More blunt than sharp?

This is the first time I have had a beer from Sharp's so I was interested to see what it is like. I would imagine this would be one of the flagship beers since it is a reserve? The Sharp's Single Brew Reserve 2008 is not listed on their website but it is an ESB in style and to me was like the old saying mutton dressed as lamb. It seems to want to pass itself off as the equivalent of Fullers Vintage Reserve but fails miserably.
Perhaps I am being a little harsh? Well let's see. The aroma I got fruit and maybe a little caramel. I also got plenty of malt and fruit and a little caramel as well as an alcoholic taste to it. That is pretty much all I can remember of it to be honest, there was nothing special here to mark it out as being a "reserve". The problem now is that because this is a reserve and supposed to be the brewers pick as the pinnacle of their brewing, I now have very little to persuade me to try any other Sharp's beers. Now this was not a bad beer, there was just nothing about it that stood out and marked it as a reserve beer. Am I being too harsh?

Lidl now sells some nice english beers.

I am a fan of some of the Shepherd Neame beers and recently Lidl started to sell their beers for €2 as well as Leffe & Hoegaarden in 750ml bottles for €2.99 which is also excellent value. Needless to say I stocked up. Among the Shepherd Neame bottles was a beer called Goldings which I had not tried before.
As the name suggests, it is hopped with Goldings hops grown locally which since the brewery is in Kent, means East Kent Goldings of course.

This is a summer ale and I have to say I love it. The aroma is very floral and fruity. The taste is equally hoppy as well as pacled full of citrus and it seems peppery to me also. It is very crisp and a real thirst quencher. It also packs a nice white fluffy head and has a very nice cider like carbonation.

I wish they did not use clear glass so the risk of bad beer is reduced and also so I could re use the bottles but it is clear why they use clear glass as the colour and look of their beers is fantastic.

Tomorrow I go back to the UK, this time to the lake district to spend a couple of nights at Daves brewpub/hotel called The Woolpack Inn.

Another Belgian classic from Chicago.

This is the second Belgian style beer I have had from Goose Island, it is called Matilda. This 7% abv Belgian pale ale comes across more like some sort of wheat or wit beer. I would imagine it is the yeast that causes me to think this as I am pretty sure there is no wheat in it in the grain bill.
The aroma is of sweet coffee, malt, what seems like wheat and some apple thrown in.
The taste includes spiciness, possibly coriander but more likely as a result of the yeast. There is also a strong malt base.
A little more sweet than bitter, I enjoyed this a lot but I do not think it is worth the price I paid for it. If I could get this for half the price then I would certainly have no issue drinking it. Anyone care to comment on how much this costs in the US or the UK?

Three random beers

I am a fan of many of the Whychwood beers and this one was lovely. I got two bottles of BeeWyched Honey'd Ale, one for my wife (she tried it first) and then I had one later in the week. There is a lot of grapefruit and I found it quite spicy and malty as well as the honey sweetness.
This is a very pleasant beer and worthy of any occasion.









I found another Fullers beer I had not tasted before so I snapped it up. This Chiswick Bitter was lovely as most Fullers beers are. Malt and floral hops on the nose. There was a nice malty base complemented by a lingering bitterness. A very good Bitter I thought. It is also a low ABV of 3.5% making it a fantastic refreshing session beer that will not leave you falling on your face.







I got back from Cork today and unfortunately the only beer I had was Murphys. When I was in the city I went to Abbots Ale house but the bar was not open in the afternoon so I got a few beers to bring home. This Pere Jaques is not one of them however as I got this at Drinkstore in Dublin a few weeks back. It is made by Goose Island. It is a Belgian style dubbel beer and even though it is from the US, it might as well have been made in Belgium. Well done Goose Island on a truly outstanding beer.
This is a very complex beer, full of malt and prune sweetness offset by bittering hops and plenty of alcohol warming the back of your throat without being too overpowering. This is 8% so pretty strong but it does not feel like it is 8% making it easy to drink.

Another Chocolate Stout.

At this stage I have had the lovely Youngs double chocolate stout, My own Chocoholic stout (comparison here), The Porterhouse Chocolate truffle stout, and now one more Chocolate stout from College Green Brewery (part of Hilden). It is called Molly's Chocolate stout. I have heard a few negative things said about this stout but I have to say I liked it. One thing I have heard said was that it is very thin and too light to be a stout? Well either it is different from the bottle compared to the tap (mostly draught reviews) or they have changed the recipe. This was not light or thin but had a very nice body and an obvious chocolate aroma, though more coffee than chocolate. The chocolate was evident in the taste also but unlike other chocolate stouts, this one tasted more like a bar of dark chocolate that is 80% or more cocoa. The coffee was very strong too, more espresso to my mind. I have not had an espresso in years nor have I had coffee (which I miss) but for gastronomical reasons the closest I can have to coffee is a good strong stout packed with roasted barley. Well I could just have barleycup which is an alternative to coffee made from roasted barley but it is just not the same.
Anyway I found the bitterness to this chocolate stout very refreshing, it had a nice bite to it.
For anyone who has only had it on tap, perhaps try it from the bottle and see how it fares. Perhaps like O'Haras it is better in the bottle than on tap. I hope to visit Hilden in August during their beer festival. I will decide tomorrow if I will submit my pale ale (currently enjoying) for the homebrew competition once I get some feedback at the ICB meeting.

A couple of beers on brewday (brew # 10)

My mascot for Sunday was my cat Asia, the other one is sleeping in the laundry basket.
This weekend I brewed what should be a nice English ESB. The only problem is that my yeast expired in May so I am hoping there is going to be some life. As of yet, almost 24 hours later there is nothing going on. I hope it kicks in to life by the time I get home tomorrow. The recipe is at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile the witbier is still in the bucket. I will not bother to put in to secondary as a wit does not need any clearing of expended yeast.




I heard a lot about Zeitgeist, Brewdog (which I am a fan of what I have had) set this one up with its own website and 70% off. Now shipping to Ireland is £35 so in the end the 24 bottles (of which 23 survived the journey) cost about €2 and some change each. Still cheaper than buying it in a shop here.

Anyway I have decided that this beer should be had straight from the bottle, well for me anyway and the reason is this. Zeitgest has an aroma unlike any beer I have ever had and to both myself and my wife it is like mouldy clothes. The other thing about this beer is that it is weak and watery. It is like a watered down porter. The thing is, the beer is growing on me and I have had two since I got home from work. It seems to go very well with a spicy pasta. I think I am a little spoiled here because I was in Prague a few months back and VelkyAl brought me around and we had some very fine examples of dark lager. Now don't get me wrong, this is probably a fine beer but it does not jump out at me as being anything but a slightly watery dark lager with a little complexity hidden in the background and a tendency to smell like dirty laundry. I know this review probably flies in the face of what other bloggers have said but at the end of the day, go get a bottle and try it and decide for yourself. It is not a bad beer, it is a rather fine beer but I think it just is not up to the standard I found in Prague.




Here is another Hook Norton Beer. This one, called Old Hooky.
This is a lovely beer that both myself and my wife enjoyed. It is fruity, sweet, spicy, malty with light lingering hops. In fact I found the more I drank, the more the hop character emerged leading to a very enjoyable finish.


Below is the recipe for my ESB for those interested. The original gravity ended up as 1.044

Quaff

8-C Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)

Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)

Size: 25.18 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 151.47 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.046 (1.048 - 1.060)

|====#===========================|

Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.010 - 1.016)

|===========#====================|

Color: 26.17 (11.82 - 35.46)

|=================#==============|

Alcohol: 4.48% (4.6% - 6.2%)

|======#=========================|

Bitterness: 46.5 (30.0 - 50.0)

|=====================#==========|

Ingredients:

2250 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt

2400 g Pearl Pale Ale Malt

220 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

250 g Crystal Malt

100 g Chocolate Malt (pale)

40 g Cascade (7.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min

20 g Challenger (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min

10 g Northern Brewer-Hallertau Hersbruck (10.9%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

15 g First Gold (6.2%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min

1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

1 ea White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Porterhouse Belgian Beer Festival - also cloaked stranger stout 1 week taste test.

I was planning on going to The Brazen head first to start a write up on a book of Dublin pubs but it started raining as I approached Capel bridge so decided to turn left and walk in to the porterhouse first. I never made it to the Brazen head in the end, so that will wait till another day.
The porterhouse always has a load of Belgian beers in bottles but for the festival they had a bunch of them on tap. These are the ones they had on tap in the image.






I started off with a half pint, no wait let me be honest here. I started off with a special of muscles and chips (very common in Paris actually). With the food came a Chocolate truffle stout. I wrote about it before and was not too impressed as its plain porter with cocoa. This time I drank it fast so it stayed tasty, had I left it to warm to room temperature it would have lost its chocolate and turned to plain porter with its cookie dough taste. So of the Belgian beers I started off with St Bernardus Wit. This is a witbeer (Belgian white) sort of like Hoegaarden for those not familiar with the style. The main thing about this wit was that like most wits it was packed with spice from the coriander seeds and also had a strong wheat flavour. Most Wits have a typical orange taste/aroma but this one has more of a lemon aroma & taste. It was very smooth.




Next up I tried the St Bernadus ABT. This strong (10%) Belgian quad is packed full of brown sugar and plum. In fact this would be a great Christmas beer. The alcohol is obvious but not in your face so you do not realise it is 10% but you can tell it is a strong beer. Interestingly there is a nice hop bitterness that lingers. More sweet than bitter this is a very complex beer and very tasty indeed.






This was one my wife ordered, actually she had a Fruli before this so this was her second beer. Its the Chapeau kriek which is a cherry lambic beer.
This beer is essentially like koolaid (for American readers). It is sour Cherry in the aroma and pure Cherry in the taste. It is like sour candy. Lots of sour sherbet. Personally I only had a few mouthfuls and that was enough. Too sweet and candy like for me but my wife loved it so I have to make her something like this now.






Another beer my wife had was Newton apple. To me this smelled and tasted exactly like pressed apple. I did not even get a hint of alcohol in it. I would happily drink this in the morning as a fruit juice without realising I was drinking beer. This is pretty dangerous as I would end up over the limit without even knowing I had been drinking. The problem with this beer was that it tasted so much like pressed apple juice that I might as well just drink pressed apple juice. Not my sort of thing but my wife loved it.



My next beer was a Trappist Rochfort 8. I picked this purely because it was Belgian and because I live in Rochfortbridge. In the same way I once bet on a horse called Rochfort something (won me some money too) I think I bet on a winner here.
This was a lovely Belgian Trappist beer. This was another complex Belgian beer full of burnt plum, moscavado, toffee and so much more.
It was very sweet but had a tiny amount of bitterness hiding in the background. At 9.2% the alcohol is not very noticeable making this dangerously drinkable.




The final drink at the Porterhouse for my wife was a Floris Passion fruit. We both found this very tart and this was a good thing, It was certainly sweet and tasted exactly like a passion fruit juice but it was tart enough to le me know I was drinking a beer and so treat it with respect. Highly carbonated and too sweet for me, again this is a beer my wife loved.

After the Porterhouse I went to the Bull and Castle fora few hours and met up with some fellow ICB members. Great food and wonderful beer, this is my favourite pub in the world so far. On the way out the door I met TheBeerNut who is probably the premier beer blogger in Ireland. He is also a very nice guy and he handed me a bottle of O' Haras Celebration stout. These are like Gold in Ireland. Very rare and impossible to buy as they were sold out ages ago. Well what can I give him in return? Well on Thursday when we all (ICB) meet I will bring him some home brew. I have my own stout for them to taste and he will get a couple of bottles to bring home himself.





Well after a week conditioning, here is my 1 week taste test of my first All grain brew. My Cloaked Stranger Stout is a rich roast coffee stout. To me it was fantastic, rich and complex. We will see what the other brewers think on Thursday, it should even be better by then as it will be nearly two weeks conditioning.

A couple of hookies and a Dark Lord.

I come back now to a couple more beers from the Hook Norton brewery and I have to say I am quite happy with the quality of their beers.
I started off with a Hooky bitter and this was a nice golden bitter with plenty of sweet malt balanced by some nice bitter hops and something citrus. A very enjoyable beer.








Next up was a beer I enjoyed even more than the bitter, though I did not think I would at first. I did not expect to think much of this, for one thing I expected it to be a Golden ale from the name but its more a Pale ale it turns out.
The first thing I noticed on pouring it was that I might as well have poured a Cider like Bulmers/Magners or Strongbow. It had the same look, colour and carbonation as a sparkling cider.
I even fancied it smelled a little cider like but I think what I took for apple was more a mandarin or orangey type aroma. Not a great start as far as expectations go but then I tasted it and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a pale ale with plenty of hob and citrus bite. It was eminently refreshing and moreish.




This evening I had a dark lord. I had heard a lot about Dark Lord and wanted to try it. Unfortunately I did not read the label properly as it turns out that not all Dark Lords were created equal. The Dark Lord I thought/hoped for was this one from three floyds. What I actually got was this one from Batemans. This I believe is a Dark mild (open to correction) as opposed to an Imperial stout and there was no Queue to buy this one which should have been my first clue.
The mix up aside, this was an enjoyable beer. It poured a dark ruby with a frothy head which lasted long enough to blink and then was gone.
While I did enjoy this beer, I found it a tad on the thin side. A little like a watered down stout. There was burnt caramel, a little coffee and plenty of malt and it was very enjoyable. Also a note of sourness and some sort of citrus bite? To me was let down but the watery thinness but perhaps that is my fault for associating it too much with a stout or porter when in fact this is not really either of those.

Tomorrow I will be heading in to The Porterhouse to see what is on offer for the Belgian beer festival as well as meeting up with some ICB members at the Bull and Castle.

A french beer for Bastille day

Unfortunately this was the only French beer I could find, even at the well stocked Drinkstore.
It is not a bad beer, It even comes in a cute little swing top bottle.
All I could get from this beer was a strong taste and aroma of malt. There was little in the way of hops and the carbonation was like a Cider, not a bad thing but a little too much for this beer.

I do not seem to be able to link to the website as one tells me I do not have permission to view it and the other one seems to be just a flash video promoting Heineken so I have to assume they own the brewery now.

Still this was better than Heineken so that is something. Like I said, not a bad beer but bot very interesting. The most interesting thing was I got a little sourness and dryness to it.

Anyway happy Bastille day.

Pure Delicious Beer

Twitter is a wonderful thing and a great marketing tool. I did not get it until I joined up and found myself brewing and updating twitter alongside two other fellow Irish Craft Brewers. As a marketing tool it is being employed in advertising that is not in your face and annoying as you can simply ignore what you do not want or even block it. When Purityale followed me on twitter I did not have to follow back, by not following I would not see what they have to say and so essentially ignore them. Instead I logged on to their profile (as I do for everyone who follows me) to see what sort of messages they send and what their website is about. In this case it was simple, Purity is a brewing company in Warwickshire, England and the twitter updates are mentioning their beer, awards, news on new products and so on.
So I followed them and after looking at their website and not seeing any Irish places to get their beer I contacted them directly (by twitter) to see if they knew where I could find it. I was then kindly sent three bottles of their beer. One of each of their own regular beers.

The reasoning behind this is simple, it is cheap advertising for them. I will do exactly what I have done and what they expected me to do. Get their beer and write about it. Not only am I writing about it now but I also sent twitter updates on each of the beers on Saturday as I was drinking them. Now I will write what I think about the beer and if I thought the beer tasted like Ass juice then that is what I would write, though I would feel bad about it. Thankfully Purity Ale is as far from Ass juice as you can get. It is wonderful beer actually.

Another bonus for this form of advertising is that after drinking my first beer and loving it, I contacted an off-license (liquor store) on twitter called Drinkstore and asked that they look in to getting Purity beer in stock and they said they will add it to their list.
And now to the beer.




For those of us that grew up in the 80's and 90's we will have watched TV shows that ended with the credits "Sit Ubu sit, good dog". Well it seems the Purity brewers named their dog Ubu and named a beer after their Canine companion and called it Pure UBU.
This is an English bitter I believe though it's not like any English bitter I have had before. It is like a cross between a bitter and an American pale ale.
It is a lovely amber/red colour with a nice fluffy white head.
The aroma is one that is sweet from the malt but you can smell the hops too. I thought I got orange but it might have been my imagination.
The taste was an eye opener and "wow" was what I said out loud to my wife. It starts out with the malty sweetness and then instantly the hops hit you only to return to a sweet finish but with the hops lingering long after you have swallowed. The two hops that stand out are "C" hops normally found in American pale ales. Challenger and of course Cascade.
The finish was fantastic and slightly metallic in a good way. I loved it and wanted more.




Next up was Mad Goose which is their pale ale offering. Again this is a fantastic beer with many of the expected pale ale qualities of bitter hops and citrus. It was also sweet and this was more evident than with UBU. I found this less bitter than the UBU and my wife actually liked this one. She is not a fan of bitter beers but this had just the right balance.
The mouthfeel on this one was either oily or syrupy. It was not heavy but a little chewy and very interesting.
Oh you can just make out in the background on my bar I have a plate of twiglets and Cheddar cheese. This went very well with mad goose and even better with UBU.




And finally we come to Pure Gold. All of the Purity beers have won various awards, either supermarket awards or slightly more respected awards from the likes of CAMRA. Pure Gold seems to have the most awards. This is a sweet Golden ale. My bottle foamed out of the top when I opened it but since the carbonation was not too high I will say it must have got a shake before I opened it.
This was a fairly complex beer and I got notes of honey, caramel and orange in the aroma and a taste of orange and caramel as well as a lovely hop aftertaste. My wife again liked this one. An excellent balance of sweetness and bitterness.


So that is it, their three beers and I loved them all. My favourite was Pure UBU, I just loved the bitterness. My wife liked Pure gold as she loved the sweetness and balance. I would certainly buy them should they become available in Ireland. There are other beers to their name. One is their own Farmers Harvest which might be a seasonal ale as it is not in their main line up. They also import a few beers.
One of my favourite things about Purity is their image, the way they market themselves. I think UBU is very clever and my wife laughed out loud when she saw the name. I also like how they are trying to be environmentaly friendly by treating their water naturally using a man made wetland system for filtration etc.

I suppose I should mention to any other brewers reading this (if any) that if you would like some cheap advertising done and would like to send me samples of beer to write about then please do so. I will be honest though, so if you believe in your product then it should be fine.
I would also suggest to brewers that if they are not marketing on twitter then they should start doing so. If anyone wants to follow me on twitter, they can do so here.

Brew # 9 An Bán Oráiste (Belgian Wit)

Yesterday I spent the day brewing. My cat was my mascot, I wonder do the thousands of cat hairs floating around the house add a little something extra to my beer?. This was my second all grain batch. I bottled my first all grain batch during this time and made a right mess. The cloaked stranger stout unconditioned tastes fantastic, there was about half a pint left over (spilled the rest) after bottling so I drank that. All I can say is yum.
This is my first Wit beer and my first Belgian style. I have made a German wheat before but that was just a modified kit, though it did turn out very well.
For those who are not from this Island, let me explain the name. It is a very simple name translated roughly to "The white orange". The rest should be obvious, a Wit is a White beer and the orange comes from the fact there is the zest of two Oranges in it.
With luck it will at least turn out as good as Hoegaarden and hopefully better of course.

Also yesterday I cracked open a Razzamatazz. This beer was for my wife so she was the one who drank it. Well she loved it. Last week it was very tart and not much Raspberry going on but this week it mellowed out and she had to restrain herself from downing it like a soda. I obviously tried it as well and it was very nice indeed. The S33 yeast gave it a nice Belgian feel. I did have one misshap, when moving the bottles around I smelled vinegar and the bottom of my crate holding the razzamatazz was soaked. One bottle had, well not exploded but the bottom had literally come off. Thankfully I had paper towels at the bottom of the crate and its a solid crate so its waterproof so no real mess.
I also spent the day drinking Purity beer but that will be in the next post.

An Bán Oráiste

16-A Witbier

Author: Reuben (Saruman)

Date: 11/07/2009

Size: 26.91 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 162.21 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.049 (1.044 - 1.052)

|=================#==============|

Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.008 - 1.012)

|========================#=======|

Color: 8.41 (3.94 - 7.88)

|==========================#=====|

Alcohol: 4.79% (4.5% - 5.5%)

|============#===================|

Bitterness: 13.2 (10.0 - 20.0)

|=============#==================|

Ingredients:

3000 g Pearl Pale Ale Malt

2500 g Wheat Malt

250 g Munich Malt

150 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

10 g Northern Brewer-Hallertau Hersbruck (10.9%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min

15 g East Kent Goldings (4.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

10 g Saaz (2.1%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min

2.0 ea Orange zest - added during boil, boiled 6.0 min

20.0 g Corriander crushed - added during boil, boiled 5 min

1.0 ea White Labs WLP410 Belgian Wit II Ale

1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Six interesting beers over the last few days

I started off with beer from a new brewery to me called Hook Norton.
The twelve days was a nice dark beer, a little nutty with roast qualities. It pours a dark brown/almost black. There is some sweet toffee and plenty of malt to go around.
I liked it. The bottle said it goes well with a cheeseboard so I had it with some mature red cheddar.






Next up was Haymaker. This was a nice pale ale in the English style with plenty of goldings. Similar to my own Beggars Belief.
Nothing too complex here and perfect for sitting out in the garden, which is precisely where I was while drinking it.








Now here is something interesting, I popped in to Molloys liqueur store in Athlone to see what interesting beers they had. There were some, most I have had before but this was one I had not seen. Kasteel Cru is a lager that is fermented with Champagne yeast. It looked interesting so I grabbed a six pack. It is highly carbonated and has an aroma that reminds me very much of champagne. Even the taste is similar. As a beer it is very light, delicate even. My wife likes it so I can see the market that it will do well in whether or not it is aimed in that direction or not. It is worth trying, perhaps not my sort of beer but I am happy I bought it and tried it. It might go down very well in a hot day, it is so light you could drink them all day.





Also in Athlone I picked up this Spaten Oktoberfestbier. It was an extremely nice pilsner, very inoffensive and very smooth. Plenty of sweetness too.





I have had two Anchor beers recently and I tried my next two yesterday and today. I had the Steam beer. I was not too sure about this, it was my first steam beer or at least beer that claims to be a steam beer but it was essentially like a pale ale. There was nothing interesting about it but I did enjoy it. I would not bother with it again though as there are far better beers including the next one.
It is rare to completely gobsmacked by a beer and this one had that effect. For readers in Ireland and probably the UK as well, they might remember the TV ads for Tango. Well I was tangoed, hit in the face with a wet fish. I opened the so called small beer which comes in a rather large 660ml bottle and poured. What came out looked like a Cider, packed full of bubbles and a large white head which incidental stayed for the whole beer. When I too a whiff I got a sweet honey aroma so I was in for a shock when I tasted it and got a hop explosion of a very strong IPA. This is a very bitter beer. I liked it a lot, I would not say it is a fantastic beer but I just was not expecting the bitterness. This is something I might buy again. It is a very low ABV of 3.30% so you can enjoy a lot of them without getting too light headed.

A thought on the 4th of July in Ireland

I was reading Thoms blog over at Blackcat Brewery and he hit on something I have been thinking about.
The 4th of July is a purely American Holiday yes, but just like St Patricks day has been embraced around the world due to Irish emigrants living abroad and so too is Independence day for the Americans celebrated to some degree in other countries due to US Immigrants in other countries.
I remember years ago when the aircraft carrier JFK was in Dublin that there was a big 4th of July party in Dun Laoghaire.

There were some token events this year, Captain America's in Tallaght had something going on from what I heard on the radio. What I did not hear about, and what Thom mentioned was the lack of pubs jumping on the bandwagon and having an American beer weekend or festival. With so many wonderful American craft beers available in Ireland, it is such a shame and a wasted opportunity from a business point of view.

Think about it, in the last census if I remember correctly there were over 65000 Americans (USA) living in Ireland (including my wife), add to that the hundreds and hopefully thousands that were here on business or vacation that weekend. I am pretty disappointed with the Porterhouse in particular as they have plenty of festivals during the year. In fact they have a Belgian festival in a few weeks time. This would have been one weekend to increase sales. Promote American beers, perhaps discount them and stick up some American flags outside their pubs. Play some American music, perhaps some Springsteen would have gone down well. Perhaps even the theme music to Team America?

Now to be honest, I was not in Dublin that day so I can not say that no one took advantage but nothing was advertised and there was certainly nothing planned for the Porterhouse that weekend so I assume it was business as usual. Perhaps next year some places might decide to give it a go but this year was missed as the 4th was a Saturday and the weather has been good recently. Next year it could be a miserable Summer and the 4th is on Sunday so not as good but its still on the weekend so should be taken advantage of.

It is not only July the 4th that pub owners should be looking to capitalise on. There are plenty of countries with large expat communities here that should have their national holidays represented with mini festivals run in craft beer pubs.
Bastille day is on the 14th, now this is a Tuesday but might be still worth putting up a few French flags and promoting some French beers, the French after all do have some great craft beer.

So come on Irish pubs, lets have some capitalism initiative and cash in on foreign holidays.

Happy 4th of July to those that care.

Last night I had some friends from Cork staying over. It was a lovely evening and we spent it in the garden. My friend enjoyed My chocoholic stout and my beggars belief pale ale. He also liked the taste of this beer when I let him try it. His wife and mine are both American so I am well aware that today was Independence day. No fireworks or party as we are a little rough from last night.

This is Cairngorm Wildcat which is a lovely Scottish Red ale with notes of caramel and fruit and lightly hopped. It was lovely. My first beer from Cairngorm.





Next up was Sheepshagger also from Cairgorm. Obviously I bought this purely because of the name. It reminded my a joke VelkyAl told me about a BBC reporter going around Wales asking about sheep shagging.

Anyway this was a clear amber ale with an aroma of malt, floral hops and honey. It tasted like a light ale, very lightly hopped and a little malty
Nothing offensive here but not very complex.
They say its The best beer baa none! but I think they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. I am sorry but I could not resist.




I often wander around the beer section in Tesco on the off chance that there is something new and interesting or at least that there is a special offer on O'Haras or some other good beer. I am often disapointed in the something new department but last week I found two cases I had not seen at a Tesco in Ireland before. There was Fullers ESB which I left as I have had it before but this one I did try as it was new to me.
Lancaster Bomber from Thwaites is a very yummy ale I have to say. It pours dark amber with a good white head. It smells of malt, hint of smoke? Also wood? It also tasted to me of oak, a little metallic but not in a bad way and also had a grassy taste to it. This actually reminded me a little of bishops finger. If you have never tried it, go find some!




Next up are two Sierra Nevada beers I have never had.
First up was the Porter. This was a very good porter, I would not say it is the best I have ever had but it is certainly up there. It smells sweet but it tastes of roast barley, malt, caramel. I found it a little sweeter than I would have liked but it did not take away from the beer and I enjoyed it.








Today, as in I just finished it 20 minutes ago, I had a Torpedo. Probably the bitterest IPA I have ever had at 70 IBU. It is also pretty strong at 7.2%. This is not as smooth as the Anniversary ale but it is a hop bomb. The usual citrus, grapefruit characters are there but the hops overpower that. The hops linger, I can still taste them
Very nice ale but I doubt I could drink too many of them in one session.






This morning was the one week taste test of Razzamatazz.
On the nose I got a hint of Raspberry but not so much in the mouth. It was certainly a little more bitter than the base beer and had an obvious tartness. It might be better next week when it is fully conditioned though.
My wife tasted it and liked it so since I brewed it for her that is all that matters.

Anchors Aweigh

OK this post has nothing to do with the song, Though after these beers I might be in the mood to sing it assuming I knew the words and tune.

Fullers IPA is a nice English style IPA with notes of sweet honey or caramel. While this was very nice, it just did not match up to others of this style out there. It is not particularly hoppy. One I would drink again but not with the choice of something else.









I have heard great things about Anchor Beers so I wanted to try some. My first outing with them was Anchor Bock. Now I have not had great experiences with Bocks. For one thing, my first Bock was Michelob Amberbock in the US. Not a great example there but I did like it. More recently I had Leute and it was undrinkable due to being well out of date but even still, the hint of what the beer used to be left me thinking that a Bock should be very sweet. This thankfully was not. Oh there was the obvious sweetness which to me smelled and tasted like Prunes and there was the strong wheatiness I would expect from a Weisse beer. It was however more bitter than sweet and it was dark like a Porter or stout.
I enjoyed this a lot.


My next Anchor beer was Liberty Ale.
I am not sure what to make of this. On one hand it reminds me of an IPA in the way it is hopped but on the other it is more honey and like a golden ale. Whatever style it actually is, it is very drinkable and I want some more.
These little 330ml bottles do not last long enough unfortunately.

Some Beers....

Firstly, my first all grain brew went very well last week. My final gravity was 1.054 which was a little higher than expected so my mash tun must be pretty efficient.
I did have a problem where the Wyeast propagator pack needs to mature for a couple of days before use and I did not read that until brew day. With no activity the next day (not even co2 build-up) I pitched my other packet. The next time I checked up on the progress it was fine and bubbling away. I will transfer to secondary at a later date and I might add in some oak chips to see what happens.






I tried this Flensburger Weizen last week. It was one of about 14 beers I picked up at Drinkstore in Dublin.

It was a pretty decent German wheat beer but there was nothing special about it. There are very few German Wheat beers that stand out to me. Most of them have the same characteristics. Schneider Original stands out as a cut above the rest to me. This Flensburger offering was just a standard offering. I also tried a Flensburger Pilsner and it was also just like any Pilsner. The best thing about both beers was the flip top bottles that I can re-use.




Next up are two beers from Meantime and this is my first outing with beers from this brewery. The London Porter

The beer pours a dark but obvious ruby in colour with plenty of light passing through and showing off the colour. There was a nice little head too which died away.
There was sweet malt and slight roast coffee on the nose
This was a very malty stout, completely unlike an Irish stout in that respect. There is no roast barley for instance so the roastiness is more muted than a typical Irish stout. I would probably prefer the Irish style myself but this was a very nice stout and I would never turn my nose up at it. It is certainly nice to try a different style of stout and actually like it. I will be getting more of this.




This evening I tried my second Meantime beer. This is the London pale ale which does not seem to be listed on their site by that name so I am going to assume it is just this one?
This is a pale ale in the English style and not the American style I am more accustomed to these days.

On pouring I noticed it was very clear and had a small white head.
There was an obvious sweetness on the nose and it was of the honey variety. There was also notes of orange so I am going to assume there are Goldings in the hop list.

The taste started off a little sweet but in a nice way, then progressed to a nice bitter aftertaste with that little bit of sweetness lingering in the background. In a word that sums it up: yum!

This actually reminded me a little of my own Beggars Belief pale ale which is now matured very nicely so I opened a bottle to try side by side and sure enough, there are some obvious similarities. My pale ale is a little sweeter and its also much stronger at 6.1% as opposed to 4.5%.

So with two meantime beers under my belt I am anxious for more. I would definitely recommend people to try these beers. My wife even liked the Pale ale.

One other thing, I bottled the Raspberry beer last week. It should be coming up to the time for a 1 week taste test.