Sunday 25 September 2011

Weekend Beers Round-Up

It seems a tad prosaic after the epic response that the previous post elicited, but I thought I'd quickly round a few of the beers opened this weekend - the majority are samples, and so I guess I should do my duty and at least pass comment.

The Dogfish Head/Birra Del Borgo My Antonia that I'm drinking as I write is still great - not as great as BrewDog Avery Brown Dredge (which seems to have been getting a bit of a mention on Twitter this week), but still a corker.

Last night was a couple of dark beers - Zatec Dark, which is a great black lager, soft, smooth and creamy - and Brain's Original Stout, which is a great mediumweight stout with a lot of lovely leafy hop character in the finish.

Adnam's Ghost Ship and Salopian Oracle are two beer cut from a similar cloth, both having the sort of pungent hop character that first caused me to use the phrase "hop-forward, and in the modern style" - pungently hoppy, zippy, and palate-awakening the both.

Natural Selection Finch is descibed on the label as a "robust red ale". Other people have written kindly about this beer, which makes it all the stranger that I found it to be an undrinkable crystal malt bomb. I like crystal malt, but this was just OTT.

A brief detour into a homebrew, which is going to be my entry for the Nicholson's / Thornbridge homebrew competition, confirmed that I'm going to walk away with the first prize - if you'd like to try it and be in awe, it's the beer that I'll be bringing along to the inaugural Leeds Homebrew meet-up - and then things got serious with a Thornbridge Bracia, a stunning beer, both metaphorically and physically. I needed a long lie down after that one, for sure.

This is the full and frank account of a weekend's drinking, recorded this day, the 25th of September, in the two thousand and eleventh year of our lord. Amen.

7 comments:

  1. Nice write-ups I'm looking forward to trying the Ghost Ship this week as a few other bloggers have said it was good. Already had a cheeky Oracle and it was good, looking forward to sharing the other one with Chris.

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  2. Two thousand and eleventh year of the Common Era, shurely...

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  3. Baron - thanks, coming from someone who specialises in concise reviews, that's quite a compliment.

    Sid - I've never really recovered from my early Catholic schooling...

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  4. Zatec Dark - that's worth me seeking out. I just can't live with Bracia - there's something about it's tcp-ness that I just can't deal with. I understand that *that's how it's supposed to taset* - I just don't get it.

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  5. Leigh - I know what you mean - the first time I drank it, I thought it was really weird. In fact, it's still weird, but in a good way (to my palate)

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  6. I feel in love with Bracia the first / only time I tasted it. TCP? I didnt get that but exotic out there honey character for sure. My favourite honey beer hands down.

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  7. I get the TCP, though personally I say 'First Aid box' rather than full on TCP, its the Honey edge that combines with the phenolic smokiness in a weird way. Its hard to get away from once you notice it.

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