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My second beer from Summer Wine Brewery is Cohort. I think they were going for ticking every hipster beer box going right now. It’s Double. Black. Belgian. Rye. IPA!

Cohort (7.5%) comes packaged in a 330mL bottle and opens with a very loud hiss.

It pours black with a massive dense tan head, reminiscent of something off a trappist quad, it stays there meringue-like and not wanting to leave. Where it can, it sticks to the side of the glass.

On the nose there’s a very interesting aroma: exotic spice, almost like damsons, blackberries, with a background of roastiness behind it. I’d be interested to know what hops impart that first aroma!

Taking a taste, theres a medium, slick body and a steady carbonic bite. The flavour, like the aroma, is interesting. There are cleanly defined flavours in here, a peppery, spicy hop bitterness, with very little in the way of sweetness.

I can’t really taste any of the fruit character I’d expect to be carried over from the aroma, but there are definite malt-derived flavours of black chocolate. There are some astringent bitter notes as the beer is swallowed, with a tingling alcoholic feeling on the back and sides of the tongue.

I think, buried away in there somewhere, there might be a glimpse of some of those character belgian yeast flavours but the other flavours are quite powerful and you get hints of it as you swallow… or maybe I’m dreaming them.

I have to admit my first sip of this had me scratching my head. It’s an interesting flavour, even in this odd realm of BIPAs. That said, it has grown on me and as I work my way down the bottle, I find I really quite like it.

I’m not sure if that’s an endorsement as I am only partial to a couple of BIPAs out there

Rating: 4/5 (now find me a keg of this please!)

So theres a lot of mainly good noise out there about Summer Wine Brewery.  They’re relatively new as far as I can tell, and they’re local.  Again a plus!  I bought quite a few of their beers from the Dram Shop, but sadly I was at a party and the less said about that the better.  But I remember the beer being good.

That beer adventure done, I bought some more that I planned to drink in a more measured setting, and this is the first I tried.

Bravura (5.5%) is comes packaged in a 330mL bottle and is labelled as a Pale Ale.  Nothing with regards to tasting notes on the bottle, other than a coy invite to give it a go.

The bottle opens with a quiet hiss and pours dark straw.  It has a medium dense white head which doesn’t fade over time.

There are aromas of orange peel, light spice.  Taking a sip, there’s a medium mouthfeel with a gentle carbonic edge to it.

There’s little in the way of body, I don’t feel I’m getting much from the malt other than to support the hops. There’s perhaps a touch of straw like flavour hiding in the background..

That said, there are definitely hops in here!  There’s a grassy, bitter flavour initially which intensifies to an almost astringent bitterness on the palate with a long finish..
I have to say I’m not enamoured by it but its a nice enough ale with its own character.  Perhaps one for a summer evening.

Rating: 3/5 (nice enough but I don’t think I’d pick up another)

I have earned this beer today as I am about to bottle lots of tiny 330mL bottles and as part of procrastinating along comes this review.  This beer is the big brother of BrewDog’s famous 77 Lager, which if I heard right is being dropped by the controversial Scottish brewer.  This beer is aged in oak barrels, and brewed to a higher alcoholic strength (7.7% vs 4.9%).  I have had 77 many times before, personally not a big fan but I know a lot of people who are.

7.7 Lager (7.7%) comes packaged in a 330mL bottle, which opens with a quiet hiss.  It pours golden with a dense, medium sized head that slowly recedes with heavy lacing.  There’s a lot of activity on the carbonation front with a steady stream of bubbles rising up the beer.  Not so much as say, a geuze, but it is very noticable.

The aromas are sweet and candied, a hint of spice but mostly of sweetness.

Taking a sip, there is a mild carbonic bite, and a big hit of sweet malt flavour.  This gives way to some very interesting flavours: more dessert-like sweetness, noble hop spiciness, and dry, freshly cut wood and creamy vanilla.  The alcoholic warmth is there, but it is subtle.  There’s a nice balance here.

I rarely drink lager, I have to admit.  This is a nice lager that packs a bit of a punch and has an interesting twist with the addition of woody barrel-aged flavours.  I would imagine that if you are into 77 Lager, you will be really into this variant.

Rating: 4/5 (now where’s my burger?)

I Hardcore You is a blend of two beers, which is then subsequently dry-hopped.  Sounds a bit nuts doesn’t it?  Read on.

I saw this chap on a BrewDog shareholder newsletter and had heard of it before so I snapped it up.  The reason being that I have tried both the parent beers, Mikkellers “I Beat You” and BrewDogs “Hardcore IPA” – in fact I have both in my cellar.

Mikkeller beer isn’t so easily available over here, but I was lucky enough to grab some I Beat You when I was in France meeting Olive for a drink

Hardcore IPA has been responsible for much blathering and on one occasion, a twisted ankle.  It’s powerful stuff and I love it.  Canny Tesco shoppers can pick up the BrewDog beer in the Tesco Finest* range, where it’s called Tesco Finest* Double American IPA.

I Hardcore You (9.5%) comes packaged in a 330mL bottle that has hybrid elements of the very familiar Mikkeller and BrewDog packaging.  It opens with a loud hiss.  The beer pours copper with a very dense, sticky off-white head that clings to the side of the glass as it eventually recedes to a cm or so of soapy bubbles.

Aromas are big and hoppy: cut grass, burnt oranges, that characteristic sharp “burnt circuit-board” piney resin (Simcoe?), and in the background, a whiff of sugary sweetness.

Mouthfeel is medium full, and has a carbonic bite with an alcoholic warmth to it immediately present.  The first taste is surprisingly not of bitter hops but a heavy syrupy malt flavour.  This very quickly gives way to a solid wall of hops.

There’s not many individual flavours to pick out, a dash of bitter orange, grapefruit pith, but mainly there is a puckering broad-spectrum bitterness reminiscent of Stone’s Ruination IPA.

The flavour takes a very long time to fade, and the alcohol is warming long after the flavour has subsided.  It’s certainly a big beer.

I am going to have to have a pepsi challenge one evening.  I have the two parent beers and this in my house and I should, for science, compare the three.  I can definitely pick out individual characteristics of both beers.  Both the parent beers could be the same and I’ve been duped.

Either way this is a tasty drink/frankenstein of two beers I like a lot, and I am glad I stocked up.

One thing to note, I’m not sure you need 330mL of this beer in one go.  It would definitely say all it needs to in a 1/3 pint, something I liked to try in the BrewDog bars.  I had mine after a lovely homemade burger and sweet potato chips and it has demolished them.

Rating: 5/5 (not exactly a schoolnight beer, but what’s a weekend beer between friends?)

You can make your mind up as to whether this is a review or a ramble.

So, my good friends Ben and Amy brought went on holiday to the future, and while they were there they found lots of tasty beer.  They managed to smuggle one of them back for me in their time machine, and this is what I will be trying today.

Now: this is a bit of a weird one for me.  I can’t read the label, all I know about it is that it is a Saison.  I am a fan of Saisons, the familiar dirty farmhouse Belgian ale that quenches the thirst and buzzes the head.  I have had Saisons from Silly, domestic ones such as Darkstar, and I have even had a crack at doing one myself.  In short: I like Saisons.

It’s a pretty bottle, and Ben tells me that I have to drink it quickly, someone from the future told him so.  I should be going out, but I have ordered food, sounds like an opportunity to sneak this chap in to me.

Indian Summer Saison (7.0%) comes packaged in a 330mL stubby bottle, covered in writing from the future.  It opens with a quiet hiss and pours light copper with a short lived loose white head that fades to a ring of bubbles around the edge of the glass.  This beer is bottle conditioned.

One thing I noticed immediately when I opened this is that there was a fresh burst of hop aromas.  This can only be a good thing, I’ve had similar from Mikkeller beer and in general this is a mark of great hop use.

The aromas are quite intense, but make no mistake this is a saison.  We have some sweet malt, but the aroma is dominated by a mix of bready yeast and lightly floral peppery noble hops.  There’s something else in there that’s hard to pin down but I have noticed it in Saisons before.  A hint of acidic, cider-like character.  It’s certainly true to style so far.

Taking a taste, the mouthfeel is medium, with a gently tingling carbonic bite.  The flavour is led by a light malt base, I can imagine they have stayed true to style and gone with a pilsner malt.  There’s a creamy, bready flavour imparted by the yeast punctuated by that cidery tang.  The hops aren’t immediately evident but start to appear as the rest of the flavours fade, leaving you with peppery spice that gives way to a lingering bitter finish.

Dangerously, there is absolutely no betrayal in the beer that it is 7% ABV.  I’ve seen this before in Saisons and it is a dangerous characteristic!  This beer is ideal to quench the thirst on a hot summer day, I can imagine sinking a few of these after slugging it out on the allotment for a few hours.

Overall, this is a very pleasant beer.  The aromas are superb, the flavour is good.  I wonder if having left it a few days it has lost something, as it is the beer is very nice indeed, but with a little something more in the flavour it would have been exceptional.

Clearly, I need to go to Japan and find out for myself.

Rating: 4/5 (tell you what, I’ll go to the future and revise this later.  Actually, hold on, surely if I say that, I will have already gone to the future and amended the rating before you read this?)

When I saw this bottle in the Dram Shop, I found myself grabbing it on autopilot.  It marries two of my favourite things: Russian Imperial Stout and Thornbridge Brewery.  I have had the Saint Petersburg, and while it’s not my favourite take on the style, its certainly quite good.  This beer is brewed to a Courage recipe from the 1850s, so more true to the style than you’d see in one on the shelves today.  I had planned on stashing this for a while, but circumstances have made it so that it has appeared in my glass right now.  Oh, well, if it’s good I’ll buy another one.

My bottle says brewed in April 2011 and bottled in December 2011.  I’ve not seen them on the market until this month, I wonder where they have hidden them This bottle helpfully tells me some of the ingredients, which I like.  We have malts: Maris Otter, Amber, Black Patent and Hops: Apollo, Hallertau Hersbrucker.  The malts certainly sound characteristic of the time; brown and amber malts were used a lot, and Black Patent was invented in the 1800s.  I can imagine from the hops, Hallertauer have been around a very long time, but Apollo is new (~2000).  I guess if its just used for bittering, who cares

Anyway, that’s plenty of waffle, let’s crack it open.

Russian Imperial Stout (9.4%) comes packaged in a 330mL bottle that appears to be hand-labelled with the Thornbridge Hall paper label.  The beer is bottle conditioned with a thin layer of sediment at the bottom of the bottle.  It opens with a loud hiss and pours very dark brown with a firm, dense moussy tan head which sticks to the sides of the glass as it slowly subsides.

The aromas are not as intense as I’d expect.  There are notes of coffee and dark chocolate, faint hints of bitumen.  That said, this is an old authentic recipe, tailored to the Russian Imperial courts of the time, not to a beer geek like me who expects things along the lines of Bearded Lady, Vitesse Noir and Temptation!

Taking a sip, the mouthfeel is full and slick, with a light carbonic edge.  The flavour – wow!  I can see where all the effort in this recipe has gone.  Right away, you get thick treacle, bonfire toffee, muscovado sugar.  This gives way to the traditional Imperial Stout mix of luxurious melted dark chocolate and rich, dark soupy espresso.  As these flavours subside, you get a lingering coffee aftertaste, layered with hints of different flavours: old wine, sherry, and unmistakable alcohol warmth.  Long after the drink is swallowed you are left with a coffee flavour coating your mouth and tongue, like you’ve swilled an espresso.

This is a fantastic beer; I can see what all the fuss is about.  I would go as far as to say it’s a great reference for the style, you can explain the history and idea behind it.  Other beers are great interpretations of this style, I love and hoard many of them, but for someone wanting to know what an Imperial Stout should taste like, well, this is a cracking beer and I will be stocking up.

Rating: 5/5 (and now to go get some more, dammit!)

I’m pretty much a fan of Marble beer.  From the mysterious ginger-laced crack they sell in the Knott Bar in Manchester to clever, delicious one-off creations. Marble Beers seem to consistently knock out tasty brews and for that I tip my hat to them.

The one I am drinking here, is the Marble Bitter which came as part of the MyBreweryTap 52-Week Beer Club.  I’ve had it before in my local, but never from a bottle, and so for that reason alone it’s life on my beer shelf was always going to be limited.

Manchester Bitter (4.2%) comes packaged in a 500mL bottle and is bottle conditioned.  It opens with a loud hiss and pours golden amber with a fluffy white head.  It shows signs of heavy carbonation with lots of bubbles rising to replenish the head as it sits there.  One thing I did notice about this beer when I first had it in the pub, it’s lighter than you’d expect a bitter to be.  Not that that matters, there are all kinds of beers that refuse to play by those particular rules.

Aromas are biscuity malts, some spicy hop notes and maybe a hint of fruit, grapes, blackcurrant maybe?  Hard to tell.  Nice anyway…

Taking a sip, the mouthfeel is medium-light with a gentle carbonic edge.  The initial taste is of biscuity, grainy malts, which give way to some lovely tropical fruit flavours coming from the hops.  It’s very refreshing, like a hop sorbet the hops linger through to the finish, which becomes more bitter, though there are still fruits in there, orange zest, grapefruit.

Overall this is a lovely, refreshing beer.  It’s certainly not a typical brown bitter chock full of fuggles, goldings and crystal malt but sometimes I can enjoy one of those too

I could certainly sink a few of these, but I only have the one.  That said, I do head for it when I see it on tap, I’m glad that it has translated to bottle format without losing it’s character.

Rating: 4/5 (not much to say other than its nice, go get one)

The penultimate beer in my five month journey that is the Bristol Beer Factory Twelve Stouts of Christmas is the Laphroaig Cask-aged version of their Imperial Stout.

This beer has been aged in an oak cask for six months and as such takes on some of the properties of the donor barrel. In this case, it rested in a Laphroaig 10-year whisky barrel, and so has taken on some of the famous characteristics that particular spirit, a single malt from Islay, is famous for: peat, smoke, the sea air.

Imperial Stout (Laphroaig Barrel) (9.5%) opens with a quirt hiss and pours brown/black with a small densely-packed tan head. This slowly dissipates to a ring of tan bubbles and a dusting of tan on the surface of the beer.

Aromas are very full on and what can be expected from a beer of this heritage: peaty smoke, woody, salty. Somewhere miles away in the background are hints of the original Imperial Stout; black chocolate and coffee.

Taking a taste, the body is medium light with no carbonation evident. Flavour wise, it’s massively complex. The Imperial Stout is back, you can pick out some of the flavours remembered from that drink; the dry coffee grounds, the expensive black chocolate. However, this is a cask-aged version and as such has a new character melded to it, imbued from it’s six months spent in the barrel.

The peat and smoke build as you work your way down the glass, they take over front stage from the coffee and chocolate of the stout, but the original beer stays there. What I like about this is that the flavours aren’t overpowering – I am a fan of the BrewDog Paradox series of beers, but their Smokehead is an example of how I don’t like that kind of beer. This is done differently; the flavours play off against each other, no one single flavour cancels out the rest.

The finish is long and powerful. The coffee is there, but it’s married to the peat, and it works really well. One thing’s for certain, the hops have gone on holiday, there’s no point in them coming out to play here!

I wouldn’t be able to drink more than one of these in a sitting. Maybe even a year. But as a one-off, it’s interesting, tasty, and very good indeed.

Rating: 5/5 (powerful like an Imperial Stout should be!)

This beer came from the MyBreweryTap 52-Week Beer Club and has been sat on my shelf for a while.  I’m on a stout tip today, so out it came.

Wensleydale Black Dub is named after a deep pool to the rear of Middleham castle.  It is brewed from four malts.  Interestingly the label looks hand cut (with a guillotine), and the bottle has the round impressions on the cap you see when the bottle is capped by hand.  I don’t know much about this brewery, but this looks hand made

Black Dub (4.4%) opens with a hiss and pours black with a medium tan head.  The head slowly fades, leaving a dense lacing around the edge of the glass.

Aromas are big: treacle toffee and milk chocolate with hints of coffee at the end.

Taking a taste, there’s a slick oily mouthfeel with a medium carbonic bite.  Flavours are of burnt coffee, tobacco, with hints of milky sweetness.  This gives way to a roasted, malty flavour with a bitterness fighting through it.

The finish is long, consisting of burnt, dry coffee and tobacco.

This is an interesting drink.  It’s satisfying, and another good stout – it must be a good night for it!

Rating: 4/5 (a very nice stout, now to find more of their beer too).