International Stout Day II - Beer!

Well, the pubs weren't open yesterday, obviously, but I thought I'd better buy myself a stout/porter as I suggested yesterday (earlier blog talks about this), so I visited Marks & Spencer, for food too of course, and came home with their 5.5% London Porter, brewed for them in Greenwich by Meantime Brewing (website). OK, it's not called a stout, but as my older blog argues, whether a beer is called a stout or porter more often depends on the brewer's own interpretation...

So I sampled this 5.5% 'porter' which I considered as more of a 'stout' - but! It has elements of both when considering how I describe the styles, deep dark reddish brown colour and pale brown head, not as much body as you'd expect for the strength, and with hints of chocolate and coffee in the aroma. Taste-wise I got more chocolate than coffee with a hint of roasted malt/barley, a bit sweet to begin with and a dark fruity and dry aftertaste... Not bad at all, cheers!

Pubs Still Closed: What to do?!?

So what can we do? Obvious really, not as good as drinking cask conditioned ales, but there is some interesting stuff in bottles and cans, so yesterday I tried...

St Austell (website) Proper Job, usually a 4.5% ale from the cask, but a 'beefed up' 5.5% in the 'bottle conditioned' version, as close as you're going to get to cask conditioned, in the circumstances. Yes, this is a pale hoppy beer; they call it 'Cornish IPA' and it does what it says on the label! Refreshing aroma and taste, with big citrus flavours, and a hint of tropical fruits, not surprising when you consider that the hops used in the brewing process are Willamette, Cascade and Chinook, a lovely mix. Actually, my recent tastings of this from cask have been disappointing (6-8 weeks ago), and friends have said similar, but this was very decent indeed.

And Meantime Brewing (website) London Porter, a 5.5% 'porter' brewed for Marks & Spencer. This was a reddish brown colour, chocolate in the aroma and a hint of chocolate in the taste, and roasted barley there too. This was quite thin, refreshing though, but a disappointment there was little body considering the strength. I would suggest this is more like a 'thin' stout rather than a porter (for opinion see older blog), Okay, but a wee bit disappointing... 

I shall be drinking some more of the bottled Proper Job very soon, cheers!

Oakham Ales - Double Hopped Citra IPA

First of all, I'm so sorry, and angry with myself, for not writing a Beermeister blog for so long, caught up in other things is my lame excuse! But, a combination of rain persisting down, and few £s, finds me sitting indoors watching raindrops hitting the window pane, and with the laptop on... Anyway, this IPA is brewed by the excellent Oakham Ales, but for Marks & Spencer. I found 4 cans of this a few weeks ago and managed to hold off drinking them, they were £2 a 330ml can, and I seem to remember 4 for the price of 3, so a decent deal, but to the drinking...

The Double Hopped Citra IPA is a pale golden American Pale Ale style beer, a strong 5.9%, so 2 units of alcohol in each can. The label and advertising blurb suggests 'Mango, Lemon & Lime' flavoured, and there certainly is strong mixed citrus and tropical fruit in the aroma, but I got more citrus in the taste, coming straight from the Citra hops used, and Oakham Ales (website) do, indeed, use plenty of hops in their ales. Comparatively, Citra hops are used in their excellent 4.2% Citra Session IPA and, their stronger, and even more excellent 6% Green Devil IPA, to which the Doubled Hopped Citra IPA compares reasonably favourably, shame it's not in a cask. Anyway, the M&S canned variety has plenty of body and finishes off with a very dry bitterness, I quite enjoyed drinking it, 'any port in a storm' comes to mind, cheers!