Thwaites - Old Dan

After an afternoon spent at the Crewe Beer Festival, I stopped off at Waitrose for a couple of bottles on the way home.

I'm not sure why but I got an Old Dan from Thwaites. It's strong at 7.4% and came in a dinky bottle. I normally steer clear of beers from large UK regionals but this just took my fancy for some reason.

It was certainly strong but didn't taste like it was 7.4%. It was quite sticky and claggy and although not unpleasant, it was quite hard-going. There was a malty aftertaste and although this is not the best beer I've ever had, nor is it the worst.

Home brew three

I was very disappointed with my first effort at a full mash home brew. It had a weird taste, sort of a metallic bitterness. I reviewed what I'd done and tried to figure out what I should be doing differently as honestly as I could.

After some soul-searching, I came up with the following:

• The mash was sub-standard. I had mashed a little too cold and also didn't sparge properly. I reckon I'd left a ton of sugars in the mash tun and ended topping up the boil with water to make 23 litres. The OG was 1032, which is quite weedy.
• I didn't filter properly. I ended up transferring a right load of trub and shit into the FV, including bits of hop stalks.
• I didn't aerate the wort. 
• I pitched the yeast in too hot. My cooling coil got the wort down from 100C to about 40C very quickly but then further reductions in temperature were getting exponentially harder. I lost patience and pitched the yeast in while the wort was probably still 35-40C.

Today, I set about making brew number three. I didn't follow a recipe but used what ingredients I had. I used more malt. 3kg Maris Otter, 1.8kg Lager malt, 450g Light Crystal and 250g Carapils. I had swapped the supplied filter in the mash tun for a homemade one I assembled, which had more surface area. I also made a sparging tool which sprinkled liquor into the tun for me while I was drawing off from underneath. It all worked very well and I filtered the runnings through a little sieve before they reached the boiler.

After the boil, I cooled the wort with the cooling coil right down to 30C, which took some time. I then transferred to the FV via a fine sieve and allowed the liquid to drop down, splashing in and aerating itself.

I then left the wort to cool while I cleaned the equipment up, which took an hour. I pitched in at about 25C and popped the FV in my lovely brew kitchen. (see below).

Considering that on my last attempt it had taken two days for the yeast to show any signs of activity, I was surprised to find this batch bubbling away after five minutes. The OG was 1052 and I am very confident that I have cut out loads of technique errors from last time.

Home brew one and two

Recently, I have decided to start brewing my own beers, rather than just criticising other people's brews. It's not as easy as you might think.

Effort number one was from a kit. Woodforde's Nelson's Revenge. Two tins of malty gloop went into a fermenting vessel, watered down to make the required amount. I added the yeast, waited a week, then transferred it into a cask for a secondary ferment. After a week in the cask, it settled down nice and clear and I nervously poured out a pint.

Holy crapping monkey balls, it was shite. Just a sweet malty mess, worse even than Tetleys Original. I tried to bring it back from the brink and bought a packet of hops from Brew2Bottle in Northwich and made a hop tea. I added the bitter hop juice and left it a further week. After this time it was a little less awful but still not good.

I resolved at this point that I would persevere but upped my game and bought all the equipment needed to do a full mash brew. A mash tun, a boiler, a cooling coil, a new fermenter, a capper and a bunch of malt and hops. £300. No excuses.

Brew 2 was my first attempt at a full  mash. I found a recipe for an American Pale Ale and went for it. 3.8kg of lager malt and 450g of Light Crystal malt and loads of Amarillo and Cascade hops later, I had my brew in the Fermenting Vessel. I added the WYeast yeast and waited....

Two days later, some bubbles started to appear. Another day in and the thing was a broiling mayhem, swirling and whirling as the yeast did its stuff. I transferred to 23 bottles and a 10L cask after 11 days and had high hopes.

Unfortunately, after 5 days of secondary, this tastes worse than the kit beer. I had a few days of soul-searching, trying to figure out why.

Black Sheep -Golden Sheep

Black Sheep -so named because the brewery founder left the Theakston's empire to set up on his own, hence is the "Black Sheep" of the family. His beers are extremely popular in the north - my Dad calls Black Sheep his favourite ale.

Golden Sheep is the pale ale, premium version of Black Sheep - so must be good.

It's quite ruby for a pale ale, but is it any good?

First sniffs aren't too promising - there's no big whiff - and the taste is, well...beery.

I know that's a crap description, and maybe I'm not really cut out to be a beer writer, but on smell and taste I got, well, nothing. No citrus, no fruits, not even a goddamn lychee. 

That's not to say it was unpleasant - it really wasn't, I necked it and kind of enjoyed it, and it wasn't hideously undrinkable like the Sole Star - it was just, well, nothingness really. I drank it, it refreshed me, but there was no complexity, no interest, nothing really to speak of. 

I've had good nights on Black Sheep - most notably quaffing mountains of the stuff after scaling Yorkshire's biggest peak with Nelly - but I guess I was too busy being thirsty and talking guff to notice that what we're drinking doesn't really have much to say for itself at all.

Tillingbourne - The Source at the Onslow Arms, Clandon

I have a theory that a pint always, always tastes better after hours of exercise and fresh air. So it was I came upon a cask of Tillingbourne's "The Source" at the Onslow Arms, Clandon, a few short miles from the brewery at Shere.

After the recent Hog's Back disappointment I wasn't really holding out much hope, especially with an ABV of just 3.3% (Friday's Sole Star low-alcohol "experience" still affecting me) , but I was delighted to be proved wrong. 

This was a  deliciously fruity, hoppy number, richly floral and, of course, with citrus notes. It's a proper summer ale, refreshing and with a long, hoppy finish; the kind of pint you could enjoy all evening after a long day in the field.

The Onslow Arms is a typical Surrey Hills pub - classy, with a wealthy clientele; fitted out smartly with friendly waiting staff. It's quite clearly about the food, but as well as the Source there was also Tribute and Young's among the hand-pulled beers available. Very nice indeed. 

Fyne Ales - Jarl

Jarl recently came third in Champion Beer of Britain, winning "Best Golden Ale" so when I saw it for sale in The Beer Emporium in Sandbach, I had to have a bottle.

Jarl is extremely pale in colour, like many of the Thornbridge beers. The photo makes it look darker than it is. It has a lovely hoppy nose and pours with quite a soapy, frothy head. This would be the perfect beer for drinking on a Summer afternoon and at 3.8% you could have a few. The taste is sensational - light, refreshing and citrusy and just so well balanced.

Jarl is absolutely amazing and fully deserving of its awards. Try one as soon as you can!

Sadlers - Hop Bomb

I wasn't sure what I was expecting with this one. On one hand, the label was telling me that this was going to be incredibly hoppy but on the other hand, it was quite cheap so I was a little worried. The truth was somewhere in between. This is a perfectly nice beer. It's quite hoppy and has a long, bitter finish.

I think I would have liked it more if there hadn't been such wild claims on the label but by positioning the product in this way, it will always fall slightly short of what was promised.

Sierra Nevada - Torpedo

After having recently decided that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was the best beer in the world, I was more excited than is probably acceptable to find Torpedo (7.2%) for sale in Tesco.

Torpedo is so named because they make use of a hop torpedo during the brewing process. This is a device that runs the fermented beer through a filter stuffed full of aromatic American hops. Torpedo is billed as an "Extra IPA" and I had braced myself for an unrelenting onslaught of aroma hops.

I thought it poured a little flat and it wasn't quite as hoppy as I was hoping for. To be fair, it was probably a little over-chilled. My bad. Like Pale Ale though, it's wonderfully balanced, with the biscuity malt and hops making themselves known in equal measure. Make no mistake, this is a beautifully crafted strong ale but it really does taste very strong and is by no means an "easy drinker".

It's a very, very well made drink but not a killer product in the way that Pale Ale is. Talking of which, Tesco was selling those as well and I've got one in the fridge. Cheers.

Badger - Blandford Flyer

I've talked before about my love of West Country ales, and Badger is one of those favourites. That's mainly because it's a constant in the Sainsbury's beer ale and hence I've drunk a lot of their output down the years.

But this one I really like. I don't mind the odd bottle of Crabbies, but this is ginger-inflected ale rather than, er, ginger ale. This beer (5.2%) is lighter than the ABV might suggest, and sparklingly refreshing - a bit like a shandy with a big ol' lump of ginger chucked at it. Forget hops, forget citrus tones, forget lychees even - it's just a tasty ol' summer drink.

Adnams - Sole Star

My in-laws live close to Southwold, home of the Adnams Brewery, and as such they've adopted Adnams as their beer of choice (not that they know much about such things, but then neither do I really - I just drink more). Generally I'm a fan of their brews, though I find Broadside a bit much.

The local Budgens were selling Sole Star and Lighthouse for an amazing £1 a bottle each - I couldn't resist.

At 2.7% it's incredibly weak - I guess it's designed for people who want to drink a lot without speaking in tongues (or perhaps to get below a tax band?). I'm never that sure what difference the alcohol content makes, but in this instance I'd suggest it's this: utter piss.

It's really quite unpleasant. Malty in a bad way, too bitter, and with a long dry finish that just makes the off taste last far too long in the mouth.

A pound? No thanks.