I see to have been on a bit of an IPA kick recently and last night, inspired by a tweet from @reluctantscoop, I started yesterday evening off with a bottle of Fullers Bengal Lancer IPA. This is a beer I’d tired before at the Doric Arch, London Euston; on draught but sans-sparkler. The bottled version (which was bottle conditioned but very low on sediment) poured a sparkling golden amber with a big frothy head, although that soon disappeared. Flavour-wise it was all about the hop-bitterness on the nose and then the same again on the after-taste, but in the middle there was a lot of warm, malty flavour to get to grips with. Very well balanced, very refreshing and it compared well to the draught version. A very nice drop indeed and available at the moment in Sainsbury’s, if our local branch is anything to go by.

Having started off highly-hopped I thought I’d carry on in the same spirit and decided to crack open a bottle of M&S Staffordshire IPA. This one is brewed by Marstons (according to ratebeer it’s an alias one called ‘India Export’) and was first sold as part of M&S’s ale range re-vamp last year. Most of the notes I scribbled seem to focus on how it fared in comparison with the Bengal Lancer and although it’s still a pleasant drop it really wasn’t as impressive: paler in colour, thinner in mouth-feel, slightly sharper on the hop after-taste, but generally just not as satisfying as the Lancer, and definitely not as good as Marstons own Old Empire IPA. In fact, I’d be tempted (again) to question whether it really qualifies as a full IPA, with only 5.5% ABV and much less going for it in the flavour stakes than the style usually promises.

As I was in full hop-head mode by this stage of the evening, I carried on the theme with a BrewDog Punk IPA. This was one of the first big-hop IPAs I tried back when Blogobeer started back in 2008 and I stand by the tasting notes I posted then: big hops, “positively Saharan” dryness but very well balanced, with a rich mouth-feel and extremely drinkable as a result. It’s one of my regular favourite and I think I’ve had at least a couple of bottles of Punk IPA in the beer cupboard ever since I first tried it. Lovely stuff.

Then, to round the evening off, I delved deep into the special stash section of said beer cupboard and brought forth a bottle of De Struise-Mikkeller Ratebeer Special; a “double IIPA of 130 IBU”. This was part of a De Struise / Mikkeller / De Molen mixed case that I got from beermerhcants.com last spring. There were two bottles of this one in the case and I drank one of them quite young and I remember it being pretty much all about the bitterness. The beer I tried last night was a completely different beast though. It poured a dark amber with a thick, frothy head and a slightly sweet, biscuity aroma and another year of conditioning in the bottle has produced a much, much richer, mellower, smoother flavour-profile. The big hops were still powerfully present, but they were wonderfully tempered and kept in balance by a newly-developed dark, toffee richness and a pungent red wine character with floral, herbal, grapefruit-citrus highlights. Absolutely fantastic stuff and I was very sorry when I finished the glass; no more of this one left in the beer cupboard and I’m unlikely to see another one anytime soon…

So, of the four IPAs on show here, the Struise-Mikkeller was far and away the best but let’s face it, this one was always going to have an unfair advantage. Taking the rare Belgian/Danish brew one out of the picture, I’d have to stick with the Punk as a regular favourite, but I have to say the Bengal Lancer was quite close behind and I’ll definitely be stocking up on that one for the summer. The M&S Staffordshire IPA was okay and I wouldn’t pass up on another bottle if someone offered me one, but I don’t think it can really hold its own against the huge range of fine IPAs (or “IPA-style” beers) on the market today.

I’ve been feeling crappy since last Thursday, with a head full of a common cold. It put paid to my plans to visit the National Winter Ales Festival on Friday as I stayed in and supped hot lemon and honey drinks instead, but on Saturday night I thought I’d take the offensive. So I decided to break out a couple of strong stouts, on the grounds that at least I ought to be able to taste those…

First up was Ridgeway Foreign Export Stout, weighing in at a hefty 8% ABV. Ridgeway beers are brewed by Peter Scholey, formerly the head brewer at Brakspear, mainly for the US export market (as far as I can tell) although I picked this one up in my pre-Xmas trip to Beer Ritz in Leeds.

It poured an almost opaque black and thanks to its bottle-conditioning was slightly effervescent, resulting in a big frothy head, although it didn’t hang around for long. Flavour-wise is was all big, burnt sugars cut through with treacle, liquorice and cough syrup. Which seemed appropriate under the circumstances. After a while, the sugars settled down and a more stewed-fruit character began to come through: I eventually decided it was like scraping the sticky bits from the edge of a blackcurrant crumble dish (and everyone knows that those bits are the best bits, right?) Very, very nice indeed and one I’d be happy to go back to (once I have a nose that actually works… it didn’t miraculously cure my cold).

After that I brought out the big guns: De Struise / De Molen Black Damnation, a blend of De Struise Black Albert and De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis (“Hell and Damnation”). Two bottles of this 13% ABV Low Countries stout have been lurking menacingly in the cupboard since I bought them as part of a BeerMerchants.com rare continentals case back in the summer, so the one I opened had benefited from an extra six months’ bottle maturation (although the best before date is given as March 2014, so that’s probably when I’ll be opening the other one).

Pouring a thick, thick black with a big tan-coloured head, Black Damnation was all about the big, big flavours again: mocha coffee, dark sugar and toasted hazelnuts, with a generous measure of charcoal and peat-smoke mixed in for good measure – Jo said it distinctly reminded her of Laphroaig single malt – and a bit of a tang of charred orange peel (imagine you left some orange peel on the barbecue after the flames had died down, that sort of thing). All of that delivered by a lasciviously viscous mouth-feel: wonderful stuff, quite wonderful.

And after that one… well, I happily forgot that I had a cold for a while, I can tell you. But it was still lingering on Sunday morning and my sinuses are still on fire as I type this. But hey, you know what they say about a cold: “treat it and it will last for two weeks, don’t treat it and it will last for a fortnight”. By that reckoning I’ve got another week or so to go, so I might just try another strong-stout treatment at the weekend, on the off-chance that the next one works. You never know, eh?