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/

Hop House 13

Guinness have been bringing forth a new array of beverages of late (such as the West Indies and Dublin Porters) and the latest offering from the Irish Empire is a lager: Hop House 13. I love lagers as  any who have read this blog will know and I'm always keen to find one with flavour and balance to make it both the perfect summer-quaffer for those warmer evenings and a tasty beer that doesn't just achieve both being wet and cold. I have tried this in two forms: bottled and draught and there is a difference and these differences bring a delightful dimension - proving further how bottle and pump can vary.

As a bottle, this beer sails ever so close to the coastlines of American IPA's but fear not, it doesn't follow the current trend for being over-hopped and unpalatably bitter. There is a real tendency for many new nectars to follow in the American style and when I first opened a bottle of this golden brew, I feared the worst as I sipped before smelling: bitterness was at the front along with the almost mossy grassiness something like a Pale Ale would thrust forwards. However, the finish was malty and sweet. This hooked me back. The next sip I took came before the almost peachy-floral nose wafted into my foolish nostrils - a striking aroma the likes of which I haven't seen since Badger's Golden Glory. Served cold, this was a lager with a difference and one that nearly bailed me out but a malty surge at the end won me over.

In draught however, this is closer to a Czech Pilsner something akin to Pilsner Urquell in that the body is smoothly carbonated, the front is sweet and malty but the finish is bitter and lingering with a final smack of the field of richly toasted summer crop. I expected the peachy flowers but none of it came (no matter how hard I sniffed!) and it would seem that this quality is reserved for the bottle.

With either presentation, I really enjoyed this beer and what with the weather improving, I can see it becoming a staple at BBQ's and pub-garden catch-ups. A delicious drop and one that I urge you to try in any way that you can get it!

Try if you like: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Pilsner Urquell.

Dry

To those who have read my posts, a massive and sincere thank you! I hope that you have enjoyed keeping up with my reviews and indeed, have ventured to try at least one or two of the beers that I have mentioned. Feel free to comment back with recommendations of your own: I'm always keen to explore new lands!

On another note, I have gone 'dry' for the last few days and will be doing so for January but I shall return soon with more ale recommendations and reviews: I received many boozy presents for Chrismtas and so much ammunition for the review-cannon is primed and ready.

A happy new year to all who have read any of my posts: peace and love to you all.

New year's resolution: try as much as you can!

Review: Fullers London Porter.

Name: London Porter.
Brewery: Fullers, London.
ABV: 5.4%
Style: Porter.
Season: Winter.

Availability: Can be found in supermarkets around late Autumn/Winter. 

Try if you like: Guiness original, Hobgoblin, Old Peculier, Anchor Porter.

A beer style from the Industrial Age that died out after the impact of wartime restrictions but today, very much alive and well and enjoying a massive and well-deserved resurgence (and aren't I grateful for it!) - the Porter is a very dark brew with a bittersweet chocolate-coffee appreciation. Fullers Lonond Porter is a classic expression of the breed: brown, crystal and chocolate malts give it a distinct treacle brown, reminiscent of dark chocolate and a flavour encompassing coffee, dark demerara with the background notes of vanilla. You would also be forgiven for thinking that someone from the brewery went out and captured essence of logfire too as there is a delightful, subtle smokiness within this is festive draw. After having one myself yesterday (after seeing the delightful new Star Wars film with a good friend at the IMAX Empire) I certainly felt my yearnings for the dark side of brewery and the joy of this pint is that it is surprisingly light for its punch and complexity, bringing balance to the force (please forgive me). I dare say, at 5.4%, I certainly felt its influence but not in the stomach meaning that this would sit very nicely as an after-supper pint to be sipped and savoured - good lord, in front of a roaring fire if we could all arrange a Dickensian evening. This is a smashing tipple and perfect for this time of year when preserved fruits, chutneys, rich puddings and logfires abound. A drink that manages to capture that smokey stillness of a Winter's day. Sublime and indulgent but won't induce a post-roast dinner coma! Tis the season to be Porter! No festive beer appreciator should allow themselves to miss one of these this Winter-time. For me, it is more traditional than that monstrous steamed pudding or chestnuts roasting on a fire. If you could shove a sprig of holly in it without causing a health and safety disaster, I'd say it was more Christmassy than Santa's jingling bells!

Review: Roasted Nuts, Marlow Brewery.

Name: Roasted Nuts
Brewery: Marlow Brewery Rebellion Beer Co, Marlow.
ABV: 4.6%
Style: Amber Ale
Season: Autumn/Winter.

Availability: Local availability.

I no longer live in Bath and so am a far cry from my favourite brewery. However, I am very handsomely consoled by the fact that Marlow is a local brewery and its output, especially its exceptional IPA and the utterly stunning Rebellion Red, are easily available to me. Upon visiting a local pub (The Greene Oak at the top of Dedworth Road), imagine my excitement that I saw, on pump, a Winter Ale from one of the best breweries in the whole bloody country! It was a dark, roasted nut colour and promised oh so much with the pedigree of those I have already sipped seducing me easily into requesting a sample. The colour is a true delight, like maple syrup and it has a similar butterscotch flavour with a biscuity maltiness at the forefront of the mouth. However, to my disappointment, an overbearing hop bitterness marched up from behind and ruined my Roasted Nuts! The comforting, rich flavour, so adored at this time of year, was utterly subdued by the hopping. I persevered and tried the whole sample, hoping upon hope that things would improve as the flavour developed. Develop it did but into something too flawed, too sour to enjoy the sweeter edge of. The IPA from Rebellion is superbly balanced and delivers the citrus freshness of an IPA but without the herbal washout you may get with some. In this, the brewery balances bitterness with poise and grace on the edge of refreshment and fruitiness. This one just falls flat on its nuts.

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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