Erdinger Alcohol Free to the rescue?

Could my salvation lie in an experemental bottle of alcohol free beer? Erdinger Alkoholfrei was my first choice.

With low hopes and a heavy heart I open the bottle to a fizzy chorus heralding my surely impending doom.

I’ve never had alcohol free beer before so this Erdinger Alkoholfrei is all new to me, but smells nice and malty like Horlicks, a hell of a lot like Horlicks! but not like beer :s

It tastes like fizzy cold Horlicks… though oddly it’s not a horrible taste!

The first thing is the fizz on your tongue witch i think is a bit strong and maybe an attempt to fool you into thinking this is real beer.

When the soft malt taste rolls over your mouth soothing your pallet after the fizz attack the “beer” comes together into a cup of cold mostly Horlicks. There is a very small amount of bitter just before the end to remind you it’s meant to be beer.

I’m not going to say it’s bad, because it isn’t, nor am i going to say its beer, because it just doesn’t taste like any beer I’ve had before. If it was going to taste like anything it would be the Sainsbury’s Abbaye biere de belgique I reviewed a long time ago.

A couple of things to consider:

Alcohol free beer is actually only <0.5% but with new lower drink dirving laws can you even drink many of these?

Is it any less likely to give you a beer belly?

Stout = Guinness, and Imperial = Russian. So there you have it! Samuel Smiths Imperial Stout is Russian Guinness, It’s Fact!

Samual Smiths Imperial Stout

Samual Smiths Bottle labels

Maybe my facts are off a little there… but check out that fantasticly designed bottle label. Anyone who knows me knows
I am a sucker for a pretty bottle this one looks fantastic. The artistic skill thats gone into this is easy to miss, but the little
swirls and flourishes in gold and black on a white background scream class to me. and its not a easy look to carry off.

I’m trying to take better Photo’s these days, once I have the use of a studio (watch this space) I will have some much better pictures on the blog. I used a 50D to photo this bottle, and I had to make do with the on camera flash, but I think the picture turned out ok. Back to having fun with the blog indeed.

Sam Smiths Imperial Stout Review

So, Imperial Stout here we go. Sam Smith’s is contracted to supply the Queens army, so If this is what they Queens armed forces drink then, with all the crap they go through, It should be good enough for me.

It opens without a lots of fizz and smells like I would expect. Dark and burnt but choclatley with a hint of sweetness in the
smell with a tiny bit of resin. It doesnt smell strong but at 7% I bet it tastes it.

First Impressions

My first impressions of the beer are that it is not as extreme a flovour as I am used to from this genere of beer. It does have
all the flavours in there, but a bit like admirals ale it has a burnt nutty thing about it.

The Flavours Develop

As you make your way down the bottle sip by sip you start to get some of the warmth coming through the beer along with what
you might more easily recognise as a stout ale.

It doesnt taste too alcoholic and has a medium mouth feel, it’s not at all like drinking your dinner liek the popular saying goes with Guinness.

It doesnt get too heavy and stays pretty stable all the way through drinking it at a very slighly chilled temperature.

Comparisons to Be Drawn

If I were to compaire this too a beer I would say st Austell’s Admiral ale is a close candidate, though its more like the charming
younger brother compaired to the more adult stronger less fanciful grown up sumual smiths.

I let some “Normal” people try it and they liked it too. So there you go Smaual Smiths imperial stout a winner across the board.

When I was there I found Williams IPA on sale with Dogma for one pound a bottle on a aisle end. I heard a it Williams IPA (brewed in alloa scotland)was good online on some blogs so thought I would I would give it a go.

Williams Bros IPA

Aparently it was one of four beers by williams beers in the sainsburys beer challenge.

WIlliams IPA smells very fruity and hoppy just like a good IPA should be, it Smells sharp and hoppy with some grapefruit overtones. It doesn’t smell as soft as juipur or deuchars but smells good.

Mmm… I can see why this was among the winners at the beer contest in sainsburys.
Its a really good IPA, and for a single British pound its an absolute steal.

It has a nice range of flavours as it rolls over your tongue, its nice to have a beer which isn’t a one trick pony for flavour. It starts nice and malty and rolls through to bitter and fruity then onto the hops as you would expect. Leaves a nice hoppy after taste.

I’ve been drinking darker more ale’y beers recently and this reminds me than even in winter a good IPA is always a treat.

I suppose the only thing you really want to know is if you should buy some if you see it.
Williams IPA is defiantly a good IPA, its better than a lot of other stuff I try on draught, so yes, buy some especially if its only a quid.

I Bloody love IPA, and this is a good one. Light yellow, very in style. Malty, through to bitter and onto fruity hops, its delicious.

I suspect it might not be bitter enough for some people, but its good enough for me.

On-line beer purveyor My Brewery Tap has launched a money off discount voucher for its Mixed Case Beer Sets.

We are currently discounting our best selling mixed case, an offer which we launched at this years Great British Beer Festival.

The case usually costs £24.99 (+ £5.99 p&P) but can be yours for just £21.24 (just £1.63 a bottle excluding p&p!) To claim the discount enter the discount code (GBBF15) in the coupon field in the checkout when purchasing one of our mixed brewery cases.

The case currently contains some fantastic award winning beers from around the country, including bottles of the Dark Star’s ‘Espresso Stout’, Ossett Brewery’s light and hoppy ‘Excelsior’ and Hogs Back Brewery’s ‘T.E.A’.

To see a full list of the current cases contents click here. As always we’ve also included tasting notes to help you enjoy your beers.

This is likely a limited time offer, so get em’ while they are hot!

I am really considering buying this mixed case myself.

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.

• Copper Dragon blaze through the credit crunch - Real Ale Reviews
• It may be served warm, but real ale is becoming cool - Times Online
• British breweries make a comeback - Yorkshire Post.
• Gales Seafarers Ale launches in a bottle - Fullers
• Beer events Finder - Real ale Talk
• Michelin Pub of the Year - BBC

PS. Next time I do this I will try to keep track of where I got the links so i can credit those involved. But for today just enjoy.

Aventinus Eisbock all the way from Europe via EuroDog

To look at its a very dark brown. Mine has no head to talk of, but maybe I’ve poured it wrong…

It smells like creamy white beer infused with chocolate and raspberries. Aventinus Eisbock smells like it might be quite bitter with notes of white chocolate, maybe a little cherry flavour in the smell too.

I’m pleased I have tried this just for smelling it. I cant wait to taste it!

Tasting the Eisbock

Holly Batmans Corby Press!!! that is strange. It has no flavour for half a second then all sorts of madness happens.

All of the flavour comes after you swallow the stuff. You realise its highly alcoholic as soon as you swallow a drop. It warms you up very quickly, the after taste being like a bottle of chimay but in a condensed format. Its strangely like bitter, sweet, alcoholic black forest cherry to me but with the complex flavour found in a lot of triples and dunkel beers.

If you take your time and savour the flavours you can actually get through to a level where the wheat tastes come through and take place at the very end.

Aventinus Eisbock is a formidable beer not for the feint hearted or the light headed. Its strong flavours, high strength possibly make it a once in while beer for the extreme cold in winter.

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.

Opening the bottle shows medium to high amounts of carbonation (fizzyness). Pouring it shows it to be a head happy beer with a dark straw colour and white head.

Maisel weisse Bottle

As with all weisse and white beers (especially a hefeweizen I like this) it looks cloudy. This particular weisse isnt as cloudy as some others like floris or meantime wheat.

What does the weisse smell like?

It has the traditional wheat/wisse/wit smell in droves with the smell finishing with a malty digestive note. It’s almost like banana cheese cake base but with all the usual weisse notes too.

What does Maisels Weisse taste like?

All of the lovely wheaty flavors are there on first taste, the flavors are on your tongue as soon as it hits your mouth. Some wheat beers can have a musty, sweaty taste and smell but maisels weisse happily is missing those sour notes.

I can taste more malt in this than ususal with weisse/wit beers, but with a smooth mellow wheat flavor th biscuity malt blends well with the wheat to make a good rounded beer.

Trying to think about individual flavors there are: dried banana, very slight cloves and crème, plus the usual wheaty ‘yeastyness’. Almost like a savory desert beer.

Some times when you drink beer you can tell right away its quality and that you are going to enjoy every drop of it you ever drink untill the day you die, well this is one of those beers and seriously challenges some of my long held favorites for a place in my favourite beers.

If you take all of the good bits from Leffe, Floris Wit, meantime wheat and add make them into a smooth, seriously tasty beer thats not only easy to drink, but has very good flavor and body then you might be able to imagine maisel’s Weisse. It even tastes good ‘on the burp’.

Summary

Smooth flavors and feel, rounded and balanced, easy going but with plenty of flavors.

This is the sort of beer I made this blog to talk about. Its foreign, interesting, imported, fantastic to taste and out of the ordinary. I might not have known about it if it were not for the Continually kind and knowledgeable people at purity brewery, so again thank you to them for importing this wonderful beer.

Disagreement in the camp?

I’ve heard people say the flavors aren’t strong enough in it which is all well and good if your are drinking beer for the sake of being arty and poncey, but I drink beers looking for a beer to enjoy regardless of the snobbery, I just want something that tastes good and this is it. if you want a challenging you can drink some overpowering, brutal beer, but this to me is beer for the ordinary beer lover who drinks beers of all kinds of beers and loves it because they taste good, not becasue they are challenging and intellectual.

You can get Maisels Weissen from Purity Brewery along with some other great imported beers.

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!