Manns Brown Ale

Another old favourite and one I didn't expect to see lurking in the dark recesses of my supermarket shelves.

Mann's bown ale evokes memories of the 1970's so I didn't expect it to be sold in sufficient quantities for supermarkets to be vaguely interested.

It's actually very nice indeed and never mind that I drank it on a rare hot summer day. It's treacly and licorishy all at the same time and very moreish. At 2.8% it won't hurt to have another one! Enjoy...

A Welcome Return

It is, as they say, always nice to look up an old friend and since my local stopped selling Timothy Taylor Landlord, I can honestly say I've missed it.

Now it isn't my favourite beer by a long way; in fact I find the flavours a little too intense and I generally struggle to drink more than two but it was always nice to have it around like the pork scratchings you might delve into now and again.

So I picked up a bottled version the other day. It's trademark strong hoppy flavours aren't quite so evident in this form and it actually makes for a refreshing summer drink. It's described as strong on the label but at 4.1% abv you shouldn't find yourself face down in the barbeque after a couple of these.

A welcome return for me - cheers!

Don't Mention the 'L' Word

Mention of the word ‘lager’ will be usually met with short shrift round here. I am always told to respect other peoples’ tastes and opinions but lager?!? I’m sorry I just don’t get it.

The taste, if that’s the correct word, is completely repellent. Stale and nauseous – if I were stuck in the Sahara for three days before stumbling across a pub that were waiting for a delivery and consequently only served lager, I would stagger back outside to certain death.

There have been exceptions. When I’ve been on holiday it’s customary to do as the locals do. Therefore the local lager goes down a treat while relaxing beside the pool in the sun. Sometimes I have been impressed enough to bring home said beer only to find it’s not quite so pleasant in a cold, wet back garden in Hertfordshire.

I am of course making a generalisation here. Generally I’m referring to lager served in English pubs. There are many bottled, premium beers and lagers that are just fine and if anyone would like to send me any free samples to review, I’d be more than obliged!

I’m also very partial to the dark lagers that I found to be quite popular on a recent trip to the Czech Republic. So I was pleased to stumble across a Bohemian Black Lager in my local Tesco by the name of Herold.

On my trip to Prague I found many great examples of this beer including one very special ‘locals’* bar that brewed its own.

To anyone that hasn’t discovered this, please do try it. After pouring, I swear you could give this to someone and they would think it was a Mackeson. It has the same look and the same nose.
Whether the nut brown colour was playing tricks on my mind I don’t know. But this had all the taste and smoothness of a stout. Nutty, treacly, toffee flavours and a nice rich aftertaste. It’s certainly nothing like the general perception of how a lager would taste.

As I got to the end of the glass, I felt that it tasted slightly thinner than a stout. You could say ‘it didn’t have the legs’. However, it was quite refreshing nonetheless and could therefore be drunk all year round, either at a summer barbecue or as a warming nightcap in the depths of a Czech winter.

At 5.2% it has good strength and one of these was enough. I heartily recommend it to all.

*not full of drunk English idiots dressed in Tutus

J D Wetherspoon festival Round Up

With the J D Wetherspoon Beer Festival behind us I can now reveal my favourites from the event.

I visited four outlets over the period and found a mixed selection of festival ales at each one. At my local pub in Hertford one Saturday lunchtime, only one ale was available, whereas later that day in Harlow Essex, not exactly a Mecca for ale fans, a good selection of six festival beers were on show.

I managed to track down some of the more unusual beers that I had been looking for- Flying Dutchman Wit Bier came close as my favourite ale of the festival. When I mentioned to friends that it used coriander in the brewing process they looked incredulous. However it isn’t overpowering by any means and just adds subtle spicy hints.

Other highlights included Barons Bush Berry Porter from New Zealand via Banks’s of Wolverhampton and Yukon Lead Dog from Canada via Banks’s again.

However the highlight of the festival for me came from a reliable old favourite in Adnams brewery of Suffolk. Their Gunhill was previously only available in bottled form but was produced especially for Wetherspoon’s festival. It was a deliciously rich ale which used four malts in the brewing process. Consequently, chocolate vied with toffee to dominate, all of which led to a sweet taste which seemed stronger than the 4% ABV that it was.

So look out for Gunhill. Sadly none of the breweries were nice enough to send a pump clip jpeg so you’ll have to make do with this old photo of the Six Templars in Hertford!

It's Festival Time Again!!

May will soon be upon us and with it will come a glut of the greatest invention known to man – the beer festival. Both May Bank Holidays will see many local real ale pubs laying on festivities and I’ll certainly be getting round a few of those.

In the meantime J D Wetherspoon has got in early with what they claim to be The World’s Biggest Real Ale festival. Running from the 15th April to the 4th of May, 50 ales from around the world are promised over that period.

On Monday the 20th April I happened to call in to two Wetherspoons outlets, in Hertford and Camden. It’s not something I make a habit of (honestly) and not something I’d necessarily recommend but I happened to be passing them on my travels, it was a gorgeous spring day and..., well, you know how these things happen.

Although there are 50 ales promised, don’t expect to see all 50 available at any one time. In the first pub, the Six Templars in Hertford, there were nine ales available, but four of those were Wetherspoon regulars – Ruddles, Marstons Pedigree etc. To add to any confusion, the beer I chose, Golden Seahawk from Somerset’s wonderful Cotleigh brewery, wasn’t even on the festival list.

Nevertheless, it was an excellent beer, golden in colour with hints of honey and citrus fruits. At 4.2% abv it’s not too heavy for lunchtime either.

In the evening, I called into The Ice Wharf at Camden Lock. A lovely setting and an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Here there were nine ales on, with five Wetherspoon regulars and the welcome sight of the festival cider, Marcle Hill from Westons. I chose a Nethergate Umbel Magna which I have had before but it is a favourite. An unusual beer which uses coriander – sounds odd but it works!

It’s easy to knock Wetherspoons but in recent times they have been embraced by both CAMRA and Cask Marque. I find their ales fine, and at a festival price of £1.89 who’s complaining? Sometimes I just find their beers a little too cold and sometimes their sessions aren’t worked out terribly well and you just have a choice of really strong ales, all above 5%. But that’s just me!
The festival programme promises some really interesting ales and I shall be tracking them down and bringing you regular updates. Keep reading!

Morrissey Fox

My ale blog triumphantly returns with what may seem a fairly predictable taste test – Morrissey Fox blonde beer. My decision to review this prompts an obvious question – Is this all about hype or does this beer have real substance and appeal?

Recently on television James May and Oz Clarke conducted a brewing contest between themselves and Gordon Ramsay even brewed his own. Has the cult of celebrity now infiltrated the world of beer production? Will we be switching on our televisions on Saturday evening to witness Strictly Come Brewing on Ice? Which washed up celeb will be itching to sparge their wort? Will Abi Titmuss be up to her knees in a mash tun wearing nothing but a pair of fishing waders......? Where was I? Oh yes, Morrissey Fox.

The recent television series that saw our two protagonists, Neil Morrissey and Richard Fox secure their own gastropub was compulsive viewing. But is the beer any good?
Label notes from the brewers call this a ‘hybrid’ – somewhere between a lager and an ale. It’s 4.2% and an easy drinker so a nice session beer if you want to cross that line and have a session on your own!

The brewery also claims that it has an amazing nose – personally I couldn’t agree on this one: I couldn’t really smell much at all without putting my whole face in the glass and taking huge sniffs. It’s a pleasant smell yes – subtle fruit hints maybe but difficult to detect anything specific.
First taste is good – nice mouthful of fruit giving way to a refreshing yet slightly bitter aftertaste. I don’t know what else to say about it really – it’s a nice beer. I’ve heard it goes really well with fish but didn’t have any around except a can of tuna that the cat was guarding with malevolence in her eye.

I really wanted to like it, particularly after seeing Neil Morrissey’s vitriolic reaction to the rather uncomplimentary Focus Group that evaluated the beer on the TV programme. I just don’t want him to come looking for me. In fact I do like it, I just feel that at its usual price of £1.90, I would need something more remarkable to drag me away from my usual supermarket favourites. That, as with all my comments, is just my personal opinion.

What I would say is, if you can find it, try this on draught. I find all beers better on draught but this was a completely different animal. Hugely fruity and very easy to drink, the only problem is that I find it difficult to trace down here in Hertfordshire. Hopefully I can track it down at one of the May beer festivals coming up. I shall let you know...

Thrappledouser

A quick recommendation for you today. There are some great ales coming out of Scotland today and the beer up there has improved tremedously since I went up there on a sheep rustling holiday in 1992.

Down in Hertfordshire recently, I was lucky enough to come across Thrappledouser from Perth's Inveralmond brewery. It's a rich amber coloured ale - the website described it as having a spicy taste - I thought it was fruity. In any case it was superb and definitely one to look out for.

The only problem I found was that 'Thrappledouser' gets harder to say as the evening wears on but despite that I shall certainly be looking out for it on my trails. Check out the brewery website also - http://www.inveralmond-brewery.co.uk/home.htm