ABV – How l’eau can you go

Since last October’s cut on the rate of duty for beers of 2.8% abv and under, a new range of lower-strength beers have appeared – earlier this year Tesco began to stock a set of 12 new or reformulated beers, all at 2.8% abv. Unfortunately the duty on beer of 7.5% and above was raised. The difference in beer duty is significant and it’s no wonder brewers have been quick to take advantage of the lower rate.

If you release a batch of 5 hectolitres of beer of a strength 8.0 per cent ABV, your Beer Duty liability is £928.40… for beer of 2.8 per cent ABV, Beer Duty liability will be £130.06

I wasn’t enthusiastic about 2.8% beers, prefering stronger beers, often those above 7.5% now under threat. I’d also been burned by my experience with the 1.1% Brewdog Nanny State, a beer I bought 12 bottles of before finding it was an undrinkable gimmick. The only low strength beer I could recall enjoying was Manns Brown Ale. Oh, and bitter shandy.

Then I had a pint of Redemption Trinity – not a 2.8% beer, but one packing an impressive punch for its 3% abv, citrus hoppy with a good body yet at a strength perfect for going the distance on long summer days – and I was keen to know how the new range of lower strength beers would compare to it, or to Manns Brown Ale, a beer brewed in Britain since 1902.

Lower strength beers:

Tolly Cobold – Tolly English Ale 2.8%
Brewed by Greene King, evident in the familiar yeasty aroma as the beer is poured, it is uninspiringly described as ‘full flavoured’ and ‘brewed using a complex mix of hops’. Like many of the Greene King beers that seem to be variations on their IPA, it’s an amber coloured beer, malty with some caramel flavour, not much carbonation but fresher than the often stale tasting IPA, and although it has a thin body, that’s forgiveable in a beer of this strength and it’s not the thinnest of these beers. Not a bad beer, not a particularly inspiring one, but drinkable. That said, I left half a glass of this to stand for an hour and there was very little taste left. I didn’t finish it.

Marston’s – Pale Ale 2.8%
The label carries the equivocal description ‘traditionally brewed for flavour and taste’. It smells like beer, looks like beer and tastes like beer that’s been left standing overnight and needs pouring away. It’s slightly creamy with some bitterness and malt evident, but I found this to be soapy and unpalatable and could only get through a half before tipping it. This beer has just appeared on the shelves of my local Waitrose with Skinners Betty Stogs making way for it – a move as unwelcome as if Cadbury Roses replaced the Golden Barrel with Turkish Delight.

Fuller’s – Mighty Atom 2.8%
This is more like it – I can actually smell and taste hops! Not quite the ‘floral grapefruit and plum notes, with a spicy overtone’ mentioned in the blurb, but hops nevertheless.

After pouring the head dissipates quickly, the bitterness softens and the flavours soon fade but it maintains carbonation and some citrus flavour to the bottom of the glass. I’d try this again – the first of these beers I finished a pint of.

Cains – Calcutta Pale Ale 2.8%
An immediate metallic twang faded over subsequent mouthfulls, but never really disappeared and I found it hard to enjoy. If water has memory, some of these lower alcohol drinks are like water with a vague recollection of beer. This one did seem to get better, brief traces of hops and malt as the beer warmed but I think I’d have preferred a shandy.

Maybe that’s what I should be trying here – which beers make the best shandy – rather than searching in vain for a tasty lower strength beer. Would I drink this again? Probably, but only because it came in a 4 pack.

Adnams- Sole Star 2.7%
At last! A lovely hoppy bitter with flavours that aren’t held back by the low alcohol. At 2.7% it’s lower in strength than many of these beers but this cascade hopped ale holds its flavour and body. My enthusiasm for this beer could have been in part down to the setting – the Queen’s Head in Newton, a fine 18th century ale-house that has apparently appeared in every edition of the Good Beer Guide – or maybe because it was served straight from the cask. Certainly it has an unfair advantage over the canned and bottled beers I’ve tried so far, but really this beer is in a different class. I’d choose this over the other Adnams ales that were available too, because it’s just perfect for a lunchtime drink, especially when visiting a village pub means driving afterwards.

Oakham Ales – CB 2.8%
A beer that came about from a competition to ‘design a concept and brand for a new beer’, brewed by Oakham with two students from Cambridge’s Anglia Ruskin University “specifically to attract young female drinkers to the ale category”. The 2.8% beer, using Pacific Jade and Galaxy hops to give ‘hints of peach and passion fruit’, launched at the Cambridge Blue this week. It has a reassuringly familiar Oakham Ales hoppy aroma and plenty of the tropical flavours promised, along with a lasting bitterness. I gather they were aiming for a sweeter beer, but the bitterness worked for me, a very light but moreish beer. It’s a shame this is to be a one-off brew, I can imagine this being perfect for a summer daytime session.

Manns – Brown Ale 2.8%
Manns Brown Ale is a beer that’s been brewed in Britain for over 100 years, albeit a stronger beer then of at least 4% abv. Still, it has quietly offered a low strength beer long before the recent brews appeared.

A very sweet beer, deep red in colour, creamy and surprisingly rich. Especially for a beer that cost only £1 for a 500ml bottle (from Asda – a local beer shop has delisted it). Every time I have this beer I enjoy it.

This beer seems to be best known as the one Mr Creosote orders in Monty Pythons Meaning of Life and is shown on his table.

…and the usual brown ales?
No – I can only manage six crates today

Younger of Alloa – Sweetheart Stout 2%
This beer is like a home-brand cola – flat, sugary and makes you wish you’d paid extra for the real thing.

The label is what makes this stand out. Apparently the same picture of Venetia Stevenson has been used for over 50 years.

I drank a whole can of this at a barbeque last summer before opting for a shandy. I couldn’t even finish more than a few sips of it this time.

Summary

In a word, thin. Unsurprisingly, many of these beers are weak and watery with not much flavour, but there is reason for optimism. The Adnams Sole Star and Oakham CB2 are a pleasure to drink and have lasting flavours, and old favourite Manns Brown Ale still delivers. None of these beers quite match the Redemption Trinity, but then at 3% that beer is not eligible for the lower rate of beer duty. That said, Redemeption Brewery themselves seem to think the answer is Trinity shandy…

TRINITY SHANDY with @7UP is quenching our thirst in glorious Tottenham today. Yes all you purists we know, we know….;)

— Redemption Brewing(@RedemptionBrew) March 29, 2012

Richmond Fontaine beer

Richmond Fontaine are a band from Oregon. Their most recent album ‘High Country’ features a song about a fictional bar called the Chainsaw Sea, and the merchandise for the album includes Richmond Fontaine Beer t-shirts, keyrings and beermats. But not the beer. There is no R.F. Brewing Co and no Richmond Fontaine beer.

Lórien, Palma de Mallorca

Lórien is a bar in Palma de Mallorca. An unasssuming building from the outside, in a street shielded from the sun, it nevertheless glows with an inviting atmosphere inside.

A dimly lit bar of dark wood, the walls are lined with bottles and decorated with celtic patterns, and a large picture of Tolkienesque elves and dwarves hangs from one wall.

About 100 different bottled beers from around the world are available (England is represented by Samuel Smiths Imperial Stout and Newcastle Brown Ale). Most interesting to us were several from Catalunya that we’d not seen before.

Zulogaarden Norai is a 7% porter brewed just north of Barcelona. Deep brown in appearance, it’s a very dry and bitter beer. The oats and chocolate malt are evident but the beer is balanced with plenty of cascasde hops.

Brewed on the mainland in Blanes, about 40 miles up the coast from Barcelona, Cervesa Marina Summer Ale is a 6% IPA with the appearance of a wheat beer, pouring straw coloured and cloudy with a fine oily head. Its a very fruity beer with an orange citrus hop flavour and a spicy, gingerbread finish.

Another from Marina, ‘Mas Cremat’ is a dry stout with a rich flavour of roasted malts and coffee, with some hops coming through in the finish but very little bitterness. This was the best of the beers from Catalunya that we tried and a really wonderful stout. I’m keen to try their black IPA, ‘The Grim North’.

Cervesera Tramuntana Illa is Menorca’s first beer and was first brewed in 2010. It’s a pilsner-style lager, very light and lively, with some citrus flavour but a bit lacking in taste for it’s 5.5% abv. It’s an unfiltered, unpasteurised beer that’s supposed to be an alternative to the mass produced Spanish lagers, but I have to say i’d choose an Estrella Damm or Cruzcampo over this.

Actually, I developed quite a taste for Estrella Damm. Brewed in Barcelona, at 5.4% it’s a stronger beer with a fuller flavour than the 4.6% version available in the UK (Damm Classic?). It has a good body with a sweet balance of hops and malts, a very refreshing drink in the afternoon sun, and there is plenty of afternoon sun in the Balearics…

Nethergate Old Growler

Nethergate brewery began in 1986 in the Suffolk village of Clare before moving just a few miles down the road, over the river Stour and across the border into Essex in 2004. The brewery announced a change of ownership in October 2010 with plans of ‘creating a stronger brand identity and expanding into new markets‘. A year later it was named Good Pub Guide Brewery of the Year.

Old Growler is their flagship brew, an award winning porter with a label featuring their “famous British Bulldog, Old Growler”. The design has changed many times, most recently in 2009, with the size of the dog growing in each design. A local Cambridge pub, The Elm Tree, has amongst it’s collection of old beer bottles, a bottle of Old Growler that appears to date from around 1990 when it was labelled as an Old Ale of 5.8%. In 1994 the description changed to a Porter and in 1998 sugar was removed from the recipe and the abv dropped from 5.5% to 5%. More recently it has been labelled as a ‘special Porter’ and is now labelled as a 5.5% ‘robust, superior Porter’. Here are some of the changing faces of Old Growler:

Stout Bout

A battle of bottled beers, this time stouts.

 
Some interesting and very enjoyable beers here; from the wintery, coal fire and sawdust (in a good way!) of Grain Blackwood Stout, through the reddish, roasted Ratliffe’s Stout, to the Humpty Dumpty Swingbridge Stout, a woody stout with a dry, hoppy bitterness via an Elveden Stout with a breath of whisky about it. In this closely fought battle of bottled beers, the creamy, chocolatey, easy-going Hook Norton Double Stout emerged as the victor. It’s is just about as perfect and quaffable a stout as one could hope for. Cheers!

Porter Report #1
Beerfight #1: Lancaster Bomber vs. Spitfire

Porter Report

Here’s a round up of some Porters i’ve tried recently…

Outstanding amongst them was the Stone Smoked Porter 5.9%, a sensational blend of bournville dark chocolate, espresso coffee and American hops. After a bottle of this, nothing that followed tasted quite right. My taste buds needed a factory reset.

Another fantastic beer was the Mighty Hop Black Pearl Porter. There’s a smooth chocolate taste, somewhere between dark and milk chocolate, a faint roasted aroma and a bitter hop aftertaste. It’s simply one of the most enjoyable porters i’ve tried and is very drinkable at 4.5%. I was lucky enough to have a case brought back for me from Bridport in Dorset, along with several other Mighty Hop beers.

The Winklepicker, named ‘Real Ale in a Bottle’ beer of the year by Norfolk and Norwich Camra, is worth mentioning as it comes from the Norfolk Square Brewery, whose 4.2% ‘Pride’ pale ale was the best thing to come out of England’s World Cup 2010 debacle. I picked up my Winklepicker from the Wine Warehouse in Dereham Road, Norwich.

12 Beers of Christmas

Christmas Beers 2010

These are 12 festive themed beers i’ve tried this Christmas Season.

Best of them all was Humpty Dumpty Christmas Crack, a strong warming ale, deep amber coloured and with a delicious hoppy finish that made this far too easily drinkable for it’s 7% strength. I was sure it tasted spiced with the usual winter suspects of cinammon and cloves, but you’ll see from the comment below that no spices are added to this beer, it’s apparently all down to pure ‘late hopped goodness’… and maybe the mince pies that accompanied it!

A close second was Ridgeway Bad Elf, an unexpectedly golden, hoppy beer – I mean HOPPY! beer – that livened up the senses after a few rounds of dark beers. At 4% this would be perfect for quaffing on a long summer afternoon, so not a typical festive drink, but then it does carry this warning on the label:

Update:
Since writing the above, I’ve tried several more seasonal beers, and well worth a mention are…

Glastonbury Festivale – gratefully recieved as a gift, I was nevertheless a bit apprehensive that this beer would taste too much of the cranberries, but it exceeded my expectations. It’s a nicely hopped beer with just the right subtlety of cranberries, a lovely beer.

Skinners Jingle Knockers – a seasonal twist on Cornish Knocker perhaps, the hoppy taste seemed familiar but fruitier and I returned to the Regal in Cambridge for several pints of this over the festive season. According to Wetherspoon Real Ale it uses Challenger hops.

Cambridge Ice Ale

Cambridge Ice Ale is a 4.5% ‘amber beer with subtle citrus nose’, brewed and bottled by City of Cambridge Brewery for the Cambridge Ice Rink on Parker’s Piece. I don’t see this as an amber beer, it looked golden and tasted more like a lager to me, but it ‘slides down a treat’ though, and the Ice Cafe overlooking the rink also serves bottles of their Parkers Porter and Hobson’s Choice beers.

No German Christmas beer this year (there was Alpirsbacher Weihnachtsbier last year) though, which is disappointing. No Christmas market or carousel either, so not quite the atmosphere of previous years. Still, at least the ice won’t melt in these present sub-zero temperatures.

Humpty Dumpty Brewery

The Humpty Dumpty Brewery, Reedham

I picked up a few bottles of Humpty Dumpty beer from Lathams of Potter Heigham during a recent visit to Norfolk. If you visit the Norfolk Broads, Potter Heigham is a good place for beer supplies. Lathams stocks a range of bottled ales (there’s more to be found at a shop next door) and the Falgate Arms pub is only 10 minutes walk away and worth the walk beyond the riverside Broadshaven pub.

Today I cracked open the Bad Egg, followed by the Lemon and Ginger. The Lemon and Ginger is citrusy as you’d expect, a refreshing beer, but the Bad Egg was even nicer, a malty beer with a hint of fruit and thankfully no egg.

Westerham Brewery – Little Scotney

Westerham Ales ‘Little Scotney’ Best Bitter and Pale Ale are brewed using hops from Little Scotney farm at in Kent, the only Hop Farm owned by the National Trust. I found these bottles at the National Trust shop at Wimpole Hall, where previously ale had been available only at the restaurant.

Little Scotney Best Bitter 4.3% is treacle toffee in aroma and toffee malt in taste, almost sour with a light floral aftertaste, but overall… Toffee!

Little Scotney Pale Ale 4% gives a brief glimpse of those sharp bitter target hops but follows with strong biscuit malts, quite unexpected for a pale ale.

I’ll certainly bring home more of their beers next time…