Beer » Pete Drinks

On a recent business trip to Boston, the lovely Kavey kindly brought me back some local(ish) beer. The Harpoon Brewery is based in Boston itself, although it also owns a second site up in Vermont.

They appear to have quite an impressive range, but understandably it wasn’t possible to fit more than a couple of bottles into the luggage – one of their IPAs, and a rather irresistible bottle of pumpkin beer.

First up is the Harpoon IPA, a 5.9% ale that started life as a seasonal special and which has gone on to become Harpoon’s best selling beer. It certainly looks good in the glass, with a beautifully clear golden colour and a rich, lingering foamy head.

The nose is sweet, with plenty of hop fruit and sweet clementine that is reminiscent of Refreshers.

In the mouth, the initial impression is one of fizz; this is a heavily carbonated beer. There’s an orangey flavour to start, but the sweetness of the nose is lost and all the flavours are muted. The finish is dry, but without a great deal of hoppiness or bitterness.

It’s surprisingly (and rather disappointingly) reserved for an IPA.

The second bottle is the Pumpkin UFO, another 5.9% ale. This is (obviously) a seasonal autumnal beer, with the UFO in the name standing for UnFiltered. Despite that, I actually managed to pour it nicely clear until the last moment, when I somehow picked up all the sediment and ended up with it in the glass!

The nose is heavy on spices – coriander seed, earthy fruits and yes, pumpkin. Something about the aroma reminds me of Mr Matey bubble bath, although my wife looked at me as if I was insane when I said this.

Another foamy beer in the mouth, with a nicely dry bitter edge to it. The spices don’t come through strongly, but what I do get are toasted pumpkin seeds by the bucket. It’s very odd, but as my tasting notes say, not unpleasant…

As I may have mentioned before, I’m quite a fan of the Bristol Beer Factory – I even included their magnificent Southville Hop in last year’s Golden Pint Awards. So when I came across today’s beer in Utobeer there really wasn’t any way to resist.

This is their Creme Brulee Stout, a definite monster at 8.5% ABV. It was brewed in collaboration with Melissa Cole for last year’s 12 Stouts Of Christmas, and is based on their Milk Stout with the added benefit of having been aged in rum casks to give it that extra little kick.

It sits thick and black in the glass, with a thin, fleeting dark tan head floating on top. The aroma of the rum hits you as soon as the bottle is open, before you’ve even started pouring.

Allowing the rum to evaporate for a while, the nose becomes more complex – gentle, light roasted coffee, milk chocolate hazelnuts and just a hint of the lurking alcohol.

With a thick, creamy and almost syrupy mouthfeel and a nice singed sugar bitterness, I can certainly see the creme brulee theme. The espresso and rum combine to give the suggestion of a Jamaican coffee, and these almost make it seem like two pudding beers in one.

But there lies my problem with this beer; it’s two different things at once that don’t quite blend. The rum slightly overpowers the essential beeriness of it and although there’s what I think is a nice stout underneath, I’m frustrated that I can’t clearly taste it.

The rum gives it a big, warming alcoholic hit and it’s undeniably a big monster. The lack of balance spoils it a little for me though, and I think I could only really give it 3 stars.

The Redchurch Brewery was founded in East London back in 2011 and I hope it doesn’t give too much away to say that they’ve become one of my favourite breweries. Not only do they make some wonderfully tasty beer – more on that in a moment – but their overall design is a thing of beauty too.

I’m a sucker for a good label.

Despite their relative youth, Redchurch have managed to develop quite a broad range, with seven different beers at the time of tasting – although they have since added an eight beer, in the form of their Brick Lane Lager.

We start from the weaker end of their range, although it’s all relative. I apologise now for the crappy quality of the pictures!

Shoreditch Blonde is a pale blonde beer, the weakest in the range at 4.5% ABV. It pours with a fine bubbled, lingering foam and just a hint of yeast haze. This is something of a theme with Redchurch, with quite high sediment levels in their bottles – although not to the same extreme as the likes of Kernel.

The nose is full of fruity hop aromas, and some sugar sweetness. There’s a slightly spiced, wheat beer like hint too, although that might be from the yeast.

On drinking, it’s well restrained – delicious and creamy mouthfeel, light and sweet with fresh citrus fruit and a nicely subtle bitterness. Nicely quaffable.

I was expecting Hackney Gold to be a golden ale, but as the picture above shows I was wrong. It’s Redchurch’s take on a classic Best Bitter, at 5.5% ABV; a deep, rich red ale in the glass, with another nicely fine textured head.

The aroma is well hopped, fruity with toffee notes and an chocolate orange hint.

The flavour is malt and caramel, with orange blossom coming from the hops and leading into a deep bitter finish. Perhaps not the most traditional Best Bitter I’ve ever tasted, but very nice regardless.

Bethnal Pale Ale next, another 5.5% ABV beer. Golden, and nicely clear until I managed to pick up a load of sediment while pouring, which resulted in the murky looking glass above!

The overwhelming aroma is of fresh grapefruit, and just a hint of honey. It’s fruity too, on tasting but that is quickly overtaken by a big – almost too big – bitter finish which is rescued by a sticky sweetness coming in just at the end.

Big and brash, this is not a subtle beer.

Hoxton Stout completes the first batch, a 6% ABV stout that sits black in the glass with a luxuriously pillowy tan head. The aroma is classic stout with a rich, tempting toasted maltiness.

In the mouth, it’s simply magnificent – burnt sugar and a rich, slightly sweet start that leads into a deep roasted bitterness with some subtle coffee notes, and a wonderful dry finish.

The second set (with much better photos!) are from the strong end of the range, all coming in around the 7.5% ABV mark.

Great Eastern India Pale Ale kicks off the strong section, the weakest as a mere 7.4% ABV.

It pours with a huge head (that’s not entirely down to my incompetence!), and a nice rich golden colour which I managed to ruin by picking up yet more sediment.

There’s a gloriously huge hop aroma, sweet peaches and dried mango – the sensation of sticking your nose in the glass is much like sticking your head inside a sack of hops straight from the farm.

It’s initially warm in the mouth, with sweet caramel and sticky summer fruit. There’s a building resinous hop flavour, still very floral but bringing in more and more bitterness to the tail. The alcohol warmth as it slips oh so easily down your throat suggests a much higher percentage and my tasting notes sum it up as “properly, properly huge, magnificent, incredible!”

This has definitely gone onto my Desert Island Beer List.

Old Ford Export Stout is the second stout from Redchurch, stronger than the Hoxton Stout at 7.5%. It’s similarly black in the glass, although the head is thinner and a touch more fleeting.

The aroma is enticing; dark roasted coffee, with a distinct undercurrent of dark fruit hops and just a whisper of dark chocolate. I don’t think I can say “dark” often enough here.

Creamy in the mouth, there’s plenty of molasses and a delicious, dried cherry fruit sweetness that’s countered by a big bitter background and another warming alcohol burn. It’s a cracking stout.

Finally, Baltic Street Porter finishes off the collection although I’m slightly sad to say that it seems to have disappeared from Redchurch’s website. Another black beer, with another ridiculously huge head.

The aroma is rich with orange blossom and a chocolate edge; sweet, rich and enticing.

In the mouth, it’s thick and smooth, sticky sweet like black treacle and chocolate. There’s a delicious fruitiness to it too, with dates and ripe melons, all tied together with a gentle bitterness that leaves the beer sweet without being cloying – just what you want from a porter.

Redchurch don’t do subtle beer, and I’d hate to see their hop bill, but overall this is a stunning range without a single duff pint in sight.

Tiny Rebel are a Newport microbrewery set up in 2012. Although based in Wales, their beers seem to be quite widely available in the ‘craftier’ beer shops in London.

In addition to their core range, they also produce one-off beers in their “Tiny Batch Editions” and I’m pleased to see that a significant chunk of these batches end up in bottles.

This is the second Tiny Batch Edition, Baby’s Got A Temper. It’s an oak aged 8% double IPA, which should mean it’s a seriously big beer.

It’s a fairly dull amber colour in the glass, with a fine bubbled, fairly flat head on it. The nose is sweet with floral citrus notes, and just a hint of alcohol – but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of the oak ageing.

The taste is surprisingly restrained – there’s a reasonable malt backbone, some tangerine fruit and a decently big hop bitterness towards the end, but it doesn’t have a huge body and the alcohol really doesn’t come though. It could easily be a 5% IPA instead of a monster. And there’s still no hint of the oak.

It’s a slight disappointment because I love double IPAs; don’t get me wrong, this is a tasty enough beer but it’s not much of a monster.

New London breweries continue to appear almost weekly, which makes my attempt to maintain a list of them increasingly futile. This is, however, the sort of problem I relish!

One of the newest kids on the block is Shamblemoose – so new in fact that at the time of writing, they’re still in the process of moving into their brewery. They’re one of two outfits who will be brewing out of the same premises down in Penge, sharing the space with Late Knights.

Last month they launched their first beer down at the Union Tavern – a pretty awesome pub that serves an impressive range of London beer and probably deserves a post all of its own – and I headed down to try a pint or two.

The beer in question is their #4 American Brown Ale; the picture probably says everything there is to say about it. I failed to keep more than half a pint in the glass long enough to take a picture.

It’s good.

Breweries tend to split into ‘traditional’ – brown ales with English hops and CAMRA approval, and ‘funky’ – pale hop bombs where every hop has to begin with a ‘C’ and every pint has to come out of a keg.

Shamblemoose have deliberately taken a middle ground. The beer is named perfectly; it’s a very traditional, approachable Brown Ale with a sweet caramel character perfectly balanced out by a slowly building but not aggressive hop bitterness. Those hops are all American, sweet citrus and floral aromas; but they’re subtle, at the sort of level you’d expect in a Brown Ale.

The balance is perfect and genuinely different, and I take it as a good sign that Shamblemoose have something new to bring to the table. I can’t wait for them to start growing their range, not least because I heard mention of a Smoked Porter – something that requires a real deftness of touch, which they appear to have in spades.

In an increasingly crowded London beer scene, breweries are always looking for ways to stand out from the crowd. Meantime’s latest salvo is the introduction of their Brewery Fresh beer; beautiful copper tanks installed on the bar tops of (so far) a handful of Young’s Pubs close to the brewery.

Although widely used in some parts of continental Europe, this sort of thing hasn’t been seen in the UK outside of brewpubs. The beer is delivered by tanker (from the position on the bar in The Grove, I can only assume this is a tanker with a very, very long hose) straight from the maturation tanks at the brewery.

The tanks themselves are plastic lined – think of it as a giant, metal ‘wine in a box’ or, for the more beer-literate, a very flash looking KeyKeg – so the beer is never exposed to the air until it’s in your glass; thus the claim of being ‘brewery fresh’.

Ok, enough of the marketing speak – how does it taste?

Well, I’m always a sucker for a comparison so as well as the Brewery Fresh (on the left), I also grabbed a glass of the regular (kegged) London Lager (on the right).

The Brewery Fresh version has a slightly more lingering head on it; the carbonation is also softer, which allows a little more of the digestive biscuit sweetness to show through. It’s ‘bigger’ overall, a touch fruitier, with the hop finish being better balanced by the fuller flavours. I’m being picky, because they’re clearly very close – I’m inclined to say that it tastes fresher, but I’m also conscious that this may be the power of suggestion.

Not just suggestion, though – Meantime have very cleverly set Brewery Fresh Lager up to be served a couple of degrees warmer than standard keg. Temperature is critical to the flavour and aroma of what we eat and drink, and a warmer beer will inevitably taste slightly richer, sweeter and fruitier.

So, is this innovation, or marketing? A little of both, I suspect. I’ve no doubt that it keeps better than a keg, but a well run pub – like the ones these tanks are going into – is unlikely to leave an old keg on anyway. The “no gas contact” dispense raises the intriguing prospect of this being a CAMRA-friendly form of London Lager and frankly, those big copper tanks are utterly irresistible.

This last point is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that I overhead three different groups of punters notice the tanks on entering the pub, and decide to give it a try.

Overall, London Lager is a cracking beer whatever the container and if you can find it in Brewery Fresh form it’s well worth it – I suppose ultimately it doesn’t matter how much is down to the shiny tanks and how much is down to the temperature control and marketing; it’s just a touch tastier!

Pete Drinks was very well looked after by Meantime and the folks at The Grove.

Pete Drinks

Harpoon Brewery

Monster Beer: Bristol Beer Factory Creme Brulee Stout

The Redchurch Brewery Tour-At-Home

Monster Beer: Tiny Rebel Baby’s Got A Temper

Shamblemoose Brewery

Meantime Brewery Fresh Beer

Links

Search

Recent Comments

Fellow Boozers

Awesome Breweries

Archives