Beer of the Week – Tempest Old Parochial
As the weekend is just about around the corner (or here right now if you have an understanding boss) it is time for the latest in my series of the fifty-two unsung heroes of Scottish brewing. These are the beers I feel are underlooked, both up here and in the wider UK, and deserve to be in your drinking cupboard for when that two-day holiday appears on the horizon.
This time around it is another beer from Tempest in the Borders – but very different from the Easy Livin’ Pils that featured in week five of this series, back at the start of February. For the back end of September this particular choice is more suited to the kind of weather we have been having lately – not exactly cold enough for stouts, but not warm enough for anything hop led. In short, it’s Scotch Ale season and to celebrate, you won’t regret selecting the best one in the country.
38. Old Parochial (10.0%)
Tempest Brewing, Tweedbank
Style: Scotch Ale
330ml bottle
Pick it up here:
At Tempest’s online shop (as individual 330ml bottles)
First brewed five years ago, this is a quasi-imperial Scotch with a bit of Wee Heavy thrown in and is deep, dark reddish brown with a first sip that hits you like a caber landing on your foot. It’s enormously boozy, sweet, oaky and has every fruit you can stew and eat warm that you can think of. Fermented out with two different yeast strains, the bourbon-barrel ageing and also the use of smoked malt give this beer as many flavours as you’d ever wish for in a beer. It’s a riot from start to finish and and absolute stone cold classic. It’s one of the best beers of any style to come out of Scotland, ever.
Beer of the Week Series:
1. Fyne Ales Highlander
2. Swannay Old Norway
3. Broughton Old Jock
4. Traquair House Ale
5. Tempest Easy Livin Pils
6. Cromarty Brewed Awakening
7. Fallen Chew Chew
8. Black Isle Hibernator
9. Isle of Skye Red
10. Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Engineer’s Reserve
11. Orkney Skull Splitter
12. Windswept Wolf
13. Kelburn Dark Moor
14. Alechemy 5ive Sisters
15. Loch Ness Light Ness
16. St Andrews Eighty Bob
17. Harviestoun The Ridge
18. Orkney Dark Island
19. Williams Bros Seven Giraffes
20. Cairngorm Black Gold
21. Strathaven Craigmill Mild
22. Black Isle Red Kite
23. Spey Valley Spey Stout
24. Top Out Schmankerl
25. Cross Borders Braw
26. Williams Bros Midnight Sun
27. BrewDog Kingpin
28. Fyne Ales Hurricane Jack
29. Deeside MacBeth
30. Drygate Ax Man Red Rye IPA
31. Swannay Orkney Session
32. Fallen Platform C
33. Black Isle Porter
34. Top Out Altbier
35. Black Metal Gates of Valhalla
36. Fierce Beer Cranachan Killer
37. Loch Lomond Southern Summit
