It’s 2 for £3 rotation time at Sainsbury’s, if my local branch is anything to go by. Quite a few I’d have been happy to stock up on, if the beer cupboard wasn’t already full-to-bursting:

• Badger Golden Champion
• Badger Golden Glory [
  • September 23, 2010
  • 11
  • Badger, Black Sheep, Fuller's Brewery, Hook Norton, Marston's, Sainsburys, St Peter's, Theakston's, Thwaite's

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Brewery: St Peter’s
Location: Bungay, Suffolk, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Slattery’s, Prestwich

Having thoroughly St Peter’s Old Style Porter, I had high hopes for their Honey Porter, thinking that it would smoothly blend the characteristics of the former with just a touch of honeyed sweetness. Their website declares it to be a “traditional English porter finished with honey for a truly unique aroma and taste”. Sounds quite pleasant…

Alas, it was not to be. The bottle opened and released a suspiciously chemical reek. After a second, cautious whiff it reminded me most strongly of those distinctly unpleasant, cheap & nasty honey sweets that you can pick up in Mediterranean airports on your way back from holiday, if you’ve forgotten to buy proper souvenirs for the folks back home.

A first taste of the Honey Porter confirmed my initial impression: not so much a hint of honeyed sweetness as a shovelful of horribly artificial, quasi-honey tang… a belated examination of the label revealed the dreadful truth: “contains honey flavouring”. Not honey. Honey flavouring. And lots of it, judging by the way my taste-buds were screaming at me. After a while it calmed down a bit and the whole thing started to taste like honey cake. But it was still far too sweet and sickly, and far too artificial-tasting, for comfort.

I’m sure there was beer in there somewhere, but it was so drenched in sugars that I couldn’t really say with any confidence what it tasted like. Could’ve been a porter, it was the right colour, after all. But that’s as much as I’m prepared to say on this one. Frankly, if I hadn’t paid £2.95 for the bottle I’d have poured it down the sink and cracked open something to take the taste away. Afterwards, I rather wished I had.

So: steer clear would be my advice on this one. By all means pick up (indeed, seek out!) the aforementioned Old Style Porter, that’s a very nice drop indeed. And I’ll be re-visiting their Cream Stout before too long and am confident of an extremely pleasant renewal of acquaintance. But this stuff? Not the best. Really not the best.

Brewery: St Peter’s
Location: Bungay, Suffolk, England
ABV: 5.1%
Version: Bottled
Source: Slattery’s, Prestwich

I enjoyed St Peter’s Organic Ale when I sampled it back in August last year and enjoyed their Cream Stout even more. Having hit on a local St Peter’s motherlode in the form of Manchester’s premier chocolatier, Slattery’s (of all places) I came away with a couple of bottles of that one, plus one of the Honey Porter and three of the Old Style Porter.

Cracking open one of the latter I was greeted by a distinct burnt-coffee aroma which carries over to the flavour, along with hints of bonfire toffee. Mouth-feel is a bit on the thin side, perhaps, but it still carries the bitter flavours well, and there’s an after-taste of dark chocolate that’s worth waiting for. The beer became smoother and a little sweeter as the bottle went on, with those chocolate flavours developing and the bitterness fading.

It was entirely pleasant and extremely drinkable (although at Slattery’s prices I might be better off with direct mail order from the brewery). Taking this one as a base, I’m looking forward to running a comparison with the Honey Porter and then returning to the Cream Stout as well. Should be a good evening’s beer-drinking.

Right then, one last 2008 round-up piece. And then it’s a slight change of direction for me in 2009.

As I mentioned at the start of my first 2008 ‘rest of’ post, I went a bit mad last year in an effort to try one of everything I could possibly find in the local supermarkets and in any off-licenses I happened to be passing. As a result I’ve found myself enjoying some truly fantastic beers, but also sampling rather a lot that fell into the ‘take it or leave it’ category: not quite distinctive or impressive enough to be worth making the effort to buy on a regular basis. And I also had one or two that were just bloody awful, but thankfully they were few and far between.

So anyway, in 2009 I’m going to try to focus on seeking out the best examples of those styles of beer that I know I’ve particularly enjoyed to-date: stout, porter, strong ale, dark ale, black lager and IPA. I’m going to try to avoid sampling endless variations on the light ale / pale ale / summer ale / best bitter theme just for the sake of it, unless they seem particularly interesting. Or at least, that’s the plan, anyway.

But for now, on with that round-up:

Brakspear Oxford Gold (4.8% abv, bottled)
Tried this one as part of a trio of organic beers, along with the Whitstable Bay (see previous post) and the Duchy Select (below). This one was a full-flavoured golden ale with a light, fresh aroma and a hoppy flavour. Very nice indeed.

Duchy Originals Organic Select Ale (6.2% abv, bottled)
This strong ale from HRH’s organic range pours a lovely dark red and has a tangy, sweet flavour with plenty of toffee and malt notes to savour. According to the website, it gets its full-bodied, complex flavours from a mix of organic hops and organic Plumage Archer barley malt organic rye and oats added. Whatever they put in the stuff, it works quite nicely indeed: well worth tracking down a bottle or two and I might re-visit myself before too long, it’s usually on the shelf in my local Sainsbury’s.

St Peter’s Amarillo Ale (4.8% abv, bottled)
Picked this one up as part of the Sainsbury’s summer ales promotion (there’s no info on the St Peter’s website, so it may have been a limited bottling for the promo). Amercian Amarillo hops give this beer a cloudy, ginger-beer colour and a huge aroma of citrus and spice. The flavour is big as well: slightly sweet and spicy with more ginger and lemon; rather like a wheat beer, all things considered.

Highgate Old Ale (5.3% abv, bottled)
Highgate Old Ember was one of my very favourite beers and a regular in the cupboard until about a year ago, when it seemed to disappear from the shelves.I’ve been keeping an eye out for it ever since and I was rather hoping that it had been re-branded as Old Ale… but it turns out they’re different brews (Old Ember is 6.5% to Old Ale’s 5.3). Old Ale is almost as dark Old Ember and its rich mouth-feel, malty sweetness and liquorice-bitterness make it one well worth trying, but somehow it just isn’t quite the same… my search goes on.

Davenport’s Original Bitter (4.0% abv, bottled)
As far as I can make out this one used to be a West Midlands staple, available pretty much everywhere in the region, but these days it’s brewed in smaller quantities by Highgate. And I’m afraid it was nothing special, to be honest: a light amber colour with a faint hoppy aroma, a slight bitterness and just a hint of citrus. One of those take it or leave it brews I mentioned at the top of the post.

Doctor Okell’s IPA
One of the winners of the Sainsbury’s promo (personally I was rooting for Red Rat’s Crazy Dog Stout, but there you go). Very lager-like to begin with, it warmed up to a reasonably hoppy light ale, but it wasn’t really anywhere near hoppy enough or strong enough for a proper IPA. Mind you, judging by the beer catalogue on the Okell’s website (which is rather excellent, you should definitely give it a visit) they don’t actually produce a beer over 4.8% abv (the traditional porter, which I would like to try), so perhaps it’s against their mission statement or something..?

Durham Brewery St Cuthbert (6.5% abv, bottled)
This was the last of the batch of bottles that I bought from The Vineyard in Belfast. It poured with a great deal of hiss and fizz but settled down to a lightly effervescent ale characterised by a rich, nutty flavour with hints of toasted bread. Not the best beer of this strength that I’ve tried to-date and not one I’d rush back to, but not too bad, all things considered.

Ridgeway High & Mighty Beer of the Gods (4.5% abv, bottled)
Another one from the Sainsbury’s summer promotion, High and Mighty Beer of the Gods is from Peter Scholey’s virtual or ‘cuckoo’ brewery (which means it’s brewed under contract by another brewery). The label proclaims it a British variant on a classic American over-hopped style, but I actually got more chocolate and malt from the initial flavour, with the hops kicking in on the after-taste. Overall though it was quite sharp, hoppy and generally very pleasant indeed.

Bath Ales Barnstormer (4.5% abv, bottled)
The other winner of the Sainsbury’s competition and a rather more deserved one than the Okell’s IPA (in my humble, etc.) This one was a rather fine chestnut-brown ale with a rich, roasted-malt nose and a nutty, chocolatey, biscuity flavour. A dried-fruit sweetness develops as the drink goes on, making for a well-rounded ale that’s very pleasant indeed.

Arundel Prize Fighter (4.6% abv, bottled) This one (yet another from the Sainsbury’s summer ale promotion) had a lovely, malty, chocolatey nose in the bottle and the malt carried through to the flavour, along with a sharp tang. A pleasant mouth-feel with a slight fizz and a warming sensation on the tongue made for a very tasty, very enjoyable bitter.

Bernard Special Dark Beer (5.1% abv, bottled)
An unpasteurised (microfiltered instead) Czech black lager that’s very dark indeed and quite tasty with it. Smooth and drinkable, with a faint tang of liquorice. Similar in character to the Herold Bohemian and BrewDog Zeit Geist I tried earlier in the year.

Hopback Summer Lightning (5.0% abv, bottled)
I have it on very good authority indeed (via my mate Andy) that this is an excellent draught session beer, just so long as you don’t actually plan on walking too far (or, in fact, anywhere) afterwards. In bottled form it was still pretty darn good: a pale golden colour, slightly honeyed to begin with, but a dry, bitter bite kicks in before too long to ensure that the overall effect is a nicely balanced, easy-drinking ale that I’m definitely going to have a couple of pints of on draught the very next chance I get. Definitely.

Right then, that’s enough rounding-up for now, although in future I might do a catch-up once a month or so just to keep things moving along. Back to the main Tasting Notes for me.

Back to the notebook for another lightning gallop through some of the beers that I sampled last year but didn’t quite get around to writing up in full…

Wells Bombardier Satanic Mills (5.0% abv, bottled)
Pitch black with a light tan head, almost stout-like, you can certainly tell this sister beer to Wells’ Bombardier and Bombardier Burning Gold is brewed with chocolate malt. With coffee notes and a lingering sweetness as well, it’s got a bit of variety to it as well. Very nice.

Greene King Strong Suffolk Ale (6.0% abv, bottled)
A very dark, almost black, ale with a strong, sharp flavour. Not too sweet, not too heavy, I’d happily have another go at this one.

Innis & Gunn Cask Strength Oak Aged Ale (7.7% abv, bottled)
There’s an incredibly rich, complex flavour to this 77-day ages strong ale, with a gobful of toffee at the fore. Quite sweet but with a dry edge: rather like liquified treacle tart. Very nice indeed.

Hall & Woodhouse Badger Hopping Hare (4.5% abv, bottled)
This “thrice-hopped” golden ale is exactly as described: hopped up and dry to the taste, with a refreshing finish. Not the hoppiest I had all year (BrewDog’s Chaos Theory and Saltaire Stateside IPA spring to mind) but hoppier than most, certainly.

Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay Organic Ale
Brewed using English organic barley and New Zealand organic Gem and Hallertau hops, this pale, golden ale has a very mild character with definite citrus notes and a pleasantly hoppy after-taste. Refreshing and easy-drinking, I think this one might be a staple summer ale of choice if I can find a stockist round about May or June time.

Whitewater Clotworthy Dobbin (5.0% abv, draught)
Had a pint of this one in the Crown Liquor Saloon (Belfast’s finest beer-related tourist trap) on a visit to Ed’s neck of the woods last August. The website says it’s a ruby porter, but I remember it as more of a strong ale, to be honest. Either way, it was a rich, malty brew with a grapefruit-sourness that mellowed as the pint went on… definitely interesting, if perhaps a bit of an acquired taste.

Whitewater Belfast Ale (4.5% abv, draught)
A second pint in the Crown, this time Whitewater’s signature bitter. A rich amber colour, poured a bit on the thin side (although Ed’s pint looked heartier than mine), tasted like a slightly less strident version of the Clotworthy, making it a more drinkable session choice, perhaps.

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen (5.1% abv, bottled)
One of a batch of bottled beers I picked up at the Vineyard off-licence on the Ormeau Road in Belfast while we were in town. This German smokebeer is brewed with smoked-barley malt and it really shows: it smells like a wet barbecue and tastes like smoky bacon crisps (although, I hasten to point out, still in a good way). Definitely an acquired taste and I for one couldn’t drink it in quantity, but I reckon a bottle or two would go very nicely indeed with a good cumberland sausage or some crumbly white cheese.

Harviestoun Old Engine Oil (6.0% abv, bottled)
Another one from The Vineyard, sampled whilst staying with friends in their cottage on the east coast of Northern Ireland. An incredibly rich, smooth porter / stout cross-over with hints of chocolate and caramel. Very potent and very drinkable, this one compared extremely favourably to the Meantime beers I was drinking on the same evening, being just as characterful but not quite as sharp on the palate and I’d definitely grab a couple more bottles if I spotted it again.

St Peter’s Cream Stout (6.5% abv, bottled)
I’ve been on a personal mission to find my perfect stout for a while now and I think this may be a definite contender. And as I’ve just found out from the St Peter’s website that there might be an outlet near me that stocks their beers, I’m hoping to re-visit this one before too long for a full write-up. Short version for now: a rich, huge-flavoured, intensely satisfying stout that delivers a massive hit of liquorice via an incredibly silky-smooth mouth-feel.

Leeds Brewery Leeds Pale Ale (3.8% abv, draught)
Tried this one at the Ackhorne Inn on our most recent visit to York. It’s a very pale ale that turned out to have enough hops for a decent IPA. Hops upon hoped upon hops in fact, resulting in a drop that’s very dry, very sharp and very, very bitter.

Everards Tiger Best Bitter (4.2% abv, draught)
On the same night out in York, we wandered down to the Yorkshire Hussar, where this turned out to be the only ale they had on draught. It also turned out to be a bit of an odd one: very smooth, quite sweet and with an after-taste that I eventually identified as fresh strawberries (I kid ye not). The website claims a ’rounded toffee character’, so perhaps my tastebuds were just mis-firing.

Right then, that’s another twelve to be going on with, I’ll stop there for now. I think I’ve got another dozen or so in the notebook that are worth a quick mention, so I’ll make up a third batch with those sometime this week, time allowing.

Brewery: St Peter’s
Origin: Bungay, Suffolk, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Sainsbury’s

Happily continuing the Organic theme re-started by Ed with his Oxford Gold post yesterday, we now come to the St. Peter’s Brewery‘s organic variant.

The first thing you notice about the St. Peter’s is the retro-styling of the elegant, demi-lozenge shaped bottle. Clearly setting out to make a statement there, although my cynical side fears an emphasis on style might betray a lack of substance, a taste of the brew itself is more than enough to dispel that particular worry.

Pouring a golden amber colour with a very thin head, this ale has a wonderfully complex flavour to it: peppery, nutty and chocolatey all at once. The rich texture of the beer gives it a very pleasant mouth-feel and its overall character is sharp, dry and bitter with lingering hoppiness. All in all: very good stuff indeed. Definite thumbs-up from me.

For a while, I naively thought this was perhaps the only beer in the St Peter’s range, having only ever seen this one example in the stores (until I encountered the Amarillo in my Sainsbury’s haul the other day). But a quick glance at their online store reveals a much wider range, including an organic bitter, two different porters and a stout, a bottled mild and a gluten-free pilsner-style.

A mixed case for £22.00, y’say? Where did I put my credit card?