Tis the Saison

This post has sat in draft for too many months; so clearing it out to make way for more posts next year. One of my favourite beer "styles" are saisons, nothing better when you want a sessionable ale to spend some time over. I've curated an interesting range in this post; to show you the breadth of the style.

Up first is an offering from Partizan, very much in the traditional vein - Saison Grisette @ 4.8% Hazy pale blonde with lacing of white head. Typical dry Belgian yeast esters, well attenuated, medium body, slightly peppery coriander, long ester filled finish. I've since had all of Partizan's saisons* but this was still one of the best.

Another Partizan saison next (Big Red), similar but darker, not black however. Cloudy mid amber with coriander and yeast esters on the nose - probably the same yeast as used above but igven more malt to chomp on as this one hits 7.4%. Sweet and spicy, caramel and apple, warm and spiky, dry Belgian finish. Its got the best bits of a Belgian dubbel without the candy sugar off-taste I hate.

Stepping ever stronger is Nomada Untitldead at 9% which I discovered in the fridge at the Barley Mow one day. Dark chestnut amber, minimal head soon dissipated. Rich toffee sweetness plus slight tartness. Sweet, toffee, caramel, fruitcake, rich marmalade. Low carbonation. Long fruity finish but too rich for my tastes.

To finish off is my final bottle of the "Overseas Dictator" brewed for my birthday last year by my friend Paul. The carbonation has died down somewhat which means I can pour the glass without it frothing everywhere (redecorated Bitter Virtue with a fresh bottle...) This has really aged well with a good dry finish, just a touch of chocolate and some nice herbal hop notes complementing the saison and wheat spices. Apologies to Paul for leaving this so long to post!

*Post to come in the new year!

Love & Death Inc: The beers

Its taken a little longer than planned to get this post written up, but etter late than never!

As previously mentioned, Belfast cocktail destination Love & Death Inc have recently launched a new  beer range, which I gather has been brewed at ??? I've had no replies to my attempt at contact, but I was told Lurgan when I picked up the beers (see below for more details). They are priced at £4/ bottle but I was given a couple of bottles for review purposes.

The first beer labelled Gold I (Dry hopped) (4.7%) pours clear pale gold with slight white fluffy head. Resinous pine and pithy lemon on the nose. Fairly high carbonation, with a big lupulin hit but little hop flavour, there's some grassy/cereal malt there instead. Bitter and dry finish. An enjoyable beer but needs more late hops. Great level of dry hopping though, and impressive for a first iteration, I could see this being well received by the lager crowd looking for something different.

IPA 3 (5.7%) on the other hand pours a hazy amber with a creamy dense head. Tangerine and Weet-a-bix on the nose is a promising start but none of those aromas translate into flavour - possibly they're obscured by the high carbonation. Instead we get a dry, rasping herbal bitterness and plenty of vegetal hops. Very much a traditional English style IPA, not sure if that's what the bar was going for. Again, missing the flavour addition. Pleasant enough, but for me just wrong choice of hops.

Its great to see another brewer on the Northern Ireland scene, there's plenty of space for more! A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests 18 breweries per million people in England; so Ireland's 1.8 million people could support a few more, especially brew pubs (more on that in a future post perhaps)! Of course antiquated licensing laws and the purchasing power of that well known South of the border conglomerate don't help.

I think the first trial batches have already flown out, but if you happen to be passing through, make sure to ask as I expect future releases will soon be forthcoming. Let me know your thoughts if you've already tried them!

Serendipity

It shouldn't surprise my readers to find out that beer isn't the only alcoholic beverage that I enjoy. In fact, even the not so eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed the link to all of my whisky posts above ^. I've also enjoyed cider from a  young age, but a drink class I've been getting into more recently is cocktails. 

It probably stems from my trip to the Maven in Leeds as recommended by Neil Eating Isn't Cheating where I enjoyed a very nice rum short drink. fast forward a year and I now have a well stocked cocktail cabinet at home and a couple of interesting old cocktail books to peruse for inspiration (more on those in a later post). It helps that my wife also enjoys trying cocktails; so I have a guinea pig for my creations!

From Love & Death Inc website

But I digress. Today's post is about a specific cocktail bar, Love & Death Inc to be precise. Its Ann Street location in Belfast (perched atop the fab Little Wing pizzeria) puts it within  stones throw of trendy shopping area Victoria Square and the more touristy area of Laganside.

To enter is to be transported back in time to American speakeasies of the 1920s. Oh no, I hear you dry, taht's been done to death already: well maybe so; but no-one does it quite like Love and Death Inc. Up the stairs from street level and you reach the bar area. All manner of bric a brac are suspended from the ceiling, including a full sized bike! Its always buzzing on evenings I've been in with a mixed soundtrack of easy listening and rock n' roll, though later on a DJ is often in attendance. There's also a nightclub upstairs, which I'm yet to investigate.

A view of the bar

 

From Love & Death Inc website

Staff are friendly and efficient, making cocktails with skill in front of your eyes. A number of them have entered competitions and performed well; not bad considering the bar is pretty new. The bar itself is an A-Z of alcohol with almost every liquer and spirit imaginable crammed into its many nooks and crevices, with a decent range of bitters and purees across the front. There's also food available, but I'm yet to sample this as both of my visits to date have been after dinner.

Dum dum (right) and (i think) Paradise Lost
with the comic book menu

One thing I particularly like is the menu (PDF), a collage of old comic strips, with speech replaced by cocktail descriptions. Average price for a cocktail is around £6 which is very decent considering the quality involved. I did splash out £12for a "dum dum" because it sounded intriguing with chili and orange alongside aged Guatemalan rum and sicilian digestif. That's it in the photo to the left. I thought about recreating it at home, but the rum is £100 a bottle so maybe not!

On my recent visit I stuck to rum creations. "Origins" features Appleton 8 and ginger and "To Have and Have Not" is an exposition in grapefruit featuring ruby grapefruit juice and grapefruit bitters alongside mint and rum. Both tasty and so appealing that I neglected to take a photo...

One thing that caught my eye this time around however wasn't a cocktail, but a half finished beer on my table. Still in its dark brown bottle with hand-written sticky label I'd discovered a new Northern Ireland brew! Turns out I'd managed to time my visit to co-inside with the release of the new house brews. I picked up the last couple of bottles, which I'll review on a later post.

So next time you're in Belfast, pay Love & Death Inc a visit, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Love & Death Inc

10a Ann Street, Belfast, BT1 4EF (map)

Facebook

Twitter @LoveanddeathNI

#TheSession #72

This month  Ryan at Monatana Beer Finder has asked us to talk about how we love beer. In what way do we show our love for beer.

First and foremost of course is actually drinking and blogging about the stuff. I let people know about the beers I've enjoyed to share the joy of a good pint. This progresses to the next logical level by letting people try my beer when I'm out and about or even buying people a drink. I like to pass on the tips that I've been given myself.

Whilst in Auckland I gave a sample of the Epic Coffee & Fig Stout (not a cheap beer!) to a couple of Americans sat on the table next to us. It opened their eyes to a different style of imperial stout, being barrelheads. Sharing beer is a great way to show your love.

Aside from that I'm writing a cheese and beer book to showcase my dual loves of UK cheese and UK beer. I help to run beer tasting at beer festivals and stand behind the bar to proselytise about good beers the rest of the time.

This year I plan to deepen my love of beer by starting to homebrew. Taking a beer from inception to the end will give me a deeper appreciation of how beer loves me and increase my love for it in return (I hope!).

Beer Nut

The Beer Nut was kind enough to take a couple of the International Arms Race beers off of my hands and leave me some of his homebrew in return. I must confess to liking his 'brand-name'-"Dodgio" and its great to see all of the ingredients on the label, even down to the yeast used, something I wish other brewers would do.

Informative labelling, my favourite!

 

Pours hazy burnished gold with Nelson Sauvin grapey kiwi aromas distinguishable at ten paces (didn't even need the comprehensive ingredients list to know this one!). Moving closer there's tangerines and a light sourness. There's gentle carbonation and the flavour is all about the tangerine at first with a gentle bitterness and balanced malt. Those tropical flavours and low bitterness remind me a lot of |Roosters Baby Faced Assassin. This beer drinks like a session beer, I'd love another!

A Dark brown with coca-cola head. Chocolate, acorn coffee, touch of roast barley and sleepy yeast on the nose. At first there's chocolate and orange fruit followed by a long nipping, warming chilli that gets the tip of your tongue and back of your throat. Chocolate makes a final flourish before the chilli leaves a lingering glow. Quite light bodied and fairly low in carbonation, the head took some coaxing to form then disappeared.

Again two fantastic homebrews that would any number of "commercial" brewers a run for their money!

Apologies to John for being so tardy with posting this!