Here at the end of all things

The Bermondsey Beer Mile (BBM) means different things to different people. For serious beer geeks it was a precious little haven which some of them feel is now being ruined by what they refer to as 'hipsters' (in reality, if it is being ruined by anyone or anything (and I am not saying it is) it is its own popularity with more mainstream beer drinkers - far from the oft quoted definition of a 'hipster', in fact). 

For non-beer geeks, that is to say people who merely like beer rather than being obsessed by it, it is somewhere to go to try new beers and maybe visit the various foodie delights of the area. We could refer to this group as 'the Time Out crowd' although that might be a little unfair to some of them. but this group was certainly courted by those who looked to gain from promoting the BBM as "A Thing". 

The calm before the storm: 8.45am August 29th 2015

Following hot on the heels of the non-beer geeks was a third group of punters wanting to 'do the mile' as a kind of pub crawl, often in large groups (sometimes in costume for stag and hen parties), often seemingly drunk when they got there.  Breweries, beer styles even, didn't seem to mean anything to these people. It's not that they didn't know anything about the beers they were drinking: it's that they didn't care to learn.

And so the BBM quickly transitioned from a place where you could casually wander around and visit a few different breweries to try their beers in a relaxed environment into a destination for alcohol consumption, with 30 minute queues to buy a drink, venues so full they are forced to operate a one in/one out system, and 'bouncers' stood outside on crowd control duty trying to make sure the local residents don't get too upset with the breweries. 

When Kernel changed their opening hours - to close at 2pm instead of 4pm there were complaints about how this would make it more difficult for people to do the BBM. People said how annoying it was that Kernel were in the middle of the 'mile' so you shouldn’t really have to start there (because obviously you wanted to go from one end to the other) but you were being forced to if you wanted to fit everything in. This seemed to really bother some people (complaints are not hard to find - but there are some examples here). Personally I thought: good for Kernel, why shouldn't their staff be able to have a weekend too? I've seen complaints about the earlier closing time where it was cited as the reason that the BBM is so crowded and manic and if only Kernel would stay open until 5 or 6pm everything would be fine because then everyone could do 'the mile' exactly how they wanted to and nobody would need to rush anywhere.  

So of course when Kernel announced that they had decided to stop opening their tap room completely people got even more annoyed about it. Instead of being grateful that for a few years they had been able to drink fresh Kernel beers right where they were brewed, people immediately started complaining about how the tap room closing will affect their ability to complete a pub crawl. People had been moaning about the queues, the overcrowding, and the 'lack of ambiance' for ages. The customers weren't happy with what they were being offered by Kernel. And the brewery weren't happy with what they were able to offer their customers. It was a lose-lose situation. It makes logical sense to say enough is enough and call it a day.

But instead of people thinking, 'Let’s wait and see what Kernel are going offer us in the future', they criticise them for not expanding their business to 'meet the demand', i.e. the demand being people who want to drink at their tap room on a Saturday afternoon (even though they find the experience unsatisfactory and complain about it afterwards).

What I find especially unfair is the presumption that Kernel are doing something unsound from a business point of view. As if a brewery’s key measure of success is their brewery tap rather than the beers they brew. Some even fear the impact that the closure of the Kernel tap room could have on other breweries in the area and suggest it  "could spell the end of BBM".

At this point we don't even know what Kernel are planning to do next in terms of serving their beer directly to the public. So how can we know that it won’t be even better than what anyone else is offering from a brewery in Bermondsey right now? And it can only be better than what they were able to offer in their current circumstances. Personally I would love to see something along the lines of a Friends of Ham or Six Degrees North style establishment with lots of meat, cheese, and other foods that pair well with beer, where the vibe is closer to ‘eating food and tasting beer’ than ‘pub crawl’. 

If you look north to the Magic Rock Tap you can see the obvious advantages of having a dedicated taproom, which is situated in a facility specifically designed for that purpose. It's a brewery tap which is managed like a bar rather than just an afterthought which evolved as an extension of the brewery and was run by brewery staff. I've heard nothing but praise for it since it opened a couple of months ago. But this is the opposite scenario to what Kernel were dealing with. This makes me wonder how other breweries (especially outside of the UK) have handled being too popular or having a tap room which is 'too busy'?

The general response to the announcement that the Kernel tap room was closing is indicative of the current atmosphere of entitlement where beer drinkers, in the UK but most especially in London, are so spoiled for choice (of breweries, beer styles, pubs, bars, etc.,) that their first instinct is to complain. Even when offered an explanation that makes perfect logical sense... they still complain. There really is no pleasing some people.

The first Saturday after the taproom closed we dropped in to Kernel to buy a few bottles on our way to a tap takeover at The Bottle Shop. There was a prominently displayed notice which read: 'NO DRINKING ON THE ESTATE' and while we were paying for our bottles I spotted a board explaining why their bottle conditioned beers are best consumed from a glass not a bottle. So guess what we saw as soon as we walked out of the brewery? That's right, a woman swigging from an open bottle of Kernel beer a few feet from the entrance. For me this sums up the lack of respect that people wanting to 'do the mile' show for Kernel, their product and their ethos - treating the brewery as a destination for beer consumption even when explicitly asked not to drink that product on the estate. From their The Kernel website:

"The brewery springs from the need to have more good beer. Beer deserving of a certain attention. Beer that forces you to confront and consider what you are drinking."

I can't really blame them for closing their tap room when people behave like that. Can you?

[Post by Emma]

London Beer City: A Retrospective

For the second year running London went mad for beer in the second week of August (even more mad than usual, I mean), and again this year there were far more London Beer City events on than you could possibly manage to attend. This time round we sat down with the programme and ticked off everything we were remotely interested in... but obviously that was still way too many. We ruthlessly whittled the list down to one or two events per day and cleared any non-beer related things from our diaries. And, maybe, most important of all: we cleared the entire final weekend so that we could spend it at home with the curtains drawn.

1. Cask Tasting Event at We Brought Beer (Wednesday 5^th August)

Starting London Beer City a bit early we visited our local bottle shop, where there are usually four keg beers on tap for drinking at the shop or taking away in growlers of various sizes. In honour of LBC they had put on six casks from six different breweries to highlight the joy of cask ale and celebrate their first birthday (there would be even more casks on later in the week). On the night of the launch we got to take part in a (free) tasting event conducted by the brewing legend, Derek Prentice.

As experienced homebrewers (and scientists by training and/or profession) we are familiar with the four ingredients of beer and how they are used, and we've stood or sat through many a talk on how beer is made. That said, I found it a pleasure to listen to a more ‘technical’ edition of this speech. As well as brewing at a number of long standing breweries (e.g. Fullers and Trumans), Derek also teaches apprentice brewers who are studying for a brewing qualification. It was a pleasure and an honour to get to talk to him about beer and brewing.

The cask beers were obviously of secondary interest to meeting Derek, but during the organised tasting we sampled Burning Sky Arise, Cloudwater Session IPA, and Wimbledon Tower Special Pale Ale. They were all good beers which we were happy to drink but the outright winner was the Wimbledon Tower (from Derek’s new brewing venture). It had everything you could want in a cask pale ale: a well balanced hop bitterness and malt character, and a thirst-quenching dry finish making you crave another sip. But the most notable thing about it was its vibrant fruity nose, for me it was peaches, but other people got soft red fruits. And where did all of this outrageous fruit come from? Dry hopping with Target (used along with two other British hops for bittering and flavour). I enjoyed this refreshing use of  British hops - really nice to see in the current British brewing culture of 'Citra this' and 'Mosaic that'.

2. Opening Party at BrewDog Shepherd's Bush (Friday 7^th August)

If there was an influx of people who were there especially for the launch of LBC or whether it was just a typical Friday night in Shepherd’s Bush, I couldn’t really tell. Although when I was at the bar shortly before 6pm a group arrived who were there specifically to try Lizard Bride (a new BrewDog beer launching at 6pm that day), who were expressing mild embarrassment at themselves for having to wait for a beer to come on. But there was certainly a general air of good feeling when London Beer City organiser, Will Hawkes, jumped on the bar to introduce his week long programme of beer activity. Later on we won some prizes at beer bingo (although we were sad to miss the beer quiz at BDSB later in the week). It was a low key Friday night, but ideal preparation for the manic week ahead.

3. GBBF at Olympia (Tuesday 11^th August)

It’s always a pleasure to catch up with our friends from out of town but yet again I’m left wondering why we bother with this event. Too many of the British cask beers I tried were just not in great condition and I find this really sad. Every year I keep hoping that I'll try some British cask beers which do not disappoint me but every year it's the same. The German beers were the best things we tasted at GBBF. As always I get sucked into trying stuff from the US cask bar but this is generally a hit and miss affair.

One tap short of a takeover

4. Thornbridge Tap Takeover at Craft Beer Co (Tuesday 11^th August)

In hindsight I wish we had just gone here instead of GBBF as the cask (and keg) beers were in better condition. If I had visitors in town from the US this year (as I have had for previous GBBFs) I would have just brought them here instead and said, "here is some great British beer for you to try." Plenty of variety in style with all of the consistency of quality you can expect from Thornbridge. With so many beers on tap I got to tick off a couple of Thornbridge beers which have been evading me for a while (Cocoa Wonderland and Bear State).

5. Mid-week opening at Brew By Numbers (Wednesday 12^th August)

Kernel, Partizan and Brew By Numbers came together to offer their beers to the general public on a weekday evening, this year it was the turn of BBNo to host. As anyone who has visited Bermondsey on a Saturday will be aware it gets busy down there, at times it is insanely busy. If you are bothered by big crowds (as I am these days) then you tend to limit your visits to Bermondsey, which is a shame because we’d like to spend more time drinking beers from Kernel, Partizan and BBNo at source. But on this occasion the queues for the bar were minimal or non-existent and we were even able to talk to the employees – who are usually run ragged and unable to stop for a chat.

Hard to decide between the Kernel Mosaic Stout and BBNo Black IPA

So for us this night was about great company first and foremost, with the beer was run a very close second. The beery highlights were the Kernel’s Mosaic Dry Stout (that magical mystery hop, which can be used in so many different ways and can seemingly do no wrong), and the BBNo 15|02 BIPA Citra. As someone who is fussy about black IPA as a style, who has had many a discussion with pro brewers and homebrewers and beer writers about it, this particular beer offered me an angle I’ve yet to experience with this beer style before: a fresh green hop character. One of the things I enjoy about a BIPA is how if the malt bill is done right then the beer still be enjoyable when the hop character has faded away a little (if not, it gets as stale as a standard IPA when the hops fade out). Sadly, I don’t get to witness this often enough as most BIPA are not quite ‘roasty’ enough for my liking. In fact this particular beer, 15|02, wasn't roasty enough but it had this amazing FRESHNESS OF GREEN HOPS to it that contrasted very nicely with the dark malts present. Obviously, that’s not going to persist too long – it was very much a ‘drink fresh’ moment. But I’m glad I was there to catch it.

But the icing on the cake of this fantastic evening was the bottled BBNo 14|02 - a BA tripel, brewed with Wai-iti, one of my favourite hops: a zesty lemon fragranced delight from NZ. BBNo are well known for their saisons, of which they have produced many variants, and my favourite of all of those is the 01|08 Wai-iti. Saisons often have naturally occurring lemon aroma and flavour from the yeast but this hop really amped that beer up to a zesty wonder. I'd already bought a bottle of the 14|02 from the brewery when it was released and had been advised by them to age it a while yet. So when I was shown their fridge toward the end of the night and asked what I fancied trying I pointed at the 14|02 and said, ‘THAT ONE!’ It did not disappoint. If you’ve ever cooked lemons, as part of a savoury meal, to the point where they caramelise, become sweet and lose their bitterness but still retain the refreshing zing of a citrus fruit...well, that’s precisely what I got from this beer. A definite contender for my beer of the year so far.

ZESTY FEELS ABOUNDED

6. Coffee vs. Beer at The Department of Coffee & Social Affairs (Thursday 13^th August)

One event we really fancied doing during LBC was the beer and cheese matching sessions, but having recently held our own private beer and cheese event we couldn’t really justify the cost of us both attending a session with so much else going on. But another keen interest we have aside from cheese is coffee, which we love but feel like we know hardly anything about it. It seemed like the cost of the event could be justified in order to advance our knowledge.

Sensory perception 

At the start of the event we learned how to taste coffee correctly (which similar to but not exactly the same as tasting beer - it makes a more unpleasant noise), starting off with a reminder that almost everything you taste is informed by its aroma. We then went through five paired rounds of blind tasting, first sampling the beer and voicing our thoughts and then doing the same for the coffee. Finally we were asked to vote on whether we preferred the beer or the coffee option from each pairing. The very first round (which I felt was a little bit of a cheat) was Carling vs Nescafe. The other rounds featured a wheat beer, a sour beer, a ‘hoppy porter’ (which we still feel we were correct to identify blind as a BIPA), and a stout – each beer was paired with a coffee which had similar or related elements to its flavour profile. This was a real eye opener and we’re really glad we did it. For example, prior to this experience I couldn’t quite have gotten my head round how you could pair a sour beer with a coffee. But you can!

We went away feeling like beer is easy and simple (to deconstruct) while coffee is ultra subtle and nuanced with layers that we can’t even begin to approach at this point. Yet, we still feel like we learned a lot from this event and can begin to appreciate the enormous spectrum of what you are able to taste in a coffee. We will definitely be taking more time to over our coffee in the future and will begin to learn the basics of the myriad ways in which processing affects what ends up in your cup.

7. London Craft Beer Festival at Oval Space (Friday 14^th August)

I was looking forward to this event as comfortable territory, knowing we would get to see yet more friends from near and far; knowing there would be great beers both new and familiar to me. I wasn’t disappointed. As with last year, Chris was pouring beers for Weird Beard and I was roaming around the place solo. This year I even lent a hand to pour a few beers for WB. Had I thought about this in advance I might have volunteered to pour for Magic Rock, especially had I known they were bringing some Big Top with them. On second thoughts it’s probably best for everyone that I didn’t as I got so excited when I saw Big Top had gone on that I knocked down their blackboard in my haste to get some in my glass. :)

The unlimited small pours (90ml) worked perfectly well. As far as I can see it is better for both the customer and person serving them if neither has to faff around with taking payment and I think that doing away with tokens all together is preferable. I’ve seen a complaint that the small pour does not encourage sensible drinking. This makes me think that there really is no pleasing some people. If you find yourself in a long conversation and your glass is dry you could either position yourself near a bar so that you can easily obtain another refill or *gasp* get yourself a glass full of water to drink while you’re chatting from one of the many water dispensing points. If someone cannot move away from the mindset of drinking pints to the point where drinking anything that isn't a pint bothers them, this type festival probably isn't for them. It's about trying lots of beers, not about how much you can drink. That concept goes beyond beer festivals too. For some of us, at least.

If you happen to be in town during London Beer City and you like beer (whether you live there or are just visiting) there are more beer-related activities on offer than you can actually physically go to.  You will be spoiled for choice. Some events have an entry fee but many do not. If you enjoy matching beer and food there are a wide variety of options to choose from across a spectrum of budgets. If you enjoy meeting brewers, you're in luck: there are brewers all over the place just waiting to talk to you about their beers. If you want to learn more about brewing or even have go yourself, there are events to suit you. In short, there is so much variety (including lots of things I haven't even hinted at here) that there should be something to please everyone.

Post by Emma

Beer & Cheese: A Match Made in Heaven

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Cheese makes beer even more delicious

ABSTRACT

In an effort to learn more about styles of cheese and to gain a better understanding of beer and cheese pairing we selected nine different beer styles and matched them with cheese. We gave these pairings our full attention and recorded our findings in detail. We reaffirmed our love of some Belgian beer styles and fell head over heels for aged Gouda and Brillat-Savarin. 

Fig 1.0: The unsullied cheese board(s)

INTRODUCTION

I’ve long been a lover of both beer and cheese. I eaten cheese while drinking beer plenty of times in the past but I’ve never really done it in a serious structured fashion before where I’ve put thought into it in advance. For my birthday last month I was given a book on matching beer and cheese (it was from Chris so I’m pretty sure there was an ulterior motive there) so that I might learn more about different styles of cheese. I read it in a frenzied, non-linear fashion, flicking around between the beer styles, staring longingly at the pictures. Very soon I’d cleared a day (possibly even a whole weekend) in our diaries which we could devote to the serious consideration of cheese and beer. 

I planned this event as a kind of luxury at-home experience and I was willing to pay for quality ingredients, maybe somewhere approaching what I’d be prepared to spend on a meal eaten at a restaurant. So, no, this it is not a cheap alternative to going out; I would consider it more like something you’d do to treat yourself or for a special occasion.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

I was aiming to have five or six courses but just in case I wasn’t able to easily source all the beer and/or cheese styles I was after I planned for extra courses just in case. I’m sure you know what I’m going to say next. Yes, we ended up all doing nine pairings in the end.

A variety of different beer styles was what I was after for the pairings, especially those styles we don’t drink too often. From that list of selected beer styles I read through the suggested pairings for each. At the most basic level you’re looking for a cheese to compare or contrast with your beer. By the time I’d gone through the suggestions for each style I had a core of about six styles of cheese, most of which could be tried with each different beer.

Once I my cheese wish list was complete I contacted our local cheese expert, Manish (from Good Taste Food in Gipsy Hill) to check if he could supply everything I wanted. As for the beers, we already had many of them in our beer cupboard but the rest I picked up on the Friday evening from BottleDog or Chris picked up on Saturday from We Brought Beer in Balham.

On the Saturday morning I was positively giddy about going to get my cheeses, skipping off like Little Red Riding Hood with her basket. [NB I am actually eating cheese right now as I type this] I was pretty greedy with the portion sizes because I didn’t want us to run short during the event, plus I wanted leftover cheese too. The intention was for this to be done around the time of the evening meal but I confess that we just couldn't wait that long and started at about 4pm.

See Table 1.0 for the pairings, by round, and the overall ‘winner’ of each round. The winner was the pairing which brought out the best in both the cheese and the beer. In most, but not all, cases we agreed on the winners.

RESULTS

NUMBER	BEER	CHEESE	WINNER
1	Pilsner (Flensburger Pilsner)	- Sharpham Brie - Brillat-Savarin - Dutch Mistress	Brillat-Savarin
2	Dubbel (Westmalle Dubble)	- Aged Gouda -Maroilles	Aged Gouda
3	Gueuze (Cantillon, “Belgian Flag” Gueuze)	- Aged Gouda - Brillat-Savarin - Sharpham Brie	Brillat-Savarin
4	Tripel (La Trappe Tripel)	- Maroilles - Brillat-Savarin - Aged Gouda	Maroilles
5	Imperial Stout (Buxton Rain Shadow)	- Brillat-Savarin - Aged Gouda - Cashel Blue	Cashel Blue
6	Imperial IPA (Crema Brewery Here’s What You Could’ve Won)	- Brillat-Savarin - Mature cheddar - Aged Gouda - Sharpham Brie	Chris: Brillat-Savarin Emma: Aged Gouda
7	Märzen (Aecht Schlenkerla Märzen)	- Aged Gouda - Blue de Gex	Chris: none of the above Emma: Aged Gouda
8	Saison (Dupont Saison)	- Blue de Gex - Maroilles	Chris: Blue de Gex Emma: Maroilles
9	Barleywine (Magic Rock Strongman 2013)	- Aged Gouda - Brillat-Savarin - Cashel Blue - Maroilles	Brillat-Savarin

Table 1.0: Numbered rounds of beer styles and the cheeses they were paired with
(see Table 1.2 for cheese descriptions)

CHEESE	DESCRIPTION
Sharpham Brie	Cow’s milk brie from Devon
Brillat Savarin	French triple cream cheese containing >75% fat
Dutch Mistress	Goat’s cheese from Shropshire
Cashel Blue	Semi-soft Irish blue cheese
Blue de Gex	French aged blue cheese
Maroilles	Rindwashed cow’s cheese from France

Table 1.2: Cheese descriptions

DISCUSSION

Each of the cheeses was gosh-darned delicious in its own right and so were the beers (which we knew before we started doing the pairings) so we were starting from a very solid platform of tastiness. Everything was going to be good, but the question was: ‘how good?’

Fig 2.0 Round 1

We had a few revelations during the tasting. The first was regarding the beers. Yes, of course we’ve drunk pilsners and Belgian beers plenty of times before. We know what they taste like, right? Well, what we did on this occasion was sit down with the beer at a table completely cleared of other distractions. We weren’t chatting to our mates in the pub or watching something on TV at the same time. We were really paying attention to the beer and giving it our full consideration. Our first thought was: blimey, we really don’t drink enough good pilsners. How often are we guilty of overlooking them for hoppier, more bitter beers? Then the dubbel and the tripel: wow. Doing this matching event really relit our fire for Belgian beers, both in their own right and as beers to pair with food. 

Another interesting discovery concerned the 'strength' of the cheeses. As a child I often found mature cheddars to give me a slight allergic reaction. However, sometimes other aged cheeses will still give me a similar 'itchy' reaction. I always thought this was just me and my weirdly over-reactive immune system. But we both experienced an irritation after eating the Blue de Gex (a kind of prickling and itching in the mouth), to the point where we could only have a very thin sliver otherwise it just wasn't pleasant. While writing up our results I learned that this allergic reaction to mature cheeses is the same condition people get when they eat fish which has been allowed to sit around and degrade: the amino acid histidine present in the fish is broken down to histamine, which causes a temporary allergic reaction known as 'scombroid fish poisoning'. #science

Fig 3.0: Round 2

All the pairings were educational for us and I could easily go into detail on every single one. But to pick just a few of the most striking pairings – the most memorable for us both was probably the first round. Pilsner vs. Brillat-Savarin: this seems counter intuitive, putting a delicate ‘mild-mannered’ beer up against a super creamy, rich cheese that’s scarily high in fat. But it works incredibly well. The high carbonation of the dry, refreshing pilsner cleanses and refreshes the palate between each bite of the creamy cheese, literally washing away the fat of the triple cream. In turn the ever-so-slightly sour tang of the cheese brings out the malt flavour of the beer. This is a pairing which contrasts both textures and flavours. When I was sampling the cheeses before buying them Manish told me that the textbook pairing for Brillat-Savarin is champagne so I suppose it makes perfect sense for it to pair so well with a pilsner.

The other two outstanding pairings were the Belgian beers. The dubbel with the aged Gouda was a match which made me smile a lot. This time it was a 'like pairs with like' match, with the sweet caramel notes of the malts snuggling up to the nutty sweetness of the cheese. It was a caramel match made in heaven. The tripel and the rind-washed cheese was a match where two robust characters meet each other head on and neither one gives any ground. I’ve long been a fan of the funk of a rind-washed cheese, but it can be overwhelming. The slight alcohol heat and the slightly sweet malt flavours of the beer easily hold their own against the intensity of the farmyard funk of the cheese. The dry finish of the beer contrasts with the rich creamy texture of the cheese. So with this round we had a comparison and a contrast within the same pairing.

Fig 4.0: Round 4

Our love of beer and cheese was renewed and reinvigorated by this evening of indulgence. It definitely made me want to try new pairings but also just pay more attention to beer and food pairings in general. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys beer (and likes cheese, obviously). Our event was pretty extravagant but you don’t need to have nine different courses! Even just choosing one or two beers to try with two cheeses would be a really good experience, especially if you choose beer styles you don’t often drink.

Finally, I just cannot express how much I love Brillat-Savarin. What a cheese. It seems to pair with absolutely everything you put it next to. It’s magical.

I will admit that the day after we did this we were completely cheesed off. We couldn't look a cheese in the eye, touch a cheese or even think about a cheese without feeling uncomfortable (this was a difficult day as the remaining bits of our fridge that weren't stuffed with beer and hops were occupied by cheese). I think this comes down to us having started our cheese-a-thon at 4pm... yet by 10pm, we were STILL eating cheese. We were simply overwhelmed and so far past cheese that we were Beyond Cheese. But after a 24 hour cheese break we were able to think favourably about it again and get on with finishing off the leftovers.

REFERENCES

1. Fletcher, Jane.  Cheese & Beer. Kansas City, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2013.  

[Post by Emma]

Beer Reviews

So you bought yourself a special* beer? It was probably more expensive than many other beers you could have purchased more easily. But you’re pretty keen on good beer so you’re willing to pay more than you would for a can of macro lager from your local supermarket. Maybe you’ve been ticking off the days on your calendar until the release date (even if that was just in your head)? Maybe this beer was an annual release or a small batch, meaning you had to go to some extra effort to obtain it? Like set the alarm a bit earlier so that you could buy it online while still in your PJs. Or travel out of your way to be able to drink it on draught/buy some to takeaway. Or perhaps you had to do some things which aren’t beer and needed to ask a mate to grab you some instead.

When you finally get your hands on this long-awaited beer it seems pretty unlikely you’re going to throw it into your face without even thinking about it. Surely you’re going to at least look at it, smell it and taste it with some consideration. And it’s possible that after you’ve done that you’re going to want to tell some people what you thought about it.

It might be that the first thing you’ll want to then is ‘check in’ your beer using an app or website where you keep a record of all the beers you’ve tried. There are many reasons people use such tools: to show off and/or share their experience with others, or purely for their own benefit. They might use them for 'serious' reviews delivered in an objective, dispassionate tone; or they could be the opposite – merely describing now a beer makes them feel at that precise moment; or anything at all in between. All methods of beer journaling are valid and specific to the individual.

Maybe after logging your beer you’d like to share your opinions, possibly discuss them with other people who enjoy beer? Maybe you’re interested in whether other people will agree or disagree with your thoughts? So far, so normal, right? Here are a couple of my recent experiences of this having opinions about beer thing. 

Beavertown Skull King

The long awaited double IPA from Beavertown. This is what we’ve all been waiting for. And it’s in a can as well? This is gonna be so good, right? Memories of Bone King, the spritzy, delicious and highly quaffable DIPA they brewed last year with Narpabier, come flooding back. WE CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS. WE NEED IT NOW. AMIRITE? There was a pretty big buzz about this beer on social media, people were excited - they were going to go and drink from the source the very minute the brewery opened its doors on the release day in April. Although I was trying not to get too excited myself, a couple of our friends had already tried it at the brewery and convinced me that it was very good. I’m a Beavertown fangirl, I've enjoyed almost every one of their beers I’ve ever tasted. What could possibly go wrong?

On the day of the launch I was doing stuff that wasn’t beer. Later on Twitter I saw people gushing about how good it was. When I tried my first can of it at home that evening I just couldn’t make sense of what had happened here. The beer had little hop aroma. The flavour was muddled and unclear. I’m not even going to mention murk or whatever because clarity in beer is seemingly overrated (but I’ll come back to that later). It was as if the sweetness was overwhelming any hop flavour that was trying to fight its way through. It also lacked bitterness to balance with that sweetness. It didn't have adry finish either, despite the mention of dextrose in the recipe. Maybe it was intended to be a sweeter rather than a dryer DIPA? I don’t know and I’m wary of imposing my own personal beer preferences for the style on this beer.

But it was nothing like Bone King though. Not that it had to be, obviously (although Beavertown suggested a link between the two beers by calling Skull King the “Bastard Son of Bone”). There's more than one kind of DIPA and I can enjoy a full on, dank and resinous old school West Coast DIPA, with sweeter malt presence balanced alongside the hops as much as the next person. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy drinking the beer and I didn’t finish it because I don’t drink things I don’t enjoy (which seems like a very obvious life choice to me). I gave it 2.5/5 on Untappd. In hindsight that was a little harsh (it reflected my huge disappointment though) and a 3/5 would have be fairer. That described what I felt at the time and I’m not going to edit it now. But obviously I needed to try it again and give it the benefit of the doubt, so I had another can a few days later and then tried it on keg the next week. I felt exactly same way about it every time.

My disappointment was one thing. The other thing was that I was a bit mystified as to why nobody else seemed to be saying anything like what I was thinking about this beer. I don't expect everyone to agree with me - we all like different things obviously. Still, the fact that other people seemed to love it fascinated me. I mentioned my bemusement about it in a members only discussion group and my right to express my subjective opinion of a beer was respected by most people. However, one person seemed to think that my opinion was unacceptable, that there was some pretension in claiming to have not finished this beer, that I was just saying this to appear ‘cool’. The accusation was that I was being contrary about a popular brewery just for effect rather than just telling the honest truth about how I felt.

Since when is an experienced homebrewer and drinker of a wide variety of beer not allowed to express their honest opinion of a beer?  Call me old-fashioned but that is the opposite of what we, lovers of beer, want. As homebrewers we have handed out our beer to many pro brewers (including Beavertown) and we have always desired honest feedback. There is no value in pretending to like something you aren’t enjoying. Also, fuck this idea that certain people who create something, whether it be it art or film or music or beer, are beyond reproach and may never be criticised. If you’ve paid to consume their creation I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to say, ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t enjoy that because of X, Y, and Z’. Or even just ‘I didn’t enjoy it.’ – because I’m not convinced there is an absolute requirement to defend your opinion.

I already said that I love Beavertown. But that doesn’t mean I’m going pretend I thought one of their beers was great when I didn’t. I’ll be honest about how I feel. Ok, so one of the reasons that this experience with Skull King has stayed in my mind is that we have been drinking a lot of Bloody ‘Ell lately and the experience of drinking these two beers could not be more different for me. Bloody ‘Ell is zesty, juicy and refreshing, its bright citrus and pine flavours on top of a relatively light malt base along with a prickly carbonation make it frighteningly easy to drink. Whenever I see it, I buy it and whenever I open a can it just disappears. I find it difficult to drink it slowly to be honest. However, comparing Skull King with Bloody ‘Ell isn't really a fair comparison since they are different beers - from brewing through to drinking, these are different creatures. We’re comparing apples and oranges here. Instead we should try comparing oranges with oranges...

Coming swiftly on the heels of Skull King was another big beer in a can from Beavertown and this time it was a triple IPA rather than a double. Power of the Voodoo is a Beavertown and Boneyard Beer collaboration. Anyone who has tried the incredible Boneyard and Siren DIPA, Dippy and the Equinox, brewed at Siren in March would probably be curious to try this new TIPA too. I was extremely curious and but it was with some trepidation that I opened this can. The aroma was melons, honeydew and cantaloupe... MELONS! But with a faint savoury, almost onion-ish note in the very background. The flavour is more of the same:melon with a smidgen of savoury. This is a very different beast to Skull King. There is an appreciable hop bitterness, balanced by a malt sweetness which is pleasant without overwhelming the entire beer. This is not a gloopy, resinous hop bomb. In fact it has a lovely mouth-feel, making it oh-so-easy to take sip after sip while you try to puzzle out those hop flavours. Probably the biggest difference between this beer and Skull King is that we sat for a good five minutes discussing the hop characteristics of POTV. This flavour profile of melon and (for want of a more specific identifier) onion fascinated our palates. Looking at the hops used (Citra, Crystal and Mosaic) we wondered: where does this savoury note come from? You wouldn't expect it to be from Citra. Apparently Crystal can be grassy and even a bit veggie-like - so maybe that's where it's coming from? Frankly, at this point, nothing would surprise me from Mosaic. How an aptly named hop it is - it seems as if when it's combined with other hops all kinds of flavours can be teased out like coloured scarves from a magician's sleeve. But that's a topic for another post. ANYWAY... This beer didn't disappoint; it definitely gave us what we were expecting from it. It's bitter, it's juicy, and it's highly drinkable for the ABV.

Magic Rock – UnHuman Cannonball 2015

While we are talking about critical beer reviews, I’ve seen plenty of complaints about Magic Rock’s Unhuman Cannonball being disappointing this year. But the majority of the comments have been about the clarity. People are fixated on this issue. Some people seem to value clarity over flavour in beer, even rejecting any beer that isn’t bright out of hand as being faulty. But that’s a whole different discussion which I’m not getting into here. Anyway - it is interesting to consider what is arguably the UK’s biggest annual beer release and how the three different versions so far have compared with each other. In the 2013 I think we were all blown away by the IN YOUR FACE hop experience of UHC, as well as the beauty of being able to experience the Russian doll effect of sampling the Cannonball family all together. But in 2014, people’s minds were blown by the clarity of appearance and flavour (for us this was because there was such a big difference between the first and second versions, not just because 2014 was a brighter beer). We tried the 2013 and 2014 at six months post-release. The 2013 was pretty much ‘as expected’ for an older hoppy beer. But the 2014 version had aged incredibly well. This was fascinating to us from a brewing point of view – the brighter beer had some hop aroma present and it still packed an impressive hop flavour. Most imported US hop-forward beers would be smelling and tasting like a box of cereal by that age. Wow. We were knocked back by this and we told the brewers so. 

I think the ‘problem’ was that the 2014 version had set such a high standard that people were inevitably going to be asking why the 2015 version had less clarity and definition. For me, the 2015 release was a pleasant intense hop experience on the day it launched. A few weeks later we drank a bottle each and found it incredibly moreish and easy to drink. Nice work for an 11.5% beer. Was it as good as last year’s? Maybe not. But did it taste good? Yes. Did I want to drink more of it? Yes. Well that ticks all the relevant boxes for me when it comes to a TIPA. If other people thought it wasn't a good beer that is their right to say so. I don't agree with them but I'm not going to tell them they are wrong.

Here’s to you, Magic Rock, keep on making awesome beers and I’ll keep getting excited about them. I’m more than happy to give you the benefit of the doubt while you’re in the thick of the long-awaited expansion of your brewery. <3

Beer reviews are subjective. There isn't a correct answer. I doubt there are any beers out there that are universally loved without a single dissenting voice. The idea that any brewery is 'untouchable' and nobody is allowed to express a negative opinion of any of their beers is hilarious to me. If you didn't enjoy a beer, it is your right to say so... as long as you don't try to tell anyone else that they are wrong for expressing a view which differs from yours. Because that wouldn't be fair. Ideally, criticism should be constructive. But does it absolutely have to be though? Is this something that you as a consumer owe to the person/people who created the product? I'm not entirely convinced about that.

*special, in this instance, simply means a beer which is in some way out of the ordinary, e.g.  a new release or limited release beer