Sourfest: the results

A stand-out beer is picked

This time last weekend I was in Belfast judging at the Freshman year of Sourfest, a competition to find the best sour/wild ale both commercially and from amateur brewers for both the UK & Ireland.



The beers were judged blind by a panel (myself included), with the top three in each category qualifying for a reassessment for best overall and in category. We were given details on style & additional ingredients, but only after the initial tastings. Entrants remained anonymous until all prizes had been awarded and beers were all judged to the same standard, with feedback forms from all judges* being made available to entrants after the competition.

 

I'm getting sour, is this a sour?

 

Someone wasn't impressed...

There were some truly impressive beers and perhaps even more encouraging was that the overall standard was extremely high, with all beers deemed drinkable (except perhaps that berlinner weisse smelling of farts and an enteric (faecal) sour brown).The results were as follows:



 

 



 



Best UK amateur

Chris Lewis took this with a very impressive attempt at a true spontaneously fermented lambic called Teeth Grinder; with four year-old, three year old and one year old beers blended to produce a gueuze-alike. Of course we did not know what it was at the time, but the quality shone though. Honourable mention here went to Plum Smuggler from Dean Hollingworth.





Searching for words to describe

The aroma pleases Giacomo

Best Irish amateur

Awarded to Shane Smith for his Raspberry Turbo which also took overall best in the competition (and my personal favourite).

Highly commended went to another talented homebrewer, Roger Rotheroe for his American Sour Brown Currant Situation.

Both of these winners will have the opportunity to brew their beers on  commercial scale with Boundary brewing. I certainly look forward to trying both of these and fully intend to buy a few cases of each.



 

 



Matt takes an initial sip

Best UK Commercial

Elgoods Coolship Blonde took this one but it was close run thing with Ali Kocho Williams' (Seren) Rum barrel aged sour dark ale. Elgoods overthrew the impression of being a staid family brewer when they put a disused brewery coolship back into use after many years to turn out a beer very similar to Belgian lambics, though of course with a different microflora. You can read more about it in Roger Protz's piece here.

 

 

Best Irish Commercial

A recently released beer & one I'd already been lucky enough to try: Kinnegar & Brown Paper Bag Project Geuzberry (you can read more about it here). This was also deemed to be best commercial beer overall too.

Highly commended was another beer recently launched, the sour version of White Hag's Beann Gulban.

Congratulations to all of the winners, and well done to all of the entrants; the overall standard was very high and I hope you all enter again next year.  What is particularly encouraging is the high standard of the amateur beers; often indistinguishable than the commercial attempts and generally more adventurous. This bodes well for the next generation of breweries, I'd like to see more commercial entrants next year. Everyone who didn't enter: you have a year; so get cracking! I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

 



Aromas redolent of red berries



Congratulations also must go to Shane for a flawless organisation of the competition, thank you for having me as a judge and congratulations again on managing to win your own event ;)

*If you get a feedback form from me and need help deciphering what I wrote, give me a shout!

Photos courtesy of Phil Harrison

 

Sour and Wild ales in Ireland

With sour beers enjoying a renaissance amongst the keener craft brewers and in trendy beer bars its only right that Irish brewers aren't resting on their laurels and attempting some of their own.

First Out of the Blocks

Galway Bay were perhaps the first (in recent times) to launch soured beers on to the market place. J18 months ago we were treated to a dry hopped berlinner weisse style "Desperate Mile" and more unusually a black sour. (Shane has more details on his blog here.) Both of these and a more recent collaboration with Begyle were kettle sours, "we have cultured from everything from lab pitches, grain husks and even probiotic pitches from the health food store!".
Head brewer Chris Treanor first discovered sour beers whilst backpacking around Belgium, being warned by locals "tastes like 'vomit, but it tastes great really!'. Oddly enough, I wasn't perturbed by this and unknowingly, I did open up a whole world of flavours that I would be trying to replicate as a career not 5-6 years afterwards".
He has grander plans however "I'm spending this week at the Oslo, restarting the kit there for a sours program". For Chris its important to keep this segregation to minimise the very real threat of contamination of other brews.

The beers have been generally well received, with demands for re-brews; so the expansion should be well received. On designing recipes - "we do tend to err on the side of simplicity. When simplicity leads to complexity, that's when the best beers result." Chris also plans to go for barrel ageing in a big way, with a number of wine barrels purchased in a job lot with Boundary at the start of the year.

"tastes like vomit, but it tastes great really!"

Sour in Belfast

Speaking of Boundary, Galway Bay have also collaborated with them on a kettle sour, Berliner Vice. This low strength tart wheat beer was the first beer to sell out at the recent smash festival ABV and will be re-brewed to varying strengths. Brewer Matthew Dick explained "Its important to think about body with berlinner weisse style ales as they can get quite thin. We're also going to do a series with added fruit; the first is likely to be lemon and coconut".
We also saw a soured table porter "Sour Bake", a very intriguing suggestion of how staled beers could have tasted. Sour bake was brewed from the second runnings of a batch of the export stout with lactic bacteria. The culture was then back-dosed in to a barrel of export stout in a neat full circle and is maturing nicely fr release in a year or so.
 Matthew first discovered sour beer on a football trip to Belgium in his mid-teens; "we had a whole day to kill before our flight home and a friend took us around a number of what I now suspect to be lambic brewers. I wasn't the biggest fan but the friend described the taste as 'like an angel pissing on your tongue'...I'll probably use that as a beer name." After that living in Reno meant regular trips to Russian River to try American Sour beers.

What else can we look forward to? Well Matthew intends to produce further soured beers, and plans on dosing wild yeast into some of those aforementioned wine barrels to develop some aged special "dirty" beers alongside the unaged clean versions, the first of which will be another Galway Bay collaboration on a wild IPA. "I'd love to get a coolship but that's not going to happen any time soon!"

"like an angel pissing on your tongue"

Keeping it local

New brewers on the scene White Hag also plan to go for sours in a big way, being big fans of the flavour profile. They're inspired by the Flemish oud red/bruin brewers but also Jolly Pumpkin, a well-regarded American mixed-fermentation brewer. White Hag's first release was a kettle sour Imperial Red whose flavour profile was up there amongst the best Flemish reds. The kettle sour process is beneficial for consistency because according to head brewer Joe Kearns "potential off-flavours from other souring agents. Plus, the other main souring strains of yeast and bacteria need much long contact time to produce the desired effects." Kettle souring also eliminates the risk of cross-contaminating other beers. "When souring in the fermenter, the issue of cross-contamination is very real. Good cleaning processes and complete sterilization, or replacement of all soft materials (rubber hoses, gaskets, etc.), is vital to protect your standard beers from 'infection'."

 They've stepped it up a gear for their new release, Beann Gulban, using wild heather as both a flavouring agent and source of yeast - a spontaneously fermented brew, "We wanted to emulate the flavour of a beer produced in the Neolithic times, and at the same time create something completely new". There is also an intriguing hint about use of oak wine barrels...stay tuned for more!

"The idea was to provide a little pH tickle rather than a kick"

Mixing It Up

Serial gypsy brewers Brown Paper Bag Project have brewed not one but four different sour/wild ales. Digging deep in to the brewing archives they've created four beers in styles not yet seen elsewhere in Ireland, a gose, a grodziskie an oud bruin and a berlinner style. They've all only been brewed once; so if you come across any do grab whilst you can!

Their gose (a collaboration with Fano) was first up. Brewer Brian somehow got in touch with someone at Fano through online forums whilst researching gose brewing recipes, which resulted in an invite to brew in the remote brewery in Denmark. Launched via a blind twitter tasting it was great to see it was well received, before people had realised it was soured with added seasalt and coriander no less. Colin of Brown Paper Bag Project and L.Mulligan Grocer pub in Dublin said; "The great thing about a blind tasting is that you have no precocnieved ideas of the flavour, you're waiting for them to come to you rather than pre-empting and pushing your own opinions on to it"

Brown paper bag project Shmoake was next,  of the less common Grodziskie (Gratzer) style,a tart, smoked wheat beer. As with the gose, an old recipe was found whilst perusing online forums and an idea of the flavour forms which they try to reflect in the beer.
Perhaps the best received of the sour styles has been Aul Bruin Bagger (an oud Bruin aged on cherries). "Its gone down well. some people taste the sweet and tart cherryness and find it amazing and others can't stand it an dthink its disgusting.  A polarising beer but lots of good feedback"

A star of the show at the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival (ICBCF) this year geuzeberry (a collaboration with Kinnegar). Brewed with gooseberries and live yoghurt culture, its a fruity, tart and complex kettle sour that stops just short of enamel-stripping. "I wanted to brew something with a local provenance, both myself and Rick are from the North-West [of Ireland]; I'm not sure who came up with the idea to use yoghurt but we just ran with it. Brian travelled up there and brewed it over 2 days. The idea was to provide a little pH tickle rather than a kick" Colin & Brian hope to produce more collaborations along guezeberry line. "Brewers love to make sour beers because they love drinking sour beers, its basically a massively ego-maniacal cycle where the more sour beers that get brewed the more brewers can drink". If that results in more for the rest of us t drink I'm all for it!
(I did send some questions to the team, but have been unable to get responses in time, will update article when I do!)

"Its a vision, I can see the beer in my head, I can taste it...I just need to wait to release it into the world"

The Elder statesmen

Cuilan Loughnane at White Gypsy has always been interested in offering a diverse range of styles as evidenced by the bottle line up of dubbel, doppelbock and Imperial stout. Last year's ICBCF saw the launch of Scarlet, a wood aged sour and pretty much a statement of intent of things to come. Preferring to do things properly, he had some virgin oak barrels made up to his specifications in both American and French oak about four years ago. "Each barel has its own character, if you have the wrong type or at the wrong time it can affect the quality of the beer. You need to learn about the beers and develop them through natural progression to the taste you want".By feeding the barrels with beer they have been seasoned over time and developed their own micro-flora to allow for the secondary conditioning of beers already fermented.
Obviously these barrels are stored in a separate part of the brewery to avoid cross-contamination. The actual mixed culture Cuilan is keeping close to his chest but he's had discussions with ex Guinness employees and seen papers relating to the past ageing of Guinness with both brettanomyces and lactobacillus mentioned. "I was missing a few technical pieces of the jigsaw, which they helped us put it together. There used to be Brett in Guinness but no one would admit that any more"
Why go to all the effort? Put simply Cuilan believes to get the complexity and balance into a sour/wild beer requires time, premium ingredients and plenty of patience. Premium ingredients like floor malted MMAris Otter for example "Those maltings are over 100 years old, they have their own micro-flora, that gets on the malt and comes to the brewery and ends up in the beer, that's important" Whilst faster produced sours may be tasty and refreshing in their own right they can't hold a candle to the best in Belgium, Boon Mariage Parfait Oude Gueuze for example, which Cuilan holds as a prime example of blending done well. Blending is about "finding a balance between old and new beer. The blending is the art, you need to hold your old stock and use portions from different old barrels in to fresh beer. I found our scarlet a bit much, too sharp a bit curt back in October, but by its second outing (in March at St Patrick's Festival) it had rounded out and tasted  beautiful."
Cuilan's no fool however, he's not just producing soured beer for kicks but knows it will form a flagship brand for the brewery. "I've learnt that a) you need to be unique, b) you need a good shelf life c)it needs to taste good and at a good price". On that last point that's obviously important that it can sell for a good price too, given how much has been invested in the wood and a new bottling machine for corked and caged bottles. Soured beers have intrinsically better shelf life, allowing for ageing, storage and most importantly withstanding the rigours of export. "Its a vision, I can see the beer in my head, I can taste it...I just need to wait to release it into the world".
So what is this vision? Well without giving too much away it will be a keeping stout, "the fantastic Irish stout of old" with a soured component that will taste great on release but only get better as its aged. It should be ready in early 2016. "I want to brew something that you can't quite put your finger on it but you know its damn good. The minute you drink it you can tell its ready. I'm not interested in releasing an unbalanced beer. It might have a certain proportion of beer drinkers  drooling over it, writing good things about it but the general population will be like 'what the fuck is this?!' I'm not going to release single barrels as specials, this beer needs to be suitable for everybody" I think we can all raise a glass to that!

A Tart Future 

Fermanagh brewer Gordy Fallis at Inishmacsaint has also been experimenting with spontaneous fermentation, producing some test batches that certainly show promise. With Blacks also beginning to delve into the sour styles and a good showing at the recent Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival we'll certainly have plenty to choose from in the coming months and years, long may it continue!

*As an aside Guinness used to age a portion of beer for 9-18months in Russian oak all over Dublin, then blend it  back into fresh beer at 2-3%.

What do you mean by sour beer?

My trip to Belgium for #EBBC15 has driven home how eclectic the styles termed "sour" truly are. Aside from the fact that not all non-pure-Saccharomyces fermented beers really are sour, the sour/wild characteristics can be imparted by different methods.

These beers fall in to the following broad style groupings

1. Spontaneously fermented (lambic, gueuze etc), e.g. Cantillon

2. Fermented with cultured "wild" strains e.g. Alvinne Morpheus 

3.  Refermented with cultured "wild" strain, e.g. Orval

4.a)Mixed fermentation including bacteria and matured e.g. Rodenbach

b) Mixed fementation using lactobacillus and released young, e.g. Berlinner Kindl Weisse, Ritterguts Gose

5. Pre-soured in the kettle by lactobacillus/lactic acid

6. Refermented/matured in wood

7. Unintentional!

We were fortunate to be able to visit a number of breweries courtesy of both Visit Flanders & the Belgian Family Brewers, plus chat to a lot of the family brewers themselves. I'll use some of these examples to outline the differences, remember if the beers are unpasteurised they can continue to develop over time and can get worse as well as improve! This is not supposed to be an in depth how-to guide on these beers, nor do I want to go too deeply into the science as its pretty complex!  (There are a number of better qualified writers than I on these topics, Including Lars Marius Garshol, with recent posts on yeast and bacteria being particularly informative.)

1. The first "sour" that usually comes to mind are the Belgian lambics. These are brewed as a normal beer (except with the use of aged hops to reduce bitterness impact) then instead of being pitched with yeast are cooled overnight whilst exposed to native flora usually in a coolship with airflow controlled by vents. A number of breweries previously used coolships for cooling only but the lambic brewers specifically intend for wild yeasts and bacteria to inoculate the beer. A complex primary fermentation ensues, where different species including lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, pediococcus and Brettanomyces take the lead at different times. It is then matured in pre-used wooden casks that also contain a mixed culture and add further complexity to the beer. The beer may be released unblended (as jonge lambic <1yr and oude lambic >2yrs) or more often blended as a mixture of 1,2 & 3 year old lambics to produce gueuze. Lambic may also be aged on fruit to produce kriek (cherry), framboise/frambozen(raspberry) or other fruit lambics.

Coolship & open rafters at Cantillon

Recommended: Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise, Boon Kriek Mariage Parfait, 3 Fonteinen Gueuze, Girardin Oude Lambiek

Sour ales maturing at Struise

2. Some brewers wish to produce beers with similar character to lambic beers but would like to be able to improve consistency/ repeatability of each batch. They may harvest or acquire a wild yeast(s)/ mixture with bacteria, then use this culture to ferment a beer. Often the cultures are not analysed, though in some cases they have been. They are capable of producing equally complex beers, though as they are not often matured/blended can taste quite different to spontaneously fermented beers.

Recommended: Alvinne Wild West, To Ol/ Mikkeller Ov-Ral

Orval mural at Bruges brewing museum

3. Similar to #2, these beers undergo a regular Saccharomyces fermentation then undergo a secondary refermentation either in bottle or conditioning tank. As with culturing wild yeast, these beers can gain complexity but in a more controlled way. That said, there is still variation in maturation "After three months people might say 'This beer is stinking' after 9 months however 'its fantastic'" of Hendrik Wild. 

Recommended: Orval, StraffeHendrik Wild, De Koninck Wild Jo

Forest of foeders at Rodenbach

4. a) Known as oud red/ oud bruin in Belgium, these beers obtain their sour character from a lactobacillus fermentation producing lactic acid. Rudi Ghequire at Rodenbach was a fount of knowledge about how their beer is produced. Undergoing initial fermentation it ends up at a pH around 5.5 whereupon it is aged in virgin (unused for other purposes) wood foeders for two years, reaching a pH of 3.2. The aged beer is then blended back with unaged beer to produce beers of different levels of sourness (regular rodenbach 3:1 new: old (pH 3.5) and grand cru 2:1 old:new (pH3.3)). Hops are not usually used as bitterness does not produce a good flavour profile with lactic acid; this can make the beers susceptible to acetobacter oxidation (producing acetic acid> vinegar) so care must be taken with the recipe design to scavenge (reduce) free oxygen and the beer is usually pasteurised prior to packaging. Like lambics, these beers can also be matured on fruit prior to packaging.

Recommended: Rodenbach foeder beer, Verhaeghe Duchesse de Bourgogne, Petrus Aged Pale, Rodenbach Caractere Rouge

b) Similar to the above beer styles are goses and berlinner weisses, though their pre-fermentation brewing process differs. Both include wheat in the mash, which is mashed at the higher acidity level conducive to the growth of lactobacillus in fermentation. The fermentation is often finished with other yeast strains and beer sare mor elikely to be drunk fersh rather than aged. Some details here.

5. Another method for producing lactic acid sourness without the need for lengthy ageing process is to sour the mash prior to boiling. This is also known as kettle souring. This is often employed by breweries without the space to mature beer and prevent the risk of contaminating equipment with organisms that could cause contamination of non-soured beers (the soured beer is boiled which kills the bacteria). Some breweries may also use food grade lactic acid, which is frowned upon by some as a cost saving measure (but then so is kettle souring).

Recommended: Galway Bay Heathen, Kernel London Sour

Bush de nuits slumbering
in Dubuisson's cellar

6. The final category is a bit of a catch all, which depending on the previous contents of the wood may or may not have sour character (and may or may not have been intended). The beer may have been fully fermented by one of the above methods prior to entering the barrel or undergo a refermentation in the barrel. Often the beer takes on the character of the wood/ barrels previous contents to a greater or lesser extent dependent upon the length of time in the wood. The use of wood for maturation is a complex topic; which I'll not go in to here.

7. Beers can also become sour unintentionally and sometimes unscrupulous brewers will release these on the market as intentional sour brews! Usually the result of an infection prior to leaving the brewery, they can also be picked up by poor pub hygiene or improper packaging. I'll not give examples here but sometimes unintentional souring can produce interesting results!

The diversity in the world of "sour" beers is only just beginning to be (re)explored by British brewers, with the majority of those released to date being of types 5+6. As brewers begin to invest in separate brew-plants to keep potential contaminants separate from their core ranges we will see more sour and wild beers produced in the UK. Already Elgoods have released a range of lambics inoculated using their old rooftop coolship and Wild beer co have produced Somerset Wild, inoculated in the orchards of Somerset. These beers can have a true sense of place, being tied intimately to their environment by their fermentation flora. Burning Sky and Brodies have produced sour red/brown ales and Fullers occasionally continue to produce the wood-matured Gales Prize Old Ale. Recently Redchurch have begun experimenting and Brewdog hope to invest in separate kit after this round of share-selling to boost their wild credentials. Unlike Nate, I think there is still a long way to go and I'd like to see sour beers more widely available out of the craft beer "geek" bars...of course there should always be a variety available, it is possible to have too much of a good thing!  I look forward to seeing how these breweries and others develop in the coming years. 

Northern Ireland is hosting what (I think) is the first of probably many sour beer competitions in the UK: Sourfest is on Saturday 26th September at Boundary Brewing in Belfast. I will be amongst the judges assessing both commercial and home brew efforts.

Left handed giant in Bristol will be launching their taproom next Sundayat the start of Bristol beer week with a sour beer festival; which has some great beers available, including some one offs; so do head along and check it out.

Do you know of any other UK breweries producing sour/ wild beers? Let me know in the comments below.

The idea for this post was driven by De Brabandere's very good presentation on how they make their Petrus range. Many free samples were provided during the beer bloggers conference, but I also bought plenty of beers.There may be some errors; so please feel free to correct me!

Wow, that was fast!

On Friday I wrote about a hopeful new brewery start up in Belfast. Well that dream begun 18 months ago has almost become a reality! Boundary have hit the £70,000 target in just six days (currently £75,000) with around 300 of us (mostly Northern Ireland dwellers) joining with the board to make the vision a reality. Funding will stay open until £100,000, the closer to the stretch goal, the more fermenters and thus the more frequent the collaborations and specials that can be produced.

Their blog yesterday also hinted at the purchase of multiple wine barrels via contacts with the excellent OX Belfast for ageing beers in. Matthew intends to brew the first (intentionally!) soured beer in Northern Ireland in the Flemish Red style which will be the inaugral brew on the new kit. This will then be aged in those barrels along with various monster Imperial Stouts to slumber  away and be brought out on special occasions. It appears us members will be given first refusal on these special brews...it seems we will continue drinking our own investment for a long time to come.

After the keys have been obtained it will take around a fortnight to refurbish the building and install the brew kit, with the hope to be mashing in the first brew in late January. After that it'll take around 90 cases/ month to break even on overheads and after that any profits will be reinvested into the business. Matthew hopes that they'll be able to take on their first paid employee towards the end of 2016. Beers should sell in offlicences around the same price point as Kernel and Siren (as long as the "craft tax" isn't set too high), and going for 330ml bottles should really set them us apart from the competition.

The fantastic response from everyone will mean that Matthew should even be able to afford a week off for Christmas before the hard work begins in earnest in the New Year. Thank you to everyone who has helped the dream become a reality and there's still a wee bit of time left to get involved if you haven't already; you've probably got a few days at most!

Follow Boundary on Twitter to keep up to date with other new developments.

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!

CABPOM August: 3 Fonteinen Kriek & Le Chevrot

Logo kindly designed by Simon
of CAMRGB

Something a bit different this month. Fruit beer and white cheese work well together but add some goatiness to the mix and it becomes something special.

3 Fonteinen is one of the revered Belgian lambic brewers but they also make kriek. This one is just a bit special as it uses wild forraged schaerbeekse cherries, adding a different flavour than you'd normally expect froma  kriek. Schaerbeekse cherries used to be cultivated specifically for use in brewing, but with the fall in popularity of lambic the orchards fell derelict. 3 Fonteinen tracked down some of these wild orchards and turned the harvested fruit into a traditional kriek. This particular beer is a 35% blend of schaerbeekse and the remainder regular morello cherries. I picked it up at Brewdog Edinburgh in a 750ml bottle.

Here are my notes: Pours pale scarlet with slight fluffy head. Sweet cherry, raspberry, acrid hay, lemon, malt, barnyard. Dry tart cherry, lots of stone character (think almonds and bakewell tart), very sharp lactic, long cherry stone finish.

The cheese is one I picked up from Tesco (they have a much better range in Scotland than here!) not knowing much. Its called Le Chevrot and is quite similar to Crottin apparently. To me its dry and chalky, with a goaty richness and perhaps the tiniest hint of lemon.  A bit dull perhaps.

Works nicely with poppy-seed crackers

When paired with the beer however it comes alive with creaminess and accentuated by the funk to transport you to the dairy at milking time. That light lemon note plays well with the tart cherries and the beers carbonation is more than a match for the slightly clacky texture. I'd like to try this cheese aged as it should be even better.

Session 61: Lambic in the UK?!

The start of the 6th year of #TheSession is in the capable hands of Hoosier Beer Geek. He asks us to talk about why local beer is important, specifically what makes it better?

Did anyone ever imagine there would be a lambic blender operating within the UK? Well sour-head Alan Ross and friend Olly Neill have become those people, organising almost single-handedly a trip to Belgium to source some lambic, some wine barrels and ordering the rest of the paraphernalia required to bottle your wares.

Alan investigates the remaining aroma

I was given a tour of "the cellar" this weekend. This first trial batch was made in the garage of Alan's very understanding parents. The barrel itself takes up a fair amount of space, not to mention a third of a pallet of champagne bottles!

Beery explosion!

The lambic he sourced was a jonge Giradin, a coup for him as lambic producers are notoriously secretive; "They were extremely helpful when they realised what it was we were wanting to do, that is to create what a lot of the pubs were doing back in the 1920's and blending their own." They decided to make "Shot in the Dark" a fruit lambic not unlike a kriek, with the twist being that he used locally grown blackberries! Why the evocative name? The picture to the left should explain all! For some demonstration videos and another great write-up see here.

Bottle conditioned as taken by Alan

The beer was put on 60kg fruit in September and I was lucky enough to taste it in November, then again 6 weeks later against the base beer ."There will only be about 50 bottles sold from this batch, but that's because I plan to drink the rest!" It's a lovely pink-purple number with a fresh lemony and lactic horse blanket nose. Sweet blackberry start (subtle fruit) mouth. Sour and bretty finish begs you to take another sip and all too soon your glass is empty. Forgive the abrupt notes but this is a beer for enjoying not analysing.

In comparison the Giradin jonge lambic is bright orange and much more highly funky on the nose. I think its perhaps my first straight lambic and wasn't expecting it to be so still. The hay and brett flavours I'm expecting are there and a slightly tart finish from the beginnings of time spent in the wood. I can see why gueuze producers have to blend a few vintages to get the beer they desire.

Not one to rest on his laurels Alan has sourced warehouse space to make multiple beers at the same time and avoid the mishaps of exploding beer in the house again. He will obtain a brewing licence and register the company officially when the council has declared the premises fit.

Just a few of the many bottles lying about

Plans are already afoot for all manner of other blends, hoping to focus on showcasing local fruits if possible. "I'm able to source green goosberries, red gooseberries and white goosberries so that could be interesting. I'd love to make a lychee lambic too, though of course they'd be impossible to source in the UK!" A gueuze could also be in the offing, though this requires much more forward planning and potentially visiting three suppliers.

However it's not just lambic that Alan and Oli have their sights set on. Alan plans to brew some saisons as a cuckoo brewer on local brewery Clanconnel's new brew plant (more on this in a later post I hope!) They'll be based on iterations of that classic saison dupont, with a Bretty twist. Initially three different versions to see which works best. I'm hoping I can go along to help out on brew day as it sounds like it'll be great fun (as will be the tasting!)

So to answer the question posed at the beginning, this local beer is better as it involves cross-country collaborations, cuckoo brewing, local fruit producers and a whole host of other people and ain't too shabby either.

#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.

Gales Prize Old Ale

@beersiveknown Well i managed three weeks off...

Old ales are beers that have been kept for a period of time before being bottled. Very few true old ales remain within the UK today, of those Gales Prize Old Ale is one of the most well known but perhaps least tried of the beers. Originally brewed at Gale's in Horndean it was worried that the beer would be lost when the business was sold to Fullers in 2005. People need not have worried however as Fullers cotinued to brew the beer, keeping back a little of the previous years brew to innoculate each fresh batch and thus preserve the flora and fauna or "wee beasties" down the years.

 The three beers I'm writing about today, although the same in name vary subtley. I shared these bottles with my beery partner in crime Alan (traPISSED) as a pretext to visit his beer cellar (stay tuned for more info). Roger Protz wrote about them here. Des de Moor Reviews a 2007 bottle here and Jeff Evans here.

Gales bottles were smaller and crown-capped.

Older bottles are probably going to be harder to find these days, and certainly the fullers Brewery Shop is out of stock. I picked mine up from Bitter Virtue, but I've been hefting the 2006 around for a good five years. A glance at the price labels leaves me pleasantly surprised as they only cost me ~£2.50 each...surely a bargain for such a complex and hefty beer.

As many people will know, in 2006 Gales sold to Fuller's and the historic brewery in horndean was closed. Here the Prize Old Ale was aged in ancient oak tanks, with all the wee beasties that provides. This gave the beer an understable lactic character necessitating the blending of fresh with old. 2006 was the last beer to be brewed and bottled at Gales in this way. In 2007 the beer brewed at Gales the previous year was shipped to Fullers and bottled without blending. This proved to be too sour for the taste of the marketing men and the following year John went back to the blending method, though odf course the beer is now aged in regular fermenters.

The 2011 (Fuller's) Gales Prize Old Ale

The 2011 was both brewed and bottled at Fullers. I actually had a bottle of this 6 month ago, so it will be interesting to see how it has changed with the extra time in the bottle. It pours a dark amber with fruity sherry notes on the nose. In flavour its closer to rum with toffee, burnt sugar, caramelised apple plus some juicy pear, which I'm beginning to recognise as hallmark of some Fullers aged beers. It finishes with a fairly astringent bitterness which suggests its not quite in its prime yet. In fact I think I preferred it younger.

The 2007 was of course a different kettle of fish. That lactic acid was immediately present on the nose as expected. This helped to make the beer lighter in body. Flavours much the same as the 2011, though with an unsuaul watermelon flavour at the finish.
Star of the show for both me and Alan was the 2006. This was a relief for me after the aformentioned disturbances including moving to Northern Ireland and a previous loss of liquid through the cap. Lactic acid again but a greater rich fruitiness like a good christmas cake, a touch of oxidation balsamic vinegar, heavy mouthfeel, some raspberry in the finish. Could easily have had a few bottles of this each.

From: http://www.gourmetbritain.com/

The stinky washed rind cheese were bought to bear for this session and for me the Irish cheese Milleens worked the best. Full of fruity flavours it accentuated some of those flavours too delicate to assert themselves from beneath the malts.

This seems to suggest that the beer improves with age (production location aside) and I'm tempted to get a case of the next release (this year?) and lay them down for a good few years. If you've not yet had the good fortune to try these then may I suggest you look out for them!

C is for...

My second review for Ben's Beer Alphabet.

I'm a fan of sour beers. Lambic and aged beers respectively. But some commercial examples are just not good. And Chapeau Gueuze is one of those. Mistakenly ordered from Drink Store (it was advertised as the Cuvee).

It certainly looks the part, thick green glass bottle with cork and crowned it could pass as one of the greats. Pouring a hazy brown, with thin white head with acetic redcurrant aroma. In the mouth it was cloyingly sweet, made my teeth stand on edge. Vinegar sour, no lactic character at all and just a hint of Brett. hay and manure its only redeeming feature. 

Its just about tolerable, but that's only because I'm reluctant to pour money down the drain.I think without fruit even those of sweet tooth would find this a struggle. Avoid!


Edit: I had to tip away the last third...

Some like it sour

A brewer never far from many beer geek's lips is mikkeller, that Danish crazy chap who likes to mash up beer styles for fun. A range I had been interested to try was his spontanale series, spontaneously fermented fruit beers, made authentically in Belgium. When they came into stock on the Brewdog online store I had to get some to try for myself.

The lineup.

 Starting off with the baby of the series at 5% and presumably the base beer, spontanale. It is a hazy blonde in colour with lactic acid and citrus on the nose with a hint of brettanomyces mustiness. Initially sweet the middle is long and sour with a brief flourish of bitterness from the hops in the long finish.

The kriek was sampled next. A gorgeous deep pink-red on colour with a candisugar nose with hints of cobwebs and cheerystones. Sourness muted by cheery flavours in this though it has a longer finish than the ale., perhaps due to the increased ABV (7.7%)

The highlight of the series for me was the framboos. Hazy mid-pink with rasberries prevalent throughout, the fruit balances the lactic sourness beautifully building to a lengthy sweet and sour finish.

The next beer, cassis, was unfortunately all flashy upfront but with little by way of fruit presence to back it up. Purple-red with a pink head and earthy brett nose. Fairly dull and muted sourness with a harsh finish.

The spontangrape was a similar colour to the base ale. Bretty nose with a hint of grape must, tasting like an oxidised wine or white wine winegar with a lactic finish. It was pretty refreshing and perhaps the most successful out of the non-traditional fruit usages.

Spontancranberry was red-amber and poured very lively with melon-rind, dry berries and least compost on the nose. Its sour, mouth-puckeringly sour especially in the finish; so decided to blend it with some homebrew woodforde's wherry which helped balance it out a bit.



An interesting range but probably the only one I'd drink again would be the spontanframboos and I'll sttick to the Belgian sours in the future. Has anyone else tried any of these beers?