th April was meant to be a dry day. Well, that was the plan. Then I received an invite to attend a tasting of all 6 of the Duvel Triple Hop Series in the West End. I said yes.
So, off into the cold wind and rain I went (the things i do eh....?) heading in the direction of Oxford Circus. However, rather than head straight to the venue, I met with a couple of friends beforehand - Steve, one half of the much
loved beer podcast The Beer O'clock Show and Matt, otherwise known as the Half Pint Gent, check them both out on Twitter. Having had a half of well kept Truman's Zephyr at The Windmill we made our way, in the sunshine (British spring time?!?!) to The Burlington Arms.
We were greeted with pens, paper, glasses and most importantly, beer. First up was Duvel, a true classic in my opinion, but, probably overlooked as we are so used to seeing it in bars and supermarkets, this is a mistake and I am as guilty as anyone on this score. Duvel is brewed using two Hop varieties, Saaz-Saaz and Styrian Golding, together they produce an 8.5% abv golden refreshing beer that drinks like a sub 5% abv, simply wonderful.
So, what is Duvel Tripel Hop you might well ask, simple in principle, they had a third hop into the mix. This practice started a few years ago and they have reached the stage where there are now 6 iterations of the beer. Our mission was to taste, and decide which were our three favourites, voting forms were also provided. This process would be replicated around the world with the winning beer becoming a staple offering in their portfolio from 2017.
A few of us took an orderly approach to proceedings, deciding to use the bottles as our guide, handily numbered 1 to 6 (OCD 1 - 0 Chaos), reflecting the order the beers were originally released.
First up - Amarillo. I have to be honest here, this one might have  suffered because it came straight after the original, saying that, a few of us were of the same opinion - didn't really work. Quite a sweet start, with a dry finish, but, not a whole lot going on in between, the aroma felt slightly out of place too. Using my Untappd scoring system, this was a 2.75/5.

However, the next beer utilised one of my favourite hops - Citra, and, boy, could you get that on the nose straight away. The taste didn't disappoint either, dry fruity citrus all in a nice Belgian golden ale. Very enjoyable, score 3.75/5.
Number 3 was the Sorachi Ace, which is a Hop from Japan that definitely divides people in the beer world, let's call it the Marmite of hops. I neither love or loathe it myself, as it turns out this is the one I had tried previously, twice, giving it 3.5/5 on Untappd, and after sampling again saw no reason to change that score. This was the driest of the beers by far, literally sucking the moisture from my mouth, which meant I drank a bit more (cunning plan there Duvel) and I felt the Sorachi Ace worked well with the base beer.
Hop number 4 was the Mosaic, which like the Citra provides plenty of tropical fruit aromas and flavours, but, also provides more bitterness. This combination worked big time for me, a 4/5, which incidentally is the same score I gave for the original beer back at the start of the tasting.
Into the home straight with 5th in the series - Equinox, a Hop I am not immediately familiar with, but, definitely added fruity notes to the aroma, but, less so on the palate. Not so dry as the four that preceded it, but, drinkable none the less, a 3.5/5.

Last up was the Experimental Hop 291, catchy eh? So new, it is as yet unnamed. This one, a bit like the Amarillo didn't hit the mark for me, I found it rather sweet, however, with a little persistence it did grow on me, getting a respectable 3.25/5.
Before I voted, and just to make sure my scoring and comments were correct, I tried them all again, yes, I am that dedicated!
Mosaic won for me with Citra a very strong second. Third place was a tie between the Sorachi Ace and Equinox. However, if I had to choose just one beer from the Duvel range to have on a regular basis, it would be the original.

A very interesting and enjoyable evening was had by all who I spoke to.

This event was hosted by R&R Teamwork Drink & Food PR, thanks to all involved for setting this up and looking after us.

PS - Loved the scotch eggs, they were delicious.
PPS - Big thanks to Steve for getting me on the guest list, much appreciated. See what Steve thought about the beers - https://t.co/tyGBCmpGQP

A brewery, a tour and a tap room

Recently, I paid a visit to the Concrete Cow brewery in Milton Keynes, did the Fuller’s Brewery tour and enjoyed a few beers at the York Brewery tap room – this is what happens when I have time off work!

My parents live in Milton Keynes and have done so for a number of years, so, every so often I provide a taxi service for my son to see his grandparents (let’s not kid ourselves fellow parents, it’s all about the grandchildren) .  For those of you that aren’t aware, Milton Keynes is renowned for the number of roundabouts along its roads and the concrete cows that were created in 1978. It is after the infamous cows that brewer and owner Dan Bonner named his Concrete Cow Brewery in 2007.

It is also a bit of a beer desert, Wetherspoons being the exception to the rule.
My son and I took the short drive on the Saturday after midday from where my parents live to the business park where Concrete Cow are based, found the unit, parked up and briefly wondered if the place was open, however, a quick tug on the handle and push on the door revealed that it was indeed open to visitors. Dan was there with another customer/friend/fellow brewer discussing all things beer, I said hello, introduced my 15 y.o. teen and myself, whereupon I was offered a generous tasting of the new lager being produced – MK67. The lager comes in at 5%, and, is a soft almost creamy well balanced beer, hoppy with a nice bitter finish.  The name comes from MK for Milton Keynes and 67 as it was in 1967 that Milton Keynes as we know it was born. Next up was a can of MK IPA, a 5% American IPA, this was really enjoyable – soft, zesty, well balanced (which I think is a feature of their beers), with a rather smooth finish. This was the 7^th batch produced and seemed, by all accounts to be the best yet, so, I purchased a few (when I say a few, I mean a few six packs). I also took home a few bottles of their real ale, the Pail Ale I found to be clean, crisp, bitter and refreshing.

It was nice to spend time in the brewery with Dan and his mate, plenty of beery chat was had by all (with the exception of my son, who probably switched off when I said “hello”), I will be popping in again in the near future.

Read more about them here: http://www.concretecowbrewery.co.uk/brewery/

A couple of days later, it was time to tick off the Fullers Brewery tour from my “big beery to do list”. My girlfriend Michelle, had purchased a brewery tour for two as one of my many great Christmas presents, so, off we went to Chiswick together for the 3pm tour. Always ones to ensure that we arrive on time or early, this meant time for a swift one on the Mawson Arms named after the owner Thomas Mawson, who owned the original brewery on Fullers site.  I had hoped to find Chiswick on cask so close to the brewery as it is one of my favourite session ales, I was disappointed. I plumped for a 330ml bottle of Pale Ale, which I must admit I hadn’t seen previously – it wasn’t too bad, refreshing and sessionable @ 3.5%. The pub itself is nice and the food looked good, only thing lacking for me, was a wider range of the Fuller’s beers, being as it is so close to the brewery.
Then our guide turned up, a gentleman steeped in Fuller’s history, limping along somewhat with his crutch (the exact nature of the injury was never shared, but, it was his first day back), despite this he seemed fairly sprightly to me, I put this down to the London Pride, which was declared early on to be his absolute favourite beer, EVER!
I won’t go into detail about the history and heritage that seems to emanate from every nook and cranny of the brewery, it as potent and tangible as the smell of beer, but, you can read all about it here:  http://www.fullers.co.uk/brewery/history-and-heritage
After we had donned our hi vis jackets, the tour began. It was both informative and entertaining with some good stories being told as we went along, whether they were all true is another matter, but, hey, who cares? It was a mixed crowd of young and old, with a few locals, and some from further afield, plenty of photos were taken and questions asked. One of the highlights for me was the cold hop store, what a wonderful aroma greeted us when we entered, I could have stayed longer. 45 enjoyable minutes had passed when the magic words “who wants a drink?” were uttered by our guide (by now you will have realised that I have forgotten his name) – unsurprisingly, the answer was a resounding yes.

The brewery bar is in the Hock Cellar, which contains plenty of beer memorabilia and could easily be described as a museum, however, despite this, it was to the bar where we all congregated.
At last I got to try their new keg IPA,  which, at 5.3% doesn't smack you in the chops, but, a tidy bitter finish, perhaps a bit more of the citrus fruit flavours might have come through had it not been quite so cold. I also had a London Pride in tip top condition (still no Chiswick), so very quaffable (Michelle enjoyed her first Pride). There were a few amusing moments in the cellar, especially when a couple of the party asked for cider or Sierra Nevada. Lastly, and this was an unexpected treat, we shared a 2007 Vintage Ale, not only do I not have one of these in the cellar, I had not tried it previously either. It was simply exquisite, boozy liquid fruit cake. And, there ended the tour, apart from a brief visit to on site shop where I expected to be tempted by all of the Vintage Ales, surprisingly this wasn’t the case.

Last up was a visit to the York Brewery Tap, only a few minutes away from York train station, and 2 minutes walk from the hotel where we were staying (although we took the scenic route via the city walls). The outside of the brewery/tap room looks like a pub and as you get closer you get the unmistakable whiff of beer being brewed. Once inside it is a short walk up some stairs, behind glass you can see some of the brewery in operation, then you enter the tap room. Very unlike any other tap room I have been to, it is a cross between a social club and your favourite local boozer.

Naturally, their own beers dominate the choices (as it should be) with a variety of cask offerings, plus a couple of keg beers too. Made up of three rooms with a pool table/shop at the back, a middle room with an eclectic mix of furniture and the bar area with stools and barrels – this is where we perched, I like to be near the beer!  

I sampled a few of the cask offerings, the highlight being a fruit wheat beer – Black & Weisse 4.8%, very light and refreshing. Both of the keg offerings were very good - Legion IX, very drinkable at 6.5%, a nice take on a US IPA, but the absolute standout was the Imperium, a 7.5% stout that provided hints of booziness, with a sweet start and a dry finish, brilliant.
The atmosphere in the bar was very friendly and welcoming, also, the wifi worked brilliantly, which meant I caught some of the Liverpool Europa League tie (bonus!).
For more information about the brewery and tap room: http://www.york-brewery.co.uk/
York has some lovely historical places of interest to visit such as the National Railway Museum and York Minster as well as some nice places to enjoy some very good beers (York Tap and House of Trembling Madness spring to mind).

Next stop – Cloudwater in Manchester, bring it on!
 

The Globe, Moorgate (My work local)

When someone says "The Globe" what do you think of? Shakespeare's Globe perhaps? The world? A spherical object? Or, does it conjure up a picture of a pub? Unsurprisingly perhaps, it is the latter for me. The Globe as a name for a pub is not England's most popular, that particular honour belongs to The Red Lion, with around 600 pubs bearing that name, although, there are over 100 pubs in England bearing the name. However, the one I want to introduce to you is the closest pub to where I work in The City of London. It occupies a prominent position at the junction of London Wall (which runs along the line of a Roman wall) and Moorgate, and it is situated in the Coleman Street Ward (The City of London is made up of 25 Wards, in fact, I might try looking for a decent pub in each of the wards......).
Historical Fact: In the reign of Charles I, there were eight Globe pubs in London, and by the middle of the 19th Century there were 31, although curiously I cannot seem to find out how many there are now. And another fact for you - next door is Fox's wine bar, previously an umbrella shop, worthy of note as it is the only place in The City of London with neon signage, not everyone knows that!

Part of the Nicholson's chain, it is a large pub with an upstairs dining area and, unusually it is twinned with another bar, the Keats at The Globe, with just an internal door separating the two. This is a cask ale pub first and foremost, it is not "craft" by any stretch of the imagination, although a few bottles of Sierra Nevada and Siren can be found tucked in the fridge, as well as the odd can of Firestone Easy IPA also Meantime Pale Ale and London Lager are on keg (whether Meantime is still considered craft by many is most definitely a debate for another day). The food available is pub fare and quite reasonably priced for The City with a few of the meals including a drink too.

The cask offerings usually include Nicholson's Pale Ale brewed exclusively for their pubs by St. Austell, and Doom, however, if this doesn't float your boat, they usually have around 6 rotating guest ales available. On my most recent visit, in addition to the beers pictured below, they also had Sharp's Atlantic, and Dark Star Hophead.

Now, it would be bad form to visit, take a few pictures and simply leave, so, I didn't.

I sampled, purely for research purposes you understand, four of the beers available on cask, and, before I go any further, let me just say that all four had been well looked after and served exactly as expected/hoped for. This for me is always a good sign and one of the reasons why I visit the Globe on a fairly regular basis (according to Untappd my last check in was my 120th at this venue).

I started with what could be described as a default beer - the Nicholson's Pale Ale, brewed by St Austell in Cornwall. Coming in at 4% abv, it is a very nice English PA, with a well balanced bitter finish, if need be, you could have lunchtime session on this one (not that I would obviously).

Next up was the quite wonderful Hophead from Dark Star. A 3.8% hoppy fruity low abv offering from Sussex, which I am always happy to see this on the bar in any pub I frequent. I also revisited a beer I hadn't had for a while - Proper Job from St Austell and a new beer for me, Moorhouse Black Cat Reserve.

Anyway, a little bit more about the pub itself, the main bar in The Globe has an L shaped bar offering plenty of seating round the outside, while leaving plenty of space in between and at the bar for those that are standing/ordering. It should be noted that like a lot of pubs in the square mile, Thursday and Friday evenings are busy in here, and, especially so in the summer even though a number of the punters spill outside onto the pavement and the grassy knoll (probably more of a mound, but, knoll has a certain ring about it). Keats Bar is long and narrow, again, plenty of seating, but, less space in between the tables and the bar, it can feel crowded in here sometimes. The clientele including yours truly, are generally city workers, although please don't let that put you off! There are a few tvs dotted around in both bars, and all them showing BBC News 24, goodness knows why pubs think it is a good idea to show the news all day long, personally I could do without it.

To be fair, that is probably my only gripe about my work local. It is convenient in relation to the office, it has a good choice of well kept ales (and my lager/wine drinking friends can also find plenty on offer) and the staff know how to look after and pour a decent pint.

If in the area, I would recommend a visit, oh, and, don't forget to invite me along too!







Almost a tale of two beer festivals

Friday 26th February started out well, a lie in (as I had booked the day off work), which is always welcome on a work day.

Then I clocked up a few miles on the road on my bike, showered, changed, grabbed some water, train beers, rucksack, train ticket and most importantly my ticket for Craft Beer Rising. This was the 4th year I believe and set to be the biggest yet, with over 100 breweries being represented. The festival was being held in the iconic Truman Brewery building on Brick Lane, it was an event I had been looking forward to attending for quite some time. Train departed Colchester on time and shockingly arrived in Liverpool Street as scheduled, a very relaxed 49 min journey (if only my daily commute could be like this, minus the train beers though!).

Grabbed a sandwich at Liverpool Street while waiting for one my brothers to arrive, he was travelling down from Milton Keynes and a catch up was long overdue, so, thought I would combine with a few beers before CBR16 (hey, it was a good plan....). First stop was The Crown and Shuttle, a pub that had been previously boarded up for a number of years and before that might well have been a strip pub, with the pool table being the stage (naturally if asked I never visited it's previous incarnation, a story I am sticking to). Now it is all Shoreditch/craft beer hipster venue, with the walls and floors stripped back leaving the original building exposed, and, no doubt all the better for it. Had a couple of beers here, including the Session IPA from Hackney Brewery, a very sensible 4.1% abv citrusy number, with a bitter finish, Brian was suitably impressed, which was a good thing as I had taken control of the ordering, in his own best interests!

It should also be noted that if you are a fan of the Meantime Brewery Fresh lager, the Crown and Shuttle has a couple of tanks full of their beer. Must be said they do look very good.

This was my first time visiting this venue, and while I enjoyed my afternoon visit, you can sense that after 5 on a Friday it will be very busy, being so close as it is to the City and en route to the East End.

Next up a quick pit stop at Brewdog in Shoreditch, close to Brick Lane, where we met up with Clayton, so, now at least one of us had a beard before entering full on hipster territory.

Upon arrival at The Old Truman Brewery, we were presented with a queue, but, this moved along without too much fuss. Craft Master One (how "crafty" does that sound? lol) glass and programme collected, away we went up the stairs to the main hall, a pretty sizeable affair which allowed the organisers to put all the beer in one place and double the capacity. Another plus was a cloakroom, I do wish more festivals (traditional & craft) had this option.

The layout was very simple - 3 aisles of beer, despite this we got about 20 feet when we saw Beavertown and the souped up version of Neck Oil - Double Chin, an Imperial IPA weighing in at 8.5% abv and brewed to celebrate their 4th birthday. Very enjoyable it was too, you knew it was bigger than the Neck Oil, but, not so much that the 8.5% screamed at you.

Walking and browsing appeared to not be high up on the list of priorities as we found that we had only got as far as Brew By Numbers, and they had a beer I had marked down as "must try", the 55|01 Double IPA - Citra Mosaic Simcoe. Another imperial IPA, it belied its 9.2% abv. It was ever so drinkable, bags of fruity citrus bitterness, it did not last long. We then bumped into Matt (or, Half Pint Gent as some of you might know him) who had already been to the trade session, and with camera in hand was able to take a picture of Clayton drinking his 55|01 Double IPA, the beer which clocked up his Elite badge on Untappd (2,500 unique check ins), well done that man!

Next up was Adnams Triple Knot, a beer I had bought back at the start of the year in bottle and sampled while it was still fresh, the overriding taste and aroma was one of pear drops. So I thought I would give this 10% abv  Belgian tripel inspired offering another go, but, on cask. It was delicious, and again, it reminded me of all of the pear drops (not my favourite sweets as a kid - all about the cola cubes), but, was smooth enough to really enjoy and provided a nice counterpoint to the hoppy citrus beers I had sampled already. Around this point, my brother decided enough was enough and now was a sensible time to head off back to Milton Keynes.

Matt then insisted that we pay a visit to Tempest Brewing Co, these guys were very helpful and friendly and so it came to pass that I tried the Longer White Cloud, a 10.2% abv pale beer, with the style purposely not specified by the brewery. Instead they want us, the drinker to simply appreciate the freshness of the new season NZ hops. Verdict - simply a wonderful beer that is easy to drink, in fact too easy, this is where I have pinpointed the moment that I started on the inevitable roll downhill.

However, there was still time for more tastings! I had entered a draw to gain entry to the Goose Island Barrel Aged tutored tasting session, so, having collected our tickets Clayton and I made our way downstairs to sample some beers from Hertog Jan and Goose Island culminating in the Bourbon County Brand Stout. The beers were all very tasty, and, a few styles were covered off including a Dubbel, a Tripel and a Belgian Pale Ale, as well as the aforementioned stout.

I enjoyed the tastings and I know everyone else did, but, I am afraid I cannot be anymore descriptive about the beers as I had stopped making notes at this point. I was fairly much at the bottom of the hill. It was time to leave. Despite this not being anything like my first craft beer festival, I had been like the proverbial kid in the sweet shop, I will endeavour not to repeat this mistake again! And, I will certainly be looking forward to CBR17, as I thought the set up was absolutely fantastic, well done to all concerned.

On Saturday, the plan was for Michelle and I to pay a visit to the Chappel Winter Beer Festival, a lovely venue at the East Anglian Railway Museum between Colchester in Essex and Sudbury in Suffolk. Train tickets had been purchased, we made our way to Marks Tey train station to pick up branch line to Chappel & Wakes Colne, however, the once an hour service at 12.21 was not going anywhere, Greater Anglia had lost the Guard. No guard, no train......almost two beer festivals, but, no t shirt.

Till next time folks, happy drinking.





Off To The Craft Beer Co We Go......

I like to mix up the events I run at work, helps to keep things fresh, also challenges me to come up with new ideas. With that in mind, I enquired with the nice people at The Craft Beer Co in Islington if they offered tutored beer tastings, they answered in the affirmative. A few emails later, and the booking was confirmed, a silver tasting (yes, you've guessed it - they do a bronze and a gold one too) consisting of 6 beers on Thursday 11th Feb at 6.30pm for a max of 25 people. Within a couple of weeks, all 25 places were snapped up by my colleagues, monies received and paid into Finance (these events do not organise themselves you know).
It is probably a 30 min trip door to door from the office to the pub, hence the 6.30pm start, however, as always happens with the external events we started closer to 7pm (which meant an extra beer at the bar for me, oh well.....) to allow for as many of the group to be there for the start of proceedings.

Now, I have been to Islington Craft Beer Co twice previously and had noticed a rather nice room at the back with the brewing process pictured on the walls, this was to be our area for the evening. The two previous visits had both been enjoyable and noteworthy for me - 1000th unique check in on Untappd and my first Cannonball/Unhuman Cannonball experience.

Thanks to Mark, our host for the evening, my third experience was no less enjoyable/noteworthy. We kicked off with Tzara (4.8%), from Thornbridge, their take on the classic German beer, Kolsch, which is traditionally brewed and served in Cologne. I have a soft spot for this style of beer having visited Cologne a few times over the last 12 years as one of my brothers lives there, and this beer did a very good job of helping me to imagine being in the old town in sight of the cathedral and the Rhine drinking multiple 200ml servings cold and fresh (which the bar staff will continually serve to you unless you put a coaster over your glass, I think I might have forgotten that bit a couple of times!).
Next up was a pale ale from Kent Brewery (Clerkenwell Pale @ 3.8%), this cask offering is in effect the house beer, and it gives you everything you would expect from a sessionable English pale ale. However, not only did we get to taste the beer and opine, we also had the brewer, Richard Barclay in the house. Richard very kindly gave up some of his free time to explain the brewing process to us and was on hand to answer any questions afterwards too, very much appreciated.
Beer number three saw us up the abv to 5.5% and a change in colour and flavour profile - Maduro Brown Ale from Cigar City Brewing. I have had this before, and, was impressed with it and this time round was no different, a brown ale with a pretty complex flavour profile but very drinkable. I have to admit I often have a love/hate relationship with brown beer, especially traditional British versions which for me can too often be "twiggy, grassy, woody", whereas the Americans seem more than happy to create a brown beer that doesn't merely taste "brown".
Beer number 4 was a beer very familiar to me - Salty Kiss (4.1%) from Magic Rock in Huddersfield. The style is a Gose, this is a tart yet refreshing style of beer, originally from Leipzig that uses wheat as well as all the usual beer ingredients. A lovely beer in its own right, it is also a fabulous palate cleanser, which would set us up for the final two beers.
The penultimate beer was Molotov Lite by Evil Twin Brewing an 8.5% Double IPA. I found this to be a really well balanced beer, plenty of tropical fruit notes, with a lovely bitterness that merely had you reaching for the glass time and again. At 8.5%, a dangerously sessionable beer, please take due care and attention with this one!
Last, but, very definitely not least was Aphotic Baltic Porter (9.3%) from High Water Brewing. This beer has benefitted from barrel ageing and blending, and the end result is a smooth dark chocolate of a beer, definitely an end of evening type of beer, one to savour (for the record, i didn't, just too damn tasty).

And, that as they say was that. Feedback from my colleagues has been positive, so, once again thanks to Mark at Craft Beer Co Islington and to Richard Barclay from Kent Brewery.

Colchester Winter Ale Festival Jan 2016

The 9th Colchester Winter Beer & Cider Festival is over for another year. 

I am pretty certain I have been to the last 8, it is therefore very possible that I missed the inaugural one, sorry about that Colchester Camra (although, on the upside one less tankard to store).

The festival is usually held over 4 days, finishing as ever on a Saturday night, although there is also a Camra members preview evening, which I couldn't get to this year. The venue is the Colchester Arts Centre, centrally located and easily accessible by most, if not all forms of transport.

The Arts Centre is an old church (a very old church in fact, that first appears in local records as far back as 1206), St Mary-at-the-Walls, with quite a substantial graveyard outside the main building, where the summer festival spills over. Which, when I see everyone drinking outside always reminds me of a scene from Steptoe and Son, where Steptoe senior is heard saying "first time I have ever had a drink on him" while his beer rests on the deceased's coffin!

As ever, these events are best enjoyed with friends, and, so, on a wet and windy Wednesday evening a few of us made our way from London, Chelmsford and Harwich to sample some cask ale.

A seamless process sees us get our 1/2 pint tankards, which I do like, if only I could find a way to store them efficiently, programme, and our token card (this means the rest of the evening is cashless and any leftover 10p tokens are donated to a local charity), which leaves us only one more thing to obtain - BEER! As you can see from some of the pictures, there were a few casks available to us........

Now, I had already done a little bit of preparation, having utilised the online beer list, so I headed straight to one of the bars to find Oakham Ales "Affair at Styles" a 3.8% abv described as a limited edition, pale golden beer bursting with citrus and tropical fruit flavours. I simply described it as dry, bitter, refreshing and hoppy. Off to a good start with a beer from a brewery I have a lot of respect for.

Next up, I wanted to try a beer from local home brewer turned small batch brewery, Oli Watts(https://twitter.com/wattsbrew). However, the 1st of his two casks had already sold out, damn! Well done Oli as I hear that the second cask also sold out pretty rapidly later in the week also. That is the downside of doing your homework before a beer festival, inevitably not all beers listed will be available when you are there, so, in order to put this disappointment behind me, I looked for one of the two new Harwich Town Brewery beers. Success - Hamlet was on (which either reminds you of a play by The Bard himself, or a brand of cigar, if neither, perhaps you are too young to be drinking or reading this blog!), a copper brown bitter coming in at 4% abv, I noted this as a very dry English bitter, not twiggy or too malty. It was well balanced and along with the offering I tried from Oakham, was in my top 3 beers of the night.

Beer of the night for me was a new one from a brewery I do not believe I have come across before, but, will keep an eye out for them in the future - Papa Steve 2015 from Bexar County Brewery (http://bexarcountybrewery.com/). An American Imperial Stout. Extremely limited edition beer, packed with flavours of burnt toast, dark chocolate and hints of toffee with an impeccably smooth finish, weighing in at 9% abv, my own notes were somewhat less eloquent - lovely dry stout, very easy and drinkable. Subsequent to deciding that this was my beer of the night I did a little research and found out that there was a very personal and poignant story behind the creation of this wonderful brew (http://bexarcountybrewery.com/2015/10/24/the-story-behind-papa-steve/). If you see this beer, give it a go, you won't be disappointed, but, take care, as it hides the 9% abv rather well!

Naturally, I tried a few more beers, plus a couple of Belgian bottles were shared, and, as ever I had an excellent evening that went all too quickly. Thanks to all the volunteers who help make my local winter beer festival what it is and who also provide tasters, advice and opinions in equal measure!

Roll on the summer festival on the 1st June 2016.





Tryanuary - What i will be doing?

Happy New Year to you all!
Tryanuary (not to be confused with the industry lead Try January) - what does that word conjure up for you? Initially, and perhaps unusually, I was a little undecided as to what route to take in January.
I knew I wanted to reduce my overall intake (for many reasons - health & wealth being two of them) and have a bit of a reset - 2nd half of December was busy with the Beer OClock Show Crimbo Crawl, then straight into the 12 Beer of Xmas, which overlapped with Christmas Day and New Years Eve as well as catching up with friends and colleagues - phew, glad that is all over!
However, I also knew I had no real desire to abstain for 31 days, so, what to do?
I have decided to embrace the community lead Tryanuary http://www.tryanuary.co.uk/ who offer an alternative to Dry January:
Make it your mission to seek out new INDEPENDENT breweries, beers, bars and bottle shops, and share your discoveries with people throughout January.

Now, that doesn't mean I won't be having dry days, as I always aim to do that, it definitely makes the morning run a lot less painful the next day! It also doesn't mean that I will hit every "objective" stated above, but, I always like to have a goal, so, I am using the statement more as a guide than a commandment. With that in mind I visited two local pubs on Sat, that I had neglected in December, in large part due to illness but, also to the aforementioned activities, most of which occurred outside my home town, or, at home. Both pubs had regulars in and it felt nice to be back (The Victoria Inn and The Bricklayers) supping cask ale on the whole, which my girlfriend has now taken a liking to also. However, once I got home I considered how much I had drank and realised that there was no good reason why I had pints in one pub and halves in the other, therefore I have decided that although I want to do my bit for Tryanuary, I also want to do my bit for my health and wealth I am going to endeavour to reduce the volume - wish me luck as NOT ordering pints does not come natural to me in a pub environment, I am sure there will be slips along the way, but, if I achieve any level of success then perhaps it could pave a way for future me, who knows? But, as I said earlier, I do like goals.

I look forward to hearing how others get on with their Tryanuary experiences, should be fun!
Good luck to all those taking part and may the force be with you.