The BeerCast

Only two more posts to come in our best new beers of the year feature – and for our penultimate gong we pay a visit to Macclesfield, and another producer who had a breakout year in 2011. Toby McKenzie’s RedWillow Brewery has set the blogs abuzz recently with some cracking beers – and a faithful rendition of a British classic is the next in our best new UK beers of 2011…

Fathomless (5.2%)
RedWillow Brewery, Macclesfield, Cheshire
(cask, released October 2011)

We’ve not seen much of Toby’s beer in Scotland to this point, but drinkers across the North of England are becoming familiar with the characteristic egg-shaped pump clips of RedWillow. His refreshingly honest, PR-free blog is well worth reading, as it charts the highs and lows of being a small, start-up brewery. It was in Leeds that I first tried his beer, in the excellent Mr Foley’s (named after an old-time local property baron) – on the bar that day was RedWillow’s oyster stout – Fathomless.

This particular style has been around for a long time – and dates back to when oysters and stout were a popular pairing (before anyone used the term in the ‘craft beer’ sense). There are a few on the market today – although many (such as those produced by Marstons and Adnam’s) contain not a single bivalve. This is probably down to cost, ease of brewing, and the perception of oysters that many people have. For Fathomless, however, Toby and a couple of mates spent an entire day shucking the little guys – ending up with 250 for the boil.

Oysters have such a delicate flavour, that boiling them into a beer can potentially leach the flavours away – but the joy of Fathomless is that you can clearly pick them out. Jet black, with dark, oaty, malty aromas (Toby had to hand-roast the oats in his kitchen oven) – there was also a slight briney tinge to the nose. The rich stout flavour was followed by a thick, ozoney edge to the finish – a fantastic aftertaste. A perfect fireside beer, Fathomless was a wonderful reward for Toby’s hard work.

Join us tomorrow for our final choice – who will make the list? If your pick doesn’t – stay tuned as we’ll also be posting the ‘nearly beers’. RedWillow’s strong IPA Wreckless recently won gold at the 2011 SIBA North awards – and speaking as one of the judges, I’d say it was well-deserved…

Yesterday we brought you one of the breakout brewers of 2011 – Kelso’s Tempest Brewing. For the next of our best new beers of the year, we move on to the breakout brewer of 2010 (and possibly 2011 as well) – London’s finest; the Kernel Brewery. Evin O’Riordain and his team are capturing the attention of not just bloggers, but people who’s opinions actually matter.* They released some stunning beers this year, one of which had to make our list…

Kernel IPA 100 Centennial (10.1%)
The Kernel Brewery, London
(bottle, released June 2011)

Attempting to limit the Kernel’s contribution to our best new beers feature was pretty tricky. They’ve put out some crackers over the last twelve months – IPA Double Black, Pale Ale Riwaka, IPA Borefts Rye, IPA Super Alpha Pacific Jade. In fact, there’s your top five new Kernel beers of the year, right there (when put with our choice – IPA 100 Centennial). In the interests of fairness, we’re limiting everyone to a single entry in our feature (look out for the beers that nearly made it, after our sixth and final winner).

This particular IPA has a nice story behind it – being an inventive chap, Evin decided to celebrate his 100th brew by producing a 10.0% Centennial-packed IPA. In the end, he missed the abv by 0.1% (in typical Kernel style, by going over – not under). We wrote about it in August – conveniently for our 300th post. As a brewery, they are astonishingly prolific – some would say maddeningly so. Hardly ever producing the same beer twice, it keeps the tickers on their toes – but it makes it harder to latch on to everything that comes out from the Bermondsey arches.

This brewing potency is down to a few reasons – most obviously a lack of brewspace on their current kit, and the sheer creative talent that obviously abounds there. Whatever they put in their coffee, I could do with (it’s probably hops). The 100 Centennial smelled like sweet orange syrup, laced with plenty of booze. Powerful alcohol flavours, finished off an almost jam-like hop marmalade taste – with the Centennial fighting back with a touch of dryness. A tremendous sipper – it was a suitably amazing celebration, and deservedly one of the best new beers of the year.

Join us tomorrow for our next choice – we have only two left, and it’s off to the North-West of England for selection number five. In 2011, the Kernel also celebrated winning SIBA Champion Bottled Beer of Britain (Export Stout London 1890), and then Brewery of the Year by the British Guild of Beer Writers. What will 2012 bring for Evin and the team – Olympic glory?

* To paraphrase the Simpsons

The halfway point of our best new British beers feature sees us in June, at the Scottish Real Ale Festival in Edinburgh. Last year, the SRAF introduced us to the wonderful Fyne Ales Jarl – hopes were high for a similar Eureka moment in 2011. As it happened, the very first beer to pass our lips on the trade session was just that – from a small brewery in the Scottish Borders…

RyePA (5.5%)
Tempest Brewing Co, Kelso, Scottish Borders
(cask, released June 2011)

The last twelve months have been quite something for the Tempest Brewery. Having been founded in the middle of 2010 by Gavin Meiklejohn, the brewing arm of Kelso’s Cobbles Inn has become a hive of activity. Customers at the Cobbles had been asking Gavin about the lack of local beer for years, before he decided to take the plunge and provide for his drinkers directly. Having been homebrewing for a while, following a spell at the Whistler Brewing Company in Canada, Gavin set about creating a few interesting ales for his punters, produced in the remains of a nearby dairy.

Fast forward eighteen months or so, and Tempest have now produced 16 beers (including such notables as a smoked vanilla porter and a similar dark beer spiced with chipotle chilli). From supplying the local Inn, you can now find their beers as far away as London – and in cask, keg and bottle. Showing no sign of slowing down, Gavin’s latest release is another porter – the bottled Red Eye Flight Mocha Porter – which is sitting in my cupboard ready to go. However, way back in June, it was a beer lighter in colour that really stood out.

30% of the grist bill for RyePA was malted rye, and to let it really influence the beer, the majority hop addition was done as dry-hopping rather than in the kettle. The result was a fabulous toffee, caramel and toasted bread aroma, with some orange edges from the hops. The balance of RyePA was perfect – the nutty, grainy element of the adjunct mixed with the floral, fruity hop. If this came from the USA blogs like ours would be raving about it – and with good reason – it’s a fabulous beer.

Join us tomorrow as we continue our series of best new British beers of 2011 – we move to the UK’s capital for another brewer who made waves this year [answers on a postcard]. RyePA was the first beer to be bottled by Gavin and his team, so keep an eye out at your local bottle shop…

Yesterday we announced the first of our pick of the best British beers launched in 2011 – Sharp’s Monsieur Rock (5.2%). Today we bring you our second (these are roughly in order of release). A beer we tasted at FyneFest in early June – but not from Argyll’s champion brewer – it was merely a guest at Fyne Ales’ festival…

Evenlode (6.2%)
Thornbridge, Bakewell, Derbyshire
(cask, released April 2011)

It’s a BeerCast double for Derbyshire’s Thornbridge brewery, as they also featured in our best new beer awards in 2010. The peerless imperial stout St Petersburg (which had been launched in the bottle that summer) was an obvious highlight of last year. Thornbridge Evenlode is a 6.2% brown porter, and it stole the show at this summer’s FyneFest. Even more impressively, it was a debut brew from a new member of the Thornbridge team.

Back in March, Thornbridge Hall had just been successfully renovated. Amongst other improvements, their small-scale brew kit was again ready for action. Used alongside the main Riverside facility as a development brewery for beers such as the Alchemy series, it was inside the hall that ex-intern Giada Simioni formulated her first solo beer. Having joined British brewer of the year Stefano Cossi in late 2010, Giada’s first beer became Evenlode.

Looking every inch the classic porter (the photo above is my ‘half’ at FyneFest), it had a big roasty malt aroma, with a touch of almost spicy hop in evidence. Quite toasty on the palate, this beer was one of the smoothest I had all year. A milk chocolate mocha, slightly nutty and smoky at the end – and as with the Monsieur Rock, incredibly drinkable for 6.2%. So easy to go overboard with this one – if St Petersburg hadn’t been there on cask I’d have stayed on Evenlode all night – it was that good.

Join us tomorrow for the third in our series of best new British beers of 2011, as we head back to our Scottish homeland. Since producing Evenlode, both Giada and Stefano have left Thornbridge – but the Derbyshire juggernaut shows no sign of slowing down…

If 2010 saw the release of some wonderful beers on both sides of the Atlantic, this year has been even more memorable. As the range of imported beer increases, British breweries have been defying the recession and the taxman, to produce some fantastic new beers. Over the next six days we’ll be highlighting our pick of British beers launched in 2011, in order of their release. We begin all the way back in January – the epic snows were still cloaking Scotland, but down in Cornwall the product of a partnership was breaking the thaw…

Monsieur Rock (5.2%)
Sharp’s Brewery, Rock, Cornwall
(500ml bottle, released January 2011)

Back in 2010, Sharp’s wonderfully experimental head brewer Stuart Howe departed these shores for a continental brewtrip of a lifetime. The man that brought the world Jellyfish Red and Offal Beer (amongst many, many other things) spent a significant amount of time with one of the grand old dukes of European brewing – Orval brewmaster Jean-Marie Rock. Their collaboration – produced in Cornwall when Jean-Marie came over to the UK – was Monsieur Rock.

A Saaz showcase, Monsieur Rock was lagered for six weeks amidst sackfuls of Czech hops. It was then run past the tasting panel at the Abbaye Notre-Dame d’Orval, not to mention their state of the art laboratory. Having passed with flying colours – and more importantly having been personally approved by the original Monsieur Rock – the beer that bore his name was released to the British drinking public.

Almost immediately, response on the blogs was overwhelmingly positive – and with good reason. Soft, grassy citrus aromas, before a creamy, lemon flavour with a lovely herbal edge from the Saaz. As we said in our review, it was hard to pin down into any particular category – it felt like a Belgian golden ale, but looked like a lager. The balance was beautiful – giving that softness that made it so drinkable. A fantastic beer, and a great way to start the year.

Join us tomorrow for our second best new British beer of 2011. Shortly after releasing Monsieur Rock, Sharp’s announced they had been taken over by Molson Coors UK – the implications of which have yet to fully pan out…