Brewery: Coach House Brewing Company
Location: Warrington, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

Based on a positive experience or two with fruit beers recently (namely Fruli Strawberry) I thought I’d give this one a go. Best bitter? Blueberries? What’s not to like, right? Unfortunately, as it turned out, quite a lot…

It all started out well enough, with a whiff of crushed blueberries on the nose and a rather pleasant golden amber colour to the beer. The first sip was quite promising as well; a definite fruity tang, quite pleasant… until the after-taste kicked in: a very definite chemical-taste; quite sharp and citrus-acidic, bitter, but not at all in a good way.

I’m fairly sure (unless, of course, this one had gone off in the bottle) that the problem lies with the label’s ingredients list: “malted barley, blueberries and natural Blueberry Flavouring”. That last item? Not a good sign … if you need to flavour a beer with fruit, surely you should just stick to using fruit, no? If the fruit doesn’t flavour the beer strongly enough, add more fruit. If you have to resort to “natural” flavourings, then you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere, I reckon. Anyhow, after another couple of mouthfuls to confirm that this one wasn’t going to get any better, it went down the sink.

According to a news item on the Coach House brewery website (Jan 12th) blueberry classic won a gold medal at the S.I.B.A North Region Beer Festival earlier this year, so I can only conclude it tastes a lot better on draught that it does out of the bottle.

Brewery: Huyghe
Location: Melle, Belgium
ABV: 4.2%
Version: Bottled (250ml)
Source: Courtesy of BeerMerchants.com

I must admit that I approached Fruli with no small sense of trepidation and a fair dollop of reluctance, on the grounds that I’m pretty much convinced – based on a couple of earlier encounters that didn’t go well – that Fruit Beer just isn’t my cup of tea. So, could Fruli be the one to make me change my mind..?

Brewed by Belgian craft-brewery Huyghe, Fruli is part of a stable of flavoured beers that includes the Floris range, as well as Mongozo, a banana-flavoured beer that formed the basis for one of those aforementioned earlier encounters: it was absolutely awful. Worth noting though, that Huyghe also brew the Delirium twins – Tremens and Nocturne (more on that second one in a later Tasting Notes post) as well, so they claw some points back in my book for those two.

So, to the moment of truth: was Fruly strawberry beer going to be a sipper or a spitter? Would I savour it or sink it?

Cracking open the bottle released a powerful whiff of strawberry mikshake concentrate (you remember that Nesquik stuff from when you were a kid?) that filled the room in seconds (startling the cat and causing the missus to pull her “WTF is that?” face… not the best start). It poured with lots of fizz, resulting in a frothy head atop an opaque reddish-brown-verging-on-pink body.

Girding my loins and bracing my palate, I lifted the glass… and was pleasantly surprised to find that, once released from the confines of the bottle, the aroma settles down to something much more akin to that of proper, fresh strawberries. And then there was a second surprise in store: it actually tasted okay.

I mean, it wasn’t delicious and I don’t think I’d want to drink it on a regular basis, but yeah, it was okay. And once I’d performed some minor mental gymnastics and started thinking of it as some sort of strawberry cider, (or strawperry?) then I found I could actually finish the glass. I might have had trouble if there had been much more than 250ml to get through, I have to admit. But as a novelty act, a change from the usual, something a little different? Not too bad.

So, there you go. I’m still not even halfway converted to the Cult of Fruit Beer, but I will concede that maybe there’s something more to some of them than just sugar syrup (although Mongozo remains very firmly in the ‘do not touch, with or without bargepole’ category – sorry, Huyghe).

Thanks once again to Phil at www.beermerchants.com for sending this one along for me to sample.

Brewery: Craigmill Brewery
Origin: Strathaven, Scotland, ML10 6PB
ABV: 5.2%
Version: draught

Having enjoyed the Clydesdale IPA and Old Mortality I’d picked up I thought next time we were in the area it would be a good idea to seek out the Craigmill Brewery, home to Strathaven Ales, to pick up some more of the beers this small, independent Scottish brewer has to offer. And what a lovely day for a brewery visit – its in a scenic, rural location in an old mill building by the River Avon, close by a pair of arched stone bridges spanning the flowing water and golden hued autumn trees around the old stone buildings. An hour before it had been horrible showers, now it cleared magically to bathe the scene in soft, golden sunlight and beautiful blue skies; perfect.

When we arrived there were several folks in the brewery shop who turned out to be from CAMRA, up for both a visit and to bestow the certificate of award to the brewery – their Duchess Anne light ale (which I’ll review later) had won at a beer festival (stupidly I didn’t make a note of which festival). After picking up several bottles of some of their ales I hadn’t tried yet, and being given a bite of some beer-flavoured fudge (yes, really!) the staff invited us to go downstairs where they have a small bar. We could see they had the CAMRA folks on a visit and didn’t want to intrude, but they insisted and the CAMRA folks did too, so down we went and very glad I am that we did.

The lower floor still has some of the mighty metal cogs and wheels and shafts which would have operated machinery driven by the water wheel (although next to that now is an enclosed trout farm hatchery, so obviously it doesn’t turn now), in a stone walled space with a small bar at one end with a few taps. I was delighted to accept an offer of a pint of Aleberry Damson Beer, a brand new beer, which hasn’t even made it to the local pubs yet, so only a few folks have had the pleasure. In fact it wasn’t quite as clear as they hoped for yet and they told me they were planning to do a little more to take care of that.

(pic taken by me at the brewery, the larger version can be seen on the Woolamaloo Flickr stream)

But on the actual drinking side there was no problem at all – as you can see from the pic I snapped it’s a lovely colour, like the old horse brasses in a country pub catching the firelight. There’s a lovely fruity aroma, but it is restrained and light, not as overpowering as some continental fruit beers can be. Similarly the actual taste delivers a touch of the Damson (locally grown a stone’s throw from the brewery), but not too much, its pretty well balanced, imparting some lovely flavouring without insisting on itself or overpowering the beer. The ale itself is lovely and smooth, going down very easily – perhaps too easily given it’s a 5.2% beer, you could happily sip away several pints before realising oops, may have overdone it!

There’s a very pleasing mix of bitterness from the ale mixed with a gentle sweetness from the Damson, although again it is fairly restrained, which I appreciated. After swallowing the Damson was a little more noticeable, as the bitterness of the beer faded to a nice, gentle sweetness. This would make a nice, refreshing beer on a late summer afternoon or early evening, but equally I could imagine sitting with a pint of Aleberry by the fireside in the pub on a cold winter’s night too. They guys tell me that once they are happier with the clarity they will see about getting it into kegs for the pubs (I was happy to find out they regularly deal with pubs in Edinburgh where I live, including well known real ale pubs like the Guildford Arms, the Abbotsford and the wee Halfway House) and probably bottling for general sale at some point too. At which point I think I will want to get hold of some more… Oh and on a related note of interest it turns out that the Craigmill Brewery was previously home to another Scottish indy brewer of interesting ales, the Williams Brothers who Ed and I have been enjoying recently.

Brewery: William Bros Brewing Co
Location: Kelliebank, Alloa, Scotland, FK10 1NT
ABV: 4.2%
Version: 500ml bottle

You may have come across the micro-brewed beers of Bruce and Scott, the William Bros, before as they do some rather nice beers. And because Ed just reviewed Good Times from the same brewery (we’ve both obviously been grabbing similar liquid loot from our respective Sainsbury’s branches). This was the first time I had tried a fruity one from them though. And you are probably asking what the heck is a Tayberry? Well I must confess I hadn’t heard of them either, but the label blurb informs me that it’s a cross between a Raspberry and Blackberry (the fruit, not the trendy phone/PDA) grown in the Tay river area of Scotland.

Roisin (pronounced Rosheen) is apparently ‘pink’ according to the blurb. Which shows you why you can’t always believe label blurb because, well, it isn’t pink. Although really I think the boys were being humorous from the tone of the blurb, so I won’t hold that against them! Actually the colour is rather more like the warm red of firelight reflected in brass or copper; quite attractive and inviting. There is an enticing fruity aroma, although I noticed by the time I was halfway through my pint it wasn’t as strong, but perhaps that might just be my nose becoming used to the scent – you know how it is once you’re around an aroma for a little while, you don’t notice it so much, so that’s fairly subjective.

The taste is very smooth, fairly light (no mean feat with it being a 4.2% ale), very enjoyable, nice malty, hoppy taste and, unsurprisingly, a nice fruity tone to it, pleasantly light but slightly sweet (bit not too much) aftertaste. Overall a lovely, light, enjoyable and  a rather fun beer from the William boys. And like Innis & Gunn its recommended to be chilled a bit beforehand – maybe not so important as we enter autumn but a thought when next summer comes around. I find some fruity beers can be a bit overpowering, but I think this has the balance rather well between scent and taste, between fruitness and beerness. I think I may have to stick some more of these on the rack.