Whisky Wednesday: Kilchoman Spring 2010 Release

 Review, Whisky  No Responses »
May 302012
 

This week, the Feis Ile festival on Islay is in full swing – a week of whisky, music, dancing and general merriment. All the distilleries throw their doors open and welcome eager whisky lovers and you can (with planning!) visit a distillery open day every day of the week.

I am, as you may have guessed, not there this year. Instead, I’m sat at home filled with smouldering jealousy of everyone in my twitter stream telling me what a wonderful week it is.

Still, if I can’t be there in person then I can at least be there in spirit. The spirit in question is from Kilchoman – the final Islay distillery, I think, to appear here on the blog which is appropriate, as it’s also the youngest distillery on the island.

Founded in 2005, they take a truly artisan approach to whisky making. They’re one of only a handful of distilleries with their own traditional floor maltings, and even grow a significant proportion of their own barley.

Kilchoman Spring 2010 Release

I have a couple of their bottles waiting in the cupboard for a good reason to open them. This is the Kilchoman Spring 2010 Release. Barely old enough to be a whisky – it’s the legal minimum 3 years – but experience has taught me that age isn’t everything, especially when it comes to this distillery.

It’s comparatively pale in the glass, but considering the short time spent in the barrel that’s only to be expected. The nose is sweet caramel, overtones of syrupy green fruit (pear perhaps?) with a gentle peatiness to it – not bonfire harsh like some Islays can be, but more like a distant campfire.

Water really doesn’t change it that much; the fruit is perhaps a little more obvious, but it’s marginal.

The smoke hits you much more on tasting; just the briefest of sweet sugar on the tip of your tongue that leads instantly into big, powerful alcohol and peat. It’s almost creamy in the mouth, strong but wonderfully smooth with a lingering, burning tail with just a hint of pepper at the very end.

Again, water doesn’t make a huge impact – the sweet start is a little more lingering, the peat a little less powerful but it’s still smooth, creamy, with a long smoky tail.

I’ve been eagerly waiting to open this bottle, and it doesn’t disappoint. It has all the depth and subtlety of a whisky five times it’s age, while managing to remain a seriously drinkable dram.

I can’t wait to see how their range matures.

Pin It!
 Posted by petedrinks at 5:30 pm

Win A Case of Award Winning Daas Beer

 Beer, Competition  17 Responses »
May 272012
 

I first came across Daas Beer at a food festival in 2010 and bought myself a sample set of their white, blond and amber beers. Daas is a young business, just over 5 years old, but brew their beers in Belgium according to methods and traditions honed over centuries.

The company is run by the charming Steve Sailopal, who is rightly proud of the awards Daas Beer have already won. The most recent of these was awarded by the Free From Food Awards 2012, in which Daas’ Ambre won first place in the Gluten Free Beer category. Daas Blond was also highly commended in the same category.

11856_Daas_Group_Shad

All three Daas beers are organic, indeed they are the first and only Belgian brewed beers to be certified as such by the Soil Association UK (as well as the Belgian Certisys scheme).

The Blond and Ambre are now de-glutenised using a carefully-developed process of extraction which removes the gluten whilst ensuring the full flavour of good quality hops and malted barley remains. In a recent blind taste test, consumers were not able to tell the difference between gluten and gluten-free versions.

Steve is pleased that some of the judges for the Free From Food Awards were CAMRA members, as this can only continue to help change the perception of gluten-free beers. Offering a product that uses hops and malted barley rather than rice, corn or sorghum, which are found in some gluten-free beers, is key to delivering a taste that appeals to all consumers, whether they need to avoid gluten in their diet or not.

 

WIN!

Win a mixed case of 12 bottles of Daas Beers. The case will contain 4 each of Daas Ambre (organic gluten-free), Daas Blond (organic gluten-free) and Daas Witte (organic) but should you prefer a different combination, that’s fine. Delivery to any UK mainland address is also included.

 

HOW TO ENTER

You can enter the competition in 2 ways.

Entry 1 – Blog Comment
Leave a comment below, answering the following question:
What dish or meal would you match to Daas’ Ambre?

Entry 2 – Twitter
First follow both @Daas_Beer and @PeteDrinks accounts. Existing followers are, of course, welcome to enter!
Then tweet the (exact) sentence below:
I’d love to win a case of award-winning @Daas_Beer from @PeteDrinks! http://bit.ly/JFAHyx #PeteDrinksDaasBeer

 

RULES & DETAILS

  • The deadline for entries is midnight GMT 9th June 2012.
  • The winners will be selected from all valid entries using a random number generator.
  • The prize is a mixed case of 12 bottles of Daas Beer and includes delivery to a UK mainland address only.
  • The prize cannot be redeemed for cash.
  • The prize is offered directly by Daas Beer.
  • One blog entry per person only. One twitter entry per person only. You do not have to enter both ways for your entries to be valid.
  • For twitter entries, winners must be following both @Daas_Beer and @PeteDrinks at the time of notification, as this will be sent by Direct Message.
  • Blog comment entries must provide an email address for contacting the winner.
  • The winners will be notified by email or twitter. If no response is received within 7 days of notification, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be picked and contacted.
Pin It!
 Posted by kaveyeats at 10:10 am  Tagged with:

Zombie Beer Blogging At The EBBC

 Beer, Rant  No Responses »
May 252012
 

Last weekend saw the European Beer Bloggers Conference in Leeds; unless you’ve been carefully avoiding both twitter and large portions of the beer blogging scene in the last week, you’ll know this already.

It’s tough to pick out a highlight, but certainly one of the more chaotically entertaining sessions was the Live Beer Blogging; ten breweries from around the UK, each getting five minutes to present their finest beer to eagerly-tweeting and barely-listening bloggers.

I’m not going to go into great detail about each of those beers; plenty of excellent bloggers – people like The Baron, and Beers I’ve Known – have done a far better job that I would manage. It’s also nearly a week after the fact, so it’s not very live. So non-live, in fact, that it’s almost un-dead!

Zombie Twitter Trend

Reproduced under Creative Commons by kind permission of Scott Hampson, of Agent X Comics

Instead, I’m taking a step back and a wider view. This was a fantastic opportunity for ten breweries to present the beer they were most proud of, to a roomful of fanatical beer drinkers who love to spread the word.

Sadly, what we got was citra-laden pale ale after citra-laden pale ale. Oh, there was a bit of centennial thrown in for light relief, and Otley at least turned up with a black version (Oxymoron, easily the most honestly named Black IPA out there) but it was like sitting in an American craft beer festival.

Don’t get me wrong. I love American hops. Some of my favourite beers are overflowing with them (I’m thinking of you, Southville Hop). And many of those beers were seriously tasty. I just wish there had been more variety, and that a few more breweries had the courage to remember that they were British craftsmen who didn’t have to slavishly follow the moment’s hot trend.

There’s just something slightly depressing sat in an event like that and find yourself thinking “oh yay, more citra” when sniffing the next beer.

Two breweries did dare to stand out from the crowd. Innis & Gunn arrived with their Scottish Pale Ale – a gloriously sticky sweet, whisky aged beer that never ceases to divide opinion. Personally, I like them a lot but I think I’m in a minority.

And then there was Brains (or, given the title of this post, should that be Braaaaaiiiins) who not only shied away from US hops but actually turned up with a Mild. In May. CAMRA would have been proud. Sweet, creamy, dark and delicious; I’ve always been a big mild fan and this is definitely right up there with the best.

So British breweries, please don’t forget that there’s a world of beer out there beyond the American IPA.

Of course, the irony is that my favourite beer of the session was Marble’s Earl Grey IPA – a collaboration with Emelisse and dripping with American hops.

Pin It!
 Posted by petedrinks at 12:00 pm  Tagged with:

Whisky Wednesday: Whisky Mac

 Whisky  1 Response »
May 232012
 

I wasn’t sure if I’d manage to get a post up this week; summer has finally arrived in the UK and with it, rather perversely, a very sore throat and a head cold. The arrival of a Jubilee bottle of Stones Ginger Wine, however, suggested a solution in the form of that most traditional of sore throat cure, the Whisky Mac.

Stones Ginger Wine and Islay Mist

Of course, you need a Whisky in your Mac so I grabbed my trusty Islay Mist – I didn’t want to overwhelm the ginger with a big smoking Lagavulin, or drown out the sublime Glenbridge with ginger. The Mist seemed to be the perfect partner.

The recipe was the next problem. Every web site has a different ratio, from the whisky-heavy to the virtually-all-ginger. How to tell what’s the right recipe? It’s obvious – try them all (or at least a decent selection of them).

Whisky 1 2 3

First then, the Whisky Max – 2 parts whisky to 1 part ginger wine. Definitely more whisky than anything else on the aroma – the ginger, to my less-than-perfect nose at the moment, is really just a slight spicy hint.

In the mouth, the ginger wine is more present but still very nicely balanced – you get some of that sweet, fruity heat from the wine, but plenty of whisky punch as well. It’s wonderfully warming, and my throat feels better already but I think I need a bit more ginger in my Mac.

So next, the Whisky Mac – equal quantities of whisky and ginger wine. More ginger on the nose, but without that overwhelming sweetness you can get with neat ginger wine. The alcohol of the whisky manages to make it smell spicy but light.

It’s a similar story in the mouth; there’s much more ginger heat there, but the whisky cuts through somewhat and stops it getting to heavy.

Finally, the Ginger Mac – the inverse of the Whisky Max, with 1 part whisky to 2 parts ginger wine and smelling more like regular ginger wine with a hint of something medicinal underneath.

The sweet sticky ginger of the wine fills the taste as well; with this version all the whisky is really doing is adding an extra kick. Probably ideal for people who aren’t so keen on whisky, but to me it’s a little disappointing.

In my present state, the half-and-half Whisky Mac gives me the perfect balance; plenty of ginger but with the whisky shining through nicely, keeping everything sweet, strong and light. Without a sore throat to contend with, I can definitely see the appeal of the Whisky Max – adding a delightfully spiced edge to the whisky.

And I’m happy to report that I can no longer feel my throat either.

Stones kindly provided Pete Drinks with the Ginger Wine. Pete Drinks provided his own Islay Mist from the embarassingly large pile he bought after recently reviewing it.

Pin It!
 Posted by petedrinks at 5:30 pm

Monster Beer: St Austell Royal Diamond Imperial IPA

 Beer, Monster, Review  1 Response »
May 182012
 

This year, in case you hadn’t heard, heralds Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. Whether in celebration or opportunism, companies the length and breadth of the UK are marking the event – whether it’s with something specially prepared for the occasion, or just slapping a Union Flag on their regular stuff and hoping nobody notices.

Royal Diamond

St Austell, I’m very happy to say, have decided to take the former approach and have produced something very special and very limited, in their Royal Diamond Imperial IPA. Presented in a silver-wrapped champagne style bottle, it’s every inch the celebratory drink and you’re even advised to serve it in a champagne flute.

Jubilee Imperial IPA

As you can see, I don’t have a champagne flute, so I just pour it into one of my regular beer-tasting glasses.

It manages to pour into the glass in a pleasingly champagne-like manner; a fleeting, large bubbled head which quickly settles down and leaves you with little “bubble streamers” up the sides of the glass. The only real clues to its true nature are its colour – a nice, rich, almost honey-like amber – and the aroma.

Oh my, the aroma! The sweet, floral hops are almost overwhelming; I can smell them from the other side of the table. But unlike some heavily hopped beers there’s no bitter edge to it – it’s just green, fresh, and fruity. Bringing the glass closer to your nose, the fruit builds, and there’s just a hint of rich sweetness and a surprisingly subtle alcoholic heat that belies the 9% ABV strength.

In the mouth, that champagne style shows through again; the fine bubbled mousse makes it feel a little like drinking a marshmallow. There’s a honey sweetness on the tip of your tongue and as the beer works it’s way towards the back of your throat you get surprisingly delicate, green fruit in the centre and delightful hop bitterness flowing off the sides.

I’m slightly conflicted by this one. As a regular IPA I’d say it’s almost great – the alcohol and the sweetness are both a touch understated for my tastes; I’d prefer a slightly richer, darker fruit edge.

As a celebration drink, however, it knocks a bottle of champagne for six. It has the right texture in the mouth, a dryness balanced off against controlled, fresh fruit, and an aroma that is just heaven in a glass.

I’m not a fan of champagne but I could drink this by the Nebuchadnezzar!

This is a very special beer; limited to just 500 bottles available directly from the brewery and certainly fit to toast a Queen!

St Austell Brewery kindly provided Pete Drinks with a sample bottle of this beer.

Pin It!
 Posted by petedrinks at 7:30 am  Tagged with:

Whisky Wednesday: The Balvenie DoubleWood

 Review, Whisky  1 Response »
May 162012
 

This week’s whisky is from The Balvenie Distillery, in Speyside. They are very proud of their crafted nature – growing their own barley, malting it on site and even having a team of coopers to care for their barrels.

Balvenie DoubleWood

Here we have their entry level whisky, the DoubleWood. Aged 12 years, part of that time is spent finishing in sherry casks, thus the name.

The nose is sweet and alcohol filled, with a creamy vanilla tone although without much evidence of that sherry. With a splash of water, the alcohol is pushed back and you start to smell more of the cask – more the sherry wood than the sherry itself, although there’s a rich, sweet fruitiness just showing through.

On your tongue, the first thing that hits you is the sweetness – it’s like licking a honeyed spoon. Then the alcohol puts in an appearance, bringing with it some gentle spice and a hint of that sherry, and some wood from the cask coming through at the end. It’s smooth without being overly subtle.

Water surprisingly makes very little difference; the alcohol is less pronounced but you still have the honey start, the warming spice in the middle and a smooth, lingering sweet wood finish.

This is a wonderful dram; not hugely complex but gloriously drinkable. Given it’s at the low end of their range, I can only imagine how good the rest of their whiskies taste!

Pin It!
 Posted by petedrinks at 5:30 pm
 Older Entries
© 2012 Pete Drinks Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha