Category Archives: Beers

The beers

133. Titanic Stout

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There are many things you could name a brewery after, but the chaps at Stoke-on-Trent’s Titanic Brewery seem to have made a particularly bewildering choice.

Not that the name appears to have held them back. Titanic Stout can be found as the resident stout on the bar in quite a number of pubs, at least in my part of the world, making impressive inroads into the territory more often associated with the ubiquitous Guinness.

One such pub is the well-regarded The Gun. Hidden away down narrow streets on the Isle of Dogs, and sat directly on the banks of the Thames, The Gun has been very much gastrofied in recent years, yet remains a perfectly pleasant location to try a pint of beer number 133.

Titanic Stout at The Gun, Docklands

It’s a handsome pint too, and the branded glassware is a nice touch. Titanic Stout is a deep ruby red colour, rather than the jet black which is often associated with stouts. There’s a lovely smooth tan head, no doubt helped in part from being served from keg.

Once we’ve finished admiring it and trying to get a decent photo while the low spring afternoon sun does everything it can to sabotage our efforts, it’s time to crack on and give it a try.

Well, it tastes like a stout. It’s nice enough, and pleasingly full-bodied and smooth, but it doesn’t give you much to say about it beyond that. There isn’t a great deal of bitterness or any real punch to it, making Titanic Stout thoroughly accessible but perhaps also a little inoffensive.

That could well be by design, as a necessary factor of getting the beer onto the bar in so many pubs. It’s not a bad pint by any stretch of the imagination, and I’d happily drink it again. I probably will in fact, in case I’m missing something, but for the time being it left me wanting somewhat more from a stout.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Titanic Brewery, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire
Style: Porters and Stouts
Strength: 4.5% ABV
Found at: The Gun, Coldharbour, London E14
Serving: Keg, pint

132. Lion Stout

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It’s not every day that one finds oneself drinking a Sri Lankan beer, so this could be interesting. In some ways I’m surprised to learn that any beer at all is brewed in Sri Lanka, let alone a thumping great stout.

It turns out that there are at least three breweries there, with Lion Brewery, formerly the Ceylon Brewing Company, tracing their history back to 1860.

This one came in an exciting case from Beers of Europe quite some time ago, and according to the label it is best consumed before, well, tomorrow. I’m not particularly worried since a 7.5% ABV stout should age quite happily, but it’s a good excuse to crack it open.

Lion Stout

On doing so there’s a big bitter chocolate and coffee aroma that’s instantly reminiscent of the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. Apparently I liked that one, so no complaints there. Lion do actually brew Guinness under licence, so I wonder if that’s entirely a coincidence.

Lion Stout pours thick and black like a proper stout should. There’s a pleasingly thick coffee-coloured head that dissipates fairly quickly.

To taste, there’s an immediate, full-on and tangy berry-like sharpness. It’s full of fruity notes that oddly are not dissimilar to something like the sour cherry flavours in a Begian Kriek, such as the Cantillon Kriek.

It’s full of coffee and chocolate notes too, and a touch of sweetness not unlike a milk stout, though I’m sure there’s no lactose goes anywhere near it. A big hoppy bitterness suggests this one would develop in the bottle for a good while yet.

This is a decent little bottle of stout. It’s a proper winter beer though, so I’m not sure how well it goes down in Sri Lanka’s tropical climate. Still, they seem to like it. I rather like it too and I’ve glad I’ve had the chance to try something quite so exotic.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Lion Brewery (Ceylon), Biyagama, Sri Lanka
Style: Porters and Stouts
Strength: 7.5% ABV
Found at: Beers of Europe
Serving: 330ml bottle

131. Rooster’s Yankee

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It’s difficult to overstate the influence that Sean Franklin, founder of North Yorkshire-based Rooster’s, has had within the British brewing world over the years.

Sean is credited with pioneering the use of hops in creating the fundamental, distinct character of individual beers, rather than merely as a preservative which conveniently happened to contribute a bit of aroma and bitterness.

A former professional wine boffin, Sean famously described hops as “the grapes of brewing”. That’s absolutely true, and it’s a lesson that has enthusiastically been taken to heart by the new wave of British and American brewers (I’m doing my best to avoid using the word “craft”) for whom hops are the lifeblood.

Yankee may be Rooster’s most famous beer, but you really don’t see enough of it down south. Yet in a move that will delight fans of seriously fresh beer, Rooster’s have recently begun canning several of their brews, and the handsome little chaps have been cheerfully popping up in the fridges of discerning pubs and bars.

Rooster's Yankee at Stormbird, London SE5

Which—as if Threehundredbeers needed an excuse—brings us back to the ever-magnificent Stormbird in Camberwell, that Aladdin’s Cave of beery awesomeness where we enjoyed the classic Rochefort 10 a mere 50 or so beers ago.

Yankee is classified in The Book as a Best Bitter. Whether or not the recipe has developed over the years I couldn’t say, but it would unquestionably be seen as an American-style Pale Ale these days. Just look at the colour, for a start.

The aroma is floral and delicate, but full of citrus and tropical fruit: lychees, grapefruit, mango, that sort of thing.

There’s yet more grapefruit in the flavour, courtesy of the Cascade hops, and a pleasingly huge bitterness that’s well balanced by juicy sweetness from the malts.

It’s a classic, obviously, and a relatively light body makes Yankee hopelessly drinkable. It should probably come in a bigger can, quite frankly, but at Stormbird’s reasonable prices we can afford to take a couple more home with us.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Rooster’s, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England
Style: Best Bitters
Strength: 4.3% ABV
Found at: Stormbird, Camberwell Church Street, London SE5
Serving: 330ml can

130. Exmoor Gold

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It’s slightly worrying quite how soon it has started to become difficult to find new beers from the list. I narrowly missed out on Anker Gouden Carolus Classic at the Colchester Winter Ale Festival, I’ve worked my way through the menu at Lowlander, and even the once-reliable Grape & Grain has stopped tweeting tap updates and is becoming another bloody Wetherspoon’s.

Keeping an eye on social media has become priceless, and that’s exactly how I learned that the King’s Arms in Waterloo had put Exmoor Gold on the pumps.

I’d never visited the King’s Arms—it’s usually far too busy at the times I’m in the area—but I’d heard a lot of good things about it, so let’s pick up the Sunday papers and hop on the 68 to Waterloo.

Exmoor Gold at The King's Arms, Roupell Street

It’s a great pub, quite frankly, with a rare preserved two-room layout and an ever-changing range of cask ales. I started with a Dark Star Original, which I’ve only otherwise seen at Dark Star’s own pub, the Evening Star in Brighton, then got down to blogging business with a pint of Exmoor Gold.

As the name suggests, it’s gold in colour with a small beige head that sticks to the glass. Exmoor Gold is unashamedly a fairly typical Golden Ale, and in fact is claimed to be the original example of the style. That said, it’s not a style that can usually be relied upon to excite your blogger, but it’s pleasant enough.

The King's Arms, Roupell Street, London SE1

I can’t say the Exmoor Gold challenged my expectations about this style. As with the Young’s London Gold, there’s just so little one can find to say about it. The only flavours I could really detect were a slightly cloying sweetness and a worrying acetic tang. It would be sessionable if you were planning to have a few pints, which Threehundredbeers is not.

The Book claims Exmoor Gold to be “intensely hoppy”, “intensely bitter” and “memorable” but it’s none of those things. Times and tastes have changed a great deal since those words were written.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Exmoor, Taunton, Somerset, England
Style: Golden Ales
Strength: 4.5% ABV
Found at: The King’s Arms, Roupell Street, London SE1
Serving: Cask, pint

129. Nethergate Old Growler

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It was while making plans to attend next weekend’s Colchester Winter Ale Festival that I realised I still have beer left from a previous visit to Britain’s oldest town.

This was actually a lucky find on the shelves of a neighbourhood Co-op, and it has been sitting patiently in The Official Threehundredbeers Cardboard Box ever since. It’s cold today, and this looks like a good winter beer, so the time has come.

Nethergate Old Growler

Old Growler is a Porter brewed in Pentlow, near Colchester, hence the ease of finding it there. On pouring, it appears an opaque black, but held up to the light it’s a handsome dark ruby colour. There’s a lovely dense tan head that coats the glass and sticks around a lot longer than I seem to find with most bottled beers.

The aroma is malty and fruity, without any particularly pronounced hop notes. In that sense, it smells reminiscent of a Brown Ale or strong Mild.

It’s tasty stuff: strong in flavour, smooth and with a big full body. There’s a pronounced caramel sweetness almost like a Scottish “Heavy” style beer. I’m reminded of the old McEwan’s 90/- ale, but also Old Peculier, if somewhat sweeter.

Old Growler is just a little bit roasty, as befits a Porter, and the sweetness is happily balanced by a modest peppery hop bitterness, which sits quietly underneath. As suspected, this is a great winter beer. We’ve a couple more Nethergate beers to track down too, so I’ll have my eyes peeled next weekend.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Nethergate Brewery, Pentlow, Essex, England
Style: Porters and Stouts
Strength: 5.5% ABV
Found at: Co-op Foodstore, Wimpole Road, Colchester, Essex
Serving: 500ml bottle

128. Jever Pilsener

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Time for another visit to Germany. Well, to a pub in South London, to be more accurate. But Zeitgeist is a German-run pub with a good range of German beers that aren’t always easy to find elsewhere, and it’s a very pleasant place to while away a quiet weekend afternoon.

Jever Pilsener is fairly accurately named: it’s a Pilsner, which the Germans spell Pilsener and it’s from Jever which, I learn, is the capital of the district of Friesland in Lower Saxony, Germany.

Jever Pilsener at Zeitgeist London

There are no surprises in the looks department, with Jever Pilsener pouring a standard lagery straw-like colour with a hearty dose of white froth that hangs around tenaciously.

It smells kind of lagery too and a little malty, though there’s a distinct whiffiness typical of a beer that’s spent a fraction too long exposed to daylight, which can occasionally be a problem with green glass bottles.

This one tastes alright though. Still, Jever Pilsener is in many ways your standard continental lager, and there isn’t a great deal more that one can say about it. It’s a high quality example of the style, certainly. It’s relatively complex, well-balanced, and there’s quite a pleasing crisp, dry citrus aspect to it that’s quite moreish.

Not that a second bottle was a foregone conclusion, as the gassiness so typical of the style soon became slightly tiresome, and quite frankly there are more interesting beers to be sampled at Zeitgeist.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Friesisches Brauhaus zu Jever, Jever, Germany
Style: Pilsners
Strength: 4.9% ABV
Found at: Zeitgeist, Black Prince Road, London SE11
Serving: 500ml bottle

127. Traquair House Ale

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I was pleased to find this one. You don’t see a great deal of Traquair House Ale here in London, and by all accounts it’s far from ubiquitous in its native Scotland.

Traquair House is found in Innerleithen, which appears to be a thoroughly remote corner of the Scottish Borders. It claims to be Scotland’s oldest inhabited house and functions as a hotel and wedding or conference venue. More to the point it has been brewing beer, on and off, since the early 1700s.

Whilst Threehundredbeers is not averse to a spot of travel to find a beer, it was still a relief to find Traquair House Ale on the impressive beer menu at the rather pleasant Exmouth Arms in Clerkenwell, a little closer to home.

Traquair House Ale at The Exmouth Arms

The Book lists Traquair House Ale under Old Ales, Barley Wines and Vintage Ales, but intriguingly the Exmouth Arms menu classifies it as “Belgian & Belgian Style”, so this could be interesting.

It’s a rich, dark Greek honey sort of colour with the faintest lacing of tan foam, rather than any kind of head to speak of. At a thoroughly respectable 7.2% ABV that isn’t particularly unexpected.

That strength is evident at the first sniff, where a good boozy hit is joined by distinct caramel and treacle toffee notes. This is a winter beer for sure, so we’ve chosen well for early January.

All of those notes carry through to the flavour, where they’re joined by big, dark, fruity malts which bring a sweetness so characteristic of Scottish ales. Hops are subdued, and again this is typical of the Scottish style, the harsher climate of the north being less than ideal for growing hops, at least for the time being.

I can see where the Exmouth Arms get the “Belgian” idea from too. There are those yeasty esters and dark fruit notes that are typical of a Trappist-style Dubbel, such as the La Trappe Dubbel. Either way, this is your classic winter warmer, and I’m sure it would accompany a hearty stew or even Christmas pudding very well.

Good stuff, so thanks to Traquair House for brewing it, and to the Exmouth Arms for stocking it. I’ll be back to work my way through that menu.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Traquair House, Innerleithen, Scotland
Style: Old Ales, Barley Wines and Vintage Ales
Strength: 7.2% ABV
Found at: The Exmouth Arms, Exmouth Market, London EC1
Serving: 330ml bottle

126. Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze

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Threehundredbeers is a huge fan of Cask Pub & Kitchen in Pimlico. For five years, Cask has been at the forefront of the beer revolution that has been happening in London and beyond. It was the first branch in what became the Craft Beer Co. group, and it’s basically just a great pub.

So it’s a bit of a surprise that not one of the preceding 125 beers has been found there. Let’s put that right by spending a very pleasant Sunday afternoon working our way through the tap lineup and rummaging around in the remarkably well-stocked fridges.

This will do nicely.

Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze at CASK Pub & Kitchen

That’s Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze, from the tiny town of Beersel in Belgium, not far from Brussels. You know all about Geuze by now of course, thanks to our visit to Cantillon, and that cracking Boon Mariage Parfait Kriek we had more recently.

There are three Drie Fonteinen beers to track down, and the Oude Geuze is I guess the core of the range. It’s a blend of 1, 2 and 3-year-old barrel-aged Lambics, blended and refermented in the bottle, in this case for about a year and a half, to become a classic, sour, frothy Geuze.

Frothy enough to try to escape from the bottle before we’ve even paid for it, in fact. That stirs up the yeast a little, and so the Oude Geuze pours a handsome, hazy amber colour with a characteristic mountain of white foam that fades quickly.

The aroma is of big, mouth-watering citrus sourness, underpinned with subtle woody notes which I assume to be a result of all that time spent in barrels.

That carries through to the flavour, where the sour is of course front-and-centre, but perfectly balanced by generous mouthfuls of citrus fruit and those years of aging, leading to a thoroughly complex beer. There’s the dryest, longest finish that I can remember ever coming across on a beer.

As refreshing as it is, this is a beer that’s well worth taking your time over and savouring slowly to appreciate all those flavours.

Without wishing to get all philosophical, for me Geuze has become symbolic of the beer journey this ridiculous blog has taken me on. When I tried my first ever example, the Boon Geuze, I apparently didn’t much care for it. With a lot more experience under my belt, it has quickly become one of my very favourite styles.

Fortunately there are a few more to track down, and a glance behind the bar suggests Cask may able to help us out again in the near future.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, Beersel, Belgium
Style: Lambic and Gueuze
Strength: 6.0% ABV
Found at: CASK Pub & Kitchen, Charlwood Street, London SW1V
Serving: 375ml bottle

125. Duckstein Original

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The last Alt beer that we came across—Diebels Alt—turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. I think that’s still the only example of this venerable German beer style that I’ve actually tried, so this one should be interesting.

Duckstein Original Cap Detail

Whilst Alt beers are more typically associated with the Düsseldorf area, Duckstein Original hails from Hamburg. Well, in truth this bottle comes from the internet, and I’ll admit I know almost entirely nothing more about the brewery. We’d better crack on and drink it.

Duckstein Original

There’s that warm chestnut colour again, and a smallish tan head. The aroma is dark and fruity, and unexpectedly reminiscent of a Belgian-style Trappist Dubbel such as La Trappe Dubbel.

That comes across in the flavour too. It’s lower in ABV though at 4.9%, and so a great deal more gluggable than a Dubbel, and very refreshing. It’s a great winter beer all the same, with that fruity warmth from the malts and slightly spicy notes from the subtle hops. There’s added complexity from the beer being matured over beechwood chips.

A very nice beer, all in all, and again it strikes me that it’s a real shame that you very rarely find this style of beer on tap in the UK. I think people would like it.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Duckstein, Hamburg, Germany
Style: Alt and Amber Beers
Strength: 4.9% ABV
Found at: Beers of Europe
Serving: 500ml bottle

124. Concertina Bengal Tiger

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The glamorous, jetsetting life of Threehundredbeers continues as we board a leaking, 30-year-old Pacer at Sheffield station with the feintly terrifying plan of spending a rainy Saturday afternoon at the Concertina Band Club, a rather earthy working men’s club in a former mining village somewhere in rural South Yorkshire.

The reason we’re here is Concertina Bengal Tiger. This is a highly-regarded, award winning IPA that very few have tried. It’s brewed in the tiny cellar here at The ‘Tina, and it’s pretty much impossible to find anywhere else. Even if you could find it elsewhere, it would be an injustice to the Threehundredbeers project and to both of my readers not to make my way to Mexborough and the beer’s source.

The Concertina Band Club, Mexborough

The club itself has seen better days, and initially feels a little intimidating to a southern softie. Yorkshire folks don’t do the red carpet treatment, but the welcome is warm enough. The club is no longer home to an actual concertina band, that once widespread northern phenomenon sadly having gone the same way as sparking clogs and Sheffield United winning the FA Cup, but judging by the trophies, it does still boast a fearsome ladies’ darts side.

Moreover, the beer is of exceptional quality, unreasonably cheap, and served in generous measures. I could get used to this.

Concertina Bengal Tiger

Would you look at that. The head, the colour, even the temperature is mouth-watering. That’s a beer in impeccable condition, and we’ve been served somewhat more than a pint for an unnecessarily reasonable £2.15.

And it’s lovely stuff too. Concertina Bengal Tiger is a beautiful golden colour with quite the finest white head I’ve seen on a beer in years.

I’m expecting a fairly traditional English-style IPA, with big fat malts and modest hop bitterness, but instead I’m hit full in the face by a giant handful of full-on citrus hops, much more in the modern, American style of IPA. I remember having much the same experience with another Yorkshire brew, the Kelham Island Pale Rider, so I wonder if that’s entirely a coincidence.

As an IPA, this one is significantly and pleasingly more bitter, but as expected that bitterness is happily underpinned by big, juicy, mouth-watering malts. There’s booze on the nose, and there’s a giant hamper of tropical fruit in there too, which surprisingly enough reminds me of a personal favourite, the classic Beavertown Gamma Ray.

There’s the tiniest, slightly acetic sour tang at the end, which initially seems out of place, but eventually is moreish enough to send you back to the bar for a second pint. It helps that the Bengal Tiger is served nice and cold here too. This is not your typical warm, flat brown beer.

Instead, Concertina Bengal Tiger is everything an IPA should be, and well worth the trek to Mexborough.

The Concertina Band Club is found at 9a Dolcliffe Road, Mexborough. Daytime opening hours were 1-5pm on the Saturday that I visited, but it may be wise to ring ahead on 01709 580 841. The club is a brief, uphill stroll from Mexborough station, itself an easy train ride from Sheffield, Rotherham or Doncaster. Whilst the establishment is technically a club, my own non-membership was not an issue, although I’m told CAMRA members are particularly welcome.

Facts and Figures

Brewery: Concertina, Mexborough, South Yorkshire, England
Style: India Pale Ales
Strength: 4.6% ABV
Found at: The Concertina Band Club, Dolcliffe Road, Mexborough
Serving: Cask, pint