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

      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 ...

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    • Spurn Point lighthouse

      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 ...

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    • M&S London Porter

      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 ...

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    • Halloween Hobgoblin

      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 ...

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    • The Narrow Boat Skipton by Bob W

      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 ...

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    • Meantime Pilsner: perfect for the garden

      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, ...

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    • Industrial wonder: Coors Maltings Stores

      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 ...

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    • Goose Island IPA - a fine example of a North America IPA

      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 ...

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    • Co-operative Ales - underrated

      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 ...

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    • Ringwood Old Thumper

      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 ...

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    • Plot 16: The Fermenting Room

      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 ...

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    • Roosters Pumpkin Beer

      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 ...

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    • Ooh those serif curves...JJJ IPa is something to admire

      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 ...

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    • Moorhouses Pendle Witches Brew

      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 ...

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    October 22nd, 2010FletchtheMonkeyBeer Reviews, Stout & 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 for adoring it’s remarkably sweet Cadbury’s flavours, or close your eyes and take in the notes of liquorice, coffee and molasses that may or may not be hiding under the covers of darkness.

    For best results wait for a cold, wet October night when the light recedes before you’ve even left work. Use as a slow burning nightcap, and crack open in place of a steaming mug of fluffy hot chocolate. Nestle deep into the sofa, dip into your gastronomic vice of choice and have a bit of mid-week you-time.

    London Porter brewed by Meantime for M&S

    London Porter brewed by Meantime for M&S

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    November 9th, 2009FletchtheMonkeyBeer Reviews, Mild beer
    This entry is part 12 of 16 in the series Sainsbury's Beer Competition

    The 15 finalists in the Sainsbury’s Beer Competition included no less than 7 beers from Scotland.  The remaining 8 from England included beers from Devon (2), Shropshire, Yorkshire, Somerset (Bath) and Suffolk. The east of England is actually quite well represented with these two entries from the Wolf Brewery in Norfolk as well as Greene King’s Bretwalda.

    I’ve come across Wolf before, last year (although not this year  as I didn’t get to the local section) at Norwich Beer Festival. The festival, held in the St. Andrew’s & Blackfriars’ Halls slap bang in the centre of the ancient city, not only has the usual set up of lots of UK real ale ales, but also a room each dedicated to world beers and local beers.

    It’s in the local beers room, a rowdy rabbble of beer, cider and tombola, that Wolf features at Nowich Beer Festival. Along with St Peters (from Suffolk) and a handful of smaller breweries East Anglia’s beer is proudly poured for the red nosed punters amidst a loud din of jovialness.

    And I think that’s the way these beers are meant to be drunk, because served up in a bottle in front of me I don’t get the same excitement of buzz as I did at the festival.

    Wolf Whistle is the paler of the two ales, although it is still a vibrant Fantastic Mr Fox red, bold and amber in complexion. There is a sweetness and gentle hop aroma on the nose, and this is washed down by the easy to drink liquid that leaves a malty aftertaste. The hops add a subtle aroma and later a bitterness that, without, would leave this beer uninteresting.

    Wolf Whistle and Woild Moild: one red one ruby, both very drinkable

    Wolf Whistle and Woild Moild: one red one ruby, both very drinkable

    No doubt this is a session beer rather than an occasion beer and I can see it being better from the cask. It’s clean and light and makes you want another sip, but that’s more to do with the pleasant malt bitterness than a bursting taste you can’t wait to get back to.

    Woild Moild is a much darker affair, with a rich nose and a smoky dark mild body and a gentle carbonisation that adds (a slight) bite on the tongue. What sets this apart from similar dark beers is Woild Moild’s fruitiness, which, as with Wolf Whistle’s hops, it would be uninteresting without. For me this beer is held back because I can’t find the chocolate malt the label promised. Without that it’s a simple, fruity dark beer but isn’t as interesting as I was expecting.

    These beers are well worth a look though, not least for Wolf’s attitude as a brewery and local business. Wolf are very much focused on their local heritage, placing emphasis on sustainability - they draw water from their own well, recycle waste products and source barley malt from just across the Suffolk border.

    Wolf Brewery have certainly done very well to get in the 15 finalists, and the beers are good and highly drinkable – in my opinion they’re just not great. These are session beers, and good pub beers – tasty, fruity and easy to drink – but a little more spark would be needed to be competition winners.

    Thanks to Duncan at Wolf Brewery who came to my rescue with a bottle of Wolf Whistle, the only one of the 15 finalists I wasn’t able to get at my local Sainsbury’s.

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