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 Schneider Weisse Tap X Mein Nelson Sauvin. Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 7.3%
Origin: Kelheim, Bayern, Germany
Website: www.schneider-weisse.de
Of all the great European brewing industries, Germany’s seems the most conservative, complacent and insulated from international trends. Many of the country’s vast numbers of brewers still seem to think no further than their immediate distribution area, whether that’s a region or a village, with little recognition that the world at large is interested in their traditional beers, let alone that brewers beyond that area might have the occasional good new idea from time to time.
In an era where brewing is becoming increasingly globalised, and polarised between an innovative and dynamic craft sector on the one hand and a blanded out, marketing driven mainstream dominated by aggressive multinationals on the other, it’s an attitude that doesn’t bode well for Germany’s much-prized focus on quality.
Thankfully there are some shining examples of German brewers who’ve, so to speak, woken up and smelt the hops, and one of them is Schneider in Kelheim – possibly the most revered producer of traditional Bavarian weissbier.
The brewery hasn’t messed with any of its textbook brews, but it’s responded to interest in export markets by stretching the boundaries of the style with a series of occasional specials, devised by head brewer Peter Drexler and chief executive Georg Schneider VI. All Schneider’s regular brews are now giving “tap” numbers – for example its legendary dark Weissbock Aventinus is designated Tap 6 – and the new beers are pegged as Tap X.
The first experiment was prompted by a request from ABT (Alliantie van Bier Tapperijen), the Dutch association of specialist beer pubs, for a special to celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2011. Far sightedly, the brewery focused on hops, creating a fine strong golden wheat beer which, remarkably for Germany, featured the New Zealand varieté du jour, Nelson Sauvin.
Tap X Mein Nelson Sauvin was a great success not only in ABT pubs but in the US and other export markets – and, interestingly, at home in Germany too. “Public taste has noticeably evolved,” observed Georg. So the beer made a return appearance in 2012, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it again before long.
The use of an exotic hop has enabled the production of an innovative beer that still complies with traditional purity requirements, otherwise sticking to a grist of barley and wheat malt. One other unusual (and international) touch, though, is the use of a second yeast from Belgium for bottle conditioning.
I bought my elegant 750ml bottle of the 2012 version, number 7843, from Utobeer in Borough Market. It poured a deep and cloudy yellow with a typical thick and creamy wheat beer head. The aroma, though, wasn’t typical – although subtle, the grape and spice character of the hop was evident alongside a slightly tannic note and the more accustomed Weissbier whiffs of cream and banana.
A very intriguing creamy, spicy and fruity palate had more grape notes – muscat rather than sauvignon blanc – and spicy tangerine flavours. The apple, apricot and grape finish had building bitter notes, with more hop bitterness than is usual in the style, finishing with plenty of creamy cereal and seedy, spicy tones.
It’s not only an excellent beer, but a fine example of how a great historic brewery with deeply rooted traditions can respond to those evolving tastes without chucking out what made it great in the first place.
For a brief note on the history of the brewery see my 2007 review of Schneider Weisse.
 Tempest Brave New World Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 7.8%
Origin: Kelso, Scottish Borders, Scotland
Website: www.tempestbrewingco.com
In May 2012 I hosted an IPA tasting downstairs at Mason & Taylor in Shoreditch – one of my favourite new craft beer bars in London until BrewDog made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Manager Steve Taylor recommended including this example, from a great new brewery in the Scottish Borders.
Historically Scotland is associated in most people’s minds with sweet beers employing relatively little hops, but in the 19th century the country was a major producer of India Pale Ales, with Edinburgh in particular once exporting at least as much to the subcontinent as Burton upon Trent.
Tempest was opened in 2010 by former chef Gavin Meiklejohn, a Scot with an international perspective from working in New Zeland and at the Whistler brewery in British Columbia. Returning to Scotland, he ran the Cobbles Inn in Kelso before getting his own brewery together with Allan Rice, formerly of the Stewart brewery in the capital.
Brave New World signals its contemporary transatlantic inspirations in its name, and includes New Zealand and US hops in its recipe. It pours a hazy warm amber with a thick yellowish head. The aroma is packed with fruit – grapes, figs, mangoes, apricots – but smoothed by the underlying grain.
The palate has a firm underpinning of digestive biscuit and toast with a slightly sticky residual sweetness, a platform for fruity swathes of strawberry and mango and a touch of menthol toffee. A dark and biting finish reminded me of burnt apricot tart, with those notes of menthol returning alongside lettuce bitterness.
It’s a long stretch from the high industry of Victorian Edinburgh to an artisanal setup in the small town of Kelso, but I’d hazard that, well resourced Aberdonian punks notwithstanding, this is currently the best example of the style brewed in Scotland.
 Beers and brewhouse at Societe Brewing, San Diego CA. Top Tastings 2012 (The Pupil)
ABV: 9.8%, 6% and 7.7%
Origin: San Diego, California, USA
Website: www.societebrewing.com
San Diego, a naval and university city in California’s far southwestern corner, is also a top craft beer producer, boasting heavy hitters like AleSmith, Port and Stone in the immediate vicinity. But there’s clearly still room for more, particularly when they’re as fresh and vibrant as Societe, with its smart new brewhouse and taproom among malls and light industry in Kearny Mesa, just off a freeway in the northwest of the city.
Societe – it’s tempting to pronounce it French-style but apparently you just say “society” – was set up in 2011 by Travis Smith and Doug Constantiner, who got together while both working at the Bruery in Placentia, though Travis gained previous brewing credentials at Russian River.
The range of styles is no longer any great surprise in Californian brewing – modern hoppy pale ales on the one hand, big Belgian-inspired monsters on the other. A collection of refill oak casks is already stacking up beside the cylindroconicals. But the considerable subtlety and deftness of touch with which those styles are executed marks Societe out as one to watch. So do the slightly puzzling names with their obligatory definite articles, which make any list of their beers read like the title of something on the Booker Prize shortlist.
 Welcome to Societe. There are a few surprises too. Reflecting the growing interest among US craft brewers in more everyday beers, The Harlot was inspired by Westmalle Extra, brewed at the West Flemish Trappist brewery for the monks’ own consumption though occasionally bottled and sold commercially. I’m not sure if there’s any satirical intent in giving a monastic-inspired brew such a provocative name, but it might raise an eyebrow among the Fathers.
At 6% the beer is still rather pumped up from the 4.8% of its inspiration, but it shares the latter’s subtlety and easy drinking character. It’s a golden beer with a fine white head and a light coriander accent to a spicy, flowery, creamy and very authentic aroma, with notes of waxy honey and spice.
A smooth lemony palate has grass, spiced orange, roses and violets, with light and gentle but fresh hops taking over in the finish. There’s perhaps just a little too much sweetness to make it truly refreshing but it’s a decent brew nonetheless.
More typically immense and Californian, though reassuringly well-integrated, is imperial stout The Butcher, a serious dark mahogany beer with a lacey brown head staining the glass yellow. There are already some autolysed gravy notes in a dark, intense and ashy aroma, with an emphasis on roasted grain yielding little fruit.
The huge and slightly phenolic palate has cocoa syrup, roast and tingling hops with an emerging fresh tropical fruit touch, dominated by coffee flavours. The finish is warmly alcoholic but stays smooth, with piny rooty hop resins on the tongue, hints of mature cheese around the edges, and thick cocoa bubbling like larva all over. Grapes and tropical fruit make a late reappearance.
 Tasteful decoration at Societe, San Diego, CA. Pic: Sally Monster. Used under license. There are several pale ales that share an approach to hopping favouring aroma and fruitiness over too much bitterness, and all those I tried were cheerful and interesting. Two IPAs were on offer when I called – The Apprentice and its milder counterpart The Pupil. And while I rated both highly, the latter was just my favourite.
It’s a hazy light yellow beer with a fine white head and an alluring tropical fruit aroma – New Zealand Nelson Sauvin is used alongside Citra and other US hops. Freshly squeezed lime also reached my nostrils, alongside a light note of fried egg protein.
That slight but not distracting egginess persisted in a full palate with clean citrus and lychee flavours, and inevitably some bitterness too, but staying rounded and fresh. The finish was squeaky clean and lingering, finally gently warming with a note of pepper and fruit – impressively easy going for such a hoppy beer.
I’m grateful to local expert and beer tour organiser Bill Snider of Ciao Travel who happily made Societe the first call of an evening’s whistle stop San Diego pub crawl.
 Ska Steel Toe Working Class Milk Stout Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 5.4%
Origin: Durango, Colorado, USA
Website: www.skabrewing.com
With my soft spot for the smarter and sharper side of mid-1960s music and fashion and its later revivalist derivatives, I was intrigued to find a Colorado craft brewery calling itself Ska and borrowing its imagery unashamedly from the design vocabulary of 2-Tone Records.
In the cartoon art on their website, former home brewers Bill Graham, Dave Thibodeau and Matt Vincent, who founded Ska in 1995, appear in the standard issue US craft brewers’ uniform of T-shirts, baggy shorts and baseball caps. So I’m not quite sure how they’ve come to reference a largely working class youth culture movement from the English West Midlands in the late 1970s, which itself drew on an even more proletarian youth cult of the previous decade with a somewhat violent reputation.
Still, the graphics look great, the humour engaging, and the product is unquestionably excellent. I’d had several Ska beers before, but Steel Toe, which I bought in a bottle from the pioneering craft beer list at a branch of London independent gourmet burger bar chain Byron, was the first one that moved me to write about it.
It’s particularly interesting as an example of a revival of a threatened style, milk stout, which uses lactose, an unfermentable sugar derived from milk, to add sweetness and texture to the finished beer. Ska’s beautifully balanced example is a near-black beer with a ruby tinge and a creamy, light beige head.
The aroma is dark, malty and sweetish, with a creamy and very toothsome palate, sweet and slightly treacly but dried by roast notes, and revealing deeper layers of ripe fruit, toffee apple, leather and moist cake. A soft swallow leads to a tasty lightly drying finish with rounded, burry hops and a hint of ashy roast.
You have to raise your eyebrow at the name – skinheads shod in steel toed Doctor Martens would surely have regarded milk stout as the sort of drink their grannies liked.
 Shepherd Neame Double Stout Top Tastings 2012 (India Pale Ale)
ABV: 5.2% and 6.1%
Origin: Faversham, Kent, England
Website: www.shepherd-neame.co.uk
When I was rediscovering beer back in the mid-1990s, one of my favourites was bottle conditioned Shepherd Neame Spitfire, regularly available in my local supermarket. Its classic combination of rich malts and moist, sacky and earthy English hops struck me as just what a proper beer from one of Britain’s most important historic hop growing regions should taste like.
The brewery, right in the middle of the pretty little town of Faversham in marshy country by the Swale, even has hop cones picked out in plaster pargeting on the brewery walls, and back then its beers were widely admired. But over the years since, its range seemed to have got blander and more conservative. Cask Spitfire became a less distinctive national brand, supported by World War II-inspired adverts in dubious taste, while the bottled version was unsympathetically pasteurised into a lifeless boiled sweet beer.
Sheps drew further criticism from connoisseurs for its insistence on using clear glass bottles, even claiming that some customers preferred the resulting light struck ‘skunked’ quality. It had seemingly become more interested in its roster of generally indifferent international lager brands brewed under license – Asahi, Hürlimann, Kingfisher, Oranjeboom, and recently Samuel Adams – than in ensuring the distinctiveness of its ales.
But recently there are signs that things are in Faversham are looking up. A new head brewer, Richard Frost, joined from Marston’s late in 2011. Generation Ale, a big dark barley wine that, while certainly ambitious and distinctive, didn’t quite cohere enough to justify its strength or price, appeared shortly afterwards. The brewery then keenly supported 2012’s inaugural Kent Green Hop Fortnight championed by Ramsgate craft brewer Eddie Gadd.
Late in 2012 I was asked to compile a list of the 100 most important British brewers for an international guide. I was actually hesitating on whether or not to include Sheps – and what finally swayed me in its favour was the arrival of two rather special sample bottles indicating that the brewery was now finding strength in its lengthy heritage.
Brewery historian John Owen and brewer Stewart Main dug through 19th century brewers’ logs, may of them written in code, to create two new heritage beers. Both were presented with handsomely Victorian label designs and – even better – in traditional amber bottles.
Double Stout, based on an 1868 recipe, was created from pale, roasted, crystal and chocolate barley malts and kilned roasted barley using the brewery’s oak mash tuns, the last in use in the UK. The result was a glossy near-black beer with a thick and bubbly tan head and an aroma of wood smoke and coffee with flowery and mineral notes.
A thick old fashioned fruit cake palate had notes of burnt raisins, coffee and plain chocolate with some sweet fruit. The long and very pursing finish derived most of its burnt toast bitterness from roasted grain, but with a flourish of burry hedgerow hop notes – from East Kent Goldings, naturally enough.
 Shepherd Neame India Pale Ale Note by the way that this is a different beer from a 4% so-called Double Stout produced by the brewery a few years back in cask and bottle.
East Kent Goldings also featured alongside Fuggles in an India Pale Ale derived from an 1870 recipe, which to me just had the edge over the stout. This was an orangey amber colour with a fine creamy yellow head and a beautifully rich and seedy hoppy aroma. A touch of nutty sweetness also coloured the nose alongside cream, an intriguing sulphur touch and a very faint hint of butter.
The palate was deliciously smooth, fruity and peppery, with generous stewed hop resins, cracked pepper, orange, cream and honeycomb flavours. A very authentic earthy hop finish built in bitterness alongside pursing fruit.
The IPA is particularly welcome as a fine example of a genuinely English interpretation of the style. The revival of interest in IPAs at the strengths and hop concentrations of the original versions exported from Britain to the Indian subcontinent in past centuries has of course been one of the most significant trends on the brewing scene in recent years. But these days genuinely big and hoppy IPAs from British brewers tend to turn to the US, where the revival began, for inspiration and hop supplies.
And while I’ve grown to love the lively flavours of modern American hop varieties, in the interests of diversity and variety rather than jingoism it’s good to taste a beer that exclusively employs venerable English varieties like Fuggles and Goldings to the same level of assertiveness. It’s also, of course, likely to be closer to the flavour of IPAs of the past.
And yes, I’m aware that British brewers were using hops from the Pacific Northwest and other parts of North America right back in the 19th century. But I doubt the flavours and aromas of the day were anything like as vivid and assertive as those of modern varieties, particularly if they’d spent months in unrefrigerated transit.
Shepherd Neame has a good claim to being Britain’s oldest brewery in continuous operation – its official founding date is 1698 though there is some evidence that brewing on the site stretches back up to 150 years before that. So it has a rich vein of heritage to draw on. I look forward to seeing the fruits of further raids on the archives.
 Russian River Pliny the Elder Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 8%
Origin: Santa Rosa, California, USA
Website: www.russianriverbrewing.com
Russian River brewer Vinnie Cilurzo is generally credited with creating the Double IPA as a commercial beer style. Inaugural IPA, the first beer Vinnie brewed professionally, was so named as it launched his first brewing venture, Blind Pig at Temecula, California, in June 1994. But as it turns out, it also inaugurated a slew of ultra-hoppy West Coast pale ales that turned out to be arguably as influential internationally as the original British India Pale Ales had been in their day.
There were enough double IPAs around by 2001 for the Bistro restaurant in Hayward, California, to stage a whole festival dedicated to the style, involving 10 brewers. Vinnie had since moved to Russian River, and devised a new beer for the festival. It was named after Roman naturalist and naval commander Pliny the Elder, or Gaius Plinius Secundus, killed in the famous eruption of Vesuvius in 79 that also engulfied Pompeii. His book Naturalis Historia contains – possibly – the earliest known written mention of hops.
So Pliny the Elder isn’t itself the first Double IPA, but it certainly has an authentic pedigree. It’s also become one of the most celebrated beers in the style, regularly figuring in the upper reaches of Top 10 lists and winning several awards.
As I’ve described elsewhere, Pliny was my first taste of US craft beer on US soil when I sampled it on cask at the Russian River brewpub in Santa Rosa in 2005. In retrospect it probably wasn’t the best introduction. Even many of its fans would agree it’s hardly the best gateway beer for a palate still unaccustomed to the flavour spectrum of West Coast pales. And I’ve since concluded that cask conditioning is not the format in which such brews best express themselves – they need the extra sparkle trapped in a bottle or keg to help them sing.
At the time I noted a slightly cloudy pale golden ale, with only a little white lace for a head and a sweet aroma of glycerine, jasmine and pineapple. A thick and furry palate had pineapple, geranium, pine, leather and sacky notes. A bitter swallow led to a long and massively intense pine, pepper and fruity hop finish that puckered like strong tea.
Since then I’ve drunk many more big, strong, hoppy pale ales from the US and elsewhere and my palate is better calibrated to their pleasures. But other than that first cask encounter I hadn’t yet returned to Pliny. I put that right in October 2012 by picking up a bottle at Best Damn Beer Shop in San Diego.
This time the golden colour was much more attractively set off with a rich white head. The aroma was still thick and strong – I noted peach, fresh flowers, citrus and gunpowder. A resinous, tannic and vividly hoppy palate had peach fruit striated with lemon balm, and emerging flavours of mint, pine, fresh grass and creamy malt.
A very long and slowly unfolding finish saw pine and tannins coming to the fore, offset by coating and creamy malt, with plenty of spice and a late fresh pepper note. Though describing the hop character of the beer as assertive seems something of an understatement, it remained perfectly composed, taking time to tell its long and complex story of flavour.
This is a beer that asks you to drink it fresh, displaying the date on the bottle, so I was glad to see mine was no more than a month old. Reconsidering it on a more flattering platform, I agree that it deserves its high reputation as one of the best exemplars of the style – if not the ideal one to serve up first to a naïve mild drinker from London.
 Rodenbach Grand Cru Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 6%
Origin: Roeselare, Oost-Vlaanderen
Website: www.palm.be
Beer writers and experts tend to have different drinking habits from ordinary beer drinkers. To keep ourselves well informed and authoritative, we’re usually tasting beers we haven’t tried before, and find ourselves passing on the popular and familiar by. In contrast, while the number of discerning consumers prepared to experiment is growing, most people still turn to established favourites as their fall back position without the compulsion of novelty.
Of course all beer writers worth their salt have tasted the revered classics and style-defining benchmarks – but it might have been years ago, when they were honing their skills and expertise by ticking their way through Michael Jackson books. It’s a tendency I’m now trying to balance out, making a conscious effort to return with the benefit of experience to the sort of beers that sent me out on this adventure in the first place.
So it was that when on a pub review visit to Belgique Bistro, a Belgian-themed tea room and bar in the unlikely location of leafy Wanstead, last summer, I siezed the opportunity to revisit Rodenbach Grand Cru, one of the beers I used to consider a touchstone of my enthusiasm.
Rodenbach is the most prominent surviving producer of Flemish oud bruin, sometimes known in English, following Jackson, as sour red ale. The brewery’s base beer is made with Vienna malt added to the grist, which partly explains the reddish hue, and also contains a proportion of corn grits and sugar. The last time I saw the hop varieties listed they included German Brewers Gold and Kent Goldings.
It’s what happens after mashing and boiling, though, that’s most interesting. The wort is fermented with a multistrain yeast which includes lactic microorganisms contributing a lightly sour taste. It’s then matured for up to two years in a hall full of 300 giant wooden vats known as foeders, made of Slavonian oak from Poland.
These vessels vary in capacity from 12,000l to 65,000l and some of them are more than 150 years old. Each one has its own resident menagerie of microflora that adds still more complexity to the beer, including funky wild yeast notes of the sort that only appear during long maturation, which also deepens the colour still further.
To create the final product, old and young beers from various selected foeders are blended together – the standard Rodenbach uses a 50:50 mix but the more intense, and stronger, Grand Cru includes two thirds of older beer. Bottles and kegs are then flash pasteurised and sent out brewery conditioned, though some vintage specials of mature beer from individual foeders have been bottle conditioned.
Brewery historians will instantly recognise the similarities between Rodenbach’s production and classic 18th century London porter brewing, even down to the blending of ‘stale’ and ‘mild’ beers – and to the production of old and stock ales that just about clings on in England at, of all places, Greene King (see Old 5X).
The Rodenbach family, originally from Koblenz in Germany, first got involved in brewing in Roeselare in 1832, and it’s sometimes said that one of the family, Eugene Rodenbach, learned the techniques in eastern England in the 1880s. However, brewing has been a relatively international occupation at least since it first became a large scale industry, and brewers often independently evolved similar responses to similar challenges, such as keeping beer reliably consistent and palatable without refrigeration and microbiological science to help.
Whatever the truth, Rodenbach today is something of a brewing heritage treasure. In 1998 it was bought by Belgian national brewer Palm and there were intial concerns this might spell the beginning of the end for its unique products, but in fact the parent company has invested and now proudly promotes the beer as a revered regional speciality.
Opening my Grand Cru, I rediscovered a deep chestnut brown beer with a reddish tinge, and a light beige head that left soft lace on the glass. The aroma was immediately familiar and distinctive – sharp with orange citrus and balsamic qualities, and a hint of minerals and iron, the latter leading on to a suggestion of blood.
The palate was also intense and notably sour with a complex acidity layering very full fruity and chocolate notes. A refreshing swallow left a lightly acidic trace, with funky woody notes, more chocolate and a perfumed touch reminiscent of lemon and honey permeating a long finish.
The beer remains an enduring classic, and one I personally delight in, though it’s unarguably an acquired taste. When I presented it at a recent private beer tasting for a corporate client, it divided the room. Like lambic, it seems the keenest conventional beer drinkers are often the most challenged, while those who believe they don’t like beer can find it refreshing and beguiling.
 Mikkeller Big Worse Barley Wine (Proef) Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 12%
Origin: Lochristi, Oost-Vlaanderen
Website: mikkeller.dk
Highly creative and prolific Danish cuckoo brewer Mikkel Borg Bjergsø will need no introduction to craft beer connoisseurs. His preconception-challenging products have cut a swathe through the world of beer appreciation since his kitchen home brews first went on sale at a København shop in 2005, and have helped shift the international discussion of beer to a new level.
Mikkel brews a huge range of beers including in more sessionable styles, but he’s best known for the big strong stuff, often inspired by Belgian or historic British models. Much of the beer is made at the reliable Proef brewery in Lochristi, Belgium, many a would-be brewing warrior’s facility of choice for progressing domestic experimentation to the commercial level.
Big Bad Worse Barley Wine, a stronger successor to the earlier Big Bad Barley Wine, is one of the best Mikkeller beers I’ve tasted yet. It’s brewed from pilsner and caramunich barley malt, with added candy sugar, and a blend of Nugget, Cascade and Centennial hops.
The beer pours a cloudy burgundy colour with a thick yellowish-fawn head. A prominent and very complex aroma has notes of pine, figs, tobacco ash and malt loaf with a delicate fruity waft.
The palate is sweet but well balanced by delicate dryness, with dark candied citrus peel, apricot fruit and piny, herbal edges. A slowly drying citric finish turns quite chalky and mineral-tinged with fresh nuts, and hops forming a bitter nugget amidst smooth, syrupy mouth-coating malt.
This isn’t a weird beer – in many ways it’s a very straightforward and traditional interpretation of the style, though brilliantly accomplished to produce an immensely complex and exquisite glassful.
I bought a bottle with an April 2016 best before date at the always reliable Kris Wines, London N7, as a seasonal treat for myself in December 2012 and it turned out to be a perfect choice. Although more than ready to drink, it would also be worth cellaring.
 Panil Barriquée Sour Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 8%
Origin: Torrechiara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Website: www.panilbeer.com
Italian craft brewers and drinkers seem to have taken easily to perceiving beer through a similar mindset to that used for wine. It’s an artisanal product with a definite provenance, served with food from attractive 750ml bottles. Some of it even contains grape must. And to underline the affinities even further, there’s Barriquée, a rather vinous beer with a label that even references classic wine label design, made on a vineyard by the scion of a winemaking family.
The Losis had been making Lambrusco-style wines at Torrechiara, near Parma, since the 1930s when, in 2001, Renzo Losi, already a home brewer, started making beer under the Panil name as an offshoot of the family business. A year later Renzo became almost certainly the first Italian craft brewer to experiment with barrel ageing, creating Barriquée, named with a French word for a small wooden barrel.
His inspiration was sour, aged Flemish red ale in the style typified by Rodenbach – which was once known to promote itself with the slogan “´t is wijn”. These beers are sometimes labelled the Burgundies of Flanders and some of them, like Timmermans’ Bourgogne des Flandres, have even adopted brand names accordingly.
There’s a mild version too, but I was particularly interested to try the sour, which is brewed from English, Belgian and German pale and coloured barley malts with Czech and German hops and fermented both with ale yeast and lactobacillus. After spending 15 days fermenting in steel vessels the beer spends 90 days undergoing a secondary fermentation in small French oak barrels formerly used for Cognac or Burgundy.
It’s then bottle conditioned and retained at the brewery for a further 30 days before release. As you’d expect the flavour varies and there are some complaints online of lack of consistency, but I had no problems with the 2012 vintage I bought at the excellent brewery shop at De Molen in Bodegraven, the Netherlands.
My sample poured a dark red-brown with a creamy fawn head tinged with light pink. A very funky aroma had notes of farmyard, pencil lead, chocolate, condensed milk, light toffee and cherry fruit.
A soft and lightly cakey palate immediately turned tart, the intensity softened by complex flavours of cherry fruit, red wine, juicy tangerine, chocolate and spicy tobacco. Smooth alcoholic warmth offset the lactic tartness in a refined and elegant finish with soft citrus fruit and wine-like tannins.
The beer has something of a cult following in the US and at one point two versions of the sour were produced, with the export version sourer than the domestic one, though recently there’s only been the one. Interestingly the US is also home to another celebrated craft brewer that developed from a winery – Russian River – which shares an interest in Belgian-inspired and wood aged beers.
 Oskar Blues Old Chub Scotch Ale Top Tastings 2012
ABV: 8%
Origin: Longmont, Colorado, USA
Website: www.oskarblues.com
2012’s annual British Guild of Beer Writers reception on the eve of the Great British Beer Festival could almost have been tailor made to antagonise some of the more purist supporters of the festival itself – for its theme was not only American craft beer, but American craft beer in cans. Held downstairs at Covent Garden’s Porterhouse, it was sponsored by US trade organisation the Brewers Association, and featured 17 beers from half a dozen brewers.
A few CAMRA stalwarts could be seen among the crowd enjoying the offerings like everyone else. And quite right too, as the received wisdom about canned beer has long become technologically outdated. Modern cans don’t taint the flavour of the beer, but they do protect it, being more airtight and better at blocking potentially damaging ultraviolet light than even brown bottles.
The claim that they’re more environmentally friendly is debatable, as the raw material extraction is more damaging and the manufacture more energy intensive than glass bottles, particularly if the latter are recycled, but they’re unarguably a lot lighter to transport and more efficient to store. Some brewers – for example New Belgium and Sierra Nevada – are now even conditioning in cans, though the examples served at the Porterhouse were all filtered.
The wide range of styles and strengths on offer at the event – from brewers including 21st Amendment, Caldera, Maui and Ska – included some excellent beers and any issues with the less impressive examples were clearly not attributable to the packaging. Of all those I tried, my particular favourite was Oskar Blues’ strong, soft and comforting Old Chub.
Oskar Blues claims to be the first US craft brewer to can its own beer. The main plant is now in Longmont, Colorado but the brewery was originally launched in 1998 in the cellar of Dave Katechis’ restaurant in Lyons. When it started packaging beer in 2002 it went straight to cans, never bottles. The first beer to receive the treatment was the strong and hoppy but well balanced Dale’s Pale Ale, still its flagship. But Old Chub has also turned the heads of critics and beer judges.
Subtitled “Scotch Ale”, Old Chub clearly takes its cue from strong 90/- wee heavies, but there’s some beechwood smoked malt in there alongside the pale and crystal. Presumably the brewer was aiming to reference whisky – except that whisky malt was never a feature of traditional Scottish beer styles, and smoking malt over beechwood is more the habit of Bamberg brewers than Speyside distillers.
No matter, as the resulting beer is nonetheless delicious. It’s a warm red colour, with a thick beige head and a rich and creamy aroma. The smoked malt isn’t at all intrusive – instead there are notes of red wine, chocolate, peppery spice and meringue.
A soft, sweet and slightly vinous palate has plenty of cakey malt and marzipan but steers clear of cloying, with toasty and spirity notes and even a hint of mint. A lightly toasty and very satisfying finish lingers with fruit and malt flavours and a sweetly alcoholic touch. Definitely a “book at bedtime” beer.
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