Brewery: Brooklyn Brewery
Location: New York, USA
ABV: see text
Version: 355ml bottles

I’ve previously covered Brooklyn Lager and Black Chocolate Stout, and being impressed with those two I reckon it’s a good idea to try any of their other beers when I see them. So let’s see how their takes on Brown Ale, Wheat Beer and an IPA fare.

First up is the 5.6% Brown Ale, a  rich reddish brown with a malty aroma of toffee and a bit of chocolate, along with a hint of fruit in the background. Malt is very much to the fore in the taste, there are six different malt varieties used after all, with caramel, hazelnut, earthiness and roastiness all present, along with a touch of coffee and a very slight hop bitterness towards the end. Brown Ale is not a particular favourite of mine, but then neither is lager and they did a good job of that, but to be honest I thought this didn’t really stand out. It’s still a decent enough beer, but not one I’ll be seeking out again.

Next is a 5.1 % wheat beer, Brooklyner Weisse. This is brewed very much in the German style,with German malts and hops used to give it some authenticity. And it certainly ticks the wheat beer boxes. Amber in colour, clear rather than cloudy (but that could be my pouring), and with a characteristic, and quite spicy, wheat beer aroma. Taste is again what I would have expected, with notes of banana, bread and spices through to the dry finish. Overall, a reasonable rendition of the style, not as dry as some I’ve had, and not as full-flavoured as it could be, but still a decent drop.

Finally, and I saved the best of the three to last, is the 6.8% East India Pale Ale. Made with East Anglian malts and five different hop varieties, its mid amber in colour and all those hops ensure a fresh citrus fruit aroma. The flavour is unsurprisingly on the hoppy side of things as well, very zesty, with grapefruit and lemon and a warm, slightly spicy, element. Malt pushes through as well, taking some of the edge off the bitterness and the alcohol content isn’t too noticable either. For me, this is another winner from Brooklyn, and one I can see me revisiting when I next see it.

Brewery: Daas
Location: Hainaut, Belgium
ABV: 5.0% / 6.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Courtesy of Daas

I must admit I’ve never been all that keen on wheat beer and these days I usually avoid it as much as possible (I have a wheat intolerance) but every so often I make an exception, just on the off-chance I’ve developed a taste for the stuff. So when the folks at Daas sent a couple of bottles of their organic Belgian artisan beers along for sampling and one of them turned out to be a wheat beer, I thought it would be rude not give it a go.

Daas Witte poured a cloudy golden colour with a thin white head and had a distinctly bread-like aroma. It was quite fizzy out of the bottle, although it settled down to a background effervescence before too long. Flavour-wise it was quite sharp and tangy, with a hoppy dryness, a hint of vanilla and something of a doughy after-taste. Not bad. Not bad at all.

The last wheat beer I tried was BrewDog’s Pixie prototype (as far as I know it never went into production) which was packed full of juniper and lemon zest, so it had a bit more going for it in the flavour department. But still, Daas Witte was, if not a beer I hugely enjoyed, one that was more pleasant than I remember Hoegaarden being, back in the day. I’m afraid you’d need to ask someone who actually appreciates and enjoys the style to give you a more meaningful comparison than that, though.

I cracked open the Daas Blonde immediately after finishing the Witte. This one poured a classic golden colour, with (again) a very thin head (I thought Belgians were meant to be… frothier? Perhaps I was using the wrong-shaped glass?) At 6.5%, I was expecting Blond to have a bit more substance to it than Witte and I wasn’t disappointed; the mouth-feel was noticeably thicker for a start. Flavour-wise, a honeyed sweetness dominated with a noticeably herbal after-taste. All in all it reminded me of cough sweets and not in a bad way at all (I’m quite partial to a nice lozenge, frankly).

Daas Blond is very drinkable indeed, as long as you’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth. I’d certainly be happy to try this one again, although I think next time I might chill it a little before serving. I think it’s one of those beers that could deliver a pretty good back-of-the-throat hit if it was taken down a few degrees and the lower temperature might help dial down that sweetness, which did verge on the syrupy.

Many thanks indeed to the folks at Daas for sending these two along for me to sample! If you’re interested in tracking down a bottle or two yourself, I believe they’re on sale in Waitrose, and you could try some of the online retailers. Or, if you’re not in a particular rush and are feeling lucky, Daas are running a competition with a monthly draw to win a 24-case of Blond or Witte:

[Click the image to see the full-size version]

Daas Organics around the beerblogsphere:

• FletchtheMonkey was quite impressed and said so over at Real Ale Reviews
• Roger Protz gave the Blond a three-point-five star rating.
• The Beer Nut concludes there’s more style than substance to Daas’s approach to brewing and marketing their beer.

Brewery: Brasserie Lefebvre
Location: Quenast, Belgium
ABV: 4.5%
Version: 330ml bottle
Source: Courtesy of Beermerchants.com

We’re on something of a roll here with the Belgian beer coverage so here’s another one, once again courtesy of the generosity of Phil over at Beermerchants.com. The Brasserie Lefebvre has been operating almost continuously since 1876 and this white wheat beer was introduced in 1989. Originally called la Student, its name was quickly changed to Blanche de Bruxelles and is also known as Lefebvre Floreffe Wit (according to the RateBeer entry).

As befits its name Blanche de Bruxelles pours a cloudy off-white colour with a pale yellow tint (closer to the colour in the bottom of the glass in the accompanying photo from the brewery’s website) and gives off a light fruity aroma. The taste is firstly of sweetened orange/lemon citrus with some tangy bitterness pushing through shortly afterwards. There’s coriander mentioned in the ingredients on the label but it’s presence isn’t very noticable. On the whole the beer is very well balanced, just enough sugar added to sweeten without being overpowering, and ending with a very smooth, if shortlived, finish. A very pleasant and refreshing drop, not overly exciting, but ideal for chilling out on a warm day.

Brewery: Meantime Brewing Company
Location: Greenwich, London, England
ABV: 5.0% (Wheat) and 6.3% (Wheat Grand Cru)
Version: 330ml bottles

Another couple from the chaps at Meantime, only one of which is listed on their website. Presented once again in their characteristic 330ml bottle the labelling on the Grand Cru is very subtle. The Wheat part is clearly stated on both versions but you need to check below that for the words Grand Cru, and it’s an important distinction to make as they’re two completely different brews.

First up is the straight ahead Wheat beer. Brewed in the Bavarian style it’s a cloudy light golden colour  with an initally frothy head. The aroma is typical wheat beer, with notes of banana and toffee. The subsequent taste is of more banana, fruit, and a touch of bitterness providing a slightly sharp zing on the tongue, which I found at odds with the rest of the flavours, and quite a dry mouthfeel. Overall, a reasonable take on the style but  I was disappointed with this one. According to Rate Beer this is the same beer that is available from Sainsburys under the Taste The Difference Bavarian Style Wheat Beer label.

Then I tried the Grand Cru. And as I said in the first paragraph this is a completely different beast. Again it pours a light and cloudy golden colour but with a thick frothy head which quickly subsides. The smell is of a hoppy wheat beer with a hint of spices. The flavour is very fruity, slightly bitter and very smooth, not dry like the standard wheat beer. The alcohol is well balanced and provides some warmth to the flavours, and the whole thing ends with a light citrusy finish. A very fine wheat beer indeed, one of the best I’ve had. I just hope it’s absence from the Meantime website doesn’t mean it’s been discontinued.

Brewery: BrewDog
Location: Fraserburgh, Scotland
ABV: Various (see below)
Version: Bottled, prototype
Source: BrewDog mail order

A few weeks back I placed an order for a mixed case of independent Scottish brewery BrewDog’s Rip Tide Stout and Paradox Stout, partly to show my support for the brewery in their battle with the Portman Group, partly because I’m on something of a mission to find my perfect stout and I reckon these two could very well be contenders. Almost on a whim, I decided to order a case of BrewDog’s 2009 prototypes as well and this is the selection that arrived a few days later:

Yesterday evening I finally got around to sorting out a sampling session (it would have been sooner, but a bout of food poisoning and then a weekend away put paid to that) and here’s what I discovered:

BrewDog Bad Pixie Wheat Beer (4.7% abv)

First up was Bad Pixie, a wheat beer brewed with juniper and lemon zest to 4.7% abv (which, let’s face it, is quite reserved and sedate for a BrewDog beer). I have to confess that I approached this one with mild trepidation: I have something of a gluten intolerance and whilst not out-and-out allergic, have usually shied away from anything too overtly wheat-based. Plus, Hoegaarden and I did not get on at all well, the one time I ventured there, so all-in-all, I can’t say I was actively looking forward to this one…

Which is probably why I was pleasantly surprised when I cracked open the bottle and poured – the beer was a very pale, very golden colour (see photo, utilising my trusty Leffe balloon goblet) and not at all the murky, cloudy affair I was half-expecting. Aroma-wise there was a light fruitiness, although I had trouble pinning down the specifics. Mouth-feel was good and the flavour was, again, faintly fruity – the juniper and lemon, I assumed – and quite bitter. As the drink went on it developed a distinct dryness which came to dominate, along with a lingering after-taste of… brie. No, seriously. And I think it might have been blue brie at that.

In conclusion: I thought Bad Pixie was a bit of an odd one. Not as unpleasant an experience as I initially feared it might be, but definitely not my cup of tea, either. As I say, I’m no expert on the wheat beer style, so I don’t know how if shapes up to other examples, but any beer with an after-taste of cheese would have to give me pause for thought in future.

Brewdog Zeit Geist Black Lager (5.1% abv)

Zeit Geist is a black lager which “takes inspiration from the Czech classics” and indeed, it reminded me very much indeed of the Herold Bohemian that I sampled a few weeks ago.

As you can see from the photo, it poured a lovely ebony colour (although with ruby highlights that you can’t quite make out here) but that thick, frothy cream head disappeared in pretty short order. The aroma was smoky and spicy on the nose and the first sip provided a big hit of liquorice, which eventually settled down to something deeper, sweeter and fruitier. Jo suggested dried fruit and after thinking about it for a bit I came up with “barbecued raisins”, which makes no sense whatsoever but seemed to sum up the flavour quite nicely. There was a hint of muscovadot sugar in there as well, which made me think of dark rum, and I expected to find a few coffee tones, but they weren’t as obvious as I thought they might have been.

In conclusion: Zeit Geist is quite delicious and intense, but at the same time extremely more-ish. I reckon I could happily sit through a session on this one. I found it more flavoursome than the Herold and a lot more interesting than Leffe Brun – the other dark lager I’m best acquainted with. So, yes, if this one was produced on a larger scale then I’d definitely be interested.

BrewDog Chaos Theory IPA (7.1% ABV)

Described as “a deep copper IPA with insane hops”, Chaos Theory really is a monster of a beer. The first thing you notice is its quite lovely colouring, which – as you can just about make out from the photo – lies somewhere between the advertised copper and a stronger ruby red. But it’s the nose that really leaves a big impression: this beer has an absolutely incredible aroma, an immense fruity tang that really slaps you around the head when you take that first deep sniff and keeps on doing so right to the bottom of the glass.

Taste-wise, Chaos Theory is just as intense. A big slosh of alcohol is followed up by some incredibly complex sweet & sour fruit flavours: raspberries, stewed plums, bitter oranges, mangoes and more, all carried along by a gloriously rich mouth-feel and with a smoothness of finish that belies its strength and power.

In conclusion: Chaos Theory is one is a hell of a beer, and no mistake. A relentless onslaught of flavour upon flavour, it’s definitely a sipper rather than a session beer and certainly not one for the faint-hearted. And this is the one was the eventual winner of the 2009 Prototype Challenge, has since gone into production and is available to buy from BrewDog.

To summarise, then: Bad Pixie wasn’t for me, but it certainly wasn’t awful. Chaos Theory is an incredible, huge beer that could give Meantime IPA a run for its money (although along a slightly different track) but I’m really not sure I could drink more than a glass or so at a time.

Instead, it was Zeit Geist that proved the overall winner for me. An interesting, tasty, highly-enjoyable variant on a style of beer that BrewDog haven’t already brewed en masse, I rather wish that they’d decided to put this one into production instead of Chaos Theory. Not because Chaos Theory isn’t a bloody good beer, but they already have their rather fantastic Punk IPA on the roster, so it seems a shame not to broaden their product base with something a little different. But maybe they’ll relent and brew a batch or two of Zeit Geist in 2009 anyhow. In which case, they can be assured of an order from me.

Usually if a friend leads me to pub shining with acres of chrome and glass, a huge screen displaying a couple of dozen men kicking a ball around a field, and ‘architectural features’ like exposed steels and pipework, I’d be more inclined to politely decline and head off to the nearest boozer for a pint of Abbot.  However, last Saturday – 15th of November – my opinion of at least one chain of such pubs changed forever.

I was in Cardiff to watch Motorhead.  The natural thing to do before a Motorhead gig is to drink a few pints to numb your senses a little, lest they be permanently damaged come the onslaught of noise later in the evening.  Excuse thusly made, my mate Gareth and I embarked upon a little tour of Cardiff.  “Have you heard about Zero Degrees?” he asked.  After I replied in the negative, he took me to a splendid pub.  Very splendid.

This is Zero Degrees.  There’s lots to like about this place, once you get past the clinical, dare-I-say trendy look of the pub itself.  Actually, it calls itself a restaurant, but any restaurant dominated by the sights and sounds of a working micro-brewery – and the place is built around the brewery, not the other way around – is a pub in my book.  And the main thing to like (after the beer, but I’m getting there) is the staff.  When we approached the bar and asked what beers they served, the barmaid gave us a detailed run-down of their brews.  And it wasn’t a by-the-numbers speech … you had the feeling that she really knew what she was on about. Then she offered us a taste of each of the beers on offer so that we could decide which to go with first.

We drank halves … it was to be a long day, and we wanted to do our best to try all 5 brews they had on offer.  And they were interesting, to say the least …

The first I went with was their Black Lager.  This really was black, and it tasted much more like a good heavy stout to me (I’d love to see an habitual Fosters drinker ordering and tackling a pint of this).  Dark, heavy, the flavour was very intense … the dense malts gave a rich coffee flavour, with a chocolate aftertaste that was very pleasant.

Next, their speciality beer, which at the time was a mango-based ale, brewed with crushed and diced mangoes no less!  A strange one this, because it looked very pale and cloudy, smelled like a fruit-based alco-pop, but it tasted divine.  Sweet, but not too sweet, the strength came through very nicely, and the fruitiness, though overt, was certainly not overpowering.  I could have done without the slice of orange the barman popped in (what was that all about?), but an interesting and experimental brew that I’d certainly track own again.

I also tried their wheat beer, and though I don’t usually go for these, I found it very palatable.

Something that struck me here was the intensity of the tastes.  This definitely isn’t the sort of place where you’d go for a big session, because drinking in halves was just right to get the most out of these flavours. I think if I’d had a pint of the Black Lager to begin with, I might have been put off trying something else.

And something else for which I offer high marks: they’re true experimenters.  Evidence of this?  The mango beer worked surprisingly well.

So hats off to Zero Degrees.  It’s a trendy, upmarket pub and restaurant, but at the same time it’s a dedicated micro-brewery, trying to draw people in and give them something of an education in the type of ale they should be drinking, whilst pretending to be a pizza restaurant at the same time (actually that’s a bit unfair, I’m sure their pizzas are fantastic … but you can see where my interests lie).

If only that could be said of the gig venue … Tetley’s from a  can.  Please.

Brewery: Sharp’s
Origin: Rock, Cornwall, England
ABV: 6.0%
Version: 330ml

Following up on Darren’s earlier review of Sharp’s Chalky’s Bite, it falls on me to cover their catchily named Honey Spice Wheat Beer. A quick browse of their website shows no sign of any reference to it, and I’ve already left the recycling box out and can’t be bothered going to retrieve the bottle, hence no photograph at this stage to illustrate.

So basically, they’ve taken the hops and wheat and barley malts, added some honey, stuffed the spices in and then left it all for 6 months to mature. The final bottle-conditioned product pours an unsurprising cloudy, light honey colour, initially very frothy but quickly settling to a much thinner head. The aroma is very much of fruit, hints of orange in there. The flavour starts off slightly malty, quickly followed with some well controlled honey sweetness and a hint of bitter sneaking in. No idea what spices have been used as they appear so well integrated into the flavour I had difficulty detecting them. The same could be said of any expected wheat characteristics; only for the label I wouldn’t have known this was a wheat beer. All in all quite an enjoyable drop and certainly worth checking out but I’m not sure I’ll be rushing out to repeat the experience.