Brooklyn Summer Ale

Brooklyn Brewery, NYC
ABV  5%
Found in Waitrose.
Style: "Sunny Pale Ale"
Try if you like: beers with a balance of hops and malty sweetness like Golden Champion by Badger in the UK.

I love this brewery - I really do. Their sublime Brooklyn 'Lager' is found in most supermarkets these days and has made a name for itself for being the most boisterous and flavoursome lager daring to sit in fridges and on shelves: it's a full-bodied ale in lager garters - a surprise to delight and intoxicate in equal measure. Their output seems to be gathering momentum here in the U.K. which only fills me with excitement and anticipation (they do a porter!). My darling wife bought me a selection of five beers for a little surprise on a Friday after a particularly bothersome week at work and the Summer Ale was one of these five. 

If you, like me, constantly waver between wanting a crisp, malt-flecked refreshing lager and a flavoursome traditional ale, then you have won through this achievement by the New York demi-giant: it delivers the character of a British ale with the refreshment and zest of a lager. This is also reflected in the weight of the brew which sits lightly in the stomach as much as it dances on the tongue: all the flavour of ale but with the air of a lager but not too much fizz either. There's some crisp hops breezing through the notes and the most intriguing hint of hay. Forgive me getting a little Wordsworth here but I must confess to the aroma field grass that has just been passed by rain and is now basking in rejuvenating sunshine. It's a delightful brew that captures the essence of what it is to enjoy a beer outdoors. But one; try one: you'll want more, this I assure...you. 

Sea Fury - finally, the storm reaches my shores!

Name: Sea Fury
Brewery: Sharps, Cornwall
ABV: 5%
Style: Special Ale
Where I found mine: Sainsbury's and Tesco for around £1.90

Try if you like: Gem, Broadside, stronger ales like Fullers 1845, dark fruits, raisins and rum, treacle.

If the majority of you, my dear readers, are anything like me, you'll be familiar with discovering a beer then spending a good hour  or two looking through the brewery's website, longingly flitting through their full range and forlornly admiring the breadth of output on offer as only one or two of the stable will ever be in your everyday reach. I often do this with Theakstone (as all I've ever seen in the flesh is XB and the gorgeously rich Old Peculier). I used to count Sharps of Rock, Cornwall amongst this company but thanks to the ever climbing profile of their most famous beer, Doombar, the rest of their paddock is seeing the light of day in supermarkets. 

One beer I particularly used to hanker for is the very one I found in my local branch of Tesco of all places: Sea Fury. Those who have read this will know what I think of Doombar (to save you reading the review - although please do! - I adore the stuff) and my expectations for this ale were set very, very high indeed. Sharps know what they are doing. They also seem to brew with my palette in mind. If that is the case, in my narcissistic mind, they brewed this beer bespoke to my own mouth. After reading it's profile on the home website, (I'll admit more than a few times) I knew we'd get along famously. How foolish And pessimistic I was to think I would never, ever possess one.

The darker side of brewery is where my preferences seem to go and when the weather turns on us here in the UK, after spending so little time with us in true heart-breaker fashion - I feel my beer-soul yearning those autumnal, stewed fruit and smoke flavours. Imagine then, how my grizzled British psyche felt when I first read the words: "An aroma of inviting roasted and dark berry notes gives way to sumptuous, fruity, malty flavour and a moreish hop finish." on the Sharps website. It danced like frolicking Morris dancers 'neath a sun-blushed maypole (Freudian slip?). I cannot begin to tell you how true to this description it is to actually drink...oh okay, maybe I will!

Rich. A wave of richness and a depth of stewed and rum-soaked dark fruits and roasted malts tumbling, crashing and rolling in biscuity malt sweetness that just keeps giving and giving and giving before receeding out to leave you in a misting of hop bitterness that never really finds a sharp edge but balances the rich sugars very well indeed. If you have tried strong ales, you'll love this and from tasting it, you'll be wondering how the percentage is only 5% abv: it does not taste like a beer of that measure: it belongs with the Old Dan's and Fullers 1845. However, it doesn't floor you as they do but it does arrest the senses and drag you down into its chestnut brown depths. Sea Fury is an apt moniker for the way the beer feels in the mouth: it is delicately carbonated and as odd as this may sound, it feels in the mouth like the churning foam seen in rough, shale-breaking surf around this fair isle's coasts. It's as if you were tasting the churn from the breakers of an indulgent, malt-steeped ocean: taste it and you will hopefully know what I mean - it is a unique mouthful that gives you a passionate, raisiny plunge. Unless you can't tell already, I think Sharps have made an incredible special ale here and it really does suit the shift from summer to autumn. I'm so exited to try this again and as with all beers I find and adore, I fear it's time being as fleeting as the summer sun: long may this furious brew batter our supermarket shelves! An absolute modern classic that has shot up into my favourites list.

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.

Review: Guardsman

Name: Guardsman
Brewery: Windsor & Eton.
ABV: 4.2%
Style: Best Bitter
Season: Late Summer

Availability: Unknown outside the Windsor area.

I have lived in and around Windsor for a while now and as a place, there's very little not to like. I am a man who wants to support all things local but Guardsman by Windsor & Eton Brewey is something I cannot champion. From the pour, it is ruby and copper with the kind of body I usually find irrestable in a pint glass. However, the nose belies a bitterness that I simply cannot palate: the hops are far too dominant and destroy any sweetness or character the malt tries to bring. Boasting a "distinctive hop aroma" and a "tangy taste", I certainly must agree but it is not a pleasant one. I just couldn't taste past the slaughtering iron-tang even though the colour and aroma promised so much. It's not often that this happens but, after sipping as much as I could, the sink enjoyed the rest. A taste I can best do without.