Some beer from the Philippines

First up is Red Horse. I am not sure how to describe it as it pretty much looks and feels like a lager. I have read that this is a malt liquor but I have nothing to compare it to in that style. According to the packaging, this is a whopping 6.9% abv. It certainly does not taste like it. I found it had a sort of champagne feel. It is clearly very fizzy from the image and it felt less like a beer and more like a sparkling wine in some ways. There is very little in the way of bitterness. I found it lacked body, was quite watery but not completely unpleasant. I would not drink it though for the simple reason that at 6.9% with no body or flavour to complement it I just see this is an easy beer to get drunk on and that is not why I drink beer.



Next up is one that seems be seen as a joke in Manila (among westerners anyway), probably from the name (and price). It comes in a nice little bottle and is called Beer na beer. Interestingly I quite enjoyed this. It is a classic Pilsner style that I would have had many times in the Czech republic. It seems to have Won three Monde Selection Gold Medals in Brussels, however this appears to be to do with general quality as opposed to being a beer specific award.

There is very little in the way of breweries in the Philippines and I have covered both the San Miguel brewery and Asia Brewery. Ordinary San Miguel can be bought anywhere, even here in Ireland and there is no point talking about it.


And now on to something a little more interesting, at least to me anyway as this is one of my own. Last week at the monthly Irish Craft Brewer meet-up we had some wonderful beers and among them was my bitter which I called Quaff for the simple reason that it should be a quaffable English style bitter. Of the bottles I tried after kegging and after the tasting it was pretty evident that I ended up with some sort of Belgian feel, probably due to too much heat. Warm weather combined with a failure in my thermostat meant there was a few days of that room being about 23c. This resulted in a very nice Belgian feel to my "bitter". It was still hoppy but had a Belgian alcohol feel going on.
Last night I attached my double adapter to my co2 regulator so I could put the Quaff on tap in my kegerator. If you remember from a previous post I had lost it so only had the Witbier on tap. I pull my first ping, take a taste and behold I have a wonderful English bitter with no Belgian feel at all. This is exactly what I was going for, in fact I think it is better than I had hoped as it reminds me a lot of London pride. I have some London pride at home so I will have to do a side by side tasting when I get the chance.