BEERS #2 - Beyond the Pale

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Missing cask ale big time. Freshly tapped unfiltered lager can be a wonder. I had survived through January on PET bottles freshly tapped from Czechia. So good. But they went, Brexit struck shipping and the offerings are limited at the minute, which has brought back into focus that cask ale, on its day, is the best.

Something like Kirkstall Dissolution IPA, where the high bitterness is bound with the smoothness and thickness of the cask delivery. A living product where, at its best, the journey from verdant, citric, lightly spicy aroma to perfectly poised bittersweet balance, both light and rich, delivers big flavour and repeatable drinking.

I'll never say a good word about their shite (as well as often badly kept) Kirkstall Pale. Three Swords is meh too, but beer like Dissolution is enough to pull you to a pub all on its own. Would definitely rather be on that than any can or bottle right now.

[phes]

Funny you mention that - dissolution is the absolute favourite of an ex and good friend who lives in Headingly. She swears blind it's the best beer and best value beer that the brewery makes. I had it years back now when they used to bottle it and the Cardigan Road off licence sold it and it was, well, not for the feint hearted. Certainly an IPA with some bite to it!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think it would be well up your street from what you state your preferences are.

I think the cask delivery rounds it off really well. A beer I would have absolutely no interest in drinking in bottled form.

[phes]

It was pretty agricultural back then in bottled form.

I also miss cask beer terribly. Probably my handful of favourite UK beers from the last ten years have all been cask. I've had a couple of them in cans along the way since and they've been completely unremarkable. Even Breweries like Magic Rock and Northern Monk have put out cask beers that have trounced their canned ranges. I get the reasoning behind the shift but it's sad to see it go on their part  because it's unique when it's made and served right

[king_tubby]

Can't wait to sit down in the Cardigan Arms with a pint of Black Band porter in front of me.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://twitter.com/YuriHegge/status/1368679602474938374?s=19

Wortflow?! Help..

[Ferris]

Wort is the liquid from mashing grains and sparging, but before it has been boiled/hopped and fermented.

Presumably these breweries are using their special grain bill and mash temp to make interesting unique wort, then flogging that to people for blending/fermenting/briting.

Seems like it'd be piece of piss to clone the wort tbh but who knows.

[phes]

Maybe it's more economical for some breweries re space/time to only fill space with fermentation tanks and bring in wort from elsewhere? Or maybe breweries that spontaneously ferment are more finicky and produce excess wort. Cantillon with their open fermentation pools can probably only ferment under certain conditions so the rest of their equipment would be sitting idle for a lot of the time.

Either way, my guess is that we are looking at a lovely kind of efficiency ecosystem that has developed to combat the inefficiences of spontaneous fermentation, rather than anything relating to wort quality

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I'm familiar with wort, actually I got to try some from Northern Monk brewery once. They rushed upstairs to the taproom after some overflow or other and gave everyone in the room a cup to get rid of it... A faintly Ovaltine like quality.

Phes, your last paragraph makes sense in the context of all these Belgian Lambic producers being close geography and the very specific conditions that need to be met for producing an authentic Senne valley lambic beer.

I like the sense of cooperation the chart implies too.

[Ferris]

Agree on both bits - the efficiency angle (which I didn't think of) and it being a nice collaborative ecosystem.

I didn't know this was even a thing so thanks for posting that, Shoulders.

Lovely stuff.

[TrenterPercenter]

I went to a brewery tour once; the master brewer there said that demand was so high for his beer that he'd once had to mash & sparge grains for 12 hours non-stop.

I said "I suppose it's a labour of love"
He looked at me disapprovingly and said "Worts love got to do with it?"


This made up master brewer was from the Black Country.

[Ferris]

I went to a brewery tour once; the master brewer there said that demand was so high for his beer that he'd once had to mash & sparge grains for 12 hours non-stop.

I said "I suppose it's a labour of love"
He looked at me disapprovingly and said "Worts love got to do with it?"

This made up master brewer was from the Black Country.

The same fictional brewmaster was going to a '70s glam reunion at the Wulfrun Hall and asked me what he should wear.

"A kipper tie?"

"Yes please mate, 3 sugars!"

[Ferris]

Last time I saw the fictional brewmaster, he was arguing with a jeweller. He wanted them to make a gold statue of his dog.

"Eighteen carat?", asked the jeweller.

"No, chewin' a bone!"

[Ferris]

Could do this all night, lads. Occupational hazard of growing up in the Black Country.

[TrenterPercenter]

Agree on both bits - the efficiency angle (which I didn't think of) and it being a nice collaborative ecosystem.

I didn't know this was even a thing so thanks for posting that, Shoulders.

Lovely stuff.

Have you ever had a pint of Lump Hammer then Ferris?

[Ferris]

I'll give you a pint of lump hammer in a minute old son

[TrenterPercenter]

Bostin'

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Bostin'

He's been quiet lately.

[Ferris]

Bostin'

Gaming pub been keeping him busy.

Edit: shit.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Tried to order from a Czech brewery after hearing they had restarted UK delivery.

They could give me a fixed price on the beers and shipment but were basically *shrug, cigs* about the potential additional costs that would be passed on at customs.

This is totally unfeasible. People like myself are just not going to place orders unless we know the exact pound and pence.

[Blue Jam]

Just had one of these:



Dublin-based brewery, never heard of them before. I do love a schwartzbier and this one is very pleasant, flavoursome and refreshing.

[Ferris]

Assuming it's about 6%, you could clone that fairly easily with that ingredient list if you got that new brew pot. Quick estimate:

11lbs Munich (or Pilsner 2-row tbh)
12oz aromatic malt
1/2lb choc malt

Mash at 156f for 90 mins (no need to insulate mash vessel, will give you a nice spectrum of mash temps by the end)
Boil 60 mins with 1oz of magnum at 60 mins and another 1oz at flameout
Hydrate and pitch your WLP833 (though I reckon WLP001 would do the same job for that style...)
3 weeks in primary, prime and another 3 in the bottle.

Always seems odd to me that (some) breweries make a prominent thing of ingredients lists but there you go.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Looks good/would bang

[Jerzy Bondov]

Yeah I wouldn't mind getting that inside me. I've had something from Whiplash before but my memory fails me now. Always up for a schwartzbier anyway.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Picked up a few beers from Tremblingmadness.co.uk and they currently had a few UK efforts at non-standard German lager.

Pentrich Festbier 'One Step Klose' - 6%

Thornbridge vs. Newbarns Franconia Kellerbier 'Gelbvieh' - 5.2%

Donzoko vs. Braybrooke Vienna Lager - 5%

The bottom two have very good lager chops. Braybrooke's Keller Lager is very nice.

I'll report back.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Work's done for the week so cracked open this:



Forgot what an absolute cracker this is. A spot on premium Czech Lager, Saaz-hop/Pilsner-malt 12 degrees Svetly Lezak.

This one is unfiltered too so you get a really nice combination of thicker indulgent spicy texture and tingly persistent bitter hops, which from the flavour I would guess are whole cones not just compacted hop pellets. A nice, if-subdued Kellerbier-type aroma too. In any event, the upshot is  high drinkability and, as usual, curses from me that I only bought one of them.

When you get the good stuff from Lagerland (Bavaria & Bohemia) it leaps out just how much better it is and the standard we could be drinking as a baseline if the big breweries hadn't decided to normalise shite to the point where it's seen as 'poncey'* to want anything more than a Carling/Carslberg/Jupiler/Kronenbourg/insert whatever local crap is going.


*_{in reality this is a product of quite forgivable working class defensiveness, but if Pilsner Urquell can put their product out and put it on sale in a UK supermarket at £1.54/500ml then that alone is evidence quality macro brewing and mass participation can work}

[king_tubby]

I saw a couple of local bars tweeting the other week about how Tesco are knocking out cans of Northern Monk cheaper than they can buy wholesale, and that is pretty rubbish.

And now I'm having a can of New World IPA and it doesn't taste quite right. Have they scaled up at the expense of quality?

[Chedney Honks]

I'm gulping down a Kapuziner Kellerweizen.

Got the usual clove and banana tang with fine carbonation, but a bit of an earthy, hoppy, light caramel, peanut shell funk to it, as well. It's one I would absolutely demolish in summer. It's not my favourite Weizen by any stretch but it's definitely something different enough within fairly reliable parameters. Very like, having not drunk beer for about a month.

[phes]

I saw a couple of local bars tweeting the other week about how Tesco are knocking out cans of Northern Monk cheaper than they can buy wholesale, and that is pretty rubbish.

And now I'm having a can of New World IPA and it doesn't taste quite right. Have they scaled up at the expense of quality?

Pretty much every craft beer I've had from the supermarket has got worse to some degree than its original incarnation. Vocation, Northern Monk, Beavertown, Magic Rock (recently tried cannonball and highwire) are all producing core beers that have suffered. They've raised the overall quality and variety in supermarkets but are producing beer that has lost its sparkle. And that's charitably comparing it to older keg versions of these beers. Cask may be harder to keep and less reliable but the better cask beers from these made the beers they're knocking out 8 for £8 seem a joke

Given the choice of any of these and I will opt for Sierra Nevada pale ale, Jaipur, Guinness original or the best wheat beer that they have

[TrenterPercenter]

Work's done for the week so cracked open this:

I can attest this was the best one I tried of the 11-13 and it was superb (so much I saved a can for later).

The 11 and 13 are great but this one was really special stuff.