Brewery: Thornbridge [@thornbridge]
Location: Bakewell, Derbyshire
Style: Strong Ale, aged in Madeira wine barrels
ABV: 11.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Beer Ritz, Leeds

I bought this solitary bottle of Thornbridge Alliance Strong Ale Madeira Reserve from Beer Ritz, last December. I had planned on keeping it a while longer, but when Mark suggested the beer bloggers of the UK get together to give that Kelly Ryan chap a bit of an online send-off back to New Zealand, I thought I’d join in by cracking this one open and raising a toast.

Here’s how it looked right after the pour:

Taking a good sniff of the deep red-brown, slightly cloudy beer, I was positively assaulted by a thick, strong waft of madeira wine, with an ever-so faint and not at all unpleasant age-mustiness (maybe some of the champagne yeast snuck in at the end). It already looked and smelled incredible; so how about the taste?

From the first sip I was bowled over by an incredibly intense, rich, deep, sweet slam of fructose, beautifully balanced by a slightly fruit-sour after-taste. A few more sips (definitely not a quaffer, this one) and I was getting a whole raft of fresh fruit flavours – mainly cherry, raspberry and plum – on a base of dark, sugary dried fruit, with a chunk of toffee-caramel and a trace of woodiness (hints of oak from the barrel, I’m guessing?). The whole thing was wrapped in a definite fortified wine character, with a mouth-feel that was deliciously smooth and slightly chewy from the big alcohol volume, but with the sheer depth and breadth of flavour that I’ve not found before in even the best glass of vintage port.

Wow. Just… wow.

I’ve never met Kelly Ryan and I was up in the Lakes when he was in Manchester for the last Twissup, I guess I’ve missed my chance to say hello. But I still remember reading a feature on the four Thornbridge brewers – Stefano, Kelly, Dave and Matthew – back in the second issue of CAMRA’s Beer magazine (Winter 2008) when I was just starting in on this beer blogging lark. I was impressed by the attitude, dedication and passion for innovation that was ascribed to the whole team, and as the first Thornbridge brewer to get involved in blogging and Twitter, @thornbridgekel has for the past couple of years been the most visible representative of that team and a great advocate of the Thornbridge ethos.

According to the back label, the Alliance strong ale series (Mark Dredge posted more info on the three versions over on his Pencil and Spoon blog a while back) was brewed by Thornbridge’s Stefano Cossi, aided and abetted by Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery, so perhaps this isn’t one of Kelly’s beer’s per se, but I’m sure I will have drunk and enjoyed a few Thornbridge brews that were his own creations, and a few more that he’s had a hand in perfecting.

So I would like to say a quick ‘thank you’ to Kelly, for all the pints and bottles of Jaipur, Kipling, Halcyon, St Petersburg, Ashford and more that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed over the past couple of years, as well as the more general contribution that he’s made to the UK craft / independent / real ale brewing scene whilst he’s been with us. And I wish him every success for whatever ventures he undertakes back home in New Zealand.

Cheers, Kelly!

The weekend before last, Jo and I were booked to go over to Leeds for a family outing, so en-route we detoured via Headingley in order to visit Zak Avery‘s legendary beer emporium Beer Ritz.

The shop was easy to locate and although there’s not much around there in the way of parking in the immediate vicinity, we managed to find a spot not too far away. Grabbing assorted wine carriers from the boot of the car, we headed inside. Beer Ritz turned out to be a small, former corner-shop, with a fine-looking selection of superior wines and rare whiskies as soon as you walk in and then a raised section at the back of the shop; a horseshoe-shaped Aladdin’s cave of beery wonders.

Honestly, I could’ve just asked for one of everything and been 95% certain of being able to dip into the resulting selection and end up trying something new. Although I recognised a few of the more interesting bottles I’ve been lucky enough to sample over the past 18 months or so, my attention was still being constantly grabbed by new and interesting beers I’d either only heard of or seen mentioned on other beer blogs before then. I had a chat with the chap behind the counter (not Zak, he was down in London for the British Guild of Beer Writers do) and ended up with a fair few recommendations to think about.

In the end, Jo and I left the store with two dozen bottles of incredibly interesting-looking beer and left a good two-dozen more on the shelf that we could have grabbed but decided to leave for next time. Here’s what we came away with:

Big British Beers

First up, just a few of the many Great British beers that caught my eye, all of them fairly high ABV, slow sippers rather than session brews:

• Sam Smith’s Winter Welcome – a 6.0% ABV full-bodied ale from a Yorkshire brewery steeped in tradition. They say: “When orange peel and cinnamon are added, you have an authentic wassail”. Think I might end up maturing this one for a couple of years alongside the bottle fo Stingo I bought back in the summer.
• Harvey’s Elizabethan Ale – an 8.1% ABV barleywine first brewed for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 and “comparable in strength to the beer produced by Tudor brewers during the reign of Elizabeth I”. One to savour…
• BrewDog Movember BrewDog’s recent charity brew, rumoured to be a cross between Punk IPA and Trashy Blonde, very good indeed by all accounts (okay, not as big as some, but still definitely British).
• Thornbridge Alliance Madeira Reserve 2007 – an 11% ABV barleywine matured for 18 months, finished in madeira wine casks and bottle conditioned with champagne yeast; the result of a collaboration between Thornbridge and Brooklyn Brewery.
• Wensleydale Beater’s Winter Ale – 8.0% ABV and jam-packed full of sweet fruity flavours if the Wensleydale Brewery website is anything to go by.
• Wensleydale Porter – No info on the Wensleydale website, but the label tells me it’s a 6.6% ABV traditional-style porter “brimming with roasted malt, raisins and molasses”.
• J. W. Lees Harvest Ale 08 (sorry, you have to feck about with Lees’ Flash-based website for more info) – an 11.5% ABV barleywine, served in a 250ml bottle. Tandleman has rhapsodised about this one on a couple of occasions.
• Ridgeway Foreign Export Stout – an 8% stout produced by former Brakspear head brewer Peter Scholey and sold under his Ridgeway label

Intriguing Imports

And then a few from further afield that I particularly wanted to try:

• Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2006 – at 7.5% ABV this one’s probably not as “extra strong” as Coopers think it is, but it still sounds like a tasty brew.
• Schloss Eggenberg Urbock 23° – a 9.6% ABV Austrian doppelbock, should be an interesting experience. Might save this one for the summer months and give it a bit of a chilling.
• Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine Ale – all the way from San Francisco, Anchor’s Old Foghorn is a highly-hopped 8.2% ABV brew that should be good to sip on a hot summer’s day. So, here’s hoping we get one next year…
• Goose Island Bourbon County Stout – this US import, bourbon barrell-aged, 13% ABV monster-stout comes from Chicago and carries the weight of the proud boast: “one sip has more flavor than your average case of beer”. I’ll see their sip and raise a 330ml bottle…
• Coopers Best Extra Stout – a 6.6% ABV Aussie stout. This one will turn out to be the anti-XXXX, with any luck.

Jo’s selection

Not to be out-done, Jo grabbed a few likely-looking candidates for her own corner of the beer cupboard:

• Wensleydale Black Dub Oat Stout – Malted oats are added to this 4.4% ABV stout for a rich malty finish.
• Burton Bridge Bramble Stout – a 5.0% ABV stout, “blackberry juiced, bottle conditioned”.
• Isle of Skye Black Cuillin – a 4.5% ABV dark ale brewed with roast rolled oats and heather honey.
• Orkney Dragonhead Stout – only 4.0% ABV but packed full of “chocolate, toast and nut flavours, with a satisfying spicy hop finish”.
• Williams Bros Black – a dark ale, rather than a stout, weighing in at 4.2% ABV
• Ossett Treacle Stout (sorry, another dose of crappy website navigation) – “A rich stout with powerful liquorice and chocolate malt flavour.” 5.0% ABV

The Festive Five

Finally, what with it being the season to be merry and all, we thought we’d grab a few Xmas-themed beers:

• Hepworth & Co Vintage Christmas Ale – A 7.5% bottle conditioned strong ale.
• Burton Bridge Santa’s Christmas Porter – A 4.0% ABV “very dark brown but not black” fruity porter (Jo will be supping this one, most likely)
• Gouden Carolus Christmas – A 10.5% Belgian brewed with three different hops and six herbs and spices. One for the Xmas-pud stage of the proceedings?
• Ridgeway Very Bad Elf – a 7.5% ABV winter warmer, one of six seasonal beers produced mainly for the US export trade
• RCH Brewery Ale Mary – again, no info on the website there, but the label tells me it’s 6.0% ABV and brewed with coriander seed oil, apparently. Should be interesting.

A fantastic selection of great beers there, I’m sure you’ll agree. I’m looking forward to sampling and talking about those in a few tasting notes posts to come. And Jo has already tried a few of hers. Unfortunately, the Isle of Skye Black Cuillin had gone off in the bottle (it was very sour, surely not right for a honeyed beer) but the Orkney Dragonhead and Williams Bros Black were both very nice indeed. They were quite similar; with strong coffee and roast malt flavours, although the Dragonhead was the more pronounced of the two. Jo declared them both a huge success anyhow, so that’s the main thing.