Dropped from the sky

Scotland is awash with new breweries at the moment, all doing their own thing. Fallen is no exception, starting in 2012 and currently brewed at Traditional Scottish Ales facility they managed to achieve best new Scottish brewery on Ratebeer last year. I bagged a selection of their beers from Alesela (bought with my hard earned of course); here's my thinkings.

Clean, easily differentiated labelling helps the beers to stand out on the now crowded Scottish beer shop shelves.

The blonde ale is the golden girl of the bunch. Very lager-like and that's no bad thing. It manages to do exactly what the label suggests. Pours deep gold with fluffy white head. Nettle like Saaz hops and malt sweetness, pleasing bitterness tempered by malt, medium body and carbonation, some citrus hops ,and dry moreish finish.

Dragonfly is the 4.8% amber ale. Pours hazy midbrown with fluffy off white head. Aroma of citrus pith and mango. Medium carbonation and body, initial sweetness then sharp citrus, dry digestive biscuit and caramel malts and an astringent finish.

Grapevine is outside of the session range at 5.4% but drinks much lower in strength. Burnished gold with slight fluffy white head. Lemon custard and lychee on the nose. Shortcake malt, dry citrus pith finish which is rather moreish. Despite its abv it’d make a good one for a few pints as it develops well down the glass.

I also had a chance to try their smoked porter, Blackhouse (5%) on keg at Holyrood 9A a while back. it poured dark ruby brown, but with no head I worried it may be flat. Savoury bacon nose and touch of chocolate. Very dry, chocolate malt, roast barley, no astringency, light body but I needn't have worried as carbonation was certainly in attendance. Certainly my favourite in their range; but I reckon all of the other beers would taste fab cask conditioned.

Fallen Brewing Co

@FallenBrewCo

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Beardy Weirdies

Nope, I'm not referring to that much stereotyped bunch of beer lovers CAMRA but the new London Brewery, Weird Beard, run by a couple of hirsute gentlemen, Gregg Irwin and Bryan Spooner.

I picked up a selection of their beers via Ales By Mail after hearing a lot of positives about them, plus I enjoyed some beers with fellow blogger Gregg at last year's Beer Bloggers Conference. Reviews after the pic.

 

In order of consumption then, I began the evening with Black Perle, a "coffee milk stout" or latte stout if you will. Truly sessionable at 3.7% I was most impressed with thisl ittle number which was at once both a coffee and a milk stout. with rich smoky fruit roast coffee aromas and full bodied lactose milk sweetness, finishing with the ashen roast of a good espresso coffee. This beer would be equally good as an after dinner treat or a breakfast beer pick me up.

Miss the Lights is a one off IPA, which reading between the lines of  the blurb seems to have been a trial brew that didn't quite hit the mark (to be superseded by hit the lights). Its a more challenging beer with plenty of herbal noble hop notes and a meaty yeast flavour hanging around in the background.

Next up Fade to Black, in one of my favourite styles, Black IPA. This one hits the style bang on, with a delicious orangey (Simcoe?) nose and some slight chocolate notes. I should have drunk it fresher as the hop flavours are starting to fade from the flavour, though still scrumptious and at 6.3%  at the higher end of the scale for BIPAs.

Following on from that was "a boring brown beer" a single hopped Chinook effort. Another that just wasn't quite as hop forward as I'd have liked at 7.2% the malt backbone was just a little overpowering, though never cloying. Look forward to trying the refinements in future single hop releases.

I finished up the evening's drinking with the 7.3% monster that is Five O'clock Shadow. The nose was promising, all pineapple esters but I wasn't keen on flavour at first, finding the malt obscured some of the delicate hop flavours, but after allowing it to breathe a little, the tropical hops, tangerine pith and mango were allowed to shine through to give a hybrid of US and UK style IPAs. Fairly bitter, almost quinine like finish.

If Five O'Clock shadow was a monster then Holy Hoppin' Hell is a titan, with bells on. Weighing in at a hefty 8.5% it pours a hazy dark amber brown with a perfumed citrus and mango nose. Full bodied, sweet, low carbonation. Peach, passion fruit, mango, heavy booze, some spicey notes and a long fruity finish. This is another that would benefit from being fresh on keg, though as a UK DIPA (something we haven't many of) it brings a different perspective.

For me the Black Perle stole the show, at once drinkable and complex and I look forward to trying a cask version of this sometime soon. Fade to Black was a close runner up, being an excellent example of a black IPA. The pale ales are well on the road to greatness but didn't quite hit the spot for me on this occasion. I've got a gaggle of saisons en route; so there could be a future post in the pipeline.

Weird Beard

@weirdbeard_brew

@dredpenguin (Gregg)

@weirdbeerbryan

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Partizanal Ales

I've been trying a lot of London beers recently thanks to the sterling efforts of Ales By Mail with their "Best of London" cases, 15 beers from breweries from all over the capital. They're now on box 15 which has a black forest stout and Windsor and Eton's excellent Republika pilsner among them.

But I digress, this post is about one brewery in particular, and those of you clued in have probably already twigged who I'm talking about, but for the rest of you read on! I would probably class thisbrewery as in my top five* London brewers, no mean feat considering there were over 40 at last count! So who holds my affections so rabidly? Partizan, that's who.

Springing up out of the dust left behind in Bermondsey's arches by Kernel's move to bigger premises and even using the same kit is Andy Smith's new venture. I've been an avid collector but I'm struggling tokeep up with their prolific output! I've managed about 10 of their beers so far and no duffers amongst 'em! I'm a particular fan of their saisons, properly Belgian in character with plenty of hop interest.

The pale ales are crisp and bright flavoured, showing off the hops to the full and the porters are amongst the best in the business, Partizan truly are ones to watch. Special mention must be made of the eye-catching labels which are superb individual works of art in their own right, each crafted by Alec Doherty. Hop bills are clearly stated, and even better a brewed on date lets you know exactly how fresh the beer you've picked up is. Bottle conditioned too which means the mouth feel is spot on.

So if you do spot these when you're out and about, don't hesitate to pick them up! There's still some left on Ales By Mail's website too if you fancy doing some mail order (tip a box holds 24 bottles; so may as well get your monies worth postage wise...). I look forward to you thanking me for the recommendation later ;)

Partizan Brewing

@PartizanBrewing

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*Subject to change, mail me to find out which brews are currently floating my boat!

   

I don't think I've drunk enough beer to understand that.

above quote from the Lost Continent
I've been reading Discworld books for at least 12 years, maybe longer, though the series itself is actually 30 this year. Ales by Mail have collaborated with local brewer Brentwood to brew a range of Discworld themed beers.

There are three in the range filling the common bitter/ blonde ale pathway but also an oatmeal stout and a honey beer. I picked these up at various times and here are my thoughts:

The core range of three

I love the labels on all of them, very much in the Discworld style with amusing blurbs. They'd certainly make an attractive gift for any Discworld lover, especially being brown glass the beer has longer staying power (less risk of skunking from light exposure).

Bledlow's Silence, 5.5% ABV. Dark amber with minimal cream head. Slight mango aroma, some pleasing bitterness/ low carbonation again though.

Hix's Darkside Ppours flat as a pancake, faintest of heads, dark ruby brown. Rich dried fruits, sweet sultanas, some solvent, molasses, carbonation could make this drinkable but drainpoor I’m afraid. Too near a dubbel in flavour too; so wouldn't be my favourite kind of beer even with carbonation.

Bugarup blonde, is 4% and pours Burnished gold with little in the way of head. Light apricot on the nose, low carbonation, slight bitterness, mild fruitiness. Ok but hop light.

Honey Ale comes in at 4.6%. This is more like it, a bigger 500ml bottle that pours hazy amber blonde with light fluffy white head. Dry dusty herbal goldings nose. Fairly sweet, medium body, low carbonation, digestive biscuit malt, floral dry honey notes and long finish. Good sessionable drop.

Modo's Midden 4.5% Light amber with fluffy off white head and some yeasty dregs. Pithy nose which unfortunately fails to come through in flavour. Good carbonation, slightly sharp citrus. So so and too similar to the Bugarup really.

I'm a little disappointed with these beers. They could have been so much more but instead they all fell short of expectations, with the exception of the honey ale perhaps which is done rather well.

Noster Not for me

An interesting bunch this. My eye was caught by the sleek, shapely bottles on the Drinkstore page and before I knew it I was cracking them open one Saturday evening with Reuben (Tale of Ale).

VG Noster is a Spanish brewery, who seem to be fairly new, (if the lack of ratebeer reviews is anything to go by...). These beers are all at session strength, but in a classy 750ml bottle which suggests to me they're supposed to be challenging wines' dominance in the Spanish market, whilst not being too challenging for those used to likes of San Miguel and Estrella Damm. As all good breweries know, it is the brewery name that needs to be emphasised, beer names are not as important when first launching (as long as its nothing stupid like this lot).

Copper is  pale copper in colour (say what you see?) with a hazy, off-white head, metallic nose with redcurrant, very high carbonation, sweet redcurrant flavours and a short finish at first but as it warms lasting blackcurrant appears. A rose wine substitute perhaps?

Golden Ale Hazy golden with large bubbly white head, fairly metallic nose and some pineapple yeast esters in behind. Slightly tinny flavour with sweet malt and yeast esters, very high carbonation, v easy drinking.(No picture as I drank it too quickly...)

Quercus Pale pours a clear ruby-amber with a foamy, fluffy creamy coloured head. Earthy sage and parsley notes on the nose. Again with the high carbonation of its siblings, there's herbal apricot and caramel notes plus a fairly heavy body and long dry finish. Like a vermouth or dry sherry. This is the beer I found most interesting, but 1/3 bottle is sufficient, then the herbal flavours become too much, without the food to help counteract it. Translating the Spanish from the website, this beer is suggested for oily fish and dark meats, and I can certainly see it working on these occasions. Couldn't work our why its named after the latin for oak though...

So whilst I'm probably not their target market, I think the beers are decent enough, though wouldn't be my first choice when pairing food. I hope they find their place in the market and will certainly look out for future offerings.