I don’t often spend Saturday nights in but I am determined
to save money presently. However the only way I could stop myself leaving the
house was to give myself a treat to look forward to and a local shop provided
that when they randomly started stocking a host of Red Willow Brewery beers.
I’ve had a few of their beers on cask, especially a few Faithless’, and have
enjoyed them so I treated myself to a variety and hoped for an enjoyable
evening.
I
started with Directionless – a 4.2% “Pale Ale” (One of around four I believe
they do.) “A curious beast” so says the bottle, and my first impressions
certainly agree. It has more bubbles than fresh champagne at first and each one
clings to the side of the glass. It’s also almost odourless. There’s a hint of
mango, perhaps, but past that it just smells of, well, beer. And not a
flavourful beer at that. This
only serves to make the taste a surprise and that is a good thing. This beer is
fresh. Fresh and crisp. The citrus flavour in the hops is perfectly balanced
with a bitter afterthought. There is nothing over-powering here. There is
nothing in your face about it. Throughout the warmer months I would love for
this to be a mainstay in my local. I could drink this from dawn til dusk and
never tire of it. A terrifically drinkable ale.
A beer
that certainly isn’t odourless is the Heartless Chocolate Stout. The scent is
pure coffee, like taking the lid off your coffee bean jar in the morning. It’s
also dark. Impenetrably dark. This isn’t a stout that flashes ruby when the
light catches it. This is as black as the strongest of black coffees.
Earlier
in the evening for dinner I made an affogato with 85% dark chocolate and, of
course, fresh coffee. This was entirely coincidental, but this beer is that
affogato in a glass. For those of you unfamiliar with the Italian dessert, the
four main ingredients of an affogato are vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate,
biscuits and coffee, and they are the four flavours I’m getting from this
drink. Again, everything’s balanced. It’s tasty and not overwhelming. It’s a
great reminder in these days of strong Imperial Stouts that you can still make
Stouts of this quality that are under 5%.
In a completely different
direction I then had the double IPA Ageless. From the moment I flick the lid
off one thing is apparent - this beer smells like grapefruits. There's no
getting away from it. It hits you like you’ve carved through the fresh fruit
itself. It's also lively. The picture shows a beer that was poured with care
and left for a few minutes before being snapped. That's a monstruous bit of
foam, one I couldn’t resist dunking my finger into and licking the cream. Bang!
Hops. Golden hops. I want this beer to settle quicker than it is. I NEED to
drink this beer. It's worth the wait. This beer is goodIt’s as mega-hopped as
we’ve expected from Double IPA’s recently but this is up there with the best. In
fact, when I say it's up with the best, I'm struggling to think of better. Coronado’s
Idiot IPA or Dogfish Head’s 90 minutes are probably my favourites… but this
might be on par. Let me tell you now, Ageless is a great hop bomb experience.
Go and find it and drink it. Now. 
Saving my favourite until last, I
finished with Smokeless. In case you didn’t know (and you probably didn't) I'm
a big smoked beer fan. Schlenkerla Rauchbier would be among my favourite three
beers of all time. But I'm always happy to see smoked beers around which is why
I saved Smokeless until the end.
Smokeless
pours black with a slight head and certainly looks like a Rauchbier when in the
glass. It also has that Rauchbier scent. Smoked porter's often have a sickly,
vinegary smell to them that it's hard to get over. This is why the Germans have
always done smoked beer better than the English. But that discerning scent is
not prevalent here. Red Willow
have not let me down all evening, but I had my reservations about Smokeless due
to my high expectations. But I'm not disappointed tonight. It's smoky, but not
in a way that is unapproachable to non-fans of this type. The end is quite
sweet and malty. It retains its porter identity, rather than being masked by
the chipotle taste. I've heard people who are not fans of smoked beers say that
drinking them is like licking the charcoal remains of a barbeque. If that is
their opinion then this is like licking the sticky barbeque sauce off tender
spare ribs. It is close-your-eyes-and-savour-it tastiness.
If all
Saturday nights in could be this enjoyable I might have more. I was honestly so
impressed I may be quickly finding a new favourite brewery. The only
disappointment was that, as a collector of beer labels, I didn’t have a hope of
prising any of these beautiful stickers away from their glass bottles. Oh well
– guess I’ll have to buy the beers again and try once more…
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