The BeerCast

Lagerboy hasn’t had a run-out for a while, but as the days are starting to lengthen and the rain that plunges from the grey Scottish clouds becomes a tad warmer – it’s time to stop chewing those noble hop pellets and get with the liquid. The first tempter to pass his cage hails from the Derbyshire peak district – Thornbridge’s Kill Your Darlings Vienna Lager. Not many UK brewers bother with this style – which is a pity, as they can be lovely. They also provide Lagerboy with something slightly darker, and therefore, variation.

A quick check on RateBeer reveals Thornbridge’s KYD sits at number 9 on the Vienna chart (there’s a New Romantic joke in there somewhere). Underlying their “We might make one, we might not” status, those ten beers hail from six different countries (I’ll let you guess how many are from Austria). Unusually, the UK has two, both produced by Thornbridge. Equinox sits in tenth place.

Anyway, that’s enough tick-bollocks. Kill Your Darlings puffs out of the bottle like a watery stew, with a sweet, slightly spicy nose. Honey as well – bready too, like inhaling a Turkish dessert trolley. If Lagerboy knew what an American Brown Ale was (too many words for him), he might think it had a similar taste – brown sugar, bready malt and some sweet caramel. However, the cutting finish brings it back into his ballpark. It shuts the door in your face – a fantastic crisp end to a really rather lovely beer.

If you can see though it, I’m not interested. File it in the same pigeonhole as lemonade, sparkling water, gin and tonic. Then upend the pigeonhole in the sink. As it swirls down the plughole, if you can still see the plughole, let it go. Dark beer is where it’s at. Go and throw plastic chairs around in a European square if you like lager. Drink it from your Sun-branded plastic bowler hat. I’ll take no part. Sit in a cave for three weeks if that’s your thing, let those ‘flavours’ come together. Do that, and think how many decent beers you could have drunk in that time.

Shorts Brew Black Cherry Porter could have been one of those things. But, sadly, it isn’t. A journey of discovery, with no abv on the label (turns out it comes in at 7%) and mention only of added ‘black cherry puree’. Fair enough. Dark needn’t mean bland, after all. Light beer has a handle on that. This one is very dark – black as night. Spumey head surges upwards, a brownish-burgundy colour – even knowing the added ingredient this comes as a surprise, and one I can’t work out whether I like or not.

Carbonation! Why? It thunders around the mouth, a sizzling cloud of chocolate and cherry, blackberry jam and sugar. Then the tart finish arrives. Not for this one the gentle, slow linger from roast to dry roast. There must be a fair whack of yeast in the bottle – it’s settled out at the base of the glass as a white slick, spiralled downwards out of the beer column. Similarly, this is where the beer falls down – the sharp tangy fruit, rich chocolate, and yeast flavours jar against each other, running three separate races into the aftertaste.

Lagerboy is away

As the days begin to finally lengthen, Lagerboy stirs from his sluggish hibernation – dreams of carbonation and CO2 prickle soon to give way to reality. Winter’s no fun for a fizzhound – it’s hard to laze by a roaring open fire with a Kölsch – so he tends to go to ground during the months with lots of letters in them. However, climate change being what it is, Lagerboy has emerged a tad early – and is keen to set about his latest conquest.

Cartoons and motor racing might immediately bring to mind the much-missed Wacky Races – but the playful label of (the lengthily-named) Laverstoke Park Farm Organic Real Lager (4.5%) reveals the gentleman behind this particular golden treat to be 1979 Formula 1 World Champion Jody Scheckter. Having retired from the life of fast cars (having raced in an age where retirement was a decidedly rare outcome), he started a farm in Hampshire.

Keen to be organic and biodynamic (which must be the new organic), Jody’s Laverstoke Farm also grows hops and barley – and being a thirsty South African, beer was very quickly on the agenda. Brewed at contract-kings Hepworth’s, the lager looks a beauty – brilliantly clear gold, with a thin collection of bubbled lacing clinging to the edges. The aroma is grassy and malty, with some caramel in evidence.

Unfortunately, the flavours are a slight let-down. It’s dry and grassy, leading into an earthy, slightly metallic finish. Not every lager needs to be a world-beater, of course (indeed, to some that statement would be an oxymoron). As such, there’s nothing wrong with Laverstoke Farm’s effort – it’s perfectly drinkable, organic, and has a fetching label. But at the end of the day, it’s no Ferrari.

Laverstoke Park Farm website

Lagerboy likes discovering new words – ideally on the side of a green bottle from which something fizzy has just been released. So imagine his textual joy when reading the back of the label from his latest conquest – St Austell Korev (4.8%) – he found another way to order everyone’s favourite beverage.

Ko•rev (cor-eff) n. traditional Cornish word meaning beer.

Can’t argue with that (although a quick Google reveals Korev is also a Yiddish word for relative, and a system of planets in the Star Wars Universe*). St Austell have been brewing since 1851, and this, apparently, is their first lager – or the first produced by current head Roger Ryman.

It pours a brilliantly clear golden colour, with lazy rising carbonation and an inch-high head – looking quite the teutonic pilsner. There’s a slight grassy herbal aroma, alongside a fair hint of grain (flaked maize having being added). It’s reasonably crisp on the palate, although the finish arrives pretty quickly.

It’s certainly a drinkers lager – the mix of hops (Perle, Hersbrucker and Saaz) just about make themselves known. The (locally grown) lager malt comes out on the taste, along with that typical creaminess you get from be-maized lagers. Carbonation is quite evident, although never over the top.

The Publican predicted late last year that 2011 could be the year of the craft lager. Whilst that fills Lagerboy’s head with wonderment, often those two words placed together just don’t deliver. Korev is well-made, and certainly more than a step in that direction.

*They are far, far away

Many thanks to Harriet Bremner at St Austell for the sample – we received other beers from the brewery at the same time, look out for other reviews in the near future…

It’s Lagerboy’s station in life to chug his way through waves of yellow fizz – indeed, that’s what he thrives on. But just because he restricts himself to the see-though end of the spectrum doesn’t mean he has to sacrifice quality. Lager – that glorious process that results in cleaner, crisper beer – need not involve corn or rice. Crafted, bespoke lagers are out there now more than ever, and when it comes to reviewing them – there’s only one person fit for the job.

So it was that we let the froth-forward hoodlum loose on a lager from the most prolific (and talked about) brewer in Europe – Denmark’s Mikkeller. Founded in 2006 by two homebrewers – Mikkel Borg Bjergsø and Kristian Klarup Keller, they have released such noteworthy beers as 1000IBU, Beer Geek Breakfast, and Big Worse Barley Wine. Mikkel now runs things on his own, and with no brewery to call home, flits from one mash tun to another all over the continent.

It must be wonderful – essentially he can do pretty much anything he likes, brewing with contacts and collaborating with the likes of Stone, Alesmith, BrewDog, De Molen, Amager, and Nøgne Ø. The majority of Mikkeller beers are produced at De Proefbrouwerij in Belgium – and boy does he keep them busy. Last year, Mikkeller released almost eighty beers. And yes, at least one of those was a lager.

Mikkeller Czechet Pilsner is the recreation of an older beer of Mikkel’s – Tjekket Pilsner, which was originally produced in 2009 for a restaurant in Copenhagen. The new version is very similar – a Bohemian-style pilsner loaded to the gills with Saaz hops. It pours a deep, clear golden colour, and has a subtle grassy, fruity nose. The taste is crisp, and finishes with that sweet hop spice characteristic of the Saaz. Slightly earthy, the dry finish really makes this one stand out from the crowd…

Mikkeller website