Wednesday 10 March 2010

Now Drinking: Fuller's Bengal Lancer

At the start of February, I spent an action-packed couple of days in London. In the space of 24 hours, I attended a committee meeting for the British Guild of Beer Writers, went to the Drinks Retailing Awards at The Dorchester, slept, met friends for breakfast, and visited Fuller's of Chiswick. The Fuller's visit was great fun, and I'm going to write in more detail about it over the next few days. But I'm going to start by talking about what I didn't get to do at Fuller's.

The tour and tasting that John Keeling and Derek Prentice laid on was so enjoyable that time flew by unnoticed, and by the time we got to the end of it, I had to literally run to the tube to make my train back to Leeds. So what I didn't have time to do was (a) visit the Fuller's shop to buy Vintage Ale for my birthday (I ended up getting it couriered to Leeds), and (b) stop in at the Mawson Arms for a pint of the newly released Bengal Lancer IPA. However, being a decent bunch, Fuller's forwarded a couple of bottles to me.

The beer is a copper-gold colour, and pin-bright in the manner that Fuller's beers tend to be, despite being bottle conditioned. The aroma is classic Fuller's - so classic that having visited the brewery, I can say that it smells like a cross between their brewhouse and hop store. If you haven't visited Fuller's, that's not very descriptive, so I'll try a bit harder. Bengal Lancer smells of spicy whole leaf hops (although they use pellets), toffee, ginger cake and ozone. On the tongue, there's an initial burst of medium-bodied malty toffee, which is slowly reeled in by a dry, spicy bitterness, finishing with bitter flourish and a faint puff of geraniums.

I like this beer a lot - it's got a lot of understated hop character which might fool people into thinking that it's lacking in hops, but when you actually pay attention to what is going on, there's a huge wallop of spicy dryness in the finish. It's a worthy addition to Fuller's roster, rooted in history, but produced with an eye for the quality and consistency that are Fuller's bywords. It's got that classic Fuller's character that reminds me of gingerbread and, most importantly, I've got another bottle of it that I'm going to eat with this burger and onion rings that has materialised miraculously next to me.

17 comments:

  1. I've been a fan of Fuller's IPA for some time so I'm very pleased to see it's finally getting promoted...and even more pleased to see it's in my local Waitrose!

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  2. So is this replacing the Fuller's bottled IPA?

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  3. Yes my question exactly , is it the same beer as Fullers IPA?

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  4. Ed, Beer Nut, Kieran - this is a different beer altogether from Fuller's IPA. I asked John Keeling, and his response was that it will not replace the IPA, but that it might appear less frequently as a result of them having two IPAs on their roster

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  5. I've got a bottle of both the Fuller's IPAs, both at 5.3%, so I'll be tasting them tomorrow night to see if I can notice any difference.

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  6. Cool, let us know what you find, Ed.

    For clarity, John K's exact communication was "No, it will not replace IPA, but I would expect that it will not appear as often." - I'm maybe reading between the lines a bit with my reply above.

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  7. On draught the IPA was 4.8% so there is some difference there at least. I suspect not much though!

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  8. for some reason I've been really interested in this one since seeing the ad in What's Brewing magazine. Your seal of approval only whets that appetite!!

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  9. I had this last night at the London Drinker and it was very good. Just as you describe with a squeeze of lemon and a super-fresh spread of jam. Great spiciness to it as well. Lovely stuff.

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  10. "I like this beer a lot - it's got a lot of understated hop character which might fool people into thinking that it's lacking in hops, but when you actually pay attention to what is going on, there's a huge wallop of spicy dryness in the finish."

    Ah that's it then. When I specially sought it out twice in London last weekend, I wasn't paying attention to the stuff and therefore couldn't spot the hops. Thank goodness. I thought my palate was fucked, but it's just attention deficit. That's all right then. (-;

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  11. Is it just me who's not blown away by the name or the label?

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  12. OK, tried both the IPA and the Bengal Lancer from bottles now and any difference between them is very small. I'll post my pontifications on my blog soon...

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  13. Tandleman - it's as though I read your blog about what you thought and wrote something specifically to enrage you, isn't it?!

    Seriously though, the two bottles I had were pretty damn hoppy, and Mark D's experience was with cask was similar.

    Ed - I look forward to reading your thoughts.

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  14. Zak - Not at all. I wish it to be hoppy, but my limited experience and that of some others is that it isn't. And even with MD agreeing, cask and bottles are different beasts and my cask versions were lacking.

    Even if there is a spicy wallop in the finish, what's in the rest of it? Still, I'll keep trying - in hope.

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  15. Interesting. I think I'd probably take Herr'man's side on this.

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  16. Had this on draft the other night and it's excellent. Agree with your tasting notes, it has a lot more hop on the nose than I thought it would have. Will be interesting to see how the bottle compares.

    Chunk.

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