Real Ale Reviews
Independent reviewers of real ales, beers and lagers from around the world, including beer reviews, breweries, watering holes and real ale events
Ivanhoe English Pale Ale
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 ...
Spurn Point
Just like Mike Parker, the author of Map Addict, for years I've been mesmerised by the enigmatic Spurn Point, that strangely shaped strip of almost-land that stretches from the tip of the East Riding of Yorkshire and awkwardly attempts to reach back downstream towards the sands of the Humber estuary. Spurn Point (or Spurn Head for many) is a sand bar that has been precariously edging it's way westwards over the last millennium of geological time as the ...
M&S London Porter
Smoky as hell to smell and like a burnt caramel bar to taste, M&S's London Porter is a sweet beer to devour with masses of chocolate or marshmallows over a camp fire. If you don't fancy the great outdoors then no worries, the lingering smoky presence hangs around for a long time in your mouth and may invoke daydreams of sitting under the stars and gazing at the heavens. It's packed with malt variety: you can settle ...
Halloween Hobgoblin
It's Halloween! And if your local supermarket or beer shop doesn't have pumpkin beer, then the next best thing to celebrate the might be the Halloween branded bottles of Wychwood Hobgoblin, found retailing for £1 at ASDA. The £1 price tag didn't scare us but the beer did a little. We must have grabbed a dogby bottle because the usual stewed fruit aroma had matured into rotting crab apples (old hops perhaps?) and the familiar fruit cake ...
Ales of the Unexpected
Since the dawn of my drinking days I've been a big fan of the dark side. Stouts, porters, milds or brown ales, I've always enjoyed savouring their brooding malty richness. And as autumn has arrived with a bang, it's fitting that I happened across a couple of unusual and very worthy offerings from Wentworth on my travels last week. This South Yorkshire brewery is one step ahead of the game in the stout ...
Meantime Pilsner
A strong, frothy head, a pale countenance and a ferociously Noble body makes Meantime Pilsner unmistakeably Bavarian. Put simply it's the colour of straw and the embodiment of light, refreshing, authentic lager. It's so pale you might even miss the barely toasted malt in this one. It's pale, delicate fizz, infused with the scent of stalks and greenery, ensures it's fresh and natural in body and soul with a congenital bitterness screaming of the vernacular style. E.g. it's hoppy, ...
Underbelly
Once upon a time Britain was an industrial nation. The population were manual workers, skilled or miners, all contributing towards the rise of the Empire. Nowadays we work at screens, behind partitions, "in services". Those grey, growing gas stores, the vast warehouses, the corrugated factories; they're alien to much of Britain; a spec on the landscape, an irritation to an otherwise green and pleasant land. These gunmetal structures, whilst reduced in their visibililty, still make up the backbone ...
Goose Island India Pale Ale
Hoppy, vibrant, refreshing and tangy to finish, Goose Island is a mighty fine American IPA. The Chicago brewers bottled ales are a staple of many of the best bars in the UK, with both the IPA and Honker's Ale permanent fixtures at our work's regular, The Cross Keys in Leeds. American IPAs differ from their UK counterparts. I don't think it's all down to the fact I enjoy them quite a bit colder than I'd usually ...
Co-operative Harvest Ale
Beers these days are hoppy. Well, I reckon they probably are more hoppy than they used to be. Hoppy hoppy hoppy. Such...an easy word to use. And such a generalisation. I never wrote about beer 20 years ago. I was a young Yorkshire lad acclimatising to life in North Oxfordshire, still a decade or so away from being able to legally drink. But I don't reckon the bitters were as hoppy nor the hops as ...
Ringwood Old Thumper
Admittedly Ringwood Old Thumper has taken a while to grow on me. Approximately 10 bottles to be relatively precise. Perhaps it was the nose that created images of toffee apples doused in vinegar or meths. Or the uncertainty of trying to enjoy the gone-off flavours of rotten veg, crab apples, musty drawers and dirty rags? Yet, Old Thumper kinda grows on you. Unfurled slowly is the, not quite delicate, but protracted sweetness and bitterness of an aged and ...
Plot 16: The Fermenting Room
When beer and art collide: Modern Art Oxford's limited edition green hop beer Down a dark and wet side street between the less historical buildings of the city's shopping district, the white washed walls of Modern Art Oxford are accustomed to the strange and gangly structures of modern sculpture. But to the strange and gangly structures of humulus lupulus they are not. Twisting, reaching, helixing, yearning upwards, the leaf-heavy green bines have designs on the famously spired ...
Roosters Pumpkin Beer
Roosters Brewery, whose beers are the staple diet of many a Yorkshire pub, marked this Hallowe'en with a pumpkin beer. No ordinary pumpkin beer though, a pumpkin beer served in nothing less than a giant pumpkin. A really, really giant pumpkin. Pumpkin 5 Spice Ale was tapped at North Bar in Leeds, in front of Calendar news and a small selection of excitable beer lovers. Arguably a more delicate task than tapping a cask, the job ...
Moor JJJ IPA
This not, I repeat NOT, an IPA. Punchy, citrus hops? Nil. Alcohol? Deep, stewed and sweet beyond believe. Apple skins & fruit pudding? Yes, yes, YES! None of which gives Moor JJJ IPA much credence as an IPA. But then again this isn't an IPA nor a double IPA. It's only a bleedin' triple IPA(!!!). This couldn't be further from Green King's bland and monotonous flagship brand of ale and is similar in nothing but colour. By their own admission Moor didn't ...
Moorhouse's Pendle Witches Brew
From Pendle Hill you've more chance of seeing Ian Holloway celebrating at Bloomfield Road than coming across any broomsticks or clandestine hurlyburly. And that's on a cloudy day. The sandstone plateau does have a slightly spooky aura about it though. Standing proud from the undulating hillside you can imagine a cackling coven of witches peering over the landscape and plotting the demise of their rivals. Especially if you visit during thunder and lightning... Moorhouse's Pendle Witches Brew is inherently ...-
November 26th, 2009CommentLager, lager, lagerThis week has seen a host of articles on lager, CAMRA and the divisions in the beer industry (see articles by Barm, Mark Dredge, Woolpack Dave, Pete Brown and more).Seems that some of it is negative (which I say meaning not positive about the whole thing rather than derogatory), much of it is complicated and much of it has sparkedvery good debate amongst the beer community.It’s fitting that the lager debate surfaced on the week we unearthed a parody of our sites, real-lager-reviews.com, and actually the Guardian article was one of the ways we cottoned onto our spoofers.Then Sam couldn’t quite work out if William’s Brothers Grozet which was depectively lager like for a beer.It seems the question of lager brings up awkward arguments. CAMRA clearly don’t associate themselves with CO2, which rules out a lot of lagers, but it doesn’t fundamentally rule out lager.Various other methods of serving lager can be found (what the hell is lager when it’s a home!) The debate reminds me of the ‘What’s an IPA anymore’ discussion that many ofus bloggers commented on a few months back.So, my two cents.CAMRA support real ale. Check. They (to the best of my knowledge) have no vendetta against lager or any other drink. However, some die hard CAMRA supporters probably do(and they are entitled to their opinions). So for CAMRA to rule out serving a lager because it uses CO”, sounds on the face of it fair enough.Look, people like different things, that’s live. There is nothing wrong with ‘real ale’ festivals. But personally, I’d prefer to see ‘Beer, ale, whatever festivals’, the empahsis beingon quality, responsible drinkaing and socialising. Forget arguments, linear divisions, style. I want to see festivals that provide an outlet for beer berwers, a get together for beer loversand a genuine effort to make sure beer has a good name.Lager, beer, ale, stout, porter, IPA, pale ale: all allowed.Cask, keg, bottled, straight out of a fermenting tank: allowed.Tankard, pint glass, 1/3 pint, 1/2 pint, wine glass: allowed.Me, I like beer, and as I repeat from my comment ealrier this week, as Adrian Tierney Jones puts it, “Beer, ale , whatever” (apologies if I take your usage out of context Adrian).I will add to this discussion later this week, in a post close to my heart.
Serving beer (Wikipedia)
Last week saw a host of articles on lager, CAMRA and why the two don’t always have a harmonious relationship (see articles by Barm, Mark Dredge, Woolpack Dave, Tandleman & The Guardian).
The same week r’ Sam couldn’t quite work out if William’s Brothers Grozet was a lager or a beer, with conflicting online reviews and it being deceptively lager like for an ale.
It’s fitting that the lager debate and lots of lager chat surfaced on the week we unearthed a parody of our sites, real-lager-reviews.com, and actually the Guardian article that kicked much of this off was one of the ways we cottoned onto our spoofers (thanks to an innocuous comment on there by the Real Lager Reviews lads).
It seems the question of lager brings up some awkward discussions. CAMRA clearly don’t associate themselves with CO2, which rules out a lot of lagers, but it doesn’t fundamentally rule out lager per se.
Which leads us to what is a lager: what it is and why is it different? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beer festival, beer writing, CAMRA, lager, saltaire, serving -
November 16th, 2009Comment
Vote for Real Ale Reviews in the Golden Twits
As some of you will have seen last week, this blog (well, our beer related twitter account) has been nominated for a little award. The Golden Twits are an “award scheme that aims to celebrate the best in Twittering” and are organised by The Drum magazine (a news mag all about marketing, design and media). The standards are high in the awards and in our categories we are up against the likes of fellow twits from 4Homes, White & Mackay, Ogilvy, Cisco and the Guardian.
This makes us very proud, as we only started writing about beer five months ago.
For those of you that don’t know lots about us, I started this blog in May with Alan. It was a rainy summer night and Alan and I were watching series 4 (I think) of the West Wing… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: awards, beer writing, golden twits, twitter, wikio -
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