Grass, apple, grapefruit + something I can’t quite get on the nose.

Drying mouthfeel with a less bitterness than expected.

First taste is slightly disappointing. Overall not bad a 13 but for Rye Pale Ale the benchmark has been set very high by Terrapin

photo credit: 123 look at me

Updated original post with scores and notes on the Red River Belgians (See Beers)

Some of the BeerViking ( mostly Doc D but Hunter as well) crew are heading to Northern California on a serious pillage mission.

They will be filing field reports via Twitter and at HQ we’ll try to pull these together into semi-coherent summaries.

First up, some hippy music with the Grateful Dead. Key lines here are:

California, I’ll be knocking on the golden door

Which when it comes to craft beer, most people have to agree that California is exactly that.

Breweries/Pubs

Stop 1:  Beach Chalet

17 @pubrank for the Beach Chalet in San Francisco, CA. http://www.beachchalet.com/

Stop 2:  Marin Brewing Company

http://twitpic.com/aq8xo – NorCal Micro Brewery Raid – stop No 2: Marin BrewCo, Larkspur. Tasty!

Stop 3:  Russian River

http://twitpic.com/aq998 – Russian River – beer menu. So many and so good. Like ‘wine; and fine women.

View Nor Cal in a larger map

The Beers

All of these have been brewranked, here’s a Search on Twitter where you can find more details.

The Belgian Style Brews @ Russian River

Doc D filed the following update into HQ.

• Perdition – Biere de Sanoma: very lgith, sublte hints of dry white
  wine, good summer or session beer. 12
• Damnation – Strong Golden Ale: Fuck amazing want more. 17
• Salvation – Dark Strong Ale: fine for winter wrong time of year. Not
  going to finish it. 14
• Temptation: this reminds me of Orval but even more refined. Super
  graphfruity notes. 15
• Sanctification – 100% Brettanomyces, 6.25%ABV: ‘lambic’ style to my
  taste. Really smooth. 17
• Consercration – dark sour aged in oak barrels. 10% abv: ouch can’t
  rate too complex. like a whisky.
• Publication – Saison 8% abv best of the belgians in this line up today. 18!

Summary

By hitting Russian River and knocking back Pliney the Elder, arguably the prototype American Pale Ale, the guys have started the raid with impeccable standards.  As I’m living a vicarious dream from HQ, I for one can’t wait to see what the next couple of days holds.

In honour of American Independence Day and the sad fact I wasn’t able to join the raid on the White Horse American Beer Festival I had to pull the trigger on this matchup that I’ve been waiting patiently for.

In the red corner it’s the Mikeller Stateside IPA and in the blue corner is the Victory Hop Wallop.  It might not be a fair fight, we’ll see but the Victory is a current fav of readily (as such) available American IPAs.

Mikeller Stateside IPA

They say:

A love of American microbrews is the inspiration behind this IPA, brewed with generous amounts of aromatic, American hops, which provide the significant freshness and bitterness with lots of citrus notes. The taste sensations are nicely balanced by the sweetness from the caramel malt.

Ingredients :
Water, malt (pilsner, munich and caramunich), flaked oats, hops (chinook, cascade and amarillo) and ale yeast.

Victory Hop Wallop

They say:

We celebrate the pioneering spirit of old Horace ‘Hop’ Wallop and those who dare mighty adventurous things in this vivid, robust ale. As our annual homage to the hop harvest, expect loads of aromatic splendor and bitter beauty.

COMPOSITION
Malts: Imported German malts
Hops: American whole flowers
Alcohol by volume: 8.5%

Tasting Notes

Mikeller Stateside IPA

No head, quite a dark amber colour. Grassy, fresh nose. Great mouthful and a lovely, moreish astringent, citrus fruit taste.

Victory Hop Wallop

No head, golden colour. Dare I say a soft, resinous nose.  Bubbly mouthful.  The taste, isn’t as hoppy as I remember but wonderful

The Decision

It was a close one, very close but the nod had to be given to the Danish hommage to American craft hoppy Pales Ales.

Of course the next day we headed out on a small raid of the Rake in the hopes we’d get to try Epic with the brew master. Lady luck was on our side and we got to try two Epic’s – the Pale Ale and  season brew the Mayhem. Here’s a brief review and ranking of both…

We are looking forward to the Epic UK mashup brew at the Weatherspoons festival and also to following more adventures of @epicbeer on Twitter. Be sure to visit the Epic website and blog for more info on these great beer from New Zealand.

This weeks the beer of pits Anchor Small Beer vs. Ballard’s Old Bounder, 21 Birthday Boy.

The main reason to choose these two was driven by the story behind the Small Beer, which is that it’s created by running a second load of water through the mash of the Anchor Old Foghorn. So as I had the Small and didn’t have the foresight to have an Old Foghorn, I went for the Birthday Boy, which is Ballards 21st edition of Old Bounder, their barley wine.

On the Old Bounder, the brewery launches the latest version with a Charity Beer walk in early December, hope to make it for 2009.

Here’s my notes:

Anchor Small Beer, California, 3.2%. Refreshing taste, quite sour with grapefruit upnote. An interesting beer and would be keen to try more.

Ballard’s Old Bounder (21st, Birthday Boy) 9.5%. Barley Wine, UK.  Christmas Pudding in a beer? Port-like in flavour. Strangely enjoyable.

It wasn’t really close for me on this one as the Anchor Small took with a knock-out in the first.  For me, the Old Bounder was quite complex but didn’t quite get there for me on this tasting.  I enjoyed the Anchor Small a lot and do look forward to trying it again, though this time pitting it against the Old Foghorn to enjoy looking for the lineage.

A final note on the Small is that the bottle I had cost me 5 quid and though I enjoyed this beer greatly and like what Anchor is trying to do here at that price I would say there’s a lot of beer ahead of it in the queue.

Having enjoyed the train crawl in Oz and May Drink for England,  I was pretty chuffed when I was given an Adur Velocity and Hepworth Pullman, as well as having train names, they are Best Bitters.

Adur Velocity, Sussex, 4.4%.  Golden brown, quite a nose, bubbly. A fun ride along the length. Gentle bitter.  Here’s what Adur have to say:

Velocity (alc. 4.4% vol) is a traditional English bitter with a fresh flavour at the lower end of the bitterness scale. We add a handful of the ruinously expensive German Hallertauer hops just before the beer is fermented and the result has excellent aroma and just a hint of an old fashioned marmalade.

Hepworth Pullman, Sussex, 4.2%. Golden brown A nice straightforward bitter.

Pullman @ 4.2% abv is a First Class bitter with a crisp bite balanced with a silky finish.  Brewed with Admiral & Golding hops,   Pullman is a luxurious ale to be enjoyed on its own or with fine food. 

It’s not really much of a contest tonight, sadly as the Adur takes it quite easily.  I believe it’s probably the use of the the German hops that does it.

In a desire to pick things up a bit in the hunt, I decided to pit two very excellent beers against each other.

Thornbridge Kipling is one of my current go to beers. I really enjoy the understated use of the Nelson Sauvin hop from New Zealand that is quite fresh and delicate but still satisfies my hop cravings.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is an undoubted classic that is often most people first taste into the joyful land of hoppy brews.

The tasting was at the homestead, so obviously both were bottles.

The Kipling was first and I struggled to leave any for the head to head.  Don’t go to this beer expecting blow your head off bitterness. It’s quite gentle, fresh. A little grassy perhaps.  At first I was thinking the length was a little short near the end that perception was changed.

Even on the first sip, the Sierra Nevada tasted a bit heavy, maybe dirty even.  I obviously still enjoyed the beer and I liked the heavy hop notes more.

So, on the head to head. Like everything it’s all about mood, and perhaps as it was a nice sunny afternoon in Sussex I have to say that initial funk on the Sierra Nevada made me give the thumbs up to the Kipling here.  Well done to the boys up in Derbyshire, they really are making some of the most exciting beer I am tasting at the moment.

I’d love to hear opinions of anyone else who’s pitted these two excellent brews against each other.