Diary of a Hop Head

New Vlog- Cuvée D'Oscar

2012-02-02T22:13:00.001Z

A forgotten Vlog from my last night in Paris

Make beer not war

2012-02-02T14:04:00.000Z

As many of you will know the UK beer scene is a veryfriendly place. People sharing pints together in pubs or at home with friendsand family. Brewers sharing resources in times of trouble and oftencollaborating together. This is the way it should remain.

The last few days have seen a comment in a very good booksplattered across the blogging community for others to comment upon. I am allfor being able to pick people up when they do or say things that upset othersbut let’s keep focussed guys. Positivity is the new black. Little is achievedby starting online wars over a comment that has been taken out of context somany times I almost lost track.

Let me make it clear, I am not standing up for one side orthe other but let’s just get on with promoting the thing that brings ustogether in the first place: good beer. Squabbling makes the industry and usbloggers look unprofessional.

Make beer not war!

What will I brew in 2012?

2012-01-09T19:13:00.000Z

I started home brewing in 2011. Whilst I have had experience brewing with an actual working brewery, I had never taken it upon myself to brew any of my own. I only managed two brews in the second half of the year and they were really just my trial run's but I was so pleased with them that I am going to set down a bit of a brewing plan for 2012.

First up will be a Simcoe dry hopped Ruby Red IPA (name suggestions welcome) which I think will probably take my FV up to early Febuary if I kick off soon. Nothing particularly fancy here, no extra ingredigents and just a regular ale yeast but I think it will be a good spring beer which is hopefully when it will be taking shape in bottle after a few weeks conditioning.

When the FV is ready for action sometime in early-mid Feb I will be going for my first ever beer using a lager yeast. I figure that even although I do live in Scotland I probably shouldn't leave it too much later in the year before attempting a lager yeast without some decent cooling equipment. So a Kolsch it will be. Nothing challenging but a good beer to stick away and forget about about for a bit until our (hopefully) very hot summer comes along.

Next up (probably not till April) an I/APA hopped with something big and tropical (I haven't decided what yet). I brewed an IPA as my last beer of 2011 and it was great but I thought it was a little darker than I wanted it to be. This beast will be golden with a tropical nose and a decent amount of carbonation. If I get bored of my Kolsch on those long hot Scottish summer days (ahem) I can always switch to something more hoppy.

Something like this would be very nice

Next up I want to do something with a bit of fruit but this will be totally dependent on how hot the summer is. I don't plan on having a FV full of beer and fruit if we do actually get a decent summer. No extracts, no concentrates, REAL fruit. Probably something like pink grapefruit or blood oranges. I will likely have to ferment with an ale yeast unless I invest in some better cooling but I might go for one of the fancier yeasts rather than the usual one I buy.

I figure that with my own life, university work, my job and other commitments that should take me up till the end of the summer. With the uncertainty of what I will be doing after graduation its probably silly for me to plan any further ahead than that right now but winter will probably see me drinking home brewed Nespresso Stout (probably not the cheapest way to do it I know) and if I get a bit braver maybe an Imperial Stout.

Any suggestions for names or ingredients are more than welcome. Have a great 2012 whether you are a home brewer, a beer drinker or you stumbled upon this site by accident.

Golden Pints Nominations 2011

2011-12-12T17:00:00.000Z

Ok, as promised here are my nominations for this years Golden Pint Awards. As I have been out of the country (once again) for some of the year my choices have been a bit limited but I have given it a go.

Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer- Kernel, IPA Simcoe Centennial ;no words needed
Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer- Magic Rock, Human Cannonball ;THE brewery to watch
Best Overseas Draught Beer- Stone Brewing, Ruination IPA ;Fresh in BD Edinburgh, lovely
Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer- Lagunitas Brewery, Little SumpIn' ;plain and simply tasty, as it should be
Best Overall Beer- Magic Rock, Human Cannonball
Best Pumpclip or Label- Magic Rock, All of them. Does that count?
Best UK Brewery- Kernel Brewery. Close runner-up; Magic Rock
Best Overseas Brewery- Mikkeller; still pushing boundaries and creating some wonderful beers
Pub/Bar of the Year- The Euston Tap
Beer Festival of the Year- I didn't go to any at all this year
Supermarket of the Year- Sainsburys
Independent Retailer of the Year- Luvian's, St Andrews
Online Retailer of the Year- MyBreweryTap
Best Beer Book or Magazine- Zak Avery, 500 Beers
Best Beer Blog or Website- Pencil and Spoon, Mark Dredge
Best Beer Twitterer- @tania_nexust , top poached egg advice
Best Online Brewery presence- Magic Rock. Runner-up; those scamps at BrewDog
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year; Too many to choose
In 2012 I’d Most Like To… Work in a brewery again
Best Beer Event of the Year- 1st European Beer Bloggers Conference

Dear Sir, sorry for my absence

2011-12-12T11:51:00.000Z

No, this is not a letter of absence that a school child has written but it does feel like one.

Dear Sir/Madam/other readers,

It has come to my attention that my attendance in beer class has been pretty shoddy recently. I have hardly been attending at all. Whilst I have been enjoying many an evening enjoying beer and had many exciting events with Stirling University Craft Beer Society, I have failed to document most of these. I certainly haven't been reporting them back to my fellow students at beer class.

I promise that this is to come to an end. Starting with this afternoon's post on my recommendations for this years Golden Pint Awards. This will closely be followed by some beer reviews and round up of my work this semester with SUCBS.

Yours in beer,

Michael

P.s In all seriousness the past few months have been mayhem but that doesnt excuse the fact that I have hardly written about beer at all. Back with you this afternoon with my nominations for the Golden Pints

SUCBS Williams Brothers Tasting Night

2011-10-11T16:02:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago a merry band of around 15 of us got together to try almost every single beer that Williams Brothers Brewery in Alloa currently make. This was Stirling University Craft Beer Societies first big event of the year but it certainly wont be our last. Here is how the evening went in pictures.......

There was quite a lot of beer!

Vice President (Left), David Lewin and President, Me share a bottle of Cesar Augustus

Some of our members

Opening yet another beer

Clearly not the first of the night from Duvel!

Just some of what we tried

One of my top 5

Our Secretary seems to have lost something in the bottom of the bottle

By this time nobody wanted to be photographed

A final 'artsy' shot of some bottle tops and a table that needs a polish

It was a great night and thanks go to the Williams Brothers for providing the beer, The Albion Bar in Stirling for allowing us to come in and use their function suite and all the members of Stirling University for coming along.

I have been a bad blogger recently. I have had no motivation to write since a small spat with CAMRA earlier this year. We now have a better working relationship but I wont stop talking about craft keg! My motivation is back though and I will be with you again in the next couple of days.

Cheers

It is my beer.....

2011-07-18T17:21:00.000+01:00

It has been a long time in coming. But it is here. My very first home brewed beer.

It doesn't have a name and it was made using a kit but I don't care. Its my beer.

It took a few weeks to make and then I had to be patient and watch it condition.

It is in PET bottles just in case it was crap and I was no good at making beer kits.

It has been consumed over the past few weeks by myself and some friends and now there are a sorry 12 bottles left.

It now has a little brother or sister on the way as today I brewed a Nelson Sauvin IPA to join it.

It's sibling will be a bit better looking as it will come in glass swing tops. Just don't tell it

It looks like this until I drink it;

It is my beer

This is not an attempt at poetry. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it is just my beer.......

A public apology to the organisers of SRAF

2011-06-21T22:59:00.000+01:00

Its not often I do this. Admit I am wrong that is.....at least in part

Earlier tonight I wrote a rather unfair piece about the recent Scottish Real Ale Festival. I was on a high horse during the time I wrote it and I did not take into account many things. I am big enough and ugly enough to accept that many of the things I wrote were hurtful to organisers and were simply not fair. However I still stand by my initial sentiments that many things need to be done to improve the festival.

I chose not to go this year. So it was wrong for me to cast doubt on the beer list having not seen it in real life. Nevertheless the list I see on paper still could do with a shake up. I still stand by my earlier proposal that the SRAF should have a 'UK' bar. That is to say that some interesting casks from the rest of the UK should be given a section of the festival. I also still believe that more can be done to ensure that the SRAF can secure exclusives and once of tastings like traquair on cask.I still believe that breweries should be encouraged to rotate beer so that we do not have the same from every brewery each year.

I do not want to tell the organisers how to do their job but after an email I received tonight I am more than happy to offer constructive feedback to them. I am now going to respond to that email and I apologise again to regular readers who were given a bad impression of what is usually a great day out in Scotland's capital

The Scottish Real Ale Festival and why I was not there

2011-06-21T15:34:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer- This article is not intended to offend. It is not intended to be Anti-CAMRA or a jibe at SRAF organisers but rather some constructive criticism. I currently have no brewery links and this article was not paid for by anyone.

Ok now that I have that out the way I feel I should explain why I didnt attend this years Scottish Real Ale Festival in Edinburgh. After all I am a CAMRA member and I do like a good pint but I just had little desire to attend this year which ultimately ended up with me just staying at home. There was a bit of a stramash before the festival with rumors of an alternative festival in BrewDogs new bar in the Cowgate. This turned out to be true and in true maverick style BrewDog named their festival the 'alternative' Scottish Beer Festival. Fair play to the guys; different markets, different beers and ultimately a different sales technique. That's not the reason why I didn't go to the SRAF though.

Number one reason; the beer list was thoroughly uninspiring. I know it must be difficult to keep a beer list exciting and new every year especially when most of beers available will be similar year after year; well certainly outside seasonals, once brewed beers or new brews. Nevertheless the beer list was at least 85% the same as last years (I havent checked this out as cold hard fact but I have compared both lists). Now I am sorry but that just is not acceptable for a beer festival the size of SRAF. There were plenty of breweries on the list but some of them only had some of their less brilliant beers there. Now I don't want to get into naming names as it is not clear to me who is at fault for this but Scotland really does have much more to show than what was on offer at this years Scottish Real Ale Festival.

Put plain and simply a beer festival is mediocre at best without a good and challenging beer list which rotates if not changes year in year out. Yes the big hitters and the festival winners and favourites are sure to be there every year; I don't have a problem with that. Please just shake it up a little bit more next year. Take some the the bland boring stuff out and source some more from some new breweries that have popped up recently. Dare I say it even have some stuff from the rest of the UK (GBBF have an international bar after all)

I have nothing wrong with other organisational aspects of the festival although naturally the one thing I cannot comment on is the change of venue as I was not there to experience it. However usually the atmosphere is great, as is the entertainment. That will never make up for a bland beer list though. Lets not get too negative here though. I know that I can't expect the best of the best every year. I know that there are constraints ; like what breweries have available and the links that organisers have with the breweries. Lets face it though; It happens once a year. In reality there should be plenty time to organise a good and changing beer list year after year if you are putting on a serious commercial festival. Alloa festival (especially the OctoberFest ) is always well run, very well in fact. I have no idea if any of the same people are involved in beer ordering but if not then they should be.

This years beer list did not make me want to pay for a train ticket to Edinburgh and certainly didn't inspire me to make a day of it like I usually would. I never go to a beer festival with the intention of getting slaughtered but I do usually like to try things I have heard good things about or things I haven't tried before. In terms of this years festival I dare say I could have spent and hour at most soaking in the atmosphere and having a few pints but I wouldn't have had any desire to stay longer. For me that does not make for a good festival. I know there will be those that will disagree with me, especially anyone involved or anyone who had a great time there. This year it just did not appeal at all to me.

I will still be organising a trip to other CAMRA festivals with Stirling University Craft Beer Society (notably Alloa OctoberFest) but unless I see an exciting list for next years SRAF I think I will be staying away again. Nothing against anyone involved but I don't want to see the same beers year after year.

Fullers and BBC day 3

2011-06-20T21:16:00.000+01:00

So its been a while and with moving back to the UK and trying to find employment I haven't been able to update the blog! Sorry for this. I'm back now and I'm working on several ideas for blogs in the next few weeks. In the meantime here is my review of my last day at the Beer Bloggers Conference in London.

The last day was optional but there was no chance I was passing up a chance to visit a family run brewery in London. So despite my somewhat tender nature I got up had breakfast and made the long trek over to Fullers. I thought I was going to be late with the silly Sunday service tube trains but after jumping in a taxi I got there bang on time. First up I have to say a massive thanks to the whole team at Fullers. They worked on a Sunday especially for us and they worked damn hard making sure we all had a great time. When we arrived there was a massive choice of excellently kept Fullers cask to try. It was a bit early for my still rather tender head and I opted for a half of Chiswick Bitter which was rather tasty.

After all the troops arrived it was time for the real reason we were all here; the chance to have a good look around the brewery. I won't say too much about the workings of the brewery as I am sure most people reading this have seen a brewery or two (or twenty). Needless to say though it was the perfect mix of old and new. Some of the original kit still stays in the brewery (although no longer used) and they had the scariest lab I have seen in a brewery. I could spend many a geeky hour in their testing samples and playing with the equipment.

Next it was back into the old hock cellars to have some special beers and food. I can't list all of the beers we had as we had so many fantastic one's. All of them served with commentary from Derek Prentice from Fullers. Fullers Reserve 2000 and 2010, Brewers Reserve 1 and 3 and Past Masters. Everyone as good as the next. Fullers sometimes get a bit of stick from typical ale drinkers and especially from younger drinkers such as myself who are championing craft keg as well as cask but I was truly impressed with my tour of Fullers and all of the beers.

I then spent the rest of my afternoon with some of my new friends in the Euston Tap. This made me remember why I like finding new pubs.

I will be writing a little post about Fullers in the near future so stay tuned for that. Next post coming soon is my reasons for avoiding this years Scottish Real Ale Festival which will be a balanced look at why I couldnt bring myself to go this year. To make sure I don't ruffle too many feathers I am going to take my time and try to make it as balanced as possible.

Beer Bloggers Conference day 2

2011-05-28T18:34:00.000+01:00

So day two kicked off with what came to be known as ‘Pilsner Urquell’ throat. I didn’t feel hung-over but as I munched into my vegetarian friendly bacon roll (ahem) I knew that I had been drinking the night before. So it was with some relief that the first session of the Beer Bloggers Conference on the Saturday was actually a coffee and tea welcome. Already small groups were forming. Not exclusive groups but rather in a large group of 70 people it became apparent that smaller groups of friends would have to form if we were going to get anywhere.

The day formally kicked off with three breweries talking about how they use social media on a day to day basis in their business. We had a great talk from Dave (and Sooty) from Hardnott. Adnams and Abbaye St Martin also described how they use Twitter to increase business. It became apparent that the three breweries all use twitter in totally different ways and this kept the session very interesting indeed. Next up was a talk from our international friends; Darren from Beer Sweden, Arnoud from bestetotnutoe.nl, and Alessio from Hoppy Hour in Italy. In this session I learned that beer in Sweden is like porn in the UK (thanks for the insight Darren). In all seriousness it was a great session and all three speakers gave a great insight into beer in their country but a special shout out has to go to the always entertaining Darren.

Next we had some bloke called Martin Dickie from a certain BrewDog. He played some music, showed us photos of his dog and talked about how BrewDog are shaking up the UK brewing scene. I enjoyed it, even if some of Martins dry Doric sense of humour flew over a few heads. Only one question for Martin which I found bizarre; maybe everyone was still processing last night’s Pilsner Urquell. By this time I had drunk most of the 4 litre water jug on the table and was looking for something a bit more hardcore. That was handy as Molson Coors had kindly provided lunch and beers after the talk from BrewDog.

Tim Hampson and Pete Brown were up next. A nice little plug for both their books and then onto the serious talk of where the future of beer writing is. A very broad subject and, I imagine, quite a hard question to approach but Pete and Tim were very entertaining and insightful. It was almost just missing two large armchairs as I felt more like I was sitting in one of their living rooms listening to them have a conversation rather than in a conference venue with 60 or so others. Next we were ushered back downstairs to the same room that Steve Wellington had given his retirement speech in the previous night. It was for the odious task of matching beer with food; it’s a tough life but someone has to do it. The Beer Academy provided 5 beers and five little pieces of food to match them with. Not all the matching’s were spot on in my opinion but the smoked duck and Budvar Dark pairing was sublime (veggie duck of course!)

The crown jewel of the conference was coming though. There was a bit of anticipation in the air. Speed dating for breweries. Strictly called ‘Live beer blogging’ the idea was simple; 7 breweries, 7 tables, 8(ish) bloggers to a table and 5 minutes to pour and talk about your beer. The breweries were- Innis and Gunn, Wychwood, Adnams, Brains, Windsor and Eton, Abbaye St Martin and Bad Attitude. This was mad! I tried to take tasting notes but after some crude humour from a real live Hobgoblin, talking to the brewers and (of course) tasting the beer, I didn’t have the time. My 3 favourites? Windsor and Eton’s Conqueror, Innis and Gunn’s Canada Day 2011 and Bad Attitude’s Two Penny Porter. I learned that 5 minutes is not enough time to get to know a brewer and his beers but that you can have a lot of fun in the process. I will be taking this idea with me in future and I may use it for a Stirling University Craft Beer Society night........

Things went (once again) from great to bizarre. We were met by four stilt walkers dressed as hop pickers in period costume. They showed the way to Dirty Dicks with the occasional burst of hops into the air. Dirty Dicks is a Wells and Young’s pub and I knew what was coming next. The fantastic new Bombardier adverts with Rick Mayall. I shall be honest; I am not a huge fan of the beer. I find it very drinkable but I feel it lacks in much flavour. The advertising campaign however is BRILLIANT! Rick also recorded a special video message especially for us bloggers which was very nice. Much like Pilsner Urquell the night before Wells and Young pulled out all the stops. We were entertained by snail racing and banter from Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham. We had a Q&A session with the important people in the company and their hop grower! My favourite part of the night though was having the heads of companies and the important people come at sit down at individual tables and socialise. I didn’t expect them to just vanish as the food came out but usually at these events the important people have a private table. It was a real pleasure to be able to sit down and chat with them over one of their beers.

We were running late.....almost an hour I’m told. I bundled into the back of a taxi with my 4 bottles of French beer to take to the ‘Night of Many Beers’ at Camden Town Brewery. 6 of us (including Hardnott Ann and Dave) piled into a cab with the most annoying ‘taxi man’ I have ever had the (dis)pleasure of meeting. There were roadworks and we disagreed about which alternative route he should use. As a Scotsman I shall blame the London 2012 Olympics for tearing up the roads. As a Frenchman I shall blame the London 2012 Olympics from cheating and stealing them from Paris. Moving on..........I arrived at Camden Town (eventually) and stashed my beer in the big outside fridge. Then the tasting began. I really can’t remember everything I had but I do remember being far too close to the Swedish and Italian beer a lot. I also had lots of tasty Rogue beer.

People seemed to enjoy the French beer and I have already had some very nice messages to say thanks for bringing it. For me this is what my love of beer stems to; sharing. It was great to see people enjoying the beer I had lovingly packaged and stared at all the way to London on the Eurostar (just in case someone thought the gun case I was carrying them in actually had guns inside) The sours went down very well and there were only a few people who fell on the dislike side of this marmite beer. The night got a bit hazy from there on in......a side by side imperial stout tasting with one from Dark Star and two from De Struise (was I mad?!?!) A quick jump on the tube and a taxi later I was back at the hotel looking forward to the next day at Fullers.

Another great day sharing great beer with great people. More to come.........

Beer Bloggers Conference- Day 1

2011-05-25T12:02:00.000+01:00

So here it is....part 1 of 4 of my time at the first ever Beer Bloggers Conference. I thought I would post this in four parts so that I don’t miss any important parts or people out of my write up of what was a fantastic weekend. I am going to split it down with one post about each day and then one overall sum up post of the whole event.

I arrived earlyish to the conference. Nervous. I don’t really know why but maybe it wouldn’t be what I expected and maybe I would be too out of my depth. The first face I saw (after the nice gent with the bowler hat who greeted me) was Mark Dredge. Ever the professional he seemed to be hovering near the welcome table with Mark Fletcher making sure that everyone had a friendly face to see when they arrived.

The welcome event was a low key sort of thing. 7 or 8 breweries with PR staff pouring their liquid friendship for all the thirsty but noticeably reserved bloggers. I was already starting to recognise faces and twitter names. The latter mostly involved squinting at peoples name tags to see who they were. We spoke and made friends during lunch and then moved upstairs for the first talk- A welcome by Molson Coors. Whilst I was already thankful to them for having stumped up the cash to pay for the venue, I was a bit reserved about what they would say. It turns out Scott from Molson Coors was a great guy and had lots of very interesting things to say. He did waffle a little and maybe got a touch defensive over bloggers attacking big brewers but he really changed my mind about the role that big brewers play in the brewing community. We, as bloggers, should sometimes search a little deeper before we slag off the big guys with no justification (I have been guilty of it many times in the past).

I was already feeling relaxed and next up was Peter Haydon from Meantime talking about the history of brewing in London. Despite the fact that he looked crazily like Morrissey and seemed to style himself on him, he was a very entertaining and interesting guy. He is the sort of person that looks as if he would never brag about his immense knowledge but suddenly just pull an amazing fact from nowhere. Next a little talk from the British Beer and Pub Association. It wasn’t quite as enthralling. It wasn’t bad but I did feel like there were people sitting in the audience who could have done the talk better. After a short break (for tea don’t you know) we moved onto the ‘Do’s and Don’ts of Blogging’ with three giants of blogging; Pete Brown, Melissa Cole and Mark Fletcher. I learned a lot from this. Even small things like write your posts in word first as its better at finding mistakes! Who’d have known?! It was very informative and Pete proved that he was going to be a plethora of knowledge over the weekend.

Then the fun really kicked off. Whilst the presentation lacked some depth in knowledge FlavourActiv gave an interesting tasting on identifying off flavours in beer. My very large nose managed to get all six right (thanks Dad for the big nose gene). An interesting experiment but maybe some more expert knowledge wouldn’t have gone a miss in a room full of bloggers. Then the night went from bizarre to magical. Listening to Steve Wellington, the master brewer at Molson Coors, retire felt like a door closing. He was inspirational, captivating and interesting to the last word. He quite rightly made everyone in the room feel like they were part of something special and he got a massive minute long standing ovation, which, dare I say it, brought a lump to my throat.

Then Pilsner Urquell stepped up the game. They transformed the venue into a slice of Pilsen. It was like walking into something from Charlie Wonka and the Booze Factory (That’s right? No?) From flying the head brewer, Vaclav Berka, in from Pilsen to bringing us massive amounts of unfiltered Pilsner in the oak barrels (3^rd time in the UK) they really topped off a great first day.

Think I might get killed for this!

I stood with a glass of unfiltered SABMiller beer in my hand listening to a four piece band playing Lounge whilst Kristy McCready from Molson Coors lounged on a chaise long and wondered to myself when beer became so cool. Day one was free of socks, sandals and (mostly) beer bellies. What I saw on display was a group of clued up, modern and trendy people who are setting the industry standards. I don’t want to get too reflectionary in this post (I’m saving that for the round up) but day one was a great start to a great weekend. Main lessons from day one? Big brewers don’t equal brewers with no social conscious, who are only concerned with profits and also beer bloggers are very cool people. Oh and that Pilsner Urquell is too tempting when standing next to the barrel.

More to come tomorrow.........

My top 4 French beers for London

2011-05-18T20:26:00.001+01:00

Ive chosen a selection of 4 French beers to bring to the Beer Bloggers Conference in London. French you say? They make beer? Well yes they do and very well indeed. I could have brought tens, maybe hundreds of beers. But I have my bank balance and my back to think of when getting the Eurostar. So I chose the following four to bring to London (I should point out at this stage that they are all 750ml but still wont go around everyone so sorry if you dont get to try)

First up is a Belgian Style strong ale. Saint Rieul Grand Cru. For me a great example of a French brewery making a Belgain style. Its 9% so it a big hitter but its very,very tasty. Here is what she looks like

Second is one of my personal favourites from my time here in France. Its brewed by a Scotsman at DeProef in Belgium but he lives in France. Confused? Me too.....Not strictly French but the recipe was made here at least. Its called Agent Provocateur (yes like the ladies knickers) and it is described as ' a hybrid of an IPA and a Belgian golden ale ' but I would probably call it an IPA. Its 6.5% abv and she is a beauty. Here is how she looks

Next is proof that French brewers can also make up styles. Fleurac make a Triple Dark IPA. Confused? Me too......Its 8% abv and mighty tasty. She looks like this

Lastly is my favourite. This is a special one. It takes 24 months to make and it is aged in oak wine barrels. It starts of as a sour beer and becomes more funky and a little woody over time. The bottle I am bringing is one of only 500 made this year. Its pretty young but still tasting fantastically complex and interesting. Bulles de Vignes is 6% and will probably be sure to split opinion.Here is my photo of year 2011 in the shop they all came from

And finally I might have a couple of little bottles of something from a brewery called De Struise but I am sure nobody would be interested in that!

Here is what they all look like (and hopefully will still look like tomorrow)

If you are going to the conference, hunt me down at some point and I will try and make sure you get some.

Cheers

M

This week- My return to cask and grim reality..or not?!?

2011-05-18T19:30:00.000+01:00

For the past four months I have been (once again) enjoying life in France. This time I have been based in Paris and my beer experience of France has been better and much more varied than when I lived in the South. I went from a great selection of Belgian beer in the South to having a massive choice of French, Belgian, Dutch, American, British and Danish here in Paris. It has been a blast I have to say. I've met some of the coolest beer geeks, drank some of the worlds best and rarest beer and generally had a lark of a time. I should point out at this stage that my life isnt all sunshine and lollipops and that I have also had lots of university work and been through the wringer personally. However on a beer front its never been better.

So it is with a mixture of excitement, fear and confusion that I shall return back to the UK this week. On the one hand I am returning to the first ever European Beer Bloggers Conference . I think it will be a great time and the attendee list and the list of breweries has got me mega excited. Whislt I dont update this blog as much and offer such industry knowledge as some of my peers I have always loved writing this blog and hope to use my time at BBC to learn and grow my knowledge and skills. I will be bringing some French craft beer to the conference to share with others, I shall post about this later tonight.

On the other hand, in a few weeks I shall return to the UK for good. No more study abroad on the horizon, no more beer trips (currently) booked. So I am a little sad to be leaving. Plus I have yet to secure a summer job and that is going to have to be my focus after this conference (or during if I meet some nice brewers).

But you know the one thing I cant wait to do tomorrow? Is have a pint of cask beer. Shock! Horror! Have the French killed my love of keg and bottle? Well no, actually, but the thing is, the French just dont 'do' cask beer in the same way we do. Don't get me wrong..... I don't hate cask beer but it probably only accounts for 25% of the beer I usually drink in the UK. I do a lot of home drinking and I am lucky to have kegged WEST beer on my doorstep. I do really miss cask though. Its hot here today in Paris and that made me miss it more. A nice pint of citrusy, easy drinking but flavoursome beer (served with a sparkler of course, Im from the North). I think it might be the first thing I do when I arrive in London tomorrow. In fact, I dont think; I know it will be.

For all those attending the conference I shall see you all on Friday and for those who arent well.........

Cheers and beers

M

Vlog Mikkeller Cognac

2011-05-15T21:45:00.000+01:00

Latest Vlog. Mikkeller Black Cognac

Lent was and wasnt successful

2011-04-24T15:35:00.000+01:00

Around this time 46 days ago I started a mission to give up alcohol (more importantly craft beer) for lent. Unlike many highly principled people who I know that were also undertaking this challenge; I didn't manage it. So the questions that need raised are why did I agree to do it and why didn't I manage it?

Why did I do it?
Firstly I decided to do it because I wanted to see if I could. I agreed to do it after a hangover from hell and I thought to myself 'wouldnt it be good not to have this again for 46 entire days'. Reality is that although I did give up I was still good and didn't have a hangover for 46 days regardless (and I don't plan to start now). Secondly I considered that it would save me money as Paris is quickly becoming a heavy strain on the purse strings. In this regard I am a bit upset that I didn't carry it out as it would have been interesting to compare the what I might have spent over 46 days on rare and wonderfully expensive craft beer. Thirdly, I knew that Uni life was about to get much tougher and that the work would be coming in thick and fast. I figured that with no tastings, meeting up to go for a pint or sitting opening a bottle of something special, that I would have more time to focus on uni work. That didn't happen either and in fact although I didn't continue with lent I have been getting better grades recently than I have ever had before in my 3 year university career.

Why wasn't I successful?

I lasted two weeks, I honestly did. Then I found that the beer shops around here were starting to get some really exciting beers in stock. Its not an excuse I know but I am a self confessed 'massive beer geek' and I found the temptation of De Molen, De Struise, Mikkeller, Westvleteren and fresh hopped US canned IPA far too tempting to resist. I figured that most of the beer that I have tasted in the 'unsuccessful' part of lent I may never get the chance to have again.

I also figured that there wasn't really a point to my lent quest. I didn't really have any intention of giving craft beer up at a time when I have never been more interested in it. When I look at what I have had the chance to try in the past year its just simply amazing. I don't plan to let my interest start falling by the wayside now. I realise that a lot of my friends don't get it and sometimes I think that my parents think I am a bit mad for paying €25+ for a bottle of beer. I honestly don't expect that everyone around me gets my pass time. In the same way that I don't really get why someone would take up needle work as a hobby, but I don't question it.

So at this point, when I have never been more interested in the small details of the craft beer world, I figured why put yourself through it? So I didn't. Although I did find myself behaving more than I might normally and I can really only say there has been one evening in the past 46 where I would myself admit that I was a bit drunk (It was a long day of tasting!) So whilst I maybe didn't give up craft beer for 46 days I have developed a better sense of knowing when enough is enough and being a bit more sensible in my old age.

I think when I first got into craft beer I was a bit like a kid in a sweetie shop. If there was something new and rare there that I had never tried I would start lining up the glasses. Now I respect the principals of quality and not quantity a little bit more. I realise that I would rather have one excellent beer than 6 pints of a mediocre one. If I have learned anything from lent that's what its been. Now onwards and upwards and I shall never make any silly bets like this again

Cheers and Hoppy Easter

M

Vlog Modus Hoperandi fresh can

2011-04-20T16:08:00.001+01:00

Fresh canned Modus Hoperandi

Westvleteren Vlog part 2

2011-04-15T22:02:00.002+01:00

Part 2 of Westy 12 vs St Bernardus 12 vs Rochefort 10

Westy 12 Vblog

2011-04-11T19:05:00.001+01:00

Part 1 of Westy 12 vs St Bernardus 12 vs Rochefort 10

A collab Vblog

2011-04-09T14:48:00.000+01:00

Yesterdays collaboration beer tasting with Brandon who writes on American Beer Geek in Paris and Simon who owns the Cave a Bulles in Paris.

Yet another new video blog!

2011-04-04T23:09:00.001+01:00

Video blog of De Molen Rasputin with an unexpected gusher of a bottle!

Beer moments

2011-04-01T22:36:00.002+01:00

I'm sure most of us bloggers have had them. Beer moments. Some might call them epiphanies. The moment when you realise that all of the silly beer things you do like sniffing and tasting, looking and talking, trading and sharing all make sense. Ive had two of those in the last two days. Lucky me!

Last night was the first one; around 11pm after two mediocre beers I thought I would open a bottle of something nice. De Molen Mooi & Meedogenloos (or beautiful and ruthless as it is in English) was my poison. A Russian Imperial stout. I was certain it would be over-rated and in fact my standards were lowered after the previous two beers. At 10.2% I knew it would be my last beer of the night if I wanted to get to class the next day.

So off popped the cap and I was in love. Before it even started glugging into the glass I knew this was a sipper; something I would want to savour and taste in my mouth for a long time. Very black and in fact a little darker than I thought it might be, it held its head all the way down the glass. Chocolate, a lil' Coffee, some fresh hops and a pinch of some lactic/sour/warm notes on the finish. This stuff was good, really good. And the best part; that silky smooth mouthfeel. No other word for it apart from epic.

So today I walked around with a smile on my face knowing that I have some more at home and several other De Molen beers in waiting. Then another epiphany happened. I was on my way to La Cave a Bulles to pick up some of the new beers that were delivered today. I heard rumours of Mikkeller, De Struise, Left Hand, Cantillon and more. I wasn't disappointed and there was a truly brilliant choice of beer on show. I stayed longer than I should have; talking about and choosing my beer. Whilst I was there not only did I watch the fascinating array of people enter the shop, choose from the new and existing selection and leave smiling, I also met Brandon who writes on the blog American Beer geek in Paris. I recommend have a look on the site as he does the French beer scene a lot more justice than I do.

Yeah thats what you think it is!

Simple as it was meeting other people just as geeky as you makes you remember that there is a whole community of us out there. Whether we are blogging from the comfort of our own homes, drinking with friends in a bar or simply just enjoying a great beer wherever we are one thing is true; we are all the same. Beer brings people together, young and old, male and female, whatever race and creed. Sometimes the beer community needs to lighten up and remember this. Whilst I still have this fresh in my mind I think I shall pop open a beer. Wherever you are right now I suggest you do the same.

Cheers to beers and good times

Vblog nøgne ø pale ale

2011-03-28T22:58:00.000+01:00

A Vblog with the bloopers left in (woops)

Craft beer lost to the Giants? Or an inevitable progression?

2011-03-28T17:28:00.001+01:00

Today Goose Island was purchased by Anheuser-Busch Inbev. This got me thinking. Is that a bad thing or not? Large companies buying smaller operations to extend their portfolio. However some would think of it as the small guy being pressured to sell out. I have to say I fall into the first camp on this one.

Goose Island for me have never been a small operation. Im sure that some people remember the good ole' days when they started out. Me, I dont and I have only ever considered them as a big craft brewery; much in the same way I would consider Sierra Nevada or Brooklyn. I realise that for some this will not take the sting out of them being bought by a large multinational but if AB have no plans to drastically change what Goose Island are doing then for me its not a problem. If on the other hand they try to stop seasonal special brews and water down the existing brand then I will be pretty annoyed. However it doesnt seem like thats the intention here.

The deal has cost AB Inbev a reported $38.8 million. Although it seems like a lot of money I bet this deal has been weighed up very carefully by the relevant people at AB. I am pretty sure that they will do pretty well out of this deal. Lets not forget that AB Inbev already owned a part of Goose Island and pretty much took care of all its distribution; something which has certainly helped Goose Island to get where it is now. The only changes that we know for certain that are being made is that Greg Hall the current Brewmaster and son of the original founder is leaving and that the current head brewer is filling his shoes. It also seems that AB Inbev have committed to spending $1.3 million on upping production too, which I think is a good thing.

It is important to remember that this deal doesnt give AB full control of the company as 42% is still owned by The Craft Brewers Alliance. Nevertheless it does give a multinational majoirty control of the company. I know that some will feel that this is a negative step for the US craft beer scene but I think only time will tell and for the moment I feel pretty positive about the deal. Even if it does mean giving some of my cash to the money men at AB Inbev when I want a nice cold bottle of Honkers

France- A beer paradise

2011-03-25T23:01:00.000Z

France doesn't exactly have a great reputation for beer. After all its the country that brought us 1664, Desperados and 33. Contrary to popular belief they do have a small but thriving craft beer industry.

The French craft beer industry is full of great little breweries but it never seems to get the international reputation amongst beer geeks like Italy or Denmark. Maybe that's because it lacks a world renowned brewer with a big voice like Mikkeller or Grado Plato or maybe its because the wine industry over shadows too much. I mean France has its fair share of already world renowned drinks industries right; Wine, Champagne (a wine I know), Cognac, Absinthe, Pastis. I don't see why a craft beer industry cant fit in to that too though.

Brasserie Craig Allan, Uberach, St Reuil, Fleurac, Garrigues. Only a few of the hundreds of fantastic micro brewers in France. Not just creating the usual three French styles either; Blonde, Brune and Ambree. Black IPA, wood aging, hoppy IPA and the rest. The French micro brewing scene is just as experimental as the rest of Europe and the world. If you are in Paris you must visit la cave a bulles which is a fantastic shop specialising in French micro breweries, although he does stock some Italian, Scottish, English, and Belgian stuff too.

We must stop thinking about France as purely a destination for those of us who also like a spot of wine as it can be a great destination for craft beer lovers too. I for one would love to see an Auld Alliance style collaboration brew with a Scottish and a French brewery, or maybe a beer between an English brewer that can be shipped across the channel. Ok maybe those are a step too far. Maybe we should encourage some importers to start looking to the growing French craft beer scene and let us taste some of this wonderful beer back in Blighty. I shall continue to post about my discoveries and after lent I will upload some Vblogs and some tasting notes of my favourites.

Anyone else got a French favourite ?

A new video blog!

2011-03-24T21:20:00.002Z

After what seems like an age....a new Vblog!

Lent- A time for reflection

2011-03-08T21:28:00.000Z

Contrary to the title I gave this post this is not a religious message. It is infact an apology for anyone who reads this blog. Recently I havent been devoting enough time to the blog but this has not meant I havent been enjoying craft beer. I have tasted many wonderful craft French beers, I have visited Belgium once again and I have made a few UK orders too. I havent been writing about them though.......

So this year for lent I am giving up alcohol. I hope that during this time I will be encouraged to write more and to get this blog to where I want it to be, as it is currently far from it! So bare with me during this time as there is little chance of any Vblogs but I shall endevour to put some of the past few months into text.

Traditionally lent allows 4 Sundays away from the absention. I will not be taking these on Sundays but rather when my good friends visit from Scotland (Im cheating, I know)

Please wish me luck, I am going to need it!

France is a great place for beer: Intro

2011-02-09T12:40:00.000Z

Don't worry I havent forgotten about the blog but I have been quiet during my move back to France. Its taken a while but I am finally settled in and have many plans for blog posts in the pipeline. However there is one thing that I would like to make certain about my time in France this time around; I will be writing a lot more about French beer.

During my previous trip I really only covered Belgian beer which was a bit silly but really all I could get a hold of during my year in France. This time I am in Paris though and I have found a wide variety of French microbrews ready for me to try. I have had a few so far and I am very pleased with what I see, smell and taste. I think the industry here will be great one day but it does still need time to mature and a little bit of help to give it a push against the dominant world of wine.

Over the next few days I am going to explain a little bit more about the micro brewing insdustry out here and share with you some tasting notes and reviews. Hence why this post is only the introduction.

Post 1 of my semester of French Craft Beer coming tonight............

Beer challenges for 2011

2011-01-09T18:01:00.000Z

Ive already done the whole looking back at 2010 thing but I never really said what I wanted to achieve in the beer world in 2011. Since I have spent the first week of 2011 in bed with man-flu, this is the first chance Ive had.

In 2011 I would like to -

Try beer from-Kernel, Epic, Alesmith and Camden Town Brewery

Try more beer from-Thornbridge, Adnams, Marble, Crown and 3 Floyds

Brew my first batch of home brew

Help brew with some UK brewers to get a bit more brewing experience

Start writing about a greater scope of breweries

Get into beer and food pairing in a bigger way

Meet more bloggers by going to GBBF, Twissup (sadly not the first of 2011) and the Beer Bloggers Conference in May 2011

Learn more about brewing history

and finally if funds permit- Go on a summer brewery roadtrip (with Twitter and blog updates throughout the journey)

If anyone can help make any of these happen. Especially brewers who would like an apprentice for a few days- shoot me an email @ michael@heavyhops.com

Yuck- Ive waited 4 days for this

2011-01-04T21:18:00.000Z

This review isn't very professional and that's why I am a blogger and not a journalist. I really don't like negative reviews and I don't usually post them but this is the exception.

The other night whilst lying in my bed feeling sorry for me and my man-flu I watched Oz and Hugh tasting Innis and Gunn in waders. A jolly sight. Highlighting Scottish beer which seems to be popular wherever I go. I've seen lots of positive reviews online about it. Truth is.......I hate the stuff.

Well I gave myself the impression that I did anyway. Ive tried the regular stuff, blonde, the rum cask, the IPA and I honestly haven't enjoyed one. So what possessed me to pick up a bottle today I have no idea. New year, new outlook? Madness? Cold and Flu medication still coursing through my veins?

It was nicely chilled as Innis and Gunn (or should I say Belhaven) recommend. I poured it into the glass you can see below (no comments) Its the first beer I've had since I was ill but thankfully not the first in 2011 (I'm not that sadistic)

Its the blonde slightly lighter 6.0% abv version. To the eye its very pleasing, even if the head was very hard to tempt into appearing. On the nose I smell butter, diacetyl, popcorn and delicate oak. It may be the time to point out that NONE of those flavours I like!

On the palate I taste more oak that was promised, a good dose of butterscotch (diacetyl), popcorn and some odd misplaced fruit flavours. This (in my opinion) is a truly AWFUL beer. Ive given it a first chance. Ive tried the more expensive versions to see if it gets better. This is the last time.

Good bye Innis and Gunn. You shall definitely not be missed.

All the opinions expressed in this blog are those of my own and do not reflect the views of my employers, past or present.

Happy New Year (well almost....)

2010-12-31T18:00:00.001Z

Tonight there shall be lots of craft beer drunk all around the world to celebrate the end of 2010 and the start of 2011. I shall be honest, 2010 hasn't been the best year for me as it has seen quite a lot of family illness and almost every travel plan I had planned this year fell through (Twissup, BrewDog Bar opening etc) Nevertheless lots of great things happened this year. I got the chance to work at BrewDog which was great and gave me a much better understanding of how hard the whole process actually is (brewing and selling) I have tried such a fantastic range of beer this year including some from 3 Floyds, Stone, Bierra Del Borgo, Moor, Marble, Thornbridge, Nøgne Ø and Mikkeller to name just a few. I realised I actually like Lager (thanks to WEST in Glasgow). I finally got to visit The Rake in London. Lots of other things happened too but I was probably too drunk to notice.

Tonight will be totally the opposite for me though. So spare a thought for those of us who won't have access to craft beer tonight! I am working as I write this (well not really, its a scheduled post that I wrote days ago) Every New Years eve my DJ and singing skills help me to earn a few bob but it does mean that I will probably be drinking Guinness tonight or maybe wine but I will almost certainly be raising a glass of whisky to the blogging community as 2011 comes in. Although I haven't been that active with posting this year, I have been keeping up to date with all the regulars that I read.

So all the best for 2011 and have a safe night wherever you all are.

Have a craft beer for me eh?

Michael

Stirling University Craft Beer Society; An Update

2010-12-29T13:00:00.001Z

You may all remember a while back that I floated the idea that I was thinking of starting a Craft Beer society at Stirling University. Although there was some controversy at the time about how much Craft Beer actually meant to people in the UK we seem to have done pretty well so far and I thought I should let you all know how we are doing in the few months we have officially existed.

We started well. Without any official members apart from a good friend and I we already secured some sponsorship from the very kind Richard Burhouse at www.myBreweryTap.com. He agreed to send us the 52wk Beer Club boxes so that we could be guaranteed a good selection of beer for our tasting events. This has been a lifesaver as although we have several great breweries within 30 miles (TSA, Harviestoun, Williams Bros, Tryst and WEST) it is still great to have some choices from all over the UK for our members to taste. Thanks again to Richard.

So then came Freshers week. We had a fantastic response and quickly became one of the largest societies in the University. This was amazing since we were a new start up. I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that a University with no Craft Beer representation previous had gone on to create a great group of people. The most important thing about our group is how diverse we are. We have hop heads like me, some people who only like dark beers, some who are new to the craft beer game, some who are CAMRA lovers, some who are not. What brings us together though is a love of well made beer; whatever colour, strength or style it may be.

We have achieved a lot in a few months and we have a firm plan of action for the next few. I took the place of El Presidente in the first few months although I knew all along that this was temporary as I am moving back to France in January 2011. We have it up and running though and what a great team we have. 2011 will see us brew our own beer, take over a pub for the night ( a la Oz and Hugh) and visit even more great breweries than we did in 2010. Not forgetting that I will be back in September 2011 to take the helm and hopefully get some great new people excited about the mini revolution that we have started.

Don't get me wrong its been hard. We have battled against a lot of red tape about what we are and what we are not allowed to do. We haven't had everyone on board and some people have tried to make it hard for us. We have also been accused of being 'nothing more than a BrewDog sales club' due to the fact that I used to work for them and gave them some publicity at our sign up table (along with many other UK and world breweries) Surely that's like claiming the UK government is propping up the News of the World because the head of communications used to work there?!?

Through the bad times and the good we have come out on top. We have helped to creat a strong group of craft beer lovers who are already managing to increase the profile of good quality beer in the local area. I am pleased and proud that we managed it. Thanks for reading and expect more posts than there have been lately. Ive been lazy; Sorry!

Michael

My favourite hop is ..........

2010-12-28T20:00:00.001Z

For a long time now I have been trying to find that one hop that I consider my favourite. I think I have now found it. Don't me wrong its taken lots of hard work (drinking beer, brewing beer and smelling hops mainly) but I think I'm finally there.

These are some pellets of my favourite hop!

Can you guess what it is yet?

I shall give you a clue. Its a relatively new hop only being first sold in 2000 and it is registered which means it is controlled by one producer. BrewDog use it in 5am Saint (which was where I first got to brew with it), DogFish Head use it in 60 Minute IPA (So I'm told) and The Kernel Brewery make an IPA with it.

It delivers pine-like qualities and gives a wonderful floral and tropical bitterness. It is simply wonderful and I used to love measuring this hop when I was at BrewDog because of the lingering smell it left.

Got it yet?

Its Simcoe!

This may seem like a pointless post but I needed to tell the world how much I love this underrated hop (with the hope that it may encourage some people to give me some tips on beers with a huge Simcoe hit, any ideas?)

Raising the Bar

2010-12-28T13:56:00.000Z

For the past week or so I have started watching a BBC show. It was a farce from the beginning, it involved lots of misunderstandings, someone who wasn't really sure what was going on and quite a lot of booze. You would be forgiven for thinking I was talking about the 1980's comedy 'Allo 'Allo but just like that the BBC have cracked the mix of farce and comedy once again with Oz and Hugh Raise the Bar. The pairing of Oz Clarke and Hugh Dennis is much more fluid this year and seems much more professional than last years Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas.

Copyright 2010 BBC

Don't get me wrong it certainly doesn't live up to the comedy pairing of Oz Clarke and James May in their wine series or in their tour of Britain and it isn't nearly as good as some American examples of shows in this genre (see Three Sheets and Brew Masters if you haven't seen them). To be honest though we have never really done unpretentious booze focused shows in this country full stop and we have a lot to learn from the aforementioned shows.

As far as UK shows go though Oz and Hughs' latest offering has been entertaining whilst still remaining pretty easy for viewers to engage with. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a program of the same type which really went into the finer details and explained a bit more about the beer,spirit and wine making process in finer detail but the fact is that the Beeb need to ensure that programing is accessible. There would be no point in making the exact show all of us bloggers wanted to see as there would probably only be around 200 viewers per episode- all of them us!

So I say well done to Oz Clarke on another great series, even if Hugh Dennis has been a touch annoying. I know that some people object to a 'lush' such as Dennis being paid by the license fee payers to go around the country getting trollyed, but honestly if he wasn't there just think what Mr Clarke would get up to on his own. Surely it would cause more uproar from the licence payers!

Please BBC......bring back James May for another wine series!

New VBlog! YAY

2010-10-15T20:31:00.002+01:00

Sink the Bismarck! Group VBlog

2010-09-29T10:35:00.000+01:00

I had a party........this is what went on

The Trashy Blonde New York Dolls

2010-08-30T16:40:00.000+01:00

Well thats it........my days as a punk are over. I now go back to drinking beer and listening to Morrissey. I had to go out in style though.....something very 'Punk'.

After getting a new venue on the BrewDog bandwagon- The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen; I noticed that they had a gig from one of the only Punk bands I actually like. The New York Dolls

Since it marked the end of my time with BrewDog, I had to go. David Johanson rocked, as did the rest of the band too. Nevertheless there was only one star of the show, Trashy Blonde. Its been ages since I had it on handpull. I may have been baking within an inch of my life inside a hot room with low ceilings. I may have been served my pint in a plastic pint cup. I may have been getting impatient because being rock and roll The Dolls were keeping Aberdeen waiting. That all didnt change the fact that my pint was stunning.

Not many beers are nice warm. Very few are drinkable from a plastic cup. Trashy Blonde still held its own though and it made me happy to have worked for such a great team of people. I have never seen so many BrewDog bottles and pints of Trashy in one place in my life before but it made me smile a little to know that I made sure it was all available to enjoy that night.

I will be posting a full round up of my time as a Punk before too long but in the meantime I have my life to pack up into boxes (yet again) and a BrewDog BBQ to attend.

Slàinte

Thornbridge Je t'aime

2010-08-17T20:15:00.000+01:00

The time finally came- the night when I had nothing to be up for the next day nor any other beery flavours already tainting my pallate. It was Thornbridge night! Well I say Thornbridge night, more like me drinking three of the beers back to back.

Jaipur (which I know and love), Halcyon 2009 green hop (a new one to me) and Saint Petersburg (one I have heard lots about), were all on the menu.

I started with Jaipur and I dont need to say much more than it was brilliant, as always. I have to admit though that I had kept this bottle maybe a little longer than I should have and the hops were noticably restrained but when you live in the middle of a beer shop desert you sometimes have to stockpile. Although a slight faded hop profile it was still noticably the Jaipur we all know and love. Its punchy, a touch resiny, herby and its generally a party in my mouth. Jaipur is 5.9% and is appearing in wonderful little places all over the UK. I never know when I am going to walk into a good cask pub and find it and thats one of the reasons I like it.

Now it gets a bit more serious- Halcyon. At 7.7% its immediately noticable that it is a bigger beer and unlike Jaipur, not one I could drink all night. Thornbridge had some issues with this green hop batch of Halcyon which basically resulted in the yeast not compacting correctly and combining that with the green hop party it was all a little cloudy. I love it though and I honestly dont care and in fact if I am going to have something different and quirky like a green hop beer I almost expect it to look a bit different. Note to Kelly @ Thornbridge- Dont worry if the 2010 batch doesnt come out clear, I will willingly take delivery of the whole batch! Halcyon 2009 is a truly epic beer and maybe one of the best I have had this year so far. Not sure how much is left now so if you come across it- grab and take (and by 'take' I mean pay for like a responsible person).

Lastly I had Saint Petersburg- a 7.7% Imperial Russian Stout (no not stoat). It was like a coffee with foam on top (ed- surely a latte?). Dark and inviting, just the thing for the miserable night I had it on. It was herby and spicy, lots of chocolate and coffee and a little chicory. My only gripe was that I was getting quite a few metalic notes of this bottle (something which a friend also found with his). It wasnt an unpleasant metalic taste but not one I actively look for. I will try this again to see if I find it the same in future. Saint Petersburg was still a cracking beer though and has not reduced my opinion of the mighty Thornbridge at all.

I had a great night tasting these beers and I must say thanks to MyBreweryTap for the latter two bottles.

Only two weeks left with BrewDog and still loving it. Expect the blog to be back to full posting capacity when I have more free time!

My big fat BrewDog tasting night

2010-07-18T13:05:00.000+01:00

Ok so its not quite as catchy as My Big Fat Greek Wedding but you get the idea. It started off as a small affair. A few guys round to the house to open the bottle I have been keeping since I bought it back in Feb.

Love it or hate it. I couldnt give a damn

Sink the Bismarck!

The evening quickly became a twisted plan in my head taking on a new darker and more boozy side everytime I thought about it (which was a lot). Eventually I had the troops rounded and a beer list printed. 7 men,5 women, enough food to sink a ship (no pun intended) and some of the craziest beers made in the UK today. It made for an intersting night as I knew that most people werent beer geeks like me and would be baffeld by talk of IBU and Original Gravity, so I kept it as beer novice friendly as possible. Only the gents wanted to do the actual beer tasting at first but this quickly changed.

We started with a bottle of Alpha Dog which fortunately for me our bottling machine decided would never reach Norway because it was a bit underfilled. I gave everyone a sample in the bottom of the posh tasting glasses I bought and I was amazed at how quickly everyone became an expert. Holding the glass up to the sun that was very kindly beating down on us, swirling it about a bit and even smelling before tasting. I was proud, very proud. The troops did not dissapoint, the closest comment that I remember nodding and agreeing with was 'very much like that 5am Saint but more reserved and more nutty'. I beamed like a new father......maybe this beer convertion is easier than I think.

We raced through my collection of rare BrewDogs that I have been collecting over the last year or so. TM:10 was up next. This divided opinion more as some people werent so keen on the carbonation but we all agreed that it was very nice if not a little too polite. After moving our tasting table back into the sun which had moved around the shadow of the house I opened the first of the real rare ones. This time it involved two samples, some Hardcore IPA and some of the madness that is Prototype 27. We tasted the Hardcore first so we could see what the original beer is like and then we tasted the P27. 'Its quite sweet and a little bit medicinal' said David 'I dont really taste the whisky' said Peter. It should be pointed out at this stage that Peter had decided in between the TM:10 and now to run home a fetch the biggest Montecristo cigar I have ever seen (not the best idea when you are tasting beer I told him).

We all agreed that as a result of the enormous cigar Peter was smoking we were going to listen and see if he could detect any flavours from the rest of the beers on offer. After opening AB:01 and AB:02 it became apparent that we had found a champion (or so we thought) in AB:01. It was very rounded and has aged amazingly since its been bottled. AB:02 is a little big for me right now give it another 10 months to let the booziness mellow a little and it will be spectacular. I think we all agreed at this point that the very pretty AB:01 was winning so far.

Next up was the reason why everyone was invited. Sink the Bismarck. We watched the video to get everyone in the mood (you know, that controversial one with the two brewers, one dog and a ship). This was a beer I knew was going to divide opinion and it did to a certain degree but much less than I thought. Remember that most of the people tasting this are not beer geeks or even wine buffs but they do know when they taste something they like (they just dont write a blog about it). I filmed the tasting and after I edit it down it will be posted soon. I dont want to give too much away but its fair to say that it went down well and the women couldnt hold back any longer and got fired in too.

We all had a great night tasting some beer that I will probably never get my hands on again (mainly because a lot of it was a once off brew). It was great to see non beer drinkers getting really fired up about the taste and characters of these beers.

I also thank David Bald for bringing Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA, Victory Golden Monkey and others too which we enjoyed after the tasting died down a bit. Also thanks to my parents for allowing me to invade the house with almost 20 people although it was mostly there friends as well as my own!

Soon on the blog I will be reviewing Thornbridge Saint Petersburg and Marble Lagondola IPA. Stay tuned!

A night at the Dogs

2010-07-08T21:49:00.000+01:00

First of all I start by saying sorry. Sorry for not writing more about my time at BrewDog. Along with a rather busy working life a family illness is also reducing my desire to blog at the moment but rest assured all is coming on well and I intend this blog to be tearing through the posts sooner rather than later.

Nevertheless, this weekend I have decided to have a bit of a clear out. You see, ever since I started collecting beer Ive kept a heck of a lot of BrewDog beers in my collection. I still have bottles of the original Hardcore IPA, an early TNP, a second batch Sink the Bismark!, some Dogma and some Chaos Theory (and this is just the tip of the Iceberg)

So this Friday (9th July) I am having some friends round who are just as passionate about craft beer and some who will be more so by the time they leave. Craft beer is to be enjoyed right? And thats why Ive decided to share the following with the guys tomorrow

Alpha Dog - A rare treat as its only available in Norway (Mine has an odd fill line and couldnt go out in a case, I happily agreed to make it vanish)

TM10- Brewed for the Tates 10th Birthday (Another short filler)

Prototype 27- Hardcore but more Hardcore with smoke and mirrors (or raspberries maybe, I forget which)

AB:01- One from my personal collection, really looking forward to it

AB:02- Still young but I bought 3 so I will age the other two

Sink the Bismark!- Another one from my collection. First time I will have tried it bottled and not right from tank

TNP- My last bottle :-(

Some of the guys are bringing some Americans too (beers not the people, although American people are welcome anytime). It should be a fun night and I am looking forward to unwinding and getting really excited about great beer.

There will be plenty tweets throughout the evening and a full review appearing here a few days after (probably Sunday or Monday)

Guinness in a can? Yes please

2010-06-20T20:05:00.000+01:00

Forgive me....you may think that I have gone mad but the other day I had Guinness in a can that I actually ENJOYED! No it was not infact a trick someone was playing on me by sticking a Guinness logo on another can it really was tasty Guinness from a can....well almost.

Before I tell you how to get a pint of good Guinness from a can I should explain one thing. Guinness has always been my fall-back drink. Im sure most of the beer bloggers have one. We've all been there, you go into an unknown pub and find they have absolutely nothing in the way of good cask or bottled beer and it leaves you with a bit of a problem. Certainly near where I am if a pub doesnt specialise in cask beer then it is likely it will have Greene King if you are lucky or Belhaven Best or Tennants Ember if you are not. The prospect of any of those drinks never fills me with confidence so I usually bounce straight back to the drink that was infact my first ever pint in a pub, Guinness. So there you go, I am not saying that Guinness is the best thing since sliced bread (though it is a bit like drinking it) but I am saying that I do enjoy a pint when the bar is barren.

Back to the canned stuff though. Guinness tried and failed in 2009 to launch 'surger' units in Tesco. The idea was that you paid £16.99 (yes, its a crazy price) and you get a pint glass, a surger unit and two tins of special 'surger' Guinness. The Guinness that is in the can is apparently the stuff that is in the keg before it goes through the chiller etc etc. After you used the two tins you then went back to Tesco and bought cans of the surger Guinness to use because the usual stuff explodes everywhere when you put it on the surger.

Basically the surger sends a sonic pulse through the bottom of the glass and up through your flat pint of Guinness and it eventually settles out to look like a nice pint of the black stuff. Nevertheless it never took off. Tesco were lumbered with huge amounts of stock and Guinness never really bothered with a full advertising campaign so it faded away. That is until now though.....Diageo are slowly starting to reintroduce pub sized versions of the surger into places that struggle to sell a full keg of Guinness during its peak freshness. In other words small rural pubs and that is exactly where I got to give the surger a whirl.

I was very sceptical about tinned Guinness as I have had it once before in first year of University and I swore never to have it again. In my opinion canned Guinness is to the world of beer what Christine Hamilton is to the world of professional darts, bollocks. So very worried I cracked open the Guinness surger can and poured away. It could only be described as black and VERY flat. A little drop of water on the surger (I have no idea why but I am sure there is a reason) and place the glass on and press the button. What happens next is a little moment of magic as you watch the head mysteriously appearing and shooting up the glass as if Paul Daniels was in the room. You need to give it the same time to settle as a regular pint and it does look the part I have to be honest.

Now for the most important part- The taste; Well it tastes like a pint of Guinness as if it was poured from the tap. Maybe even a bit creamier or that could have been my imagination. I was quite shocked I have to be honest but it does really taste like a normal Guinness. As far as cost goes I think it levels out at about the same. The pubs that they are targeting with this gadget this time around are small pubs which normally lose a lot of Guinness to the drain as they cant sell it quick enough. Therefore when you factor in that the cans are more expensive cost price but wastage will be reduced, it probably works out the same for both landlord and (hopefully) consumer.

I have to be honest, I dont see this kicking off in Weatherspoons as they have a big enough turnover to sell kegged Guinness but for places which struggle I can see this being a great alternative. Personally I struggled to tell the difference between this and normal Guinness but I would be interested to see how a regular Guinness drinker faired with this device. In the meantime I think I will stick to seeking out craft beer and just use Guinness (surger or not) as a fall back drink.

Cheers

Jaipur- A legend in its time?

2010-06-02T20:07:00.001+01:00

You know that beer right? The one with all the hype. In every beer community whether it be in Chicago, Kent or Brussels there are always a handfull of beers that get an unbalanced amount of airtime on blogs and in conversation about beer. Not that I think all hyped beer is a bad thing right enough. There are many breweries and beers that I would probably never have touched hadnt it been for someone blogging and hyping up the beer. Whether it be Mark Dredge and his praise for Marble or Richard at MyBreweryTap telling me that I had to try some Crown Unpronouncable IPA.

One beer that springs to mind when I think about hyped UK beer is Thornbridge Jaipur. From the very first smell of this beer I could tell I was in for something that I hadnt quite bargained for. The aroma was fresh, a little pine and a balance of citrus and malt. The nose is very well balanced but that doesnt quite prepare you for just how balanced this beer actually is. Every sip of Jaipur is a pleasure with its perfect balance of sweet malt and a shovel full of citrus and pine hop. It is quite simply a piece of art in a glass.

Jaipur makes me wonder why more UK breweries dont give a little bit more trust to the powers of the hop. Jaipur is a perfect example that you can make (under UK standards) a well hopped beer and still balance it out and make it perfectly quaffable. It has inspired me more to finally seek out Thornbridge on cask and this is a little trip I am already working on. Naturally I'd also love to see the brewery but maybe I will wait till after September so that they dont think that I am a spy!

So thanks Thornbridge, thank you for restoring my faith in English IPA. I have another two offerings to drink from Thornbridge in the coming weeks, St Petersburg and Halcyon thanks to MyBreweryTap and I am looking forward to these even more now. Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing a part of my craft beer education. Next review should be coming very soon for Great Divide Hercules Double IPA too

A promise from me to you

2010-05-30T19:40:00.000+01:00

I realise that this blog has come to a point where I need to make a choice. I now work for one of the breweries which features quite heavily on this site and that means that many people are now put off whenever I talk about beer at all because it is hard to be fair and balanced.

The promise that I make to anyone reading this now is that from now until september (when I finish my job with Brewdog) I am going to make an effort to keep the reviewing down to other beers. There might from time to time a couple of mentions about Brewdog beer but I intend to channel my writing down two roads

1. Writing about my time with Brewdog and anything that may be of inteterest such as new beers or mad goings on at the brewery

2. Reviews of other breweries beer, starting with a review on Jaipur very soon.

I dont want people to think that this blog is paid for by brewdog and this is an issue which has been brought to my attention recently by a fellow blogger. For the next few months I want to use this blog to give you an insight into the brewery I work in but also to objectively review other beers and this is why I will keep my reviews on Brewdog beers to a minimum this summer.

Thanks for reading

VBlog 15- Cheap beer is good beer right?

2010-05-19T00:36:00.000+01:00

Not sure why I agreed to this but a VBlog about cheap beer

Brewdog- The first week

2010-05-15T15:45:00.000+01:00

Well it's been an interesting week. I started working at brewdog on Monday and I've had a blast so far. I've seen most of the backroom goings on I.e brewing, bottling and packing. Next week I plan to see a bit more of the sales and marketing aspect. Good news all round.

There is one thing which has become apparent though. Bottling is a secret way to put you off beer for life. I spent most of my week on the brewing side of things and I'm thankful for that. However I did get a taste of bottling on Wednesday and I have to say that the whole process destroys any romanticism you may have with craft beer. Bottling turns beer into a commodity. Naturally this is true, beer is a commodity and I am probably the one at fault for having such a romantic view of craft beer. I would like to imagine that it is made by a very highly skilled craft brewer and then somehow ends up in my hand thanks to some sort of intricate pully system. This is not the case though. This is not an attac on brewdog at all as every brewery in the land naturally has to have a method of getting the product out of the fermentors and into a glass.

All I say at the end of week one is that I am having an absolute blast. Also be very wary of thinking too much about the mystery of craft brewing. Maybe we have the marketing to blame. Something which I am sure by this time next week I will have changed my tune on. Just think about the long and difficult process that beer making is and do not take it for granted.

Lecture over, have a good weekend.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Provost Milne Dr,Fraserburgh,United Kingdom

Brewdog- Day 3

2010-05-12T21:42:00.000+01:00

Well a long time has passed since my first day at Brewdog, ok 2 days have passed but I do feel like part of the team already. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this but I am loving the grind of being a 'brewer'. I say 'brewer' and not brewer because I am infact still being shown the ropes and probably would make a large batch of toxic, sour cat piss if left to my own devices.

There is a very strange sense of reward that comes with making beer. Im sure this is something only micro-brewers and home brewers will understand. Even although I havent tasted any of the beer that I have actually made yet there is still something rather rewarding about making beer that you know is going to make people happy. People will use this social lubricant you have made to do all manner of things; hopefully the main one being having a good time.

Yesterday was the culmination of a huge order of Saison which is going to the Tate Modern for its 10th Birthday. Every bottle was hand labelled and this took a lot of man power and time. It was worth it though and I encourage you to go to the Tate this weekend if you can. It is afterall the only place you will get a bottle. Except if you are me that is ;-)

I must say that TM 10 is the most un-Brewdog beer that I have tasted made by Brewdog. Not that this is either a good or a bad thing but rather it is a step away from heavy hops or barrel aging and its a little more restrained. TM 10 plays itself very well though, it may be restained but I think it is a very elegant beer. Delicately spicy and quite polite but most of all VERY well balanced. I think Brewdog have hit the nail on the head here by producing a beer that will go down well with loyal fans but also wont scare the pants of any Brewdog virgins at the Tates birthday weekend.

Yesterday also included a visit from two lovely Americans who are on a tasting tour of Europe. My morning included talking with them about the brewery and tasting all our core range and some very special ones too! I may have had a sip of Tokyo* before noon! My point is though, do feel free to pop around and ask for a special tour, it gives me a chance to talk beer and more importantly sample some too (hope James isnt reading)

Today was more hand on (and less boozy). Our next batch of Trashy is almost ready to meet my three others in the fermenter and will be on their way to a supermarket near you soon. I will tell you all the batch number when I know it! Haha

In other news 12hr shifts make you tired and I want to go to sleep soon. More Brewdog news soon, off for a Punk and an episode of Oz and James!

Day 1 at Brewdog

2010-05-10T21:09:00.001+01:00

For those of you who havent been following today was the day that I started my new summer job at Brewdog. I will be up in the north east from now until September and dont panick, this blog isnt about to become a paid for Brewdog advert. Although I cant promise that I wont report quite a lot about them. So if you are a Brewdog hater look away now!

Today started by meeting all the cool gals, guys and dogs in the brewery. Everyone seems great and I can see why James and Martin are so passionate about what they do because they have such a great team backing them up. A great deal of my day today was spent on a secret project. Something that not only am I uncertain about whether Im allowed to tell you about, but also something which you will probably never see so there isnt much point. Not unless you have tickets of course.

Anyway.....this afternoon I mashed a batch of Trashy Blonde. So if your Trashy tastes particularly good in the coming months personal cheques can be made out to Michael J Ironside!

Whilst still giving reviews on other brews that I try and general beer news and critiques from world breweries I plan to use this blog to give you an insight into life in a VERY busy brewery. Now that I am back in the UK updates will be coming much more thick and fast.

Updates soon....

Election beer

2010-04-26T11:48:00.000+01:00

No this isnt some sort of cruel joke. On May 6th I will be sitting down after a long day of pushing for last votes in at least two Scottish constituencies (yes Scotland has more than one). I will be helping my party out and then it will be time to sit down and watch the results come in.

Aside from the fact that I will only have been home for one day and will probably want to get stuck into some of the lovely beer I have waiting from Crown Brewery, Thornbridge, Brewdog, Marble.........I also want to have a little drink to celebrate the election.

Ive not been able to do much campaigning for my party (being in France for 7 months) but I still want to show that some of us are watching the election and do feel that this may be an important one.

Anyway the point is......I want to find a beer which speaks for each of the leaders. Whatever your political views are it would be nice to have some suggestions. For example should I toast old Gordon Brown and his party with a bottle of 'Stella'- Watery, worn out and a bit bland. Or maybe you think Gordon and the Labour guys and gals deserve a bottle of Old Speckled Hen- There is something you dont quite like about it but its better than that bottle of Green King IPA lurking in the wings. Maybe Nick Clegg and his smooth performance in the debates mean he deserves to be toasted with a bottle of BrewDog/Stone Bashah- Dark, stronger than it seems and a little bit confusing. Is David Cameron and his party a bottle of the same but with a different label?

Who knows? Have a think about it. I know I will be and I will be posting my choices on the eve of General Election day. Happy thinking

Am I still a hop head?

2010-04-22T07:12:00.000+01:00

Its been a while since I posted. Just checked and apparently the date is the 19th of April! Woops. I havent forgotten about you all, honest. Rather Ive just not had that much great beer recently which has inspired me to write. I tend to find that I only get in a beer mindset if I am drinking some nice beer or I am anticipating a box of nice beer. Since I am currently in France and all my boxes of nice beer are in the UK, this is a problem.

Recently though I have been questioning my self declared status of 'hop head'. That was until the other night anyway.....but more about that in a bit. The reason I question whether I am such a hop head is because I seem to have been drinking a large amount of beer that I wouldnt really class as hoppy. Since the weather got nice again in France ive switched to a lot of Lambic, which the more clever among you will know use aged hops and therefore do not have that zingy hop taste. Also on the darker cloudless nights Ive been sticking with a bottle of Orval or something equally lovely and Belgian. My excuse for this though is because I am in France. Its not that I dont enjoy these beers, I do, a lot! Rather my status as a hop head will just have to be put on hold until I get back to the UK in May (if the volcano stops by then).

I was reminded the other night though of why I do classify myself as a hop head. Valeir Extra.

Image from RateBeer, my own image to follow

On a recent visit to my regular Belgian beer bar the local called me over and told me she had a bottle for me. Something that she wasnt selling because it was only a sample from the brewery so she could decide if she wanted to stock it. I was quite excited, not because I was getting a little exclusive but because I know she thinks of me as a hop head and immediately I knew it might be something good. Anyway, she produced a bottle of Valeir Extra, this is a beer I have never seen or had before. In short its a Belgian IPA and it is probably the most hoppy Belgian I have had maybe aside from De Ranke XX Bitter. The two beers are hoppy in different ways though. Whilst De Ranke has a dry refreshing hop bite Valeir has a lovely tropical and fruity hop body. It reminded me of a certain little Scottish beer I have a thing for!

Proper tasting notes will follow, but I thought I better let you all know that I am still here and that normal posting will resume soon. There is after all a very large collection of great beer waiting for me at home.

Stay tuned folks.....

Brewery visit- Harviestoun

2010-03-31T18:45:00.000+01:00

It was the 17th of February and I didnt have many days left of my 9 day visit back home to Scotland. Along with seeing all the family and close friends it was important to get a few beer related things done too. Thats why on Monday the 15th of Feb I went to visit James and Martin up at BrewDog in Fraserburgh. Not content with just one brewery visit, on the 17th I set my heart on visiting two of Scotlands best breweries. I visited Williams Brothers which you can see here and also the wonderful Harviestoun.

I've been trying to make a visit to Harviestoun for a long time. For two years I lived just ten minutes away but yet I still never made it along. Ironic being that I now live about 1,200 miles away and I only visit now. I look forward to living ten minutes away again after september. Anyway, all that aside, the guys at Harviestoun were very welcoming. Stuart Cail, the head brewer, showed us around this small brewery tucked away at the bottom of the Ochil hills in central Scotland. The day we visited they were brewing bitter and twisted and the unmistakable smell of it was in the air. Bitter and Twisted has always been a session favourite of mine. Some people say its a little bit 'girly' but I like it and it was one of my first real session loves. Although I now might rather a glass of Schiehallion, I still remember my first pint of B&T like it was yesterday.

One of the things that I have always loved about Harviestoun is their ability to make consistantly good and flavoursome beer. Ok it might not have the highest ABV or the most hops but it has a real sense of drinkability and enjoyment about it. I have tried a lot of Harviestouns offerings, including their seasonal stuff like Mae Best and Mr Sno'balls and I havent really ever had one that has been off or on the turn. Thats usually because they dont last long enough.

Considering that we really just dropped by to take a few photographs and see the place we spent a long time in the brewery. We smelled hops, we tasted malt, we talked about the costs of brewing these days. All in all it was a great time and even although I'm sure Stuart was very busy that day, he took an hour or so out of his time to show us around and make us feel welcome. I picked up a few bottles and Stuart very kindly gave us a bottle of Ola Dubh 40 to take away and taste. I havent opened mine yet as I am in France and the bottle is in Scotland (there is a small problem there) but expect to see it on review anytime after May.

If you are in the Stirling area this place is a must visit Brewery. I will hopefully be persueding some of our new members at Stirling University Craft Beer Society that this is a good place for a visit after we start meeting in September. If you havent been along, give the guys a phone as Im sure they will be happy to show you about. If not, look out for Harviestoun specials at a pub or beer fest near you.

Task for today- Get students interested in craft beer

2010-03-24T17:24:00.001Z

When I woke up this morning I felt inspired. I have no idea why, I just did. Its been playing on my mind for a while; When I get back to University in September how can I get other students interested and involved in craft beer and real ale?

For some of you, you may think the question of how to get students interested in alcohol is a silly one. It is infact much harder than you think though when you consider the masses of drinks promotions that are thrown at students on every night of the week to attract the student pound. Afterall we have all seen the horrific binge drink statistics for 18-25 year olds (however wrong these are). The task though is to get young drinkers to switch from a pint of stella for £2.25 in the Union for a bottle of something made by craft brewers that tastes of something. Do not get me wrong, I do not want my horse to be too high. I know that some people simply prefer a pint of fizzy blandness. The same way that I might prefer a bottle of Lambic to a bottle of Mild. So the most important thing I need to remember when I start on my crusade is that not everyone will jump on the bandwagon.

The first step is to set up a craft beer society with the university officially. This is something I started today and we will be officially called 'Stirling University Craft Beer Society'. I have avoided the use of 'real ale society' for two reasons;
1) We have previously had a group called SURAS and they vanished off the face of the earth due to a mix of bad management and people moving on
and
2)Students invariably associate the term 'real ale' with socks and sandals, if you know what I mean

So I have now set the ball rolling and through a dedicated team of students at SUCBS I hope that we can get a few more people convinced that the best beer in the world is not infact a 'Danish' lager marketed in green. We plan to do brewery tours, beer swaps, craft beer campaigns (alongside national groups), beer tastings, pub tours and much more. Its my challenge for the next year at uni (along with my degree of course).

I will let you all know how it goes.

p.s if anyone has experience in this sort of thing leave a comment or email me at michael at heavyhops.com

pss We are looking for Brewery sponsorship/association if anyone is interested please email me at the above address

Meet the Beer Wench

2010-03-22T08:47:00.000Z

It's Monday and that can only mean one thing; its time for some unashamed self publicity. I have just been featured on a fellow beer bloggers site as part of her 'Meet the Blogger' series. Its been really interesting so far and I urge you to check it out. Click here to read my interview

Cheers

Its Christmas....

2010-03-19T20:58:00.000Z

Ok so maybe it isnt Christmas.....but It will be sooner than you know. Its been a while since I actually did any reviewing on the blog. There has been lots of articles about Brewdog, my trips for beer and some general discussion starters but a lack of actual reviews as of late, and for this I am sorry!

It was a cold night when I had this beer. I may have had it in the south of France but it certainly was not T-Shirt weather this night. I had been looking at it in the beer fridge of The Gambrinus bar in Avignon for weeks. I had heard rumors about this beer. Some said good things others were not so nice. I went into the tasting with a very open mind. Samichlaus, meaning Santa Claus in Swiss-German, is a 14% lager brewed once every year on the 6th of December and is allowed to age for 10 months before it is bottled. This is really a beer to age but the bottle I could get my hands on was only from 2008 but at least thats had a year and a bit of aging behind it.

It poured into the glass you can see above with absolutely no head. It was thick and a lovely hazelnut colour out of the bottle. The smell wasnt overpowering like I thought it might have been. There was a nice alcohol smell but nothing to destroy the senses. Straight away I could smell figs, over-ripe red fruit, a jam of sorts and something I described as 'sugared blackcurrants'.Ive never had a sugared blackcurrant, but Im sure thats how they smell.

Dont worry, I didnt drink two!

Taste- So finally after taking ages trying to pick out the smell of blackcurrants 'sugared' or not, I tasted this bad boy. In a word.......wow. I totlally wasnt what I was expecting and although my first words were ' it could do with aging more' I did really enjoy it. The taste of figs, candied apples, caramel and a sticky-sweet malt hit you first and then it gives way to a warming alcohol burn. Its not the smoothest high ABV beer I have tasted but I think thats something that would get better with age. It warmed really nicely and was overall a very pleasant drinking experience. It is definately a sipper, maybe round the fire with a good album on in the background. I really enjoyed it and I will revisit Samichlaus but I think in future I will maybe age the bottle a bit first.

Well there it is, the first review in a while. Not long left in France now and I will be back to bombard you with lots of videoblogs as there are boxes and boxes of stuff to try back at home. Hope you have a good beer in hand and enjoyed reading!

Best beer in the World.........NOT!

2010-03-15T10:02:00.000Z

This discussion has been going on for a VERY long time. Probably since they first started making beer. Which one of the thousands of choices out there is actually the 'best'. I would like to argue that there isnt one and even if there is, it certainly isnt what we all think it is. Recently a wonderful beer called Pliny the Younger from Russian River took over the title of 'Worlds best beer' on some beer review sites. Usually this place is reserved for Westvleteren 12 and on BeerAdvocate.com it still reigns as the best.

Ive had Westy and to be quite honest it was good. Very good indeed. Nevertheless, it just can't be the best beer in the world. Im not sure that anything can be really. Beer is such a fickle thing; mood, place, temperature, how its kept, glassware. So much can change the feel, taste and overall experience of a beer. I don't want to sound like Im reading off the back of a commercial lager bottle too much, but a lot of it does come down to the overall experience of the beer. Maybe for some people Westvleteren is the best they have ever had. Maybe thats because of its rarity, its reputation or maybe it is the taste. For a lot of people it could be that they try it in Belgium, near the brewery or in a backstreet pub somewhere. This of course will add to the whole experience and the allure of the beer. Drink a bottle of Westy in a Wetherspoons in the centre of a British city on a warm saturday afternoon with a game of football between Aberdeen and Dundee United and its unlikey to gain the same praise. I know that the same can be said for any drink but to me when it comes to beers like Westvleteren it might be more about the allure than anything.

Another point I have to make on 'the best beer in the world' is that surely we cannot group beer together when we talk about it being 'the best'. Sure I'd be happy enough with someone saying 'The best stout I have ever had was.........' but I just do not think you can really compare that with a Belgian quad or an American IPA. The different styles of beer are so very different and I dont think that it is really fair to try to compare them. If I were to try and compare Hardcore IPA from BrewDog and Rosé de Gambrinus from Cantillon I would be a nutter. They are just so different that I dont really think it does any beer a favour to try to put them in a table.

Sure Ive got a list of beers that I like and lots of them are totally different from the next. I honestly do not think I could put them into a top 10 list though, its just not fair on the brewers that work hard to make them so great. Fair enough if I only ever drink Lambic for the rest of my days but I can't see that happening anytime soon. I really wish that people would stop attaching so much importance to these lists. I see them for what they are, a little bit of fun. I honestly do not think anyone will ever make 'The Best Beer in the World'

My visit to Cantillon

2010-03-08T20:00:00.000Z

The other week I started to write a post about how my new 'thing' was lambic beers. I started to write and then I kept on removing and adding bits and now it seems as if the original feeling of the post is totally gone. I decided to scrap that post for the time being and then I remembered what it was that got me really excited about Lambic in the first place; The Cantillon Brewery.

Me peering into a very scary machine

Some of you may have read about my trip to Brussels. That seems like such a long time ago now. I did lots of great things there and I visited many great watering holes. One place sticks out for me during my trip though and that is the Cantillon Brewery. They claim to be the last traditional brewery in Brussels and they make the love it or hate it style of beer, Lambic. Personally I love Lambic beers and when I say Lambic I mean traditional stuff like Cantillon and not overly sweet Krieks that you can find in almost every French and Belgian bar and in many British supermarkets. Don't get me wrong, there are good krieks out there but probably not in your local Tesco.

Our trip was on foot from the centre of Brussels right out into what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We thought we had got lost but all the street signs still had the right names from my very sketchy written directions. We turned down Rue Ghuede and there it was, Cantillon.

Our welcome was short and sweet and we were let loose to have a look around the brewery on our own. We had chosen to go early and this seemed like it payed off as we were the only two people looking around the brewery at the time when we first arrived. We took our time and peered into every vessel and looked at every piece of machinery going. I dare say we may have even tasted some malt (just dont tell the brewer). It was great to see inside a live working Lambic brewery. Ive seen quite a few 'regular' breweries now but this was the first Lambic one I have seen. Everything was so natural, from the cobwebs that hung from the walls to the Cantillon cat that one day may be as famous as the dog from BrewDog. A little note about the cat, if you do see the cat on your travels around the brewery it is nowhere near as friendly as it looks, just ask my mate.

Im sure you all know how Lambic is made so there is no point in launching off into a discussion about that but it is fair to say that the whole self guided tour, for a mere €5 was well worth it. At the end of the tour and after having looked at every corner of the brewery we were rewarded with two tasters of the beer that they make. On the day we were there it was their 100% Bio Lambic and then a choice of either Cherry or Raspberry. Natually there being two of us we had one of each fruit beer and swapped to compare. I think Raspberry wins but thats because Im a bit sour that way.

At the end of the tour we bumped into some fellow beer tourists from St Albans CAMRA. Oh joy I thought! They turned out to be very nice guys and we shared a bottle of Saint Lamvinus between the four of us. This lambic is my idea of heaven as it mashes my two favourite drinks, beer and wine. Made with Merlot and Cabernet Franc grapes it is the perfect blend of beer and wine (I could work in marketing, that honestly did not come from the bottle). After that bottle we all toddled off on our own seperate ways. They were in search of more Lambic and we were in search of Westvleteren (more about that later in the week).

If you havent been to visit Cantillon I really recommend it. We had a great time. Ive heard that the busier it is the less fun the tour actually is, so maybe visiting off season is a good idea. Cantillon has really sparked my interest in a style that I never even dreamed that I would like and I would really love to see a UK brewery try their hand at making a Lambic. Go on prove those Belgians that say 'it can only be made in one area' wrong. I want to see a bastardised UK lambic. Anyone else?

Williams Brothers tour

2010-03-02T15:13:00.001Z

Video from my trip to Williams Brothers. Its a bit noisy but thats how Breweries work. Enjoy.

VBlog 13- Nanny State

2010-02-25T19:45:00.002Z

Here is a joint VBlog for 2010 Nanny State. Recorded the day after the release of Sink the Bismarck

Sink the Bismarck! Don't be fooled by imitations

2010-02-16T13:13:00.003Z

Today (or rather tomorrow if Aunty Beeb hadnt gotten so excited) controversial Scottish brewery Brewdog make history once again with the release of the worlds strongest beer. Sink the Bismarck is 41% and £40 a bottle, and the price tag already seems to be putting some fellow bloggers off the trail.

It has taken a while to make and is designed to knock the smile of the face of the silly brewer at Schorschbraeu who brewed a 39.44% beer which knocked Brewdogs TNP off the top spot. This is all about a bit of fun, even reading the name Sink the Bismarck you know that its all a bit tongue in cheek. Brewdog are all about good beer and although some people are already point blank refusing to part with cash for this 41% IPA, I beg you to change your mind.....

Heres why-

Yesterday I made a little trip to see the boys up in Fraserburgh, the reasons why will all be revealed soon. After entering through the front door and being greeted by the head brewer, I was ushered through to meet James who was dressed like this.....

Photo from Brewdog ©

Its at this point where James must have thought 'we have bottles of Sink the Bismarck all over the place and I am dressed like a fool, what can I say?' After swearing a secrecy oath, all was revealed. I felt myself smiling from ear to ear. Mainly at the thought of the angry german brewers at Schorschbraeu who will now have to go back and try again. We talked for a while and after trying another top secret brew from the tanks James disapeared with my tasting glass and came back with a very interesting looking beer.

It was Sink the Bismarck. It sat like a spirt in the glass, golden and thick with absolutely no head at all and fantastic spirit legs. I have to point out at this stage that I had it before it was carbonated as I believe its going to get a light carbonation before bottling. It smelled wonderful, bitter and slightly alcoholic (oh the irony!?!). How did it taste......

Simply wonderful. There was no other first thought that popped into my head. Its very difficult to get really passionate about a beer when the two men who make it happen are sitting an arms length away from you but I just wanted to get up and dance about the room. It was perfect, bitter concentration with a healty dose of malt, sweetness and alcohol kick. THIS DOES NOT FEEL LIKE 41%.Its oh so very hoppy and as the title of the blog suggests, I like that! As much as I the love the pengiun, the Bismarck plows through the ice where the pengiuns struggle and slide about. This blows the penguin to Africa...who knows maybe even further.

I ask people to stop talking about the age old Brewdog related question of publicity or good beer and actually get your hands on a bottle of this. If you cant justify buying one yourself, hey, chip in with half of your street. It is worth it I promise. Also this beer isnt mildly xenophobic or racist, its simply a bit of fun. If you can't laugh at it, dont buy it and go and watch a Michael McIntyre DVD or something. Dont start flinging up bits of wikipedia past, just accept it for what it is.

I think its great and I look forward to welcoming a little Bismarck into my cellar. Now whats next?.........

P.s Dont mention the war....some beer bloggers don't like it

Sink the Bismarck from BrewDog on Vimeo.

P.s.s This is not an advert for Brewdog no matter how much it seems like one!

Beer Holiday 1- Brussels

2010-02-13T13:41:00.001Z

If you follow the tweets or read the blog regularly you will know that I've just been to Brussels. I make no effort to hide my love for Belgian beer and although not every Belgian is going to fit into my favourite aggressive hoppy style, they are consistant if nothing else. This is really the first beer pilgramige I've done. I've visited my favourite wine regions but never travelled a lot for beer. This is something that since my trip to Brussels will change. The trip was worth every single minute and every single euro.

The European Parliament

I travelled up from the south of France to meet another beer geek friend, David Bald. We met in the train station on the Friday and the rest is history. I learned so much in my weekend. My main realisation has been that in future I'm going to stop drinking mass marketed rubbish totally. I will from now on be having good and tasty alcohol or no alcohol at all. As a student this is something that prior to now I've never adhered to. Don't get me wrong that doesn't mean that I will only drink 'expensive' or 'fancy' drinks but there are many pints that are now off limits (except in dire straits). This decision has mainly come from the sensory experience that I have in Brussels. I just think if its not good then whats the point really?

Me enjoying a non-Belgian in the Hoppy Loft

We visited many great places during the course of our weekend there. I had been given many places that we simply 'had' to visit, so we did!

Day 1- We met in Brussels Midi station just after 4pm. We found our hotel after fighting our way on the metro and we were pleasantly surprised as to how central we were. I was a little apprehensive as to what we were going to find after the views of an industrial wasteground on the way into Brussels on the train. Nevertheless the centre of Brussels itself was great. First stop was food, after 5 hours on a train with only pringles and a banana, I was a bit hungry! We decided to play it safe on our first night. I had detailed directions to Café Delirium, which although a tourist trap, was great and very close to us. The first drink in Belgium......Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA. Ooops! Sacrilege! That night went well, quiet really as we were both tired after travelling and had a terrible dinner that evening. The highlight of the evening though was our first vist to the Hoppy Loft in Delirium and mainly our first visit to Moeder Lambic. The most memorable part of this evening was ordering my travelling companion an apple juice off the menu even although I speak French, woops the alcohol must have started to set in!

Deliriums Hoppy Loft- Full of American and Belgian Hoppy goodness

Day 2- It stated early. Too early. We visited Cantillon Lambic brewery in the morning which I am going to write a separate blog for as the visit was so good. We went from there on search of the 'holy grail' and we almost succeeded. At Beer mania in a shady part of town we found Westvleteren 8, which it seems is not actually that hard to come by. It was great but it still left me yearning to try its big sister (as wrong as that sounds). For those of you reading the tweets you may have noticed the tweet ' I seem to have walked into the past' this was in reference to the lovely place we chose to eat that afternoon. First clue that it was to be a bad idea, we were the only people there! We both ordered the same, a Grimbergen Brune and the lasagne. The lasagne was made with ham rather than beef mince, need I say any more about our walk into the 80's. We went from there to A la Mort Subite and it was a refreshing change. Busy, great beer on every table, non matching tables and decor, Bliss. I had their white lambic which was refreshing and well needed after the Grimbergen. The rest of the afternoon is a bit hazy to be honest. Back to Delirium? To Moeder Lambic? Tick, Tick.

Then we made our way to find another beer geek (I hope she doesnt mind) @ tania_nexust. She was saving us a seat in La Porte Noire, which I'm sure she immediately regretted when we poured ourselves through the door. I ordered a Duvel Green?!? Sorry come again?!?! And David made a slight faux pas by ordering a 10% beer in a pint glass. No wonder we had some issues getting back to the hotel. However, drinks aside meeting Tania was great and I hope to bump into her again on a twissup somewhere along the line.

Day 3- My Birthday- Waking up with some hesitance we decided that sunday would be a calm day. What a lie that was. We did a lot of walking and some drinking too. Orval cheese and some Orvals, even if my one year aged bottle wasnt quite a year aged (thanks Delirium). We ended off our time in Belgium with a visit to a strange museum bar near our hotel, which was very atmospheric and arsty and then our last drinks were...............

Cocktails. Yes thats right! Im ashamed but they were girly mixed drinks. Sometimes too much good beer is just too much of a good thing.

Overall my trip to Belgium was fantastic. I tried so many great Belgian beers and even lots of American stuff too. Westvleteren, St Bernardus, Westmalle, Orval, Flying Dog, Great Divide, Cantillon, Mort Subite, Rochefort......the list goes on and on. We made a pact that we would both order two different beers everytime at the bar so we could try as much as possible and I think minus our Grimbergens and our comparing aged Orval, we did it. If you havent been to Brussels, or in fact Belgium, you must go! I had the time of my life, learning about beer and my tastes all the way. I say thanks to people for reading my blogs and tweets. Thanks to Belgium for allowing two Scotsmen into the country for a weekend. Thanks to Tania for putting up with two babbling Scotsmen and finally thanks to my fellow Scot, David Bald for coming along on our journey! Cheers everyone

This is David before the booze kicked in!

This is only the start

2010-02-01T11:55:00.003Z

Ive been feeling melancholic recently and thats nothing to do with my unhealthy passion for Morrissey and The Smiths (for once). However I also find myself looking back at the journey this little hobby has taken. In fact its no longer a little hobby for me. This beer malarkey has already taken over. Mark Dredge from Pencil and Spoon warned me about this and he was right. Whilst I know I will never be able to have the levels of dedication to this blog that Mark does to his, I have still come to realise that craft beer is a passion which slowly but surely takes over day to day life and thoughts.You may have noticed today the site became a .com and although I still use blogspot to post etc, Im hoping to attract some more traffic this way.

I now have confirmation of my first beer related job (more details to follow when Its all in black and white). Its fair to say though that I may soon be fighting off 'the peguins'. I will also be back in the UK in a week and I am going to use my 10 days in Scotland and my 4 in London to full advantage. Mainly by trying as many new and different beers as possible. Top of my list is the Thornbridge offerings that I have waiting at home and also the chance to finally try some Jaipur on tap. I am also trying to arrange a little viewing at Williams Brothers, Harviestoun and Tryst when I am back so that I can do some virtual tour style blogs (how posh!) Ive just given lots away now, woops.

At the forefront of my thoughts though is still my trip to Belguim and my very close proximity to most of the great beer bars. Its fair to say that this blogpost has been a little bit rushed and its a little bit all over the place. Bits of news here, bits of new there. Nevertheless, I think it shows my passion for the world of beer, or at least thats my excuse. I am just about to turn that scary age, yes 20! And I think its fair to say that my interest in beer is a little bit 'kid in a sweetshop' at the moment. I am hoping that time and experience will help focus the content of this blog. Thanks to everyone who has been reading in the early stages and for putting up with my, often rambling posts.

If anyone is in or near London from the 19th of Feb give me a shout and the first pint is on me.

Slainte

Next stop Brussels

2010-01-28T20:09:00.002Z

Well this time in a week I will be as high as a kite. The bag shall be packed and I will be thinking about the day ahead. Brussels is the destination and it will be the first of three for my month off in February. Im headed there with fellow beer geek David Bald and Im sure that Brussels wont know whats hit it with two Scotsmen in town.

We have been planning and have several reccomendations already but this is a cry to anyone who has spent any time in Brussels before.....anywhere we should definately include or avoid? I speak French so I am not too bothered if they are a little off the beaten track, just so long as they are good.

I am just starting to get into Lambics so I am hoping that I can spend some time getting to know them a little better when I am there. It is also my Birthday on the 7th so I am hoping to do/drink something a little special for that.

Any suggestions would be great guys. Cheers.

Videoblog 12

2010-01-19T22:14:00.001Z

Recorded very soon after No 11, or at least before the booze set in

Videoblog 11

2010-01-19T19:40:00.000Z

The bottles are weighing me down

2010-01-19T15:14:00.001Z

Rather than a real blog post like my last rather controversial post about terroir this is a general question to other bloggers out there to see if I have actually gone mad. Ive started to keep to empty bottles of what I've been drinking!

This is a very small amount of 3 months in France

Ive always been a collector of 'excellent' bottles though. For example, when I finished Brewdog Atlantic IPA or Mikkeller Black I decided to keep the bottles as they would not only look good but remind me of when I drank them. The problem seems to be that I now seems to be keeping EVERYTHING I drink (with the exception of doubles or really bad beers). I know I've probably lost some of you already. You think why can I not just remember them in my head or in a review without actually keeping the bottles. The truth is, I kinda like to see the bottles now and again. If Ive had a particularly crap day or I'm drinking a howler of a beer they help to keep the faith that its not all bad. Bottles like Atlantic IPA look good too, and quite frankly at £9 a 330ml I want something to show for it apart from memories.

See even some Brewdog snuck in my suitcase to France

Don't get me wrong, I don't just finish the bottles and let them stack up. They are washed, dried and if I remember to keep the cap, I recap them too. I realise that my collection in France will have to go soon, which I'm quite sad about. Nevertheless, collection at home is slowly growing too and I have no plans to chuck them soon.

Basically the whole point of this post is for someone, anyone, to tell me they do the same......PLEASE! Im not mad. Honest!

Terroir for beer?

2010-01-14T23:24:00.000Z

Its no secret that I like beer but one of my other big passions is wine and whilst I have no interest in persuing a wine writing career, there is one aspect of wine which I believe can be transfered onto beer also. Terroir ,pronounced: [tɛʁwaʁ]. Terroir is an extremely important concept when it comes to wine, especially in France where every wine maker has this word on his lips at most times of the day: James May once famously said that if terroir were to be entered into the French-English dictionary it should read 'French- Terroir, English- Cobblers'.

In fact though the term terroir is used to describe the special characteristics that certain factors in production bestow upon the wine, or in this case beer. Some of these factors may be the angle at which the vines face the sun, the type of soil, general weather conditions or farming techniques. Nevertheless I would argue that the concept of terroir can also be applied to beer.

Think about the amount of very similar beers that you can find from a lot of the great micro's that we have dotted around our country. Some of these session beers that are made by the micro's are infact being replicated by many other small breweries the length and breadth of the country, the difference? Terroir! For example I have tried many beers very similar to Harviestouns Bitter and Twisted, and infact I know many of them use the same malt and hop combinations. However, because Harviestoun use very pure central Scottish water and they make it in their own way and in their own brewery, it tastes MUCH better. The same principle can be used when you think about beers that are brewed under license. The brewers can try as much as they can to replicate the original taste, but 9 times out of 10 it just isn't the same.That is why I am a little wary of Stone Brewing Co's idea of brewing in Europe. If they can manage to create the same great Stone taste that I love, then great, if not I would rather pay the extra money and have the stuff made in the USA.

So there are many factors which can effect the terroir of a beer. Water quality, quality malt and hops, the brewer and the brewing environment to name a few. One of the best examples of this that I can think of is Brewdogs Atlantic IPA. I am not sure whether I have ever had a beer with such a great strength of terroir.

This beer was aged like the traditional IPA's; at sea. 8 barrels were loaded onto the North Atlantic fishing trawler where Brewdog co-founder James Watt spends a month at a time on. The 8 barrels did not survive though and only 7 made it out into the North Atlantic. 2 months later and Atlantic IPA was ready for the bottling line. I can quite honestly say that drinking Atlantic IPA was a journey, I could litterally taste the salt as I guzzled the bottle. Although it wasnt the best beer I had in 2009, I can probably say that it was the one with the greatest sense of time and place. Many people are still going to argue that this notion of terroir is in fact a lot of old cobblers. It genuinely isnt though. There is a reason why there can be a £100+ price difference between bottles of wine that are grown in adjoining vineyards and it all boils down to this concept of terroir. The product, whether it be beer or wine, adopts heaps of different characteristics from all the different factors it is subjected to. It doesnt matter if this is as subtle as drawing the water from a different county to make it or as extreme as sending it to sea for 2 months, it all makes a difference.

As I argued above, this is why I worry about breweries such as Stone changing their game plan too much. Geography is the most important issue when it comes to terroir and I worry that they may not be able to recreate some of that magic that they previously have done. Im sure they will do well though, even if their beers do not have quite the sense of place they once had. I think place is everything though and I firmly believe that the concept of terroir is a very important one for the beer industry to think about. Maybe thats just because Im a converted wine ponce! Lecture over!

The TNP Videoblog has arrived!

2010-01-07T21:40:00.001Z

Its taken my sanity, but it did upload!

Whats in store for 2010?

2010-01-07T15:34:00.004Z

I realise this is quite a late look back at the year past and ahead to this one and Im sorry for that! To be honest, Ive been travelling back to France and settling back in and just didnt get around to it till now!

Anyway 2009 was a great year of beer for me. 2009 was really the year that I can say I 'got into' beer. Im still a young drinker and I only turned 'legal' in 2008, so 2009 for me was a real year of taste discovery. That discovery ranged from generally trying beers to find out what I liked and what I didnt to making a 320 mile round car journey to see the BrewDog brewery in the North of the place I call home (thats Scotland by the way!!). I think I tried a lot in 2009, from all corners of the globe, some close, some definately not as close.

To have thought 3 years ago that I would be sitting with an American beer that wasnt some mass marketed rubbish in hand would have been crazy. I suppose it shows how quickly the craft beer bug can actually take over. I didnt even drink really before I turned 18 and now only two years later I can pick out flavours, scents and sometimes hop varieties . I always thought beer was 'just a drink', something to wash away a bad day with. How wrong I was!

Beer means so much to me now. I realise that not all of my friends and the people around me understand this (you all just think I like a good drink, which isnt that far off the mark) but genuinely beer has become such a huge thing for me. Bests of 2009, well I named a lot of those in the previous golden pint awards post but if you ask me to name drop; BrewDog, Mikkeller, Stone, Trappistes Rochefort and Westmalle have all been tried and tested with thumbs up in 2009. I realise I am making sweeping generalisations and just naming breweries and no specific beers, but thats what my reviews are for!

Hopes for 2010? Well I have a box of Thornbridge beers to try and I cant wait. Marble is another that is right up there on my must do list. I am also making a trip to Belgium this Feb and I will obviously be making a little search for the holy grail, need I say more? Obviously I will be trying lots of other fantatic Belgian beers there too so I am looking forward to this. Also on my way back to France in mid/late Feb I will be making a stop in London for a few days and hope to check out the much hyped bars I have heard of; The Rake, The White Horse etc. Anyone who lives around the area and would be willing to show me the ropes would be much appriciated (leave comments if you think you can help, or just want a piss up in London). Im back to Scotland in late April and I think I may have something very exciting lined up for the summer, all Im saying right now is that I think I may have a much better understanding of beer when Im done! After that? Who knows? Back to the grind at Uni I suppose, fitting in as many beer trips and tastings in between work.

Finally though, all I can ask for in 2010 is to try as many new beers and breweries as possible. Broadening my horizons has been the challenge for 2009 and I think Ive done it, so I want to make them even broader in 2010. The best of health and happiness to all the readers of the blog, thanks for your support in the first few months of this blog. Its nice to know people are reading! Cheers

M

Happy Brewdog Xmas!

2009-12-27T12:07:00.000Z

I hope everyone had an excessive Christmas. I know I did! Theres nothing better than having permission to kick back for one day of the year and eat and drink to your hearts content. This year rather unintentionally I seemed to have a bit of a Brewdog Christmas season! Although I will also give a shout out to all of the other excellent beers I had to.

I came back from France to find three lovely boxes of beer for me to enjoy over the Xmas season, one from the boys at Brewdog, one from Beers of Europe and one from Beer Merchants too! I shall start with my Brewdog box- 6 Bottles of 5am Saint and a very cold Penguin. From BoE and Beer Merchants there was a mix including some more Brewdog- Paradox and Nanny State, and a general mix from Mikkeller, Flying Dog, Stone and many more.

Ive not hoovered them all away yet (although I am trying), but I can quite honestly say that so far there was only one I didnt really like- Its Alight by Mikkeller. Just wasnt to my tastes, I described it in my tasting book as 'funky'. I obviously don't like funk! There have been a few that I have really liked so far though- Oaked Arrogant Bastard from Stone and Beer Geek Breakfast from Mikkeller were excellent. One that really surprised me though was Nanny State.

Photo copyright BrewDog.com

Lots of people are very divided on this beer. I thought it was really good though. My tasting notes got a little bit arty, I called it 'modulated'. By this I meant that the taste changed in my mouth very agressively and it had a very distinct taste. One minute it was calm, the next it was as though someone was rubbing my mouth with hops, there was a nice calm sweetness and then finally another big hoppy spike of an aftertaste. It was like a piece of 80's synth pop, 'modulated'. I think I need to lie down!

Honestly though, this has been one of the biggest surprises of the festive season for me. I wasnt expecting it to be great as I have heard lots of people refering to it as a publicity stunt. Quite frankly I do not care if it was; I liked it! I liked it alot!

Merry Christmas and all the best for 2010. More festive beer (rants) blogs to come in the next few days!

Videoblog 9 - Augustijn

2009-12-13T20:30:00.000Z

Check out the confused face at the start as I was messing about with YouTube uploader. Oops

Beer and the Internet- A match made in heaven or hell?

2009-12-13T19:38:00.000Z

Without doubt the internet has made the world a smaller place. This is also true when it comes to the beer industry. I have been able to try beers that I would never have even heard of nevermind tried.

Nevertheless the internet can have a negative effect on beer too. Recently I have had first hand experience of negative posts on sites like Beeradvocate.com. Whilst I realise that the world cannot be positive all the time, in my opinion it is better to offer constructive critisism or say nothing at all really. Ive seen lots of comments such as 'I do not like this beer or the people who make it', this just winds me up. Personally I would rather see comments like' I thought it was a little on the peppery side' or 'I thought the alcohol was a little too much' . At least this way brewers can take on board what people like and what they do not like. It is much more difficult for them to do this when people just say 'I dont like this beer'.

It is very easy to sit behind a keyboard and type out harsh and hateful comments. It is however much more contructive to give some real feedback rather than just ranting. I admit I do not spend a great deal of time on sites like Beer Advocate as I tend to find, like YouTube, they attract people who are just out to bitch about things and not to engage in a constructive conversation.

Slanging matches do not help anyone and in fact usually make the poster look a bit of an amature. I therefore do not know whether it is best to encourage fellow bloggers to get on Beeradvocate.com and raise the standard of disucussuion or tell them to stay away and leave them to it! Any thoughts?

The Golden Pint Awards- My results

2009-12-11T11:01:00.000Z

Here are my votes for the first Golden Pint Awards. These have been started by three great bloggers and are an attempt to look back at the best things of 2009!

Best UK Draught Beer- BrewDog Zeitgeist
Best UK Bottled Beer- BrewDog/Stone Bashah
Best Overseas Draught Beer- Pauwel Kwak
Best Overseas Bottled Beer- Rochefort 8
Best Overall Beer- Rochefort 8
Best Pumpclip or label- Delirium Tremens
Best UK Brewery- BrewDog
Best Overseas Brewery- Mikkeller
Pub/Bar of the Year- Holyrood 9a, Edinburgh
Beer Festival of the Year- GBBF
Supermarket of the Year- Sainsburys
Independent Retailer of the Year- Cornelius Beers and Wines, Edinburgh
Online Retailer of the Year- BeerMerchants.com
Best Beer Book- Hops and Glory
Best Beer Blog- Pencil and Spoon
Best Beer Twitterer- Mark Dredge
Best Online Interactive Brewery Presence- Brewdog
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year- Rochefort and Corsendonk
Open Category: You Choose- Most in depth and intersting reviews- www.beerreviews.co.uk
Next Year I’d Most Like To… Visit London finally so I can visit all the great beer bars!

There are my results in no particular order, well actually the order Mark Dredge wrote the questions in! Hope none of you disagree too much. I was slightly stuck for some of them as I have spent a lot of this year out of the country!

When is 'too much' really too much?

2009-12-09T10:34:00.000Z

I have been thinking a lot about the brewing industry recently and the direction in which it and modern day drinkers are going in. Everything seems like it is constantly pushing the boundaries all the time. Whether it be the 30 year old who should know better in the pub boasting about having been on an 18 pint bender the previous weekend or whether it be a 27% strength beer, everything seems to be getting more extreme. We like our cars extreme, our sports extreme, but the question remains: do we really need our drinks industry to be extreme?

My answer.......Yes, I think we do. We have to remember the good old phrase of days gone past and that is- Everything has a time and a place. There are plenty cases which I can recall (or not) heading out with a friend on a weekday afternoon after lectures had finished for the day and sinking a good 6 pints of Ossian, Peters Well or Schiehallion before dinner. Those day were great, equally like taking a lot of time over a complex and strong bottle of beer is great. The problem is, the way people view it! We have to stop pandering to the political correctness that has been created in our society. Don't get me wrong......alcohol should ultimately be respected, that is what this blog is all about. Nevertheless alcohol should also be enjoyed and this is something that our government do not seem to understand.

We have a problem with binge drinking right? Well yes we do, but the stats and figures regularly pulled up are really off the mark because they tend to regard someone who has gone down his local boozer for a couple after work as a 'binge drinker'. We all know that is just plain wrong. Everyone knows their limits and it is their responsability as an adult drinker to stick to these. We all know that we have limits when we need to go to the loo, but you rarely see someone standing around excusing themselves because they pushed this limit. Head into any city centre on a saturday night though and you will find someone slumped beside a bin saying 'im ssoory, it wiz that last glass of wine'.

We need to remember how special alcohol is. Thats why I tend to drink craft beer or small batch spirits because when you are drinking them, they command respect. I think about the work that has gone into producing the beer and even if im drinking a pint of BrewDog in a pub in Edinburgh, I still go back to my visit to the brewery. Thats what it should really be all about.

Back to the question though.......when is too much really too much? I think it is really everyones own choice ultimately. There can be all the guidelines and alcohol tracking apps that you want, but it will not stop people from enjoying themselves. Thats what alcohol is ultimately about....enjoyment,pleasure and socialising. We need to stop thinking about alcohol as a taboo because frankly it just encourages those who want to abuse it to do so. Good beer needs respect whether it is drunk in a litre or 330ml. All I ask is just dont be the person sitting beside the bin!

Videoblog 8- Rochefort 10

2009-12-02T20:06:00.000Z

Yes....I am a beer ponce

2009-11-30T21:42:00.000Z

Ok so I own several different shaped glasses for beer. People are always telling me I talk to much about beer. Or that I use silly words when I describe it, like "mouthfeel" or recently the word "snifter" has produced much hilarity here in Avignon. But the truth is....I am a beer ponce. Do not get me wrong I am just as likely to be drinking a pint of the famous Irish black stuff as anybody. Mainly because funds and availability dont always allow me to order a 37.5cl bottle of Mikkeller Black, as much as that would rock!

I smell my beer....always. No matter whether it is either one of the beers mentioned above. I also taste my beer with a face that looks like I am debating lifes complexities in my own mind for nobody else to hear. Then I will make a random noise and say a random word like...farmyard....ester....phenolic or sometimes YUCK!

I dont expect everyone to understand. I know that the people who are being kind enough to read these rants....I mean blogs are split pretty much 50-50 between people who get what I am saying and people who think I am a pompous arsehole with nothing better to do than constantly update the world on what beer I am drinking. If the truth be known.....its a little bit of both really. If you dont really get what I am saying....try to stick around.....ask me to try some good beer....ask me to recommend one. I do not mind! Now that I am a fully fledged and self admitting beer ponce, I am happy to help.

There is so much to beer than any other drink. Yes even wine! Afterall you can really only make a wine from different types and blends of grapes. Beer on the other hand is a whole different ball game. Spices, fruit, plants....you name it someone has probably tried making it! However you feel about beer, please just try not to drink too much of the crap stuff. I on the odd occassion do let my ever so holy crown slip too, last night I had a can of Heineken because I couldnt bear to put another expensive bottle in the fridge. I am sorry beer world! I do make an effort though to drink decent and honestly made beer as much as possible though (that doesnt always mean expensive). Please just for me....the next time you are out and have the choice between something made by a local company just down the road and a huge global empire....choose the local stuff!

Cheers!

Holidays are coming.....

2009-11-29T22:12:00.000Z

Ok so here it comes...probably my least prefered holiday of the year- Christmas. I have various reasons for not being a fan, mainly the idea of buying and receiving gifts for/from people you dont really see for the rest of the year and dont really care whether you do or not! Call me cynical.......

Evil Santa!

I do however like some things about Christmas. I like the idea of having the people you want to be with close to you around the table on that special day. I love that people (including myself this year) make the effort of travelling hundreds of miles to be with each other for one special day. Ok now I feel a bit sentimental. This holiday season I am going to be spending it with the people I want to be with; Christmas day with my parents (saying a little thanks that my dad has recovered from his operation) and I will be spending Hogmanay with my parents, Mr Bald and all the locals from the village pub.

Another thing I like about Xmas though is the spicy, thick, dark beers that a lot of Breweries start to produce around about now. I have had my first Xmas beer already this year, Delirium Noel, and although nowhere near as good as the original it is still an excellent beer and really warms you up on a cold night. Thats what its really all about...a Christmas beer doesnt really need to be the best beer in the world. It needs to be a little bready, taste a little spicy, warm you up and have a good dose of alcohol. Thats exactly what Delirium Noel was.

For me the all important decision of what beer to have on Xmas day with my meal only really had one answer. I hate turkey (another reason I do not like Xmas) so this year we are having Venison with a redcurrant jus. I will pair this with a big beer....one Ive been waiting to try for ages. Tokyo* by Brewdog! At 18.2% its going to match really well with the meat. I cant wait!

Whatever you decide to do this year and whatever you drink...I hope its a good one. If you have the time pop your favourite Xmas beer in the comments box...In the meantime keep watching the videoblogs and I will be back very soon with another blog! Cheers

Videoblog 7- Dogma video review

2009-11-29T20:36:00.000Z

Dogma from Brewdog. Cracking beer....So fresh and complex. If you havent tried it....you must!

Videoblog 6! TNP and Rochefort 8. It cuts off I know!

2009-11-29T19:50:00.002Z

I realise it cuts off early....this was the third take and I wasnt doing a fourth!

The Worlds Strongest Beer

2009-11-26T12:42:00.001Z

I have just done something naughty! No I didnt steal anything or flash at someone in the street. I bought the latest beer from the boys and pooches at BrewDog; Tactical Nuclear Penguin!

Billed as an Uber-Imperial Stout it sits at 32%

It beats the current record of 31% ABV held by the German brewer Schorschbraer. All talk of records aside I cant really make up my mind on this one. On the one hand a lot of people out there are already slagging the boys off saying that it is just about publicity. I cant however help thinking that there are much easier ways to get publicity than to age a beer for 16 months in casks, 8 in Isle of Arran and 8 in Islay. They then took it to an ice cream factory and froze it to get a higher alcohol content in the finished product This does seem like an awful lot of work just to shift a few more bottles of your standard beer.

I am going to ignore the people who say this is all about publicity. If they really wanted publicity they wouldnt have really bothered giving this beer all the love and attention it has been given. Plus they did wear penguin suits to launch it, thats the publicity bit done, its not to do with the strength of the beer at all.

Im not sure when I will be cracking my bottle open. It sure as hell will be for a special day, probably with my Dad. I hope it will be a cracking beer, it is afterall the most expensive ive ever purchased @ £30 for 330ml. It is also made by a brewery which I do have a huge soft spot for! As Brewdog say themselves: its meant to be enjoyed responsibly, and I will. This beer isnt about publicity or about trying to beat records really, it is just about pushing the boundarys. Its something that people do not do enough of in life. I say...grab the dog by the ears (please dont actually do this, Bracken would be most displeased) and buy a bottle. It is afterall a boundary pushing beer from a boundary pushing brewery.

Videoblog 5- Jean Balthazar

2009-11-25T17:52:00.002Z

Mixed reviews of Brasserie Uberach's Jean Balthazar, also forgot to mention the shed loads of coffee malt in this one

Videoblog 4- Karmeliet

2009-11-23T21:22:00.000Z

Review for Tripel Karmeliet. I seem to be slurring my words! I promised ive only have one beer before this one!

Videoblog 3- Duvel Gefiltered

2009-11-23T20:34:00.000Z

I wasnt quite convinced the further I got down this beer. Its good but its no Duvel

Are drinkers getting younger?

2009-11-22T21:43:00.000Z

This article isnt some sort of reflection on the age of people standing on our street corners with bottles of WKD and Stella but it started when a good friend of mine made reference to the fact that the ale industry is marketing its self toward an increasingly "younger" market. The friend in question, David Bald, is like me, an ale drinker under the age of 30. A good bit under the age of 30 I may add, before he disowns me!

Mr Bald in The Standing Order in Edinburgh

I do believe that the ale inustry is getting younger though. Go into any Edinburgh real ale pub on any day of the week and you will be sure to find plenty younger drinkers ordering pints of Peters Well, Green King and Dark Isle. Thats only part of the younger trend though. Its all fair and well that younger drinkers are becoming more educated about alcohol but there is also a growing trend in the UK to market ale towards younger drinkers too.

I have one word (well stricly two words)- BrewDog! I realise that I have already posted about them before but I truely have them to be greatful to. If I hadnt tried that bottle of Trashy Blonde at the age of 18, I dont think I would be ordering bottles from here, there and everywhere now. I would more than likely be stuck drinking pints of Guinness and would never know the world of choice that was available to me. I think it is important for the industry in general that companies such as Brewdog are around. Most of my university friends also made the introduction into the world of ale through BrewDog, including Mr Bald whom I already mentioned.

Without a shadow of a doubt it was originally because the bottle design and the wording on the bottles promised something which was different and interesting. The difference between Brewdog and any old other brewery is that they deliver on the marketing. Although I do classify Punk I.P.A as one of my regular session beers, it is not session in the same way that a pint of Teltleys is a session beer.....one actually tastes of something.

But back to the idea of the industry attracting younger drinkers. I know some people are going to be up in arms and saying that alcohol should be something which is predominantly marketed to middle aged people so as not to encourage under-agers. I think that argument is a lot of nonsense! In fact it sounds like it was dreamt up by the Portman Group (more posts to come about them). It is rubbish to think that if you make all alcohol advertising seem like it is for older drinkers that this will deter under aged drinking. I say lets grab the bull by the horns and actually encourage our 18 and 19 year olds to switch from that bland pint of mass produced rubbish and have a pint of sometime that tastes of something, whether it is made by Brewdog or not.

The Lord of Darkness

I realise that one of the main problems in this is the practical aspect. ie. most pubs have a mass marketed lager on tap but do not have Stone Arrogant Bastard on cask. That is changing though, and so is the selection available in the supermarkets. It is getting better for real beer drinkers and I believe the young market is a heavy player in this. I say, lets not alienate our young drinkers, lets give them some knowledge and experience and make them see that there is more to life than a cheap pint of Stella. Afterall we have a lot to thank them for.....they will ensure that the beer market established now will grow forever and knock out the big players.

Video Blog 2.5! Grr

2009-11-22T20:44:00.000Z

The part of the Videoblog that YouTube cut off

Videoblog 2- Corsendonk- Mispronunciation of the word Dubbel!

2009-11-22T20:32:00.000Z

Watch out for the interesting pronunciation of the word Dubbel! I speak French too!

Videoblog 1- Gulden Draak

2009-11-22T19:11:00.000Z

Todays beer trip........

2009-11-21T17:16:00.001Z

Today I visited a lovely little beer shop just outside of Avignon, France (I am based here at the moment until April, with a few visits back home). More importantly this beer shop claims to have over 400+ beers in stock, although I thought it was maybe slightly less, but who am I to argue!

Aux 2 Chopes is on the outskirts of town

Anyway the shop was well layed out and I managed to find a few nice little bottles. The staff were a little rushed off their feet by the looks of things as they didnt really bother to speak much etc, but I suppose most beer shoppers just want to be left alone to make a decision by themselves. The shop was mostly filled with Belgian and French beers (pretty much to be expected in the South of France). Although there were a few international examples, but none of these really struck me that much.

So after much deliberation I left with only 12 bottles, as the owner told me that he is going to be at the Xmas market in a few weeks (I live much closer to there, so it will be easier to carry!). They were:

Quintine Blonde, XI.I Samhain, St Bernardus ABt 12, La Trappe Quad, Duvel green, Corsendonk dubbel, Karmeliet Tripel, Blondine!, La Chouffe, Gulden Draak, Rochefort 8 and Rochefort 10.

The mysterious celtic themed XI.I at 11.1% funnily enough

So reviews of these will appear in due course....but dont expect them today or tomorrow as there are many reviews I've already got written to come first! I thought I would just give a taste of whats to come. In any case have a good Saturday evening what ever you do. Finally a big shout out to anyone who was at The Rake in London today for the Brewdog event......extremely jealous! Hope you enjoyed!

"Belgiums strongest beer" Apparently!

2009-11-20T20:45:00.001Z

So the first review I am going to do on the new blog is of a beer which claims to be something different. I like different beers.....This one claims to be the strongest Belgian beer (or so the label says). Although a quick scout on the net soon reveals that there are others at the same strength, but I am sure that the marketing people already dismissed 'one of Belgiums strongest beers'. Anyway to cut to the chase this beer is Dubuissons 'Bush Ambree'.

The beer doesnt normally float like that, thats just my dodgy camera

So the beer was served from my lovely Spiegelau snifter and served at about 12°C. Just for the record where I am based at the moment in France, this beer is very easy to get a hold of from bigger supermarkets. It set me back about £1.60 for 250ml.

The beer is 12% ABV and is an amber style belgian strong ale. Well it poured nicely out of the bottle, not too livley but a nice touch of fizz about it. Going into the snifter it was quite syrupy and I could already smell the alcohol from it and also spade load of sugar and caramel.

Look- A real tangerine look about this beer, not quite the colour I was expecting for an amber style beer. Absolutely crystal clear no hue to this beer at all. It went very fizzy into the glass but that was shortlived and the head disapeared very quickly.

Nose- A real strong alcohol kick from this one. A little treacle and a huge dose of freshly cut grass. I can almost smell a vegetable smell from it....not unlike raw carrot. Huge doses of caramel.

Taste- Straight away the alcohol and pepper overpowers, far too much of a good thing coming through. However after this subsides slightly the caramel does come through and balance this beer out a touch, but just not enough for my liking. There is some dark fruit on the palate too, followed by a very lingering taste of farmyard. It does feel quite round in the mouth I suppose which could make this a suitable after dinner beer (also coupled with its strength).

I actually cannot tell you whether I liked this beer or not. I know for certain that I found it to be quite unbalanced but I can also see that it has a time and a place like a lot of other beers that I wouldnt drink every week. Overall, I do not think I will be rushing back to buy it again, but similarly I wouldnt avoid it.

On the plus side I am going to a beer shop nearby tomorrow which claims to have over 400+ beers, so I can stock up the cellar a little. I just hope that they are not all made by the faceless giant brewers! I hope you have enjoyed my first beer blog....all comments/suggestions are more than welcome. I am new to being on this side of the beer blog so they will be taken on board.

Thanks for reading!

Another confession......

2009-11-20T12:53:00.002Z

So im my first post I confessed about being a hop head, which is something you will have to come to terms with if reading this blog. I do have another confession to make though......I love Brewdog.

Don't get me wrong, I love other Brewers too. I can already feel a lot of people starting to think....here we go...another blogger who has a love affair with Brewdog. My love affair is more than the constant and often shameless self publicity. It is also more than the great marketing and bottle design. My love affair with Brewdog begins with the word....different.

There are not many brewers (in the UK) doing what these guys are doing. Ok, as I have said they do use a lot of marketing to get me to buy their products but the simple fact is.....they make good beer! Astounding beer infact. So much so that I did it.....about 3 weeks ago I parted with my hard earnred cash and I invested in them! Albeit a very small piece of them....but a small piece is good enough for me. I didnt do it as a sound financial investment......although there is the possibilty that one day it might be. I did it because I believe in them and I believe in their beer. I think they are well on their way to creating a mini revolution....I already know of several pubs where I can go and be almost guaranteed a pint of Brewdog. Ok it isnt on Carlsberg scale, but it is a start.

I do not care what people say about Brewdog, in many respects I have them to thank for introducing me to the world of craft beer (Trashy Blonde from Tesco if I remember correctly). They are encouraging people to move away from the dull and lifeless world of the big brewers and into the world of Stone, Mikkeller, Orval and Thornbridge. No matter what you think about them, the boys at Brewdog deserve a huge pat on the back. So there is my confession.....review of Belgiums strongest beer coming later tonight

Bienvenue, Welcome

2009-11-20T12:17:00.001Z

Hi and welcome to the newest beer blog on the block! I aim to provide a mix of beer news and reviews. I like different beers...some would say extreme. It is unlikey that you will find me reviewing Green King I.P.A anytime soon.

I should point out that I am slightly biased. I say this because I am a total hop head. I am the type of person CAMRA members hate! A cheeky young student who apprieciates nothing but heavy hopped beer. That is infact untrue......I like most styles of beer as much as the next beer blogger. However, it is important to note that if you do not like hops you might dissagree with some of my reviews!

At the moment I am based in Avignon, France so a great deal of my early reviews will be French, Belgian or German beers. I do have a stock of reviews I wrote in the UK raring to go too though, so do not be too dissapointed! I will be visiting Scotland at Xmas and New Year though and I will be stocking up the cellar.

All comments are welcome and encouraged and the first review will appear later today after I get back from work. Prepare for 'Bush' billed as Belgiums strongest beer! Told you it was different!