Wild Things

Wild beer have come of age and so has their beer with the release of their first (spirit) barrel aged beers. Ninkasi, Wildebeest and a barley wine aged in Somerset Cider Brandy, malt whisky (a highland and Islay blended) and Marc de Bourgogne barrels respectively. All 10% ABV and available at the usual suspects.

I started with Ninkasi, one of my beers of the year for 2013. Immediately on opening you can smell the oak and boozy notes from the cider brandy barrels but the unmistakable tart apple of ninkasi is there in the background. Flavour remains much the same though body has become fuller, aided by reduced carbonation in comparison to the original but its lost some of the Belgian yeast esters which made the beer so complex in the first place. Still excellent as a beer and worth trying but I prefer the unaged version.

Now Raconteur is a new arrival. The anonymous barley wine* brewed with these barrels in mind remains hidden in the background and the Red wine parades around the palate. This is so wine-like that its almost no longer a beer. Rich molasses and sour cherry nose. Boozy grape notes and oaky vanilla. Smooth and full bodied, light carbonation, grape must, caramel, vanilla. Tonnes of port like rich vinous character...must have been a lot of wine left in there.

If wine lovers are looking for a beer that hasn't deviated much from their usual tipple then this is it. It would make an excellent pairing for dark meats and at 10% certainly has the oomph to cut through them. At about £12 for 750ml its not unreasonably priced either when compared to wine.

The Whiskebeest remains true to its parents, but becomes more rounded and hides its strength all too dangerously. Pours dark peaty brown with a light beige lacing. Whisky immediately apparent on the nose, slightly smoky but not all phenolic...something like highland park and Caol Ila?
Full bodied and thick, coffee comes first as with the original but then some warming whisky, melding seamlessly with the beer. Chocolate, toast, more coffee and sweet vanilla follow. This is barrel ageing at its best.

Three fantastic examples of barrel ageing then that I recommend you try. If I were to pick just one it would be whiskebeest, but then its my kind of beer!

*A special release of the unaged beer "zulu charlie" showed a fairly sweet, rich malt led beer with red apple, yeast esters, which could only have enhanced those red wine notes.

Wild Beer

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(Real)Irish cider!

I recently picked up some Irish ciders from Drinkstore and drink my way through them at the weekend. All are quite different; so thought it might be informative to compare and contrast.

Double LL up first in a nice 750ml bottle for sharing with Daisy (I had an oversized pint glass and she got the rest!) It Pours cloudy orange tinged yellow with gentle carbonation - certainly looks to be the real stuff. Dusty apple lofts on the nose. Quite tannic and dry in the mouth with residual sweetness to prevent tartness. Slight wild barnyard character & rich braeburn-like eating apples come later. A nice lengthy finish too, just what I look for in a cider. It certainly sounds like some thought has been put in to designing the blend of juices

@DavidsOrchards

Stonewell's effort is a blend of 5 apple varieties (Dabinett, Michelin, Jonagold, Elstar & Falstaff) though I'm not sure what each brings to the party.*All are good juicing varieties and bring a blend of sweetness and tannins to make a decent cider. It pours an attractive deep burnished gold with apple pie and custard on the nose. Quite light in body, sweet at first but a dry tannic finish with later vanilla and caramel as it warms. The carbonation is quite light, which suggests bottle conditioning perhaps but the finish is very brief - perhaps some more cider apples in the mix would up the complexity.. The medium behaves in a similar vein but the sweetness actually helps the apple flavours to last longer in the mouth.

Something quite different is a "low-alcohol cider", Tobairin at 1.5%. Pours extremely pale blonde with greenish tinge and slight bubbly head. Steady stream of bubbles with unmistakable sweet jonagold juicy flesh on the nose. Fairly sweet but with a pleasant tartness in the finish which ups the body and prevents it from becoming cloying. I actually quite enjoyed it and is certainly a good stepping stone for the Koppaberg crowd to try the real stuff.

@StonewellCider

I must mention at this point the Republic's ridiculous tax laws on cider, meaning even this 1.5% cider ends up being sold at 4.20 a bottle, well north of beers even 4 times the strength. It shows that UK cider makers get a pretty decent deal actually. Extend the tax relief to Ireland's craft brewers!

So how does longueville house stack up? Its much darker than all the others Bright amber with white lacing dusty apple lofts and toffee apples. Tart granny smith and rotting hay, touch of wild yeast perhaps and very dry, slightly tannic finish building like a decent scrumpy but with slightly unusual turps note in the middle.  Very much a scrumpy style but something I can't quite put my finger on which doesn't quite sit right. It appears to use just dabinett and michelin apples, which would certainly lead to a more tannic character! Certainly intrigued how their cider brandy will taste though!

@longuevillecork

So a great range of ciders, all of which are enjoyable and I look forward to trying other releases.Stay tuned next week for some reviews of ciders from North of the border! 

Drinkstore kindly offers a 10% discount on Irish Craft Ciders and beers to Beoir members. So aside from supporting local businesses there are now also tangible benefits of being a member (spend 100euro in a year and make your membership fee back), why not join up![/recruitment drive]

*Jonagold is an eater-  cross of golden delicious and jonathan. Michelin is a 140 year-old Midlands cider variety, Dabinett a slightly younger Somerset cider apple, Elstar, Falstaff & Jonagold are all eaters, Golden delicious crossed with jonathan, james grieve and Ingrid Marie respectively.

And Another One

Love the fox and apple in the logo!

It seems that everywhere I look I find a new cider producer*. No bad thing because I like a good cider me, especially in these warmer summer months. I spotted this particular producer's wares in the Brewer's House and got in touch to find out a bit more.

MacIvor's cider is a new focus for Greg MacNeice. His ciders are made with 100% fruit (no concentrates here!), with apples sourced from Macneice Fruits. He is influenced by the traditional farmhouse ciders of the West Country and has spent some time visiting cider makers there. He is also influenced by the French cidres of Bretagne as that's where his wife hails from. These observations he brought back to Northern Ireland with him to make cider out of Armagh's famous Bramley apples (among others). I was offered two of the new season's production from MacIvor's and I'd have been a fool not to accept them. I'll review them now:

Medium Cider (4.5%) Pours pale gold with lively carbonation, apple skin and candy floss on the nose. Fairly sweet red apple character with a touch of sulphite and perhaps some pear in the finish.Its a touch on the sweet side for me, but I can see this being a popular beverage (potentially over ice (shudder), but anything that weans people off of the ubiquitous "cider" brands has to be a good thing right?!). An email from Greg confirmed that this cider is aimed at those people, but of course is a much more traditional production method. I've also just found out that there are 12 different varieties in here, which helps produce that more rounded flavour than a low number of varieties could offer.

Traditional Dry Cider (5.6%) Pours slightly darker gold and noticeably less carbonated than the medium. Notes of custard, hay and toffee apples on the nose. Dryish but not drying or tart, subtle apple flavour and long dry finish. I like the balance and subtleties in this one and would certainly drink it if I found it in the pub.

Here's hoping that we get the cider on draught at Belfast Beer Fest this year.

*Not quite, but there's a similar number to breweries here!

FABPOW: Mushroom stroganoff and cider

FABPOW=Food& Beer Pairing. I guess that this is really a FACPOW!

Not all food and drink pairings have to be planned out meticulously in advance. Nor do they have to be haute cuisine or use an uber rare/ expensive drink for pairing. Some of the best can be spur of the moment things.

I had a load of mushrooms I'd bought reduced last weekend that needed using; so decided to make stroganoff. This needs something sweet and fruity to help bring out the flavours, which is often wine but I plumped for cider. The cider section in Asda is in sorry shape, not even sporting the likes of Weston's, so ubiquitous on the main land but rarely seen outside of Wetherspoon over here. What I did pick up was a 750ml bottle from McCann's, a Northern Ireland producer, which I must have previously overlooked due to its proximity to Magners and Stella Cidre on the shelf. I used about 250ml in the dish, leaving the best part of a pint as a chef's perk.

It pours a slightly hazy light gold, almost perry coloured with a steady stream of fine bubbles. The nose is sweet mushy golden delicious apples, with richer bramley's underneath and a touch of old straw. 

Fairly sweet in the mouth, certainly a high proportion of eating apples in the mix, but with just enough tannin at the back of the palate to be medium rather than sweet in category. Gentle carbonation and a dry finish leaves you going for more. Not bad for just over £2! 

The stroganoff is fairly simple to make. Fry an onion and clove of garlic in butter until translucent, then reduce heat and sweat down ~400g mushrooms for 10mins. I used a mix of chestnut, portobello and baby button plus dried oyster, shiitake  and porcini to give a good depth of flavour and mix of textures. Remove the lid from the pan and allow the mushroom juices to evaporate, then add 250ml cider or wine, simmering for two minutes. Add a tub of crème fraiche and 1/2 tbs of cornflour made up in 2tbs water*,  stirring well until thickened. Serve with rice and sprinkle with parsley/ chives if you so desire. Simple!

It pairs perfectly with the stroganoff. You'd expect it to make a decent fist of it,what with it being used in the dish but I think it brings more to it than that (certainly a better pairing than wine and stroganoff). The earthy, umami in the mushrooms provides a contrast to the sweet, fresh apples, riffing off each other. The carbonation and alcohol content cut through the crème fraiche, refreshing the palate and the rich sauce is perfectly complemented by the dry, slightly tannic finish to the cider. Such a simple pairing but a classic. 

*I used the liquid from rehydrating my dried mushrooms for extra richness.