Old Posts

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Rather than spend time trying to port the recovered HTML for old posts into WordPress I’m simply linking the static HTML files. Alas the photo links aren’t fixed and I’m not likely to get around to fixing them. Anyway, mostly for my own & Google’s benefit:

Hardknott Granite, ’09 vs ’10

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I’ve been building up a backlog of beer for long enough now that I can compare the same beer (by name) brewed a year or two apart. I get an odd sort of geeky pleasure out of doing this, especially when there is an appreciable difference between the beers.

This evening I cracked open two bottles of HardKnott Granite, the 2009 (bottle 196 of 504) and the 2010 (bottle 332 of 804). The bottle describes this beer as a “barley wine style beer for geological time scale aging” with an added blurb “Hide it away in your deepest darkets cellar to avoid temptation to consume before its best. Enjoy with warm enligntened company, in a temperate climate sometime before the next ice age. Savour with cheese and dark chocolate.” OK, so perhaps I’ve given in to temptation early, but unfortunately I don’t have a cellar – let alone a deepest darkest cellar (I so wish I did!)

When I first tried the 2009 a year or so ago I described it as smoky, I recall using one of my favourite phrases: “sausage beer”. A lot has happened since then. I’ve met Dave Bailey, the brewer behind HardKnot, a couple of times (or so) and even bought firkins of his more tame (but very good) beers for our local Hitchin beer festival. When I went to return the empties back in April my timing was rather good… just in time to buy a mixed box of Granite and Aether Blaec 2010! I’ve had one or two bottles of all of these but this is the first pair I’ve put head-to-head. So, transcribing straight from my notes here’s how they compared:

Granite '09 vs Granite '10

Granite 2009 Granite 2010
ABV 10.4% 10.1%
“Best Before” (or after?;) 10/02/15 14/02/16
Description on bottle This beer was created using Natural Lake District water extracted from volcanic rock. The heat of our copper drove the malt sugars to twice the concentration producing a burnt toffee flavour. This beer was created using water extracted from the ancient geology of Cumbria. The head of our copper drove the malt sugars to high concentration producing rich toffee flavours.
Cap Metallic Red Red
Opening Sharp, strong “psst”. Slow gathering of bubbles around edge of neck. Light “psst”. No visible bubbling.
Pour Tight cream head builds quickly. Foam holds, takes 2+ minutes to dissipate. Loose cream head. Dissipates rapidly.
Aroma Hint of summer bushfire after rain, with a burnt car tyre or two. Medicinal disinfectant note as of hospital ward. Fruity, boozy nose. Smells sweet. Hint of coffee.
Swirl Head re-builds easily, retention as before. Amost no head re-forms.
Enjoyed at 12°C 12°C
Flavour
  • At first creamy texture fills the mouth, possibly a little too much condition.
  • Then the burnt notes hit the taste buds and insinuate themselves up the nostrils from behind.
  • There is a nostalgic memory of bushfire season.
  • A medicinal/disinfectant note makes itself apparent, a bit on the unpleasant side.
  • This is accompanied by black pepper and juniper berry notes, perhaps the disinfectant note is pine?
  • The beer begins to take on a resinous feel in the mouth, with a gentle warming at the back.
  • Slowly a sour-cherry edge appears, develops, and becomes one of the dominant dimensions.
  • Feel is heavy, sweet, syrupy.
  • Flavour hits as rich spiced fruit pudding.
  • Loads of date, raisin, and a hit of cherry; perhaps even the ghost of a squeeze of lemon.
  • Sherry, now fruitcake becomes rich Christmas pudding that has been fed sherry for as year.
  • A hint of melon jumps up and down for attention in peripheral vision.
  • Warm notes build, warm spices.
  • Now it goes through a cough-syrup phase, too much all at once.
  • This dies quickly leaving just warmth, building warmth.
  • I’m left with a lingering heat down going all the way down my throat.
  • A ghost of chilli and pine resin.
Longevity
  • Working through the glass the medicinal notes become less present and the warmth and spice builds.
  • The hint of disinfectant never leaves though, but it is a ghost of a hint.
  • The body holds well, the beer feels great in the mouth until the last sip.
  • This beer stays big and bold all the way through the glass. It’s like drinking a magical warming elixir.
  • The mouthfeel becomes a bit heavy half way through. At this point the beer is pretty much dead flat.
  • Despite this the final mouthful leaves me wanting more, there is a suffusion of wellbeing.
Verdict

This 2009 was not as good as I recall. I’m certain the beer has changed with age, though not for better or worse. I know I thought of it as a “sausage beer” (smoky) but this is certainly not how I’d describe it now. The actual smoky notes have gone to be replaced by burnt (post-smoke) flavours. The piney disinfectant flavour is a new one I think, or is given more prominence perhaps. I like piney flavours though so this doesn’t matter much. The sour note really is new I think, and I guess it comes with age – I wasn’t too keen on it. The 2010 was a surprise. I have pre-conceived ideas based on the 2009, and while I’d tried the 2010 on its own already I didn’t realise it was so different compared to the 2009 (as drunk a year ago.) The only thing lacking was a bit of extra mouthfeel that would come from extra condition. Possibly the 2009 is over-conditioned (Dave himself said he thinks as much) but I’d personally prefer to see the over-condition of the 2009 in the 2010 than the near-flat beer I drank tonight. Then again, this is described as a barley-wine and I’ve never had a fizzy barleywine! It’s also over 10% ABV and could very easily replace the entirely un-fizzy dessert wine you might normally find accompanying a cheese platter. I’d say the blurb on the bottle is quite on-target when it suggest savouring the beer within with cheese.

I guess I have to come to some sort of conclusion now. The 2010 is the better of the two, and while I’d like a little extra fizz in it I think that the massive flavour in the beer moves it into a territory where lighter texture isn’t too important. (I do believe I actually told Dave that I preferred the 2009 at some point, I stand self-corrected!) Keep in mind that these beers are 10% ABV, you want to sip them like a cognac or fine dessert wine. The 2009 is still a great bottle of beer, despite loosing out to its younger sibling. However I’m not certain age as treated it well, thus far, I remember more smoke and more malty toffee notes (but perhaps age is not treating my memory so well?) I have another bottle, or maybe two, so perhaps I’ll see what it’s like in a year… or five!

I do recommend getting hold of some HardKnott beers. I think they’re amongst the best examples of bottle-conditioned “real ales” you can come across. Secondary fermentation is what gives all Dave’s beers their essential fizz yet you won’t find a huge puck of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. Too many micros in the UK either don’t bother with bottle conditioning or they whack a huge load of yeast into the bottle and make it very difficult to pour clear. I find, in my circles, that “real ale in a bottle” has a bit of a bad reputation as a result (it’s either not real and too fizzy, or is is real and you end up with mud in your glass.)

I’ve successfully purchased HardKnott beers from MyBreweryTap and BeerMerchants.

I also have two different HardKnott Queboids, and three different HardKnott Aether Blaecs. I do look forward to putting them head-to-head as well sometime!

HardKnott Infra Red Prawn and Halloumi Shish Kebabs

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Mmmm…

It is well and truly BBQ weather this weekend and you don’t want to spend much time in the kitchen with the sun shining so wonderfully outside. So knock together a quick marinade, pop some bits into it, then do a spot of gardening. A couple of hours later we’re ready to skewer and BBQ! This particular recipe was inspired by BeerReviews Andy’s “Punk Prawns“, however the only similarity is the bringing together of beer and prawns.

First thing to do is knock up the marinade, I chose the Infra Red “oxymoronic IPA ruby red and as hoppy as a bucketful of frogs” from HardKnott brewery as the base for the marinade as it has a good rich malty body as well as a nice hit of aroma hops. I think using a typical golden hoppy beer wouldn’t work so well, the malty richness is necessary for the marinade and dipping sauce. Anyway, toss all this into a bowl:

  • 1 500ml bottle of HardKnott Infra Red (or any other rich & hoppy ale)
  • 8g of fresh grated ginger
  • 1 tbsp fine-chopped parsley
  • ½ a salt-preserved lemon fine-chopped
  • 15g palm sugar (or light brown sugar, honey would be interesting too)
  • ½ tsp hot chilli powder
  • ½ tsp sweet paprika
  • ½ tsp ground coriander seed

Ingredients

I made two different shish kebabs, one just prawns and the other a vegetarian option: aubergine & halloumi. Halloumi is great stuff – cheese you can BBQ! I can’t believe I never came across it back home in Australia. Put the prawns straight into the marinade, I used 6 prawns per skewer (they have such piddly little “king praws” here in the UK) and made 7 shish kebabs. Cube the halloumi and the aubergine to around the same size, roughly 1 inch per side. Put everything into the marinade, pop the lot into the fridge, and wait a couple of hours. I gave it a bit of a shake after an hour too. Also, I put the skewers into the marinade so that they’re less likely to burn on the BBQ – you can just soak them in water though. (If you’re feeding actual vegetarians it is probably polite to marinate the vege stuff and the prawns in separate containers!)

Marinating

When the marinating is done it is time for skewering. For the vegetarian skewers I used 3 pieces of halloumi alternated with 5 pieces of eggplant, and also added squares of red onion between these.

When the skewering is all done prepare the dipping sauce. This is really easy! Strain 1 cup of the marinade through a fine sieve and heat this in a small saucepan until simmering. Then dissolve 8 teaspoons of light-brown sugar into the marinade. Mix 2 teaspoons of cornflower into a couple of tablespoons of cold water and drizzle this into the marinade while whisking steadily. Continue to whisk while the marinade simmers and thickens. Give it about 5 minutes on the heat then set aside. You can warm this up again later before serving.

BBQ!

BBQ time! Drizzle the shishkebabs with a little oil and BBQ them. Not much else to say about that is there.

This is ideally served to people straight off the BBQ. Have bowls of warmed dipping sauce handy and enjoy! It goes down well with a beer of course – and in this case we had it with a crisp cold Sharp’s Monsieur Rock.

HardKnott Infra Red Prawn and Halloumi Shish Kebabs

Poacher’s Pheasant Stew

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We had a steady supply of pheasant over the last season, thanks to a beater/shooter friend down at our local pub. Two gay-braces we received were earmarked for a pheasant coq au vin. But I changed my mind. Cooking with beer is all the rage right now, so I shunned the grape. The question was: what beer? Everything in the “cellar” was either too bitter or were quite special “collection” beers.[1] So I wandered up to Waitrose[2] and pondered over the selection of bottled ales available. Our local Waitrose has a decent range of bottled British beer, however I’m not really familiar with this territory since I prefer my bitter in cask form. Unfortunately the bottled versions of good cask ales are rarely up to scratch. So I scanned the beer names and read some label blurbs… one ale seemed quite apt: Poacher’s Choice by Badger Brewery.

Poacher's ChoiceI had never tried Poacher’s Choice before. Liquorish and damsons? Unusual, but – thought I – with a certain appeal in the context of a game stew. I took a punt on it and bought 6 bottles. What’s the beer like? As I suspected: a bit odd. Which is to say you may be a little surprised on the first sip of a pint of it down the pub – this is no bad thing! But I do suspect it’d strongly divide opinion. The Badger website describes this beer as “subtly fruity”, but compared to a similar strength/colour/hop-level beer I’d call it “boldly fruity”. The beer has a bubblegummy, plum-conserve character. I rather enjoyed a glass of Poacher’s Choice: I wasn’t keen initially but it grew on me, and blossomed. I’d say you need to be in a fruity frame of mind to enjoy this beer. I wasn’t at all apprehensive about stewing with it, it seemed a most excellent candidate.

So, a recipe was afoot – and like all good stews it is a simple one. Well, not so simple if you’re starting with pheasants still in all their feathery finery. You’ll be forgiven for picking them up oven ready, or even jointed. In fact this stew would work well with rabbit, probably pork, and definitely the coq you’d use in a coq au vin.

Ingredients

  • 4 pheasants – jointed into breasts, legs, and wings
  • 150g unsmoked bacon lardons
  • 4 tbsp light olive oil (or any frying oil)
  • 450g brown onion – finely chopped
  • 2 pints of Poacher’s Choice (or a beer of your choice)
  • 150g celery – sliced into 1″ lengths
  • 250g carrots – peeled, top-n-tailed, and sliced into 1″ chunks
  • 175g button mushrooms – just clean off any obvious dirt
  • 4 garlic cloves – crushed, peeled, and sliced
  • 10 juniper berries – crushed with the flat of a knife
  • 1 tsp fresh-ground black pepper
  • 3 bay leaves – dry is fine, fresh is better
  • 10 large fresh sage leaves – clean and slice into thin ribbons
  • 500g shallots – whole and peeled
  • “Enough” game stock – chicken stock will do

This is just approximately what I put into my stew. As with any stew the ingredients are very flexible. If you don’t like mushrooms, leave them out! Or you could throw in some potato or parsnip. Get the idea?

Somewhat more optional ingredients are:

  • 2 tsp golden caster sugar – added to counter some bitterness from the beer
  • 25g each of plain flour and butter to make a roux to thicken the gravy

Method

When it comes to stewing my weapon of choice is of the heavy enamelled-iron variety. The stew made with the ingredients above fills a 28cm Chasseur, which is about 6 litres.

Fry the lardons in the stewpot until golden, then remove them to a bowl leaving the fat in the stewpot.

Brown the pheasant pieces in batches, this is to ensure the meat isn’t crowded in the pan. After the first batch is browned add a tablespoon of oil to the stewpot between batches. For the amount of pheasant in this recipe I browned the meat in 4 batches. After each batch is browned remove the meat to the bowl with the lardons.

Browned Meat – Browning Onion

Place the fine-diced onion into the stewpot and fry over lowish heat until it browns, begins to break down, then goes quite mushy. While the onion is frying use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape the toasty goodness from the pheasant-browning off the bottom of the stewpot.

Before the onion begins to stick pour in the beer, then add the meat, the chopped vegetables, bay leaves and juniper berries. Ensure everything is tightly packed then top the stewpot up with the game stock until everything is covered.

Gently simmer – there should be the barest movement visible and few, if any, bubbles – until “done” (i.e. the meat is tender, but not disintegrating!) My stew was simmering for about 3 hours, which is probably longer than necessary. About 30 minutes before you think the stew is ready brown the peeled shallots in a frypan with a tablespoon of oil and pop them into the stew. (If you put these in at the start they’ll simply turn to mush.) Pop the sliced garlic in now as well.

Browning Shallots

Browning Shallots

Do you want to thicken the gravy? The onion will have lent it some body already, any further body will depend on your stock. I like a stew to have a fairly sticky gravy so I thickened this one up a little. To do this strain the stew through a large sieve or chinois, collecting the gravy in a bowl. Put the gravy back into the stewpot and bring it to simmering point. In small pan over low heat melt 25g of butter then stir in 25g of plain white flour. Stir with a small whisk to combine the flour and butter well – and, stirring all the time, gently cook for a minute. Now, a ladle at a time, whisk the gravy into this roux. Initially it’ll thicken drastically, but don’t worry it’ll thin out as you add gravy. To avoid lumps be careful to whisk in each ladle of stock thoroughly and evenly. Continue until your have about a pint or two of thickened gravy, or the consistency of double cream. Finally whisk the thickened gravy into the gravy remaining in the stewpot. (Pass the thickened gravy through a sieve if you think you might have ended up with lumps.) Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, gently whisking all the while. When complete add the stewed meat and vegetables back into the thickened gravy.

We’re done! Serve with some boiled potatoes, crusty bread, rice, anything really! Served immediately this stew had a light bitterness to it, which prompted me to add a little sugar (in the optional ingredients above.) However, this bitterness all but disappeared after 24 hours in the fridge and I’d say the stew was at its best 2 days after cooking. Served in the photo below with some steamed little red potatoes, and a sneaky addition of pan fried bunny liver and kidneys (I’d been sorting out a few bunnies that evening.)

Enjoy!

Of course: enjoy with a glass of Badger Ale’s Poacher’s Choice. The flavour of the beer came through distinctly in the stew.

[1] There were a few bottles of BrewDog 5AM Saint, which can make a rather good stew, but I’d like to get off the BrewDog theme for a bit.

[2] Hitchin, the town in which we live, lacks what I’d consider a decent independent bottle-shop. I’m tempted to try opening one myself, but the local market for craft beer is probably too small to run the sort of place I’d like to have. Plus, I haven’t a clue how to start such a venture!

NWAF 2011: The Pubs

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Manchester Pubs

When visiting a new city or town for an evening or more I usually do a bit of a Google to find the most recommend pubs in the area (the Good Beer Guide is both too large to lug around and has a bad habit of directing me to terrible pubs.) In the case of our trip to Manchester for the National Winter Ales Festival we already knew about one pub at least: the famous Marble Arch brewpub. We found out about another through a recommendation from a friend on Twitter: The Las O’Gowrie. The third pub we found in Manchester entirely by chance: The Old Wellington. There’s also a fourth pub in this saga: The Euston Tap. Since our train from Manchester landed us in Euston at about 17:30 a trip to this bright new star of the craft beer scene was inevitable.

In the order we visited them I present the pubs of our great Manchester National Winter Ales Festival excursion.

The Old Wellington

Thornbridge “Wild Holly”

Our only pub “discovery” of the trip was made in passing. As we headed toward the Manchester Cathedral we passed a somewhat historic looking pub and peered through the window… we spied a BrewDog logo! Alpha Dog! A brew we’d not tried before. It was tasty and quite bitter with a distinct Horlicks malt note on the nose. Somewhat reminiscent of the, much stronger, Dogma. I wonder if there is something similar in the recipe.

The pub was the The Old Wellington, situated between the Manchester Cathedral and the Manchester Arndale (possibly the biggest “mall” I’ve ever seen, mammoth in fact, quite horrid.) We also tried Thornbridge’s “Wild Holly” and a Vicious “American Wheat IPA”. The “Wild Holly” was interesting, passed through the sparkler into a tulip beer glass it came out and settled looking almost exactly like a pint of Guinness. That’s where the similarity ends, this beer had a flavour reminiscent of lightly smoked sweetcure bacon. There were a couple of other ales on, 6 handpumps in all I think.

A couple of interesting beer facts about this pub: half the beer was dark & the pumps were all fitted with sparklers. The latter was probably why our beers were served a bit on the short side: About 1cm of foam, despite the fact that gruff and grumpy-looking young barman seemed to make some effort to top the beers up. Aside from that small issue all the beers we tried were flavoursome and in excellent condition.

We liked The Old Wellington enough that we returned on our last day in Manchester to try the food. (Rather than risk some other random pub of unknown beer quality.) The verdict: great pub food, well executed. My lamb shank pie was excellent with a crisp puff lid and rich gravy. To double our luck the BrewDog Alpha Dog had been replaced by cask 5AM Saint: this hoppy & robust beer went well with the lamb pie. The only negative: being Saturday, the place was busy. However this did give us the chance to see more of the interior of the building, which has a remarkable history, it’s worth looking around.

I noticed from the licensing information that the pub was owned by Mitchells & Butlers. Wonders never cease I suppose.

Lamb Shank Pie

The Marble Arch

Marble Arch tilework

After our stop at the The Old Wellington we took a chilly wander up to the Marble Arch. (Get a website dudes!) This is the brewpub and brewery-tap of Marble Brewery, a mighty fine pub it is too. The bar area is characterful, with great tiling (I presume this is original) and a floor that slopes down toward the bar. If you’ve had a few don’t worry: it’s the floor that’s tipping you toward the bar, not the beer (perhaps!) This is a true historic treasure of an old public house.

The selection of Marble beers here is, of course, excellent. Bonus: the selection of cheese is also excellent. We had a 9-cheese platter and the cheese was so good that I’ll forgive the fact that one of my stiltons seemed to have magically become a brie. Marble’s strong Chocolate Dubbel was a most excellent accompaniment to my selection of strong-flavoured cheese. I liked the Dubbel so much that we bought an expensive 75cl bottle of it to take home.

We tried a few other Marble beers at the pub and one of the most memorable was the “Ginger”. Comparing this to the (competing?) Robinson’s “Ginger” we had the previous day at the NWAF was an interesting exercise. I like both, but easily prefer Marble’s offering. The Marble “Ginger” tastes like beer with a big hit of ginger, the Robinson’s “Ginger” tastes like ginger-beer.

We’d had a few pints by this stage of the day and sensibility dictated that we make our way back to the hotel for a break and some dinner. We were up for another trip to the NWAF in the evening. I’d have loved to visit the Marble Arch again but we didn’t get the opportunity, I’ll certainly be back should I be in Manchester again. NWAF 2012?

Cheese and Chocolate Dubbel!

The Las O’Gowrie

Anchor Beer

Our third pub of the trip was the Las O’Gowrie – advertised to us as “good but studenty”. We popped in here after dinner on our final night (Friday) after spending the afternoon at our third NWAF session. To be honest we found the cask ale a bit average – but adequate. I suspect we might have just been a little unlucky with the guests. What was there was half Greene King (IPA, Abbot, and XX Mild) and half low ABV “session bitters”. The session ales were not bad, mind you, the Betty’s Bitter was tasty despite the low ABV. But after a day sampling imperial stouts we wanted something with a bit more body. We quickly moved on to the small but decent selection of bottled foreign beers. The highlight bottled beer was the Anchor “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” – a dark, herbal, spiced beer that was quite quaffable for a its 5.5% ABV.

The Friday night crowd in the pub was mixed and only notable as we’d been told to expect it to be “studenty”. In truth there were more over-30s than under-30s in the bar, and it only felt “a bit studenty” to me. (Yes, there are plenty of over-30 students, I know… but these probably weren’t them.) That said, the place was definitely geeky. Walls adorned with old computer game relics and original graphic novel prints, most by by cartoonist Ade Salmon. We grabbed a corner in the snug “snug” and sunk a few beers before heading back to the hotel (about 300m up the road.)

In real ale terms the Las O’Gowrie goes down in my books as “well worth a visit if you’re nearby”. As a visitor I wouldn’t trek across town for the place, but if I lived next door I’d be a regular.

The Euston Tap

If you follow the UK beer Twitterati and bloggerati then you’ll have heard of the Euston Tap. The amount of positive feedback I’ve heard about this place is possibly unrivalled. It’s a relatively new bar residing in one of the gatehouses of Euston station, I recall it having once been a café. The Euston Tap is known for its “craft ale”, as opposed to “real ale” – and most of its craft ale fame amongst people I follow stems from their supply of beers from the US. That said, on advertising the Euston Tap to a contact I referred to it as “not real-aley” – then felt immediately silly, there’s 8 cask lines! It’s just that there are another 19 lines stocked with the best of UK, European, and US kegged beers.

Beer List: Left

Beer List: Right

Stepping into the place you’re right in front of the bar, which is backed by a wall covered in beer taps. The public area is a U-shape around this bar with some stools to the outer edges and a spiral staircase in one corner. Both back walls, either side of the bar, are taken up with large glass-doored refrigerators, above which are blackboards advertising the list of draught beers available. Essentially you walk through the door to be met by an entire wall of beer. A little dizzying for this beer geek! Especially when you look closer. The draught and bottle selection is made up of local and international names of renown, and more exciting still, there’s bits and bobs unheard of to all but regulars and the seriously hardcore beer geeks. Beers known and loved, beers heard-of and wished-for, beers unknown – waiting to be discovered! OK, I’m getting a little melodramatic now.

So, what did we sup? We kicked off with a couple of cask ales, not wanting to let the side down – we were on our way home from the CAMRA National Winter Ales Festival after all! The Osset “Big Red” and Darkstar “Partridge” wet out whistles well. After this we moved on to the US, Kat on dark beers and me on pale ales. Sierra Nevada “Stout” was a tasty dry brew and Anchor “Porter” chocolaty dessert. The pale ales were Stone “Cali-Belgique”, Matuska “Raptor”, and Odell “5 Barrel”; to be honest the latter two didn’t do it for me, the Stone was smooth and very drinkable. None of them provided the hop-bomb I was hoping for.

Moving back the locals solved this. Thornbridge “Raven”, that most fashionable of oxymoronic beasts, a “Black IPA”. All big dark stout flavours with punchy aromatic hops. I stuck with this for another half, followed by an accidental pint (surely I wasn’t slurring my words yet?) Truly happy we then went home with a couple of bottles of US imperial stout (oh my poor wallet and liver.)

So, verdict? The Euston Tap is, at this moment, my favourite pub in London. Though I’m perfectly happy in several others: The Rake, The White Horse (especially for bottled beers), and the Market Porter when I’m in a cask ale mood (often.) The Euston tap has the best range of draught beer I’ve seen so far in the UK.

Spiral Staircases Rock

Not much else to say…

Get yourself to the National Winter Ales Festival in 2012. Enjoy the beer, but also remember to enjoy the pubs. Remember that it is excellent pubs like these that keep the beer world pumping.