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.

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The original whisky barrel aged beer

A new limited edition Ola Dubh has just been released from Harviestoun, aged in a 1991 Highland Park whisky cask. 20,000 bottles are available in various places around the country and also soon from the Harviestoun website. The plan is to release a single age-statement batch of Ola Dubh every year from now on, with the "core range" of 12, 16 and 18 to continue.

The 10.5% imperial porter is a full 2.5% stronger than its previous (not necessarily older!) siblings with a sweeter flavour due to the previous use of the barrels for sherry.  

"delicious smoky-sherry notes on the palate, the flavours deriving at least as much from the whisky-infused-wood as the spirit itself."  

The release comes 5 years after he initial launch of the Ola Dubh range, the first beer in the UK to be aged in whisky barrels from a named supplier and traceable to the batch. The original 40 and 30 y/o releases are currently the best in Scotland on rate beer and bested only by Old Chimneys Good King Henry Special Reserve in the whole of the UK.

I wrote about some of the previous releases for the inaugural international stout day in 2011 and if I find a bottle of this one I'll certainly get my thoughts up on here! 22 years old will put it between the 16 and 30 year old varieties; so I wonder how will that reflect in the taste. Let me know if you get to try this before I do! 

Fun Facts: 1991 was also the year the first website was launched, Terry Pratchett released his 11th Discworld novel Reaper man and Freddie Mercury died of AIDs. I turned 5 years old (unconnected to previous facts!) 

This release coincides with the 30th anniversary year of the inception of the brewery.  In that time its been through a number of changes, but the current head brewer Stuart Cail has been with them for the last 18 years. 

That's who those of us attending EBBC will be lucky enough to hear give a talk on whisky cask ageing, which along with the keynote speech by Garret Oliver will be one of my main highlights of the weekends. There may also be a sweetener in the deal, but you'll have to come along to find out what it is! 

Its not too late to sign up to EBBC (11th-13th July 2013); so head here and do so now. Its only £95 for the weekend, which may seem a lot, but given the average cost of a pint is somewhere north of £3 these days is only about 11pints worth, which you'll more than manage to recuperate over the weekend! On the same weekend is the second Edinburgh Independents Beer Fest and Annual CAMRA Scottish Real Ale Fest; so you'll be spoilt for choice. Hope tosee some of you there.

Edit: there's even more on that week than I'd realised, check out Rich's Blog, the Beercast for more details.

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More barrel aged beers

Clicking the "new post" button after the best part of two months away from my blog is not done without some trepidation. Will the words come easily or will it be a struggle? Perhaps more nagging is the feeling that perhaps no one will read it after so long away. 

It wasn't particularly a planned absence, but became prolonged due to a number of real life changes which seem to be very much for the better. I now have a new job, new place of abode (still in Northern Ireland) and my fiancée has moved in with me. I've an impending wedding to plan for, not to mention the cheese & beer e-book (book?) I'm writing.

Anyhoo, enough introspection for one post and on to the subject that you're all here for...beer. And not just any beer but the barrel-aged kind. Yes, I know a lot of people will have already decided the beer is not for them, but bear with me and I'll attempt to change your mind.

The beer that has been aged in this case is an imperial stout. These tend to be the best for barrel-aging as the complex malt base is often robust enough to withstand additional spirit andwood flavours. The ABV can't harm either, helping to coddle that increased booze hit some people are all too familiar with as a side-effect of barrel ageing.

These beers also contain additional flavour components in the form of coffee beans and vanilla which marry well with the flavours of the spirits in question; namely an Islay and a highland whisky: 27 y/o Caol Ila and 14 y/o Clynelish to be precise.

I was a big fan of the base beer: "Pours garnet-tinged viscous black with a foamy mocha head. light chocolate, lemon a rich fruity coffee on the nose. Thick bodied, smooth, rich carbonation, smokey coffee first, then fruit, rich coffee, dry coffee on the tip of the tongue. Chocolate, a touch of orange peel not much sign of the vanilla but a fantastic stout. Can feel the coffee buzz a few sips in." How did the barrel aging cause the beers to evolve? I opened my bottles to share with my (future) father in law to find out.

The Clynelish barrel had imparted a sourness to the beer in both taste and aroma but it had also gained underlying honey, seaweed and soap. There was also some cola flavours and malty sweetness where previously there had been none. The finish was quite warming in alcohol but not at all harsh.

Caol Ila brought some meaty iodine and sticky tar to the table. Light smoke was the only contribution to the taste from this bully of a whisky, with a gentle caress of alcohol integrating much more smoothly than in its younger sibling.

Although both well-crafted beers with differing but related flavour profiles; I think I actually enjoyed the base beer more. Yes it was a sweeter after dinner sipper but it was one which evolved as the drink progressed. The whisky aged beers pulled out all the stops at the start but became a touch samey by the finish. Perhaps more people to share them with would have helped. Still, an example of barrel aging done well.

Big Thanks to Andy @Tabamatu who gifted me the original Kopikat at the beer blogger's conference earlier this year and to Dan @dandanglover for hand delivering the barrel aged variants to me during my flying visit to Edinburgh. If you're ever in town check out the shop he works at Great Grog for a decent selection of UK and overseas beers.

A Spiritual Home

Beer shouldn't be taken too seriously. As a bit of fun I decided to take a Brewdog beer back to where it began part of its life. Apologies for the Beer-Nut-esque pun!

Sat on the Diurach's table at Jura Distillery

Jura is an island with a population of ~200 people off the west-coast of Scotland. The distillery was resurrected to preserve jobs on the island and now produces four regular expressions. Paradox Jura is an Imperial Stout brewed by the (Marmite) brewer Brewdog as part of their barrel-ageing experiments. This iteration is aged in, you guessed it, Jura Distillery barrels.

Fortuitously I happened to have already been planning a visit to Jura when Brewdog released the beer and after receiving the beer in the trade (cheers Dan!) a plan was hatched.

After an all-too-brief tour around the distillery the beer was released from where I had secreted it (Thanks Daisy!) and offered around any interested parties. As you would expect, it met with mixed reactions, the distillery staff perhaps thinking it sacrilege to put something as weak as 10% in a whisky cask.

And me? I loved it! I've had mixed experiences with Paradox in the past. I was lucky enough to try a few cask versions I have enjoyed but the Laphroaig version was nigh-on undrinkable, being like a gloopy TCP. This one poured a dark brown-black, with a lusciously thick texture and tan-tinged head that soon disappeared. The booze is immediately apparent on the nose but there's also roast coffee, plain chocolate and molasses. It coats the tongue and full of the same flavours in the nose, but magnified, with the sweetness and caramel of the Jura amplifying the chocolate in particular. Lovely finish, full on dessert beer.  

This beer certainly falls into the positive camp of The Great Barrel Aging Debate and comes highly reccomended from me. As for my thoughts on barrel-aging overall?That, dear reader, is another post for another day...

I've another few Paradoxes to sample sometime, perhaps I'll try the same trick...

A pair of Bitches

Today is world whisky day and in honour of the occasion, what better than a whisky-barrel aged beer to celebrate? Two whisky barrel-aged beers of course!

Brewdog released their zany collaboration with Three Floyds, Bitch Please, about 6 months ago. That iteration was aged in a Jura cask. But they also secreted some away in Laphroaig casks. Laphroaig is widely accepted to be one of the peatiest drams out there, its phenolic and iodine-full character is certainly an acquired taste and one that I myself have only recently discovered.

I've gotten hold of one of the latter and decided to open alongside the original for a comparative tasting (as I am wont to do). Will my original thoughts on the beer hold true up against the souped up version?

The original first then. I gave this 4.3 out of 5 on ratebeer originally. I said "A lighter beer than I’d anticipated, chestnut brown with cream coloured head and a light level of carbonation. Fantastically complex nose, I can detect toffee, hops and smoked malt with some oak wood character. Smoky/peaty flavour certainly to the fore on the first taste with noticeable alcohol presence and a fruity sweetness that reminds me of toffos. Finishes with unmistakable sugar butteriness of shortcake an alcoholic warmth and the ghost of the wood. A good solid beer." and I largely stand by those thoughts, though the smoke and peat seem somewhat subdued in this bottle.

Two brothers in arms.

Its older, more boozy (13.5% vs 11.5%) brother next then. Its slightly darker but certainly appears the same beer.That is until you get a whiff of its aroma and its unmistakably been fraternising with that more southerly distillery. Phenol, smoke and deep heat are the order of the day and it tastes like inhaling a bonfire. The sweet toffee is still there but the subtleties are lost and replaced with vegetal peat, iodine and ash and a massive warming finish from that lovely ingrained whisky. Perhaps a touch of cola hidden in there too. Certainly an acquired taste and even one I can't take too much of. I still enjoyed the beer but it could perhaps have come out of the barrel sooner to retain some of the base beer characteristics.

As always, don't take my word for it, give it a go yourself. It may seem pricey, but for the strength its pretty decent. Both beers are still available in the Brewdog Online shop. I'm off for a wee dram.

#openit

#OpenIt is a multiparticipant Twitter organised beery event, much like #Twissup and #TheSession. The aim of it is to get you to open those beers that you've been hoarding and get writing about them. Andy over at Beer Reviews has declared this weekend to be the first such event in 2012. As with many people I have a fair few of these sat around so chose to go for the (lucky for some) target of 7 bottles to review. I did not drink all of these on the #OpenIt weekend, but they were enjoyed in the spirit of the event in any case!

Ballards Duck House

The first beer is a case in point for why its not necessarily best to hoard beer! Ballards Duck House is the annual  barley wine released by Sussex brewer Ballards. Bought from the brewery on the release date dec 2009. Its passed its BBE. This beer is a crib-sheet of off-flavours.Pours completely flat, no head whatsoever. Dark ruby. There’s balsamic vinegar and sherry on the nose. Very complex medium body reminiscent of an oud bruin. Oxidised of course with a lot of vinegar, some soggy cardboard, autolysed yeast marmite flavours, a hint of lactic acid, rounded body, quite sweet, vinous fruit. Long savoury finish with more marmite. Despite these seemingly jaring flavours the beer was quite enjoyable!

In addition to the Gales Prize Old Ales we got through at Alan's last weekend I took a number of other beers along.* Enjoying the evening too much to make copious notes I did however do some cheese pairings (how unpredictable(!)).

Law of diminishing returns?

Sparkenhoe
(http://www.norbitoncheese.co.uk

First up is Bell Ringer by Franciscan Well covered here by Reuben from Tale of Ale in much better prose than I could ever muster. To me it was very redolent of Fuller's ESB and to pair with this some sparkenhoe red Leicester was enjoyed, which really brought out those marmelade hops.

Langres

After the Gales were polished off we went onto Deschutes the Dissident. This is one complex beast of a beer. Taking inspiration from Belgian brewers this ends up as a kriek/ Flemish red hybrid. Its fruity and bretty on the nose, but without the lactic character put plenty of acetic acid. Some Langres washed rind cheese helped to take the edge off a bit.

That evening was rounded off nicely by The Lost Abbey The Angel's Share. This has all those oaky flavours in abundance but the robust malt bill is big enough to handle it. Milleens cheese is a great pairing, pulling out those fruity depths from under the vanilla. (This also went very nicely with the Gales Prize Old Ale).

And finally onto a beer style that everyone has in their cellars, the Imperial Stout. To link cleverly with the last beer reviewed, these two are also barrel aged, as brewers of big stouts are wont to do.

You knew there'd be cheese involved!

Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti is the brewery's top rated beer on ratebeer and one inside the top 50 on the nose initially a hint of dry cocoa powder giving way to rich malted milk biscuits or horlicks. On the next waft the perfumed sweetness of vanilla asserts itself, almost custard-like and a touch of alcohol. Opaque black  with bubbled tan head. Slipping down with the smoothness of milk and a gentle carbonation  at first there's molten milk chocolate followed swiftly by roast barley and acrid coffee leading to a fairly dry finish. After eating some blue cheese the vanilla is coaxed out from the bitter depths transforming the beer from espresso to mocha latte, whilst at the same time the beer embraces what was a fairly timid stilton and cajoules it to release those salty, slightly funky peniccilium roqueforti flavours finishing with some pepper. I reckon this beer would match well with a custard tart. Beware...the ABV is certainly well hidden!

Evil black depths

Mikkeller brews a lot of imperial stouts, perhaps the most well known of which being Black Hole.

Dark brown-black with thin brown tinged cream head that soon collapses to a lacing. On the nose its caramel and vanilla with a hint of beechwood and fruity coffee. Very full bodied and warming with coffee up front and booze following on quickly. Then we get biscuit and charcoal, vanilla and burnt toast. The finish is rich and boozy, lengthy, a hint of red apple. Fairly lively carbonation

*Having only just acquired the Goose Island Bourbon County it has ended up back in the cupboard with some other Impys for a future supping occasion.