Fiz-y whizzy lets get busy

Thanks to a link Boak & Bailey shared on Twitter I wasted (enjoyably procrastinated) about 20 hours this weekend. The time-waster in question? A brewery management game for Android/ Apple.

The game is quick to install and has a useful tutorial mode to get you used to the menu system. I found it helpful to pause the game (bottom left corner or top menu bar) in order to get a better look around. The premise is simple - brew beer to sell whilst expanding and keeping your balance book in the black - but there's plenty of complexities to keep people interested.

You can use the game in different ways. For those completests amongst us (me included) there are set "story challenges" to enable you to progress alongside additional "ultimate" and "progression" challenges to unlock new recipes, equipment and staff. For the plutomaniacs you can set your own prices and amass a large (virtual) fortune and for the sadists there are mice to kill for bonuses.

From: PocketGamer

The graphics style is cutesy Nintendo-style with the option to play as different characters, though the actual animation is quite basic and plenty of text based screens. The music is pretty catchy too. The game can be at times frustrating, especially if you're impatient but be persistent and you'll be rewarded. 

I mentioned I spent 20 hours playing it* - the game can be addictive too "just one more achievement before bed...". But all in all i consider it £1.28 well spent - that's less than a price of a half and what better have you to do when its pissing it down and blowing a gale?

*As I mentioned I've completed the main story but there's still plenty to keep me occupied. If you decide to play and get stuck, feel free to ask!
Since first writing this post I've completed the game a second time (much quicker when you know what to look out for!) but there's still an annoying few things to discover to get to end game!

(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.

Buxton Sours

One beer style which is currently "on trend" in the UK at the moment is the berlinner weisse, or even sour beers in general. We've had a number from Brodies and now Buxton is getting in on the act.

They recently launched a collaboration, Sky Mountain Sour with To Ol which I enjoyed very much indeed whilst in Edinburgh and the general view from twitter too is that its a great beer. I was also kindly given a few pre-release bottles of Buxton sours, by Denis  brewed by the Buxton team separately to the collaboration brew. They use three strains of yeast/bacteria to ferment (Buxton house yeast, lactobacillus and Bretanomyces) which all contribute to the beer in their own unique way.

Raspberry sour is what it says on the tin, scarlet tinged pale amber with a nose redolent of raspberry jam. There's  a fair bit of up front lacto-sourness then the tart, earthy raspberry flavour comes through. Its packed full of flavour despite its relatively meagre 3.2% strength and its something that went down well, chilled in the heat of Scotland's heat wave.

Even better is the snozberry sour (snozberries? who ever heard of a snozberry). This frankenberry concoction pours a deeper shade of red - crimson perhaps with a melange of berry fruits on the nose, redcurrant and blackberry seem prevalent. In flavour its difficult to distinguish any particular berry, but they all work together well, bouncing off the tart weisse backdrop to produce a flavourful and refreshing beer. It finishes fairly dry too with the added Brettanomyces yeast chomping through residual sugars leaving its familiar fermenting hay notes on the palate. I could easily spend an afternoon session on pints of this and still be compos mentis on the way home.

Buxton will be launching these beers in bottle at their new Tap House, due to open iimminently.I hope to visit before the year's out. If we're lucky they'll make a bigger batch for keg too. Fingers crossed! TThey've also recently released a black sour which sounds intriguing!

I'd love to see more UK brewers take on this style, though understandably we probably won't see many go "full gueuze" because of the risk of contamination of regular brews. I think Brewdog have suggested they may use their old brewery for wild yeasted beers and of course Somerset's own Wild Beer Co are doing all manner of interesting things with wild yeasts. More please!

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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An eclectic bunch

One of the most consistently interesting brewers in the UK is Summer Wine. Back in January 2012 I reviewed their core-range. Here are three of their more "out there" offerings.

Dr Paracelsus' list of ingredients reads more like some kind of exotic curry than a beer. The ingredients which include black cardamom, Turkish pepper and licorice root really shoudln't work together with the hops but SWB have managed it. Pours hazy dark amber red with fluffy creamy head that collapses to a lacing in short shrift. Spicy pepper, cardamom and ginger with underlying tart blackberry on the nose, especially on swirling. A touch of pickled egg emerges then disappears again. Gentle carbonation with a peppery hit at the tip of the tongue followed by full mouth warming, then some sweet juicy malt, more spice, meaty notes, tart fruit and long savoury finish. Medium mouth feel, touch of ginger and earthy hops as it warms, with some mouth numbing pepper heat. Its an intriguing beer that would make a great match for a sweetish savoury dish like bbq pork or teriyaki salmon. 

Maelstrom is SWBs Double India Pale Ale (DIPA) is hazy dark amber with fluffy white head. Aroma is lime sherbert and slightly sour citric acid. Medium carbonation, predominantly sour peach and sweet malt with pithy citrus and bitter bite following after. Some melon on swirling. Big body but not at all boozy. I think it needed drinking sooner to get the hops at their fershest, but all in all enjoyable.

Finally we have Calico Jack, named after infamous Bahamas pirate Jack Rackham. pours a dark garner black with a fluffy tan stockings head. Sweet stem ginger battles dry dusty cocoa and rich burnt toast roast barley for nasal supremacy. Underneath that us a meaty umami note that makes this a savoury beer. Medium carbonation plays on the tip of the tongue, chocolate, followed by spicy stem ginger, a touch of lactose sweetness then peppery ginger all over the tongue. A touch of chalk and peppermint and mature cheddar wraps up the finish.Its a truly interesting AND enjoyable imperial stout that is well worth seeking out. Sheriff Mitchell agrees with me.

German beer is best?

I'm a few months late with this post, but I've only just drunk the beers; so consider it useful information for next year. Oktoberfest beers are becoming more and more prevalent outside of Germany, both exported and domestically brewed varieties. Thornbridge have recently released one which I'm yet to try.

One I have been able to try however is Ireland's 8-Degrees Ochtoberfest. Brewed on August 8th (8/8) at 8 degrees West of Greenwich.

For comparative purposes I picked up some German festbiers, namely Spaten Oktoberfestbier, Erdinger Festweiße, Weißenoher Altfränkisch Klosterbier and Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest-Marzen. The first thing to note is that there is a wide range of colours, although the ABV of all of the beers is similar. The Erdinger isin keeping with the rest of that brewery's output and a weisse bier.

Up first, the Klosterbier. It looks appealing with a traffic-light amber with fluffy snow-white head. Its  flinty, dry, fruity and toffee on the nose, so far so good. Unfortunately its too highly carbonated and harsh in the mouth, dry, bland and astringent with no finish. I had to ditch it after a few gulps. Not a very promising start.

The Erdinger didn't really raise the standard. Normally I'm fairly impressed by Erdinger beers despite being mass-produced they still have a fair amount of flavour. Not on this occasion though,i n fact the mouth feel was about the only thing going for it, with none of the traditional weizen esters in attendance I may as well have been drinking barley water.

Spaten was a bit of a surprise, pouring the palest of golds, not so much marzen as kolsch-style. There are some pleasant lemon and banana notes but again a harshly astringent finish with a touch of aspartame-like sweetness. Perhaps the use of hop syrup had something to do with it?!

Hacker-Pschorr is a beer I enjoyed on draught at National Winter Ales Fest this year. I say enjoyed, I meant I tolerated it. I say tolerated I meant I fobbed it off onto Daisy. In bottle it seems to have held up a little better. It has some of that alleged doughiness that I've hitherto failed to find and a pleasing mouth feel. The first beer I didn't feel needed chucking.

Finally; the Ochtoberfest from Eight Degrees reprised its debut at the Dublin beerfest in bottle form. Immediately the contrast was stark. There's an aroma this times-light cloves on nose with orange & licorice. Medium carbonation, doughy, marmalade, a bit thin bodied, booze, sweet, noble hop finish. Its the best of the bunch, but would I go out of my way to try it again? Probably not. As to whether it successfully mimics a German Oktoberfest beer I can't really say, but going by the evidence of the preceding beers maybe not.

On this evidence I'm beginning to think that the style is perhaps not for me and it joins the ranks of bocks, dubbels and Irish Ales as "ones to avoid" in my book.

More Vintage Ales

Extreme cellaring alert! My friend Alan (of Neill & Ross Brewery) is a Belgian beer nut and has amassed a sizable collection of aged beers, including some no longer brewed. This weekend we cracked open a number of them. Here are some thoughts:

First up were a couple of 1970s rarieties from Bass, the 1977 Jubilee Strong Ale & Bass Princess ale 1978. 

Both of these were well past their prime, with oxidation, wet cardboard, sod all carbonation and just not generally very nice. The Princess Ale did have an interesting touch of red fruit and toothpaste to differentiate from the former, but both drain pours unfortunately.

La Choulette Biere Des Sans Culottes 1990 is a dark biere de garde and not one I was too keen on either.

Straffe Hendrik 1990 was well past it and was a straight drain pour.

The Chimay Premier was also past its prime. I preferred the fresh version (which is so far one of the only doubles I've actively enjoyed).

So far, not so good but the better beers were to come in the form of a Felix Kriek from 1972 and Belle Vue Selection Lambic 1989. The kriek had held up fantastically and paired well with Stilton as suggested in the Vinken and Van Tricht book. A nose and taste reminiscent of rodenbach with cherries still lingering in the background. A surprising amount of condition for its age too. This beer is still produced today albeit in a much diminished form.

The Belle Vue lambic, today well known for being overly-sweetened was also a good beer. Obviously it started off sour and fairly dry, so there wasn't much more it could do to develop. Very dry, funky nose and lots of citric acid, just how I like them.

 Another interesting comparison was fresh Rodenbach to a bottle ~50 years old. Undisputably the same beer, the older bottle had lost some of the vinegar tartness and become more rounded. This worked well with mimolette, another win for the cheese and beer guide.

Another highlight for me was the 1960s Rochefort 10. Just as good as the fresh stuff and fantastic with Fourme d'Ambert.

 

A Westmalle Tripel of similar age was also sampled, but having neglected to make notes I don't recall how it had held up! A 2011 Westvletern 12 did nothing to shine, reinforcing the view that this beer is very over-hyped due to its rarity.

The big surprise of the evening for all of us was that Weston's Cider from 1985 tastes pretty much indistinguishable from fresh stuff. This makes sense as the wild yeast used to ferment it already succeeded in outcompeting any other wee beasties in 1985, so not much scope for infection and all the sugar had fermented out in any case.

A mixed batch then, as you would perhaps expect but a fun evening nonetheless.Thanks Alan and Olly for supplying most of the bottles.

Bowmore

After an overnight stay in Islay's capital, Bowmore, we awoke feeling refreshed and wondered down to the Bowmore distillery, not five minutes away. One of the oldest on the island, it still traditionally floor malts its own barley. With a busy day ahead of us we only had time for  a brief stop in the shop, but I'd love to return to do the tour.

The shop staff were friendly and those who had returned from the previous tour seemed happy enough. We peeked in at the exhibition, a trophy cabinet full of awards then the next tour group were gathering so we departed. A tantalising first glimpse.

Not having tried Bowmore before I was keen to pick up some samples and a three-pack of miniatures was reasonably priced. I also loved the ceramic water jugs, but decided I'd probably break it on the journey home and left it for another day.

The 12 year old pours a dark honey amber. The nose transports you to a Viking feasting hall: dirt floors sodden with spilt mead and the previous nights' peat fire still smouldering in the hearth. Pick up some of those ashes, mix with mead and you have the Bowmore 12 year old. Honey and fire, brash and boisterous.

The 15 year old (darkest) has an enticing aroma of honeyed peaches. Sweet heather honey and sisal at first and exquisitely smooth it finishes with a brief flurry of peat activity then juicy peaches.

The 18 year old is a musty coat closet with tweed and leather. Fiery at first it soon sweetens. The peatiness has all but disappeared and leaves behind a rich, fruity spirit which is very warming in finish.

A good bunch, which I shall certainly purchase in larger format when my supplis need replenishing. My favourite? Probably the 15 y/o for the blend of peat, fire, fruit and honey.

Also in Bowmore is the fantastic Lochside hotel, with over 300 single malts, the majority from Islay with rare bottlings and even some old Port Ellen stuff. Very pricey however, definitely one for the wealthier tourists.

IPA is STILL dead

ALLEGEDLY...  

Last year Brewdog released a range of four single-hopped IPAs designed to showcase individual hop varieties at their best. It was successful enough last year to repeat the experiment again with four different hops, namely Challenger, HBC, Galaxy and Motueka. Brewdog weren't the first with this concept, but its done well, the same base beer is kept simple to allow the hop to shine through whilst balancing the bitterness kept at 75 for all hops for fair comparison. Hops are added during the boil, at flame-out and in the conditioning tank (dry hopping) to impart as much flavour and aroma as possible. This year the ABV has been reduced to 6.7% from 7.5%, a smart move because it's slightly more amenable to drinking all four in one sitting for comparison purposes plus takes away some alcohol from the flavour allowing the hops to do the talking alone. There's still a small number of sets available to purchase here (service has improved hugely with the shop overhaul) Read on to find out my thoughts.

Four bottles lined up and ready to go

I started in the UK by choosing challenger as it seemed as good a place as any. Challenger is a dual purpose hop (used for both bittering and aroma). The beer pours a dark amber with a fluffy beige head that collapses to a lacing after a few minutes.Gives a hint of pineapple on the nose then redcurrant comes strongly. Getting green tea in the flavour, alongside tropical fruits, the caramalt comes to the fore in the middle and a long grassy bitter finish. Its like a hoppy green tea and tastes great.

 HBC (342) is an experimental new variety from the US. Pours a darker amber than the others. This has a strong mango and passion fruit aroma. Up front its quite soapy but this is soon replaced by mango yoghurt and a fairly boisterous bitterness. Its a bit unbalanced this one but still quite enjoyable.

Galaxy is a Perle Cross.This one is more subdued than the others on the nose, spicy white pepper notes and a touch of peach. A dominant lime peel note tramples over the slightly muddy malt and none of the peach i usually associate with this hop. A touch thin and perfumed in the finish. I was a bit disappointed with this.

Motueka is a New Zealand descendent of saaz. Fairly sweet smelling pineapple nose. Fairly pithy melon bitterness, some orange peel. long pithy finish. I seem to have saved the best until last and I'm unsurprised as I really love New Zealand hops.

At ~£2.80 a bottle they're an okay price and would recommend for the challenger and Motueka alone. I have a second pack; so hope to try out some blending experiments next month, and I'll report back then!