The BeerCast

Well, the dust seems to have settled slightly around the blogosphere following the latest announcement from Fraserburgh’s BrewDog a few days ago. I’ve been reading as many articles on the forthcoming Sink the Bismarck (41%) as I can, and have been digesting the various opinions on the Aberdeenshire twosome re-taking the strongest beer in the world title. Seeing as we’re a Scottish-based beer website, it would be remiss of us not to add to the collective murmuring. We’re big fans of BrewDog here - mostly - and have written about them on many an occasion. In fact, they have been tagged more on the BeerCast than any other brewery, which is no doubt a reflection on their forward-thinking marketing and ideas.

But have they gone too far with their latest stunt? Stunt is definately the word, James Watt has admitted they wanted to get back at the German Schorschbrau for out-trumping the 32% Tactical Nuclear Penguin with a 40% ‘Schorschbock’. You can read our thoughts on TNPenguin here, and it clearly divided opinion. Personally I liked the dark, rough smokiness but at the time wasn’t sure of the target market - which obviously holds for Sink the Bismarck. I think BrewDog are in danger of flying too close to the sun here - a Teutonic tit for tat is harmless enough (the director of Schorschbrau has said he thinks the whole thing is hilarious), provided of course it doesn’t interfere with their other beers.

BrewDog do some outstanding beers - they just seem to be pushed into the periphery by the charging press releases about TNP and now Bismarck, together with the ongoing feud with the Portman Group and the frankly embarrassing self-complaint over Tokyo*. Stick to what you do best boys, please. Atlantic IPA, Punk IPA, Trashy Blonde are all outstanding. These should be the core beers they shout about. When the mischievous glint appears in their collective eye, you end up with things like Nanny State (1.1%), or the objectionable How to Disappear Completely (3,000 IBU’s). Their collaborations with Stone have produced some interesting results - Bashah went down really well. Hopefully there’ll be more in the offing from that partnership.

The key to all this is publicity. BrewDog’s share option is due to close at 11pm tomorrow (the 19th), and at first it was really struggling. Headlines in the majority of British papers and practically every beer website (including this one, now - fashionably late as ever) can only help their cause in tempting investors. In a post on the Beer Advocate forum, James wrote that they had dispensed with any PR representation in December - so clearly they feel they’ve got the hang of this publicity thing. I wouldn’t bet against them, that’s for sure. They managed to reach their minimum target for subscribers, and hopefully will do well from the flotation. Plus they piss off the Daily Mail, which is never a bad thing.

So we’ll have to see how Sink the Bismarck does - I’d love to give it a go, but it’s £10 more expensive per bottle than even TNPenguin, so maybe a special occasion might tempt me to get the BeerCast wallet out. The name is a bit tasteless, they could have gone with any of several ways to poke fun at the Germans - but by all accounts the beer is a massive hop hit. Which I imagine it would be if they quadruple-hopped it. For me, the recent news that they are relaunching Hardcore IPA is something more enticing - their (paltry by comparison) 9% staple was re-thought after some consideration, which is great as it was pretty good beforehand. Humility and 41%abv in the same paragraph? Can only be BrewDog…

…oh, and the rivalry with Germany is set to continue - Schorschbrau MD Georg Tscheuschner has said they have a response in mind…“We’ll just brew another, stronger one,” he said. “Forty-five percent shouldn’t be a problem and we have beer enthusiasts waiting for it.” Who’s going to be first to 50%?

Sink the Bismarck Press Release

There’s really no escaping Fraserburgh’s BrewDog at the moment. The unorthodox twosome from the Aberdeenshire coastline must account for more column inches than all other Scottish brewers combined. Of course, we’re no different – we’ve featured and reviewed several of their beers over the last couple of years. With our recent 2009 Beer of the Year Show being recorded, I decided to spring a surprise on the other panellists by slipping in a fifth beer at the end of the recording session – BrewDog’s (and now arguably British brewing’s) most infamous beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin, at 32.0%abv currently the world’s strongest beer.

As one can imagine, the mainstream media are in uproar. Even the beer media got involved, with CAMRA’s head scribe Roger Protz falling foul of the internet army who rushed to defend James and Martin for their imagination/irresponsibility (delete as applicable). To create Tactical Nuclear Penguin, two separate phases of barrel ageing were followed by flash freezing the beer in a local ice-cream factory. ‘Eisbocks’ might not be a new style – but it’s certainly an effective way to ramp up the alcohol. The frozen water is discarded, and the concentrated solids refrozen to repeat the process. Apparently as the proteins and hops are retained it is still a beer – they would be removed during distillation if you were after a spirit.

So eventually it turns into a tar-black 32% monster. We sampled it as was intended, from shot glasses as a de facto spirit. Without doubt it got everyone’s attention – and unsurprisingly opinions were mixed. The spirit drinkers tolerated (or even liked) it, the non-spirit drinkers found it hard to get past the massive upfront smoky tastes. You can ask the question who would buy this beer – at £30 for a 330ml bottle it’s totally out of reach of the average beer drinker. But then BrewDog’s mission statement is not to cater for them. ‘Experienced’ beer drinkers might also balk at the £5 a shot pricetag, but would possibly try one out of curiosity. I’m not sure many would go back – it’s that kind of thing that you’d try once just to say that you had. In the end we were reduced to taking photos of each other’s screwed up faces while drinking it. But maybe that says more about us than the novelty status of Tactical Nuclear Penguin.

Richard
“It’s got that massive peaty smokiness about it, and the ‘legs’ run down the glass like a whisky. In context (with a Burns Supper?) it would be very good; otherwise this one is definitely a sipping beer.”

Paul
“This is a winter beer because it’s warming – it burns when it goes down the oesophagus. You feel like you should be drinking it as a beer but really it should be sipped over a couple of years.”

Jess
“I can’t stand the smell but the taste is OK. I have to hold my face when I swallow it though.”

Grooben
“It’s like chewing logs from the fire, I really don’t want to finish it but it’s so expensive I’m going to – you could buy a bottle of single malt for that price.”

MrB
“Oh my goodness, it doesn’t smell like beer, and it’s six pounds a sip! I don’t drink spirits so I’m quite scared. It’s so smoky, it’s like peat in a glass.”

Andy
“As a man who often drinks a sherry or port I can appreciate this. It’s closest to whisky but is more palatable – I like the smokiness and peatiness. I can imagine Russians drinking this.”

Paula
“It’s pretty disgusting, it’s like a very malty peaty beer but with a shot of Laphroaig in it.”

BrewDog Official Website

After the Caledonian, Loanhead’s Stewart Brewery are probably the closest producer to BeerCast headquarters in Edinburgh. Throughout the real ale pubs in the city, their beers such as Edinburgh Gold and Copper Cascade are found fairly regularly. Within the last few weeks they have launched a new range of bottle-conditioned beers, so we had to snap a few up to sample. Historically, Stewart have concentrated on cask ales, so their lineup of three new beers (plus Edinburgh Gold) in hand-filled bottles is a welcome change of direction.

Embra (5.0%)
Stewart’s first amber ale pours a hazy, opaque dark orange colour - all of their bottle-conditioned range state that they are ‘naturally cloudy’. It smells hoppy with a slight mustiness from the yeast, but none of the promised fruit aromas. It’s very bitter, the hops really coming out on the palate - Embra has almost a pale ale tang to it. It is quite drinkable at 5% though.

Hollyrood (5.0%)
Hollyrood smells almost exactly like Edinburgh Gold, the grapefruit citrus flavours are really apparent from the off. Comparisons with their other beer continue on the palate, although Holyrood is slightly more bitter in the finish. This one’s pretty hazy too, although a lighter golden colour than the Embra. It’s pretty refreshing though, with the biscuity aftertaste.

St. Giles (5.0%)
Stewart’s newest dark beer is named after the historical kirk that stands on the Royal Mile, and is classed as a ’smooth, malty contemporary taste of Edinburgh’. It’s got a wonderful aroma to it, roasted malt and a slight smokeyness that comes through like a porter. Highly carbonated, it fizzes away in the glass as the head vanishes. Tasting very similar to a porter, it’s the pick of the bunch and has a great strength of flavour.

Scotland has given many things to the world relating to drink – single malt whisky, Shetland gin, Irn-Bru, Rabb C Nesbitt – but also the distinctive Scottish Ale, and the Shilling scale of classification. Growing our beer knowledge in Scotland, from young students knocking back subsidised £1.20 pints of McEwans 70/- in Uni bars, we’ve become highly familiar with the classic range of beers and their increasing heftiness. Originally relating to prices charged per barrel – 60, 70, 80 and 90 shilling beers are characteristically Scottish (as are their alternate names – Light, Heavy, Export and Wee Heavy).

Trouble is, they are often also characteristically awful. They tend to have very similar flavours – dominated by general malty sweetness and overpowering caramel tastes. Our first ever BeerCast podcast was a discussion on 80/- ales and their tendency to be syrupy and cloying, yet weak and strangely unsatisfying. Personally, I take a wide berth from local market-leader Caledonian 80/- these days (although that could be down to many rough Sunday mornings during my campus days). But as a brewing style (or series of styles) they should be cherished, if only for historical reasons – much like the controversial British Mild.

Like milds, many breweries have turned their backs on Shilling ales – although the natural patriotism of Scottish brewers has meant many of them still produce at least an 80/- in their range. Some are even turning back the clock and re-discovering the humble Export. One such brewer are Alloa’s Williams Bros, who made their names reviving lost styles of Scottish beer, so are a natural choice to tempt “modern” ale drinkers (if we can call ourselves that) to take a punt on an 80/-. Launched in time to co-incide with the 2009 Sainsbury’s Beer Competition is Williams 80/- (4.2%). [It ended up making the final shortlist].

I’ve always thought the best thing about an 80/- is the smell – sweet, malty and a bit like toffee ice cream (at least this is what I get from the William Bros’ version). These are beers that need to be served only slightly cool – or chilled and then left to get back to room temperature before drinking. It pours carbonated, but with no head, just a thin lacing of bubbles and with a dark ruby, almost blackcurrant colour. As expected, the twin tastes that come at you are malt and sweetness, plus a touch of fruit – although we’re not into the fruitcakes of darker ales. It’s sweet though, and it gets sweeter as it warms – which is the problem I used to have with shilling ales, I think. There’s a slight taste of something akin to dandelion and burdock, which might just be me – anyway, it’s a nice beer, very drinkable, which for a style I’m not keen on probably means it’s much better than I give it credit for.

Williams Bros website

The concept of seasonality is now one of the hallmarks of modern cooking, pushed to the general public by the ranks of TV chefs and foodie magazines. Everything has a ‘time of year’, whether it’s the British asparagus, salty samphire, or humble mackerel (as one BeerCaster asked for in a fancy Edinburgh fishmonger’s, only to be embarrassed in front of a queue of shoppers when told there were none in the sea at that time of year). But can this approach be transferred to beer? Hops are seasonal, certainly, but after the harvest they can be dried and used at any time. It’s down to the styles and types of beer that can be varied depending on what the calendar says.

Now that Autumn is on us, it’s time to change the attitude and go for something different. The long summer (or in our case, short summer) is over, so the time for light hoppy pale ales is over. No need for urgent, tingling refreshment on a hot day now the clocks have gone back (or forward, as I put mine by mistake). Autumn brings crunchy leaves, darker nights, cool windy afternoons – and should be celebrated by the glorious British bitter. There can’t be another brewing nation on earth that can put out a finer nutty, foaming brown ale than us Brits – and now’s the time to partake.

So until the winter arrives and we all move on to warming stouts and porters, and then Christmas beers with alcohol and spice (before celebrating the return of Spring with zesty golden ales), take time out for a fruity, toffee-ish best bitter. Let the rich mouthfeel and malt characteristics reward you after that long Autumnal walk, or spot of Christmas Shopping (it’s never to early – and most breweries have online stores). Here are five choice Scottish beers for the season - Bitters, Ruby Ales, ESB’s, Amber Ales – all styles are well suited to this time of year. As we head towards November – have a seasonal beer on us.

1. Maverick (4.2%abv)
Fyne Ales, Cairndow, Argyll.
Classic fruity mahogany ale from BeerCast favourites Fyne Ales.

2. Red Kite (4.2%abv)
Black Isle Brewery, Munlochy, Black Isle.
Technically an amber ale, organically brewed north of Inverness.

3. Red Squirrel (3.9%abv)
Arran Brewery, Brodick, Isle of Arran.
Nutty, malty beer that donates to Red Squirrel charities on Arran.

4. St Magnus Ale (4.5%abv)
Highland Brewing Company, Swannay, Orkney.
Another nutty one, but with more roast than the Red Squirrel.

5. Red MacGregor (4.0%abv)
Sinclair Orkney Brewery, Quoyloo, Orkney.
Fruity ruby ale, current silver medal Champion Beer of Scotland.

(looking slightly further afield, five English beers that would go down very well on an Autumn evening are Bath Ales Barnstormer, York’s Yorkshire Terrier, Bristol Beer Factory No.7, Fuller’s ESB, and Daleside Old Leg Over).