Beer #423 - Partizan Pale Ale Sorachi Ace Calypso Bravo

The second beer of four at the E7 Supper Club I attended was this pale ale from Partizan. Brewed with Sorachi Ace - a Japanese hop commonly used in wheat beers and saisons this was a very interesting beer and a definite break from the pale ale norm. The hops lent the beer a lemon flavour alongside some pineapply and some lovely grassy/wheaty notes. I really enjoyed this one and having been a touch disappointed with the last couple of Partizan beers I'd had, I was glad I liked it as much as I did.








Brewery: Partizan Brewing
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.5%

Beer #422 - Five Points Pale

For my birthday recently I was lucky enough to be taken to an E7 Supper Club by Michael Sanders at the Wanstead Tap in East London. Diners are treated to four courses of delicious food with an optional beer pairing also available. I won't go into huge detail about the food (or indeed any, suffice to say it really was amazing) but I did have the four beers to go with each course. The first was Five Points Pale from the east London brewery. This is yet another fairly prominent London craft brewery that I had, up until then, somehow managed to avoid. This APA is brewed with Amarillo, Centennial and Citra hops which give it a zingy fruity flavour. The US hops have been showcased excellently in this beer which was fresh and highly drinkable with lovely orange and lemon flavours.


Brewery: Five Points Brewing Company
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.4%

Beer #417 - Marks & Spencer Island Hopper Pale Ale

Another one from Marks & Spencers crafty-ish range, this Island Hopper Pale Ale is brewed for them by Windsor & Eton of Berkshire. This is a fairly non-descript pale ale although it’s quite easy to be dismissive of beers such as this one. It’s fine, quite sweet in flavour with some bitter hop flavours but it isn’t as packed with flavour as one might hope. Perfectly drinkable but not worth going out of your way for.










Brewery: Windsor & Eton
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.5%

Beer #410 - Pressure Drop Pale Fire

Bizarrely this is the first Pressure Drop beer I've ever had so I've finally managed to tick off a fairly prominent London brewery that I've inexplicably avoided until now. More fool me, because this bottle of Pale Fire was absolutely brilliant. It turns out that this beer is brewed with different hops and to different recipes, had I known that at the time I'd have noted which version this was but alas, I didn't. Anyway this was pretty much everything you want from an APA - a lovely fruity aroma and a flavour bursting with tropical fruit; pineapple and grapefruit and loads of apricot with a gentle bitter bite. I'm getting excited just writing about it, really, really great and I'm annoyed that I slept on it for so long. Expect to see more from Pressure Drop on this blog shortly.


Brewery: Pressure Drop
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 5.0%

Beer #394 - The Kernel Pale Ale Citra

Towards the end of my night at Cask I opted for something a bit more special, a half of The Kernel's Pale Ale Citra. Really I should have been drinking this all evening but the pricing of keg beers still puts me off somewhat, but its stupid to worry about such trivialities when you're talking about The Kernel. This is a wonderful number with a huge tropical fruit aroma. The taste is wonderfully floral with a decent amount of fruitiness too, really well-balanced as ever. Such a great beer.








Brewery: The Kernel Brewery
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 5.4%

Beer #377 - The Kernel Pale Ale Kohatu, Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin

On Saturday I was in Bermondsey again celebrating my friends birthday. We managed to get to the Kernel for one before it closed at 2pm and I went for one of their two pale ale offerings, brewed with Kohatu, Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin hops. Now generally regarded as one of, if not the best, breweries for hop-forward beers, the Kernel didn't let me down with this one. It had a lovely hoppy arome and the flavour was bursting with tropical fruit with some lovely grassy notes too, there is really a lot going on in this beer. It packs a mild bitterness but no more and its just so drinkable as a result. An absolute winner.





Brewery: The Kernel Brewery
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 5.2%

Beer #348 - Marstons / Birrificio Lambrate Ligéra

Over the last couple of weeks Wetherspoon's have been holding another of their real ale festivals which once again featured a handful of international brewers. I normally make a token effort to try at least a few of the beers but on this occasion I only managed the one, this APA brewed by Fabio and Mattia of Birrifico Lambrate at Marstons Brewery. It pours a clear amber colour and the aroma is of citrus and a hint of pepper. It's quite full bodied with earthy hop flavours prominent and quite a bitter yet well-rounded finish. As far as cask APAs go this is a pretty good one.






Brewery: Marstons / Birrifco Lambrate Collaboration
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.8%

Beer #342 - Lervig Lucky Jack

I picked this can of Lervig's Lucky Jack APA at the Sunday Session I attended at Draft House a little while back (that post is worth a read - you can find it here) and recently found an occasion fit for its consumption. Pretty much all of the Lervig beers I tried on that day hit the nail on the head for me but I'm sad to report that this one didn't quite do it for me. There is some good citrus hop character and the beer has a long bitter finish. The malt gives it a nice hint of sweetness but for me the flavour isn't quite well rounded enough and it's also a touch light on the palate. It's by no means bad, in fact it's perfectly drinkable, but it doesn't set any new standards. Beautiful can though.




Brewery: Lervig Aktiebryggeri
Country: Norway
ABV: 4.7%

Beer #339 - East London Cowcatcher APA

After an afternoon at Beavertown my friends and I headed to Walthamstow for a few more beers and some food. When I first moved to London I lived in Walthamstow for 18 months or so when it was still one of the very cheapest places in London, but this was my first trip back since I left in 2009. We headed to one of our old haunts, the Nags Head. The pub is pretty much as it was then but with the welcome addition of a few more hand pumps (although Timothy Taylor's Landlord was still available, as it always was). Being in an east London postcode I thought a pint from ELB was apt. This Cowcatcher APA was a hoppy beast with grapefruit and bitter lemon flavours and a hefty bitter finish. A pretty good one.

Brewery: East London Brewing Co.

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 4.8%

Beer #334 - Tiny Rebel The Full Nelson

Last Friday I was in Cardiff to watch Wales take on Bosnia & Hercegovina in the Euro 2016 qualifiers. I studied in Cardiff but have rarely returned since I graduated in 2007. One notable addition to the city since then is Tiny Rebel's Urban Tap House and as I had a few hours to kill before the match and I bloody love their beer I thought I'd go and check it out. The pub is beautifully done out and stocks an excellent range of beer. If this place existed when I was a student I'd have been in heaven and it says a lot about how much beer drinking has changed in the last few years that this place was packed. When I lived in Cardiff if you wanted a beer you had a choice of Brains, Brains or Brains. I opted for a half of The Full Nelson, an American Pale Ale brewed with New Zealand Nelson Sauvin hops. This beer is a winner, it pours a clear golden orange with a hoppy aroma. It's really light in body with a nice dose of grassy hops yet its clean and drinkable.

Brewery: Tiny Rebel Brewing Co
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.8%

Beer #308 - Adnams Mosaic Pale Ale

Adnams's Jack Brand Mosaic Pale Ale has been cropping up on keg in pubs across London over the past few months and I thought it was high time I gave it a try. I really like what Adnams do and in terms of traditional British beers I think they’re on of the best breweries around, so I was interested to see what they could do with a flavoursome, modern hop variety. The beer pours a clear golden colour and has a strong hoppy aroma of tropical fruits. The hoppy flavour is not quite so strong although pleasant with tropical fruit flavours; it’s slightly sweet to begin with and has a bitter but not overpowering finish. It’s a good effort from Adnams, very easy to drink and refreshing as most of their beers are, but it does lack the robust hop flavour that the UK beer scene is increasingly coming out with.


Brewery: Adnams
Country: United Kingdom
ABV: 4.1%

Beer #252 - Espiga Blonde Ale

This week I cracked open another of the Catalan beers I picked up on my visit to Barcelona at Rosses I Torrado (you can read my review of the shop here). This Espiga Blonde Ale was recommended by the guy in the shop as the local beer to try so naturally I had to pick up a bottle. The brewery itself was set up by Arnau and Teresa who discovered a love of beer Denmark and Germany respectively, according to the Espiga website. It appears as though the English section is a victim of Google translate so it’s hard to make any more sense of it. Anyway…it seemed I may have agitated the bottle slightly as even with a careful pour I ended up with a huge fluffy white head. The aroma is glorious; a lovely grassiness with some tropical fruits too, really inviting. The taste is really dominated by bitter grapefruit hops. There are also some pine and floral notes amidst the citrus but I didn’t really pick up on any malt due to the bitterness. It’s a good beer and it’s entirely possible that I just don’t ‘get’ it but for me this wasn’t quite well-rounded enough and the balance was a bit off.

Brewery: Companyia Artesana Maians
Country: Spain
ABV: 4.5%

Beer #245 - Catalan Tølv Ulfhednar

As mentioned in my last few posts I spent last weekend at a stag do in Barcelona. I drank some excellent beers en route to my flight but subsequently spent my time there drinking San Miguel Especial. As it was my first time in the city I had decided to stay for an extra couple of days to do a spot of sight-seeing (and beer shopping) before taking the train back to London. Thus, last Monday having checked out the Sagrada Familia and Park Güell I headed to Rosses I Torrades, a super ‘celler de cerveses’ a short walk from the main tourist sites. I plan to write a short review of the shop in the next couple of days so won’t go into too much detail now, but my plan was to pick up a few Catalan beers to take home with me. I’d read that the area had a burgeoning craft beer scene and the shop seemed to attest to that with a decent selection of locally brewed beers. I picked up five bottles to take away and back at my accommodation I cracked a couple of them open. The first was Tølv Ulfhednar from Catalan Brewery. Now I’ve had to rely on Google translate quite a bit in the production of this blog post, but apparently Catalan Brewery has been in operation since 2011 with the brewer inspired by a trip to Scotland. Indeed the brewery seems quite taken with Northern Europe, this beer somehow being inspired by Vikings. Enough of the speculation. This was an APA brewed with Centennial, Cascade and Citra hops. The pour was an attractive, hazy deep amber. The aroma and flavour were both robust with bitter, citrus hops dominating. The beer tasted extremely fresh and was very drinkable with a lovely smooth mouth feel. It disappeared very quickly and I was soon reaching for another beer, impressive stuff.

 

Brewery: Catalan Brewery

Country: Spain

ABV: 5.2% ABV

Beer #241 - Wiper and True Pale Ale Simcoe

Wiper and True is a Bristol-based beer company that is currently without a brewery of its own, using the kit at other breweries for the time being. Their rather smart website professes their proud roots in home brewing and their love of good beer and they also clearly know a bit about branding too, which seems increasingly important in the beer world these days as breweries jostle for position on shop shelves. This is another bottle that my mate picked up for our train ride to Gatwick airport primarily, he said, because it was one of the few 500ml bottles available! This single hop pale ale was brewed with Simcoe, a US hop that lends the beer a citrus flavour. I’ve been looking to try a few more single-hop beers to help me identify what’s what because, to be frank, I don’t really have much of a clue, so this seemed like a good place to start. Simcoe is heavily used in IPAs and the bitter, grapefruit character of the hop was easy to recognise alongside some grassy flavour too which was also nicely balanced by the malt which lends it a nice toffee sweetness. Not too shabby.

 

Brewery: Wiper and True

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 5.0%

Beer #240 - Beavertown Gamma Ray

On the weekend I went to Barcelona for a mates stag ‘do’ which necessitated a flight from Gatwick and therefore a train to the airport. I was travelling out with a friend who offered to pick up some train beers so I sent him off to BottleDog to pick up a couple of bottles and he came through with some excellent stuff. First up was Beavertown’s signature APA Gamma Ray with its stupendously cool label. Really, look at that bottle; it’s a thing of sheer beauty. I think I wax slightly more lyrically about Beavertown every time I post about their beers but I just love what they do and quite frankly I’m disappointed in myself that it’s taken me this long to try Gamma Ray. As I was drinking out of the bottle I couldn’t get a decent waft on the aroma but what I could take in promised tropical fruits with some pine. The flavour again is lovely and fruity with bitter orange alongside a sweeter flavour of pineapple and some piney bitterness on the finish. It’s another superbly well made and finely balanced APA that is really very drinkable. Oh, and on the subject of Barcelona I've got some Catalan beery goodness coming up in the not-to-distant future!

Brewery: Beavertown Brewery

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 5.4%

Beer #239 - Thornbridge Chiron

My final birthday beer choice at the Old Red Lion was a bottle of Thornbridge Chiron, an American Pale Ale. Thornbridge won’t need any introduction to a lot of beer lovers but for the uninitiated, the brewery is regarded as one of England’s finest independents. It has been knocking out quality beers since 2005 and one of the breweries original two brewers, Martin Dickie, subsequently went on to found BrewDog in 2007. According to wiki the brewery has won over 200 awards since it opened which doesn’t surprise me at all. Chiron is an American Pale Ale and is probably one of the finest and most drinkable bottled beers I’ve ever had. The aroma is very hoppy with tropical fruits and some spice. The flavour is beautifully balanced; I got plenty of citrus fruit with oranges and lemons, some spiciness too. The hops give it a nice bit of bitterness but it’s not overpowering, a really delightful beer.

 

Brewery: Thornbridge Brewery

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 5.0%

Beer #226 - Pin-Up Pale Ale

This was the last beer I had at the Beer in Hand on my night out in Hereford. By this point I was seven or so pints in so my taste buds had taken a bit of a beating. This pale ale from Pin Up, a West Sussex brewery that has featured on the blog before, was pretty decent. It’s well-hopped, predominantly with US hops which lend it a bitterness which is tempered by the malt character. As far as I can remember I enjoyed this one a fair bit but the details are a bit hazy.
 








Brewery: Pin Up Brewing Co

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 5.1%

Beer #211 - St Austell Proper Job

Another post-football pint last week at the Compton Arms in Islington. As it’s a Greene King pub and as such the casks tend to be dominated by their products. On this occasion my mate was nearly suckered in by their Yardbird, part of Greene King’s cleverly marketed ‘craft’ roster, but I digress. It’s always fun to see what this place has as its guest ale and invariably it’s something reasonable, even if it isn’t always the best kept. Proper Job from the Cornish brewery St. Austell is amongst my favourite cask ales so I was pretty happy to see it appearing here. This beer has won a stack of CAMRA and SIBA wards over the last few years and it isn’t hard to see why. It pours a deep gold and has a nice floral, hoppy aroma. Its medium bodied with some citrus notes of grapefruit and tropical fruit balanced well with a hint of sweet malt, it’s supremely fresh and drinkable. A great session ale.

 

Brewery: St Austell Brewery

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 4.5%

Beer #182 - Tiny Rebel Beat Box

The Exmouth Arms often has something from the excellent Tiny Rebel and I went for a pint of their Beat Box, an American pale ale. The brewery in Newport, South Wales is making quite a name for itself and with beers like this it's not difficult to see why. Beat Box pours a lovely light amber. It's quite dry as you might expect from a well-hopped beer of this style, a lovely orange flavour was dominant and a bit of grapefruit too which lent it a bitterness. It was quite light and very drinkable and the flavours were very well balanced with some nice earthiness in there too.

Brewery: Tiny Rebel Brewing Co.

Country: United Kingdom

ABV: 4.5%