Category Archives: Beers

The beers

43. Fraoch Heather Ale

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Now, here’s a beer I have been looking forward to. I haven’t had a Fraoch for at least 15 years, at which time I was a student up in Edinburgh. This Scottish heather ale was always a special treat in those days, being a little more expensive and harder to get hold of than the McEwan’s 80/- ale that was my main tipple.

Still, I had a bottle from time to time, and even remember enjoying it as a guest cask in the Blind Poet. Almost as much as the native barman enjoyed my attempts to pronounce the name correctly.

Since I spotted this one in The Book, I’d been wondering how I’d get hold of a Fraoch here in London. I needn’t have worried: as is so often the case, Utobeer have it covered.

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Fraoch Heather Ale pours a lovely deep golden colour with a small white head, and there’s a very subtle floral aroma.

Fraoch is lighter bodied than I remember, but no less smooth. Scottish ales tend to employ very little in the way of hops, so are unlikely to be particularly bitter, and this one is no exception. Instead there are floral flavours, courtesy of the heather and bog myrtle with which the beer is brewed, and a slight peppermint note too. The finish is vinous and slightly sweet.

The beer doesn’t have a huge amount of depth to it, which isn’t quite how I remember it, but it’s nice enough. The botanicals are sufficiently subdued that I probably wouldn’t detect heather specifically if I didn’t know it was in there. I don’t consider that a particularly bad thing: I still want my beer to taste of beer.

All in all, Fraoch is an enjoyable beer, a little bit different, and I can certainly see how it made a nice change from the ubiquitous 80/- all those years ago. A pleasant and welcome blast from the past.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Williams Brothers Brewing Co, Alloa, Scotland
Style: Beers made with Fruit, Spices, Herbs and Seeds
Strength: 5.0% ABV
Found at: Utobeer, Borough Market, London SE1
Dispense: 500ml Bottle

42. Westmalle Tripel

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It’s with an almost crushing sense of inevitability that we come to try yet another beer brewed by Belgian monks, one of countless that are left to cover.

Never mind, this at least gives us a chance to try a Tripel, one of several designations of Trappist beers, and to compare and contrast with the Westmalle Dubbel we recently met.

In fact it was Westmalle themselves, currently Belgium’s second largest Trappist brewery, who introduced the terms Dubbel and Tripel, terms which are now widely used in Belgium and beyond. The naming seems to originate from the number of crosses branded onto casks to indicate strength, in contrast to an “Enkel” or “single”, but nowadays the terms generally denote distinct styles of beer.

A Tripel will still typically be stronger than a Dubbel—the Westmalle example weighs in at 9.5% ABV whereas its Dubbel sibling is a more modest 7.0%—but the strength doesn’t define the style. Whilst a Dubbel will be all deep dark, vinous malt and Christmas cakey dried fruits, a Tripel will be far paler and hoppier with more bitterness and lighter fruit.

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Westmalle Tripel is certainly paler than its Dubbel counterpart, pouring a slightly cloudy golden colour, with a pillowy white head that would make Mr. Whippy proud. You really have to take care pouring this one, as there’s a good quarter inch of yeast sediment, including some great lumps of the stuff.

In fact, the yeast and the strength suggest this might be a good candidate to be cellared, or at least aged at the back of the kitchen cupboard, for a few years. It’s too late for this one: the lid’s off and I’ve a review to write.

The nose is broadly typical of a Belgian golden ale, with the distinctive esters front and centre, though there’s a conspicuous dried banana scent bursting through.

To taste, Westmalle Tripel is quite different from any of the preceding 41 beers, with the exception perhaps of Orval, another Trappist beer that could probably have done with some age on it. There’s an instant floral explosion in the mouth, and a bitterness and strong spice that’s delivered direct to the tastebuds by the considerable fizz.

The body is quite light, and that bitterness is pretty harsh, truth be told, not least as it’s accompanied by a saltiness reminiscent of Orval’s. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of subtlety about this beer, as it finishes by paintstripping your mouth dry. But kind of in a good way.

I actually quite enjoyed this beer, but it’s clear this is not the finished product, as all those flavours fall over each other to vie for your attention. Westmalle Tripel really needs at least a couple of years in the bottle to calm it down, so I’ll be putting one or two away. Who knows, if I ever get through the remaining 258 beers, I may revisit this one and see how it’s grown up.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle, Westmalle, Belgium
Style: Trappist Beers
ABV: 9.5%
Found at: Bossman Wines, Lordship Lane, London SE22
Dispense: 330ml Bottle

41. Boston Samuel Adams Lager

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It’s Friday evening, the weekend has begun, and I think it might be time to reach into the fridge and randomly select a beer from the growing 300 Beers queue.

Sure enough, out comes this famous American lager, and having had a run of excellent American beers recently, including two from the Brooklyn Brewery and three from San Francisco’s Anchor, trying our first offering from the Boston Brewing Company seems like an appropriate start to the weekend.

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Having already met the very tasty Brooklyn Lager, I’m not at all surprised when Sam Adams pours a lovely, rich amber colour. It looks like we may have another Vienna-style lager on our hands, though The Book points out that this is more in the Bavarian March style. The subtleties are left as an exercise for the reader.

There’s a small white head which doesn’t stick around for long, and a promisingly malty aroma, balanced out with some gentle hops.

Sam Adams is a really full-bodied, grown-up beer with a heavy, malty backbone and an explosion of caramel and hops in the mouth, followed by a remarkably long, pleasing bitter finish.

There’s so much flavour here, and this is the absolute antithesis of the usual emaciated, gassy pale lagers that we’re all too familiar with in this country. This is a really top notch beer, and at a sane 4.8%, it’s sessionable enough too.

Just when I’m about to praise the Americans for brewing another winner, I notice an anomaly, in that this is a 330ml bottle rather than the traditional US 12 fluid ouncer. And there it is on the back label: brewed by Shepherd Neame, Faversham, Kent. This one hasn’t come far at all!

Perhaps one day I’ll be able to check out an original US-brewed Sam Adams for comparison, but for now, this will have to do.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Shepherd Neame, Faversham, Kent, England
Style: Vienna Red, Märzen and Oktoberfest Beers
ABV: 4.8%
Found at: Sainsbury’s, Westow Street, London SE19
Dispense: 330ml Bottle

40. Anchor Old Foghorn

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This is the third and final one of the 300 Beers to be produced by the Anchor Brewery, following on from the Steam Beer and the Liberty Ale. While the latter didn’t blow me away, the Steam Beer was a revelation, and I must admit to taking a bit of a shine to this plucky San Francisco brewery with their stout little brown bottles and handsome label artwork.

Even more excitingly, this is the first chance I’ve had to try a beer labelled as a Barleywine. Barleywine is essentially just very, very strong beer, fermented for significant periods of time. It’s apparently a centuries-old English style of beer, originally brewed for the aristocracy, but it’s one we really don’t see a lot of in this country these days, to the extent that I’d always assumed it was an American style.

In fact it was Anchor themselves and their Old Foghorn which introduced the style to the States, where it quickly caught the imagination of brewers and drinkers alike. I think we’d better get more intimately acquainted. I’m looking forward to this.

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Like the previous Anchor beers, this one is impeccably presented, though its label diverges from the usual sailor tattoo artwork for something a little more pastoral, featuring barley and hops. The beer itself is a dark, glossy Greek honey sort of colour with little to no head, just a light off-white lacing.

There isn’t a great deal of aroma to Old Foghorn, which lulls you into a false sense of security, as it completely belies the massive amounts of flavour within.

Old Foghorn is thick and rich, and almost the same texture as Greek honey too. It’s full of plump dried fruit and treacle. There’s a faintly medicinal note to it, which is less unpleasant than it sounds, along with a real sweetness, albeit a pleasing, tart, bitter sweetness which lingers in the mouth.

That bitterness comes from Old Foghorn being matured on a bed of Cascade hops for no less than 10 months, before being dry hopped, meaning that yet more hops are added to the finished beer. I suspect a lot of the depth also comes from the fact that only the first pressing of the mash is used, a technique we previously saw applied to a quite different beer, Japan’s Kirin Ichiban.

All in all, I’m reminded strongly of one of my favourite guilty pleasures, Fuller’s Golden Pride, though this is a little richer and darker. I’m starting to like it a lot.

This is a strong old beverage at 9.4% ABV, and there are naturally huge boozy notes, enough to remind you to take it slowly and savour Old Foghorn respectfully. The alcohol isn’t overbearing though: it just provides a lovely warming hit that gets to work pretty promptly.

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This is a terrific beer, and one that reminds me why I started this blog. It’s thanks to breweries like Anchor and Brooklyn (particularly their Vienna-style Lager and Black Chocolate Stout) that my preconceptions about American beers have been shot to pieces, with Anchor Old Foghorn being the final, delicious bullet.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Anchor Brewing Co, San Francisco, CA
Style: Old Ales, Barley Wines and Vintage Ales
Strength: 9.4% ABV
Found at: Utobeer, Borough Market, London SE1
Dispense: 355ml Bottle

39. Negra Modelo

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Time for a little geographical diversity, as we come to sample the first of the 300 Beers to originate in Mexico, an interesting cerveza named Negra Modelo.

Hailing as it does from the land that brought us such beers as Sol and Corona, both chronically lacking in flavour and excitement, and being brewed by Grupo Modelo, the giant brewery responsible for the aforementioned Corona, we may fear the worst.

Of course, I’ve had such fears before and they’ve turned out to be misplaced. Let’s see if Negra Modelo deserves its place in The Book.

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Well, as with the Brooklyn Lager, once again my preconceptions look to be on rocky ground. For a start, Negra Modelo is much darker than I expected, and in fact it pours a deep brownish ruby colour, with a small off-white lacing. It looks like we have another Vienna-style lager on our hands.

There’s a lightish, fruity nose and a nutty yet rounded, berry-like fruit to the flavour too. In fact the fruit reminds me a little of one or two of the Belgian Dubbel-style Trappist beers we’ve seen, such as Westmalle Dubbel, and I really did not expect to be saying that about a Mexican beer!

That said, at a sensible 5.4% ABV, Negra Modelo also tastes a little watered-down compared to those beers, and the body is a fair bit lighter than the colour might suggest. Helpfully, though, there’s a subtle bitter finish to give the beer some length and keep things satisfying.

Negra Modelo is certainly an interesting beer, though I can’t help finding it a little schizophrenic: it’s slightly too dark and full-bodied to be the truly refreshing quencher that you’d want to accompany your hot tamales on a scorching Tijuana afternoon, while on the other hand it doesn’t have the strength and depth to really be savoured like one would the Trappist beers I mentioned.

Still, Negra Modelo is a good beer all the same, and this has certainly been another revelation and indeed an education.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Grupo Modelo, Mexico City, Mexico
Style: Vienna Red, Märzen and Oktoberfest Beers
ABV: 5.4%
Found at: Bossman Wines, Lordship Lane, London SE22
Dispense: 355ml Bottle

38. Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout

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Just when you think it’s going to start getting difficult to find all these beers, you make a discovery like Utobeer. Little more than a big cage in an unpleasantly busy market in London, Utobeer claim stocks of around 2,000 distinct beers, of which, given space constraints, around 700 are on display at any one time. Needless to say, Utobeer will be a trusty ally on our beery quest.

Sam Smith’s are primarily known in Britain for their chain of countless improbably well-priced pubs, none of which happen to sell any beer you’ve ever heard of. That’s because they only sell Sam Smith’s beer, brewed up in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. To my surprise, a lot of their beer is available in bottles, and four such beers are in The Book.

Conveniently enough, Utobeer stocks at least one of them: Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout.

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Imperial Stout is fast becoming my favourite style of beer. Essentially, the style is like stout but stronger. Way stronger in some cases: I glowed about the 10% ABV Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, while my current favourite is probably The Kernel’s Imperial Brown Stout, which is marginally weaker at 9.9%.

Those are both incredibly good beers, so old Sam Smith’s version, clocking in at a comparatively shandy-drinking 7% ABV has some tough competition on its hands.

It’s a handsome enough bottle, with a charmingly old timey label, apparently designed by Charles Finkel, founder of Merchant du Vin who import Sam Smith’s beers to the US. True to form, even Sam Smith’s bottles are of a generous size, coming in at 355ml like this one, or at 550ml.

On cracking open the bottle, there’s an immediate chocolate aroma, though strangely it doesn’t stick around for long. Pouring the Imperial Stout, it certainly looks the part: black as it comes, with a smallish tan head.

It tastes, unsurprisingly, like a strongish stout but there’s slightly too much sweetness to it, followed by a odd bitterness that seems out of place for some reason. It’s also a little thin-bodied and kind of sticky.

Sam Smith’s Imperial Stout is quite drinkable, but it doesn’t rock my world. There just isn’t that depth of chocolate and coffee and smoke that one expects from a really good stout. It’s not a bad beer, but it’s not the best Imperial Stout out there by a long shot.

I’m no expert on brewing, but my feeling is that this beer is just crying out for more of the sugar to be fermented off, which would in turn result in an ABV more fitting for its style, and would no doubt add some of that complexity that it lacks.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Samuel Smith Old Brewery, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England
Style: Porters and Stouts
ABV: 7.0%
Found at: Utobeer, Borough Market, London SE1
Dispense: 355ml Bottle

37. Fuller’s ESB

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There are several Fuller’s beers in The Book, and given their ubiquity here in London, I’m a little surprised it’s taken so long to get around to covering one.

Fuller’s ESB is something of a classic: there aren’t many beers that have inspired and indeed given their name to a entire style of beer, but ESB has.

Fuller's ESB at The Mad Hatter, SE1

ESB is very easy to get hold of in London, especially in bottles, but to be enjoyed at its very best, it really needs to be tracked down on cask, ideally in one of the better Fuller’s pubs, where it should be served to perfection.

This one certainly was, and compared to the bottled stuff, it’s a revelation. There’s a whole new depth to it, with rich treacle toffee notes, bittersweet marmalade fruit and a vinous, lightly bitter finish.

It’s a weighty pint in many ways, but Fuller’s ESB slips down a treat and is incredibly moreish. At 5.5% ABV it isn’t exactly what one would call sessionable, but two or three won’t do too much damage.

Great stuff, and I’ll be back for more.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Fuller, Smith & Turner, Chiswick Lane South, London W4
Style: Extra Strong Beers and Bitters
Strength: 5.5% ABV
Found at: The Mad Hatter Hotel, Stamford Street, London SE1
Serving: Cask, pint

36. Rochefort 8

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This is the second of three Trappistes Rochefort beers in The Book. We saw the Rochefort 6 recently, and this is a similar brew with similar ingredients, but one which ratchets up the strength a little to a very respectable 9.2% ABV.

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Once again, there’s a gigantic foamy head, perhaps even larger than that of the 6. The 8 pours slightly darker, and is more of a burnished bronze colour.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the 6 and the 8. There’s that same toasty caramel and christmas pudding fruit, along with a vinous barleywine-like finish.

That said, I notice I did use the word “refreshing” about the 6, whereas with that 9.2% strength, I’m not sure I would describe this one as such. It’s more of a warming drink, and one to take a little more slowly. It’s a fairly thick beer, and gently swilling it, the way the foam holds to the glass is a thing of beauty in itself.

Rochefort 8 is certainly a good, savourable beer. I rather like it, though I slightly resent it for not giving me anything particularly interesting to say in comparison to the previous Rochefort offering. That’s clearly unfair, because I suspect if I tried this one in isolation, I’d be very impressed indeed.

We’ve one more Trappistes Rochefort beer left to try. At a mighty 11.3% ABV, the Rochefort 10 is the strongest beer I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve sourced a bottle today, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy, Rochefort, Belgium
Style: Trappist Beers
Strength: 9.2% ABV
Found at: City Beverage Company, Old Street, London EC1
Serving: 330ml Bottle

35. Du Bocq Blanche de Namur

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We were hardly likely to be staying away from Belgium for long, in retrospect. In fact this one is Belgian and a Wheat Beer. I can barely contain myself.

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Clearly I jest, but to put it politely, this is a beer for people with more subtle tastes than my own. At a paltry 4.5% ABV and a mere 12 bitterness units, it was never going to set pulses racing.

Blanche de Namur tastes like Hoegaarden, obviously, but it’s an emaciated, watery version of Hoegaarden. Honestly, beyond a faint whiff of the typical Belgian esters, the overriding flavour here is actually of water.

Supposedly the ingredients include coriander and bitter orange peel; maybe I’ve had one too many Imperial Stouts recently, but my taste buds can’t detect them.

I never set out to post overly negative reviews, and tend to feel bad if I do, but quite frankly, this is a crushingly dull beer.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Brasserie du Bocq s.a., Purnode, Belgium
Style: Belgian-style Wheat Beers
ABV: 4.5%
Found at: Bossman Wines, Lordship Lane, London SE22
Dispense: 330ml Bottle

34. Jennings Sneck Lifter

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Amid the vast sea of Belgian beer I’ve been obliged to drink my way through recently, it’s nice to have a change of scenery, and head back to Blighty and to the Lake District for a big old bottle of this famous ESB-style beer.

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Jennings Sneck Lifter pours a very deep, dark ruby colour with a smallish tan head. The nose is all christmas cake fruits and toasty malts.

To taste, there’s even more fruit and rich caramel from the black malts, followed by a strong, peppery bitter finish courtesy of the whole flower hops. It’s dark and complex, though perhaps not to the same extent as Theakston’s Old Peculier.

All in all, a good winter beer, best served at toom temperature to let all those flavours emerge. I’d be happy to see this on cask in more pubs, but sadly it doesn’t seem to be widely available down here in London.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Jennings Brewery, Cockermouth, Cumbria, England
Style: Extra Strong Beers and Bitters
ABV: 5.1%
Found at: Bossman Wines, Lordship Lane, London SE22
Dispense: 500ml Bottle