The context of a perfect beer

6

…Or Why Mythos Is The Best Beer In The World But Only In A Very Specific Situation And With The Correct Weather Conditions

When I’m reading on holiday (and spouting verse to rival Simon Armitage) I’m never far from a little notebook where I can jot down words I’ve never come across before. That either make me sounds like a geek or perhaps slightly illiterate, but I read a lot of popular science and it can get quite…technical.

More often than not I can guess the meaning of words from their context and a dash of arbitrary knowledge. That’s because nothing is without context, nothing exists in a perfect vacuum, and that includes beer.

Luckily it only rained once on my recent holiday to Skopelos which allowed me 13 and a half days to lap up the piercing Grecian sunshine. At 36 degrees celsius to was hard not to break into sweats just lazing around with a book.

In such conditions you wouldn’t dream of picking up the same types of beers as you would at home. No matter how much a dry pale ale is perfect with the saltiness of olives or how much a German weisse would compliment the crispiness of a Greek salad, it’s just too hot for everything.

Everything that is except Mythos.

Without meaning to labour on my love for Mythos (I actually drank more Amstel on this holiday once the sun had gone down) Mythos rightly deserves it’s name and holds a special place in beer folklore. Mythos is a mythical creature that brings with it dismay and disappointment when drunk anywhere outside Hellenic border controls, yet chilled to within a inch of it’s life and deployed at critical moments of a boiling hot day on a Greek island, it’s  powers to revive might only be bettered by a cardiac defibrillator.

Admiring the distant olive groves and drying off after a dip in the swimming pool, Mythos is just…perfect. Nothing more, nothing less.

And in the context of the above weather conditions, Mythos is the best beer in the world. Period.

On the last day our energetic shopkeeper asked me if I drank Mythos at home in England. She was delighted when I said it’s just not the same without the sun and the backdrop of Greece. “Everyone says that!” she exclaimed, wondering how such a thing could be true.

Tags: Context, greece, Mediterranean, mythos

Alcoholic fruit squash

2

Why buy fresh fruit smoothies when you can have beer instead?!

Remember Reefs? Smirnoff Ices?

Remember Hooch and Barcardi Breezers?

Well this summer you might struggle to fnd the above, but fear not as beer has come to the rescue. If you want sweet fruity flavours and a drink to get you a little on the tipsy side, why fork out for dirt cheap alcopops when you have quality on your side:

Kernel Centennial Pale Ale

Um Bongo aroma with a touch of Blackcurrant Ribena. ABV of 5.4% and a body of yoghurt and oats, it simply glides down your throat like Yop. Not too bitter, though the  bitterness that there is lingers long-time…

This beer knocks most pale ales for six and is quite frankly amazing. I was lucky enough to get this as an added extra from my #beerswap partner and it outshone the other brews. Beers like this can make a brewery…if it’s not a fluke then Kernel have a lot to live up to.

Halcyon by Thornbridge
(2009 Green hopped, oh yeah!)

It’s more tropical than last years Halcyon, the dominance of grass in the nose has disappeared in favour of exotic fruit. I used to love that damn prairie grass, but hell do I now crave that beautiful pineapple explosion.

What a quandary! What hops have they changed or replaced? You may have sold out your grass roots Thornbridge, but you’ve replaced them with a beer that I could have sex with.

Thornbridge Halcyon is Innocent Smoothie on acid (or something stronger). Get me another fix, now.

Marble Manchester Bitter

A passion fruit hell pit, this is the sort of beer Adam threw away paradise for. And rightly so, Adam, who wants a garden of fruit trees bending under the weight of it’s luscious produce when you can sit back and knock the crown cap of a Manchester Bitter. I’d give up my Eve and all pasta based dishes for this beer. I’d be tempted to call Charlie Brooker’s bluff and offer a little finger perhaps. Maybe even a thumb. I’ll definitely give up all hoofed animals to maintain the existence of this beer perhaps in doing so rid the world of half it’s methane emissions too.

This might just be the beer that saves the world.

Beer information:

Beer: Centennial Pale Ale
Brewery: Kernel Brewery
Style: London Pale Ale
ABV: 5.4%
Area: London, England

Beer: Thornbridge Halcyon
Brewery: Thornbridge Brewery
Style: Imperial IPA
ABV: 7.7%
Area: Derbyshire, England

Beer: Manchester Bitter
Brewery: Marble
Style: Bitter
ABV: 4.2%
Country: Manchester, England

Thanks to mybrewerytap and beermerchants for supplying the beer. Yep, they were freebies, and I’m proud to say I’d pay a significant amount of my hard earned cash to drink these again. Which I have actually just done. And I would recommend that you also try them.

Tags: kernel, marble, thornbridge

Mac’s Gold All Malt Lager

5

Mac’s Gold All Malt Lager would simply fly off the shelves if you stuck it in UK supermarkets.

It’s the perfect barbecue beer: it’s lager, it’s sweet golden nectar with just a hint of pilsner influence from the brewer. It’s gimmicky ring pull gives it points simply for the lack of dependence on those pesky bottle openers that inevitably go missing mid-way through the evening, lost in decorative stones or knocked off a low brick wall into a thicket of patio plants. It happens, you know it does.

Mac’s doesn’t distinguish itself by being different, bold or arrogant. It’s simply good lager – a sweet not-a-million-miles-from-honey twang. Hops don’t dominate, in fact hey barely offer any bitterness to counter the sweetness infused by the malt. This is probably the endearing factor that might make Mac’s Gold suitable to beer lovers from all walks of life, even hop head vampires whose blood runs thick with DIPA. I believe they have a predisposition to chilled wholesome lager anyway. Even BrewDog James.

Tell me I’ve been done by the fact it looks different to the others. Tell me actually its not better than San Miguel, Sam Adams or even Sam Smith’s Alpine.

I’ll say ‘whatever’ – whether it’s branding or body copy, Mac’s should be brewed on license over here, because it’s a winner through and through.

Tags: BBQ, macs gold, new zealand

Sam Smiths Organic Strawberry Fruit Beer

4

One word sums up Sam’l Smith’s Organic Strawberry Beer, and that’s jam. Borne upon the pesticide free tentacles of  organic strawberry plants, this beer is firmly classified under the pigeon hole dedicated to ‘Fruit Beer’ in beer taxonomy. That is fruit beer and not fruit-y beer.

The distinction between the two rival camps is  is black and white, determined solely by my girlfriends ability to drink a given beer or not. If she can, the beer is a fruit beer, if she can’t it’s a fruity beer. And if she hasn’t tasted it then it doesn’t pong of fruit and must be another type of beer altogether.

This is a beer so utterly dominated by fruit that it’s classification as beer might well be under threat. It’s genetic make up is more akin to Bonne Maman than real ale; a syrup of sticky, fizzy Panda pops and Taste the Difference summer berry preserve. By no means is the taste of British field strawberries, it’s plump, tinned strawbeeries on ice cream, doused in sugar and sweetener.

And by and large, it’s utterly divine – a sugar coated iceberg to blast your mouth free of anything savoury and replace it with unbridled strawberry sweetness.

You might not want more than one in a blue moon, but give it ago (it would have made a good accompaniment to Wimbledon!) because after the initial shock, Sam Smith’s have created a beer that develops. Take it slow and your reward is a growing emergence of sweet malt character that compensates you for your glucose overdose. And it just about makes this something  more than a quaint and quirky gimmick.

Beer information:
Beer: Organic Strawberry Fruit Beer
Brewery: Samuel Smith
Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5.1%
Country: England

Tags: jam, sam smiths, strawberry

Ivanhoe English Pale Ale

0

The guy behind the counter looks as decrepit as the shop, and the shop doesn’t even look open, it’s grape-bordered window dressing might be confused for a long boarded up newsagents. It leans against Ladbrokes on the Dereham Road,  just a short walk (and not very scenic walk) from the pot-holed streets of Norwich city centre.

Ivanhoe jumps off the shelf, of all the local beers it looks the most promising (though in fairness surprisingly few of the local beer label designs would make Pump Clip Parade). Adorned with knights jousting, something feels right about buying this beer in Norwich, a city that was once second only to London and is now an oft-overlooked destination for cultural delights.

And the beer fits the bill that the label tees up – malty, almost sour and distinctively English in all elements (inherited from the English Maris Otter and chocolate malt, the Golding and Admiral Hops). Pale ales nowadays don’t often come without the promise of tropical fruit or a hop roll call scaling double figures. Ivanhoe redresses the hop/malt balance and if anything hints at English harvest fruit.

Ivanhoe shows that nothing more than a hint of the historical is needed to make a beer I’d happily revisit regularly.

More regularly than I’m likely to joust. And unfortunately more regularly than I get to ramble amongst the cobbles and wood beams of Norwich.

Beer information:
Beer: Ivanhoe English Pale Ale
Brewery: Ridgeway Brewing
Style: Pale Ale
ABV: 5.2%
Country: England

Tags: Ivanhoe, Ridgeway

After The Gold Rush

3

I vividly remember sneaking down the stairs, having long since worked out which ones would squeak loud enough to give me away, and which ones were the trusted, silent partners in crime. In reality the only crime would have been disturbing the rest of the family as I tiptoed towards the end room.

I’d pull out the arm chair and squeeze between the furniture that housed my Dad’s long serving midi hifi system. I pretended the record player was a more exotic separate with a fancy name like Stereophonic 4000 or Vanguard 625, rather than the faded black Panasonic box with double cassette deck.

This lowly stereo introduced me to the crackle of vinyl and the beauty of long player album sleeves. Crouched over this lacklustre box I fell in love with the toe tapping wonders of Songs in the Key of Life, the infectious guitars of Let it Bleed and the warbles and jangles of Highway 61 Revisited.

I distinctly remember finding the innards of After The Gold Rush; the tension of slowly removing the tea stained artwork from the sleeve and gingerly turning the pages, too scared to hold it lest the crinkled pages tear apart.

And aptly, I’m now sat at home after a manic weekend at Glastonbury, drinking a beer called Gold Rush. A few nights ago I was watching Neil Young on the Pyramid stage belt out hit after hit, desperately hoping he’d slow momentarily for the title track of his iconic album. We got the heart strings of Heart of Gold instead, and, surreptitiously for this beer, that kinda works too. We also got the longest encore in musical history comprising of the chorus of Rocking in the Free World no less than 17 times..

Gold Rush is  a fitting drink to help me recover from the raptures of Glasto. Golden, sweet, easy going, with middle of the road use of malt and hops that don’t give enough of any one distinct fruit to write home about. Little head or fizz make this easy to quaff (it’s not flat though) but it’s missing that special something to make it a regular beer cupboard fixture.You could easily get lost in it and let your mind wander elsewhere, which probably makes it the perfect accompaniment to a night listening to After the Gold Rush on vinyl.

If you’ve succumbed to the beauty of that then perhaps this beers fruitiness is slightly better suited in nature if not name, to Neil Young’s Harvest. And if the label harks more to America’s gold rush of the 19th century it would still look like pretty good sat next to that legendary album cover.

Beer information:
Beer: Gold Rush
Brewery: The Wagtail Brewery
Style: Golden Bitter
ABV: 4.0%
Region:Norfolk, England

The eagled eyed amongst you will notice that Neil Young played Glastonbury 2009, and that yes, this post is a year old, salvaged from the notebook after returning from Glastonbury 2010. And if you’re that eagled-eyed give the label a read, a nice bit of Norfolk history for you.

Tags: glastonbury, Gold Rush, Neil Young, norfolk, vinyl, Wagtail

Glastonbury beer

11

Just what beer do you take to a summer music festival?

With Glastonbury only a few days away there’s a big supermarket trip around the corner to stock up on all the liquid lunches we’ll be needing over the 5 days we spend wallowing in mud, Carlsberg cans and the reverberation of  thumping speakers.

But what is the perfect festival beer?

At Glastonbury you can take what you want. Unlike other festivals, once you’re in, you’re in, and you may freely waltz around with your chosen tipple without fear of eviction. Last year one chap had 3 cans of Stella strapped to each limb with duck tape. He was never without a beer.

The perfect drink has to be light. Multiple car trips are not good so you need to be able to pack it in a rucksack, pop it under your arm or balance it on your head for the long walk from car park to chosen pitching ground.

The perfect drink has to be refreshing. If the sun comes out it needs to revive; if the mud rises up it needs to make you feel fighting fit to grapple through the bodies and lost wellies.

This enigmatic tipple mustn’t be too strong. No-one wants to miss the single unmissable act of the day, not drink too much and earn themselves an early retirement to the tent. You want to be up from 11am until 4am, with perhaps a mid afternoon nap in a quiet folk tent near the tippees.

You need to be able to drink all day and never feel under the weather.

And this magic beer (or other alternative beverage) must be passable, nay even enjoyable when warm.  In a perfect world it will chill quickly too and never warm up, if nature or some fancy technology (aka cool box) gives you the opportunity.

We could try lager. Widely available in lightweight cans of various strengths. It’s refreshing when hot which ticks an important box, but crucially though, it’s a bit rubbish when not ice cold.

So in case of warm conditions perhaps we should take some ale. Bottled conditioned is an absolute no-no, and even simply bottles are a bad idea. Stone’s Bitter or Tanglefoot anyone? A choice between garish orange or red, unless you want to risk Smoothflow, of course.

Then there’s the alternative solution, cider. Before you conjure images of vagrants and teenagers on a park bench, just remember the criteria.

Lightweight.

Not too strong.

Easy to carry.

Drinkable warm.

Suddenly Strongbow seems more appealing than ever…

Tags: Ale, beer, Cider, festival, glastonbury, lager, summer

Oxfordshire Marshmellow

1

Oxfordshire Marshmellow

An aroma of seeds, thick and sticky. Open it up with a bit of oxygen and red berries burst in the nostrils. It tastes of marshmallows of course, with dashes of toffee, spice, poppies…

This might not be to everyone’s tastes in the same way as Theakston’s Grouse Beater whch has a similar complicated taste that cuts through the usual bitterness of British brown ales.

It’s what BrewDog’s Dogma might be like after a few months in the Priory.

I probably had to work quite hard on this beer, but underneath the initial taste, there’s much for than a hop or malt character to it – it’s interesting if not immediately ‘wow’.

Tags: dogma, marshmallow, Oxfordshire, poppy seeds, red berries, toffee

Le grand cru de Morrisons

8

This weekend I spent £10 on beer.  Two Elizabeth Fry’s. A pair of fivers.

In return Wm Morrisons Supermarkets PLC handed over 36 bottles of beer for my imbibing enjoyment, 2×18 pack boxes of Bière Continental.

Despite some taunts on twitter I stacked half of the first case in the freezer and the remaining half in the fridge, plonked myself on a chair in the garden and necked the sweet golden liquid as quickly as I sweated it out in the blistering heat.

A waste of money? Absolutely not. The same amount of branded lout or fancy bottled beer would have set me back twice or thrice as much, depending on your tipple. The chubby 275ml were just about the right size to stay cool in the blistering sun instead of turning in a tepid vial of…yeah, you know what I mean.

This wasn’t a blind, test. A 500ml bottle of Saltaire Fuggles was boiling like Eyjafjallajoekull by the time I’d got half way down it. Carlsberg Export became an insipid green bottle of water, dashed with a trace of barley.

Which kinda ruined the experience.

Morrison’s ‘French’ stubbies on the other hand were ice cold, liquid refreshment. Take them as they are – no craft brew, no care and attention. You can freeze them to smithereens and they perform even better, they hydrate you better than anything else I tried.

Plus they brought back fantastic family holiday memories of rotisserie chicken, cheese filled baguettes and Eurocamp in the Vendée?

Perfectionner de la bière?

In the specific conditions of Saturday afternoon, c’est possible…

Tags: french, morrisons, supermarket

Burton Bridge Tickle Brain Ale

4

So far, I’ve not found Burton Bridge’s beers the easiest to drink. Their labelling challenges the normal conventions of beer branding and similarly their beers challenge the in-vogue tastes. But Henry VIII and a lack of Amarillo/C-Hop infused smack-you-round-head flavours aside, there’s something else different about this brewery.

At Christmas I tried their Pale Ale and by a country mile it was the hardest beer I tried to write about during the festive period. I’ve still not got round to buying another bottle to formalise my views on it. So writing about the Tickle Brain is a bit of a gamble, especially as I’ve yet to distinguish what (if anything tangible) makes Burton Bridge so different.

Tickle Brain pours amber with a hint of ruby. It’s foreboding, with little head or carbonisation. It looks…difficult.

On the nose there’s noticeable brown apples, I can’t tell if the red or green kind. Esters or acetaldehyde, I guess. Alcohol dominates the first taste but further sips pull the curtains back on a complex interaction of bitterness and sweetness. Subsequent sips are washed around the mouth revealing the faintest tiniest hint of something Orvallian: root veg, pepper, spice; a weirdly sweet and perhaps imagined drop of raisins, Belgian Christmas-ale esque. Near the end I chuck the sediment in and the musty remains develops a buttery body, a surprisingly pleasing anecdote to the vinegar feeling the rest of the bottle left around my gums.

Tickle Brain is Old Thumper as barley wine (or Abbey Beer as the branding suggests) with a dash of Belgian seasoning and unmistakeable alcohol. Two pours in to the bottle my head feels lighter and heavier at the same time. I guess you could call that Tickle Brain.

*I wanted to say ‘undisguisable alcohol’, but my oversized Penguin dictionary (1,642 pages long) claims this does not exist as a word. Which seems silly. Language is fluid after all and undisguisable seems fairly standard. Am I missing an obvious alternative?!

Tags: abbey ale, Barley wine, burton bridge, old thumper, tickle brain