The BeerCast

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).

Grooben checking the beer list

Another day, another day at the beer festival. We returned to the Assembly Rooms for a second helping of the best of Scotland’s real ale, eager to see what else we could discover. The beers were pretty much the same as the day before, so we fired straight into the list sampling ones that had caught our eye from the Friday. The first beer I went for was the weakest in the entire festival - the traditional Scottish mild, Belhaven 60/- (2.9%). Brewed to a very old recipe, it was characteristically light and roasty. Milds always taste to me like watered-down porters, and this one was no exception. But as a delicate starter beer, it was a nice subtle start to the proceedings.

Next up it was the newest beer from Edinburgh’s other producer, Stewart’s Edinburgh Marathon Ale (4.2%). This family-run brewery from Loanhead make some great beers such as Pentland IPA and Edinburgh Gold, both of which were also at the festival - but Marathon was one I’d yet to sample. It was a very drinkable malty session bitter in the - dare I say it - ‘Northern style’. There was a touch of sweetness to it as well, which came through in the aftertaste. After that, I went for one I was looking forward to from the preview list - Plockton’s Starboard IPA (5.1%). One of Scotland’s smallest breweries, they are attached to the Plockton Inn in the Ross-shire village of the same name, and started up in 2007. Starboard is a strong hoppy IPA with a fantastic dry bitterness. It was pretty cloudy stuff, but that didn’t affect the taste at all - it was superb.

Beer four was one that was also highly rated - it had just been awarded the Champion Beer of Scotland for 2009, decided on the previous day. Sinclair Orkney’s Raven Ale (3.8%) won the top prize, becoming the third consecutive champion beer from that group of northern islands (following 2008’s Scapa Special and 2007’s Dark Munro, both from the Orkney Brewery). Their neighbours Sinclair Orkney did very well indeed this year, picking up second overall as well with Red MacGregor (third placed was Caledonian XPA). Raven had a sweet smell and taste, which was predominantly fruity with a growing biscuit aftertaste. It was nice, and certainly improved as you drank it, but for me there were better beers on show this year.

For example, Fyne Ales Vital Spark (4.4%) is a dark ruby ale with so much fruit in the malt it almost tastes of blackcurrants. The hops come and go, and the richness of flavour give it a great lasting finish. It’s fantastically drinkable, and a prime example of a session beer that isn’t pale and slightly hoppy. However, we learned at the festival about the sad death of Fyne Ale’s co-owner Jonny Delap. It was only a couple of months ago that we met him on a trip to Cairndow in Argyll to pick up some beers for a long weekend - he was such a friendly man and will be sadly missed.

The last beer I tried in the festival was Hillside/Deeside’s Broichan (5.2%). After thinking very highly of their Nechtan yesterday, the Broichan was just as interesting, although very different. A strong Scottish ale, this was fruity but not like Vital Spark - more pruney than blackcurrant. There was a smokiness to it as well - the tasting notes suggested it would be a “perfect beer for fireside drinking with cheese and oatcakes”. I don’t think you can argue with that, it was even pretty good when drunk around a rickety table on a Friday afternoon.

So that was it, another Scottish Real Ale Festival over. We managed to get through a huge amount of differing ales, with various degrees of success. The overall winners might have been Raven Ale, Red MacGregor and Caledonian XPA - but for us the standouts were Windie Goat’s Gutter Slab, Hillside/Deeside’s Nechtan, and Plockton’s Starboard IPA. We’ll hit the festivals again at August’s Great British Beer Festival in London. See you there…

Having little money in Gateshead in my early 20s meant regular sessions on the local McEwans Scotch. For those who have never had one - it tastes like Tyne sewage water filtered through Sunday morning tights. Fortunately, a change in my economic fortune (I can afford more than GBP 1.12 a pint) I have not had to revisit this taste - until now.

Innishail.

The word sends shivers from my tongue to my colon, which was quivering the morning after the night before I met this terrible lady.

This 3.6% disaster from the Fyne Ales brewery in Argyll brew commemorates the island where all the Dukes of Argyll are burried. I think the brewers merely collect the rainwater from around gravestones and cask it.

Where it tries to be hoppy it is merely homebrew-esque: the watery and thin feel to it makes you think of burns and the possibility of dead sheep higher up from where you sup, and its citrus element more like a cheap zest effect-spray for cleaning than the real lemony thing.

I tried to think of one positive as I sat in the Guildford Arms in Edinburgh with this brew. The only one was that these fine ale tenders had 7 other beers to choose from.

I’ll give the Achadunan micro-brewery’s other brews a try to see if this is just a one-off disaster, but for me, the Cairndow lot messed up badly here.

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.