ABV: 5.5%
Origin: Newquay, Cornwall
Website: www.atlanticbrewery.com
This is an expanded review of a beer that featured as a fruit beer on the bottled beer review page in the August 2010 issue of BEER magazine, sent free every quarter to CAMRA members, who can also view it online. The magazine is also available in selected newsagents.
Atlantic Brewery
Atlantic, just outside Newquay, is one of the smallest of Cornwall’s impressive band of craft brewers, mainly specialising in bottle conditioned beers. As with Sharps, Atlantic beers found a market in the local restaurant trade, leading to brewer Stuart Thomson teaming up with chef Nathan Outlaw to create a “Discovery” series of “fine dining beers” flavoured with well-chosen ingredients, each one labelled with food suggestions. And while it’d be a shame if Cornwall’s fine diners got the mistaken impression only beers with added stuff are suitable for dining, there’s no denying some of these beers work very well.
This recipe might sound like a posh pseudo-Mexican flavour of chocolate or crisps, but it works well as a beer: the lime peel is a twist on the more familiar use of orange citrus peel, root ginger has some pedigree as a brewer’s spice. Chilli is botanically a fruit, and not unknown as an ingredient in beer. Vindaloo-gorging capsaicin addicts will be disappointed, though, as it’s used here with admirable discretion to give a warming glow rather than a sweat-raising flush.
This is a pale golden beer with a fine white head and a very marked ginger and lime aroma that’s just a little cough mixturish. There’s a slightly astringent tang of citrus on the palate, with soft malt and a light chilli touch, and earthy ginger developing, well matched with bitterish hops. A lightly spicy finish turns bitterish rather than chilli-hot, with malt cut by an enduring citric tang. Chicken, fish and pasta are the recommended food pairings, but this could cut through oily foods too. It only loses marks for the clear glass bottle.
Buy this beer from AlesbyMail.com as part of a special pack containing all the beers featured on my beer review page in BEER this month. BEER readers receive a special discount by entering the voucher code shown in the magazine.
To download BEER if you’re a CAMRA member, see http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=beer.
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Read more about Atlantic beers at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/brewers//atlantic-uk/6227/
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