The BeerCast

Following the announcement that Highland Orkney Blast was awarded the 2010 Champion Beer of Scotland, it was time to pay a visit to the festival as a punter and sample some of the new and unusual beers on offer this year. Nobody attends the SRAF to drink Deuchars IPA, after all. As ever, the larger ballroom was opened up to escape the warm atmosphere of the main hall – providing a rather ornate backdrop to the business of drinking beer. I got there to find the rest of the guys drinking the aforementioned CBoS from Orkney – the third time in four years Rob Hill’s brewery has won the title – and with three different beers.

Obviously, I’d had a sample of Orkney Blast already that day – check back later for my thoughts on judging the Champion Beer – so I set off to find something I’d never seen before. First to fit the bill was Fyne Ales Jarl (4.0%), which was so new it wasn’t in the official programme. We’re tremendous fans of Argyll’s finest at the BeerCast, having visited them a couple of times – and their Cairndow brewery recently hosted their own beer festival, at which they launched their latest beer – Jarl. It features a relatively new high alpha hop – Citra. First presented at the 2008 World Brewing Congress, the Sierra Nevada-backed hop gives a fabulous tropical fruit flavour to Jarl. It’s extremely sessionable, golden and with a lovely bitter grapefruity aftertaste to compliment the pineapple up front.

Next I went for a hometown tipple, and Caledonian’s Surf Sup (4.0%). Deuchars IPA may be ubiquitous, but their seasonals can sometimes slip between the cracks. Surf Sup is their ale for June, and is also citric and sessionable. At exactly the same abv as Jarl it was ripe for comparison. The hops give less of a ripe fruit taste, it’s more lemon zesty than mango. It’s also pretty good, but the addition of the Citra hops elevates Jarl over Surf Sup on points. My third beer was Linger (5.0%) from the newly-reborn Fowlers who brew out of the Prestongrange Gothenburg in Prestonpans. It certainly does linger – very hazy with a ginger aftertaste, it was pretty empty after the ginger hit. It may need a touch more refining.

The next round was the traditional ‘buy something for the BeerCaster to the left’ round – which results in an even mix of nutty bitters and 9% barleywines. For MrB I selected Broughton’s Champion Double Ale (5.0%) – the only blend on offer at the festival (strong ale mixed with porter), it was a bit rough around the edges, but drinkable. It was Shovels buying for me, and I ended up with a Traditional Scottish Ales Bannockburn (4.2%). Described as a pale, golden beer with a ‘thick, tight head’ it was almost totally flat and pretty insipid. TSA had brought eleven beers to the SRAF, but this one wasn’t one to savour.

Seeking a high note, I then went onto Raj IPA (5.5%), from the Tryst Brewery in Larbert. It scored very highly in BeerCast #49 (from the bottle), on cask at the festival it was just as good. A classic strong IPA with corresponding piney resinous hop flavours, it was really outstanding. It was interesting to see how the flavour differed between a chilled bottle and a warmer cask pint – either way it’s currently one of the best British IPA’s out there.

The final beer I sampled was a dark one – Islay Dun Hogs Head Ale (4.4%). The Islay brewery were founded on the whisky-loving island of the same name in 2003, and have seven ales in their range. They are pretty tough to find over here on the eastern side of Scotland, so I was keen to try at least one. The Dun Hogs is a dark, roasty stout with a really nice bitter finish complimented by some initial sweetness. It’s always good to end on a dark note, and Dun Hogs Head was a great way to end the festival.

Thanks to all at CAMRA for hosting the festival, we’ll be back next year to sample more local treats. Whilst the overall winner of the 2010 SRAF was Highland Orkney Blast (with Black Isle Hibernator second and Cairngorm’s Black Gold third), the beers that really stood out for me were Tryst Raj IPA and Fyne Ales Jarl. Thanks to everybody for checking the BeerCast during the festival, we’ll see you again for another beer festival in the near future.

The Scottish Real Ale Festival began at midday today here in Edinburgh – doors opening slightly earlier than normal in anticipation of the crowds predicted. We’ll be attending over the course of the festival – stay tuned for our updates and follow us @thebeercast for live updates. However, we were also asked to attend the first event of the festival – judging for the Champion Beer of Scotland. So it was I found myself in a quiet side room at 1pm sampling the nine winners in the style categories for this year’s CBoS.

After two hours of deliberations, and a couple of re-samples, the panel selected the winner. Highland Brewery Orkney Blast (6.0%) came top of the order – in the opinion of the panel it balanced the stronger %abv with a long-lasting hop finish and a malt backbone. Congratulations to Rob Hill and the team at Highland – with Dark Munro (4.0%) having won in 2007 and Scapa Special (4.2%) in 2008 – three times in four years, and with different beers – a great achievement. With Sinclair’s Raven Ale winning last year – the Champion Beer of Scotland for the last four years has come from Orkney. Something in the water?

Thanks to Bob, Lyndsay and Iain at CAMRA – and stay tuned for more updates as the week progresses.

The World Cup is in full swing at the moment, building to a crescendo of footballing entertainment in mid-July. The official beer of the 2010 FIFA World Cup is Budweiser (if only Dogfish Head or Stone had a bigger marketing budget). For those lucky enough to have travelled to South Africa to watch their beloved Paraguay or South Korea, there are other options if they get thirsty (just don’t try to sneak into the stadium with another brand). For example, you could do far worse than get your hands on the 2009 Champion beer of South Africa – Robson’s West Coast Ale (5.0%). Hailing from the Shongweni Brewery near Durban, their Robson’s brand contains four interesting sounding beers – the flagship being their East Coast Ale, a 4.5% golden ale.

Durban – and the small town of Shongweni from where the brewery take their name – are situated on the east coast of the country, so their West Coast Ale refers in fact to the United States, as it’s a California-style lager. It pours with a thin lasting head with some nice lacing, and has some substantial rising carbonation. The colour of the beer is just lovely – dark caramel with a touch of red, and plenty of haze from the bottle conditioning. The aroma is very malty, and so is the taste – dry, with little caramel or sweetness, the crystal malt wins out. It is very toasty, as a California common should be (if that was their intention), but not that woody – it’s a bit like a dunkel maybe. Straddling styles, it’s extremely drinkable and really rather good.

Shongweni Brewery

A couple of weeks ago we had a small BeerCast night out at Hanam’s, one of the very few authentic Kurdish restaurants in Scotland. Having been a couple of times before, I knew it has no licence and is BYOB. However, beer is to be found on the drinks menu – it’s just that all of them are alcohol free, of course. Marketing these kinds of beers can prove to be pretty difficult (aside from highlighting the conscientious angle for designated drivers) – historically low and non-alcohol beers have been either bland, plain nasty, or both. On the menu however were a few I’d never heard of – including the enticing Dark Cheers, with no other description other than it was “Sem Álcool”.

Brewed by Unicer Bebidas in Santarém, Portugal, Dark Cheers (or Cheers Preta in the Portuguese) was the first alcohol-free black beer on the market in that country, having been launched ten years ago. It comes in at ‘not more’ than 0.5%abv, so might not strictly be alcohol-free – but it’s rare enough to see a dark one amidst the Kaliber (which incidentally is 0.05%), and other lager brands that put out a reduced strength namesake (such as Cobra, Bavaria, Becks etc). Whilst I’d not be too bothered to ever sample any of those, the prospect of a dark one intrigued me enough to give it a go.

It’s certainly dark, there’s no denying that. The head retains for an impressive amount of time, as the carbonation levels are quite high. There’s almost no aroma whatsoever from the beer – maybe a slight malty sweetness, but without any real hop levels and no alcohol (aside from the 0.5%), it pretty much just sits there, looking like a cola/porter half and half. Tastewise it’s an improvement, but as you’d expect with so little to back it up, the flavour struggles to make an impression. It’s very sweet, a bit vegetal, and reminds me of a watered-down session porter. It probably lies towards the top-end of the alcohol-free beer spectrum, but that’s not really saying much.

We’re now less than two weeks away from the 2010 Scottish Real Ale Festival at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. As ever, it’s time for a sneak peak at the entry list to get the tastebuds going. Being our hometown festival we feel a responsibility to turn up and report on what’s available – our reviews of the 2009 festival (here and here), the 2008 festival and the 2007 festival show what kind of treats can be found if you search hard enough. Or get there early enough, as inevitably the best ales make the most fleeting of visits. As ever, plenty of Scottish classics will be in abundance, with the likes of Cairngorm’s Trade Winds (4.3%), Harviestoun’s Bitter & Twisted (3.8%), and Sinclair Orkney’s Dark Island (4.8%) on show. They will be competing with the “new classics” – more recently established beers that are just as outstanding – Williams Brothers Joker IPA (5.0%), Fyne Ales Avalanche (4.5%), and Stewart’s Edinburgh Gold (4.8).

This year, breweries from the islands are strongly in evidence – which we’re all in favour of here at the BeerCast. The festival judges seem to agree with us, as the last three Champion beers of Scotland have all hailed from Orkney – 2007′s Dark Munro (4.0%), 2008′s Scapa Special (4.2%) – both from the Highland Brewery – and last year’s winner, Sinclair Orkney Raven Ale (3.8%). They all return, and are joined by breweries making the long trips from the islands of Arran, Lewis (the Hebridean Brewery), Islay, Skye, and Shetland (Valhalla), together with Munlochy’s Black Isle Brewery (not technically an island, but close enough). There are some great beers coming with them – such as Arran’s 4.5% porter Clyde Puffer, Skye’s Skyelight (3.8%), and Hebridean’s Berserker barleywine (7.5%). The newcomers for me are the Islay brewery – even though they were established in 2003, I’ve yet to try any of their beers.

This is what beer festivals are all about – trying new things – and there are individual ales and entire producers that have yet to appear on our collective radar. For example, Glasgow’s newest brewpub WEST are bringing two of their German-themed specials, WEST Dunkel and Munich Red, both 4.9%. Thirty miles down the M77 – and still in their first year of production – the Ayr Brewing Company put out some imaginatively-named beers such as Towzie Tyke (4.6%) and Leezie Lundie (3.8%). Scotland’s small micros are clearly well represented, as also at the festival will be Plockton, providing one of their three beers, the 4.3% Crags Ale, and the fledgling Angus Ales who were only established in October. Based in Carnoustie, as one would expect their offerings have a golf theme – Gowfer’s Gold (3.8%), Mashie Niblick (4.2%) and Driver Dark (4.4%) will all be there.

Some other new (or rare) beers on offer this year include Williams Brothers recently launched Ginger (3.6%), Caledonian’s summer seasonal Surf Sup (4.0%), and three beers from the newly re-opened Prestoungrange Gothenburg. Their resident microbrewery Fowler’s are bringing Prestonpans 80/- (4.2%), Linger (5.0%), and Gothenburg Porter (4.4%) – which last time I tried it at ‘the Goth’ was outstanding – hopefully the MarkII version is just as good. Speaking of darker things, also new is Tryst Brewery’s Sherpa Porter (4.1%) – we recently sampled their excellent Raj IPA (5.5%) on BeerCast #49. Steve and Jo Stewart are also bringing one of their latest beers Light Edinburgh Draught (3.5%), released in May for CAMRA’s Mild in May campaign. Unusually for the style, it’s a light-coloured mild rather than a dark one, and is highly drinkable. In all, there are 32 Scottish breweries attending the 2010 SRAF – proof that the scene here is flourishing.

The festival is at Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms on George Street, and opens Thursday 24th June (12pm-11pm), Friday 25th (12pm-11pm), and Saturday 26th (12pm-9pm). Entry is £5, or £3 for CAMRA members. If you see us there, come and say hello. If you can’t make it along, look for our review after the fact – along with live Twitter updates on the beers we’re sampling. Follow us @thebeercast.

Scottish Real Ale Festival Official Site