Pleasant Surprises

Well, it's been a year of pleasant surprises from the beer world so far, and I'm aware I haven't blogged about all of them, so I thought I'd create a whole entry from little mini ones!

1. Brewer's Reserve - Finally, after 507 days, Fuller's whisky-aged beer has been launched; lovely soft vanilla & spirit nose and then fabulous sticky fruit flavours (quince jelly & orange marmalade for my money) in the mouth, with a spicy bitter finish that reminds me of Green & Black's Maya Gold chocolate. Be warned, there are going to be different wood ages every year so make sure you lay your hands on some of the first one quickly!
   
2. Zywiec - the lager's very quaffable but the porter (pretty much only available at Utobeer on Borough Market as far as I'm aware) is absolutely awesome; at 9.5%ABV it's rich, dark, coffee & liquorice-dry and delightful.
   
3. Moravka & Cotswold lagers - both very, very nice and very, very drinkable; more pubs should be stocking these products, if you live in the vicinity of either brewery start pressuring your local licensees now!
   
4. Morrisey Fox Blonde Ale - went to the launch of this; Neil Morrisey is a very nice bloke (already knew Richard Fox was a sound chap) who is genuinely, almost intensely, passionate about his ale and the cask beer was jolly drinkable indeed - in fact I was pleasantly surprised that it was as bitter as it is, was expected a much more dumbed down product, good work lads.
   
5. Harviestoun Ola Dubh - get a bottle of this ramped up version of Old Engine Oil that's been aged in 30-year-old Highland Park casks, pour it into a brandy balloon, sit in front of an open fire if possible and... relax!
   
6. The launch of the Sainsbury's & Asda Beer Competitions - the winners of the Sainsbury's beer competition are two big favourites of mine; Dr Okell's IPA & Bath Ales Barnstormer, good work the rest of the judges for a good shortlist and the beer-buying public who had the final say. Asda's got big shoes to fill here and I shall report back in November on what went on at the judging.
   
7. Young's new bottle conditioned beers - back to Wandsworth standards, if not (dare I say it) better in my eyes. The Bitter in particular is extremely drinkable, haven't had the chance to try the cask recently but would be interested to hear what you guys think.
   

That's all for now folks! More to follow soon.

Priceless

I'm hugely amused by this sign, sent to me by the lovely Glenn Payne.

Go Green

Had Duvel Green for the first time last night, whilst my team of fellow hacks were wooping the arse of the 'beer expert' panel - ha ha ha!

It was held at the All Bar One on New Oxford Street, which is somewhere that doesn't normally register on my radar, but the range of beers is excellent and their dedication to glorious glassware is admirable.

Anyway, back to the Duvel Green, it's a 6.8%ABV beer which has a bag-load of flavours similar but not as complex the original. It still packs a punch though, as my head will attest to this morning!

Clarification on Portman Group Nonsense

For those of you who have read the below post about the Portman Group's nonsense shennanigans over Brew Dog and are getting a bit confused (as was I) over the Orkney Skull Splitter issue here's some clarification.

The Portman Group, clearly having more funding than sense, hired a management consultancy to 'carry out an independent audit to measure compliance of drinks packaging with the Code'.

Okay, before I go on to explain how Orkney got dragged into this, I first have to say WHAT?!

The drinks industry watchdog has to hire someone else to 'watch' drinks labelling to see if it complies with its own Code that it (the Portman Group) is mandated to uphold - does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

Anyway, apparently Orkney was one of the sample drinks that were looked at and it was deemed 'potentially' in breach of Code rule 3.2b for the following reason:

"The name 'Skull Splitter' implies both violence and also the impact that the strength may have on the drinker. Additionally there is a picture which could be seen to reinforce the aggressive theme."

But, and here's the thing, the Portman Group itself recently upheld a complaint against a pre-mixed vodka drink because it wasn't clear that it contained alcohol!

I'm pretty sure you can see where I'm going with this point but I'm going to make it anyway, so how does this sit with the assertion that Skull Splitter advertises 'the impact the alcohol strength will have on the drinker' - surely that's a good thing?

But, all the other issues aside, my major issue with this 'independent audit' is that it has been undertaken in a codified vacuum, without reference to reality.

The isolated way in which the sample drinks names have been assessed completely fails to take them in any form of context, which means the whole report is effectively null and void as an analytical tool.

I will give the Portman Group the benefit of the doubt that they undertook this report as a genuine attempt to assess whether or not they were proving effective in their role as labelling watchdog, but I really wish they'd admit that the whole thing is fundamentally flawed and abandon this scaremongering approach amongst producers who are already under enormous amounts of financial pressure as it is.

Goose Me!

I will add much, much more to this post shortly but if you can get your hands on some Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, do yourself a very, very big favour - buy everything you can see!

More to follow shortly and sorry for lack of posts (if anyone cares!) I've been happily busy recently.