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.