We recently had the pleasure of drinking the Salopian Brewery Darwins Origin (4.3%) on cask at a small August bank holiday beer festival in Kent. From cask it rated a respectable 15/20 on the @brewrank scale. Here's how the Salopian website describes the brew:

Style: Darwin’s Origin is an eclectic mix of hops from across the world but this blend produces a beer that offers something to everyone. Crisp, tart, fruity and refreshing but also with a juicy malt background.

My SWEEEET set of beers came to me from The Beer Bear in Wales – thanks, mate. Here's the photo of my fine four pack:

The story so far … Is I have drunk 3 of them and will save the 4th, the Otley O8 at 8% for a little celebration or commiseration later this week. IMHO Otley are one of the best (top 10 maybe even top 5) craft brewers in the UK today. I've had O1 and O2 but never the O8 – so looking forward to it.

I am not one for long beer reviews, hence why I spend my time drinking in the field and tweeting… But here's my summary and ratings anyway:

1. Untapped Sundown Golden Ale rated 14/20, would drink this anytime. Solid session brew.
2. Pen-lon Gimmer's Mischief, had to give it a 12/20. Not my style a bit to smokey for me – but for some folks this would probably rate higher.
3. Frosy Ffin Gwill Warmer rated 15/20 in the end. At 6.7% it hides its strength. Aroma was slight carmel and apple. Color a rich dark amber. Taste a great balance of smooth malt and lite hop with more hints of apple.

The bottle of Otley O8 well that may top the list in the end. Cheers!

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

Well its been almost 3 weeks since the BeerViking crew raided the La Gothique pub for the Wandsworth Common Halloween Beer Festival. Better late than never – here’s our report…

Over 2000 people attended this excellent beer fest – which ran for 3 days. We ran into Steve from Beer Justice and some of the Shepherd Neame team as well… We guestimate that over 125 casks were consumed. The ratio of girls to guys was high with over 40% of the attendees being female. This is a sweet great result for the 2nd beer festival at this venue – a younger, hipper and more female crowd than your average beer fest. This may also have been the 1st festival to have Meantime London Pale Ale on Cask (at a beer festival that is, its on tap at many fine pub around London) – Meantime were one of the event sponsors, btw… Be sure to follow BeerViking on Twitter as there will be more beer and maybe even wine related events on Wandsworth Common coming up soon.

Here’s what we drank…

1. Shepherd Neame Faversham, Kent: Tipping the Admiral 4.0%, October
brew to celebrate Nelsons victory in 1805. Brewrank 10 – not so nice,
but drinkable.

2. Buffy’s Brewery of Tivetshall St.Mary’s, Norfolk: Norwich Terrier
3.6%, Amber coloured with grapefruit notes. Styrian, Mount Hood hops.
Brewrank 12 – reasonable brew.

3. Dark Star Haywards Heath, Sussex: Ocktoberfest 5.2%, Using German
malts and hopped three times. Brewrank 15 – NICE! Dark Star rock.

4. Downton Salisbury, Wiltshire: Pumpkin Ale 4.4%, Special dark version
of Downtons Halloween Brew for this festival. Brewrank 13 – nice
stew like taste of pumpkin.

5. Twickenham Fine Ales Twickenham, London: Strange Brew 4.1%, Dark
golden ale. Hint of spice. Five different hops. Brewrank 15 – golden
syrup with a hint of lime.

6. Wolf Attleborough, Norfolk: Werewolf 4.5%, Red-brown with
pronounced malty bouquet. Brewrank 6 – yuck!

Beers 7+ (maybe it was 12 in total?)… After this the rating notes seemed to have vanished. Well it was Halloween. But I know we drank some Downton Quadhop, Moorhouse Black Cat, More Dark Star Octoberfest (nice!), Japanese Asahi Ale (smooth) and Triple fff Stairway to Heaven (tasty).

Beyond this it did get a bit crazy and we mainly drank dark beers as I recall… Below is our random photostream of people enjoying the Halloween WCBF on Friday Oct 30th. Video of the winner of the Meantime case coming out next.

Halloween WCBF on Friday Oct 30th:

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.

Brewery Name Beer Name, ABV, Rank, Notes (if any):

• Ballards Midhurst Mild, 3.4%, 10
• Ballards Nyewood Gold, 5.0%, 15
• Ballards Wassall, 6%, no rank just  a star *
• Dark Star American Pale Ale, 4.7%, 13-15, couldn’t agree
• Downtown Elderquad, 4%, 13
• Downtown IPA, 6.8%, no rank just a star *
• Exmoor Gold, 4.5%, ?
• Harviestoun Top Dollar, 4%, 14
• Hop Back Summer Lightning, 5%, 14, love this one a classic we had many times before
• Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby, 6%, 17, beer of the festival!
• Shepherd Neame Ghost, 4.1%, 14, brewed for the fest
• Titanic, White Star, 4.8%, 15, a Belgian-esque golden ale
• Traditional Scottish Ales Ben Nevis, 4%, 10, needed have this next to fire after a long walk and with some red meat
• Twickenham Fine Ales Naked Ladies, 4.4%, 15.5
• Twickenham Fine Ales Sundancer, 3.7%, 15, sweet session brew
• Twickenham Fine Ales Spring Ale, 4.3%, 15.5
• Wolf Granny Wouldn’t Like It, 4.8%

That’s 17 real ales. Wow that was a lot of brew for the crew.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about starting both an annual and LIFE ‘list’ of beers that I have tried. This is probably the super geek or science nerd trying to coming out — but hey what can be wrong with finding another way to enjoy beer and tell the world (or least remind the BV crew)?! So, what do I mean by ‘lists’? Well to start it would be a simple way to track all the different beers we get to taste each year – a running total of individual beers and would probably include some other notes as well. As a starting point here are the data points I would include:

Brewery Name, Beer Name, Region, Style, ABV, Tap/Cask/Bottle or Other, Appearance notes, including colour, Nosing notes, Tasting notes, date, location consumed, Optional details like interesting ingredients, IBU, etc.

The rules are you list the 1st one of the season (ie, if you drink a lot of Sn Pale Ale or Dark Star Golden Ale it would still only get one entry) and if you manage to consume the same beer in both cask and bottle form those each count as 1 entry each. A sort of running total. A simple list.

Here is a sample for 2009 so far (just a rough field list to be padded out later on):

Fullers Vintage Ale
San Miguel
Tropical
Meantime Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale
Insulation Bitter, Hyde
Avibtinue
Rogue Juniper Pale Ale
Stone IPA
Little Creature Pale
Neglo Modelo
Stella (I know, bad form but I was on an airplane)
Brocklyn larger
etc etc

Feedback appreciated on both the data standard and the concept of ‘beer lists’!!! And if anyone knowns of any good beer lists please send us the link… In the mean time keep drinking.

The Beer Viking crew managed to get away from the sea long enough to attend the Great British Beer Festival in London back the summer – it was held 5-9 Aug 2008. However, during the long journey back home aboard our viking longship we lost the tasting list and our brew review notes. These historical papers have now been recovered for posterity and with here with provide a summary of what beers we did try.

In no particular order of tasting, but alphabetic by brewery first British and then US:

1. Cains – IPA. 3.5% ABV. “A light full-flavoured session beer with subtle hop aroma.” Served by a hot chick. 2 stars **.
2. Cains – 2008 Culture Beer. 5%. “Pale coloured btiter with a citrus hop character…” Only 1 star *.
3. Castle Rock – Harvest Pale. 3.8%. “Blonde straw coloured bitter with assertive citrus hop bitterness with some sweetness and a refreshing zesty finish.” 2nd beer of the day. 4 stars ****.
4. Kelham Island – Pale Rider. 5.2% “Full-bodied, straw coloured pale ale, with a fruity aroma and a strong fruit and hop taste finishing with well toned bitterness and some sweetness.” 4 stars ****.
5. Palmers – Copper Ale. 3.7%. “Copper coloured, fruity, hoppy with a refreshing zestiness.” 3 stars ***.
6. Salopian – Golden Thread. 5.0%. “A bright golden ale, using wheat and lager malt and first gold hops. 3 stars ***.
7. Weatheroak – Keystone Hops. 5%. 3 stars ***.
8. Whim – Flower Power. 5.3%. “A pale golden beer with fresh floral and fruity aroma, a bitter fruity flav and deep bitter finish.” 4.5 stars ****+. This was the beer of the festival ’08 for this crew! This also looks like it might have been a one off brew? Whim doesn’t seem to have a website but some more info on the brewery is here.
9. Chelsea (USA) – Henry Hudson IPA. 3 stars ***.
10. Smuttynose (USA) – IPA. 3 stars ***.

Overall the GBBP was a solid success and is one of the greatest beer festivals on the planet. Maybe even the universe. Next year look for the Beer Viking hospitality tent as we will be camping out for a multi-day raid next time.