The Next Big Thing Will Be...

In recent years the US craft beer movement has super-sized beer all round. Beer is brewed to extremes of strength and bitterness. There has been a lot of barrel aging, mainly oak barrels which previously held whisky or bourbon. ‘Old’ styles have been brought into the 21st century – imperial stouts, new-skool IPAs, porters. Bottled beer choice has got wider, while limited edition cask beer in brewpubs achieves major notoriety. Beer release dates are talked about as if they are the opening day of the summer’s most anticipated blockbuster movie. Certain beers are creating legends of themselves. But what I’m wondering is what is next. Here’s a few possibilities…

Is sour the next big thing? Beer forums seem to be predicting that sour is the new bitter. I don’t know about this one, and I’m not convinced by wild beers and lambics yet (I haven’t had one which has made me fall in love with it). I haven’t quite acquired the taste for tart, dry, acetic, sour beers. They could be the next (logical?) step but I don’t see them becoming mainstream, at least not in the UK.

There’s bound to be more barrel aging. Maybe with the use of different barrels like brandy, cherry brandy, calvados, wine and madeira explored further. Aging styles other than imperial stout could soon take off too. Or perhaps there will be blends from different casks - the same beer but half of it aged in bourbon and the other half aged in cherry brandy - then mixed together.

On the topic of blending, maybe the next craze will be the pimping of the black and tan. IPAs with stouts; double IPAs with imperial stout. Maybe kriek and porter; lager and dark lager; two different vintages of the same beer; lager and bitter (?!). I made a snakebite at a beer festival once with an 8% cider and an 8% ale – I can’t honestly remember what it was like (it was the last beer of the night and seemed like a good idea!). Maybe this kind of thing is best left to personal experimentation.

And what about new styles of beer? Black IPAs, imperial lagers (is such a thing even possible?!), 10% ABV bitters, malty-sweet wild beer, vegetable beers, savoury beers.

Belgian-style beer is cool in the US, so maybe we will see more British brewers copying Belgian styles? Or US brewers Americanizing Belgian beers, creating bigger versions of the styles (turning the triple up to a quintuple or sextuple?!).

I think the market for ‘special’ beers will increase as will the production of ‘vintage’ beers. This’ll probably mean more one-off brews, better bottle conditioning for super longevity and more expensive single bottles. Beer as commodity.

On the reverse of the vintages, what about ultra-fresh beers designed to be drunk within a few days or weeks out of the fermentation tank. Especially designed to grip hold of that fresh hop aroma and flavour.

One trend I’d like to see is more single hop beers showcasing the unique qualities of just one hop variety, perhaps using the same base beer with each brew having a different hop added to it.

Super-sessionable beers, like milds and golden ales, to be drunk in the pub.

Will cans be the new bottles?

What about the use of ‘active’ ingredients? Look at BrewDog’s Speedball. Or the use of things such as ginseng, taurine, omega-3, vitamins and minerals. Just the thing for those searching for something more nutritious or more ‘out-there’.

And beer will hopefully become more global with more access to beers from all over the world. This will be helped by collaborations between brewers from different countries.

Is this what the next year-or-so has in store? What do you think?

Beer: In a Glass of its Own

There is a lot of bantering going around currently about beer and wine and how it fits at the dinner table. I like to think that I have a polygamous palate and that I’ll drink whatever is best with whatever I am eating, whether it is juice, beer, wine or a spirit. However, I do honestly believe that beer matches - or betters - wine against any and every dish you can think up. Yet there is a blind willingness to open a bottle of red or white at the meal table, as if it belongs there by right.

There are many disparities between the reception of wine and beer, and I think a lot of this comes down to one thing, which unfortunately defines beer to those who do not drink it: the pint glass. Beer has an almost inseparable link with the pint, which carries with it connotations of pub drinking, drunkenness, loutish behaviour and just general drinking-to-get-drunk, rather than drinking to appreciate. Wine on the other hand, served in the delicately rounded glass, looks altogether more elegant and refined. A pint glass allows a certain amount of roughness - it can handle a tight grip and almost asks for it; a wine glass needs a little more tenderness.

So the issue, I think, falls onto the large shoulders of the pint glass. A pint is the perfect shape for the hand. It feels right when we hold it. It’s also the perfect amount to drink in the pub. It takes 20 minutes-or-so to finish; it’s designed for quaffing not swirling and sniffing. The kind of behaviour which is synonymous with the pint is not allowed at the dinner table. It’s bad form. Taking a pint to the table says we’re not having a serious meal; it says we’re having a curry, we’re in the pub, we’re having a casual meal at home. A wine glass says that this is a nice dinner; it’s civilised, grown-up.

Some breweries have started filling 750ml bottles with their beer, presumably to make them look at home on the dinner table. A 750ml bottle suggests sharing. A 330ml or 500ml bottle is a single portion – it’s made for one. If you share a 330ml bottle of beer then you don’t get a large amount right? Well, technically no, but it’s the perfect amount for a main course. You get 165ml and that’s the same as a small-ish glass of wine. If you pour this into a pint glass then it looks like a tiny amount. The solution: use a wine glass or a smaller beer glass. Each beer is best suited to its own specific shape of glass, just like wine is, so this is the perfect answer. And I don’t know many women who like to drink from pint glasses, break that wall down and serve it in a wine glass and all of a sudden it’s a different drink altogether.

Sharing food and beer is fun, especially if you make a nice meal and then serve a couple of glasses of beer to compliment it. That’s what eating and drinking is all about. In the pub I want a pint but at the table, or at home, I want smaller glasses, something more refined. The pint glass is a large barrier that needs to be overcome before beer can achieve the same standing as wine at the dinner table. But is it possible to overcome the negative connotations? And will the beer glass find its place on dining tables in the home and in restaurants?

RipTide Ice Cream and Cupcakes

Beer with dessert is the finest way to end a meal and there are so many great matches out there: stout and strawberries, cherry beer and chocolate, barley wine and blue cheese, massive IPA with mature cheddar... Sometimes it can be a challenge (a fun challenge) to get a really great match without overpowering either dinner or drink, but when you get it right it can be awesome. For these recipes the beer was an essential part of the dessert.

I made these with BrewDog’s RipTide and it's a fantastic beer to use. It's rich, strong and packed with chocolate and coffee flavours which means that it’s got plenty of character to shine out and not get lost in the baking or the freezing.

The ice cream is glorious; it’s thick and creamy and it has this absolutely perfect depth of chocolate from the stout. It really is stunning. The cupcakes are light, moist, chocolatey, chewy. The best things about both of these treats are; 1) you can make the ice cream and the cakes at the same time, from just one 330ml bottle of stout; 2) they taste great together, especially if the cakes are still warm, or are delicious on their own; and 3) my girlfriend - who hates beer - absolutely loved both of these. That shocked me and made me smile - I finally won her over with beer, even if it was in dessert form. I challenge anyone who ‘doesn’t like beer’ to not like either of these.

If you wanted to use another beer then I’d suggest a fairly robust stout full of roasted grain flavours, rich, sweet and strong, but not overly hopped (too much hop bitterness in the ice cream leads to a dry tannic finish, which is odd). I reckon Thornbridge’s St Petersburg Imperial Stout would make incredible ice cream, as would Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout and Oatmeal Stout or the Foreign Extra Guinness. I tried making the ice cream with BrewDog’s Isle of Arran (10% imperial stout aged in whisky casks) and that worked well, just use less beer to compensate for the extra ABV strength. I really want to try an IPA ice cream, probably with fruit juice added to sweeten the hop bitterness, I just don’t know if it’ll work?! There’s only one way to find out…

One note before we jump in. The beer should be poured and rested before you cook with it. You don’t want it cold and you don’t want bubbles in it.


RipTide Ice Cream

I favour the simple approach to ice cream which avoids any of the worrying custard making. I just use condensed milk and double cream and it’s perfect every time.

• 400ml can condensed milk
• 1 pint double cream
• 150ml-200ml stout
• Splash of vanilla extract

Mix the milk and cream and add the vanilla and 150ml of the beer, stirring it all together. Give it a taste. You’ll get all the sweet roast grain flavours in there and if you think it needs more beer than add more – make it to your taste (bear in mind that once the ice cream is frozen the flavours will be less pronounced, so don’t err on the side of caution). Next just churn it in an ice cream machine. It goes from nought-to-frozen in half an hour, but you may need to give it extra time in the freezer to set it hard, depending on your machine. And that’s it.

RipTide Cupcakes

Makes 12

The cupcakes:

• 125g softened butter
• 100g dark sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 175g plain flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 150ml stout
• 50g cocoa powder
• 50g dark chocolate

The icing:

• Tub soft cream cheese
• 25g icing sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• Drop of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and beat in. Fold in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and stir together. Add the stout bit by bit and work it in to make a thick batter. Grate the dark chocolate into this batter. Pour the mix into muffin cases and bake for 18-20 minutes.

When they are done allow them to cool while you make the icing. Do this by mixing the tub of cream cheese (low fat is fine) with the icing sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla (the cocoa powder isn't strictly essential if you don't fancy a chocolatey icing). Taste it and add more of each if required – you want it just sweet but not sickly and overpowering. These cakes are great without even adding the icing.

The best beer to serve with this? That’s obvious; the beer you cook with. RipTide is ideal as it’s got the perfect oomph of strength to stand up to the sweetness in each (it’s especially good with the cakes). You will want a big strong beer because if you’ve been making little cupcakes all afternoon and there’s flour in your hair/beard then you will need something to toughen you up again. Enjoy.

Cool Beer Ad

I just saw this commercial over at Hop Talk for Heineken. Check it out there or follow this link to youtube. It isn't English, but it's universal in it's message. It's very funny!

His fridge looks a bit cold to me though - it's going to give his bottled conditioned beers a bit of a chill - and where's his cellar?!

Guilt-Twinged Beer Hoarding

I keep my beers in three places: a box for the ones that I can/will drink at any time - ‘standard beers’; a cupboard of beers which I don’t have ready access to, rare beers – ‘special beers’; the other place is a special cupboard for vintages.

The vintage cupboard and the box are fine. They don’t bother me because the box I can raid at any time and the vintages I won’t touch yet. It’s the other cupboard which gets me the most. In there are the beers which I most want to drink, but they are the ones which I am most reticent to open. I suffer from a worrying complex. I fret about it. I place the beers in there excitedly, knowing that I’ll open them soon, but once they get in there I get scared. It’s like stage-fright. I take a bottle out every now and then, I look at it, I read the label, I think about it, then I put it back. I often choose a beer from the box when one from the cupboard is what I really want. I’m afraid of it, in a strange kind of way. I feel guilt.

I’m worried that I’ll love it and won’t be able to get another or, conversely, that it’ll underwhelm and disappoint. I use the ‘it’ll improve if I leave it another month’ line. I think that today is just not special enough to open a ‘special beer’. And I just like seeing the bottle in the cupboard as part of the ‘collection’. It’s a terrible affliction.

Am I alone in this guilt-twinged beer hoarding?

It's Friday and I'm Thirsty

It's Friday afternoon and the weekend is so close, but I'm still in work and all I can think about is the first beer tonight.

I'm planning on opening a Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard ale first, but I've also got a craving for something dark. This craving stems back to a few beers which I've had in the last week which have all been excellent - Thornbridge Brewery's St. Petersburg Imperial Stout in The Rake (Borough Market), Orkney Brewery's Dragonhead Stout in the Market Porter (also Borough Market) and a Theakston's Old Peculiar in The Gunmakers (Clerkenwell - Stonch's pub). I can still taste the St. Petersburg now and am seriously craving something dark, chocolatey, thick and rich.

I have a thirst that needs slaking.

Speedball Update...

BrewDog have written a response to the Portman Group's ruling on Speedball. It's a great piece, sharp and vindicated, intelligent, clearly fueled with anger and disappointment.

Hopefully the beer will re-emerge under the same guise as its American-self - Dogma - and go on to sell enormous volumes in the media debacle that has raised it into infamy.

BrewDog Speedball

BrewDog’s Speedball has been banned by the Portman Group. There are stories here and here if you want to read them. Here’s the Portman Group press release.

It’s about drugs. Did you know that a Speedball is a potentially lethal cocktail of cocaine and heroine? I didn’t until I went to wikipedia. It’s dangerous because cocaine raises the heart rate and heroine slows it down. It sounds pretty crazy to me. As a sensible, law abiding, Englishman of 24 with a decent education and a job and a car and a girlfriend and two pet fish and a love of good beer I consider myself fairly normal. There is no way I would ever inject myself with cocaine and heroine. That’s insane.

I will however happily drink a beer that has the same name, a beer which contains guarana (a tropical berry full of caffeine, thought to increase alertness and mood), kola nut (a stimulant) and California poppy (California state’s flower and a mild sedative). Plus the natural depressant qualities of the hops and the alcohol in the beer. It’s fast/slow, it’s different, it’s unique, it’s provocative, it’s BrewDog.

The attack is not on the beer itself. It is on the naming and marketing of it. BrewDog is a brand and we recognise them because they have built up such a great brand image. It’s what makes them who they are. They are punks. This is a punk rock beer. It’s a punk rock craft beer, which is sold at a premium price at specialist retailers. The type of person who buys this kind of beer – I may be over-generalising here – is educated in beer, is interested in good beer, is willing to pay the price for it and (most importantly) is not going to associate it with a killer cocktail. This sort of beer can not be considered alongside a standard premium lager; they are very different beasts aimed at massively different markets.

So what it has drug connotations? So what it’s called a ‘Class A Strong Ale’? And yes it was probably designed to get this kind of response (that’s good marketing), but so what? Let’s not forget that alcohol is a drug itself. And hops are related to cannabis (and have you ever had Cannabis beer? I have). We know alcohol is a drug and we make the conscious decision about whether or not we want to put it inside our bodies. We make our own mind up. We are not forced to drink it.

I think the Portman Group are silly. Why are they punishing an exciting young brewery for being provocative? Why are they punishing individuality? Does the beer glamorise (or even mention) the Speedball cocktail? And does it make you want to inject yourself with cocaine and heroine? If it does then it is you that needs to be taken off the shelf, not BrewDog.

Thornbridge Brewery

Yesterday I met Stefano and Kelly from Thornbridge Brewery. It was a meet the brewer event held and arranged by lovebeeratborough. Basically, we beer fans turn up and get to listen to the chaps from the brewery talk about their beers while we sit there drinking them. It was brilliant fun!

Thornbridge Brewery’s tagline is ‘Never Ordinary’ and I like that; it’s fun, playful, open, experimental, forward-thinking. Hearing these guys talk about their beers, enthusing passionately, eloquently, intelligently, articulately, is fascinating. They are more like rock-stars or movie-stars, with their good-looks, cool dress sense and long, dark hair, than they are brewers. Stefano, the Head Brewer, is Italian and has this shy-blasé-cool thing going on, he’s softly spoken but everything he says I want to listen to. And Kelly, the Production Manager, a New Zealander, is like a mate you haven’t met yet, instantly friendly and a guy you’d love to sit down with and ’chat beer’ for hours. Seriously, these guys make the whole science of brewing super sexy and they know so much; they speak the language of beer like poets.

The first beer we tried was Seven Heron, a 3.8% pale golden ale created by Melissa Cole (a partner with LoveBeer and a cool beer writer). The beer is light and quenching with plenty of nibbling hops to finish. A good way to ease us in to the sampling session.

Next came Jaipur, their most known beer and a quality drop. It’s a 5.9% IPA hopped with Chinook, Centennial and Ahtanum. There’s a big malty base beneath the biting hops, with lots of grapefruit and tropical fruits. I’d had the bottled version which was ‘softer’, fruitier and more buttery caramel malt, but the cask stuff was super. Jaipur is one of the best British IPAs around right now (Punk IPA, Meantime and Skrimshander are up there for me too). They call it dangerously drinkable and have even verbalised the name - I am Jaipured – as an expression of drunkenness.

A special edition of Halcyon, a very gluggable 7.7% IPA, followed. It was a 2008 vintage of a new idea at Thornbridge (the idea, if my fuzzy head remembers correctly, is to take the big base of Halcyon and add a different hop to it each year creating a vintage which shows off the qualities of that individual hop and the hops’ terroir). This beer is wet hopped with Green Hereford Targets (there’s some Derbyshire Fuggles in there too and they use a Belgian yeast) and was fantastic; unbelievably fresh with citrus fruits and strawberry aromas, biscuity malt and then great aromatic hops.

Things stepped up from here and went into awesome mode. The chaps brought out Alliance, an 11% strong ale which was only bloody brewed with beer mega-star Garrett Oliver! But they didn’t just bring one, there were three… The normal Alliance; one which was then aged for another two months in Pedro Ximinez Spanish oak casks; and one that was aged for three more months in American oak casks which previously held Madeira. We had them in a vertical-style tasting and that was insanely good. The base beer is stunning, fruity and bold; the sherry cask took on a dried fruit quality and a big richness; the Madeira cask was nutty and full of juicy stone fruits. Matt, my date for the event, loved the original one best, while I was torn between the other two, changing my mind with each sniff and sip of the gloriously intoxicating beers. This was an incredible and unique experience and fascinating to see how barrel-aging imparts its own characteristics. Wow-inducing.

We valiantly continued. Next came Handel which was around 6% (I don’t remember the specifics; I was already reminiscing about the Alliance) and created in collaboration with a young American girl who visited the brewery to try her homebrew on a larger scale. This was another special beer, a one-off. It had all the qualities of a Belgian beer with the spicy fruit aromas suggesting it’ll be thick and syrupy, but it’s actually wonderfully light and drinkable, surprisingly so. It’s a Euro-American mix and a damn good one.

One more. And it ended with a bang: Bracia. I had tried this the week before and adored it. It’s 9%, thick and dark, brewed with Italian chestnut honey (which is surprisingly bitter) and bottled conditioned with Champagne yeast. This is one of the best looking beers I’ve seen in ages with its deep brown head (excuse the poor picture quality; I was in such lusty admiration of the beer that I had to hurriedly snap it). It has amazing aromas of chocolate and honey, loads of nuts and coffee. My tasting notes from home even features the word Pfwoar! There’s a load of dark chocolate in the mouth, bitterness, some berries, smoke and a hint of something zingy and fresh. It’s boozy and strong, rich and complex and there’s a fascinating earthy/beefy/savoury note which will make it a brilliant match for chocolate desserts.

And that was that. We stayed around after chatting to Stefano and Kelly which was great. They are so friendly and approachable and hearing them talk about their beer is brilliant; they speak with pride and love and their enthusiasm is contagious. It’s fascinating to hear about the brewery and their set-up, the way they have progressed and the way they think as brewers. They stand behind the terms ‘Innovation’, ‘Passion’ and ‘Knowledge’ and spending just two hours with them and their beers, these terms shine through: when you hear about it from these guys, beer is not just beer, it’s a whole lot more than that.

Afterwards we went down into the Rake to drink some more of their beers (they are on tap in there all week so make sure you hurry down, if not you can buy their stuff from Utobeer in Borough Market). Between us we had a Seven Heron (lovely), a Halcyon (fantastically drinkable, big), Jaipur (much hoppier off cask compared to the bottle, but brilliant for that reason) and we were lucky enough to grab a cheeky half of Saint Petersburg Imperial Stout (7.7%) which was mind-blowing: rich and creamy, smoothly chocolaty, just gorgeous.

Then I had to go home and I left for the train suitable Jaipured. Thank you Thornbridge and LoveBeer, I had a fantastic time.

As-Live Tasting: Belgian Style Triple Ale

20.10pm. This is an as-live tasting of the Belgian Style Triple Ale which is a collaborative brew between Stone Brewing Co., Mikkeller Brewery and AleSmith Brewery.

Basically I decided to open a beer tonight and thought I’d write my notes straight into the computer and publish them right now, unedited.

Allow me to set the scene: Location, Location, Location is on in the background (I love Kirstie Allsopp) and I’m at my desk. The beer is downstairs. I do currently have better things to be doing, but I’m feeling lazy and I want a beer. Let’s go!

20.13pm. Beer opened and poured, photo taken and back to desk.

20.14pm. Pale gold colour, not a massive head and few bubbles. Aromas of bread and oranges; an oaty-ness; subtle spice; citrusy fruit developing with more oranges, maybe lychee too. Some booze.

20.16pm. Let’s drink! It’s so smooth and creamy (there must be oats in it?), feels way below its 8.7% ABV and it’s light. Loads of malt; clove spiciness; toned-down American-style hoppy finish; orange pith and peel. The booze is coming through more now.

20.20pm. I’m reading the bottle… It has a tag-line of ‘Triple the Breweries, Triple the Brewmasters, Triple the beer…’ That’s pretty cool. The whole concept is good; I like it. These are three of the most forward and progressive breweries in the world so a collaboration is really interesting.

20.22pm. I’m distracted by Kirstie Allsopp.

20.24pm. I get back to the beer. More fruit comes through now and it’s more mellow, creamy. There’s something biscuity about it, maybe the malt-yeast combo? I get some pepper and pears too. There’s spice, there’s malt and there’s plenty of hops to finish and it’s Europe meets America. It has a definite Belgian twang, whatever that indeterminate description may mean. It’s very drinkable for a beer of its strength, but I’m wondering when it’ll blow my mind?

20.30pm. Masterchef begins (goodbye Kirstie), I notice Southend are beating Chelsea as I skip channels. I laugh heartily.

20.33pm. This beer is sliding down quick. But it feels a little flat, as if the carbonation has let it down.

20.35pm. Is this as-live thing working? It’s doubtful. I’m cruising Beer Advocate right now. I’m desperate to drink more AleSmith beers. I’ve got some Stone downstairs but I won’t have another now. I’m going to Utobeer on Saturday (before/after the Thornbridge tasting at the Rake) and I think I’ll pick up some more Stones.

20.40pm. I’m enjoying the beer-buzz, that airy sensation of feeling relaxed after the first beer (especially a strong one).

20.44pm. The beer is gone. I’m left kind of perplexed and undecided by it. I enjoyed it but I wouldn’t buy another one. It’s very drinkable and light for its strength - fruity, spicy, bready - but I have a feeling that it’ll be soon forgotten (except that it’s been posted here for eternity, or so).

20.47pm. Right, let’s get this thing online. As-live tasting done!

20.59pm. We are live.