Friday 5 February 2010

Now Drinking: Gadd's India Pale Ale

Oh. My. God. I've just had one of those peak beer experiences that you read about and think "Oh piss off, that never happened". I'm doubly delighted that it's happened with a Gadd's beer, as a few days ago, I was a bit less than complimentary about one of Eddie's beers - hey, it's not fun, but you have to call it as you see it.

Anyway, tonight I made enchiladas. It's very easy, and if anyone is interested, I'll give you the recipe. It's veggie too - we try to eat veggie a few times a week. As I served the food up, I thought "Damn, I wish I had a nice hoppy beer to go with this". I think spicy food works really well with hoppy beer, so I went and had a rummage, and found a lone bottle of Gadd's India Pale Ale lurking in a case of Innis & Gunn beers (we'll be having them with a tarte tatin in a few days).

With the food already on the plate, I just wanted to pop the cap, pour and eat. As I took the cap off, there was a gush of foam, and a momentary thought of "Christ, these Gadd's beers are turning out to be a nightmare". Then I notices there was something in the foam at the bottle mouth. With a brief thought of "Christ, these Gadd's beers are turning out to be thoroughly pestilent", and then a moment of realisation - "Christ, that's a whole hop!"

I've no idea what variety of hop it is - Eddie, if you're reading, maybe you can tell us. But it added a fantastic spicy, earthy edge to a beer that I've had before and thoroughly enjoyed. It was an IPA++. And it was exactly the beer that I wanted to drink, at exactly the right time. And it was such a fantastic bonus to know that, at the point of production, someone had taken the time to push a whole hop cone into a bottle, with the simple thought in their mind that it would bring a greater amount of pleasure to the drinker.

And it did. So thank you.

6 comments:

  1. Awesome isn't it?? One of the first gadds beers I'd had. Quite jealous of your enchaladas too

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  2. Did your bottle have a hop too? I'm sure the last bottle I tried didn't.

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  3. Nope, didn't have a hop, ill have to check if ive got another bottle in the garage and see if that has one.

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  4. just wait til someone finds a scotch bonnet in Ring of Fire aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

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  5. What next, coffee beans in Mikkeller Jackie Brown? Toy cars in Lagonda IPA?! Perhaps Victory can send their next batch of Hop Devil out with an impish surprise?

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  6. I was going to joke (well, as best I can) 'Let's hope Flying Dog don't cotton on with the next bottling of Raging Bitch', but then I realised that we were given condoms out with it 'on cask' so perhaps it's too late...

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Sorry about the word verification - the blog was getting spammed to bits.