Top Tastings 2009
The beer also featured in BEER May 2011 as part of a piece on the influence of different malts on beer flavour. See additional text below, and to read about other beers featured see Vale Black Swan.
ABV: 4.8%
Origin: Market Deeping, Lincolnshire
Website: www.hopshacklebrewery.co.uk
Hopshackle
Nigel Wright’s Hopshackle brewery, specialising since its founding in 2006 in beers inspired by historic recipes, was undoubtedly my top British beer discovery in 2009. For this I’m grateful to fellow beer writer Jeff Evans — this year also saw publication of the latest edition of his Good Bottled Beer Guide, and as with the previous edition I suggested we do a tie-in with my column in BEER, asking Jeff to recommend brewers or beers new to the guide that I could feature. Hopshackle came back high on his list, and with good reason. Every one of the review bottles Nigel sent me contained something exceptional, displaying not only quality but the sort of ambition and flair that’s sadly not as common as it should be among British microbrewers.
To balance the mix of beer styles in my piece, I ended up featuring the brewery’s Double Momentum India Pale Ale in BEER, but my personal favourite was actually this wonderful porter, brewed with a dollop of treacle.
It’s a very dark ruby brown, with a bubbly beige head and a big chocolatey aroma with blackcurrant and cherry fruit and notes of led pencil and burnt rubber. The creamy palate starts with tart fruit then develops rich chocolatey tones with a sting of roast and hops. The lingering finish has dark malt, fine plain chocolate, a controlled roasty note and fleeting hints of geraniums. The whole thing hangs together beautifully as a seriously rich and complex delight.
The brewery name, incidentally, is from a word Nigel once heard on vintage TV game show Call My Bluff — to hopshackle something is to hobble it, restricting its gait, so for example you might hopshackle a horse. Thankfully Nigel’s brewing skills seem far from hobbled, so let’s hope he gallops ahead over the next few years and gets recognised as one of the country’s top craft brewers.
Added May 2011: Roasted flavours come into their own in stouts and porters, usually achieved with roasted malts or even roasted unmalted barley. Award winning Hopshackle Historic Porter (4.8 per cent) from Lincolnshire avoids the latter in favour of highly kilned chocolate and black malts and a touch of black treacle. This dark ruby beer is seriously rich and complex, with cherry and blackcurrant fruit, smooth chocolate and a prominent but controlled roasty note – a modern classic of the style.
To download BEER if you’re a CAMRA member, see http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=beer.
To find out more about CAMRA membership, see http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=joinus.
For more on malts in beer see Breconshire Winter Beacon.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/hopshackle-historic-porter/85496/
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