Monday 9 August 2010

Now Drinking: Hardknott Infra Red

I'm not really sure how to introduce this blog. I should probably declare that Dave and I are both serving committee members for the British Guild of Beer Writers. I was chairman of the judges when Dave was runner-up in the New Media category of the Guild's 2009 awards. All this sounds like an excuse - it's not, it's just so you know how the land lies.

Infra Red (6.5%abv) is an English ale that wears it's American influence proudly on its sleeve. It's incredibly full bodied and, although I'm quite casual about it in the video, there's a bit of me that think if I was served this blind, I might mistake it for an American ale - something by Deschutes, maybe, which is no faint praise, given their tally at the World Beer Awards.

As always, the video tells half the story - you'll notice that I suddenly get sidetracked by the history of Anglo-American brewing influence. I suppose I could be a bit more professional about these videos, but I quite like the spontenaeity of pressing the shutter button and starting to talk. I honestly never quite know what's going to come out, and I quite like that. I don't think I've ever gone back and started again. But I digress.

Infra Red is a wonderfully full-bodied beer, stuffed full of pithy citrus flavours overlaying a text-book crystal malt core - think burnt sugar and toffee with a smear of grapefruit and orange marmalade, and you're getting close. It's a big beer, but very drinkable. In fact, that last time I saw Dave was at the Great British Beer Festival - it was about ten minutes after midday, and he was already getting stuck into the big, cask-conditioned American IPAs. "I've got a bit of a weakness for strong beer", he admitted. I couldn't argue - I was looking for somewhere to pour away my third of a pint of Hopshackle Hop & Spicy, a ginger beer that had ambushed me by coming from a brewery known for it's robustly hoppy English ales. Despite my tick list of new-wave British session beers (pale, hoppy - call them mid-Atlantic pale ales if you like), I was sorely tempted to join him on the American IPA bandwagon.

So, Infra Red. A great first foray into bottled beer. Full bodied, displaying a classically English approach to balance, but an American sensibility with respect to intensity. And, most wonderfully of all, when you talk to the brewer, you get the sense that they brewed a beer that they wanted to drink, rather than one that they thought would sell best.

11 comments:

  1. Glad it's good as I've just forked out £5.30 for a bottle.

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  2. Which pub? Don't tell me that's what Utobeer are selling it for?

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  3. It is indeed the Utobeer price. Nothing is cheap in Borough Market.

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  4. WOW thats alot, it is good tho! I had my bottle last night then woke to find this from Zak..spooky!

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  5. I've got a mandolin that looks very similar to yours.

    I know it's over £5 in The Rake, on sales. I believe it should be less in UtoBeer, off sales?

    Currently it is a little more pricey than I'd like, we want to get the production costs down as we increase volume, but need to spend money on kit. Work in progress.

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  6. It was £5.30 at Utobeer, don't know about in the Rake.

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  7. Dave - you've literally lost all perspective - that's not a mandolin it's a 1957 Hofner Congress.

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  8. It looks right small in the video. And it still looks like my mandolin.

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  9. Your mandolin is a mandolin, but the guitar in the video is far away.

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  10. Interesting comment on this vid on YouTube about us copying BrewDog. I have no YouTube account (and don't really feel like getting yet one more on-line persona) and therefore cannot comment there. Still, it's an interesting point, I wonder what other people do think?

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