Christmas Beer: The Results

The BrewDog Coffee Imperial Stout was one of the very best beers I’ve had this year. Seriously good. Thick and luscious, rich and strong and big on the roasted coffee bitterness. It was the perfect start to the day, and just so happened to work perfectly with milk chocolate pennies.

As billed, the Bad Pixie came next as was the perfect follow-on from the big stout – light, zingy, refreshing. Next was a bottle of Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic. Electric red with a sharply sour nose of citrus, lemons, leather, cleaning chemicals and just a welcome whiff of cherry. The flavour was just the same, all big and sharp but tongue-smacking and drinkable – perfect for getting the tastebuds going. Curious Brew’s Brut landed just before the starter and it was fantastic: light and delicate, as quaffable as they come; a real treat of a beer.

The headline act - the star with top billing and the best action scene - was Innis & Gunn’s Triple Matured, and it was the perfect partner to the turkey. I was delighted with how well this pairing went. The buttery richness of the oak, the big fruitiness, the slight sharpness, an earthy, spicy quality all combined stunningly well. The food enhanced the beer; the beer enhanced the food. That’s what a good match-up should do.

I finished the afternoon opening more presents, so I decided to open a little package of my own from the beer cupboard: Fuller’s Brewer’s Reserve. Bottle number 11255. A deep russet brown with thick head. Big buttery nose with boozy oranges and sweet candy. Loads of toffee and bready malt inside, then oak comes and adds a woody sweetness. The whisky warms throughout, surrounded by plenty of fruit and a hint of cherry brandy. There’s hops at the end too, more fruits and more orange. Gorgeous and I think it’s going to get better and better over the years.

There was more in the evening, but to tell you the truth I don’t remember exactly what. I know there was a can (shock! A can?!) of Mild in there and I’m pretty sure I met with my old friend Sam Smith… It was a good day.

Beer for Christmas

If ever there was a day when it’s acceptable to open a beer with breakfast and drink through until bedtime, then it’s Christmas Day. A day of infinite giving, kindness and fun. A day of presents, laughter and too much food. A day to indulge in a lot of great beers.

But what beers?!

This year I’ll be drinking some of the beers that I’ve loved in 2008. I’ll have them spread out over the day, leading me up to dinner and then taking me into the night. I want different types of beers at different times. Something special to start the day, something gluggable and quenching while I cook, something light before I eat to get my taste buds tingling, something rich and dark while I settle down after dinner. And sharing is good – don’t be a beer scrooge because you’ll only regret it in the end. Plus, you’ll be able to drink twice the variety, should you want to.

Last year’s Christmas went like this… Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout for breakfast, Fuller’s Discovery pre-dinner and with the starter, Kwak with the turkey and McEwan’s Champion with the pudding. I can’t remember what saw me through the rest of the day.

This year will go something like this…

To start, and to take the blunt edges off of Christmas Eve’s hangover (it’s inevitable) I’m starting with breakfast. Beer Geek’s Breakfast by Mikkeller, BrewDog’s Riptide or their Coffee Imperial Stout. I’m bypassing the coffee and have a dark, strong beer instead. Plus, beer is food.

Something lighter will need to follow or I’ll be sozzled by dinner time. It’ll be another BrewDog I think. I’ve still got some of their prototype beers around and the Bad Pixie will be perfect. Light, biscuity grain finished with a tang of juniper and lemon – an elegant G&T finish to a beer.

I’ll probably be in the kitchen when I start and finish this and it’ll be followed by another light beer, something to have on the side as I baste the bird or chop the veggies. Maybe a lambic to give me a smack of bittersweetness: there’s nothing like a lambic to limber up your taste buds.

I’ll be approaching the table when the next bottle is cracked open. I’m starting the meal with a glass of Curious Brew’s Brut. A champagne-style beer brewed a short drive from my house in Kent. It’s a gorgeous beer, all creamy and light, and it leads perfectly into the turkey.

The main course is the big choice. The one which I’ve had to think hardest about. It’s a tough one as there’s so much flavour on the plate: meat, crispy potatoes, sweetly-earthy veg, salty pig-stuff, herby stuffing, a rich gravy. The beer has to be strong enough to stand up to it all, but not so strong that it overwhelms. You need dark fruits, but not too dark and bitter, and certainly not chocolatey. Some sharpness is very welcome to ease through the richness of it all. My choice will be Innis & Gunn’s Triple Matured. It’s full of flavour, there’s buttery oak and tangy autumn fruits (perfect partners to turkey), there’s also something vegetal about it and even a hint of spice. It’s a deep copper colour and at 7.7% ABV it stands tall. The mouthfeel is smooth, the finish long and the fruit will cut the richness nicely. I think it’ll be a great pairing. Plus it’s a limited edition beer, so something special for the feast.

Last year I had a beer with the Christmas pudding, but to be honest I was so full from the food that it was all a bit of a struggle. This year I’ll save the next beer for afterwards, and this’ll be a good one. I’ve got a few bottles of Fuller’s Brewer’s Reserve in the cupboard so that’s on the ‘maybe’ list along with a few vintages or an imperial stout. I want something that I can sip, something big and strong and interesting. Something to perfectly finish off my favourite meal of the year.

Then I’ll need to start chilling the beers for the evening… I’ve got plenty lined up, but have no idea what’ll actually get drunk. It’s inevitable that a big BrewDog IPA will be in there, a Chaos Theory or a Hardcore. And I doubt I’ll last the day without at least one American beer. Maybe santa will even bring me some more, to make my choice even wider and more exciting!

I love Christmas.

Harder, Faster, Bigger, Better… Double my IPA!

Our tastes change and develop. And because taste is subjective, everyone is different. My favourite cheese used to be a mature cheddar, now I want the mouldiest, stinkiest, creamiest blue I can find. A few years ago a sprinkle of curry powder was too much, now I want whole chillis, freshly ground spices and I want my mouth to tingle. I started drinking my coffee with ½ a heap of granules plus two of sugar, now it’s no sugar and three times the coffee. Booze too: Malibu and coke is now bourbon and ice; beer was lager; white wine was mixed with lemonade; Guinness started with a dash of blackcurrant to soften the roast bitterness…

But what is common about all these?!

The more we have them, the more we want them as we ‘acquire’ the taste. These acquired tastes are for those things which are unnatural to our palettes: spicy foods, dark chocolate, salty oysters. To begin we have sweet chilli sauce, milk or white chocolate, fish fingers…

But tastes change.

I got into beer by drinking lager-pop. I’d have bitter shandies. I eased into Guinness, with a shot of blackcurrant cordial. I started on ales by having smoother, sweeter dark beers, and for the last few years it has been these dark beers that I have regularly leaned towards. I love them for their richness, the sweetness, the flavour of the grain, the taste of autumn fruit, dried fruit, caramel, chocolate or coffee. I preferred them for their relative lack of hop bitterness. And I was always searching for bigger and stronger beers, winter warmer’s, barley wines, Belgian triple’s, anything black and imperial. I was a malt monster.

But my taste is changing.

It seems there are two growing divisions in the beer world. These aren’t divisions away from each other, rather two interweaving and developing trends. Both are towards the extremes of flavour; one is for IPAs and the other for stouts. These new imperial or double IPAs are mega-hopped and massively bitter; the imperial stouts are thick, strong beasts, often aged in some-kind-of barrel to impart bourbon/oak characteristics. You just have to look on Beer Advocate at the best rated beers in the world right now to see this, and the trend seems to be growing. It started in America as they brought older styles to modern drinking.

We all know the history of IPA, which was shipped from England to India with added strength and hops to stop it going off on the boat trip. While (imperial) stouts have a similar-ish background, being brewed in London in the 18th century and transported to Russian Czars. For this reason it had to be extra-strong and well-hopped to survive the distance and the extreme cold. The styles have been around ever since, but it’s only in the last years that they have become the phenomenas that they are. Any why? Because tastes change.

In beer, the change has come as drinkers want ‘more’. More booze, more grain, more hops, more character, more flavour, more extremes, more history, more age, more more more. It’s the IPAs which have really piqued my interest of late. IPAs never really did it for me. That was until I tried BrewDog’s Punk IPA (available in Tesco’s – a perfect modern IPA) and their Chaos Theory (simply amazing and currently available on their website, but hurry!). After these the malt monster in me transformed into a hop-headed thrill-seeker.

The bitterness in these beer is high, but that’s what makes them so awesome. They have a supreme drinkability which makes you want to go back for more and more. In the mouth you get the sweet caramel grain then the hops flood in and ambush your palate, making the saliva glands gush, as the tropical fruits, citrus and pine flavours come through. It’s intoxicating what a few extra hops can do to you. For me, they work because the beer develops in layers: massive malt (it has to be massive to attain the extra higher ABVs) followed by the wave of juicy hops. The reason the ‘best beers’ are the ‘best beers’ is because they are so well balanced. It’s easy to go extreme on a beer, but it’s surely much harder to make it good. The same applies to food. Look at the top chefs in the world and their food – it challenges what we think we know about eating and food combinations, but it works because of the chef’s skill and supreme palate make it work.

I find it fascinating how our taste buds change, especially with stronger flavours. Blue cheese, slippery-salty oysters and coffee are foods which take some getting used to. The same applies to stronger, bigger beers. And the limits are always being pushed. Sam Adams’ Utopia is brewed at around 27% (it’s a beer!). Your ‘standard’ imperial stout now comes in at around 10% and if it isn’t aged in a bourbon barrel for extra complexity then why bother? And where a mass-produced lager may have 5-20 IBUs (International Bitterness Units – the scale of measuring a beer’s bitterness) and English bitter 20-40 IBUs, there are some double IPAs which measure in at 120 IBUs and beyond! That’s enough to make your taste buds explode!!

Barrel-aged stouts are incredibly exciting and complex and they are brilliant to sit down with on a cold night, swirl around a snifter and sip for while. It’s sophisticated, it’s smooth, rich in flavour, it’ll make you think about the world, think about the barrel it came from, the history that it has. But a double IPA is like a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs and twists and turns. It’s fresh, fun, intoxicating and exciting. It makes you want more and more as your taste for it develops. Who knows where it’ll go from here!

Fish Finger Sandwich

I love sandwiches, they are maybe my favourite food group. And this is perhaps the best sandwich in the world. Although I do love peanut butter and jam, or a hot sausage sandwich, Christmas dinner leftover sandwich, ice cream sandwich…

Did you know that over 1 million fish fingers are eaten daily in Britain? And over 100 packs are sold in the UK each minute? In a poll in 1993, Captain Bird’s Eye came second in a list of the most recognised captains. Captain Cook was first. I don’t know which captain I would name first, but I know which one is my favourite, for without him we wouldn’t have fish fingers, potato waffles and chicken dippers, plus some other captain would’ve found the rest of the world eventually anyway.

Whether it is day or night, if I am happy or sad, alone or with friends, drunk or sober – these are when I want a fish finger sandwich. It is just the simplest thing to make, but the combination in textures between the fluffy bread, crunchy golden crumb and soft, hot fish is unbeatable.

A fish finger sandwich technically only needs bread and the fingers (at least 4 per 2 slices of bread) to qualify it as such. The bread can, of course, be brown or white, freshly baked or shop bought. The fish finger can be any brand you like, and you could even make your own but this feels completely frivilous. At university, my housemate and I used to marvel at the supermarket value options because each finger cost just 2p, although the actual ‘fish’ content is a little hazy and the texture a little cardboardy, so look towards the big name brands – don’t spare any expense here! The choice of condiment is yours too: Red, brown, spicy, sweet, creamy, anything you like. And the addition of some ‘green stuff’ is discretionary (adding cucumber would be a crime, but some crisp iceberg lettuce is fine). And a slice of plastic cheese is often very welcome.

My perfect fish finger sandwich goes a little something like this…

· 2 thick slices of white bread
· 4 fish fingers, at least
· Butter, for the bread
· Ketchup, mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce, a little of each
· Optional extras, depending on how I/you feel – crisp iceberg lettuce and a slice of cheese (burger cheese of course)

Grill the fish fingers until crispy and golden and the sweet juices begin to leak through the crumbed shell. Butter the bread and spread with as much of whatever condiment-combo you want. When the fingers are cooked, and still piping hot, place them lovingly on the bread, but be careful not to burn your fingers in greedy anticipation. Lay the other slice of bread on top, and press it together. This press is almost essential and I would state (without scientific backing) that it makes everything taste better – incidentally, this 'pressing rule' applies to any and all sandwiches. Cut in half and eat immediately, so that the butter melts and mixes with the sauce, driping out naughtily.

Should you want dessert, I suggest a Twix or 3 or 4 Jaffa Cakes.

With food that is eaten with the fingers, you need beer from the bottle. Your favourite bottled variety is best, something light and crisp. There really is no ‘ideal’ beer to go with a fish finger sandwich and to be honest it may be a little unnecessary drinking booze with a child-like dinner, but I would expressly suggest Anchor’s Liberty Ale or their Steam Beer. Or look towards some British beers, Meantime’s Pilsner is a winner, as is Whitstable Bay’s Pilsner or BrewDog's Physics. A glass of orange squash might be the most appropriate drink.

Crunchy Nut Cornflake Ice Cream

I haven’t written a recipe for ages, but I had to put this one up… It’s ludicrously tasty.

I was finishing breakfast one morning, slurping the leftover milk from a bowl of Crunchy Nut cereal, when a bolt of brilliance hit me. What if I could combine breakfast with dessert in the form of ice cream?! The answer was right in front of me.

I use a lot of milk on my cereal and generally I let it go soggy before I eat it. This is strange, I know. I can’t tell you why I do it or when it started, I just prefer my cereal soft. I like Crunchy Nut soggy, although one or two crunchy bits is nice. The biggest upside to this is that the milk, which splashes around in the bowl, sucks up all that nutty sweetness for me to enjoy at the end. And there – HAZZAH – was the idea.

Making custard for ice cream is fraught with difficulty so I bypass that stage and use a can of condensed milk. It’s thick, rich, creamy and has the perfect amount of sugar for ice cream. I’ve used condensed milk in all of my ice creams so far, and provided you balance the sweetness with cream it’s the perfect base.

The best thing about this ice cream is that every time I eat it it makes me smile. And that’s a good thing.

· Can of Condensed Milk (light is fine)
· 750ml single cream
· 250ml milk
· A box of Crunchy Nut, or Honey Nut Cornflakes (you won’t need all of them)

Pour the milk into a large bowl and add most of the cream, reserving about 100ml (no need to be exact). Pour in the cornflakes until they fill the bowl up to the surface of the liquid, stir them around. Cover and refrigerate for an hours or so.

After they’ve soaked, drain the liquid from the soggy cornflakes, squeezing as much creamy juice out as possible. Mix the condensed milk, the remainder of the cream and the soaking juice together. Give it a taste. It’s good right?! If you want more cornflake flavour then add a splash of milk to the orange cornflake pulp and blitz it to a thick paste, then add some to the mix (this adds more ‘texture’ to the final thing - a little nutty bite). Now just churn in an ice cream maker until thick. When it’s done sprinkle in a handful of crushed cornflakes, if you like.

Eat as much as you can after dinner, freeze the rest and enjoy it again in the morning.

The BrewDog Prototypes

The prototype BrewDog beers have arrived! It’s so exciting receiving beer in the post – it’s my first time – it’s like a whole new way of me ordering a drink. These are particularly exciting for the following reasons: 1) They are a limited brew of prototypes; 2) They are no longer on sale on the website; 3) They are BrewDog’s, and that carries with it a certain weight of expectation. The task is to drink them and then suggest/vote which one I’d like to see them sell in 2009. Brilliant.

The bottles come naked without labels and the only way to tell them apart is by the differently coloured bottle tops. Here’s what I thought of the three beers:

Bad Pixie 4.7%
Wheat beer brewed with juniper berries and lemon peel. It pours pale and clear, without the usual wheat haze. There is some citrus zing in the nose, a bit like gin and tonic. The malt is gorgeous, creamy and bready. Then there are hints of the juniper and lemon at the end with more gin-like qualities. There is hardly any fizz which makes it glide down and it tastes perfectly clean and crisp. It’s missing the usual qualities of a wheat beer, although that’s not a bad thing as it’s still bloody good.

Zeit Geist 5.1%
Black lager. Pours a deep, dark ruby black with a tan foam. Big burnt smoky aromas with coffee and dark chocolate. It’s all roasted grain in the mouth with plenty of coffee bitterness and an underlying chocolaty sweetness too. It’s well balanced and smooth with just enough hops to even it out at the end. Superb dark lager.

Chaos Theory 7.1%
'Deep copper IPA with insane hops' is the blurb on the internet, and it delivers just that. It’s the colour of toffee with a good head lacing down throughout. The nose is an intoxicating blend of tropical fruit, citrus, flowers, a hint of booze and some malt. There’s loads of caramel in the beginning then a massive wave of tangy hops sweep over and keep on going and going and going. There’s fruit in there with pineapple and grapefruit and the creamy rich malt stays throughout. It’s a powerful beer, one that makes me want more and more. The hops are big, but so is the malt and it’s all balanced out magically. It’s intoxicating and insane, in lots of ways.

Having tasted them all my favourite is the Chaos Theory. It’s a brilliant beer. The only issue is whether they would add another hop-heavy pale ale to their set. I’d kind of like the Zeit Geist to win because it’d be good to see a British black lager (although maybe they could make a black IPA?!), but drinking it I wanted a bit more from it, perhaps something fruity like sweet/sour cherry? And the Bad Pixie wheat beer is an almost perfect summer thirst quencher.

It’s a tough one. Whatever they choose they’ve got three crackers.

BrewDog

BrewDog. Where the most exciting beers coming out of the UK right now are being made right now.

They’ve got a superb lager, two pale ales (one of them an imperial monster), an amber beer and a stout (a big boy’s stout at 8%) - check out their choice here. They also have their Paradox selection, which is imperial stout aged in whisky casks. Barrel aging is the ‘in-thing’ in brewing right now, the BrewDog difference is that they’ve used a variety of casks through the different ‘editions’ of their Paradox brew, with each barrel imparting its own unique characteristics through the aging. This is a great selection on its own, especially for somewhere which only started making beers in April 2007. But they don’t stop there… They move upwards and outwards, way beyond anything any other brewer is doing in the UK right now. And here is where they get awesome.

Tokyo is a 12% imperial stout brewed with jasmine and cranberries and aged in oak. Just reading about that one makes me dizzy with excitement.

Speedball is a cheeky new one, a very different kind of strong ale brewed with guarana, Californian poppy, kola nut and Scottish heather honey. I don’t even know how this one works, it’s mind boggling!

And another, which is coming soon: Zephyr. When I first read about this one I literally screamed because my brain couldn’t cope with that much excitement. It’s an imperial IPA, aged in an old (1965 old) whisky casks with fresh strawberries added. I just want one now!

They are also selling three prototype beers (three of each for a bargain £12.99 delivered – I ordered mine yesterday, get yours here) which in their own words are ‘to see if any of them are good enough to make their way into the BrewDog 2009 line up’. The selection is between a black lager, a wheat beer brewed with juniper berries and lemon peel, and a heavily-hopped IPA.

The newest venture involves us, their beer drinking fans. They are going to make a beer democratically chosen by online voters. Each Saturday, starting yesterday, for the next five weeks, they give the ongoing choices in the development of a beer. So we choose exactly what happens along the way.

This week there was the choice between what style it should be (including a black IPA which is a new one to me!), next comes the malt and target alcohol level, then hops, followed by the ‘specialty process’ (the stage where the beer potentially becomes something insanely interesting) and finally the name and packaging.

What a unique and brilliant idea?! I’ll be voting each week and I’ll certainly be buying whatever the finished result is, even if it’s just to see what the beer drinkers’ choice can do. And check out the video blogs, they are funny guys - it’s clear to see where all the personality of their beer comes from.

Medway Beer Festival 2008

It was my local beer festival this weekend. Usually for a festival visit I go with my beer-loving friends, but this time I took my beer-hating girlfriend, promising her the time of her life. I don’t think she was impressed. Nevertheless, I had a good night.

There was a West Country theme, with a selection of around 80 beers and ciders, plus a colourful choice of foreign bottles. I knew going in that I would have to act quickly on account of my girlfriends low boredom threshold (I bought along a Heat magazine to keep her amused). From the moment we first sat down and she was chatted up by an aged lothario with beer-induced confidence, I knew I really would have to guzzle the beers quick time.

I started low and worked my way up through the strengths - the usual plan of attack. I was building to a rum-cask-aged cider, but annoyingly, it finished just as I was about to order. This is bad form on my part. One of the golden rules of beer festivals is: if they have something you want, then order it while there’s still some left.

My first half (it’s half pints all the way) was a rushed choice, getting to the bar before I knew what I was going to order. I went for Skinner’s Cornish Knocker (4.5%), which was a fairly decent quaffing ale. Next was Exe Valley’s Devon Glory (4.7%), which had a gorgeous nose of biscuits but had a slightly sharp and unexpected taste. RCH’s East Street Cream followed, which was a well-balanced, enjoyable beer. Another RCH came next, Firebox (6%), which was dangerously drinkable. Then a big leap up to the fruit-based stall and Broadoak’s Perry (7.5%) which was the most memorable drink of the night as it smelt like farm waste but tasted like sweets – weird but great. Finally, on the way out, I had enough money to grab a final half of O’Hanlan’s Port Stout, which was disappointing, and I didn’t think it was as good as the bottled version.

A good festival. I didn’t have anything which blew me away this time, but I tried lots of beers I’ve never had before and I got introduced to many breweries that I’ve not heard of before. And in the end I don’t think my girlfriend had that bad a time, apart from the lecherous old bloke and the smells of stale beer and stale men. I think we got somewhere, plus she’s taking me out to some pubs today and then for dinner later!

The Session #21. What is your favourite beer and why?

This is my first entry into the monthly beer blogging event known as The Session, and it’s a bloomin’ tough one, posted by Matt at A World of Brews. It’s the question I’m most frequently asked when I say I write about beer, and it’s the question I most frequently shy away from answering.

I don’t like to answer the ‘favourite beer’ question for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s so difficult to say just one out of all the beers I’ve tasted. Secondly, I don’t want to appear snobbish or geeky, reeling off a list of obscure brews from around the world, and conversely, I don’t want to sound ‘uneducated’ or boring by choosing something that everyone has heard of. Thirdly, I see the question as something that I will always be searching for; I don’t think there will ever come a time when I think to myself, “Okay, that’s it, I’ve found my favourite”, because then what? In all honesty I think that my favourite beer is one that I haven’t tasted yet, but that’s shying away from a proper answer.

I think that my ‘favourite’ beer should be the one I would always turn to - a desert island choice. Something for any occasion, on any day, for when I’m in any kind of mood. It’s the beer that I seek solace in and celebrate with. It’s something familiar and comforting while at the same time exciting and new with each mouthful. It’s like being in love, I guess you could say.

So my favourite, or at least the one that I’ll choose today, is a pint of Fuller’s London Pride. It’s not a rare beer, it’s not the best beer that I have ever tasted, and there is nothing particularly unique or special about it. The only provision; it has to been impeccably kept.

I can trace my love back to a particular moment in a backstreet boozer in West London. I walked in and was upset that they only had Pride available, but I ordered it anyway. It was, you could say, an epiphany. I had had Pride many times before, but this one was different. The beer was a glass full of perfection. It was fresh, fruity and crisp; cool yet comforting. I’ll never forget the overwhelming flavours of fresh bread and blackcurrant, with a gorgeous malt middle and smooth, clean finish. I expect I drank it in a few glorious gulps, only surfacing for air to cry out how good the beer is before quaffing some more. Since then, whenever I’ve had a decent pint of London Pride, I still get that excited feeling, the one which fills me with content.

It’s a good topic, and it’s always fascinating to hear what other beer lovers say. Maybe I shouldn’t shy away from answering the dreaded ‘favourite beer’ question anymore. Maybe I should Proudly embrace it.

Fireworks

A beer in one hand and a sparkler in the other. Fireworks whistling and crashing into the cold sky and gasps of ooh and ahh. A roaring fire behind and burgers frying on the grill to the side. What fun it is to celebrate the failed attempts of some old fella to blow up the houses of parliament.