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Beer Review: Mikkeller Oyster Stout

24/01/2013

Follow @TheGuestAle I was at the Craft Beer Co. off London’s Hatton Garden the other day. I love the selection there and decided to splash out £3.95 on a half of Oyster Stout made by surely Denmark’s finest brewer, Mikkeller. Mikkeller’s beer really is reassuringly expensive; you know when you spend your hard-earned cash on a Mikkeller beer that it’s going to be worth it. I’ve got a soft spot for Oyster Stouts, one of my favourites being the Whitstable Brewery Oyster Stout (from the cask), but the Mikkeller Oyster Stout tops that, in my view – and not just because it cost me a king’s ransom. There’s a really silky mocha head crowning the wonderfully tar-black beer and...

Beer Review: Raspberry Wheat by Whitstable Brewery

18/01/2013

Follow @TheGuestAle Following my predilection for the Whitstable Brewery Oyster Stout I overcame my disdain for fruit in beer and opted to try its Raspberry Wheat beer. I find it a very acquired taste and the very thought of red fruits in beer serves up sickly-sweet thoughts of Früli. The Raspberry Wheat is certainly sweet, something you instantly suspect as you pour out the cloudy red fluid into the glass. It comes with a rustic yeasty nose and there is some light carbonation although the head dies quickly. Taste-wise it’s sharp. You can pick up the raspberry but there’s a medley of fruits that come to the fore. I picked up some gooseberry but otherwise I found this a...

Beer Review: Magic Rock Dark Arts

05/01/2013

Follow @TheGuestAle It’s dark, artistic, magical and it totally rocks. Dark Arts Surreal Stout by Huddersfield brewer Magic Rock Brewing is one of my favourite of its genre on the market. I first sampled it at Brighton’s Cask (whatever happened to that place?) and was blown away. I used to be skeptical about stouts but it’s exciting numbers like the Magic Rock Dark Arts that brings me back to the black stuff. No quarter asked or given, Dark Arts is a 6% heavyweight. There’s a bonfire in the nose, leading you to expect a backstreet fighter of a stout, something rough and ready. Instead, it’s silky smooth with a big hunk of black malt with hints of coffee, liquorice...

Video: A Day with Sambrook’s Brewery, South London

20/12/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle Sambrook’s Brewery in Battersea, South London, is one of the UK capital’s most recent – and fastest growing – breweries. Set up in 2008 by former Deloitte accountant Duncan Sambrook with a little help from ex-Ringwood Brewery managing director David Welsh, Sambrook’s Brewery beer is found throughout South-West and East London, with brands such as Wandle and Junction. Sambrook attended the Brewlab brewing start-up course (University of Sunderland) prior to setting up his brewery, a course I myself attended this summer and have been experimenting in the kitchen with increased success since. Someone I met on the course mentioned he had volunteered at Sambrook’s Brewery so I got in touch and asked them if they would mind...

Pub Review: Brewerkz, Singapore

03/12/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle When the mercury nudges 30°C in the humidity of Singapore, it’s time to cool off with a nice refreshing beer. Surely the best setting in town to do this is down at Brewerkz on Riverside Point, a colourful setting on the water set up by two beer acifionados keen to replicate the North American brewpub scene in arguably Asia’s most liveable city. The brewpub’s onsite system now produces more than 2,500hl of beer every year and the company has won numerous awards across the globe. Unfortunately, alcohol is not cheap in Singapore, so it’s important to drink the good stuff. I set about with a tasting palate to sample as much of the range as possible. Here...

Beer Review: Storm Brewing’s Black Moon Iron Stout

22/10/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle When my partner’s contract took her on extended periods to Jakarta and Singapore I feared the worst – that on my visits to the tropics I would not be able to get my hands on any decent beer. I’m delighted to report I was wrong! While I envisaged a tea total month taunted by a generic beer counter of Heineken, Guinness and Indonesia’s Bintang, I was delighted to discover Storm Brewing of Bali. The brewery uses English recipes handed down over the last century, which includes a golden ale, a “bronze” ale and a stout. And it’s the stout which I had, as apparently alien as it was welcome in Jakarta’s oppressive 33°C and 75% humidity. The...

Beer Review: Innes & Gunn Blonde

18/10/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle You need to be in a certain kind of mood to drink quality craft beer, I believe. Preferably, treat the bottle in isolation and never chew gum less than an hour beforehand! This is my view of Innes & Gunn’s line. They’re often so strong and rich that you can only take your time and enjoy the beer in perfect isolation. This was the case when I reviewed the Innes & Gunn Oak Aged Original and it was the same for the Innes & Gunn Blonde, which is matured in American oak barrels to impart a vanilla flavour. First up, it’s a very attractive colour indeed. It’s a rich Pilsneresque gold with a lager-like nose to it....

Beer review: Willy Nilly by SA Brains

02/10/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle I’m in Wales right now and the country’s most prominent brewer is probably SA Brains. It has entered its Willy Nilly beer into the Sainsbury’s Great British Beer Hunt 2012, which ends on 3 October (just made it!). Named after the nosy postman in Welsh legend Dylan Thomas’ “Under Milk Wood”, the Willy Nilly is a ruby ale exclusively available in Sainsburys (at the moment). It is a really deep russet colour, rusty almost. There’s a distinct orange peel and champagne nose and it comes with an excitable, bubbly head. It’s smooth and light-to-medium bodied, which is good if you’re into your session beers, because that’s what this strikes me as – at just 4% it’s eminently...

Kent Beer Festival, Bricklayers Arms, Putney

27/09/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle If you’re based in or near London, make sure you get yourself down to the Bricklayers Arms in Putney before 30 September 2012 for the Kent Beer Festival. There’s a cracking selection of beer on offer. I went along last night (26 Sept) for the first night of it and some of the “green hop beers” – beers made with new green hops that have not been dried in the traditional brewing style – weren’t yet settled and ready, but there were still some awesome Kentish beers on tap. All under a wonderful canopy of hops! My highlights included: Whitstable Brewery Oyster Stout (4.5%): This was by far my favourite. Top notch stout, wonderfully medium-full bodied, slightly...

Meet the Brewer: Adnams Beer Tasting Evening

23/09/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle It took a while, but after a cracking beer tasting session with the head brewer, The Guest Ale has finally been won over by Suffolk brewer Adnams. I have a lot of beer drinking friends from East Anglia who have grown up with local brewer Adnams and whose opinion on beer I respect highly. However, despite having reviewed a few Adnams beers I’ve never really been bowled over by its products, until my fellow beer blogging friend Tony from The Alternative Tipple invited me along to Adnams’ beer tasting at the company’s Bloomsbury store in London this week. Adnams’ head brewer Fergus Fitzgerald, creator of many of the Southwold beer maker’s newest titles including the new and...

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