Old Beer; Good Beer: Brewdog: AB06 1 Year Aged

So we revisit the triple hopped black IPA one year on.  I’d already drunk one fresh and one at the six month point.  The six month one was nice, but some of the hop character was absent by that point. The real question was would time add anything to compensate?

The previous high hop Abstract AB02 seemed to get mixed responses aged. At one year I felt it was becoming slightly leaden and past its best, others seemed to really enjoy as it lost its hop characteristic and matured to a more barley wine style aged beer.

So I come to this with a mix of hope and nervousness. The initial pour is smooth and thick, slightly more viscous at a guess but it is hard to say.  Aroma is significantly different but highly impressive. Not much bitterness any more but has a mix of grapefruit, nuts and liquorice. Quite a heavy pungent aroma. In fact heck this thing has lots of liquorice in it at one year.

The main body holds onto the bitterness more than the aroma, as does the finish. As I somewhat expected the hops feels more clingy and dry with age, somewhat leaden as well.  It makes a serious dent in the character of the beer, making it feel slightly heavy and not as smooth to drink.

I was a bit unsure coming in on this one. The highly hopped beers tend to age badly, but high abv and dark beers tend to be prime candidates. Thus this straddled the line between the two. At this point in its life it s probably the weakest of the Abstrakts I’ve aged, or possibly the weakest beer I’ve aged. The hop character is leaden, with very little trade off in exchange.  The hop is all earth and oils now, and the body slightly charred. It is possible further ageing may reduced the hops more but bring out new characteristics but I wouldn’t take that bet myself.

Thing is for all it is weaker in character its still an ok beer and several friends were still highly impressed by it, but it’s nowhere near its peak and is a waste of the show it had when young. The lovely citrus is gone from all but the aroma. It’s enough to make me glad I drank the other two back when they were still great fun.

So not a bad beer, but much diminished.

Malt Musings: Deary me Diageo

As a huge Brewdog fan I do occasionally find their baiting of CAMRA slightly unnecessary. Thus I have to thank Diageo who have kindly stepped up and given them a much more worthy and deserving opponent to go against.

http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/diageo-v-brewdog

It seems they deliberately insisted that Brewdog not be allowed to win an award of “Best Bar Operator” and the event conceded despite the fact that Brewdogs name was already engraved on the damn award. Now normally I would wonder about if Brewdog were being a bit one sided in their reporting but the general media’s reporting seem to back them up,and Diageo have even offered an apology.

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1131157/Diageo-forced-apologise-BrewDog-awards-scandal/

To quote good old Nietzsche

“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid “

thanks for being so insipid Diageo, I’m looking forwards to what mocking comes out of this

Old Beer: Good Beer: Brewdog Abstrakt AB01: 2 Years Aged

Old Beer: Good Beer: Brewdog Abstrakt AB01: 2 Years Aged

Its time to revisit old ales again. Well beers that have been aged, not the style old ale.  This time looking at the Abbey Quadrupel Style Belgium Ale made with vanilla pods, now with two years in the tank.  Back when I first tried it, I enjoyed it but found it a bit mixed up, like the flavours needed more time to harmonise.  It was with great interest I drew this out from its cool ageing area and prepared to pour.

Right from the start it was noticeably different.  A lot smaller head drawing forth, now kind of a thin sheen than the initial cascading head of might. Also the colour seemed a clear red, though an amount of sediment was clearly visible. Guess I sodded up the pour just a touch.  The aroma was significantly lighter, more sweet notes that before, and much more vinous.  Slightly dusty like eccentricities stores.  Not the most welcoming of openings. Though the vinous touch was a good sign.

Onto the first sip.  Very quiet top and tail, I was about to write it off on first sip, but the main body rolls in nicely.  Very chewy textured, it’s got a bit thicker over the years, and much smoother.  Lots of sweetness, the vanilla is much more evident amongst toffee and glacier cherries.  The smoothed out texture had lost a lot of the more unusual elements from before like the wheat character, and the sourness is much better integrated into the sour grapes and vinous thickness.  Slightly fruitcake like now as well.  A brandy cream style has been added as well.

It is a significantly different beer, for better or worse.  The ageing seems to have taken a very standard route of much more vinous, slight sour grapes and fruitcake.  It has integrated the flavours better but at the cost of loosing a few. A lot less heavy duty as well. Reminds me of how whisky ages at the high levels, a lot of the fire is lost, but the flavour is there and much mellower.  In some cases here, too mellow, hence the issue top and tail.

Overall a mixed package. Less complexity and force. Much better texture and integrated flavours.  The sheer change is worth the ageing I would say. It’s still a tasty beer and its very interesting to rate its progress. Flavour wise it can’t compete with the big guns of the Belgium word, the rochforts and the Westvleterens, both of which age marvellously.

A tasty beer, and lovely thickness and vinous outreaches.  Not a show stopper at this point though and a weak entry compared to its much cheaper competition.  Been a fun journey though, and one of the more fascinating alterations over a beers ageing.

Malt Musings: That Metal Tin.

I have this great metal Laphroaig tin, back from the days when whisky boxes were fearsome beasts designed to survive a nuclear apocalypse.  It’s found its uses over the years as a carry case for plugs, headphones, spare camera batteries wires and the like. It’s also great for bringing fragile stuff back from on holiday as long as ye use some bubble wrap.

However used this way it puts the shits up security people at airports majorly.

I will never forget their expression as they asked me to empty my bags. Nor my knowing realization of exactly what a metal tin filled with wires and batteries could possibly look like under an x-day.

Boy has my bag been thoroughly checked, double checked, swabbed for plastic explosives and so on over the years.

No real point to today’s musings. Just memories.

And maybe apologies to the poor airports staff who have to put up with those painful long seconds as I rummage in the bag to bring it to light.

I don’t do it to be pain, it’s just such a useful carry box. Thanks for being understanding, and not sending me to that private room for a more…thorough… examination.

Malt Musings: Whisky and Comedy

Sometimes it must be a right pain in the arse having booze geeks in the audience.

At the local comedy gig the compere was doing a routine on how everyone knows the Irish whiskey, and everyone knows the Scottish whisky, but no-one ever knew the Welsh whisky.

At this point the voices of Dylan and myself shouted out in unison “Penderyn” quite putting the poor man off his set for a moment.

Its almost as unfortunate as the Belgian comedian who, for his set, relied on complaining that German beer was so much better received than Belgium beer. A point that, even for comedy, I could not let stand.

Fear the booze geeks, or at least make sure you have an appropriately comedic put down.

Malt Musings: A BBF Acer Bottling? Oh My

Comparisons: Bristol Beer Factory: Acer: Project Progress

Now this one is more of an addendum that a tasting note, something neat and unusual.  I’m glad I got a chance to try this one, one of fewer than seven hundred bottles.  This beer, BBF’s Acer has so far been a tap only beer, a fact that caused me much consternation when I found out due to the fact it uses the sorachi ace hop with which I am so enamored. In fact on the tour they kept it pretty damn quiet that they were playing with this thing, a bottled version of Acer. Considering how much I was bugging them about it that must have been no mean feat.  Apparently they have been having great trouble making the beer work in bottles, this, project progress is their first attempt which they considered worth releasing and is hopefully a sign of a full release soon.

Now visual wise this thing top trumps even the tap, the head is massive and sturdy  a ground lemon skin colour with a hazy lemon to apricot body when you do a full sediment pour. Aroma again knocks it out of the park, lots of the sorachi ace bubblegum and lemon with some pine and resin mixed in. Even a touch of unexpected strawberry which just made me go wow.

So two for two, not just matching the style of the tap version but if anything bettering it.  Now we are onto the being a picky little git part of the write up. The body is still pretty good and matches the style of the tap well, however it seems to need larger sips to get the flavour going.  When you take it on smaller sips it doesn’t quite have the punch, seeming more like a standard bitter than the lemon citrus and resin that comes on a mouthful.  The body always did tend towards the bitter base of the style, but I feel in the bottle it could maybe do with just a bit more.  Finally the finish is pretty spot match with a very dry hop finish, more lemongrass and the digestive biscuits come out massively. Lots of hop oil texture.  Only problem really on this emphasis is the body and finish work against each other for purpose. The more large mouthful body calls to a session ale, which matches the abv. The massive dry and hop oil finish would make me think of more a take your time beer.

Still, I am being sodding picky.   But heck, for something called project progress it’s probably the best time to be. Still it matches very well to the memory of the tap version, and its flaw in the body is mainly a slightly more emphasised version of my only real complaint about the tap version.

If they released it as is I would be very happy to have it available. If they manage somehow just to tweak it that touch I would quickly become ecstatic.  Here seeing what happens next.

Erm, No

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Brewdog fan. The Fraserburgh based Brewery is an all time favourite of mine. So when I found Punk IPA at a pub in Bournemouth I took that as a good sign. Even better it turns out to be the original 6% abv version that so stole my heart rather than the still good, but not quite as beloved recent remake.

However.

I noticed something odd.

A public service announcement boys and girls.

Scotland is not in England.

That is all

Old Beer: Good Beer: AB03

Old Beer: Good Beer: AB03

So, another look at a beer that has had some ageing under its hood. Let’s see what the year has done.  This beast is the AB03, a raspberry  and strawberry packed beer aged in whisky casks.  The original was tasty, if a tad harsh, and explosively gassy.

Since there were good chunks of fruit still in the beer I thought I would keep this to ageing at only a single year.  Fruit sugars can be a tad off for ageing, though the high abv at 10.5% should help offset that.

The first instant difference was that it was far less explosive. Despite an accidental knock of the beer before opening it did not spurt in the slightest.  A pour confirms, it still has a decent head on pour, but looks far less gassy. Seems the year has settled it then.

Flavour wise it still has that big rocky, smoke and slightly medicinal touch, though the sharp raspberry now seems far more obvious than the strawberry which seems to have subside a tad.  No alcohol burn, and despite being a powerhouse it seems a lot smoother.  The lack of excess fizz definitely helps.  The less pleasant elements seems less obvious as well. There’s now an odd sweetness at the end, kind of like that off chocolate taste you get from Hershey’s chocolate. It’s only small, but an odd developed touch.

Overall the main flavours have changed very little, still powerful, still fruity sharp, if some of the outlying flavours have become muted.  The ageing has done it good though, smoother and less obvious alcohol, plus far easier to pour.  In fact despite its fruit nature I think it could easily have survived another six months to a year to smooth it out a bit more.

Not a beer that changes heavily from ageing, but does benefit from it in significantly in the few aspects that do change.

Glenfiddich Revisited Details

I recently found a bar with Glenfiddich Solera, so ordered myself a measure.  Now it was at this point I realised that I had made a mistake, not in the ordering of the whisky, but in the labelling of a previous whisky,

You see, I’d tasting noted a 15 Year Glenfiddich before, labelled, reasonably enough “Glenfiddich 15”. However this “Solera” I had ordered came in the same bottle.  A quick examination showed that while it was the correct “Solera” but unlike the bottle of old I was used to which splashed the “Solera” name in big letters across the bottles label and had a 46% abv, this version had a more prominent “15 years” label, resigning “Solera” to small letters below and was now only 40% ABV, thus leading to my confusion and having previously incorrectly calling it “Glenfiddich 15”.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the whisky in my original tasting note, thus was quite surprised to find this sample of the whisksy opening up far better. Thus, I felt a new a tasting note was in order, to admit that I had been mistaken in underrated it when originally tasting it.
So, now correctly labelled, the new tasting note is added to the original here.

Malt Musings: Nøgne-ø News

I’ve quite enjoyed my encounters with Nøgne-ø beers, and have been meaning to try more of their products.  Thus it was with interest that I noted a mail shot coming around from R and R saying that James Clay would be the exclusive distributors in the UK for their beers.

Now after reading the announcement I was a slight bit concerned.  As most craft beer fans know, often the most interesting brews are the irregular, seasonal and one off entries that are where the experimentation shines.  I couldn’t help but notice that whilst they were taking over the main line up there was no mention of any of these more rare beers getting a look it, something quite worrying for what would now be the exclusive importer.

So I thought I’d send a message and see what the official word was on this state of affairs.  The news I heard back was promising, confirming that they would be doing seasonal and one off beer. Now of course due to the nature of these one offs, we have no more information at this time. Cost (Nøgne-ø beers are traditionally quite expensive) and how widely available they will be is the big issues, but at least it is the right noises coming out at this point.

Hopefully this will result in wider availability of the Nøgne-ø beers.  It will be interesting to see how this turns out.