September Whiskey of the Month!

I may just start this continuing as a regular monthly event, maybe until March anyway... So, a whiskey I've been wanting to try for years, and I finally got around to buying a bottle, Redbreast 12 (40% - website), which I think is owned by Jameson now, but, what the heck! It is a 'pot whiskey' not a single malt, and I just discovered that means it is made from both malted and unmalted barley, which apparently saved on taxes in the past, those canny Irish! Like most Irish whiskeys it is triple distilled in copper pot stills. It is then matured for 12 years, first in American Bourbon seasoned oak barrels, then in Spanish Oloroso sherry seasoned oak barrels.

Redbreast 12 Year Old (I'm not loaded, so not the 15 year old!) is pretty decent indeed, my immediate notes were "warm and fruity" but there are subtle tastes and aromas of sherry, nuts, spices and caramel. Very smooth and very drinkable, I like it, cheers! 👍

Belgian Beer Weekend!

Although the Belgian Beer Weekend that set me off on this blog was at Brussels Grand Place 6-8th September (website), and we could only drink a few Belgian beers, not the hundreds that were available in Belgium, I was visiting my brother's to celebrate our birthdays, and would see one of my Belgian nieces too. So we had to do something relevant, our own mini festival.😉

We did other things over the weekend too, but did manage a different Belgian beer each day, first, an Abbey style beer brewed at Grimbergen, where the abbey was first built in 1128, and the monks started brewing later that year (website). This was their 6.7% Blonde, which has a sweet slightly toffee flavour at first, with a gentle hint of cloves, a smooth golden blonde with a much drier finish that completes a very nicely balanced beer, 'pretty good' I noted.

The beer Saturday was from a slightly newer Abbey brewery, where they've only been brewing since 1240 😉that is Leffe (website), and their 6.6% Blonde. Similar strength, and pretty much a go to beer for my brother Dan as it's very dependable. Hints of caramel and spices, notably more cloves than the Grimbergen, gentle bitterness too, balancing the beer with a slightly dry finish.👍

Our third Abbey style beer on Sunday was from St Feuillion (website), with a history going back to the 7th century, with it's own brewery too, but sadly soldiers of the French Revolution condemned the abbey in 1796 following Napoleon's invasion and annexation of Belgium. It was not until 1873 that Stephanie Friart took over the name at her own brewery, which was producing light beers, and not until after World War II that her descendants started brewing what we now more readily recognise as Abbey style beers.

With my birthday dinner prepared by Dan we had the stronger 7.5% St Feuillion Blonde, a deep golden colour with a wee bit more body. This is slightly maltier than the others mentioned above, and slightly more bitter, and having less spicy undertones. It was very pleasant with a dry finish, a pleasant accompaniment to dinner and end to my birthday weekend beers, cheers!🍻

Jolly Fisherman: Good Company, Beers & Amusement!

I had a very pleasant time yesterday afternoon/early evening at The Jolly Fisherman, 3 East Beach Street, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3AR (facebook). Plenty of convivial discourse, and leading to Tim following my facebook page, cheers! Not to forget an interesting potential 'customer' wanting chilli sauce, did he think it's a shop, but with merry customers?!? 😁

Anyway, I had a bit of variety drinks-wise, starting off with a cask ale from the ever dependable Marble Beers (website) and their 4.2% Manchester Bitter. Brewed with Cascade (hopslist) and Ekuanot (Yakima Valley Hops) hops, and Marble say HS Exp hops, an experimental hop which I think may be Eureka (hopslist), but please don't hold me to that. 😏 Marble Beers proving yet again that 'vegan friendly' ales brewed can still be clear, sorry but no photograph, so please take my word for it. A deep golden amber coloured traditional bitter, with a hint of citrus, nice one!

I then had the perry from Worcestershire based Barbourne Cider Co (website), who have their own orchard growing cider apples and perry pears, not to mention many other fruits in Ombersley  (website). Their 5.0% Painted Lady perry is made from the juice of freshly pressed Worcestershire Painted Lady pears (National Perry Pear Centre). I certainly recognised pear flavour in the taste, refreshing with a nice dry finish, a very decent perry indeed. 🍐

Then I moved on to the more local Bignose and Beardy Sussex Cider (self-deprecating humour creating the name from their personal attributes; a good read at the website) and their 6.8% Shelter from the Storm dry cider. They get apples that would otherwise be wasted, and 'wild ferment' and age their ciders in a solar powered cidery. Shelter from the Storm was made with apples from the nearby Little Shepherds Orchard, producing a slightly acidic cider with a big apple aroma and taste, certainly not for sweet cider drinkers, but I liked it. 🍎🍏

I then moved on to the crafty keg beers and, from Berkshire based Siren Craft Brew (website), their 7.4% Serendipity, above, a 'Ruby Chocolate Stout' believe it or not, brewed by the women of the brewery to celebrate International Women's Day (website). Obviously with cacao nibs added, but also with Ruby Chocolate, which I'd never heard of. I was very interested in what hops were used as there was a tropical fruit flavour too, but Siren haven't shared hop information, although they solve the problem by stating that Black Cherries are among the adjuncts used! So yes, very chocolatey and fruity, very drinkable, although I couldn't drink pints of it 😉 and I would call it a porter rather than a stout; I've written about this subject before (blog).

My final beer was a porter (I'll agree with this 😉) from Pohjala Brewery in Tallin, Estonia (website), and their 11.0% Tallin at Dawn, an 'Imperial Baltic Porter' aged for 16 months in Madeira casks. Chocolate, coffee and liquorice in the aroma and hints of coffee and chocolate in the taste, pretty subtle, plenty of body of course, and a very decent last beer of the day, but...

Oliver tempted me to help finish his Irish Whiskey by showing me the bottle of the next one to come! So, from the Hinch Distillery in Northern Ireland (website), I had a wee glass of their 43% Small Batch Bourbon Cask, aged for 3-4 years in bourbon casks, and a blend of Single Malt and Single Grain Whiskeys. Smooth, as triple distilled Irish whiskeys tend to be, with hints of caramel, citrus and dried fruits, very easy to drink, a nice end to the session, cheers!

Ey 'up! Back in Sheffield, Again...

As I always do, whenever I visit Sheffield I eat at Mama's and Leonies (website), 111/115 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JE (0114 272 0490), just along the road from the famous, for snooker fans particularly, Crucible Theatre, and around the corner from the Winter Gardens. I've been eating at Mama's since the 1990s, and still many familiar friendly faces working there and pleasant discourse too. It's so good to be remembered, and my favourite Warm Chick & Bacon Salad, without the croutons, and a half carafe of red wine, or a bottle of Budweiser Budvar (website) in this instance, because I was soon meeting up with friends for a few. Always excellent with plenty of healthy stuff on the plate, a great plateful of salad (see below), many thanks folks!

My new regular (mostly) abode for Sheffield visits is The Crow Inn, 33 Scotland Street S3 7BS (website), which reopened 5 years ago after quite a few years closure, and has 7 en suite bedrooms. Sadly, no breakfast provided, but there are some very interesting bar snacks. Importantly, it also sells quite a few interesting ales and crafty keg beers! Open Mon-Wednesday 3pm to 12 midnight; Thurs-Saturday 12 noon to 1am; Sunday 12 noon to 11pm.

This is where I met up with Lindsay and Jeff, sadly, Peter and Will couldn't make it this time, and where I started with, as I tend to now, a pint from Sheffield based Abbeydale Brewery (website) Heathen (4.1%). This is an APA style ale, brewed with Mosaic hops, and dry hopped with Mosaic to make sure you appreciate the taste and aroma! As you'd expect from the hops, notably forest fruits and citrus, providing a bitter dry finish. Another clear pale vegan friendly ale, and on regularly at The Crow, so virtually its 'house ale' and deservedly so, nice one! 

We then moved on to Shakespeare's (facebook), 146-148 Gibraltar Street S3 8UB. This Georgian pub was closed for 18 months from early 2010 and reopened in July 2011, and since winning not a few CAMRA awards. They sell up to 9 real ales, many from local brewers, over 50 bottled beers, and a fair few crafty keg beers. I drank an extra special Abbeydale Brewery (website) Deception (4.1%) at £3.90 a pint. This 'New Zealand Pale Ale' is primarily hopped with Nelson Sauvin, but Amarillo, Chinook, Galaxy and Columbus hops are added too. An excellent pale ale, with citrus, grape and gooseberry in the flavour, refreshing, with a dry bitter finish. Indeed, even more flavour with this beer, as they had dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin this version to celebrate the pub's 10,000th ale, since 2011, I presume!

We then wandered around to the Kelham Island area to the Kelham Island Tavern, or KIT, 62 Russell Street S3 8RW (website). Built in the 1830s, it was a derelict building when Trevor and Lewis took it over, refurbished it, and reopening in 2002, when it soon it became the best real ale pub in the country, indeed, they won the National CAMRA Pub of the Year in 2008 and 2009, and have won many other awards before and since! Although now retired, I believe Trevor still owns the property, but the licencee is Josh now, and still winning awards. I drank the excellent Blue Bee Brewery (website) American 5 Hop Version 72 (4.3%), each version using different combinations of hops. 

The 72nd version uses Loral, Columbus, Citra, Cascade and Chinook hops from the USA! What can I say? 😁 Very hoppy, big citrus aroma and taste, pale golden, with a dry bitter finish, just as I like my session bitters, very good indeed! 👌

Jeff and I continued on to Shalesmoor, Lindsay having other business, and just after the tram stop is The Wellington (facebook), 1 Henry Street S3 7EQ. Originally built in the 1830s, it became run down during the 20th century, and was refurbished and reopened as a free house in 1993 renamed the Cask & Cutler (as I first remember it, although also called the "Bottom Welly" - the "Top Welly" being at the other end of Infirmary Road). Anyway, it changed hands in 2006 and returned its name to The Wellington, or Cask & Welly as we used to call it. In 2016, the pub was bought by the friendly Canadian, James B (another ex-brewer at the Kelham Island Brewery from quite a few years ago!), who has his own brewery now, Neepsend Brew Co (website). 

So I drank a couple of pints of their rather excellent 'New Zealand Pale Ale' Plancius (4.3%), brewed with 2 varieties of Antipodean hop, Southern Cross and Motueka. Basically, it does what it says, pale dry and bitter, just like me, and I should apologise, unless there was an obvious need to make notes, and I was pretty bad at it by now... Oh yes, and I included a cheese and red onion sandwich in a bread cake, as empty Calories had been entering my system for a few hours, with the first pint, also very tasty, and £4.80 the lot, thank you very much!👍

I then returned to my temporary home (The Crow Inn) after parting company with Jeff, and had a couple more drinks as it was still reasonably early, starting off with the 3.8% session blonde ale Jarl, from Scottish brewery Fyne Ales (website). It's a session ale brewed with Citra hops. what's there not to enjoy? I hadn't had it for quite a while, but still pretty damn good!

I also had a pint of the 4.5% Chop & Change brewed with Centennial hops in West Yorkshire by Vocation Brewery (website). Another pale ale heavy on the citrus, my brief note was "very flavoursome." Good enough for me! 😉

The next day, before going to football, I first had a rather good Hot Breakfast Ciabatta at Mama's and Leonies, I'd tried one on my last visit for breakfast, and it was still superb with bacon and mushrooms filling, great start before drinking ale!👌I had a pint at The Bath Hotel, 66-68 Victoria Street S3 7QL, thankfully back in the warm custodianship of the great man himself, Brian. Indeed, one of my favourite regular haunts when I lived in Sheffield, and I was greeted by the smiling face of Brian as always, and warm handshakes galore, great that he's back!

I had a pint of Derbyshire brewery Thornbridge (website) Jaipur (5.9%), typically brewed with Chinook, Centennial, Ahtanium, Simcoe, Columbus and Cascade hops. I was a wee bit disappointed, wasn't the usual hops in your face, maybe I was unlucky with a bad batch, it wasn't off, so not Brian's problem, it was whatever was in the barrel, anyway, I drank it, a person's gotta do! 😉 I met Noel and Jake at the Beehive in West Street, they wanted to watch the Premiership match on tv there, but no ale, just fizzy stuff! Had to cope with Guinness, oh well...😞

After the match we got split up, but we met up back at the Bath Hotel, where ale was available, of course, and I drank a few pints of an ale from, close by in Derbyshire, Collyfobble Brewery (facebook), their 3.6% T'inna Code Owt brewed with Amarillo hops and called by a Derbyshire colloquialism,  It was a very easy to drink 'Summer Blonde Ale' packed full of tropical and citrus flavours, I stayed on it until we left the pub. 😁

I caught the tram back to Shalesmoor and had another pint at the Wellington, another of their own ales Chupacabra (6.2%), brewed with Simcoe, Amarillo and Lupomax Citra hops; 'Lupomax'?!? I'd never heard of them, but it appears they are a concentrated Citra hop pellet, you learn something new every day. 😏 Billed as a 'West Coast IPA' style, and certainly packed full of fruit and spicy flavours, not bad at all.

I headed back to The Crow Inn and no surprise at all to see a dinosaur enter the pub not long after I got there (above), and this wasn't the result of my drinking too much, honest, but there was a young woman in this costume, all very jolly. I had a pint or two of something before I went to bed of course, and booked a room for my next visit, cheers folks!🍻

For excellent information on hops mentioned please go to hopslist.

For Variety, a Delightful Whiskey!

What can I say, I saw an advertisement, I kept talking about it, and Lotte at the Rye Waterworks said to me "go for it" so I bought a bottle online from The Single Malt Shop in Dublin (website), not cheap but worth it, and what an adventure the bottle seemed to go through to get to me! Because it was coming from the EU, duty appeared to be an issue that they had to deal with, not the buyer. It appeared the day that I received the bottle, it had started out from Dublin, went to Brussels, then to Luton, then to Heathrow, from whence it came to me, some journey!

My August Whiskey of the Month!

The whiskey itself, from Bushmills (website), close by the Giant's Causeway (Discover Northern Ireland) in Northern Ireland, and appropriately one of their Causeway Collection (cask finished single malts), is their, and I do have a little left 😉 2011 finished in Sauternes Casks for 2 years, although matured first for over 7 years in Oloroso Sherry casks and Bourbon casks. Certainly well aged and matured, this cask strength 56.3% single malt whiskey is gorgeous! 👍

I can only add to their description of "delivering fresh white wine aromas, rich flavours of ripe apricot, toffee apple and a warming summer fruit finish." To me, they missed out vanilla, but, indeed, a luxurious and warm smooth triple distilled single malt whiskey, alcoholic (!), and certainly worth buying, not that I have the money to buy regularly. Excellent, Sláinte! 😁

Delightful Beers at Home!

Four delightful beers, starting with 2 from the Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat, or Duvel Moorgat Brewery, a Flemish family brewery (website) founded in 1871 by Jan-Leonard Moortgat, and now run by the 4th generation of Moortgats. A combination of yeasts from a Scottish ale (McEwan's Scotch Ale, very popular in Belgium at the end of WW1) was extracted and used by Moortgat's sons to help create a lighter ale, which, legend has it, was called a 'real devil' or Duvel, the local dialect for Devil.

Duvel (8.5%) is a multi award winning pale golden ale (my description), or Strong Blond ale (their description), with lots of body and flavour, and a subtle bitterness, it is very good. I just wish they still sold it in the buffet car on Eurostar, I used to love supping a couple of bottles of Duvel to and from Brussels! OK, we're starting in very good territory, and I rate this 8.5 out of 10.

Another slightly different beer from Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat (website), their 9.5% Duvel Tripel Hop Citra Belgian IPA. Since 2007, the brewers at Duvel had been creating a unique Tripel Hop each Spring, with a different third hop added to the regular Saaz-Saaz and Styrian Golding hops, this brew includes one of my favourite hops from the Wakima Valley in the USA, that is Citra. In addition, the beer is dry-hopped, and seems to have carried on for a few years now with those magical Citra hops!

Of course it's a gorgeous beer, indeed, it is quite a refreshing golden ale and, despite the strength, quite easy to drink too. There is a fruity aroma to invite you in, and, a hint of sweetness at first taste, but with much grapefruit, citrus and tropical tastes washing round your mouth, ending with a dry slightly bitter finish. I wrote "pretty good!" in my notes and gave this version of Duvel 9.0 out of 10, yes, it is that good, indeed it was close to 9.5, cheers!

Moving away from Flanders to the Ardennes, in the French speaking region of Wallonia, for the next ale, and to Brasserie D'Achouffe, or D'Achouffe Brewery (website), and their 8.0% La Chouffe (the Chouffe is the bearded gnome which became a symbol of the brewery from its inception 40 years ago, and is on the label). Called a Blonde (French, so an E at the end), although they describe it as golden, there you go, slight citrus flavour, full bodied, with a slightly dry bitter finish, I like it! Scores 8 out of 10.

Cascade is one of the 3 hops used by the American brewer Sierra Nevada (website) for their Pale Ale (5.0%), The Cascade hop was pioneered at Oregon State University in the 1950s and is widely used, indeed Cascade hops have been grown in England since 2002, after development at Wye College (website). However, Cascade was originally developed from the English Fuggle hop and the Russian Serebrianka hop. Cascade provides spicy citrus flavours, particularly grapefruit. Indeed, this Sierra Nevada is slightly weaker than the bottled version (blog), but certainly has grapefruit in the taste. Less to it than the others, so 7.0 out of 10.

Cheers folks! 

Mini Polish Beer Tap Takeover in Hastings!

Indeed, I had a chance to get in on the takeover early last night (I'll be elsewhere tomorrow), but beers from the Polish brewery Pinta Barrel Brewing (website) will be served up for this weekend (9/11th August) mini tap takeover. Beers will include Rose Wild Ale, a hazy IPA collaboration with Third Moon Brewing  Hazy Discovery,  Wild Ale, Scarlet, and Harmony (above).   

This event is being held over this weekend at The Jolly Fisherman, 3 East Beach Street, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3AR (facebook). So far I have only tried the 12.00% Imperial Stout, Harmony, brewed with cocoa nibs, dried bananas, and peanuts, and aged for 18 months in Bourbon and Madeira barrels! It basically does what it says with chocolate being the more dominant of the flavours, but peanut and banana coming through too, luxurious, cheers!

Where to drink this weekend!

PS. I would call it an Imperial Porter (blog). 😉