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: Marble
Location: Manchester
Style: Strong Pale Ale / Strong Ruby Mild
ABV: 5.7% / 6.0%
Version: Draught
Source: Marble Arch, Manchester

It’s always a pleasure to walk up to the bar at the Marble Arch (actually, I could stop this sentence right there) and find they’ve come up with a new draught ale. So it was double the joy on Saturday evening when I spotted not one but two new brews to sample. It was the start of the evening though, so first things first: a couple of pints of Marble Pint, please. It’s one of those quintessentially British beers that manages to pack a flavour-punch despite weighing in at only 3.9% ABV, so it makes for an ideal session starter. And – ah, what the heck- a sample-sized half each of Beer 57 and Brew 1691 Mild.

Marble Beer 57 turned out to be a strong (5.7% ABV), full-flavoured pale ale. Not as dry and hoppy as the Pint and slightly darker in colour, it’s much closer to Marble Dobber in character, just slightly sweeter. Very pleasant, very palatable, very drinkable. Goes great with food as well (the pan-roast chicken was especially good on Saturday). I’m just not sure how likely it is to become a Marble regular, given that it is so Dobber-like, so if you’re interested in sampling this one, it might be worth seeking out now, in case it’s not around for long.

Now then, Marble Brew 1691 Mild. A strong (6t.0% ABV) ruby beer that you really should try if you get the chance. Jo and I were both completely blown away. It’s a quite lovely shade of burnt umber (my pic was taken at the end of the night so probably doesn’t do it justice) with a spicy-sweet aroma. Jo hit the nail on the head when she said it’s like eating a tiramisu from the top-down: the first flavour that hits you is a rich, creamy chocolatey digestive-biscuit, with a light dryness to follow, finally giving way to a lingering after-taste of sweetish sherry or semisecco marsala wine. Absolutely gorgeous stuff; definitely one of the tastiest beers I’ve sampled all year. If strong, sweet beers are to your taste then you should definitely seek it out.

You sometimes find great beer in the most surprising places.

A couple of weeks ago, Jo and I went out to a 40th birthday meal for one of her colleagues, which was held at Eden on Canal Street, in the heart of Manchester’s Gay Village. I did my research and checked out the Eden website beforehand, but when I clicked on the ‘Drink’ tab, it just linked through to a short wine list, so as a result I had rather low beverage-expectations of the place: a couple of lagers maybe, the usual sort of ‘wine bar’ offering, I assumed. So plan ‘A’ was: get in, do the sociable thing, then get out as soon as politely feasible and go find a decent pub.

Which is why I was also particularly keen to get into town and get to a decent pub before we hit the restaurant. As luck would have it we caught an Altrincham service, which meant that The Bank on Moseley Street was a much closer prospect than the Bull’s Head up in Piccadilly. There I encountered the first Good Thing of the night: draught Thornbridge Jaipur. Beautifully kept it was and as good as I’ve ever found it, and so, suitably fortified against the rest of the evening’s anticipated disappointments, I let Jo drag me off to Eden.

On arrival, I went straight over to the bar and yes, as I’d predicted, there was just a couple of generic lager pumps on show (not even a creamflow bitter). But then, more in hope than anticipation, I glanced at the fridge behind the bar… and that’s when I spotted, nestled snugly in amongst the fruit juices and other chilled stuff I wouldn’t normally give a second glance to, a veritable cornucopia of quite fantastic-looking Australian imports. Result!

First up was Cooper’s Best Extra Stout; a delicious moccacino monster of a sipping beer that weighed in at a respectable 5.9% ABV that (particularly after a Jaipur) set me up quite nicely for the rest of the evening, thank you very much.

Next: a beer that has been unreservedly recommended to me on more than one occasion by @thenashmeister (another Darren, this one an Australian mate of mine from work): James Boag‘s Premium Lager; a rich, malty brew that’s low on gassiness, high on flavour and about as far from the usual UK mass-produced and massacred version of Aussie lager as you could hope to get without moving to the Antipodes.

And then came Little Creatures Pale Ale. Easily the (post-Jaipur) Beer of the Night; extremely well-balanced, light, sweet and malty in the main part, but delivering a delightfully hoppy after-bite to the back of the throat as well. Very, very good indeed, which is why I had another one of those (by this point we were well into plan ‘B’ and besides, I was in a round with and chatting away to a top bloke who turned out to be an ex-Royal Marine, so I wasn’t going to argue when he suggested we have another, was I?), although as a result I missed out a beer from James Squires, as well as another couple of interesting looking Aussies… but they were just going to have to wait for another session.

For alas, by that stage we’d all finished eating (the food was excellent as well, btw, especially as they were catering for quite a large group at the time) and the birthday girl had hit on the notion to head across to O’Shea’s Irish Bar, where the only remotely decent beer they had was Guinness Original. On reflection, I probably shouldn’t have had three pints of that stuff to round off the evening. I blame the live music; singing along always gives me a thirst.

So there you go: great beer in a most surprising place. And I’ve learned my lesson. From now on, I’ll always check the beer fridge behind the bar, whatever the taps on top may be dispensing. Always.

Go on then, what’s the most surprising place that you’ve discovered great beer? Comment away!

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.

Brewery: Morrissey Fox
Location: Tickton, Beverley, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

Morrissey Fox Aussie IPA is really rather tasty. It’s a palatable, slightly sweet, distinctly malty, fresh-tasting, easy-drinking pale ale. But at only 5% ABV and with that much up-front malt and almost no hop-bite to the finish, it’s not really an India pale ale, is it? At least, not in the sense that the style is currently understood: big, hoppy, sharp, dry to the point of ascerbic and noticeably stronger than the vast majority of most session bitters. Or – having read Pete Brown‘s Hops and Glory – in the sense the style used to be understood, back in its C18th-C19th heyday: rich and smooth, with a much more mellow hop-profile – as a result of several months of secondary fermentation and maturation in the cask en-route to India via the South African Cape – but still packing that serious alcohol-punch.

The over-use and abuse of the IPA label has provoked debate and discussion around the beerblogosphere a few times already (see posts by Mark Dredge and Zak Avery for interesting examples) and whilst I don’t really want to kick off another round of “what the hell is an IPA”, I have to admit that it does bother me. Why? For the same reason that I don’t think you should label a bottle of claret as ‘port’, or a box of Assam tea as ‘Earl Grey’: it’s just wrong. I think the wording on the label should accurately reflect the style of the beer in the bottle. If what the brewery puts in the bottle is a perfectly good pale ale, then why not call it ‘pale ale’ (or a ‘golden ale’ or ‘light ale’ if you have to be different) and have done with it? Why try to dress it up and pass it off as something it’s not?

Also, unless I missed a whole chapter of Hops and Glory, Australia doesn’t get much of a look-in, IPA-wise. Although having said that, in the relevant chapter of Amber, Gold & Black – Martyn ‘Zythophile‘ Cornell’s excellent and extremely detailed history of British beer styles – I discovered that there were actually some Australian brewers who produced their own take on India Pale Ale as far back as the 1870s. As far as I can tell, though, they were basing their IPAs on the original Burton IPAs, rather than developing a particularly distinctive, Aussie take on the style.

So have Mr Morrissey and Mr Fox combed the archives, seeking out rare combinations of malt and hops that were only ever used in nineteenth-century Australian breweries in an attempt to faithfully re-create a lost local version of the IPA? Or are they cashing in on the growing popularity of US and English ‘huge hop’ IPAs? Or do they think they’ve discovered another hybrid style (remember their televised proclamations of stylistic originality when they came up with their first ‘Blonde’ brew?) The blurb on the back label is no help at all – just some fairly inane waffle on the theme of “G’day Sports!” and “…a fruity finish to tempt the mildest sherry-supping Sheila” – and the relevant page on the Morrissey Fox website hasn’t been updated since they released the draught version last August.

All of which leaves me with the nasty suspicion that ‘Aussie IPA’ has come about through the dreaded ‘design-by-committee’ process. I could be completely wrong, of course, but to me it just smacks of focus-group thinking (“It’s pale, shall we call it an IPA?” | “Been done before.” | “What about Aussie IPA?” | “Ooh, ooh! Hats-with-corks!”) and if that’s the case, then I think it’s a bit of a shame, because here Morrissey Fox have come up with another refreshing, tasty, interesting beer with a great flavour profile; one that would go down really well at a barbecue (maybe that’s why they’ve gone for the ‘Aussie’ schtick?), or with a roast dinner, or pretty much any sort of traditional, savoury food. But how many people will actually take a chance on something as weird-sounding as ‘Aussie IPA’?

I bought a bottle because I’ve enjoyed Morrissey Fox’s other brews and wanted to try their new one. But what if I saw ‘Aussie IPA’ on a label from a brewery I’d never heard of? As a regular beer-buyer I’d probably assume they didn’t really know their beer styles, or were trying too hard to cover up a mediocre session bitter. Either way, I’d most likely give it a miss; always better things to spend my beer-money on. And if I wasn’t a real ale enthusiast? If I was a passing supermarket punter thinking of trying something a bit different to the usual? How tempted would I be to try something called “Aussie IPA”? Probably not very. ‘Aussie IPA’? Bit confusing. Think I’ll try a ‘Best Bitter’ instead. Or here’s one called ‘Pale Ale’, that sounds okay…

So, unless I am completely wrong about the whole thing and there’s actually a very genuine reason for calling it an ‘Aussie IPA’ – in which case, if anyone from Morrissey Fox (or their advertising agency?) happens to read this and can set me straight, please do feel free to leave a comment – I’ll conclude with: good beer, dumb name.

Brewery: Dark Star [Rudgate Ruby Mild (which went down extremely well in the Museum Tavern) and a Fuller’s London Porter (a fantastic night-cap at the Doric Arch). Hoping for a successful hat-trick, I decided to nip into the Bree Louise on the way back to catching my train from Euston and see what they had to offer.

The obvious choice, that positively leapt out from among their typically broad selection, was Dark Star Six Hop; a strong pale ale weighing in at 6.5% ABV, it sounded like just my sort of thing. I briefly thought about sticking to a safe half, but decided what the hell – it wasn’t like I was going to be driving myself back to Manchester, was it?

Dark Star Six Hop poured a dark golden colour with a decent white head (even sans-sparkler) and gave off a light, slightly floral aroma. The first sip resulted in a big, strong and quite delicious hop-burst of flavour. Hardly surprising, the current Dark Star Tasting Notes sheet reveals that it’s brewed with five varieties of hops and then dry-hopped with a sixth (apologies to hop-heads: no further detail on the pdf there and the Dark Star website isn’t exactly geared for regular updating).

Despite the massive hop-profile, Six Hop wasn’t as drily acerbic as the big US IPAs tend to be. Instead its strength was tempered with a lot more subtlety: there was a distinct sour-sweet citrus note – bitter-orange or grapefruit – and a syrupy sweetness, carried along on a slightly sticky mouth-feel, that became more pronounced as the pint went on.

All in all: a great mix of deep, rich, lingering, sustained flavours. Tongue-tinglingly good; the sort of beer you could happily drink all night, as long as someone else was happy to carry you home at the end of the session…

I know I’m nowhere near the first beer blogger to suggest this (not by a long chalk), but fantastic as it is to sip and savour a huge, dry-roasted imperial stout or a gob-smacking, palate-shrivelling double-IPA, sometimes there’s nothing like a few good session bitters to see you through a pleasant evening (or two) of pleasant company down the pub.

A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to enjoy not one but two classic cases. On the Friday night I went out for a few jars and a chin-wag with my mate Andy. We started off down the Knott Bar, where I sampled a Titanic Port & Starboard (a 4.2% deep red-coloured ale with a rich malty main-flavour and a hoppy after-taste), followed by an Acorn Barnsley Bitter (3.8%, light, dry and hoppy). After that we wandered off to the Rising Sun, where we had a Leeds Best Bitter (4.3%, perfectly pleasant if not hugely remarkable) and then we nipped in for one more at the City Arms, where I had a Batemans G.H.A. Pale (another 4.2% hoppy and drinkable if not exactly amazing beer).

End result: after a couple of hours of chat and four pints each, we decided to call it a night. Personally I was feeling fine and dandy and nowhere near the worse for wear in the morning despite the 8-unit-or-so (technical) binge drinking session I’d indulged in the night before. So on Saturday I had no problem whatsoever heading out with Jo for date night at The Angel. The place is under new management and they’ve recently opened an upstairs dining room, which is where we sat to enjoy a particularly fine meal (red grouse for me and baked gurnard for Jo, both of which were delicious and are highly recommendable), accompanied by a couple more session bitters.

First up was Williams Bros Fraoch Heather Ale, which I’d only encountered in bottles before (a few years ago) and which turned out to be very good indeed on draught. Quite malty and slightly sweet, with a pleasant, light bitterness on the after-taste, it went down very easily indeed. Jo liked it so much she stuck with it for the rest of the evening, but I’d spotted a couple of others I wanted to try, so I switched to Redemption Urban Dusk, from a relatively new addition to the London brewery scene. This one was a 3.8%ABV dark bitter with a strong burnt-sugar flavour and plenty of malt. A very tasty dark beer that I wouldn’t mind trying again some time.

After that, I decided I was in the mood for something a bit more experimental, so I opted for a half of Hornbeam Lemon Blossom, a 3.7% pale ale that promised lemony freshness and turned out to taste like mildly alcoholic lemon curd; there was lemon zest in there, definitely, but the whole thing was carried along on a slightly stilton tang. Not entirely unpleasant, but not one I’d rush back to, either. And then I’m afraid I fell off the session wagon, because I’d spotted the big, boozy (6.6% ABV) Wensleydale Porter on draught at the very start of the evening and I’d been itching to try it ever since. Delicious it was, too: a big whack of roasty malt flavours, shot through with blackcurrant and fruitcake, with a nicely dry finish by way of contrast. A pint and a half of that one (Jo had the other half, having been tempted herself) and we called it a damn good night.

Brewery: Sambrook’s
Location: London, England
ABV: 3.8%
Version: Draught
Source: The Bree Louise, London

I was in London on Tuesday for one of my regular visits to my employers’ mother-ship and on the way back via Euston station I got the opportunity to follow up on a couple of recent blog-leads that I’d made note of. A couple of weeks ago Boak and Bailey talked about the Bree Louise, by the sounds of things a half-decent real ale pub in the immediate vicinity of Euston, so I thought I’d swing by for a swift one. And when I got there, they had Sambrook’s Wandle on at the bar, a beer from a new London-based brewery championed by Jeff Evans and The Beer Justice, among others.

I ordered a pint (taking advantage of the 50p CAMRA discount it was only £2.50, which is almost Up-North prices) and wandered off to find somewhere to stand (even at 6.00 p.m. on a Tuesday the place was very busy indeed) and sup. Sambrook’s Wandle is a very pale golden ale with a light, hoppy aroma. There’s an initial malt-burst carried along on a creamy mouth-feel, with a lingering hoppy freshness and a dry finish that creeps up on you after a couple of seconds. All in all, a very nice drop indeed, an excellent palate-refresher before a two-hour train ride and one I wouldn’t hesitate to try again.

Sambrook’s describe it as “a well balanced thirst quenching session ale” and I think they’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head there; this really is one of those beers you could happily drink all night; there’s definitely enough flavour there to keep it interesting, but with none of the astringent harshness that some beers of a similar strength think will make up for a lack of character. (If you’re interested in this sort of thing, there’s been a bit of a discussion about session beers and ‘ordinary’, smoothflow bitters, over at Tandleman’s blog in the last day or so).

As for the Bree Louise itself, I thought it was a cracking little boozer. Great selection of ales (although I didn’t spot anything I would have been desperate to try, aside from being keen to give the Wandle a go, and perhaps it’s bigger sibling Junction as well) and I’ll definitely be swinging by again as and when I have time to kill on the way back to the train. Only slightly spoiled by the faint whiff of disinfectant from the loos, which are right off the main room, but I’m sure that’s something I’ll get used to after a few visits, eh?

Brewery: Flying Dog
Location: Frederick, Maryland, USA
ABV: 5.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

[Part two of a Flying Dog Triple, along with Gonzo Imperial Porter]

Flying Dog’s Classic Pale Ale was originally called “Doggie Style” but I’ve heard the name was changed to protect the innocent shoppers in Tesco, when a UK distribution deal was recently done. And that’s where I found this one in the course of a recent stocking-up sweep.

Colour-wise, Classic Pale Ale turned out to be a fair bit darker than the name might suggest, more amber than golden, quite similar to Old Skratch Amber Lager in fact. Classic Pale Ale had a fresher, sharper aroma though and there was a lot more hoppiness in the flavour. There was a grassy note in there as well, and some fruit: notably peach and apricot.

All in all it was a very fresh, refreshing, enjoyable beer. I had another bottle when I was out the other night: I spotted one in the fridge at the Knott Bar in Manchester and ended the night with a re-visit. Chilled, the flavour wasn’t quite as complex a straight out of the cupboard. Still extremely pleasant though and a great one to end the night on.

Two successes out of two for the Flying Dog selection so far. Next up, it’s the finale: Gonzo Imperial Porter.

Jo and I were in Nottingham this weekend for Fantasycon – the annual highlight of our social calendar – which was held at the Britannia hotel, just up the road from Nottingham Castle and The Olde Trip to Jerusalem. It would have been rude not to pop in for a jar while we were there, so I did, twice.

The Old Trip had a selection of half-a-dozen ales on offer. I started, on visit number one, with a couple of pints of Rock Mild (3.8% abv) from the Nottingham Brewery; a dark, sweet, slightly chocolatey mild that was perfectly palatable and went down extremely nicely on top of the rather fine curry we’d had just before.

The next day I nipped back with a few friends (while Jo had a strategic nap) and this time decided to give the house beer one more go. Olde Trip Ale (4.3% abv) is brewed for the Olde Trip by Greene King and Ed first posted tasting notes on this one back in June last year. I’ve encountered it a couple of times with rather disappointingly mixed results.

This time around though it made a much better impression on me: rich, smooth, malty and fresh-tasting. I must have been lucky and encountered a particularly good batch. (Quick name-dropping aside: Steven Erikson had nipped out for a pint with us and he was quite taken by the Olde Trip – pub and pint both – as well).

I also had a pint of Greene King’s seasonal Autumn ale, Bonkers Conkers, on a recommendation from my mate Mark Newton. Bonkers Conkers was a light (4.1% abv), nutty, pale / brown ale; another easy-drinking, entirely palatable beer that helped to set me up a treat for an evening back at the hotel quaffing bottles of (the oh, so terribly-amusingly-named) Piddle in the Hole from the Wyre Piddle brewery, which wasn’t a bad drop either.

It was a great weekend of catching up with old friends and shooting the breeze, made all the more enjoyable by some thoroughly decent beer. I think Fantasycon 2010 will be in Nottingham again and I for one can’t wait. Although I might be having a word with the committee about asking the hotel to source some bottled ale that doesn’t try to patronise its customers as they order it. Let’s face it, the joke’s pretty bloody thin, eh?