Beer Compurgation

A few months ago I had the opportunity to purchase beers from a brewery I’d read and heard about, but yet had chance to sample. They were the To Øl brewery from Denmark. They have an interesting background, and direct links to the Mikkeller brewery, which is what initially, sparked my interests. Anyone who has a huge passion for beer, and has been tutored by one of the grand masters of international brewing, must have a pretty decent idea of what makes decent beer. On that day I purchased five of their beers, and enjoyed the first – First Frontier IPA – finding it deliciously hoppy ale and one I would seek out again. It was then that I decided I would taste another 3 of their bottles, all being versions of an IPA, together to get an interesting insight into how good this brewery currently are. The three chosen ales were the Final Frontier IPA, and the two Mikkeller collaboration IIPA’s Overall IIPA and Sleep Over Coffee IIPA. I’m not expecting prosaic brews and approach this ta...

I've reached that stage in the craft beer game where I seem more than happy to spend what can be considered a sensational amount of my hard earned money on beverages that are surely overpriced. When I tell my non-beery friends that I recently enjoyed a great beer in a Manchester bar that was £4.50 for a half pint, they give me the sort of look one gives a man who has announced that he is to write the words of Wordsworth on a Cathedral wall in his own shit. “So that would work out as £9 sterling for a pint of beer?” they will say, in incredulous tones.   Sometimes I require a mirror to give myself a scathing look when I scan bottle menus in similar bars and view anything under £10 as a "bargain." So, as Joey Tribbiani once asked "Who says wine has to cost more than milk?" tonight I must ask myself whether I could just enjoy great beer on a more reasonable budget? I'm not a rich man. I have plenty of bills and a very active social life to keep up with. Is t...

Whilst placing a recent beer order, my cursor hovered over an interesting sounding beer brewed in the Belgian Tripel style. The brewery wasn’t from Belgium but this was their take on that category of beer. There’s nothing wrong with that; interpretation of borrowed styles is 75% of what I drink these days. It was a brewery I greatly respect too so why wouldn’t this be good. Then I noticed the price – nearly £10. Well, I’ve paid more for beer in the past, so… But then I thought, why don’t I just buy a Belgian Tripel from a great Belgian brewer instead? And why wasn’t that my first thought? It’s been apparent to me for a while that Belgian, and German beers for that matter, have become anachronistic in the British beer market. Styles change, and beer is not immune to this, but the more they sequester the greater the loss to our choices. My first world beers , those great eons ago, were the classics; Leffe, Hoegaarden, Erdinger etc and I owe them much to the evolution of my tas...

I may as well get this grandiloquence over with now as it will only build over the next few weeks as Euro 2012 approaches. I’ll try to be brief and inoffensive. I’m a big football fan and I always have been. I was long before I was reaching drinking age and discovered the wonders of beer variety. I was long before beer had politics and when I still believed it was only something to enjoy. Unfortunately, there seems to be large numbers within the beer community who, don’t simply dislike football, but resent it and belittle those that don’t. There are a lot of stereotypes to beer enthusiasts; namely that they are trainspotter sorts, with great beards and a poor dress sense. I suppose there are stereotypes to football fans as well. This is why I find it so disgusting that there are so many prejudiced people around determined to force these stereotypes on everyone. Are we not allowed other interests away from God’s nectar? Or is there a limit to what hobbies are permitted. Personal...

The other day I had a long chat with a late 50’s, huge CAMRA supporter who, rather tragically, is one who has not embraced anything brewed since 1987. I didn’t shout or judge, I was just interested in his opinions to see if we shared any common thoughts. On the whole, we did not. But one eminence did strike a chord with me and has led me to this post. Whilst discussing a decent pint of Hook Norton’s Old Hooky, a beer he professed to have first drank in 1978, he made the following statement, “Hook Norton has made a small number of beers consistently well for over 40 years. These new breweries are too prolific and don’t focus on maintaining a stellar range.” It got me thinking about some of the experimental “one-off” beers I’ve had recently, the new breweries I like that seem to have a new beer out every day and the fact that all beer lovers seem to have had a disappointing pint of Punk IPA at some point in the last 6 months. Which leads me on to a taste test with a range of, wha...

I’ve written briefly about my localist of local micro-breweries before – the Millstone Brewery, Mossley. I have ranked them in my top 3 favourite breweries for nearly 7 years and have enjoyed their great beers, mainly locally, without deeper thought in all this time. But, something changed the other day. I was in Stalybridge Buffet Bar and had a pint of Millstone’s famed Tiger Rut and it was, as they say, on terrific form. Light but full of flavour, a fresh melon-like aroma, a great hoppy hit with a satisfyingly bitter aftertaste, everything I’ve grown accustomed to in the years past. The only difference was my natural reaction to this delicious beer was to reach for my phone. Why? Well any users of Twitter probably know. There’s nothing wrong with Twitter. I love Twitter. I love having a little beery community to share my thoughts/rants with about beer, rather than drilling into the brain cells of my lager obsessed Gump friends. And I’ve certainly no problem with breweries usi...

My inane desire to try beers I haven’t sampled has come over me and so I’ve banded together all the American beers in my stash that herald from breweries I’ve not tried before. (I really need to stop theming my evenings so much.) I ordered all of these in the hope that some of the less readily available American brewers were hiding some hidden gems. I’m excited. (As there are 6 I’ll try to keep tasting notes brief. I’ve also not bothered with individual pictures, because nearly all the beers look the same in the glass this time – seriously!) Shipyard Brewery:   IPA - Think American Craft IPA and you have the style pictured in your mind, or on your tastebuds. There have been some truly fantastic ones, so it’s always interesting to try one’s you haven’t. I’ve never heard of Shipyard, but for under £2 a bottle it seemed like it was definitely worth a go. I shan’t be bothering again. This is an English IPA that Caledonian brewery wouldn’t be proud of. It’s not BAD, there’s...