International Ales

Australian Beer Review part 2: Great Beer in Melbourne

26/02/2013

Follow @TheGuestAle Following on from a look at the best beer in Sydney, I moved onto look for the best beer in Melbourne, somewhere where I lived for a while several years ago and which is still my favourite city in the world. The beer has massively improved since, although – for visitors – it has shot up in price. This makes having a really good beer even more imperative. We looked at a couple of great pubs and also drove out to the White Rabbit brewery in the Yarra Valley, more famous for its cracking wines than its brewpubs. The first place I went to was the excellent The Local Taphouse in the trendy St.Kilda suburb. Like many...

Australian Beer Review part 1: Great Beer in Sydney

20/02/2013

Follow @TheGuestAle Australian beer just goes from strength to strength. When I first went to Australia for a year on a working visa in 2002 I had to content myself with pretty generic lager brands and find a decent one to stick with, which for me was James Boag’s from Tasmania (which I still quite like chilled on a roasting hot day). Fast-forward 11 years and it’s a world away. The choice across the country is incredible, micros have sprung up all over and flourished, and beers are finding their way overseas. Two years ago I visited – and was blown away by – the Little Creatures brewery in Fremantle, Western Australia, famous for its crisp and fruity Pale...

Japanese Beer Review: Hitachino Nest Beer

08/12/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle There’s more to Japanese beer than Asahi (brewed under license in the UK by Shepherd Neame). I recently visited the JiBiru bar off Singapore’s busy Orchard Road shopping street and was instantly drawn towards the cartoon owl that represents Hitachino Nest Beer, showing how susceptible I am to the power of marketing (even though I work in the industry). The Hitachino Nest Beer line is crafted by the Kiuchi Brewery in Naka, Japan, which has been making beer, sake and shochu – another distilled Japanese fortified drink made from sweet potatoes, barley or rice which typically weighs in at 25% ABV – since 1823. Its signature beer is the Hitachino Nest White Ale, but it also makes...

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: Panther Fine Extra Stout

31/10/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle Bali Hai’s Panther Fine Extra Stout is the second stout I’ve tried in Indonesia following Storm’s Black Moon Iron Stout. I’ll be honest, for a country where the temperature rarely drops below 30°C I’m surprised that the stout style is quite so popular. India Pale Ale was, of course, designed for just this climate two hundred years ago, so how come all I can find in Jakarta stores is either generic, mass-produced lagers or random stouts? Anyway, my hopes were high for this one, given it won several Australian beer awards, albeit way back in 2005. All I can say straight off the bat is those Aussie judges must have been big Vegemite fans, because this is...

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...

Inishmacsaint launches its Fermanagh Beer

16/04/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle Ireland’s long history of brewing continues to evolve and produce great new beer. The Guest Ale was privileged to be invited to the recent launch of the Inishmacsaint Brewing Company at The Porter House in London’s Covent Garden. Present were a crew from BBC Northern Ireland and The Apprentice and Countdown presenter Nick Hewer, who are making a film about promising Northern Irish businesses, including Inishmacsaint. Inishmacsaint Brewing Company is based on a farm as part of a diversification project by local farmer Gordon Fallis. You couldn’t meet a nicer man than Fallis and, as we shared chat over the ingredients of Fermanagh Beer – there is just one single brew at the moment – his passion...

Beer review: Tap 7 by Schneider Weisse

05/02/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle German beers are growing on me. I must admit that before I properly started appreciating the craft of making good beer that my previous exposure to Germanic brewing were skiing trips and work jollies, neither of which are conducive to exploring the full range and rich history of German brewing. Let’s not forget that Germany is the world’s leading hop grower so these guys are centre stage when it comes to beer. I was recently sent a couple of bottles to sample by Schneider-Weisse, a Bavarian brewer supplying to the UK, and have already reviewed its “doppelbock” Tap 6. That was a real meal of a beer at 8.2% but the Tap 7 Unser Original is, by contrast,...

Beer Review: Cooper’s Sparkling Ale

17/01/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle Cooper’s of Adelaide is one of Australia’s best known and best loved brewers. Probably best known for its green-labelled Cooper’s Original Pale Ale there’s another cracking Cooper’s brew that you can’t afford to miss: the red-labelled Cooper’s Sparkling Ale. It’s a wonderfully cloudy amber colour with a fervent amount of carbonation. Cooper’s advise you ‘rock’ the bottle before drinking to stir the natural sediments of this top-fermented ale. There’s a clear toffee and gooseberry nose, and the berry element follows through into the taste. There’s a flavoursome burst of wheat early on and it’s delightfully refreshing. I very much wish it was this time last year when I was in Cooper’s home town enjoying this sunset, it...

Beer Review: Chimay Triple (Yellow Label)

07/01/2012

Follow @TheGuestAle After a long break I’ve started to look again at European beers. I’ve still got a stack of the Belgian brand Chimay in the kitchen so cracked open the appealing-looking yellow label, the Chimay Triple. Being a Trappist beer it doesn’t come cheap and the Triple varies slightly from the Chimay Blue Cap in both taste and strength: it’s 1% lighter at a still-heavyweight 8% ABV. The Triple is the most recent of the Chimay range and comes in a rich golden colour, very much matching its label. There’s that distinctive, frothy zesty head with sickly sweet aromas that you come to expect from Trappist beers. I got honey and citrus notes but Chimay itself boasts that...

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