Beer Blog & Beer Reviews

Tasty Green Beer?

Recent chatting on the web had brought my attention to a brewery apparently selling “Carbon Neutral Beer” which turned out to be Adams Brewery. This idea of eco freindly Green beer peaked my interest and so I set about invesitgating the area.

Now! Ecology is something we should all involved in, if not interested in. I am keen on recycling, turning off the TV at the wall and taking phone chargers out of the sockets when not in use and I think responsable bussiness should take head too. We are porbably too late to save the environment totally but we would be daft if we didnt give a go, thats just ignorant!

Can You Make Green Beer at a Profit?

On a recent visit to Redscar Brewery I had seen water reclaimation in action and so I knew it was possable to be eco friendly and successful. However Purity Brewery take this to a whole new level!

At the very centre of thier work is a commitment to supporting the environment:

We have created our own unique Pond and Wetland system specifically developed as a means to treat our waste water. It is a totally sustainable eco-system which forms an interesting and varied ecological habitat that is developing into a wildlife sanctuary…

…Our spent grain is recycled for feed for the animals on the farm and spent hops are spread on the fields as fertiliser. We genuinely care about our planet and are constantly searching for new ways to help it.

Now thats what I call Green beer!

Can you make Tasty Green Beer?

Well this is the question I am only to happy to answer, and very soon I will answer it with great joy as I have two bottles of each of there beers and I intend to review them.

I know UBU is available is in Sainsburys but I got mine direct from the brewery as I might suggest you do. Help keep the micro-brew scene going and buy direct from the brewers.

Here I have two beers from two famous football towns of rivals Newcastle United and Middlesbrough FC. So why not pitch them against each other in a pitched battle of the beers. Here is Toon Ale vs Boro Live.

Local beer derby: 'Boro' vs 'the Toon'

How do they size up?

both bottles dressed in the traditional black and white newcastle colours and the red lions of boro. The newcastle bottle is slightly taller with a easier to hold bottle neck.

Score: Boro Live 1 - 2 Toon ale

How livley are they:

Neither of these beers are particularly livley at the kick off, so there is no overflowing action on the bottles opening. The boro is more effervesent which suits it as I later find out. perhaps its in bottle conidtioning which makes the Boro Live beer more lively though Secondary fermentation.

Score: Boro live 3 - 3 Toon Ale

What does it smell like:

Boro smells nice. It’s sweet and malty. Toon Ale smells not as fresh but more full bodied, slightly mustier.

Score: Boro Live 5 - 4 Toone Ale

What is it like to drink?

Boro Live is slightly creamy quite yeasty, very little in the way of hoppy flavor.Flavor never develops, no different before or after taste.

When drinking Toon Ale I thought “Now thats a different flavor than I expected”, and in a good way. It has a little toffee, a littlle bicuit, but not too much. Toon ale has plenty of body and flavor. It shows how little flavor boro live has, but also comes over a bit too sweet. It could be a bit more burnt for my taste.

Score: Boro Live 7 - 7 Newcastle

As you would expect for two local beers unseen anywhere else in bars or in supermarkets neither of these beers blow you away. They are OK beers they are very drinkable in a way which alot of ordinary ales are, just dont expect something fantastic.

The final Score:

Boro 7 - 7 Newcastle

There is much in it with this local north east derby. The action wasn’t really premier ship quality but its definatly a match worth attending no the less. I slightly prefer The Toon Ale but thats just my opinion, some people might be sold on Boro Live becuase its Organic. I just assume Smoggies will drink Live and Geordies will prefer Toon Ale.

Having had one of St Austell’s other bottled conditioned ales “Admiral Ale” and loving it, I snapped this bottle of Tribute from the Sainsburys shelf.

Tribute - The ale of Cornwall

On a side note I’m going to give a well done to Sainsbury’s beer buyers. I know they probably will never read this, but I’m happy to say they are ahead of the game and I’m a happy customer. They often have an interesting selection of bottled ales in our local store, which isn’t even that big.

Tribute is golden, pale, and of medium effervescence. It wont coming spilling over the top when you open the bottle. The head retention is OK at best, and is the only thing I might improve, but I would fear by changing anything I would upset the flavour and balance of this brilliant beer. The smell is sweet, balanced, soft peppery, very slightly biscuity and even more subtly citrus. From smelling it I can’t tell what Hops are in Tribute but I can tell it’s a refined beer. It’s a beer which smells like it probably will take a place in my regular drinking list.

The taste actually plays a trick in absolutely mimicking the smell through the taste. It’s a complicated, balanced flavour with plenty going on. The bittering hops have been landed in the sweet spot between being too hoppy and taking the edge of the sweetness. This is a professional beer, and one which will stand out in a already very busy crowd, and that is what this blog is about.

I remember thinking this almost has a chalky almost parma violet flavour, but don’t listen to me I think you should go to anywhere you can find that sells this stuff and grab a bottle. You wont regret it.

If this is the ale of Cornwall they are lucky people down in the West Country!

St Austalls Brewery - Our Beers

I care about pubs because they are a common meeting ground for people off all different back grounds. They are a tradition in England and a institution I think has shaped the very culture of Britain.

Many great things happen in Pubs, great poems’ have been written and stories penned in pubs. Tolkien spent a great deal of time in a public house when writing his classic works and even the very shapes of our DNA was realised in a pub!

“The abrasive and unorthodox Crick and his brilliant American co-researcher James Watson famously celebrated their Eureka moment in March 1953 by running from the now legendary Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to the nearby Eagle pub, where they announced over pints of bitter that they had discovered the secret of life!” - www.strideguides.com

Now that’s a reason to love the pub and to be proud of it, the first place man goes to when he has changed the world is… you got it, the pub.

Personally I think the sheer quality and reach of the beers imported from around the globe shows the British desire to participate in the best other cultures can offer. Some of the reviews published here have been drunk while sitting in a comfortable public house surrounded by lovely people and friendly bar staff.

I bought this beer on the off chance it might be something new and delicious! I had one space left in my box of beer that I ordered online and this one was reasonably cheap, so I hit “add to basket”. That was my first mistake.

Before I go any further, I would like to say my reviews are usually quite positive and endearing towards the brewer, because it isn’t easy to make a world class beer. But this review is of one of the very few beers (and the only bottle of beer from the Beer Merchants box) I’ve not finished in a long time drinking.

Its like all the bad bits off Leffe mixed with overpowering black bitter cherries. It’s very dark, very bitter in a acidic way and just leaves me wanting to pour it down the sink!

I couldn’t drink this any more than a very small sip at a time. To make sure I wasn’t imagining things, I called a friend over to try this beer. He gave the same diagnosis and so the poor little bottle of Obeldorf, which was supposed to be a new discovery, went on an adventure of its own - down the sink.

Sorry Obeldorf, I wont be buying you again. Not when there are so many other beers waiting to be tasted, reviewed and enjoyed. Rodenbach Flemish Red would be a good substitute

Continuing our quest to conquer the box of BrewDog’s finest, we have for our perusal a bottle of Dogma. At 7.8% it’s a strong one, with some unique ingredients bringing a wide palate of smells and tastes. BrewDog themselves describe it as “A conspiracy of transcontinental ingredients infused with some devastatingly BrewDog imaginative thinking.” Excellent.

BrewDog Dogma

Upon opening and having a hearty sniff, the main impression is a back of the nose smell which is sugary and has that warm quality that a good, malty ale always has. There’s plenty of hints of the main ingredients of kola nut, poppy seed and heather honey, and one can almost smell the effort put in to the brew. The aroma is pleasant rather than overpowering, and the clean purity of the scent and colour of the poured item encourages you to take a sip.

The smell doesn’t carry over to the taste, like so many ales which can seem to spend more time in the nose than in the mouth. Those kolas and poppies bring natural, leafy tones to the taste, and the other main ingredient of guarana gives an added pep to the already strong cola-style experience. Because the smell is not overpowering when drinking, this ale is a wonderful thing to quaff, leaving your mouth clean and refreshed after every mouthful. There is a definite thickness to the taste, which comes from the strength of the brew, but the flavours are so good that you don’t notice any unpleasant, back-of-the-mouth style antics normally associated with highly alcoholic beverages.

During our exploits with the BrewDog ales, everyone has had an opinion on each brew. I personally - being a fan of heavier beers - loved Paradox Smokehead, while the other chaps were more appreciative of the hoppier pales such as Trashy Blonde and Punk IPA. This was the beer we most agreed on, being variously described as “awesome” and “the best beer we’ve had all evening”. If Trashy Blonde is the ultimate session pale ale, Dogma is the ultimate strong ale in BrewDog’s arsenal.

BrewDog Trashy Blonde is one of the very few beers from the Scottish micro brewers I’ve seen on a pump in a pub. It has the cool name and great reputation needed to get noticed in a crowd out there in the increasing number of pubs offering real ale and beer.

As usual the labels on the beer exude the mind set of non-conformity that BrewDog have become synonymous with. Bright purple and chaotic lettering make the brand stand out in a sea of traditional hand pump shields and bottle shelves.

BrewDog Trashy Blonde

When you open and smell the super clear yellow beer the moderate effervescence brings fantastic, sweet, hoppy and lemon smells right to you. The smell alone is enough to make you salivate and jump to the conclusion that Trashy Blonde is going to be an awesome beer. It won’t take you long to have a mouthful of this brew.

Light, malty, fruity, fresh, medium body. All of these words can be used to accurately describe this beer. Despite the name, Trashy Blonde has very clean taste. To me it has two flavors, the first being malt, the second being plenty of bittering and aroma hops. The clean, clear flavors are both very nice and provide all you could want from a beer.

This is a session beer, as in I can happily sip this over a table with a meal, or I could equally tip huge mouthfuls down my throat and easily drink a lot in one go. This is one of the few beers so far that I would go and buy a case of twenty four bottles of and enjoy every last one. Maybe the real trashy blonde comes after the 24 bottles?

Whereas Paradox Smokehead is an interesting but ultimately unforgiving beer, Trashy Blonde will appeal to almost anyone with taste buds.

If you are looking for a beer to buy in for a party (and you have some taste) then this is definatly the way to go. It’s more expensive than twenty four cans of mass produced lager or bitter, but that’s not what BrewDog is about and it’s not what beer should be about either. Buy something good, made with skill and without compromise. Buy Trashy Blonde.

Thanks to BrewDog for supplying this wildly different beer for review. I posted a mini review about this beer on Twitter the moment I tried it as I was so intrigued by it.

The Paradox Smokehead bottle has another of BrewDogs eye catching labels printed in gold on jet black, making it look ‘up market’, and a distressed font letting you know they are making every effort not to conform to the beer/ale stereotype. This is a craft brewed imperial stout aged in whiskey barrels at 10% ABV.

Brew Dog: Paradox Smokehead

I’m drinking Paradox Smokehead in my sunny back garden during a BBQ with some freinds; they all tried some and chipped in. The bottle does however suggest that we might not like it, and that that’s OK with them.

Opening the bottle and giving it a sniff immediately says this is going to be interesting, strong and different. The smell is like pure single malt whiskey! There is a creamy mellowness to the nose which makes Paradox smell a little less like pure whiskey, but damned close. The lack of the ‘wet eyes’ syndrome I usually get when putting my nose over some whiskey is encouraging. Maybe I won’t die after all.

Nothing left to do but to taste the beer, put all pre-conceptions out of my mind and try to expect the unexpected.

The first flavor to come through the pallet is a really full bodied, slightly bitter stout with the burnt malt flavor expected from anything which is this black. It’s a slightly creamy stout flavor which is immediately and brutally replaced with the flavor of the whiskey. Not a cheaper, blend whiskey like Grants or Bells, but the closest whiskey I know the flavour of is probably Bowmore Single Malt, it’s very peaty and earthy. This beer from this point now tastes like a full shot of Bowmore has been tipped into it. The whiskey strangely brings out some of the bitterness from the stout too and a subtle toffee flavor at the back of the mouth.

After tasting this beer you’re left with an alcoholic taste on your breath. Great if you like decent whiskey, not so good if you don’t.

For me the two flavors in this beer are nice, but Paradox Smokehead is a lot like a Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s brash and offensive, it’s violent and not everyone will like it. But it is without a doubt excellent and it is ‘beer as an art’ I think, the very definition of a crafted beer.

In summary its a bit of a bi-polar beer. I would love to have the stout and whiskey in seperate glasses then maybe I could taste more of the creamy, burnt, toffee stout and then chase it down with a quality warming peaty whiskey.

Q: Should you try it?
A: Yes.

Q: Will you like it?
A: You can only know if you try it.

I’ve been wanting to try the beers produced by Martin and James at BrewDog Beer for a while now. I have just acquired some now and I will be trying them ASAP, hopefully they will be something which stands out in a crowd.

BrewDog logo

I’m not one to be taken in by gimmicky marketing ploys, which is just fine because the punk appeal of this beer isn’t in the fantastic branding, it’s in the message the branding puts across.

The modern twists these guys put on classic ale’s is apparently BrewDog’s secret weapon. BrewDog’s beer come recommended by people all over the web, so watch this space for beer reviews with a twist coming soon… very soon.