Bath Ales' Lansdown West Coast IPA

Lansdown West Coast IPA
Bath Ales
5.0% ABV Bottled

I think it’s apt that I break my silence with a review of the latest offering from the mighty Bath Ales - freshly bottled from their new Hare Brewery in Warmley, Bristol. Having had some major expansion, the brewery seems to be kicking things up a notch, declared by their new presentation and beers added to their already formidable stable. I’m keen to get my lips around Sulis, their English Lager. However, today, I’m reviewing their West Coast IPA: Landsdown.

It’s definitely tipping a cap to the now prolific US tradition of highly-hopped, citrus inflected IPA brewing but there is still the essence of England running through its amber-gold body.

To sniff, Lansdown carries the expected almost grapefruit floral aromatics and this is coupled with zest, hops (but of course) and a hint of basil from the US style. After a while, though, the fields of England come rolling in with barley that seems  to perfume the glass along with honey-scented sweetness which seemed to also hang around my tongue long after tasting.

The sip is nowhere near as bitter as I expected; it still is bitter but crisp rather than anything too acrid or like the fistful of rocket punched into your buds that some American IPAs can smash you about with. This delivers a dry yet quenching freshness with caramel notes spiraled by the pine of hops and exhalted with echoes of barley malt. 
I’m drinking this on a hot day in May with sunshine blasting my pale, English face and this seems to be exactly how this beer is best enjoyed. The more I drink it, the more I start to taste the hops giving way to the aroma and reminiscence of goldening mown grass. It’s very drinkable. It’s making me look forward to summer. I hope this is a statement of their intent at Bath Ales: it's a very bold, delicious one!

A beer dripping with class: Schiehallion.

Name: Schiehallion

Brewery: 

ABV:

Style: pale lager.

Found it: My wife picked it up in Waitrose.

Try if you like: The dryer, hoppier side of life like Hop House 13 by Guinness, IPA's of both American and European persuasions and dare I say it, champagne!


You smell this beer coming a mile away. The nose is one of the crispest I have ever scented. Amid this current soul-melting heatwave, the intensely crisp, fresh and hoppy aroma of this wonderful lager will lift your molten soul to cool summer nights amid freshly mown meadows and sunsets golden and bronzed. Forgive me my poetic pretensions - this does smell incredible and certainly invites the drinker with tantalizing promises of refreshment and on that front, it certainly does not shy away.


Just because a beer is refreshing doesn't mean it has to be light on flavour as so many pale beers tend to be (think Corona - light on body and character sadly) - this just simply is not the case with Schiehallion and it entertains an unconventional juxtaposition: it is both refreshing and rich. The taste has depth; a depth not too far removed from treacle sweetness which is mashed down and tempered by hop bitters and the finish echoed the spirit alcohol tinge you sometimes attribute to brandy - perhaps why the champagne element is cited by the on-bottle blurb. According to said blurb, whole pressed hop cones feature in the alchemy and this may account for this floral nose and intense aromatics. It is a beer of distinction and needs to be sampled. If, like me, you prefer more malt and brown sugar with your beer, then you may find its hoppy grassiness a little overwhelming but I just couldn't ignore the complexity of this nectar's architecture and so I was seduced by it. I couldn't help but appreciate the form. I can't believe I just referred to a beer's flavour as being architecture...

Hitachino Nest White Ale

I Name: Hitachino Nest White Ale

Brewery: Kiuchi Brewery, Japan.

ABV: 5.5%

Style: Wheat beer

Season: Summer!

Availability: Unknown - currently stocked in M&S, Waitrose & served in Wagamama restaurants.

Price (I paid for it): £2.50 at Waitrose.

Try if you like: Blue Moon, Estrella Damm.

This is most definitely a sublime summer drop: I can't taste this little beauty without wanting to be basking in sunset, sat aside a glowing barbecue watching the night draw in. This 'White Ale' is a real treat from the land of the rising sun: it's aroma is reminiscent of a high quality European lager (German more than anything with its malty hop nose) and it is certainly enticingly familiar.

It pours out a golden straw colour with adelightfully  light fizz which betrays it's somewhat smooth mouthfeel but shows off its credentials as a wheat beer. However, I hate wheat beers: they tend to taste somewhere off the coastline of banana bread and thankfully this little brew doesn't even bedalie with that: it is very light for its heady 5.5% (I certainly felt it creeping up on me!) and the delivery is sweetness: honeyed oranges with a bitter-sweet finish ending with the floral happiness. The bottle boasts that it is made with orange peel and orange juice and that certainly makes its way through the sip and is what puts this beer perfectly in the hands of summer with an orange-citrus sweetness prevalent throughout the drinking. This pint really made me smile: it's delicious and if you can find one, just grab it - don't even think twice. The White Ale has bags of character and is a lighter way to appreciate delicately crafted ale. Before the doldrums of endless overcastes monopolise your days, savour a cold bottle of this wonderful drop on a hot summers day...or any day really: get stuck in!

Gem: Perhaps the greatest beer ever brewed.

Name: Gem

Brewery: Bath Ales

ABV: 4.8% (bottle)

Style: best bitter

Season: All year long!

Availability: Available all year: Waitrose have a steady supply it seems.

Price I paid for it: £1.90 at Waitrose. Sainsburys also seem to have a healthy supply!

Try if you like: Doombar, Rebellion Red, Abbot Ale, bitter, sweet malts.

Don't let the title of this post lure you into thinking this is delusional hyperbole: this has to be one of the most perfectly executed pints I have ever sipped. Normally, when people talk of a 'good all-rounder' they usually mean a 'jack of all trades - master of none'. Gem is an outstanding all-rounder and is in no way, shape or form a 'master of none': it is a 'master of all'. 

The colour of this beauty from Bath is a deep-set chestnut amber with comparisons easily made with the sublime Sharps Doombar from Rock in Cornwall. The flavour also is reminiscent of that same drop: malty, morish, bitter-sweet but with absolutely no sourness or tannin tack at the back of the palette: the flavour eclipses Doombar in one respect and that is in that it refreshes at the first taste. It is rich, however, for a bitter and potent at 4.8% and a few of these at The Rec has had me very merry before the half-time whistle! This, however, does not put you off wanting another - the taste of almost caramel-hinted sweetness tempts you in again and again.

This beer is an award-winner (winning silver and gold at the International Beer Challenge) and when drinking it, you can understand why. It is everything you want from a beer: rich tasting, well-hopped and surprisingly light on its feet for its strength, this coming from the combination of Goldings Hops from Kent and the floor-malted Marris Otter Barley. The brewery's website calls this offering 'quintessentially English' and it certainly is, I think, our nations best expression of its brewing standard. Try this beer at any point in the year and you'll be rewarded with flavour and texture to die for. This brewery just goes from strength to strength and you can tell that their exceptional work stems from the solid foundations of this exquisite pint.

Imagine taken from: https://www.bathales.com/our-ales/aid/gem/

Review: Golden Champion

Name: Golden Champion
Brewery: Hall & Woodhouse, Dorset.
ABV: 5%
Style: Golden Ale
Season: Spring/Summer but really, any time you fancy something more than a cold lager can deliver.

Availability: Most major supermarkets.

Try if you like: Crisp, full-bodied lagers such as Pilsner Urquell, Fursty Ferret.

This is the beer that started it all. Back in 2005, I first saw a bottle of this adorned in sun blushed labelling with a dark, brown glass bottle and gold lettering. It was the first 'ale' I had ever held in my hands. It tasted wonderful. Grown up. Better than lager. Of the earth, the field, the country. I adored it. I still do. Today, it is slightly at odds with my favourite flavours of subtle caramel, morish malt and dark roasts but then that is probably why I love it: it isn't these things but still manages to finish sublimely whilst reminding me of a more naive time. Cut grass, pollen and summer freshness burst forth from the soft bubbling, shining copper brew. A wonderful golden straw not far off golden syrup in tone. Crisp, refreshing but with that depth of hop and malt that remind you this isn't a gassy, dilute lager or sharp pilsner: there is a slight coriander tone that keeps things from the garden and the echo of maltiness that give you something sweet and bodied to consider. Summer in a cup, in a quaff, in a mouthful. Perfect with a barbecue, on a picnic or whenever you want. Maybe it is nostalgia that really wins this for me? Or maybe it is that, whenever I go to a friends house, they tell me: "You left a bottle of ale here" and it is always a Golden Champion and I most certainly didn't leave it (but they buy me one every time I'm going to pop by and keep up the pretence!). I love this beer. I know it is winter and you are roasting chestnuts on the open fire but whilst you sit there in your thick knitwear, the rain drizzling down the windows and the sky churning an endless, miasmic grey just pop a bottle of this open and journey back to August. 

For more info go to: http://www.hall-woodhouse.co.uk/beer/golden-champion

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