International Beer Day Celebrated!

I celebrated International Beer Day 2017 in Hastings, first drinking the Sussex brewer Arundel (website) Maltravers Street: Session IPA at the Jenny Lind pub in the High Street, Hastings 'old town'. This 4.2% pale golden ale had a tremendously fruity aroma and citrus flavours, provided by Mosaic and Simcoe hops, with a very nice dry bitter finish, great stuff!

Down towards the fishermen's beach, Rock-a-Nore Road, and a visit to the Dolphin Inn opposite the net huts, and my second ale was from further afield Yorkshire brewers, Revolutions Brewing Co, whose ales names appear to have a musical influence (website). This was a slightly stronger extra pale ale, the 4.5% Switch #4, not quite as fruity in taste as the Maltravers Street, but still with a strong fruity aroma from the Cascade and Centennial hops used. It took a few days to settle and clear, but it was a lovely well-conditioned, and very refreshing, bitter ale with a slightly dry finish, not bad at all!

So, two great pale ales, with an influence from the USA, notably, from the hops used, a very happy International Beer Day was had, indeed, cheers!

International Beer Day!

It's the first Friday in August, so it must be International Beer Day 2017, so, I suppose I should go out for a pint or two later! See the website for more information, or just go to a pub!

Cheers! 😊

Paler ales sampled since last blog...

Sorry for not writing for a while, but...

My prefered ales for this July, and I sampled (just 😉) a few more than just these seven, start and finish with ales from my old employer up in Sheffield, Kelham Island Brewery (website), and deservedly so! Indeed, most of these ales were brewed in Yorkshire, which suggests a lot about what styles of ale I prefer, and nearly all brewers are favourites of mine too, they can hardly brew anything but decent ale!

My favourite was Kelham Island's Tiger Cub (4.7%), of which I can find little information, but I know what I like, and my own brief tasting notes will have to suffice... This is described, in the couple of other reviews I managed to find, as an American Pale Ale style of ale. Certainly it is a pale golden colour, hints of US hops in the very gentle citrus flavour, but the bitterness of the Tiger Cub was in no way subtle. I found this 'very bitter' and 'very nice' too, indeed, excellent!

My next review is of a regular seasonal ale from the ever-dependent, though getting quite expensive (to the landlord) brewery, Oakham Ales (website). Their Asylum (4.5%) is a pale amber bitter, with 3 of my favourite hops used, Amarillo, Cascade and Chinook, consequently, plenty of bitterness and fruit in the aroma and taste, notably grapefruit. This is dry and bitter, and I noted, very good indeed!

My third choice is from a brewery I can't remember experiencing before, from way up in Newcastle, Brinkburn St Brewery (website); having had advice from the excellent Marble and Magic Rock breweries, they've been brewing for nearly 2 years now. Great advisers, and using Cascade, Citra, Chinook and Waimea hops, indeed, dry hopped with Waimea pellets, means that their Fools Gold Remastered (5% and, from the name you may guess, this is a 'remastered' version of the ale they first brewed, Fools Gold) is very much to my taste! I got hints of citrus and exotic fruits in the aroma and taste, but, more importantly for me, this pale golden ale is very bitter, with a dry bitter finish, and quoting my notes, this is "very good!"

Next was the excellent, yes, yet another excellent ale from another very fine brewery, Twickenham Fine Ales (website), always quality ales from them too! Their 4.4% seasonal ale, Summer Sun, didn't let me down, and comes a very close second to Tiger Cub. An extra pale golden ale, with hints of fruit, grapefruit and mango, provided by the use of Citra and Delta hops, lovely jubbly, with a dry and bitter finish!

Back up to Yorkshire, ie Huddersfield, for the last 3 ales chosen, starting again with Mallinsons (website) Daniella (4.5%), another pale golden ale, the pump clip says 'fruity', but I only detected a hint of orange citrus flavour. Centennial and Ella hops used, which helped to make this a very bitter ale, fermented ot into a very dry finish too.

From York itself, and Rudgate (website) comes their 5% Grease Monkey, a wee bit different, the pump clip says brewed with barley (malted surely?) and wheat malt, and dry hopped with Galaxy. This was slightly hazy, presumably because of the choice of malts, a deep golden ale with a fruity aroma and tasting of peach and mango, and nice dry bitter finish, not bad at all!

My final chosen ale of the month, again from Kelham Island in Sheffield, was a wee bit different, and pretty interesting too! Apparently, not brewed with their usual yeast, but with a German lager yeast, and hops from the USA and Germany too, though I can't discover which hops. Another deep golden ale, pretty bitter with plenty of body and a dry finish...

Cheers!

Brown Ale with a difference!

Now, I'm usually blogging about pale hoppy fruity bitters, but this ale, imbibed at the Dolphin Inn, Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings, is a wee bit different, actually, quite a bit different! A deep red colour, with an aroma that made me immediately think stout, and I detected roasted barley in the taste too; having looked at the brewer's website I have since noticed barley is included in the grist, so I may well be correct... 

Anyway, this 4.6% India Brown Ale, brewed by Triple fff Brewery is certainly different, from the name you could guess it's a play on American Pale Ales/contemporary IPAs, so a bit of grapefruit in there too! This fruitiness provided by the use of hops from the USA, though they don't tell you which hops on the website, but I'd guess it may be Cascade or Chinook, but that is purely guesswork. No-one else got the 'stout' who tried it at the same time as me, but I did have a few pints, not just wee tasters, so I'm sticking by my guns here! Also, not similar to a brown ale typically, it had a dry bitter finish. I had a few pints the next day too, very nice, cheers!

South East Sussex Pub of the Year.

OK, this may seem a wee bit parochial, but it's where I live, so very important for me, many thanks... Congratulations must go to Louisa and her colleagues up at The Tower, 251 London Road, for, yet again, winning the local Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) South East Sussex Pub of the Year, and who was presented with her award on Tuesday evening. Indeed, in Hastings we are blessed with a great number of public houses and bars that sell good quality real ales, and yet Lou's pub has managed to stand out with CAMRA assessors for three years in a row now! There is available a great range of well-conditioned, good value, real ales (most usually from local brewers), six in all, and a similar number of ciders and perry support this award too.

I have visited the Tower very recently, though sadly couldn't make it on Tuesday, but on my most recent visit I noted the price of ales still starts at £2.90 for the regular session ale, East Sussex brewer Dark Star's Hophead (3.8%) at £2.90 a pint, an excellent pale hoppy bitter with hints of grapefruit from the Cascade hops used in the brew. Also from Dark Star (website) is another excellent regular ale, the stronger American Pale Ale (APA 4.7%) at £3.00 a pint, and brewed with Cascade, Centennial and Chinook hops, providing a more complex full bodied pale bitter.

Other ales were from up and coming East Sussex brewers, Three Legs (website) Columbus Pale Ale (4.9% and the most expensive at £3.20 a pint), a more traditional pale ale presumably brewed using Columbus hops; West Yorkshire brewer Vocation (website) Bread & Butter (3.9%), another fruity pale bitter using American hops; VOG Brewery, (website) in the Vale of Glamorgan, Dark Matters (4.4%), a blackcurrant porter; and the excellent Peterborough brewer Oakham Ales (website), whose 4.2% Citra, another single hopped ale, I couldn't resist drinking, a dry and bitter pale golden ale with grapefruit big in the nose and taste, excellent!

Nice one Lou, and cheers, yet again!

National Beer Days!

OK, I've seen all number of days which have been pointed out as National Beer Day, but now there's 4 days of beer celebration, it appears! Anyway, I do know that International Beer Day this year will be the 4th of August, so expect more then, cheers, and celebrate!

A Beautiful Walk, and 3 Pubs in/near Lewes, or not!

Well, we were out yesterday, ducking political news, and it should have been a pint in the Trevor Arms, which backs onto Glynde railways station, but it has recently closed we were disappointed to discover, and it looks like that is it, a no-hoper, sadly... so I didn't photograph it! However, we were undertaking a 15/16 mile circular walk from Lewes, so we moved on to the next hostelry, meanwhile, here's a photograph I did take yesterday, from up on the South Downs Way.

Our packed lunch was to be eaten out in the countryside anyway, but we wanted a pint, so the next nearest pub on our route was the 15th century Ram Inn (website) at Firle. In their atmospheric wood panelled bar we did enjoy ale from the very local brewer (Mark Tranter, previously of Dark Star, website), Burning Sky's Plateau (3.5% and £3.80 a pint), despite the low strength, this in no way lacks flavour and body, it is very pale with a lovely refreshing grapefruit aroma and taste, a dry bitter aftertaste and is packed with hops, quality... and a result! They have a real cider too, 2 guest ales, and their regular is Harveys Sussex Best Bitter (4%) at £2.60 a pint, a very decent price for Harveys, who aren't afraid of charging the earth!

We then continued, and completed our circular walk (more of on my other blog), finishing off with a couple of pints each at the Lewes Arms (website) before catching a train home. Now, the Lewes Arms is a Fullers' pub, but, similar to the Fullers' pubs in Brighton they serve a mixture of Fullers and Gales beers, and always have a few guest ales available too, plus the very local Harveys Sussex Best (4%) as a regular. I had one of the guest ales, the East London brewer Five Points (website) Five Points Pale (4.4% and over £4 a pint, this is Lewes!). Brewed with 2 American hops, Amarillo and Citra, you can guess what you're going to get, an ale packed with flavours, with strong citrus aroma and flavours, and this golden ale had plenty of body too, and was quite sharp and bitter... I loved it! 

Expect another visit to Lewes from me soon, I've got the taste 😋