Archive for the ‘bottled beer’ Category

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Bowling and American Beer in London

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

allstarlanes

There are now several trendy bowling places in London, following the success of Bloomsbury Lanes which opened a few years back.

On Friday, we went with a bunch of mates to All Star Lanes, also in Bloomsbury/Holborn, and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the beer on offer.

We’re huge fans of Brooklyn Lager, so we had a couple of those. We also tried Sierra Nevada Summerfest (Beer Nut’s not convinced; we weren’t impressed either) and finished with our beer of the week, Anchor Liberty Ale. We were also pleased to see Sierra Nevade Pale Ale and Brooklyn Chocolate Stout on the menu. All were priced at around £4 a bottle.

Sadly, but understandably, most people there were going for the cheaper option: a bucket of Coors Light.

There are also exciting looking cocktails, milkshakes and ice cream floats. Would a Brooklyn Chocolate Stout ice-cream float work? We’re sure Mark will get round to trying that soon, at any rate.

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Posted in American beers, bottled beer, london | 11 Comments »

Restaurant with almost good beer

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

restaurantbeers

Once again, last week we found ourselves in a restaurant which had made a bit of an effort with the beer, but not quite enough.

On the up side, there was one of each colour — Hoegaarden (yellow), Guinness (black) and Innis and Gunn (brown).

Sadly, the Guinness was the widgetised draught bottle (fairly bland) and Innis and Gunn’s beer is nowhere near as good as their marketing.

It wouldn’t take much to improve the beer offer here, without getting too geeky. Non-widgety Guinness Original isn’t bad; Hook Norton bottled Double Stout or Fuller’s London Porter would be even better.

And why not replace Innis and Gunn with… well, almost any bottled ale?

We guess the owners are buying what they can get at their cash-and-carry of choice, or through their wine supplier. We’d be interested to hear from anyone who knows how this works, and what would need to change to improve things.

The restaurant was the otherwise very good Eat 17 in Walthamstow, London.

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Posted in beer and food, bottled beer | 11 Comments »

Un-skunked bottled lager

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

The cap from a bottle of Augustiner lager beer

In a crap pub, a bottle of Budvar is often the last refuge for the beer geek. Sadly, those little green bottles are almost always past their best — stale and flavourless.

It was nice this week to be reminded that it doesn’t always have to be that way with bottled lager, though, when Augustiner Lagerbier Hell (our beer of the week) transported us to Bavaria with one sip.

There were veritable hops, sweet malt and — hooray! — no off flavours.

It also helped that it was served in a nicely shaped and properly branded glass. That shouldn’t matter, but it does.

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Posted in beer reviews, bottled beer, Germany | 9 Comments »

Berliner Weisse in London

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

berlinerweisse

Cask, a nicely refurbished pub in Pimlico, London, continues to impress. This week, we noticed that their range of German bottled beers includes a Berliner weisse, which is a style we’ve been wanting to get our hands on for a while.

We have had it before — on a trip to the city of its origin in 2002, when we knew absolutely nothing about beer, and submitted to having it spiked with bright green fruit syrup.

So, drinking this 3% abv wheat beer straight, we were very impressed. It more than makes up for a lack of alcoholic kick with plenty of sourness and grainy flavour, and is certainly something we’d like to have around at our next party or barbecue.

For balance, we should say that Ron Pattinson’s not a fan of this brand — he considers it “disgusting crap”.

Posted in beer reviews, bottled beer, Germany | 12 Comments »

Hot weather no good for beer geekery

Monday, June 29th, 2009

stash

These days, it never seems to be the right time to tackle a strong or quirky beer. Maybe it’s the weather — we’re craving cold lager or, like Knut, wheat beer. Ron’s of the view that there’s nothing better in the heat than a chilled Guinness Foreign Export, but we’re not convinced.

So, the Brew Dogs, the Belgians and the bocks sit gathering dust in the ‘cellar’ while our recycling bin fills up with empty bottles from beers like Svyturys (contains rice) and Franziskaner (contains no real hops). We’re also slowly working our way through our oh-so-small stash of homebrewed lager.

Maybe this weekend, we’ll tackle our recently acquired Lou Pepes. They ought to be refreshing and worth taking notes on.

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Posted in bottled beer | 22 Comments »

Hop extract but no hops?

Monday, June 1st, 2009

We’ve noticed this week that a couple of bottled German beers on sale in the UK — including Franziskaner wheat beer — list only malt, yeast and hop extract in their ingredients lists.

It’s quite common for even decent beers to contain hop extract as well as hops to add a bit of pep, but is it going too far to use nothing but?

It makes us feel a bit uneasy.

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Posted in bottled beer | 23 Comments »

Why so few bottled dark beers?

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

It’s always interesting to see the old adverts that pubs sometimes use to decorate their walls. A poster for Bateman’s Salem Porter from the early 90s caught our eye this week.

We assumed this beer had been discontinued because we’ve never seen it for sale anywhere, unlike their ubiquitous XXXB and Rosey Nosey Christmas beer. But, no, they still make this multiple award winning cask only beer.

Keen as we are to find it on cask one day, it would also be nice if their bottled range (which we can get very easily in corner shops in our bit of London) included this apparently brilliant beer. Perhaps they could drop one of the three very similar golden ales to make room?

Maybe they feel there’s no market? If so, that’s a shame, because we really believe dark beers (milds, porters, stouts, lagers, whatever) are going to be the next big thing. After all, what’s a cooler looking pint than one that’s pitch black?

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Posted in bottled beer, breweries, buying beer, Generalisations about beer culture | 14 Comments »

Cornwall in conclusion

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

castleinn

These are our final words on Cornwal, which we’re sure is becoming a boring topic.

Ten great Cornish beers

  1. St Austell Tribute (cask conditioned).
  2. Marks and Spencer’s Cornish IPA (bottle conditioned).
  3. St Austell Proper Job (bottle conditioned).
  4. St Austell Admiral’s Ale (bottle conditioned).
  5. Sharp’s Chalky’s Bite (bottle conditioned).
  6. Skinner’s Ginger Tosser (cask conditioned; excellent despite the terrible name).
  7. Carn Brea One and All (bottled; not brewed in Cornwall).
  8. St Austell Clouded Yellow (bottle conditioned; a fake Bavarian wheat beer).
  9. Lizard Ales’ An Gof (bottle conditioned; strong dark ale with salt and smoked malt).

Five disappointing Cornish beers

  1. St Austell HSD (cask conditioned and bottled).
  2. St Austell IPA (a Greene King IPA beater — bland and weak).
  3. Sharp’s Doom Bar (didn’t find a good bottle or pint of this anywhere; maybe we should have gone closer to the source and made it to Rock?)
  4. Skinner’s Betty Stoggs (cask conditioned; too much crystal malt and some cardboard).
  5. St Austell Tribute (bottled; dead and flavourless compared to the cask version).

Two decent Cornish pubs

1. The Castle Inn, St Ives — looks a bit rough around the edges (those “drugs will not be tolerated” signs send all the wrong signals) but was full of old men and guest ales when we went on a weekday lunchtime.

2. The Ship Inn, Mousehole — probably cheerier in season, but has a very friendly and efficient — he earwigged when we were deciding what to have and the drinks were lined up on the bar before we got there. Our mates’ kids tell us the Ribena Fruit Shoots were well kept, too.

Next time, we’ll check out the Blue Anchor and the Tinner’s Arms at Zennor.

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Posted in bottled beer, breweries | 1 Comment »

We have a winner: best British Koelsch Klone

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

A few months ago, we spotted that Young’s bottled Kew Brew (now “Kew Gold”) is a dead ringer for a decent draught Koelsch. We tested that theory again this week and are now prepared to say, outright, that it’s the best substitute for draught Koelsch you can get in the UK.

Filtered, pasteurised bottles of Frueh just don’t compare. It’s even better than Meantime’s slightly bland effort.

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Posted in Beer styles, bottled beer, Germany | 12 Comments »

Young’s Chocolate Stout: now with added smoke

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Has anyone else had a bottle of Young’s Chocolate Stout recently? We just tried one at a Young’s pub in London and were astounded to discover that (a) it’s got better and (b) it no longer tastes of chocolate, but rather intensely of smoke and roasted barley. The ingredient list includes oats and “natural chocolate flavouring”.

Any insight much from those in the know would be much appreciated.

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Posted in bottled beer | 11 Comments »

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