Beer Viking » pale ale

Arcadia Ales Sky High Rye #beer 13

thetank — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:23:46 +0000

Gorgeous colour the other side of amber, slight white frosting of a head.

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

It’s Official – London Has a Thriving 21st Century Beer Scene!

Doc D — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 08:38:41 +0000

Yes, in case you’ve been living under a rock London has a dynamic, innovative and world class modern beer scene. The emergence of the London Brewers Alliance and their inaugural showcase event held last Friday night is more proof that London should be on every beer enthusiasts schedule. During the Friday festivities we tasted the following brews:

Ha’penny Brewing Co., Ruby Red, silky mild with hints of cinnamon. Brewrank:15/20
London Brewers Alliance Porter ~ 5% special one off brewed as a collaboration by all the brewers. Nice, hoppy. Brewrank: 17/20
Kernal IPA, Citra hops. Another great one from our favorite nano brewery. Brewrank: 16/20
Redemption Pale Ale, solid. Brewrank: 14/20
Windsor & Eton Brewery Best Bitter, smooth malty. Brewrank: 14/20
Brew Wharf Fire from the top of a monkey’s head, hoppy madness. Brewrank: 14/20
Camden Town Brewery Pale Ale. Brewrank:14/20

It is good to see both Fuller’s (the grand daddy of London brewing) and Meantime (the big innovator) supporting the LDN Brewers Alliance. The only reason we didn’t drink any of their brews on Friday is we have a cellar full of the stuff… Overall the Showcase event was a solid 7 out 10. Next time we hope to see an event guide of some sort and a food selection. Maybe even an entire week of events – are we going to see a London Beer Week in 2011?!

Here’s a good video by the London Brewers:

And here is the current list of all 13 London brewers that are either brewpubs, micros and local/family/regional brewers (sorry no bud or mass produce crud!):

Brew Wharf – brewpub
Brodie’s Beers – micro & brewpub
Camden Town Brewery – micro
The Florence – brewpub in Herne Hill
Fuller’s – regional, family run
Ha’penny Brewing Co. – micro
The Kernel Brewery – nano, look for the bottles at places like the Rake
Meantime Brewing Co. – regional, the innovator
Redemption Brewery – micro
Sambrooks Brewery – micro
Twickenham Fine Ales – micro/medium
Windsor & Eton Brewery – micro
ZeroDegrees (Blackheath) – brewpub

Who will be number 14?

In the meantime here is our first mini guide to other places to experience London’s Great Beer Scene… Including festivals, beer bars, food& beer events etc.

CAMRA Festivals:

GBBF (the mac daddy every August) – http://gbbf.camra.org.uk/home
Other CAMRA events (something every month) – http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=festivalseventsawards

Local & Independant Festivals (check Twitter, Ratebeer and other social outlets as well):

Wandsworth Common Beer Festivals (March & October) – http://wandsworthbeerfestival.eventbrite.com/
White Horse, in May look for 40/40 and July the American Beer Fest – http://www.whitehorsesw6.com/news-events.php

Great Beer Pubs/Bars that also do meet the brewer and other events:

Cask Pub & Kitchen, Victoria/Pimlico – http://www.caskpubandkitchen.com/
The Rake, Borough Market – can’t find the webiste?
Draft House/Westbridge – http://www.drafthouse.co.uk/
Lowlander, Covent Garden – http://www.lowlander.com/
Greenwich Union (Meantime’s flagship pub!) – http://www.greenwichunion.com/

Top Beer Stores:

Real Ale in Twickenham/Richmond – http://www.realale.com/
Utobeer at Borough Market only Thu/Fri/Sat (they need to update the website and join the 2st century) – http://www.utobeer.co.uk/

Brewery Tours

Fuller’s – not to be missed – http://www.fullers.co.uk/rte.asp?id=9
Sambrooks - http://www.sambrooksbrewery.co.uk/brewery.html
Plus I am sure Meantime an others all do tours if you ask…

London is also a great town for pub crawls – one of these days we will publish some suggestions but check any good beer guide. Happy drinking…

Update: below is a low quality (yes, its from a mobile phone) photo stream from the event.





www.flickr.com








mediaviking's London Brewers Showcase photoset

Salopian Brewery Darwins Origin (4.3%) – a great bottled beer

Doc D — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:37:09 +0000

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.

History:

The brainchild of Debbie here at the brewery, Darwin’s Origin is the most recent addition to the Salopian core range in both cask and bottle. It was brewed to celebrate Shrewsbury’s most famous son Charles Darwin. Like most additions to the permanent range of beers, Darwin’s started off as a monthly special and the reaction of our customers and staff saw it replacing Abbey Gates.

Then we were at Ales By Mail for a spot of manual labour and managed to grab a few spare bottles. Well… As bottle beer it's even a little bit better! A solid 16 out of 20. The appearance is a light copper colour. Aroma is sweet like flowers with a hint of vanilla. Taste is zesty and just enough hop to make you want more. We would call this a golden ale plus – by plus we mean it has pale ale and bitter tones. Finish is smooth. A solid session beer. We will continue to drink it.

To order yours check out the Ales By Mail Shropshire 6 Bottle Taster Case - a bargain and delivered right to your door.

Ales By Mail Tasting No 1 with Beerviking [Video]

Doc D — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:24:12 +0000

CAMRA Beer Magazine Summer '10 Review – Ales By Mail Tasting No 1 with Beerviking

The back story short version. Every issues of Beer the quarterly magazine of CAMRA has selection of bottled beers reviewed. We got an adavnce case and did our own tasting of sorts. In two parts pretty raw edit here… just the mash. We know these are a bit long and we need to ferment them next time… We are still learning and playing with the video format. We used the Ratebeer out of 50 and the Beerviking rating scales.

Part 1 – Video:

Tryst Brewery's "Blathan" 4.0%; score 35/50

Pen-lon Cottage Brewery's "Torwen" Dark Fruit Beer 4.5%; score 32/50

Mort Subite Oude Kriek 6.5%* (we actually taste the younger 4.5% un aged version in the video); score 38/50

Part 2 Video:

Atlantic Breweries "Discovery Golden Pale Ale" with Lime, Chili and Ginger 5.5%; score 31/50

Meantime Brewing Co's "Raspberry Grand Cru" 6.5%; score 37.5/50

Winner is the Belgian Mort Subite Oude Kriek.

Order this case here on Ales By Mail.

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

Wandsworth Common Beer Festival: The Myths & Legends Ladder

Doc D — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:29:38 +0000

This year at the 2nd Annual Wandsworth Common Beer Festival we are promoting two innovations to the beer festival format. First we take the bold move of listing them all in order of strength. As opposed to alphabetically or by brewery. They range from 3% in 0.1% increments all the way up to 10%. Second we are promoting a series of BEER LADDERS that we will publish over the coming weeks (or suggest your own). These alternative lists (or Ladders) that will give you access to beers of similar strength, colour, style or a theme. A bunch of these ‘ladders’ will be official ones printed up and available at the festival. Others are being posted up and we encourage people to post other ladders, suggestions and commets.

The Myths & Legends Ladder (BeerViking unofficial Ladder No1 ):

Minotaur Mild 3.3% – Milton Cambridge: Red/brown with defined roasted malt nose leading to sweet finish
Napolean’s Retreat 3.9% – Allgates Wigan, Lancashire: A deep golden copper colour. Worth trying
Battleaxe 4.2% – Rudgate Brewery Tockwith, North Yorkshire: More complex than the gravity initially suggests. Gentle bitterness leads to a fruity finish.
Naked Ladies 4.4% – Twichenham Fine Ales Twickenham, London (OFFICIAL GLASS SPONSOR): Hopped with both First Gold and Styrian
Yankee Pale Ale 5.0% – Allgates Brewery of Wigan, Lancashire: American style pale ale with specially imported yeast from USA. Cascade, Chinook and Galena hops combine with the low colour extract of Mari otter malt to give a light colour. Crisp and dry another MUST TRY!
Captain Smith 5.2% - Titanic. Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire. Red/brown colour. Full bodied. Good strong finish. A truly excellent beer celebrating the captain who famously went down with his ship.
Lotus IPA 5.7% – Ilkley Ilkley, West Yorkshire. (NEW BREWERY): Only started in 2009. A golden coloured IPA with hoppy, lemon and citrus aromas.
Skullsplitter 8.5% – Orkney. Quoyloo, Orkney Isles: Intense velvet nose with hints of apple, prune & plum. Hoppy but balanced with silky malt & fruity spices. Long dry finish.
Thomas Sykes 10%!!!!- Burton Bridge. Burton on Trent…. The one to finish on. What is so surprising AND dangerous is that it drinks really well without being overly sweet or cloying. Careful…you may want another.
Go home now Or maybe finish off with a Dark Ruby Mild (or insert this at No 8, moving Skull to 9 and Skyes to 10)… Sarah Hughes Sedgely, West Midlands 6.0% Dark Ruby Mild A festival favourite and rightly so. Now brewing at enlarged brewhouse to supply the free trade and festival demand. One of Britains best beers. Do not leave without trying. Dark and complex.

You can get Beer Festival tickets here (pre register for a chance to win free beer) and full Beer & Cider list is here.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

West Coast Raid – day 1: Rogue Ale Embassy, SF

Doc D — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:14:14 +0000

Right, so I am here alone in on a boring old biz trip and suffering from some serious jet lag. Oh but lucky for me my old buddy Pat shows up to show me a great meal of Japanese noodles and then its time to raid the Rogue Ale Public House in SF, CA… And what do we find? 42 taps. 39 of awesome craft beers. 1 of bud, 1 of Guinness and 1 of root beer – that's ok with the BV crew.

What did we drink:

Rogue American Amber Ale – fuck'n rocks @brewrank 16 (on tap! – the bottle version you can get in Europe, btw)
Firestone Double Barrel – a hoppy light ale @brewrank14
Eugene Triple Jump Pale – another hoppy light pale ale @brewrank14
Rogue Mogul Madness – a DARK hoppy winter ale at 8%abv – wow!!!! @brewrank 17

This pub is insane for craft brew! Very laid back. Great space and prefect location. Here's a map:

View Larger Map

My advice is if you are ever in SF, CA and have time go here (ever just 1 hour). Otherwise you will be sad and we migth call you a loser.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

My Notes on Tasty #beerswap Northern Brew

thetank — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:01:39 +0000

Some of the BeerViking’s had the pleasure in being part of the first social media British Beer community Beer Swap (#beerswap on Twitter). Doc D has already filed his report on his beers and this is mine.

I was matched to receive beers from Sam Lanes from Real Ale Reviews. Being Leeds-based, he chose to send through the following choice Yorkshire beers:

Copper Dragon Golden Pippin

What they say:

A light refreshing blonde ale brewed using a specially selected hop to create a citrus fruit flavour. This golden coloured favourite is equally appealing to real ale and lager drinkers alike – ABV 4.2%

My Review:

White head, that goes but leaves some lacing. Old gold colour, looks quite effervescent. Nothing particular on the nose, some slight greeness of hops and with that floral but nothing too much. Thin mouthfeel. Quite sweet, with some bitterness coming through. A brewrank of 12.

Leeds Pale Session Bitter

What they say:

An easy drinking pale ale. Light and hoppy with delicate floral notes and a well balanced finish. ABV 3.8%

My review:

Slight head, yellow gold colour. Slight bitterness on the nose, with perhaps some perceived (wished for) yeast smell from the Yorkshire yeast. Nice mouthfeel, a decent amount of hops to bring some citrus through, with some faint fudge chewiness. Would definitely have again. A brewrank of 13.

Leeds Best

What they say:

A classic Yorkshire Bitter. Finest English hops blend perfectly with our unique Yorkshire yeast to create a full flavoured beer with a superb hoppy finish. ABV 4.3%

My review:

Good head, again quite bubbly to look at. Russetmuscat colour. Not getting a particular nose. Fresh mouthfeel. A taint of bitterness, an easy drinker…I would almost say lagerish. Might have again and a brewrank of 12.

Saltaire Brewery Cascade Pale

What they say:

American style pale ale with the floral aromas and strong bitterness of Cascade and Centennial hops. 4.8% ABV.

My review:

Nice tight head that lasts, very bubbly. Maybe as dark as burnished. A resinous, nutty nose. A creamy mouthfeel, with a nice warmth from the malt gives way to a joyous astringency of the hops with a great length (as in I’m hungry but don’t want that taste to go away soon). A brewrank of 14

Overall

I thoroughly enjoyed my #beerswap experience. The thought into what beers to send Darren from Blog ‘o Beer, Harvey’s Imperial, Dark Star Imperial, Dark Star Sunburst (collect+ blew this one out) and Ascot Alligator, was perhaps as much fun as getting them (but being obvious as no comparison to drinking them.)

It was a great idea from the guys (Mark and Andy) and I’m sure has helped pull the beer community together a little more and I’m sure that real world friendships will be formed a beer festivals around the countryside soon.

My only question is, when’s the next one!

Wandsworth Common Beer Festival 2: Come Over to the Dark Side

thetank — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:43:38 +0000

One event that is looming large in the Beer Viking diary is the upcoming Wandsworth Common Halloween Beer Festival (and not because it’s the first event that we are sponsoring). It will be from Thursday, 29th – Saturday, 31st October 2009.

The first event from Mark and the team at Le Gothique was in March and was such a roaring success he’s followed it up with his second, this time with a focus on Dark, Winter and Mild ales.

From looking at the full beer list of the 75 ales, we believe he has curated one sweet collection of brews that will be great to try and make it through.

There are several featured breweries, like Downton (proving 7 from their range), Twickenham, Ballards, Shepherd Neame will once again be doing a micro-brew.

The following shouldn’t be a surprise to any of our readers but due to the touted generous use of hops (Goldings, Cascade (including a 2nd late hopping) and Cluster).

One beer we’re keen to try is London Pale Ale from fellow sponsors, Meantime Brewing. They are calling it a London Pale Ale and watch out for our brewrank on this one.

From a quick scan other highlights are:

Sarah Hughes, Dark Ruby
Robinsons, Old Tom
Orkney, Skullsplitter
Moorehouses, Black Cat
Exmoor, Beast
Batemans, Victory Ale
Buffy’s Brewery, Norwich Terrier
Burton Bridge, Thomas Sykes
Dark Star, Oktoberfest and Porter
Houston, Warlock Stout

Make sure to check out the microsite for the full list and information on tickets.

Triple Rock Brewery & Ale House, Berkeley – west coast raid cont…

Doc D — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:25:54 +0000

Triple Rock Brewery & Ale House, Berkeley
Note: draft post…

Beer List

Pinnacle Pale Ale – english style pale ale, very light, pretty average. 12
Kolsch .45 – sharp, true to style. 14
Millstone Wheat – fresh, citrus, also true to style. Very drinkable. 14
Bug Juice West Coast Pale Ale – hoppy, long finish. Nice. 15
Red Rock Red Ale – wow, very stornly hopped, tight finish. Classic! 16
Black Rock Stout – very nice stout, smooth. 15

Guest Ale
Sacramento BrewCo IPA – very solid ‘west coast’ IPA. 15.5

Introducing BeerViking TV – Epic Pale Ale vs. Thornbridge Kipling South Pacific Pale Ale

Doc D — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:35:06 +0000

The plan
It was simple enough – take two interesting beers to the beach, taste them, compare them, BrewRank the beers and video it. Oh yeah, we also needed to pick a winner.

The setting
We had post card perfect day and beach side location. Brighton beach (in Sussex, UK) on a sunny, clear and very warm day (temperature was around 25C/78F)… If it weren’t for the pier and the shingles (should really call them rocks) on the beach we could have even been in the actual South Pacific. It was a Monday or maybe a Tuesday. The beach was pretty empty. Although there was a guy paddling his surf board and a few tasty bikinis around, but that’s not important. What matters is the beer.

We had chosen well. It was the Epic Pale Ale vs. the Kipling South Pacific Pale Ale. This seemed to a fitting pairing. Two unique beers. One brewed in New Zealand with lots of hops (Cascade? – I am sure we could find out on the excellent Epic website but we’re lazy) and the other brewed in the UK using Kiwi Hops and by a Kiwi-Italian brewing duo… Crazy. Had to be good.

Tasting Notes (abridged)
Ummm, need to re-watch the original video… [UPDATE to follow]

The Video (Beastie Boys mix): Filmed on Brighton beach in Sussex. This is the 1st in a possible series of beer taste-offs planned. Two great craft beers with lots of hops and unique tast – one from the UK and one from New Zealand but with crossed paths in the global world of craft beer. Backing track is Beastie Boys / Now Get Busy from the Wired CD (Creative Commons license). Enjoy!

The Winner
Epic won by just a tad. More bold. Epic scored 16 and Kipling scored 15.5 (out of 20). Both BeerVikings agreed on scoring and the winner (this time).

Verdict on the Flip Mino?
Well, the Flip is easy to use. Not sure about the camera work and the sound. Need to skill up on doing videos and editing software. Fun. Easy. This is just the beginning of Beer Viking TV.