London Pride

Name: London Pride.
Brewery: Fullers, The Griffin Brewery Chiswick, London.
ABV: 4.1% (cask - the bottle arrives at 4.7).
Style: Traditional bitter.
Season: All year round.

Availability: Available in most good supermarkets and numerous pubs in and around London and Berkshire.

What I paid: I had mine bought for me at the delightful Bull Inn at Sonning but I have picked bottles up in nearly every supermarket at around the £2 mark.

Try if you like: The taste of a solid, traditional bitter like Spitfire or HSB. Sweet but with a dryer finish which lends itself to those of you who like a hopped pale ale but desire something more rounded.

Beer, like all things sensually orientated (yes, I did say sensually), triggers association and memory. London Pride triggers association with my old local - a Fullers pub that has the quintessentially aged and weathered country English charm. This beer also has a certain significance of being my friend away from home. In my part of the world, London Pride has very extensive distribution and when many establishments boast of a 'cask ale' they usually count this, sometimes exclusively, as being the range of 'cask ale' available. Pride has been my 'go-to' guy on a multitude of occasions when it is either a pint of this fine tipple or a baseless, flavourless lager beginning with F or C (both also being the opening consonants to the word I would use to describe them to proceed -ing awful'). London Pride has been a dependable choice when all other options have been thin and sparse. For this reason, it holds a special place for me. That and because it is an excellent expression of its breed: the British Bitter and it comes as no surprise that this quaffer from the capital has snatched a host of awards, CAMRA's Champion of Britain among them. Pride has provided me with flavour in those places where such options are few and far between - it also has a habit of being so established that people whip one of these bad boys out when they don't know what else to give me but they know that "you like ale right?". It's a dependable friend. Guardian angel? Let's not get too whimsical.

Enough of this indulgent preamble - how does it taste and pour? 

As it glides glasswards, the drinker is rewarded with the russet-auburn brew with very little carbonation. A pint of Pride looks every part the epitome of 'bitter' and indeed the same can be said for the taste: awash with sweet and deep malts encircled by a hopping that has the sugary precursor quickly finished by a dry (indeed, a very dry) hop bitterness with a bite more removed from the 'grapefruit' floralities of a pale ale and closer to that of a best bitter - the flavour is grassier, more earthy. However, the finish is not too bitter nor is it overwhelmingly dry but it is far more so than the likes of a Doombar. If you like an honest pint of bitter, Pride will be like coming home to a warm hearth after a hard day's work for you. Perhaps a little dry for my pathetic mouth to session on but I can certainly understand, given its depth of flavour, the grand status is rightly holds. Yet, as I say, Pride and I have history and I will always go back to it when the occasion arises.

 Image courtesy of: https://shop.fullers.co.uk/collections/bottled-beers/products/london-pride where one may purchase a whole host of Fuller's goodies.

A Stout that Surprises: Supreme champion at Camra - Bingham's Vanilla Stout

The Name: Vanilla Stout.

Brewery: Binghams, Twyford.

ABV: 5% (bottle).

Style: Stout.

Season: Autumn/Winter

Availability: I picked mine up at The Grumpy Goat, Reading town centre. 

Price I paid for it: £2.75.

Try if you like: Porter, stout, coffee, treacle, smoke, dark chocolate.

If you're reading this blog, there's a strong chance that you are aware of this beer thanks to it very recently winning Camra's Supreme Champion Beer award 2016. Just reading the name of this beer convinced me it was worthy of success: I love the sweeter, darker spectrum of beer - porters and stouts (see my review of Bath Ale's Darkside and Fuller's London Porter) are so dependably good and offer almost a dessert-like quality to the ale afficinado. Sampling this was an absolute no brainier. 

The expression of 'stout' brings with it a whole host of expectations (darkness of colour, woodsmoke and roasted coffee in aroma and a dark chocolate bitterness in finish) and like all of the finest examples of breeds, this stout both is typical of its stable but also surprising in its idiosyncrasies. Familiar yet different. Typical yet surprising. You couldn't ever accuse this beer of being generic.

Being bottle conditioned, I had to take some actual care over the pour and keep that fizz-giving organism of yeast where it belongs. As it poured, what gathered in the bottom of the glass looked treacle-dark and set up aromatics of bonfire and roast coffee with an underlying chocolate hint - a rather Christmassy element to the whole affair. At this point in the pint, the vanilla didn't register for me and oddly, it didn't come through heavily in the taste either - not obviously anyway - where the vanilla came in was perhaps the most surprising element to this masterfully crafted brew.

To taste, you're hit with a mouthful of rich smoked chocolate and coffee yet sweetness that you would expect to arrive (perhaps as you would with a porter) is very reserved and carefully held in place by the hopping and the roasted malts. Smoke is ever present, like your clothes the day after a bonfire but it is a very pleasant richness, running like velvet through the mouthfeel as it intermingles with the coffee notes. The curveball and perhaps what draws you back in for the next sip is the almost champagne floral element, which is where the vanilla comes in - whereas I expected it to float through the whole flavour with prominence, it actually conducts its delicate perfume from the back and exists as an under-current throughout the whole drinking experience. I mean what I say when I talk of a champagne element: there is a fruitiness here that doesn't allow this pint to become sickly (although I must admit the 5% ABV made my tummy warm!) and this was the real surprise for me: to be reminded of champagne when drinking a stout!

Amongst this swirling bonfire of flavour is a nod to root beer: an almost liquorice note that again reminds you that vanilla is used in the mix but I mention this as a hint: it is not anise in strength and will in no way draw in black-jacks - the effect is subtle and warming: another pleasant surprise.

This beer exudes control - molasses should be awash with a concoction this dark but all is checked and measured: there is nothing clumsy about the delivery - the flavours are orchestrated. If you are after a stout that breaks new ground, pick up one of these and you'll find that. This drop is an utter indulgence for the senses.

Spending the evening with a robust Abbot: Abbot Ale

Name: Abbot Ale.
Brewery: Westgate Brewery (Greene King), Bury St.Edmunds.
ABV: 5% (bottle).
Style: Ale/Best Bitter.
Season: Autumn/Winter

Availability: Available in most good supermarkets.

What I paid: £1.99 (CO-OP).

Try if you like: Stronger ales, Moorland's legendary Old Speckled Hen, toffee and biscuity malt flavours, fruit cake (in character not actual flavour!).

Not a subtle beer by any means but such a rich offering from the brewery based in Bury St.Edmunds. Abbot Ale is a beer you will easily see in most supermarkets and indeed, it is often on pumps at pubs quite readily too: it even comes in cans! The one I most recently had the pleasure of trying was bottled and I have to say it was a real treat. 

To summarise in a single word: robust. This is a mouthful and a half this drop as it delivers, again and again, with toffeed malts and a rich spicy undertone throughout the whole sip: pale and amber malts lend it a colour like slightly burned golden syrup and in terms of aromatics, this beer smells like what I imagine people from outside the UK think a British Beer smells like: deep, rich and hoppy with an almost alcoholic heat to it (much like if you were nosing a golden rum).

I cannot impress upon you how rich the flavour is: it's the sticky toffee pudding of beers in that it is sweet and thick with cloying demerera but you are rescued from this becoming sickly by the hopping which encapsulates the malt with refreshing bitters which dance and interweave with those date-like flavours. It is, for its punch, remarkably refreshing for such a bold beer although at 5%, you couldn't session it unless you are made of sterner stuff than myself! 

If you have ever tried Old Speckled Hen, you should try this: it will seem both familiar and different - I dare say, Hen is slightly more subtle and lacks the smash of the Abbot. Subtle this isn't but subtle isn't what you always want: it delivers flavour...barrels of flavour.

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Boltmaker - Timothy Taylor

Name: Boltmaker.
Brewery: Timothy Taylor.
ABV: 4.2% (bottle).
Style: Bitter.
Season: Autumn/Winter

Availability: Available in most good supermarkets.

What I paid: £1.79 (Waitrose).

Try if you like: Traditional bitters, Spitfire by Shepherd Neame, malt and rather bitter hops.

Combing through the Camra champion beer lists turned me toward this Yorkshire brew from the very well established Timothy Taylor brewery, creators of the legendary Landlord.

Boltmaker has won the Supreme Champion Beer award from Camra (2014) and comes very high up in many of the 'Best British Beet' lists to be found online. It has a depth of flavour that makes it very robust and there is nothing gentle about this drop: malty to a point at the start but a strong bitter body that unfortunately for me finishes with a very rough finale - an almost acrid flavour that just doesn't sit well with me but I do prefer things on the sweeter edge as familiar readers may be aware of. If you enjoy a good, no nonsense traditional bitter, I don't think you'll find a better example than this. Certainly not a session beer due to its rather gassy nature and heavy body.

In colour and taste, it reminded me of Spitfire by Kent's Shepherd Neame brewery: coppery, malty undertone with a hopped bitter final flourish. Not for me and I don't think I'll ever drink one again but each to their own as they say. 

Tribute: a masterclass in balance.

Name:Tribute.
Brewery: St.Austell, Cornwall.
ABV: 4.2% (bottle).
Style: Pale Ale
Season: Summer/Autumn

Availability: Available in most good supermarkets.

What I paid: £1.79 (Waitrose).

Try if you like: Bitters, pale ales, Sharps Doombar and Atlantic, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

When I read the words 'Pale Ale' I generally have reservations: my pallet doesn't seem to agree with many (Brewdog Punk for example just hop-blasts me to oblivion!) and the current trend for American IPA's are, in my opinion, overcrowding pumps, cans and bottles with their 'craft' hop barrage. So why did I approach a Pale Ale from St.Austell? Hype. Talk. People seem to have a lot of love for this beer. That and St.Austell's recent aquisition of my beloved Bath Ales made me very curious.

This beer is a masterclass in balance. 

It pours out the most caramel I think I've ever seen a beer: it looks like a shade of golden syrup! On the nose, you'd think it was going to be incredibly fizzy as the hops and zest (what some describe as 'grapefruit') waft nose-ward. However, this is not a gassy number: it's delicately carbonated and not too heavy at all: you could almost session this Cornish beauty.

Surprise came with Tribute when it delivered more than I could ever have hoped for in flavour. It's nose outlines its Pale Ale credentials but in delivery, you get so much more than that: a demerrera sweetness and malty unctuousness is delicately wrapped and woven in and out of hop zest: the drop does a waltz on your tongue in waves - the front hits sweet from the Maris Otter and Cornish Gold malts; at the half-way, you're kissed with the refreshing and zesty cushion of floral hops and then the wave crashes with a biscuity, caramel toffeeness that leaves you with the echoing sea-spray of a light bitter finish. It leaves you wanting more. It takes Pale Ale expectations and delivers an incredibly well rounded bitter finish. All of this expert balance means you could snuggle up with one of these on a cold Autumn evening or crack one open overlooking the lapping ocean on that rarest of occasions a hot summers day (in Britain at least). Pale ale fans have enough of their bitterness and citrus edge to indulge their penchant for the more refreshing end of the spectrum yet those that enjoy a Best Bitter will also find   joy at the bottom of this bottle.

I made reference to Doombar and Atlantic from their neighbours Sharps - imagine them crossed if you can and you're not far off Tribute. Imagine Sierra Nevada with a more caramel edge. I hate to draw comparisons because really this beer deserves singular recognition. Cornwall is a place dear to my heart and they, as a County, cannot help but produce some of the best beer Britain has to offer. Tribute is a fitting tribute to my favourite county in Britain: Cornwall can be very proud of this little lovely and indeed, St.Austell have brewed an absolute champion here. 

I love this beer.

Thank you St.Austell!