Goose Island - IPA (2)

I had been planning to try a bottle of Goose Island IPA for a while when Chris beat me to it. He wasn't blown away so I thought a second opinion was in order.

I loved it! My bottle was plenty carbonated with a big hoppy aroma and lovely balanced biscuity malt and hoppy taste, reminiscent of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Delicious.

Homebrew 2. Down the drain.

Well, to say I'm a bit disappointed would be an understatement. I've just poured 18L of beer down the sink and need to blog about it. My first attempt at a full-grain brew had left me so full of hope and anticipation but in the end it was a right load of undrinkable piss.

I've already blogged about where I think I went wrong with this brew but it still deserves an actual review. After having conditioned for 2 weeks, I cracked open a bottle.

Oh my God, the smell was something else. A kind of metallic, soapy aroma which was very difficult to describe in any further detail. Whether this smell was diacetyl, skunking or other random off-flavours I don't know. With a bit more experience I may have been able to hazard a guess but as a newcomer to brewing, I'm afraid I didn't have a clue what the smell was.

Although I didn't fancy swallowing it, I tried holding some of the beer in my mouth and swilling it around. It had a decent amount of carbonation and a quite nice mouthfeel. However, swallowing even a little bit would have been unwise, judging by the aroma. It was so clearly undrinkable that I made the decision to chuck it. I poured all but three bottles down the sink in order to free up the bottles for my next, highly improved batch. 

Perhaps one day, those three bottles will mature and become really nice. I won't start holding my breath though. 

Coach House - Cheshire Gold

Coach House is a micro-brewery based in Warrington, formed in 1991 by former Greenall Whitley career brewers who found themselves at a loose end when that company ceased its brewing operations.

The business seems fairly big for a UK micro, with 9 faces on the website. The site is so old-fashioned and badly designed though, it had me almost weeping in frustration. Search all you like for some information about the beers but you won't find any.

Mrs Nelly and I recently popped into The Hollies Farm Shop in Tarporley. This is a nice shop, packed with a choice of excellent local produce except beer. Out of two brands, Cheshire Gold seemed to be the best bet.

Upon reading the label, I was immediately whipped into an apoplectic rage by the unnecessary apostrophe on the back, in the possessive adjective "its". I'm fine with the odd grammatical error on a fruit and veg stall or in an email but they shouldn't make it as far as being printed on your packaging. A decent-sized company like this should have the judgement to get their labels proof-read properly before going to print.

Once home, I attempted to calm down in the usual manner by drinking beer. Cheshire Gold wasn't quite what I was expecting but was pleasant enough. I normally expect golden ales to be more fruity or floral but this fell a little short in that area, with a caramel maltiness being the dominant flavour. It wasn't overbearing though, and I can see why this would be a beer that would appeal to a good cross-section of drinkers.

The staff have between them probably forgotten more about brewing than most other micros will ever know. All well and good but as a paying punter I can't help thinking that this business needs to work on its presentation.

George Wright "Cheeky Pheasant" at the Junction, Rainford

What a pleasure to go to a pub that's genuinely interested not just in real ales, but in promoting local ales too. This was the experience at The Junction, on the outskirts of Rainford, near St Helen's on Merseyside. 

I had a pint of Cheeky Pheasant (4.7%), from the George Wright brewery in that town, and was really pleased - a proper Northern bitter, all nutty maltiness and citrus hops, creamy on the tongue. I went back for seconds and would have had many more were I not on my way into Liverpool for a wedding (bitter on offer - Worthington Smoothflow. I didn't bother). 

Black Sheep - Ale

Black Sheep Brewery was founded in the early 90's, an offshoot from Theakston's, which was at the time part-owned by Scottish and Newcastle. Paul Theakston couldn't face seeing the family firm become part of a large conglomerate and decided to go it alone.

That the new venture has outlived the big multi-national is in part a testament to the changing face of British brewing. As the 90's came to an end, the move away from bland, mass-produced beer had begun to take hold and smaller breweries were once again beginning to flourish.

Black Sheep Ale has a bit of history behind it then, and is now 20 years old. I wanted to like it, given the heritage and what it stands for but although it's a well-crafted brew, it's not really to my taste, being a bit too malt-led. The taste was quite toffee-like but nicely crisp at the same time. I found it to be okay but a bit old-fashioned - just the sort of beer your dad would like.

The best bit about it was the the label was very basic and floated right off after a soak in the sink. This means no scraping was needed to clean the bottle up and it's now standing by to receive some of my next batch of amazing homebrew.

Goose Island IPA

I was really excited about this beer; having sampled the superb Sierra Nevada recently, I was keen to further explore the world of American Craft Beers. This particular one's from Chicago, which may be a world capital of beer. Or may not be. I have no idea. 

It's an IPA, and is much more pale than the Adnams from earlier in the evening. On opening there's a really lovely hoppy smell, and the first swig was great - bursting with flavour. 

But it doesn't last; perhaps I hadn't chilled it enough, but it goes flat quickly and the hoppiness turns into maltiness. I wanted to enjoy this, and to be fair it's better than 80% of beers, but it wanted it to be good. 

Adnams Lighthouse

The bottle had been in the fridge for a week. Since the terrifying experience with the Sole Star, it had remained there, resolute and unblinking as it stared me out each time I opened the door. Should I take it out and free up the space - or is that giving up? Is it cowardly to quit a beer?

Well, yes it is, so I came home from work tonight and cracked it open.

As you can see, it was well-carbonated with a good head (ok, you can't see the head in the pic, but you take my word for it). I approached it with a bit of trepidation, as you might expect after the Sole Star, but you know what? It was pretty darn good.

The Lighthouse is described as a Pale Ale, but although there are some hops coming through it's no IPA; it's malty, but not in a bad way, and simple, uncomplicated and rather tasty. At 3.4% it's got more flavour than you might expect from a relatively weak beer (a lot more than the S*le St*r), and whilst it's not amazing, it's pretty darn good and I enjoyed it. 

Well done Adnams - pulling it back from the brink.

Homebrew 1 - Woodforde's Nelson's Revenge kit.

Well this has been in the barrel for a few weeks so it's not going to alter much now - unfortunately. Time for a review.

Considering this was my very first attempt at making beer, at least I can say that the result actually qualifies as beer, unlike attempt 2. (More of that to come later.) However, for me the positives end here. It's drinkable but overpoweringly malty. I actually added a hop "tea" into the secondary ferment but even this has only tempered the doughy onslaught slightly.

It's not a nice maltiness either. Not biscuity, no caramel notes, just kind of stale. I've never had a pint of Woodforde's in the pub so I can't say for sure but surely this simply cannot be anything like the real thing. Other Woodforde's beers were winning CBOB not very many years ago, for pete's sake.

I don't know what would cause a successful brewery to launch a range of homebrew kits but it simply can't be a good idea. For me personally, the name is now tarnished forever and I'm now very unlikely to ever buy a pint of real Woodforde's beer having had the taste of this stuff indelibly burnt into my consciousness.

As I've now discovered, proper full-grain brewing is a nuanced affair; easy to do but difficult to do well. I won't be making any more kit beers again but I'm glad I did one to start off with, just to get used to cleaning and sterilising all the kit, pitching the yeast, racking and all the basic stuff.

Having been quite harsh about the taste, it wasn't undrinkable by any means. My father-in-law quite enjoyed it but he's more of a whisky man and is pre-disposed to having a fondness for malt. He'd better get cracking on this lot because I need the barrel for my next batch.

Meantime IPA

On the suggestion of Nelly (before he'd reviewed it), I'd bought this bottle and it had sat on my shelf for a few weeks till I found the right point to open it.

Well, I've had a long hard day today, and this had migrated to the fridge, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Sadly not pictured above is the top, which is a champagne-style cork with a wire cage. It is, quite frankly, a gimmick, and probably contributes to the price - and when I opened it the beer spurted out like champagne all over the sodding worktop. Now, it's pretty gassy as it is, but this was just annoying. With the usual caveat that I know sod all about beer (but I know what I like, etc), was it that the poncey lid was making it extra fizzy?

Anyway, the beer itself - really bloody good. Hoppy, fizzy, immensely tasty; not the sharp, overpowering nose of a Jaipur, but fruity - orange, marmalade, freshly-cut grass, and a lightly bitter, caramel aftertaste. Extremely quaffable, which I guess is why it comes in a big sodding bottle; the plus side of this being that I could have a pint and Mrs W could have her fair share without nicking mine (her review - "yeah, I liked it" - first day back at work and all that, she's a bit tired, bless her).

So - no Jaipur, but pretty darn good.

Windsor & Eton Guardsman at the Dog and Partridge, Sunninghill

Both Mr Nelson and myself live in places with a similar demographic - I live in Surrey, and he in Cheshire, which is basically the Surrey of the North. The surviving pubs in both places seem to tend towards the gastronomic - I guess pubs make a lot more profit on food - and there's an increasing (and welcome) trend in well-appointed country pub-restaurants in both counties.

So it was I found myself at the Dog & Partridge in Sunninghill (which is actually in Berkshire, but only just).

It's a finely equipped, delightful venue, with smart, welcoming staff and superb food - the Sunday roast beef was stunning. The courtyard garden is arranged around a water feature with a thankfully-partitioned off children's play area. On a sunny Sunday afternoon it was a delight.

However...(there's always a "however")...I wanted some ale.

On offer was London Pride (dull), Doom Bar (gone downhill since it became ubiquitous), and Guardsman, which I'd not had before, and was relatively local.

Well.

You know how some beers leave a long, dry aftertaste? This left the longest aftertaste I've ever known; of the sort that made you want to drink something else to take the foul, malt-heavy taste away. It was utterly awful; I couldn't finish it.

Now look again at the picture above. As regular readers will note, I know nowt about beer, but those taps suggest to me that they aren't really looking after the beer properly. They seem, well, false (I appreciate I might be completely wrong here, and welcome correction). I would hazard a guess that the pub isn't really interested in beer (the glass of Merlot I had afterwards was excellent, by the way), and offers "real ales" because they think they should. Maybe Guardsman is really nice, and they'd just served it badly? 

Either way, next time I go there I'm sticking to the wine.