Just when I thought I’d managed to make a few in-roads into the beer cupboard, I nipped into my local Sainsbury’s for the weekly shop to find that, whilst they’ve called time on their summer real ale promotion (incidentally, they were selling off remaining overstocks for £1 a bottle – although they still didn’t have any Copper Dragon 1816…), they’ve also gone and re-vamped their regular range, adding at least ten new beers to the shelves.

I grabbed nine of them (my missus, Jo, was heard to mutter “kid in a sweet shop”, but I mollified her by chucking a few bottles of Guinness original into the trolley as well), leaving a couple of them behind on the grounds that I suspected I’d already tried them.

The new (to me) discoveries were (in no particular order):

• Meantime London Stout
• Wood’s Shropshire Lad Spring Bitter
• Abbot Reserve
• Morland Old Crafty Hen
• Thwaite’s Liberation
• Worthington’s White Shield
• Purity Pure Ubu
• Butcombe Gold
• Shepherd Neame Late Red

And the beer cupboard now (once again) looks a something like this:

The worrying thing is, a new branch of Morrison’s opened up in the area last week, which means there’s going to be a whole new selection for me to browse. I think I’m going to need a bigger cupboard. Or I should just start drinking (and typing) faster…

Brewery: O’Hanlons
Location: Exeter, England
ABV: 4.8%
Version: 500ml bottle

CAMRA Champion Bottle Conditioned Beer of Britain Gold Award 2003 & 2007

I didn’t know what to expect when I first got this. The idea intrigued me but I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. Mixing port and beer just seems asking for trouble. However, I’m glad I went for it.

As expected it pours a rich black colour with a slight reddish tint. The aroma is a lovely chocolately stout with a hint of smoke in the background, with the port adding some subtle wine notes. As far as taste goes it’s very smooth; chocolately, creamy, with some of the bitterness calmed down by the port but not overly so and some of that smokiness backing it all up. A very pleasant and enjoyable brew, certainly worth checking out.

Brewery: Red Rat Craft Brewery
Location: Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England
ABV: 6.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

I think of all the beers I picked up in the Sainsbury’s real ale promotion recently, this was the one I was looking forward to the most, so I’m really glad to be able to report that it didn’t disappoint – not in the slightest.

Crazy Dig Stout pours a proper, thick black colour – without even a hint of reddishness to mar its inky perfection (“dark as the inside of a cat,” as I think Terry Pratchett once wrote) and with very little head. The settling beer gives off a faint whiff of treacle and the first sip (or, I have to confess, gulp) releases an explosion of flavour, zest and energy which lasts the entire bottle.

I jotted down every flavour that came to mind whilst I was savouring this rather excellent brew and, whilst I’m sure I probably missed a few, I did notice: treacle (definitely), fruit (grapefruit and sour cherries) coffee and chicory, to name the predominant ones. An initial sweetness gave way to a lingering dryness as the drink went on as well, which saved it from being overly-sugary.

All in all: rather superb. Maybe not the wisest choice of session beer, but definitely one to try.

I rushed (nay, sprinted!) back to Sainsbury’s not long after I’d sampled Crazy Dog but their stocks had (unsurprisingly, perhaps) all disappeared. The good news is that Red Rat‘s (slightly eclectic) website offers a mail order page with a 12 bottle mixed case option for a quite reasonable £22 (especially if that includes postage – the site doesn’t specify) so I might be tempted by one of each of the rest of their range with the balance made up in Crazy Dog. Yes… very, very tempted indeed…

In a fit of what appears to be sheer optimism (judging by the forecast for the weekend, at least), The Independent ran an article on Monday that featured Roger Protz’s ‘Ten Best Summer Beers’:

• Adnams East Green
• Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew
• Meantime IPA
• Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay
• Budweiser Budvar
• Duvel
• St Austell Clouded Yellow
• Young’s Kew Gold
• Brakspear Oxford Gold
• Goose Island IPA

I posted tasting notes on the Adnams East Green yesterday and the Kew Gold back at the end of June. I’ve got the Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew lined up next. Tried the Whitstable Bay and Oxford Gold a while back, but I’d need to re-visit before I could comment.

As for the others: Budvar is one of the better-flavoured commercial lagers out there, the Meantime IPA is on sale in our local Tesco’s and Duvel is available pretty much anywhere, so shouldn’t be too hard to track down. The Clouded Yellow I can’t drink (it’s a wheat beer and I have an Intolerance, or an allergy, or something – whatever, wheat is evil and makes me feel like crap after consuming it) and Goose Island is apparently only available in cases of 24 from T’Internets. Hmm.

Brewery: College Green
Origin: Belfast, Northern Ireland
ABV: 4.2%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: The Vineyard, Belfast

Recent years in Ireland, north and south, have seen a rise in smaller breweries not only producing a range of beer, but also managing to get their produce more readily available in shops.

The newest of these is College Green Brewery, based in the heart of the Queens University district in Belfast. Set up as part of the Molly’s Yard restaurant my research has been unable to determine if any beer is actually being brewed yet on the premises, or if it’s still being made at parent company Hilden Brewery (handy enough considering Molly’s and College Green are run by the offspring of the Scullion family who own Hilden).

Anyway, enough preamble, on with the tasting. First impressions are of a pitch dark, brown beer smelling of chocolate, as you would expect from the name. However, much of the bitter chocolate malt flavour I was expecting seems held back, and the whole affair is just too light for a stout. I also detected what seemed like cocoa powder mixed with baking soda, which while providing a bit of zing only served to leave a not very pleasant aftertaste. I so wanted to like this but was sadly disappointed.