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Originally published in What’s Brewing January 2003
Origin: Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England
ABV: 6.5 per cent
Buy from most supermarkets
 Greene King Morland Hen's Tooth Back in 2000 Greene King, now one of Britain’s biggest independent brewers, acquired and closed the old-established family brewery, Morland of Abingdon. Among the brands it acquired was a bottle-conditioned strong pale ale, Hen’s Tooth, launched in 1998 and already established as a supermarket favourite.
The name derived from the expression “rare as a hen’s tooth”, but also recalled the company’s popular cask ale Old Speckled Hen, originally named after a vintage car from neighbours MG. In fact Hen’s Tooth resembled a beefed-up bottled variation of this beer, using a similar recipe, with Pipkin pale malt, crystal malt, maltose syrup, Challenger and Goldings hops.
GK transferred production to their Bury base, taking with them the century-old Morland yeast culture. Indeed, you wouldn’t know this is a GK beer except for the Bury address that now appears on the label. They also kept the clear glass bottle: a shame, since such immodest packaging doesn’t do a long-maturing BCA like this any favours.
This bottle was still in superb condition despite being a week or so past its best before date – it was so eager to be drunk that some of it jumped out of the bottle of its own accord! Thankfully a very sticky sediment helped me pour it clear despite the liveliness.
The beer is deep amber with a warm orange glow and a lingering smooth white head. There’s a complex, fruity aroma (melons), with sharpish hops and yeasty creaminess, and some intriguing esters recalling cider or Belgian lambics: perhaps some wild yeasts have crept in? A firmly malty and fruity palate has plum and orange tones and a slight sharpish edge from the crystal malt. Chocolatey denseness and a fine bead give richness without the heaviness you might expect from the premium gravity.
Hops emerge as you swallow, with a slightly peppery and roasted coffee bitterness developing round the sides of the mouth, well-balanced by lots of fruit. The finish is lengthy and eventually quite drying but delightfully mellow, with a soft, almost salad-leaf quality about it.
Greene King might have abandoned Hen’s Tooth as an unwelcome anomaly; to their credit they kept it on, obviously going to some trouble to match the taste and quality of the Morland version. BCAs are still almost as rare as hens’ teeth on the average British high street as they were back in 1998, and examples such as this are far too good to lose.
Try also: Ceredigion Barcud Coch, Dolle Oerbier (Belgium) Freeminer Speculation Ale, St Sylvestre Sans Culottes (France)
Read more on ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/morland-hens-tooth/671/
Originally publsihed in What’s Brewing December 2002
Origin: West Hewish, Somerset, England
ABV: 6 per cent
Buy from some supermarkets, specialist beer shops, Wessex Craft Brewers (www.wessexcraftbeers.co.uk)
 RCH Ale Mary The revival of spiced beer brewing in Britain is one of the most interesting developments of recent years. Opening the spice cupboard for the first time in centuries has set many brewers on a steep learning curve but the folk at RCH have got pretty near the top.
Originally established behind the Royal Clarence Hotel in Burnham-on-Sea in 1983 and relocated ten years later, RCH now has a strong slate of bottle-conditioned beers marketed through Wessex Craft Brewers (see WB, November). Ale Mary began as a 1998 Christmas special and this year is enjoying a new lease of life with supermarket listings.
The beer is actually the brewery’s strong ale Firebox, brewed from pale and chocolate malts, Progress and Target hops, and then pepped up with the addition of ginger, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg and pimento pepper. The spices recall the cuisine of Elizabethan times, so it’s a shame that Mary Stuart has disappeared from the label, rendering the slogan “beautifully executed” rather puzzling.
The beer emerges rich coppery amber, with a lively bead and a large, foamy and very persistent white head which, combined with a generous sediment, made it difficult to pour clear (to negligible effect). The head concentrates the spicy aromas: before reading the ingredients, I detected cinnamon, ginger, herby hops, and scents of freshly crushed fennel seeds and liquorice.
If the seasonal packaging and spicing have led you to expect a liquid Christmas pudding, you’re in for a surprise: the palate is notably dry. There’s plenty of spicy complexity over a crisp malt base, with a fruitiness redolent of vine fruits and tangerine peel with hints of coriander. A subtle but warming ginger character then develops – this rhizome has arguably become a national characteristic of British spiced beers, reflecting its traditional use in the native cuisine.
The beer gets slightly softer on the swallow, leading to a long, rummy finish with spiced pear fruit, nutmeg and sage, warming ginger and a fine bitter-hop astringency puckering the cheeks. Treating a beer that was already well-flavoured to such a diverse and thorough spicing might not have seemed the obvious route to success, but the result is beautifully balanced, delightfully dry, and always intriguing, with a complex range of flavours making themselves heard without shouting. One to sip over the cheese footballs.
Try also: Museum Wulfric, Freeminer Shakemantle, Jopen Koyt (Netherlands), Anchor Our Special Ale (USA), Vapeur Saison de Pipaix (Belgium)
Read more at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/rch-ale-mary/11075/
Originally published in What’s Brewing November 2002
Origin: Kelheim, Bavaria, Germany
ABV: 8 per cent
Buy from specialist beer shops and mail order, occasionally supermarkets
 Schneider Aventinus The Schneider brewery, founded in 1872, is a relative newcomer by German standards. In 1927 the company acquired its present site, the former ducal brewery at Kelheim, north of Munich and on the edge of what is now the Altmühltal nature park. Wheat beer has been brewed continuously here since 1607, giving Schneider its current claim to be the oldest wheat beer brewery in Germany.
Schneider’s standard cloudy “Weisse” (white) is one of the most renowned examples of its kind. But the brewery also enjoys a cult reputation for this “Weizenbock”, the wheat equivalent of a barley wine. This potent brew is made from locally grown malted wheat and barley, with caramalt from Bamberg, and Hallertau and Hersbrücker hops – the famous Reinheitsgebot (purity law) forbids the use of unmalted wheat and spices, as in some other countries.
The label depicts Johannes Turmair (1477-1534), an early Bavarian humanist historian, known as Aventinus after the Latin name for his home town of Abensberg. His appearance is best explained by the fact that, when the beer was first produced in 1907, the brewery happened to be based in Munich’s Aventinstrasse (for more background see www.schneider-weisse.de).
The beer pours cloudy deep brown with an orange glow and a thick off-white head. The aroma is rich and malty with marked dried banana tones and spicy hints of cinnamon and cloves. At first the palate seems light and fruity, buoyed by the lively condition, but it rapidly reveals a dark malty depth, with smooth tarriness, liquorice toffee and spicy cinnamon hops way back in the throat, along with tangerine, figs, tobacco, coffee and a touch of wheaty phenol.
Herbal hops develop further in the lengthy finish with more spicy and fruity flavours on the tongue: banana, chocolate, roastiness and the estery bubblegum flavours often found in Bavarian wheat beer. The overall effect is sweetish and sometimes syrupy on the lips but so much is going on that it never becomes cloying.
The alcohol is evident too, of course: “Bavaria from its strongest side” claims the label, acknowledging the hefty gravity compared to standard wheat beers, but every degree is used to say something interesting. The usual German half-litre bottle seems too large at first for a monster like this (the 330ml bottles are rarely seen in Britain), but sip it over an hour or so and it’ll reward till the last dregs.
Try also: Kloster Andechs Doppelbock Dunkel, La Gauloise Brune (Belgium), Daleside Morocco Ale (UK), though Aventinus is really one of a kind.
Read more on ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/schneider-aventinus/2224/
Originally published in What’s Brewing October 2002
Origin: Bridge of Allan, Stirling, Scotland
ABV: 4 per cent
Buy from the brewery, tel 01786 834555, www.bridgeofallan.co.uk
 Traditional Scottish Ales Brig o'Allan 80/- / Stirling Brig Sadly, bottled beer drinkers haven’t done as well as their draught-quaffing counterparts in the current Scottish beer renaissance. The craft-brewed bottles lining the shelves of posh delis and carry-outs in Edinburgh and Glasgow stand tall alongside the single malts, wearing their saltires with pride – but almost none are bottle-conditioned. Even Champion Beer of Britain-winning Caledonian has withdrawn its toes from the BCA water (though they tell me a revival of bottle-conditioning is currently under discussion). Admittedly some of the brewery-conditioned bottles are still worth trying, but most are crying out for a little more life.
An exception is this entrant from Bridge of Allan, established in 1997 in the spa town of the same name, just north of Stirling. It’s based on draught beer Stirling Brig, and the vegetarian-friendly recipe includes Maris Otter pale, crystal, roast and wheat malts, Goldings, Fuggles and Bramling Cross hops. The designation 80/- goes back to the days before inflation and deep discounting, when beers were named after their price per barrel in now-obsolete units of currency (80/- = £4), and signals that this is a variant on the traditional malty Scottish style.
The beer is a lovely ruby-amber colour, easy to pour clear with only a little sticky sediment, and initially throws a creamy white head. The distinctively toasty, smoky, pastilley and slightly sharp aroma leads to a very malty, fruity and minerally mouthful that reminded me of “Scotland’s other national drink”, Irn Bru. There’s some burnt rubber smokiness, then a sudden brush of rounded ashy hops down the sides of the tongue in the finish. This quickly subsides, leaving a long-lingering fruitiness laced with flashes of powder-dry bitterness and a hint of salt.
Crystal malt produces some intensely smoky and toasty flavours that can easily overwhelm, but here it is well controlled and balanced by elegant hopping: in fact the beer is on the dry side for its style. Overall it’s a distinctive and refined yet easy-drinking ale.
Though its pasteurised stablemates are quite widely distributed in Scotland, as yet this beer is only available direct. Brewer Douglas Ross says wholesalers are still nervous of bottle-conditioned beers, but if he can turn this 80/- into a success he’ll consider adding more to his portfolio. A beer of this quality certainly deserves to succeed in its own right – and it might also encourage a few more Scottish brewers to start bottling the live product.
Try also: Beeck Veldwachter (Netherlands), Flying Dog Road Dog (US), Orkney The Red MacGregor (non-BCA), Pitfield Hoxton Best Bitter (formerly Hoxton Heavy)
Note the brewery is now part of Traditional Scottish Ales (12/2009)
Read more at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/bridge-of-allan-brig-o-allan-80—ale/5885/
Originally published in What’s Brewing September 2002
Origin: Hoegaarden, Brabant, Belgium
ABV: 5%
Buy from: most supermarkets, beer shops
 Hoegaarden Wit Unfiltered ‘white’ beers were once the local speciality of the northeast corner of Brabant. Brewers here used unmalted wheat, giving a very fruity, phenolic and distinctively wheaty flavour, and spiced their beers with coriander and curaçao orange peel, as they had been doing since long before the ubiquity of the hop. Such idiosyncratic beers found it hard to survive in the new world of industrialised brewing and they died a quiet death in the 1950s.
Then in 1966 Pierre Celis, who had helped out at a local white beer brewery as a teenager, opened De Kluis (the cloister) brewery in the once-important brewing village of Hoegaarden. Celis set about recreating the defunct style, with some success, especially among the young. Interbrew became financially involved in 1978 and eventually bought Celis out, using their marketing clout to turn this ancient style into a national and then an international brand.
Hoegaarden is still brewed at De Kluis, using barley malt, unmalted wheat, Saaz and Goldings hops, coriander seeds and dried curaçao peel. Some aficionados complain it has lost its character in Interbrew’s hands. I first tasted it in the early 1990s and though I have no detailed notes from the time, I do know it was so good then that it triggered off my enduring passion for Belgium and its beers. When I taste it today, for better or worse, I can still understand why.
Served cool (and neat – in Belgium lemon is rarely added) in its distinctive chunky tumbler, Hoegaarden is pale cloudy straw-yellow with a rich white head. The aroma is smooth, creamy and spicy, with a whiff of coriander and restrained hops. The palate is soft and wheaty at first, but soon reveals complex herbal and hoppy flavours as it swirls over the tongue, with tangy and perfumed orange fruit. The hops become more rounded in the finish, dominated by a persistent fruity tanginess, and the final impression is creamy but clean and refreshing.
Together coriander and hops can easily turn a beer into a shouting match of flavours if mishandled, as many brewers have found to their cost. Hoegaarden gets it just right: the coriander is distinct but not overpowering, and beautifully integrated with a subtle blend of classic hop flavours that gives the beer a lift in just the right place.
Today every other Belgian brewery offers a wheat beer, and Celis’s revival has made brewers around the world realise there’s more to a good grist than barley malt. Connoisseurs sometimes overlook the original, perhaps because it’s too easy to find and no-one can quite believe a speciality of such quality could flow forth from a megabrewer. Such self-denial is misplaced, since Hoegaarden still well deserves its title as the benchmark of the style.
Try also: Abbaye des Rocs Blanche des Honelles (Belgium), Annoeullin L’Angelus (France), Gulpener Korenwolf (Netherlands), Lefèbvre Student/Blanche des Bruxelles (Belgium), Salopian Puzzle (UK).
Read more at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/hoegaarden/399/
Originally published in What’s Brewing August 2002
Also reviewed in a piece on beers to convert lager drinkers to ales with, BEER Feburary 2009
 Hop Back Summer Lightning Origin: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
ABV: 5%
Buy from: most supermarkets, beer shops, mail order from the brewery (tel 01725 510986, www.hopback.co.uk)
Summer Lightning is arguably the most influential British beer of recent years, the first beer successfully to bridge the gap between traditional British bitters and imported quality blond lagers. It first emerged in cask form from the Wyndham Arms, John and Julie Gilbert’s brewpub in Salisbury, in the late 1980s, and became a mainstay when the Gilberts founded a separate brewery, Hop Back, in 1991. Soon the sincerest form of flattery was added to the beer’s critical and commercial success, with many other brewers copying the formula.
And it’s a formula that works. Summer Lightning and its imitators have managed to attract drinkers who would never have dreamed of touching a more traditional ale: I myself was introduced to it by a former lager drinker. Hop Back also anticipated the growth of bottled beer market when Summer Lightning inaugurated a new bottling line back in 1996, and the brewery has gone on to become a major supplier of BCAs to supermarkets.
Poured clear as recommended on the label, and at a slightly cooler temperature than usual for a British ale, Summer Lightning comes out pale golden with a warm orange glow, a very lively bead, and a thin bubbly white head that eventually subsides to lace. The aroma of perfumed hops is forward but not overpowering, with faint orange-like traces and a distant earthy and minerally scent.
The palate is mainly dry, crisp and refreshing from the start. It’s also notably lively and prickly, soothed by a smooth, clean maltiness, flashes of tangerine sweetness and developing zesty hops. There’s some elusive fruitiness on the swallow: plum skins or maybe very fresh tomatoes. The beer dries out further in a very long and moreish finish, with a firm but nicely rounded bitter hoppiness at the back of the mouth and some cheek-puckering dryness still softened by malt and late flashes of juicy fruitiness.
While Summer Lightning recalls the appeal of certain mainland European styles, such as those Belgian golden ales that many British drinkers still mistake for lagers, or genuine quality German and Czech lagers, it is still very much a recognisably British beer. Perhaps surprisingly, its innovative taste has been fashioned out of the most traditional of ingredients, Maris Otter pale malt and East Kent Goldings hops.
Try also: RCH Pitchfork, Swale Indian Summer, Achouffe Kwelchouffe (Belgium), Saison Dupont (Belgium), Früh Kölsch (Germany), or a premium Czech lager like Budweiser Budwar or Pilsener Urquell
Read more at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/hop-back-summer-lightning/1242/
Originally published in What’s Brewing July 2002
Origin: Chiswick, London, England, UK
ABV: 6.3%
Buy from: most supermarkets, Fuller’s pubs and off licenses
 Fuller's 1845 Alongside its renowned cask conditioned ales, the Griffin brewery for years offered only pasteurised beers in bottle. Then to celebrate the 150th birthday in 1995 Fuller’s brewers looked for inspiration to the brewing practices of the early days, coming up with a high-gravity bottle-conditioned brew that included amber malt and only Goldings hops. The beer, named 1845, hit the spot in terms of both quality and marketing: the combination of a well-loved brand with a ‘natural’ bottled product proved especially appealing to supermarkets. 1845 is now a member of the regular Fuller’s range and one of the most widely-distributed BCAs in Britain, also occasionally available in draught form.
Served cool, not chilled, and poured clear as advised on the label, the beer emerges a rich tawny brown with a sunny amber tinge, very little head, and an invitingly biscuity and malty fruit loaf aroma. The palate is full of juicy and nutty malt, with the biscuity quality of the amber malt to the fore. Briefly toffee-sweet, it soon dries with plenty of tasty, peppery and slightly astringent hops over subtle mallowy fruit. The hoppiness becomes quite intense and bitter in the finish, but is softened by fruity malt and spicy hints of nutmeg or cinnamon. This big but superbly balanced and very drinkable revivalist ale also has some ageing potential: best before dates are set a year after bottling and it’s worth experimenting with cellaring at least that long for a mellower result.
Try also: Brakspear Vintage Henley, Young’s Special London Ale (BCA version), Palm Aerts 1900 (Belgium)
Read more at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/fullers-1845/294/
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