The BeerCast

Since our highly enjoyable Beer of the Year Show 2007 where Anchor’s Special Ale 2006 was crowned our first ever BOTY, we have tried and tested all manner of ales here on the BeerCast. Nine different panellists sampled their way through 73 different beers over the course of 2008, spread over 16 podcasts. As tradition now dictates, we ended up with a ‘final four’ – those that scored the highest marks last year – which we then pitted against each other to see who would take Anchor’s crown.

We had intended to record the podcast just before the turn of the new year, but unfortunately a procurement issue meant we had to delay until the end of January. After a few weeks we managed to find all four beers once again, and the BOTY show could take place. The worthy finallists were – Thwaites Double Century, Hop Back Summer Lightning, Theakston XB, and BrewDog Hardcore IPA. As scoring had been done in each individual BeerCast, for the final we re-sampled each one and gave our general thoughts, before going round the panel and simply picking a winner. For this BOTY edition, the panel consisted of Richard, Shovels, Grooben, and the Hopmeister Tom. First up, Thwaites Double Century…

1. Double Century (5.2%abv) 500ml glass bottle
Thwaites Brewery, Blackburn, Lancashire.
BeerCast #12 scored 26/30 (87%) 23rd Feb 2008
Originally tasted by MrB 9; Stuart 9; Richard 8

Grooben – Very dry and bitter at the end
Richard – Great hoppy session beer with a hint of orange
Tom – Really nice but gives you ‘hangover tongue’
Shovels – I don’t get the wow factor but it’s decent stuff

2. Summer Lightning (5.0%abv) 500ml glass bottle
The Hop Back Brewery, Salisbury, Wiltshire.
BeerCast #19 scored 27/30 (90%) 4th Aug 2008
Originally tasted by Shovels 9; Grooben 9; Richard 9

Grooben – It’s a summer beer, maybe a bit incongruous for winter
Richard – Very hoppy and pleasant, but you can’t tell it’s 5%
Tom – I’ve tried this before independently and it’s really quaffable
Shovels – On tap it’s one of my favourites and I always look for it

3. Theakston XB (4.5%abv) 500ml glass bottle
Theakstons Brewery, Masham, North Yorkshire.
BeerCast#17 scored 25½/30 (85%) 19th Jun 2008
Originally tasted by Tom 9; Shovels 8½; Richard 8

Grooben – Nicer than I would have expected, but a bit sweet
Richard – Just one would be very nice, bit molassey and treacly
Tom – No nasty aftertaste, it’s a lovely session ale
Shovels – I really like it, the sweetness isn’t too much

4. BrewDog Hardcore IPA (9.0%abv) 660ml glass bottle
BrewDog, Fraserburgh, Scotland.
BeerCast#15 scored 33½/40 (84%) 27th Apr 2008
Originally tasted by MrB 9½; Richard 9; Grooben 8; Shovels 7

Grooben – It must be very difficult to make a beer as strong as this but as palatable
Richard – You’d have to savour this one almost like a trappist ale
Tom – This one really stands out because of it’s individuality
Shovels – It’s like an American IPA but tastes less hoppy

So the beers had been re-tried and thoughts given – but only one thought counted, the overall winner of the four. The final step of the Beer of the Year show was to go round the table and pick the one that stood out the most…

Grooben
“I’ve never had XB and darker sweeter beers aren’t for me, but I really liked it. The Hardcore IPA was a bit much for my personal tastes, and was above the other two, but overall the XB was the best.”

Tom
“Hardcore IPA was the only beer that was trying to do something different, and you aren’t going to forget your first taste. The others would eventually become forgotten I think. Hardcore IPA made me stand up and take notice so I vote for that.”

Shovels
“My favourite was Summer Lightning as of the four I’d drink a lot of it either in the pub or from bottles, it’s a really great session ale – light and refreshing.”

Richard
“My favourite had to be Summer Lightning, it’s the kind of beer you can really drink. Hardcore IPA is tremendous but you can maybe only savour it – you can get pleasure from Summer Lightning all throughout the year.”

So that was it. A depleted panel compared with last year maybe, but the responsibility of selecting our beer of the year was still just as great. In the end, our winner was Hop Back’s Summer Lightning, a superb golden ale in the classic English tradition. Congratulations to them, and thanks to all the panellists for their opinions over the course of last year.

• Listen to the episode here:BeerCast #27 – Beer of the Year 2007
• Subscribe to the podcasts in iTunes or our site feed

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

The 25th of January is Scotland’s unofficial second National Day – and is probably celebrated far more widely than St Andrew’s Day itself. On that date in 1759 Robert Burns was born in a small cottage in the South Ayrshire town of Alloway. He went from humble farmer’s son to become the national poet of Scotland, and today is renowned throughout the world, and on this day in particular. In fact, he’s nothing short of a cultural icon here, having penned Auld Lang Syne which is always the endpoint of Scotland’s other national holiday – Hogmanay.

As you’d expect, there are plenty of tie-ins and Burns-related goings on that magically appear during the last week in January. On the night of the 25th, Burns Suppers are held that feature haggis, escorted into the room to the sound of the bagpipes. Burns’s Address to a Haggis is read out by the host, and the supper begins. Whisky is consumed in large quantities at these evenings – but should the ale lover require something a bit more to their tastes, the good brewers of Belhaven in Dunbar have supplied just such an alternative.

According to their website, Robert Burns Scottish Ale (4.2%) is ‘poetry in a glass’, being “dark, sweet and almost toffee-like, and a real taste of Scotland”. Unlike a fair proportion of ‘Scottish ales’, thankfully this one falls into the drinkable part of the sweetness spectrum. It pours a lovely dark caramel colour with a seriously generous head – but there isn’t any sicklyness to the taste. It’s dark but without the molasses aftertaste that befuddle so many of it’s type. Burns was fond of ‘reaming swats’ (see Tam o’ Shanter), and I think he would approve of this one.

Belhaven Robert Burns Ale

As we wrote previously on the BeerCast, to purchase alcohol in Sweden above 3.5%abv you have to seek out a state-run Systembolaget (hint – follow the nearest stampede). But our intrepid lager expert doesn’t need complex brews, so we dispatched him to a randomly selected Stockholm supermarket to stock up. He returned with a sixpack of Norrlands Guld (3.5%) and a hopeful expression. Meaning “the gold of Norrland” the beer’s title relates to the nine northernmost provinces of Sweden, which as we all know are Gästrikland, Medelpad, Ångermanland, Hälsingland, Jämtland, Härjedalen, Västerbotten, Norrbotten and Lappland.

First developed in 1965 by Sollefteå Bryggeri, since 1989 it has instead been produced by the Spendrups concern who have taken over several of Sweden’s smaller-scale brewers over the years. According to Wikipedia (and I’ll let you guess which fact in the previous paragraph was also copied from one of their pages) Norrlands Guld is advertised with a hearty Northern Swede called Ingemar – a ‘laid back man who lives a simple life with his buddies’. What this says about Northerners is a matter of opinion, but apparently the idea is they are relaxed and free from pretension. Does this translate into the product?

The Spendrups website describes Norrlands Guld as ‘a light-coloured beer of the Dortmunder family, full-bodied with a hint of sweetness’. BeerCaster Andy of Andy and Jess described Norrlands Guld as ‘it tastes like Skol’. I think that says it all really. Sadly it’s bland, gassy, overly sweet and very thin. Ingemar and his buddies might like the simple life – but the beer they like is simply awful.

Sweden’s not all about Skol and drinking vodka in ice bars, there can be something for the real ale drinker there – but you certainly have to search for it. If you find yourself in Stockholm (and most visitors to Sweden will at some point), then Akkurat deserves to be right at the top of the must-visit list – aside from the fascinating Vasamuseet, of course. But all that nautical history can be thirsty work, so a rejuvenating pit-stop in a real ale pub is the perfect answer.

Initially quite hard to find being set back from the road under a concrete office-type building, when you edge closer the sight of dark brown wood through the windows draws you in. The first impression at the bar is bottles – the whisky section alone is astonishing, there must be over a hundred malts on offer. But of course it was the beer we were after, and the comprehensive menu made great reading. However, like museums, reading is also thirsty work and the sight of the word ‘BITTER’ on a hand pump was all the encouragement it took – Bedarö Bitter (4.5%) from the Nynäshamns Brewery was a great introduction to Swedish Öl.

Akkurat seem to specialise in three main groups – Swedish beer (understandably), strong ales from around the world, and Belgian beers. We’re all huge trappist fans on the BeerCast, but the local brews are always the way to go. Having said that, a quick glance at some of the global notables revealed such tempters as Stone’s Arrogant Bastard, Staropramen Dark lager, Anchor’s Special Ale from 2004, and De Leyerth’s wallopingly strong Urthel Samaranth barleywine (11.5%). Plus the only Scottish beer on offer, Belhaven’s Twisted Thistle IPA (see BeerCast #15).

Over a highly enjoyable couple of hours, we worked our way through some of the Swedish beers Akkurat had on their books that day – as the dark hoppy Bedarö Bitter went down very quickly. Jämtlands produce an apparently fabled trio of ales named Heaven, Hell, and Fallen Angel – and as the second of these was on cask it was an early choice. Dark and robust but only 5.1% (‘only’ in comparison with most of the menu) it was extremely good. We also sampled Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri’s Indianviken Pale Ale (6.2%) and another from Jämtlands, Pilgrim Ale (4.5%). The latter was unfortunately a bit on the dreaded caramelly side, but the Pale Ale was wonderful.

Akkurat is a great find – a real ale bar in a city where alcohol is astonishingly expensive – but this is seemingly it’s only downside. The nice bottle of Indianviken Pale Ale (500ml) set me back almost £8 – we saw menu entries for +10% Trappist ales at over £20 (for 330ml), which is simply staggering. But, in a city where even a large glass of Carlsberg will be over a fiver I would personally not object to forking out a few more Kroner for a lot more quality.

Akkurat

Happy New Year from the BeerCast! We’re all back in our home alehouses of choice following the trip to Scandinavia last week. Sweden is certainly an interesting place to go and find some decent beer – and it can be done. The government-owned chainSystembolaget is the only place you can buy alcohol over 3.5%abv (other than bars and restaurants, of course). As a result, every time we went into one of them it looked as if an announcement had gone out that prohibition was returning, or something. Thirsty lot, the Swedes.

While there we managed to collect four real ales brewed in the country, so look out for a forthcoming Swedish BeerCast special, recorded live in Stockholm. To see the other side of the coin, we let Lagerboy go and do his thing on one of the mass-produced 3.5% Nordic brews available in any supermarket, away from the arms of government licensing. Finally, we discovered a real gem of a real ale pub in Södermalm – coming up we’ll have a worthy addition to our “In praise of…” Hall of Fame. All in all, a pretty successful trip…