In my London and York posts I mentioned that I picked up a few choice bottles of ale on my travels. Here’s what I brought back from those far-off, exotic, blessed-with-a-specialist-beer-shop places:

Picked these three up at Utobeer in Borough Market. I’m a big fan of Flying Dog, having enjoyed pretty much everything of theirs I’ve managed to get my hands on to-date, so a chance to grab these three was just too good to miss.

• Flying Dog Double Dog – A Double Pale Ale, “dry hopped with an insane amount of Cascade and Columbus hops”.
• Flying Dog Wild Dog – A 355ml version of the barrel-aged Gonzo Imperial Porter release.
• Flying Dog Raging Bitch – their 20th Anniversary brew, an 8.3% Belgian IPA.

Three more from Utobeer and then a bottle of the good stuff as a souvenir of our evening at The Porterhouse:

• Sierra Nevada Bigfoot – the 2010 / 35th anniversary release of Sierra Nevada’s famous barleywine style ale.
• Hardknott Infra Red – the third release from Dave’s brew house, a big, red, 6.5% IPA.
• Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale – one of a few legendary US brews I’ve been keeping an eye out for.
• Porterhouse Brain Blasta – a bottle of 7% thrice-hopped ale for the road.

These four all came from The Bottle in York. More big, bad American brews…

• Victory Golden Monkey – I was tempted by the Hop Devil next to it, but couldn’t resist the Monkey’s Belgian allure.
• Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA – 60 hop-additions over a 60-minute brew for a 6% ABV IPA with 60 IBUs.
• Dogfish Head Raison D’Etre – “A deep, mahogany Belgian-style brown ale brewed with beet sugar, raisins, and Belgian-style yeast.” Had to be done.
• Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA – 90 hop-additions over a 90-minute brew for a 9%ABV IPA with 90 IBUs.

Some pretty special bottled ales there, I reckon. With what’s in there already, my beer cupboard is nothing less than a treasure trove these days. Mind you, I think I really do have to start drinking some of it though, this hoarding habit of mine is getting a bit ridiculous…

Brewery: Flying Dog
Location: Frederick, Maryland, USA
ABV: 8.7%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

[Part three of a Flying Dog Triple, along with Classic Pale Ale]

Gonzo Imperial Porter is another recent addition to the Tesco World Beer Range. I grabbed a couple of bottles of this one as soon as I spotted them on the shelf and I urge you to do the same; this is an absolutely fantastic example of the imperial porter style, a truly fabulous beer.

Enough hyperbole (fuelled, I might add, by the fact that I’m supping another glass of Gonzo Imperial as I type). I think it’s probably time for some description. The pour is a pleasure in itself: the beer almost gloops out of the bottle and settles down to present an opaque, black body with a creamy, tan-coloured head that lingers right to the end of the drink. The first sip releases a flood of rich, mocha, coffee-chocolate flavours: sharp, dark chocolate and smooth, mellow coffee. Further sampling reveals hints of vanilla and black treacle, creating a lingering, palate-tingling sweetness that reminds you of the after-taste of good, creamy, treacle toffee and there’s a very, very slight hint of pepper in there as well.

Damn, this stuff is delicious. Since we started Blog o Beer I’ve sampled some truly incredible beers. The vast majority of the ones that I’ve enjoyed the most (so far) seem to have been stouts, porters and strong, imperial stouts and porters – such as Red Rat Crazy Dog Stout, Outstanding Stout, Meantime London Porter, BrewDog Rip Tide and the pick of the bunch so far, Brewdog Tokyo* – and Gonzo Imperial Porter is definitely up there with the best of them.

Seriously: go straight to your local (large) branch of Tesco and clear the shelves. I reckon I’ll be doing just that the very next chance I get.

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?