Horsforth Beer Festival

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Horsforth Beer Festival

Jam-packed with Yorkshire beer, Horsforth plays host to its annual beer festival this weekend and some of the pints you’ll find probably haven’t even left God’s Own County to get to your (half) pint glass. Local beers include:

• Great Heck ’Slaughterhouse Porter’
• Hambleton Ales ‘Cheeky Mare’ and ‘Stallion’
• Little Valley ‘Python IPA’
• Ilkley Brewing Co ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ & ‘Ugly Duckling’

Prizes for the most memorably weird and wonderful beer (and brewery) names go to:

• Dicky Ticker Brewery
• Leadmill Brewery’s ‘Old Mottled Cock’
• Bazen’s ‘Zebra Best’
• Blue Monkey’s ‘99 Red Babboons’
• Millstone Brewery’s ‘Tiger Rut’
• Nutbrook Brewery’s ’Cow Juice’
• Old Spot’s ‘Dog in the Barrel’

Tags: beer festival, great heck, hambleton, horsforth beer festival, ilkley, leeds, little valley, yorkshire

Softly Softly Catchy Monkey

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The arrival of a fresh sprinkling of snow brought a genuine chill to this morning’s hangover which will have been evident for all to see by the look on my face as I pulled back the hotel room curtains this morning. Last night a group of 20 of us went out in Nottingham to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of a school friend who happens to be marrying another school friend. They keep it all pretty local down in Banbury!!!

Anyways, I was a bit apprehensive as the last time I had shared a hotel room with the monkey deposit retention and severe violence were only avoided due to the good nature of the hotelier and the patience of fellow bloggers. In the event everything went to plan, except that my team lost at indoor football and the fact captain collision (my new nickname for the Monkey) ceded his hard earned third place in the team go karting event meaning that our best efforts could only raise us to fourth. So we emerged from the hotel this morning feeling the inevitable effects of not exactly getting nine hours sleep. Read the rest of this entry »

Flying Dog Raging Bitch

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Terrible beer, great name.

Of course not, it’s the other way round. Disclaimer starts here: I love this beer.

I first sampled The Bitch at the Flying Dog UK tasting in Leeds. This 20th anniversary beer jumped out of its take-home tetra pak like a bat out of hell. Its nose blasted my clean out of my seat and before the night was out it was on its way to being a beer phenomenon.

Raging Bitch’s Belgian influence is the first thing that strikes me: it’s fruity esters and yeasty sweetness that only Belgian beers can pull off. Until now.

Massive grapefruit pith and outrageous sour fruit intertwine with a sweet malt finish and a bitter attack from an armada of late hops. The nose is huge thanks to a dry hopping assault by Amarillo hops. You pluck out the names of most of Sainsbury’s exotic fruit aisle if you close your eyes; for me the grapefruit ebbs and flows against tangerine and apricot. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: belgian, flying dog, grapefruit, IPA, raging bitch, tangerine

Dunham Massey Cheshire IPA

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Let me start by saying I’m not sure I gave this beer a fair run (which is an inadvertent pun!). I’ve just run 8 miles, never a good time for beer tasting. I doubt it was my fastest run ever but it did entail an hour and a half of running up the hills of Morley (of which their are seven, just like Rome, and Sheffield), over the Huddersfield-Leeds train line, across muddy fields, all the way along Churwell Hill, across to Dewsbury and back over the M62. In the rain. You know that rain. The rain that soaks you reet through.

On my return, after 2 x hamstring stretch + 2 x abductor stretch + 2 x hip flexor, but before my super hot sauna style shower, I popped open a beer whilst I liquidised the soup that had been simmering in the slow cooker.

This was part of a haul from the Beer Emporium in Sandbach, one of the first I picked up because I can’t help but be drawn to anything that says IPA on the label/pump clip. It poured very well for a bottle conditioned IPA, very clear, with a copper gradient and deep amber colour. Its nose and taste belied its appearance: I would expect it to be much more yellow and thinner because it tasted pale and gaunt, despite some upfront hop flavours and a little bit of biscuit. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ber emporium, cheshire, dunham massey, IPA, manchester, Morley, parsnip, running, sandbach, soup

Maredsous Brune 8%

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It seems that my previous claims that I wasn’t really a fan of Belgian beers were completely unfounded (or simply founded on inexperience). A few years ago I assumed incorrectly that all Belgian beer = wheat fuelled turbo Hoegarden.

Maredsous is a great example how Belgian beer can be the antithesis of my previous perception: deep brown, fruity, with no pungent wheat head or overly fizzy body.

From the church wine nose, through stewed fruit – figs or prunes perhaps – this is  rich, sweet affair, almost caramel on the tongue. There’s a wisp of chocolate that arrives from nowhere to spice things up as well. It finishes softly but that isn’t such a bad thing.

This is a rich, mouth-filling beer; but with it’s gentle finish it’s the sort of beer that could become one of my staple ‘have a couple in the cupboard beers’. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: abbey, belgian, benedictine, Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat, caramel, Fruity, maredsous, monks

Highland Brewing Scarpa Special Pale Ale

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One of my favourite meals at the moment is grilled chicken, roasted vegetables and cous cous (interchangeable with rice, fried potatoes or other carbs to please your taste buds). Yes, the roasted veg is usually pre-chopped from ASDA – we’d never use a full courgette if we bought one – and the cous cous is Ainsley Harriot’s finest, but it’s a simple and hassle-free evening meal that’s healthy whilst ensuring we eat at a reasonable time.

It’s a meal that doesn’t want a big fancy beer. It needs something refreshing and palette cleansing, a light golden ale with qualities that mean the meal slips down easily and the night is mine to relax afterwards.

Step up Highland Brewing Company and Scapa Special. It’s a ‘world class pale ale’ and it fits the bill presented by its description: ‘golden and sparkling’, ‘light hop notes’ and a ‘balanced malt/hop middle’. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ginger Revolution

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In honour of the recent brilliant defensive  performance put in by the nation’s new favourite ginger, Paul Collingwood, (although things in South Africa have taken a turn for the worse in the last couple of days) I think it’s time to Ginger Beer it’s day in the sun.

You probably would have had to have had your head buried very deeply in the sand since last summer in order to have missed the rise of Crabbie’s. In their defence there is no attempt to hide the fact that Crabbie’s is an alcoholic version of the Ginger Beer that you get as a soft drink. I have to say that I really like it but that I don’t really like myself for liking it!!! You haven’t seen a Real Ales Reviews review of it because I wouldn’t have the face to come on here, where we espouse the virtues of micro-brewing and real brewing processes, in order to sing the praises of a mass produced and mass marketed ‘alcopop’.

The problem with Crabbie’s isn’t that I don’t like it, I have already said that I do, I just don’t see it as a beer. It’s great ice cold with a nice picnic but it just doesn’t hit any beer buttons. So what are the alternatives for us beer nuts? Well you could do a lot worse than starting with this Ginger Beer offering from Naylor’s Brewery. Details of the brewery, based near Keighley, can be found on their website. Ginger Beer is a seasonal brew but can be found in Beer Ritz at the moment.

First and foremost this is a beer. Golden amber in colour and with a lightly hopped taste the beer is present but subtle enough to allow the ginger flavour to come through and compliment it. It is not an alcoholic ginger beer but rather a genuine ginger flavoured beer, in the same way as a strawberry or peach flavoured beer. I wouldn’t expect a fruit beer to taste like fruit juice with an abv and I feel the same about this ginger flavoured beer. There is a distinction to be made between a ‘ginger beer’ and a ginger flavoured beer. Naylor’s is the latter and, in all honesty, while there is  nothing wrong with liking it, the former probably has no place in the real ales sphere.

Tags: Crabbie's, Ginger Beer, Naylor's Brewery

The Crown & Two Chairmen, Soho, London

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Right some of you will remember that before Christmas I started a series of posts about a day out I had in London on the Real Ale trail. The final part of the series has taken a  long time coming but here it is, finally the series will be complete and balance will be restored to my universe. This will probably be quite short given the amount of time since I was there and I only have about half a page of notes….and no pictures!!!!!! But here it is, my review of The Crown and Two Chairmen in Soho.

The options for hand-pulled ales included London Pride, Old Rosie cider, Adnams Southwold German Kolsch and Doombar from Cornwall. Quite a fan of Doombar from Sharps Brewery, I was a fair few into the day when I had this pint but I find it full of flavour but not overpowering in the palette.  There were 22 taps and I managed to corner the assistant manager for a chat while we were waiting for our burgers and chips to come out. Initially defensive about whether the place was part of a chain when I inquired, she finally said that the place was part of the same chain as The Adelphi in Leeds (which I didntt know was part of a chain actually). Apparently the ethos of the chain is to allow the bars to have as much individuality as possible whilst still having the top down approach of serving good beers and quality food. From what we saw, the place was busy as well, this is certainly the case.

I wouldn’t have put it down as a sibling of The Adelhpi but as soon as I found  out that it was it was obvious. These guys are doing something right because I would definitely go back there and, as I sit in Leeds in the snow following an afternoon of sledging, it’s made me think about the Adelphi so much that I’m off out there for tea.

Tags: adnams, Doombar, London Pride, Old Rosie, Soho, The Crown and Two Chairmen London

Chimay Red

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This 7% Trappist beer was the initial choice for making my Potted Cheese recipe but, after a couple of taste tests, I reverted to Orval. As I find with most of the Trappist beers, this was quite lively in the bottle and the carbonisation was a lot of small bubbles which fill the mouth with a silky smoothness. The appearance of the beer in the glass is dark and cloudy.

The initial taste has the fruity undertones of a good wheat beer but the darker malts push through as a bitter taste develops in the mouth. This bitterness lingers in the mouth along with the distinctive taste of alcohol, a reflection of the 7% content. The combination brings to mind a reminiscence of the smell left in the glass by a good whiskey.

In an attempt to be somehow faithful to the medieval tradition of the Trappist brewers I cooed this bottle outside by parents back door, just perfect for preserving fridge space in this cold spell.

Tags: 7%. Cheese, Chimay, Chimay Red, Trappist

A Grand Day Out…in Nottingham

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On the lead up to Christmas me and a few or my more intellectually challenged University mates decided to go for a day out in Nottingham to see if we still had the stamina to managed an ‘all-dayer’.  Obviously I knew that the ales were going to merge at some point after lunch and that the details would be difficult to get down. I therefore armed myself with a Cancer Research pen and 2010 Diary and met at the 10am rendezvous, The Bank pub, for beer and breakfast.

The Bank is what I would dub a Weatherspoons rip-off. The breakfast menu was almost identical to Weatherspoons and the range of beers available was similar. I was therefore able to order a pint of Bass to go with my Americano and Large Breakfast. I couldn’t  remember whether I’d ever actually  had Bass before but I knew that it used to be very popular with my Dad’s friends out of  a can. The lightness suited accompanying a large meal and my initial impression was of an relatively sweet toffee flavour but this was tempered by the development of a more peppery body. The existence of these flavours was I think testament to how well the ale was kept and I have since been disappointed when having the same pint at The Wobbly Wheel near Banbury where none of these subtly complex flavours appeared from ‘the same’ pint.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: adnams, Ale trail, Bass, bitter, Broadside, Burton Bitter, Castle Rock Brewery, Greene King, Magpie Brewery, mild, nottingham, Nottingham Brewery, Old Hooky, pale, The Bell, The Dragon, The Roebuck