The BeerCast

Every beer drinker knows the backstory to India Pale Ale, and as you’d expect, the UK has many different varieties – most breweries have one in their range. Although it was producers in the south-east of England that originally developed the style, up here in Scotland IPA’s are plentiful. So the 15th BeerCast podcast is a jaunt around four of these from our home patch. We begin very much at home, with Caldeonian’s Deuchars IPA – brewed in Edinburgh and drunk probably at least once a week by one member of the BeerCast or another. Then we move on to one from the islands, Colonsay IPA, produced from a small brewery in the Inner Hebrides. The third beer today is Belhaven’s Twisted Thistle IPA, from sunny Dunbar in East Lothian, and we finish the episode with a bang up north in Fraserburgh with BrewDog’s aptly-named Hardcore IPA.

1. Deuchar’s IPA (4.4%abv)
Caledonian Brewery, Edinburgh.
500ml glass bottle

Opened in 1869, the Caley is the only brewery left in the city of Edinburgh out of over 40 many years ago. Sadly it’s now no longer independent either, as at the start of the month (in between us recording this episode and it going out) they were taken over by Scottish & Newcastle. But they produce the most famous beer related to the city, which is now available on cask throughout much of the UK as a guest – presumably even more so now S&N’s distributary muscles will be flexing. Pronounced Joo-kerrs, we’re all incredibly familiar with it here – but that makes for an interesting beer to judge.

What They Say – “Deuchars IPA is a fabulous beer. A brilliant blend of malt and hop character and above all a drink with enormous drinkability.” [Roger Protz]

What We Say…
Richard – Worse than on cask, but still good and hoppy 7
Shovels – Nice, but there are better bottled IPA’s out there 6½
MrB – Deuchars is the stock beer I go for if there’s nothing nicer 6
Grooben – Your basic after-work-knock-a-few-back beer 6

2. Colonsay IPA (3.9%abv)
Colonsay Brewery, Isle of Colonsay.
568ml glass bottle (1 pint)

We’re all big fans of the Scottish islands here on the BeerCast (podcast 11 was our Northern Isles Special), and off the west coast you’ll find Colonsay. You might have to look hard, mind – it’s only 16sq miles of rock and beach between Mull and Islay. About 120 people call it home, and they are very lucky indeed to have a brewery in their midst. Founded in early 2007 their five barrel plant produces an 80/-, a lager, and an IPA – when the seas allow the ferries to collect their beers for distribution to markets on the mainland, that is. When the seas are too rough, the islanders get their own unique version of a lock-in.

What They Say – “What you get with this beer is a pale colour to reflect the malt type, but lots of hop and citrus and character to make this a pint to be savoured.” [Official Website]

What We Say…
MrB – Lots of flavours going on but they are very subtle 6½
Shovels – The light tastes grow on me when I have other IPA’s 6
Grooben – Very smooth and ever so slightly peaty aftertaste 6
Richard – You can taste this is from an island – light and airy 6

3. Twisted Thistle IPA (5.3%abv)
Belhaven Brewery, Dunbar.
500ml glass bottle

Thirty miles down the coast from Edinburgh is Belhaven – statistically Scotland’s sunniest place. Home to a brewery of the same name, which is most famous for Belhaven Best, another beer often seen around these parts, they also produce a rather undervalued IPA. I couldn’t find a single mention of it on their official website, but Twisted Thistle comes in a modestly-labelled bottle with few pretentions. Belhaven were founded in 1719, and were the oldest independent in Scotland, until they were bought out by Greene King in 2005 for £187m. We sampled their St Andrews Ale way back in BeerCast #1.

What They Say – “The blend of Cascade and Challenger hops combine to produce an abundance of fresh hop aroma that preludes a bitter-dry taste explosion.” [label tasting notes]

What We Say…
Richard – Got that characteristic zingy IPA hoppy taste 8
MrB – Bitter hoppy session ale with a bit of fizz, floats my boat 8
Grooben – This is right up my street, very nice 7½
Shovels – Classic IPA but makes me appreciate the subtler Colonsay 6

4. Hardcore IPA (9.0%abv)
BrewDog, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire.
330ml glass bottle

Many 25yr olds have drunk enough fizzy lager to wish they could do something about it. Few actually have – but two of those few are James Watt and Martin Dickie, old school friends from Aberdeenshire. They pooled their life savings and bought a ten barrel plant on the Kessock Industrial Estate in Fraserburgh to found BrewDog in April 2007. As you’d expect given their outlook, they produce a wide range of strong beers such as two kinds of imperial stout, one of which is aged in malt whisky casks. They entered some in the 2007 World Beer Awards, and amazingly won two awards – best strong pale ale (The Physics) and best imperial stout (Rip Tide). Today we sample their 9%abv imperial IPA.

What They Say – “Maris Otter grains to provide the robustly delicate toffee malt canvas, and hops to ensure your mouth is left feeling punished and puckering for more.” [Official Website]

What We Say…
MrB – Suck a duck, if you didn’t know it was 9% you’d end up drinking lots of this 9½
Richard – Alcohol/hops complement eachother, it’s tremendous 9
Grooben – Smells of cottage cheese but it certainly tastes good 8
Shovels – Tastes strong, label makes it look like an alcopop 7

BeerCast panel verdict

BrewDog Hardcore IPA – 33½/40
Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA – 29½/40
Deuchars IPA – 25½/40
Colonsay IPA – 24½/40

Panellists – (from top left) Grooben, MrB, Shovels, Richard

• Listen to the episode here: BeerCast #15 – Scottish IPA’s
• Subscribe to the podcasts in iTunes or our site feed

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode. Stay tuned for details…and please leave us comments on the blog or iTunes, or emails. Cheers!

Beer is being increasingly used as a foodstuff rather than a drink to be knocked back down the local corner pub. From ale in pies to fancy beer-flavoured crisps (such as ‘Cheese and Adnams Broadside‘ flavour Kettle Chips that appeared a couple of years ago). We’re no strangers to combining beer and food here on the BeerCast, with new member Elliot posting a video of a rather fine version of moules frites cooked in Hoegaarden on his website. Watch out, Keith Floyd. So in honour of the multiplying ways in which you can find excuses for getting beer into yourself, it’s another BeerCast regular feature – Eating with Beer. First up, soup!

The Yorkshire Provender are a small company based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, where they produce a range of seven soups in plastic tubs for the ever-increasing market (it’s good to see someone taking on the might of the Covent Garden lot). Varieties such as Tomato and Red Pepper with Wensleydale Cheese sound interesting – but this being a boozy website I had to sample their Onion soup with Hambleton Ale and Mustard. Established in 1991 in the Swale Valley, Hambleton’s produce a fine range of bitters with the distinctive white horse logo.

But in a soup? According to the label (which features Nick Stafford, Hambleton’s founder), this is Yorkshire Provender’s take on the ‘classic French Onion theme’, using Best Bitter as a base for the other ingredients. Well, after polishing off most of a tub – it’s very sweet, almost too sweet to finish, with a strange almost meaty lasagne-type smell, which must be the combination of onion, beer and mustard. There was a background taste alongside the onion, but I couldn’t tell if it was the beer, or the mustard, or something else. It’s an interesting idea, but I think I’d rather have another of their soup varieties followed by a few of Hambleton’s beers – afterwards.

Yorkshire Provender
Hambleton Brewery

The world’s biggest beer festival is running at the moment, up and down the UK (until the 14th of April). How they quantify that, I don’t know, but the good folks at JD Wetherspoon are having a celebration of real ale that even the BeerCast felt compelled to attend. I say ‘even the BeerCast’ because our local Wetherspoon’s isn’t really the kind of place you’d normally find us. You won’t find it in our pub guide to Edinburgh, for example (there are actually five here, if you count the two at the airport).

That’s not us being real ale snobs, either – perish the thought. It’s just the large, cavernous interiors and be-shirted groups of lads on WKD don’t really spell out a decent beer experience. But they do serve real ale – and are so vast you can usually get a seat. My Dad used to have meetings in his local Wetherspoons, far up the back on the raised no-smoking area (this was a few years ago). It used to be so empty, while waiting for his colleagues, he’d read one of the books on the shelves – placed there purely for atmosphere and effect – and leave a bookmark in for next time.

Anyway, we were up the other week at the Standing Order on George Street, enjoying some seriously good pints of my personal favourite local beer – Stewart’s Edinburgh Gold, at £1.90 a pint no less, when we saw the advert for the upcoming beer festival. Returning last week, they had a mightily impressive range of beers on offer that particular night, from a festival programme of 50:-

- Young’s Bitter (3.7%) Wells & Young’s, Bedford.
- Chocolate Drop (3.8%) Caledonian Brewery, Edinburgh.
- Sunbright Ale (3.8%) Marston’s Brewery, Staffordshire.
- Oakham JHB (3.8%) Oakham Brewery, Peterborough.
- Elgood’s Old Wagg (4.0%) Elgood’s Brewery, Wisbech.
- Sunchaser (4.0%) Everards Brewery, Leicestershire.
- Hook Norton 303AD (4.0%) Hook Norton Brewery, Oxfordshire.
- Eden Pure Ale (4.3%) Sharp’s Brewery, Cornwall.
- Hopping Hare (4.5%) Hall & Woodhouse, Dorset.
- Pedigree Six (6.0%) Marston’s Brewery, Staffordshire.
- Abbot Reserve Ale (6.5%) Greene King, Suffolk.

So much to choose from on a cold Wednesday night. We started off on Everard’s Sunchaser, which was a pale lagery-style beer with German hops giving it a really moreish taste. Next we went for Elgood’s Old Wagg, which didn’t go down quite as well, lingering a bit too long in the finish, and with an odd maltiness to it. Finally we ended up with the Marston’s Pedigree Six, apparently brewed exclusively for Wetherspoon’s. The stronger alcohol taste really mixed well with the hops, and a spicy fruitiness made it very good indeed.

So if you’ve got the need for a beer and find yourself in a random UK high street over the next four days, you could do far worse than sounding out your nearest JDW. Certainly they have their issues – the people immediately in front of me at the bar bought a round of Tennants and Aftershock chasers – but they should certainly be applauded for sponsoring a real ale festival of this magnitude.

JD Wetherspoon

Our fourteenth podcast features beers from London, and was recorded in December 2007. At the time our Christmas and Beer of the Year specials had to take priority, but now it’s time to delve into the archives, as the ales we sampled deserved recognition – for once on the BeerCast, all four seem to meet with our approval. Panellists Richard, Shovels and Grooben tackle Young’s Special London Ale (6.4%) – which is now no longer brewed in London – before moving on to Fuller’s London Porter (5.4%). The third item on the beery menu is Meantime’s award-winning Chocolate Stout (6.5%), before we finish on a fruity note with Fuller’s Jack Frost (4.5%). Not really one for early April – but in December, far more apt…

1. Young’s Special London Ale (6.4%abv)
Wells & Youngs, Bedford.
500ml glass bottle

The Ram Brewery in Wandsworth started commercial brewing in 1581 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and produced ale for the local hostelry called the Ram’s Inn. The brewery distributed by horse and cart to the local area until 1803 when the world’s first public railway opened from Wandsworth to Croydon enabling transport by rail. In 2004 Young’s (as they had become) announced a “review of brewing operations” and two years later on the 25th September 2006 closed their Wandsworth concern and moved outside the city to Bedford. Here they merged with Charles Wells’s Eagle brewery and renamed the operation Wells & Young’s Company. So sadly Young’s Special London Ale is no longer brewed in London – but it has been CAMRA’s Champion Bottled Beer of Britain three times (1999, 2004, 2005).

What They Say – “Special London Ale is an absolute classic, a winner of many awards. Why? Despite its strength it’s sublimely drinkable. The malty richness is countered by huge amounts of hops to create a perfectly balanced, wonderfully aromatic, dry, fruity flavour.” [Label tasting notes]

What We Say…
Shovels – I quite like it, this would creep up on you 7½
Richard – Dark and strong with the higher alcohol tastes 7
Grooben – Malty and nice, with a definite fruitiness 7

2. Fuller’s London Porter (5.4%abv)
Fuller’s Brewery, Chiswick, London.
500ml glass bottle

The Griffin Brewery has been sited in a leafy corner of Chiswick for over 350yrs. Popular with rowers and boating clubs, the Hounslow location by the Thames is on the site of a late-medieval cheese fair (from which the name Chiswick derives). Fullers – full name ‘Fuller Smith and Turner plc’ are one of London’s success stories, having won the coveted CAMRA Champion beer of Britain award five times in it’s 25 year history. Their flagship brand is London Pride, which is available pretty much everywhere in the south of England. They also produce a honey beer which we sampled in episode four (although the panel didn’t really take to it), and a London Porter, which we are trying in this episode.

What They Say – “Fuller’s London Porter is smooth, rich, and strong (5.4% a.b.v.), and is brewed from a blend of brown, crystal and chocolate malts for a creamy delivery balanced by traditional Fuggles hops.” [Official Website]

What We Say…
Richard – Dark and strong but really nice right from the off 8
Grooben – Classic burnt chocolate and coffee flavours 8
Shovels – Flavourful without being overpowering – a fine porter 7

3. Meantime Chocolate Stout (6.5%abv)
Meantime Brewery, Greenwich.
330ml glass bottle

Founded in 1999 by a group of friends in London, production at the Meantime brewery first started in April 2000. It was the only British brewery to win medals at the 2004 World Beer Cup (for it’s Viennese lager), and repeated the feat in 2006. They went considerably better in 2007, collecting five ‘world’s best’ at the World Beer Awards, then having four of their range included in the International Beer Challenge’s 50 best beers in the world. One of the heralded varieties is their Chocolate Stout, which was one of the five to win at the aforementioned World Beer Awards. Will our panel think it’s a world beater?

What They Say – “A silky-smooth suppertime beer, created using dark malts and chocolate. Pronounced vanilla notes fuse the chocolate and malts together to give a rich, warming, flavour that also works well as a complement to fruity desserts, summer puddings and autumn berries.” [Official Website]

What We Say…
Grooben – Not to be glugged at but I’m pleasantly surprised 8
Richard – Chocolatey bitterness in the aftertaste, it’s really nice 7
Shovels – Cold drinking chocolate, I preferred the Fuller’s 6½

4. Fuller’s Jack Frost (4.5%abv)
Fuller’s Brewery, Chiswick, London.
500ml glass bottle

Our final beer is another from the Griffin Brewery, London’s most successful independent producer. But moving past London Pride, ESB, or any of their regular beers (which are all pretty good – ESB in particular), the BeerCast tackle one of their seasonals – Jack Frost. An impressively dark reddish beer with added Blackberries (or Brambles, if you’re from north of the border). We’re unsure if this counts as a bona fide fruit beer, or is just a beer with fruit in. We’re not even sure if there’s a difference – but are we sure about Jack Frost?

What They Say – “Full flavoured, deep red in colour and exceptionally moreish, Jack Frost is the perfect accompaniment to many a cold winter’s day. Brewed with crystal malt and a dash of blackberries, Jack Frost delivers a fruity, robust yet refreshing flavour that lingers long on the palate.” [Label Tasting Notes]

What We Say…
Shovels – Clean, refreshing, all year round this would sell well 7
Grooben – Not really that blackberryish, doesn’t justify itself 6½
Richard – No warmth, nothing to draw you in 6

BeerCast panel verdict

Fuller’s London Porter – 23/30
Young’s Special London Ale – 21½/30
Meantime Chocolate Stout – 21½/30
Fuller’s Jack Frost – 19½/30

Panellists – (from bottom right) Grooben, Richard, Shovels

• Listen to the episode here: BeerCast #14 – London Beers
• Subscribe to the podcasts in iTunes or our site feed

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with episode 15 – a romp around the world of Scottish IPA’s. Stay tuned for details…and please leave us comments on the blog or iTunes, or emails. Cheers!