Beer Blog & Beer Reviews

Oh my goodness that smells like sweet spiced berries, malted and baked soft vanilla cake dough, but as sweet as all that. The smell reminds me of tribute ale, but it has stronger smells of burnt stuff and darker deeper berry type fruit maybe juniper berry or something. Reading the bottle I can identify the woody oak smells it talks about, it smells deep and rich.

In there Words:

“This strong beer is brewed and racked into oak whisky casks before being hidden away in our cellars. During its long slumber the beer undergoes an extraordinary transformation, emerging rich and complex with hints of whisky, creamy vanilla, toffee and spice.”

I took a good 10 min just smelling this trying to get a handle on it and enjoying aroma.

Waiting for the flavors is rewarded with a good number tasty happenings in your mouth.

I like beer like this…

I will explain more…

It has more than one flavor, It isn’t dull, there is no mistaking this for a pint of landlord or black sheep (both fine ales) becuase it has lots of different,non standard, flavors. I dont know how much effort goes in to making a beer this complex and interesting, though I could imagine new town have been built in less time.

So what exactly does Smugglers Vintage Ale taste like?

Well its has all the hall marks of a good ale, it has the whisky notes from its life smuggled away in a oak whicky barrel. I’m pleased the whisky hasnt parralized the beer but instead left a trace of its flavor lingering like an oily slippery taste of something old and warm mixed with herby coriander.

There are about three stages to the flavor first a sweet sugary malt with a slight licorice, then secondly you get a little of the whisky and some good strong smooth type hops, and then finally your get the full force of the whisky warmth. Its like a gentle lapping of a sea rather than a tusnami of strong whisky but its enough to enjoy.

Unlike Brewdog paradox I would drink a pint of this, I would buy a big bottle of it and I would recomend it to a friend as enjoyable experience rather than just ‘an expereice’. You get the beer taste clear and deep as well as some whisky not just all whisky with a bit of beer flavor. Thats just personal opinion mind, I know plenty of people who love Paradox!

If you want a complex bitter/sweat interesting yet enjoyable beer this is one option for sure. Its the best whisky aged beer I’ve found yet.

Winter is Coming, What Are You Drinking?

With the winter coming some good darker ales are in order! Here is safe and tasty bet, St Austell’sAdmirals Ale.

The last time I drank one of these I was on BBC Radio Tees talking about homebrew and the beer blog. Lisa McComick liked the St Austells ale describing it as dark chocolatey and complicated.

St Austells Admirals Ale

According to bottle:

Brewed in cornwall, to celebrate the 200th anaversery of nelsons victory at trafalgar in 1805. It was at the St Austells blue anchor Inn that the kings messenger carrying news of the battle, first stopped for refresehment on his long journey from cornwall to london.

Admiral ale glugs out of the bottle dark brown with a slightly off white head.

It smells sugary and burnt, deep and dark. I apologise I have a bit of a cold and a blocked nose, so my nose might be tricks on me.

Admirals ale has a light mouth feel, its not thick and viscous like I thought it would be.

It tastes like choclotae and charcoal, malted oats and brown ale. The head lasts about as long as an ice cream at a vindiloo chuging contest and disapears leaving no trace. Pour all the yeast in your glass if you like the bitter yeast tastes.

Apparently Admirals ale is made by using local grains especially malted using a unqiue kilining process for intense flavors. The result is the usual complex deep and intense falvors, non of which are overpowering. St austell balance the flavors with the skill of a old circus tight rope walker from a circus.

In the comming winter months I can imagine I will be having a few more of these.

This bank holiday weekend has been a festival of fun and beer, after it all I have finally got some time to myself to enjoy a cold beer watch Dr. Doolittle on my own. Good Times.

St Austell's Clouded Yellow Wheat Beer

When Im winding down after a busy weekend I like to have a nice cooling wheat beer, so on this occasion I’ve reached for a bottle of St Austells Yellow Clouded to try for the first time.

The bottle has a nice butterfly on the front which is the “Clouded Yellow” from which the beer takes its name.

“The Clouded Yellow is a migratory butterfly from Europe which usually settles in the southern counties. When winter comes the adults either die or migrate south.”

St Austells Clouded Yellow can be poured either clouded (like the butterfly) or clear, if you pour it VERY slowly. Bening the kind of person I am; the more ‘cloud’ yeast the better is what I say.

So i’ve just chucked it in the glass. It might just me being ham fitsted without the bottle but it opens with a lot of fizz.

Im so glad it did fizz up though becuase I tried a little of the fizzy head and it tasted like fizzy sherbert. nice!

Poring this out it really is a fizzy little beer. It throths up quite a bit.

There isn’t much smell to it, which is supprising as there is lot of fiz coming off it. once you get a lead on the smell it is very bananna-ery and wheat/creamy.

The bananna, clove and vanilla falvors make Clouded Yellow a nice sweet drink, its got a nice medium mouth feel which is only very slightly viscous.

Imagine a cooked, spiced bananna blended into a glass with a good glug of regular wheat beer and a very thin slice of lemon. If i had never read the bottle or seen the website I would have said this is simething like a wheaty bananna cider beer [That is a Tecnical description ;o)].

Skip dessert with your next meal and drink one of these. Or, apparently its good with fish!

St Austell Proper Job Delivery

Proper Job is a strongly hopped, 5.5% IPA from Cornwall’s St Austell Brewery. St Austell’s beers are almost always good so I am expecting good things.

St Austell Proper Job IPA

From the Austells Mouth

Proper Job is an authentic IPA brewed with Cornish spring water and malt made from a blend of malts including Cornish grown Maris Otter barley.

Does it smell like a Proper Job?

Proper Job Smells a little like lemon curd, grapefruit and malt. It smells much more fruity than I expected, a result of the chinook and cascade hops I imagine. It is medium gold in colour and has a light medium mouth feel.

The taste is all about grapefruit when you first try it, and as expected it is very hoppy. There is clearly a excellent selection of hops in here yet it doesn’t have a biting bitter nasty taste that you can get from overly hopped beers.

When you have had a bit more than half a pint, the yeast and hops mingle into a place where there flavours dance and balance. The bitterness comes through more and interacts with the fruity flavours, but says balanced in a happy place where there is malt sweetness, fruity bitterness and lots of drinkability.

The balance and poise that is almost a trademark of St Austell are the thing which always shines through for me and makes everything they touch turn to gold.

St Austell Proper Job is 5.5% so you can keep your Stella, this is a proper man’s drink and I could drink it all night long if only a local would put it on tap.

If you are looking for a nice and fruity session IPA then this is definitely a good choice.

Proper Job is dedicated to the 32nd (Cornwall) Regiment who stoutly defended their garrison during the Indian Mutiny in 1857-58. Throughout the siege the traditional “Sunset Ceremony” (beating the retreat and lowering the national flag) was ignored as an act of defiance to the mutineers. In recognition of a “Proper Job” Queen Victoria awarded the 32nd the honour.

You can buy it directly from the brewery at St Austell Brewery.

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