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.

Jo and I headed up to Summerseat, north of Bury, on Saturday to do a spot of shed research at the Summerseat Garden Centre. As it turned out they didn’t have any sheds, but once we’d fought our way past three rooms full of assorted Christmas tat and wandered into the “luxury food items” (over-priced james, pickles, bicsuits, chocolates etc. etc. etc.) section, we discovered that they did have a real ale section, for which I was almost able to forgive them the four-piece plastic midget santa band playing a selection of seasonal jingles (not what you want to be hearing in early November).

So, whilst we didn’t come away from Summerseat with a new shed, we did end up with a ceramic strawberry planter and bottles of the following:

• Bank Top Port O’ Call – A ‘dark and mysterious’ ale with added ruby port.
• Bank Top Dark Mild – A full-bodied mild ‘with hints of liquorice and roast barley’.
• Wold Top 5 Wold Rings – An amber beer that’s described as ‘festive’ on the label… we’ll see about that at Xmas, then.
• Wold Top Cracker Black – A 6% ABV Strong, dark Xmas ale, so another one to save for Dec 25th.
• Copper Dragon Black Gold – A Dark beer brewed to a traditional C19th recipe.
• Holt’s Manchester Brown Ale – With ‘a hint of molasses’ and a ‘smooth, burnt palate’, hopefully more interesting than Newcastle Tadcaster Brown.
• J. W. Lees Moonraker – A 7.5% ABV ale from local brewery John Willies? Had to be done.
• Leyden Forever Bury – A 4.6% ABV ale brewed by local brewery Leyden to support my team, Bury FC. About bloody time I bought a bottle or two of this one then, eh?

…so it wasn’t an entirely wasted journey, although I was deeply traumatised by the sheer volume of Christmas tat. It may take me some time (and about eight bottles of beer) to recover.

Incidentally, Wold Top brewery are working to raise £10,000 to support the Candlelighters childrens’ cancer charity. You can support them by buying a bottle (or six) of their Candlelight Ale, available from the brewery or various fairs and farmers’ markets around Driffield in the run-up to Christmas.

Sainsbury’s have kicked off this year’s Real Ale promo and have the full range in stock at our local store, which made last night’s mid-week top-up shopping trip about twice as expensive, twice as heavy and ten times as interesting as it usually is.

I grabbed pretty much one of everything they had, which means I’m now the proud owner of a bottle of each of the following all-new (to me) beers:

• Allgates Brewery Porteresque – “classic style porter”, 4.4%
• Bath Ales Golden Hare – “full-flavoured light ale”, 4.4% abv
• Bays Brewery Bays Breaker – “award-winning ale with a chestnut colour and fruity taste”, 4.7% abv
• Greene King Bretwalda – “spicy and fruity ale”, 4.1%
• Hambleton Ales Taylor’s Tipple – “chestnut coloured ale with an uplifting citrus and berry aroma”, 4.5%
• Williams Bros 80/- Ale – “traditional Scottish ale brewed with an emphasis on the malt characteristics”, 4.2%
• Williams Bros Birds n’ Bees – “golden summer ale … brewed with a late infusion of elderflowers and lemon zest”, 5%
• Williams Bros Ceilidh – “crisp, citrusy lager”, 4.7%
• Williams Bros Williams IPA – “Aggressively hopped … an unusual blend of Bramling X and Amarillo”, 5%
• Wolf Brewery Woild Moild – “rich, fruity mild”, 4.8%
• Wolf Brewery Wolf Whistle – “lightly hopped reddish ale” 4.7%
• Wood’s Brewery Shropshire Lass – “a delectable blonde”, 4.1%

I picked up top-up bottles of BrewDog’s Chaos Theory, Dogma and Hardcore IPA as well, all of which I’m already quite familiar with and fairly stocked-up on already… but it would have been rude not to, eh? Prices ranged from about £1.59 to £1.89 per bottle, but with the ’4 for 3, cheapest free’ offer that dragged the averages down into bargain territory, particularly for those BrewDog brews.

Compared to last year’s selection there seems to be a smaller group of participating breweries this time around – whether this is down to their having stormed the taste-tests or for logistical reasons I don’t know – but still a reasonably broad range of beer styles. Nice to see a mild and a porter included, as well as a craft lager and, of course, BrewDog’s two hop-monsters and their rather delicious Dogma.

I think I’m most looking forward (BrewDogs aside, as I’ve already tried all of those) to the Allgates Porteresque, Williams 80/-and Wolf Woild Moild. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Greene King Bretwalda will be the dud of the bunch, but that might be my inherent ‘Greene King = kinda average’ bias creeping in. We shall see.

Update 28.08.09 Reluctant Scooper has posted a tasting round-up of the four Williams Bros beers.

One of the benefits of letting folks know you write a beer blog is that on occasion your nearest and dearest will spot a couple of interesting-looking ones and report back with the info. Or, better still, they’ll actually buy the beer and bring it to you. No, seriously, I’ve seen it happen. Like the time my missus came back from Aldi with a couple of bottles of Wychwood – one Blonde Wych, one Black Wych if I remember rightly. And then just the other day, I was on the phone to the folks when my old man said, apropos of nothing much:

“Do you like porter?”

“Um… Bears, woods? Pope, Catholic? Sorry, yes. Yes I do.”

He then went on to explain how on a trip to his local (Crossgates, Leeds) Asda deli counter he spotted that they were decorating the front of the cold meat display with a number of bottles of ale from the Acorn Brewery. And among them he’d spotted their Old Moor Porter, a “full bodied victorian style porter with hints of liquorice” that was a near-miss for the Champion Winter Beer of Britain last year.

So he stuck a bottle in his trolley, took it home and… drank it.

Okay, so he hasn’t quite got the buy the beer and bring it to you bit down pat just yet, but I do have a promise of a couple of bottles at the weekend if he gets to Asda again by then, or in a couple of weeks’ time if not. And at least I know in advance that it’s “smooth, creamy and delicious” (guest mini-tasting-notes from my Dad, there) so that’s another one to look forward to.

Our local (Prestwich, Manchester) branch of Tesco has scored poor to middling for its bottled real ale section for some time, but I usually stroll down the appropriate aisle on the optimistic, but usually-disappointed, off-chance that they’ve managed to stock something interesting for a change.

So I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I wandered on by and discovered a scattering of ‘NEW!’ shelf-tags in the section. Pick of the bunch had to be two from Flying Dog, not only their pack-leading Classic Pale Ale but also one of their speciality brews: Gonzo Imperial Porter. At 8.7% I’m betting that one packs something of a wallop and I’m looking forward to trying it (£2.49 a bottle, by the way, and I think it was £1.69 for the Classic Pale).

I also picked up a bottle of Budweiser Budvar Dark Lager, on the grounds that there’s always room for another Czech dark lager in the beer cupboard. And then, crossing the aisle to the UK real ale in a bottle section, I spotted a few that were new to Tesco but that I’d either already sampled or seen in Sainsburys. Although the, up in the top-right corner, I spotted a few bottles of Morrissey Fox Brunette, so I grabbed one of those for sampling as well. The beer cupboard is once again full to over-flowing and there’s another consignment on the way from BrewDog as well. I know, I know, I really need to drink more…

But yeah, anyway, head on down to your local Tesco – you might be able to pick up something new and interesting. And speaking of supermarkets, have Sainsbury’s cancelled this year’s real ale competition / promotion or something? Not a sniff of it in our local branch, and I haven’t heard anything about it on my regular-read blogs, either. Anyone know what happened there?