Festive frolics

This Christmas was destined to be a beery one. A long year has come to an end with lots of new things happening: my girlfriend Sarah moved up to Leeds and into our new home, I started this blog and had my first few months as a season ticket holder at Elland Road.

I stayed with my parents in Oxfordshire for most of the time, whilst stopping in at Sarah’s folks in Nottingham on the way down and back up, all of which involved careful transportation of a couple of boxes of beers up and down the M1. I couldn’t see any of the lanes on the motorway on the journey home thanks to the mini-blizzard that hit the UK on Christmas Eve Eve and woke up to a white blanket covering the view out my bedroom window the next morning.

My special Christmas beers lined up in the freezing cold garage

A quick stop at the Hook Norton Brewery museum and shop (and bar!)

Before I cracked on with any beer drinking on the 24th it was off to Hook Norton for a top up of bottles straight from the brewery (which my Dad polished off) and then a day of photography in the snow covered landscapes of North Oxfordshire. After mucking around in the snow for a few hours I completed my Christmas shopping in Chippy, “the gateway to the Cotswolds”, wandering through its charming independent shops (and buying lots of lovely stuff for Sar of course!)

Back home with plenty of time to wrap presents* I made am excited start on unpacking aforementioned beers in the garage (with fingers crossed they wouldn’t all freeze!). Some of the beers I was really excited about, particularly Crown Brewer Stu’s porter and IPA; a couple of Sierra Nevadas (Torpedo and Estate) and a Harvey’s Imperial Stout.

Of course I took my beer notebook with me to take some tasting notes, my trusty leather bound sidekick which contains countless reviews ready to be rounded into complete (and comprehensible) sentences for upload to WordPress. Alas though, the festivities and my excitement to be with my family again resulted in very little note taking and much more concentrating on enjoying the beers.

RipTide made a fitting accompaniment to Boxing Day festivities

I polished off most of the pictured beers over 7 or 8 days (plus a good amount of pilsner and rum on a fun-packed evening in Banbury town on Christmas Eve, rolling in at a silly hour to lay my weary, beery head down).

Unfortunately I’ll have to do it all again in order to offer my thoughts on each and every one (much to the delight of Beer Ritz in Leeds I imagine!), but I concentrated enough on the beers to determine my favourites. I enjoyed all of Crown’s beers, the Wensleydale Winter ale (good with cheese) and the Rochefort 6 (fig-alicious!) but a few stood out above the rest:

Christmas crackers:

Riptide by BrewDog

When BrewDog are good they are world class. This beer is soooo smooth and buttery and beautiful. Chocolate, vanilla with a smoked cherry twist and a striking dark crimson tint to it’s black hue.

Sierra Nevada Estate: fresh, piney, fantastic

Sierra Nevada Estate

Maybe I’m imagining it because it’s an estate beer (the hops and barley are grown a stones throw from the mash tuns) but this beer tastes like the hops were picked yesterday. It was fresh, tasted like pine needles straight from the ground, with a sharp hoppy kick followed by a delicate soft finish. Excellent.

Dark Star Imperial Stout

One of the most balanced and drinkable stout ever. It’s utterly delicious and you’d never know it’s 10.5%. Port, cherries, vanilla and roasted malt hang in perfect equilibrium.

Corsendonk Christmas Ale

Demerara sugar, bananas, spices, berries, vanilla, chocolate – it’s a crazy but shockingly harmonious mix! As Christmas ales go, this is so far my favourite and leaps ahead of cheesily named British ‘Christmas’ ales.

Also worth mentioning are Hooky Double (award winning for a reason), Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (chocolatey loveliness), Mikkeler Jackie Brown (coffee loveliness) and Crown Brewery Samuel Berrys (light and refreshing like Hopdaemon’s Skrimshander) which were all great too, in fact there’s none I didn’t enjoy drinking, although there a few that I didn’t like as much as the others…

Lumps of coal

Ok that’s a bit harsh but there a couple of beers that just didn’t do it for me particularly:

Harvey's Imperial Extra Double Stout: just a bit too much for me

Burton Bridge Empire Pale Ale

Not bad, but just flatter and funkier than I expected (maybe a bad pour?). I don’t think this is a bad beer, I simply just didn’t particularly like the taste of it that much. Will have to give my fickle taste buds a second go at it.

Harvey’s Imperial Extra Double Stout

A beer you decant rather than open, I just didn’t ‘get’ this one. It’s medicinal, sour, soy sauce tastes just overpowered me completely and didn’t resemble anything that my palate can handle. The silky smooth texture tricked me into thinking I might be able to get on with the peaty, molasses-heavy flavours but I gave up, defeated.  Sam had the last third of the bottle so he might have something to add to that…

All in all, Christmas was a great relaxing time with my family and I had some fantastic beers. I saw lots of snow, ate magnificently and found muscles I didn’t know existed through playing Wii bowling. I also managed to smuggle a few Marble Beers down south for Mark Dredge, who brought Pete Brissenden and their beer widows (Lauren and Heather) to meet me and mine in London. 4 pubs and a eclectic selection of beers later (1/2 pints mind!), we managed to put many worlds to right and went home merry and festive. New Year’s Eve was spent sipping Punk IPA, San Miguel and champagne with the electronic University Challenge game and Cluedo with friends and recovering the next morning with bacon sarnies and leftover cheese and crackers.

Anyway enough about that, hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and has a brilliant New Year.

Here’s to 2010!

*I may have used the help of third parties in successfully wrapping some presents!!!