Beer Review: Ikea Öl Mörk Lager

25/10/2012
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Beer Review: Ikea Öl Mörk Lager

Follow @TheGuestAle Have you been to Ikea lately? Next time you do, make sure you come away with a bottle of its Öl Mörk Lager (Dark Lager). It’s surprisingly good! It’s a dunkel style beer brewed by the Krönleins Bryggeri in Halmstad, Sweden, a family-owned brewery that’s been running since 1836, so they know what they’re doing. (I should have re-named this article “How many umlauts can you get into a single English language post?”) It’s heavily carbonated, like a cola with a really active and bubbly head that lingers. The nose is distinctively charcoal from the heavily roasted malts. As well as a cola colour, it has a cola texture to match, and as the light head dissipates...

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Beer Review: Storm Brewing’s Black Moon Iron Stout

22/10/2012
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Beer Review: Storm Brewing’s Black Moon Iron Stout

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...

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Beer Review: Innes & Gunn Blonde

18/10/2012
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Beer Review: Innes & Gunn Blonde

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....

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US Beer Review: Saranac Pumpkin Ale by Matt Brewing Company

16/10/2012
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US Beer Review: Saranac Pumpkin Ale by Matt Brewing Company

Follow @TheGuestAle October: Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness…and pumpkin ale! This month my search for contenders for title of the best pumpkin ale continued leading me to sample Saranac Pumpkin Ale. It was my birthday after all so I chanced it and grabbed the six pack. Shame on me for having not noted this historic brewery before now. Nestled at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in central New York State, this family run brewery has been crafting speciality ales for more than a century to some pretty high standards. The Matt Brewing Company boasts its brews are crafted “from the spirit of clear lakes, open skies and breathtaking mountain vistas”. Sounds the ideal rural setting  for a...

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European Beer Review: Mélusine by Brasserie Mélusine

14/10/2012
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European Beer Review: Mélusine by Brasserie Mélusine

Follow @TheGuestAle The European beer odyssey continues. A friend and fellow quality beer aficionado came back recently from a family holiday in the Vendée, France, with a local craft beer from Brasserie Mélusine. I love its branding and Brasserie Mélusine develops organic craft beers with spring water and local produce, such as the honey in the Mélusine beer that my friend kindly brought me back. Its produce is top fermented, unfiltered, unpasteurised and re-fermented in the bottle. That means yeast is reseeded before bottling to aid further fermentation in the bottle, which also increases shelf life. The Mélusine beer had a cloudy apple juice colour and not as much head as I’d expected. There was a real spicy clove...

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Beer Review: St Stefanus Blonde

10/10/2012
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Beer Review: St Stefanus Blonde

Follow @TheGuestAle Like Audrey Hepburn or Jean-Claude Van Damme, the St Stefanus Blonde is a Belgian legend. The monks of Sint Stefanus have been making beer since 1295 and I’m sure this would have provided a challenge at a silent monks’ feast. The St Stefanus is an end-to-end, high class product. The personal signature of the brewer on the bottle alongside the date of release is a nice touch, as are the distinctive bulbous 33cl bottle or the champagne-style 75cl vessel which I was sent by its PR team (thanks, guys). The St Stefanus Blonde is bottle fermented so one needs to handle with care and let it settle. I sat mine down for a while, took the wiry...

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Beer review: Willy Nilly by SA Brains

02/10/2012
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Beer review: Willy Nilly by SA Brains

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...

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