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.

Once again we welcome two intrepid new beer explorers into the belly of the BeerCast. This time talented minstrels Kat Flint and Nick Hirst join us alongside Andy and Jess at the Belsize Park headquarters to quaff some beers purchased from that finest of British establishments, Marks & Spencers.

Andy was positioned a bit far from the mic and is a bit quiet at times (perhaps for the better!). We also run long on this one at an hour due to a couple of interesting diversions into beers for women and Tesco which were perhaps more interesting than the beer themselves. Still, hope you enjoy it. Andy

1. Buckinghamshire Ale (4.6%)
Vale Brewery, Brill, Buckinghamshire.
500ml glass bottle

What They Say – “Copper-red beer with a yeasty, bready nose and raisin fruit and spicy hops. Tart fruit, biscuity malt and bitter hop resins fill the mouth. The finish is dry and bitter with rich, juicy malt, burnt fruit and peppery hops” [www.beer-pages.com]

What We Say…
Nick – Nice, fresh, but not much to it, bit like a chemistry experiment 6
Kat - Smells a bit like coriander, like putting a penny on your tongue 5
Jess - I get that tart fruit on the tongue thing, i wouldn’t reach for it 5
Andy - Quite fresh, tastes a bit like Carex 5

2. Cornish IPA (5%)
St. Austell Brewery, Cornwall.
500ml glass bottle

What They Say – “A rich golden colour, and totally clear. It has a citrus bouquet with hint of malt and hop. These characteristics are replicated in the first taste to the palate, finishing with a modicum of marmalade bitterness. Perfection.” [realalenet.co.uk]

What We Say…
Nick – A delicious and well mannered beer 7.5
Kat - I could drink a few of those and be pretty happy 7
Jess – it’s nice, similar to Buckinghamshire in a way 7
Andy - More flavour than Buckinghamshire, some fruits in there 6

3. Yorkshire Bitter (4.6%)
Cropton Brewery, Pickering, North Yorkshire.
500ml glass bottle

What They Say - “A big sulphury nose with strong undertones of floral and spicy hops and tart fruit. Tangy fruit dominates the palate with sappy malt and spicy hops. Hop bitterness and tart fruit dominate the finish with light malt notes; it becomes increasingly dry” [www.beer-pages.com]

What We Say…
Nick – Bracing, Hair-chested, a working man’s pub beer 6.5
Kat - Bready, a pie & chips beer 6
Jess - Not as nice as the Cornish IPA 6
Andy - Darker, more bitter, bit too much for me 5.5

4. Organic Ale (6%)
Broughton Ales, Biggar, Scotland.
500ml glass bottle

What They Say – “On the nose there’s a sweet and orangy aroma, with plenty of caramel malt notes, herby, nettle aromas and a little earthy whiff of silage. On the palate it has a fine, chewy, creamy texture and plenty of malty character. The hops are there, adding a bitter twist to the finish, and that earthy, quite rich quality extends through the finish” [www.beer-pages.com]

What We Say…
Kat - Smells like beer trampled into mud, in a nice way 7
Nick - Honeyish, meady, a bitter finish 7
Andy – Zingy, Electricy, metallicy 6
Jess - Quite powerful upfront, could’nt drink much of it 5.5

Panellists – (from top left) Andy & Jess, Kat Flint, Nick Hirst

BeerCast panel verdict

Cornish IPA (27½/40)
Organic Ale (25½/40)
Yorkshire Bitter (24/40)
Buckinghamshire Ale (21/40)

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with BeerCast #36- a Blighty Vs Yankee IPA battle from the Edinburgh team. Keep the emails and comments coming in. Cheers!

There are few countries on Earth that do the ‘lots of earnest men in a musty hall’ type days out better than the Brits. Like it or not (and CAMRA probably don’t), beer has that reputation – or rather, ‘real ale’ has that reputation. The hip, funky, savvy kids of today drink Becks or Budweiser. But then they’re prententious pillocks, aren’t they? As Shovels put it, there was an impressive selection of wild haircuts and straggly beards at the Scottish Beer Festival, held at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. We had a duty to attend, being the BeerCast’s home city, so rustled up the full complement of panellists (minus Hopmesiter who was playing with iguanas in Ecuador), and went along, with our own wild haircuts aplenty.

Paying our £4 and picking up a logo’d pint glass, we eagerly went up the red-carpeted stairs to the main hall of the Assembly Rooms. Inside, it was amazing. Hundreds of people, dozens of kegs, and two huge bars. So in the name of research we carted our increasingly dirty pint glasses around trying as many of the (rumoured) 120 beers as possible. As an IPA fan, I started off with Fyne’s Piper’s Gold, which wasn’t as much floral as like drinking an entire flowerbed. Next up, I made the rookie mistake of ‘just picking something because of the name’, and got Sulwath’s Solway Mist. This turned out to be a wheat beer that tasted like lemonade mixed with antiseptic. Still, I learned an important lesson early on.

After that, things got far better. Broughton’s Clipper IPA, Houston’s Killelan, and Sulwath’s Criffel IPA are all corkingly good pale ales, and beers I’ll certainly be finding again. Scotland’s IPA’s really do rival some of the best from other countries – a point the BeerCast will probably return to, I would think. Anyway, there’s more to ale than the lighter stuff, so I finished off with a dark mystery, Strathaven’s Old Mortality. It was a sweet, spicy, malty beer that changed flavour with every mouthful. Or maybe that was just the dregs of all the other previous ones combining in the pint glass. Either way, even though (most of us) didn’t have the crazy facial hair, we found a lot to like at the Festival.

For Episode 2 of the BeerCast we opted to remain in Scotland and sample four more regional beers. When setting up the blog and podcast we always wanted to start with the adopted base, and quickly realised there are far too many great Scottish ales to shoehorn into a single edition. So for the second half of our debut two-parter, our panel expanded to four and we concentrated on some more local delights. Always trying to put out a good mix, we sample beers from north and south, light to dark, ancient to modern – and all in brown glass bottles with interesting labels; because for the totally dedicated beer drinker, what’s on the outside counts too…

1. Williams Gold (3.9%abv)
Williams Bros Ltd, Alloa.
500ml glass bottle

The Williams brothers – Bruce and Scott – started producing traditional recipe beers in the central Scottish town of Alloa in 1993. In 2004 they took over larger premises and formed a new line of distinctively labelled beers to run alongside the historic ales (more on those later). Traded under the brand ‘Williams Bros’, the four newer staples to their range are simply titled ‘Red’, ‘Black’, ‘Gold’, and ‘Joker’. Their 40 barrel brewery bottles these hoppy beers for retailers across central Scotland. Alloa itself is six miles east of Stirling, and due to it’s location on the Forth estuary was once a bustling centre for shipping and manufacture, which at one point supported nine breweries. Sadly, the majority of these have gone – but the Williams brothers still fly the flag.

What They Say – “A refreshing and full bodied sparkling golden ale, brewed using a blend of seven malts. Undertones of vanilla and fruit are offset by the citrus aroma of fresh hops, suggesting grapefruit and orange.” [Williams Bros]

What We Say…
MrB – Smells fantastic, and is damn tasty, I rate this very highly 9
Shovels – It tastes really good, and the bottles are well designed 8
Richard – This is very fruity, almost lemony 7
Alison – As a non-beer drinker, not for me but it goes down easily 6

2. Nimbus Strong Pale Ale (5.0%abv)
Atlas Brewery, Kinlochleven.
500ml glass bottle

Located in one of the most stunning parts of Scotland, the Atlas Brewery gives itself the tagline – ‘The small brewery with big ideas’. Founded in the small Highland town of Kinlochleven, Atlas took over the site of a 75 year old Aluminium smelter when production ceased. Another of the new Scottish breweries quickly establishing a reputation, Atlas have an enviable location at the eastern end of Loch Leven, a few miles from Fort William. The mountains of Glen Coe are also nearby, and give their name to another of Atlas’s popular beers, Three Sisters. Kinlochleven is a magnet for tourists, and is a well-used stopping point along the West Highland Way.

What They Say – “Nimbus Strong Pale Ale resembles the famous Kölsch beers of Cologne: pale in colour, soft in mouthfeel, but strong in alcoholic content. Our rendition has a rich, warming hop and a memorable malt character. A small addition of around 5% malted wheat to the grist gives this beer much of its body and softness. The aroma is of pronounced fresh-fruit hops, together with a sweet nuttiness. On the palate this beer has a verdant, almost vegetal, hop presence. Nimbus also exhibits lovely malt character of fresh bread and almonds.” [Atlas Brewery]

What We Say…
Alison – Bread and fruitiness, it could turn me into a beer drinker 9
MrB – It smells of sherry but is very nice 7
Shovels – Can taste the sherry too, it’s different to the first one 7
Richard – It’s malty and has a nice aroma to it, I really like it 7

3. Scottish Oatmeal Stout (4.2%abv)
Broughton Ales Ltd, Brougton, Tweeddale.
500ml glass bottle

A change of direction with our third beer – Broughton’s Oatmeal Stout. Situated between the Border towns of Peebles and Biggar, 25 miles south of Edinburgh, this rapidly growing brewery are also reasonably young. In 1980 the premises opened just outside Broughton, and now produce a healthy range of 11 bottled beers and 18 cask ales. Their ‘beers with character’ come in distinctive bottles with portraits on the labels, and are mostly named after historic characters. One of the few exceptions is the specific beer the panel are tasting today, which is so called because of the distinctive Scottish ingredient added during production. On the label is Robert Younger, master Edinburgh brewer and the great grandfather of the Broughton founder.

What They Say – “Oatmeal from the Scottish borders and the finest malt and roasted barley combine to make this a most refreshing and nourishing stout. Using Fuggles, First Gold and Challenger hops, oats are added to enhance the flavour of the black malt and roasted barley – giving a rich dark colour and strong complex flavours of coffee and dark chocolate.” [Broughton Brewery]

What We Say…
MrB – It tastes of coffee, and it grows on me the more I drink it 7
Richard – Can’t really taste the oats, but lots of things going on 6
Shovels – Lingers a long time, yet it’s quite light for a dark ale 6
Alison – Looks like Barr’s Cola with a coffee taste I’m not keen on 2

4. Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale (6.5%abv)
Heather Ales Ltd, Alloa
330ml glass bottle

Having come full circle, we’re back with the Williams brothers in Alloa. As explained before, they started out producing traditional beers to ancient Scottish recipes, like their award-winning Fraoch Heather Ale. Also in their stable of oldies is Grozet Gooseberry beer, Alba Pine Ale, Kelpie (with added seaweed), and Ebulum. Welsh druids arrived in Celtic Scotland in the 9th Century, and with them came elderberries, used as a natural remedy. The crafty beardies also added these berries to a strong ale, and it’s this Ebulum brew the panel finish on. The exact druidic recipe no longer survives, but the Williams brothers produce Ebulum from a domestic beer record of the 16th century, and give it a celtic-themed label to match.

What They Say – “Ebulum is made from roasted oats, barley and wheat boiled with herbs then fermented with ripe elderberries. A rich black ale with fruit aroma, silky soft texture, soft roasted flavour and gentle finish…” [Heather Ales]

What We Say…
MrB – Looks like red wine and tastes of beer 7
Richard – Deep red colour, not too bad tastewise 6
Shovels – Strong and soft in the mouth, a good after-dinner beer 6
Alison – Tastes of dark chocolate, it’s smooth and easy to drink 5

BeerCast panel verdict

Williams Gold – 30/40
Atlas Nimbus – 30/40
Ebulum Elderberry Strong Ale – 24/40
Broughton Oatmeal Stout – 21/40

Panellists – (from top left) MrB, Ali, Richard, Shovels

• Listen to the episode here: BeerCast #2 – Beer and Labels
• Subscribe to the podcasts in iTunes or our site feed

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with Episode 3 – four beers from the North of England. Stay tuned for details…!