Strawberry, blackberry and vanilla sour from the Crooked River Brewing Co in Cumbria. Gentle on the sour and subtle with the fruit. I expected a bit more colour, but it's a really easy drinking beer that you could drink all night. Very good. I'm sure Kenneth Williams would love a beer from Cockermouth with a fruity tarty base too.
My first visit to the Loch Lomond Brewery Tap. This was a pint of Bravehop. But my favourite was their Zoom Time with which I raised a toast to my new great niece, Imke 😊🍻
Is it possible to design a more pretentious venue?
Yesterday i was designed chauffeur for my partner and her friend, taking them up for a womens retreat. Fortunately it was near the Alchemist brewery, home of Heady Topper, the beer that, supposedly, started the NEIPA craze. I thought I’d stop in for one and pick up some cans. They had hand pulled heady topper. It’s not from cask, but no co2 dispense. It was pretty good, tasted more bitter than the can.
So now I have two days in Burlington, Vermont to do my thing - a bunch of taprooms I’ve not been to before. First for today, Burlington Beer Company. I’ve had some their beers before and they’ve always been very good. Today’s starter is Peasant King, 9% DIPA. Very smooth, nice amount of bitterness. Another win for BBCO.
A few specials on the BBCO menu. I had to try this one. 2021 North of Kathmandu. 9.5% Imperial toasted coconut stout aged in bourbon barrels. Very smooth, you can smell the bourbon, but I couldn’t taste it. A little sweet on first taste, but then it turns toasty with the coconut only turning up at the end. I might have to come back tomorrow to try the others.
Switchback Brewery. I had to talk myself into going here. Most of their beers are pretty unremarkable. Once inside I saw all their better beers were not on tap, so I went with unusual. Smoke 40, a 5.9% smoked IPA. I’ve never had a smoked IPA before, and it isn’t bad. The smoke is quite subtle, not like full on rauchbier. A little sweet on the aftertaste, but between those two flavors you be hard pressed to find any bitterness.
Another mediocre brewery - Queen City. I’m always hopeful that this type of brewery has a special on tap that makes it worthwhile. Not today - this is Argument, supposedly a traditional English IPA. Unsurprisingly it’s not. Very yeasty with barely a hop in sight. A quick check of the remaining beer list, which is extensive, tells me I won’t be hanging around.
Tried some Brewdog Shore Leave recently, £4 for 4 large cans in Tesco. I'm not a fan of brewdog generally, but this is ok as a session beer, a bit like Doom Bar, which I think is a bit boring but not unpleasant. Fine at the discounted price.
Directly opposite Queen City, Zero Gravity Brewing, which despite its name, has nothing to do with nonalcoholic beer. Duck Duck Juice, 6.6% IPA. Nice to be back to normal beer. Nothing exceptional, just a bog standard NEIPA, but very drinkable.
Today I learnt something. I like bitter beers, so I’ve always assumed that IBU would be a decent guide. After my Queen City experience, which had a 55 IBU, i had to read up on the subject. That beer, imho, had zero bitterness. It turns out that there are two ways of measuring this - send it off to a lab for testing, or use a calculation. I’m guessing most smaller brewers would do the latter. That calculation will tell you the bitterness from the hops, but it won’t tell you anything about other ingredients that may offset the bitterness. You learn something every day.
I'm a big fan of this. It might not be very trendy, not being cloudy or sour, not having odd ingredients or trendy artwork and coming from an established brewer. But, it's got this going for it: It's relatively cheap and it tastes great.
I'm a big fan of this. It might not be very trendy, not being cloudy or sour, not having odd ingredients or trendy artwork and coming from an established brewer. But, it's got this going for it: It's relatively cheap and it tastes great.
The only thing that matters is that you like it. Beer is like food, music, books, etc. It’s completely subjective. If we all liked the same thing life would be incredibly boring.
A change - Citizen Cider. New England is full of cider producers. Citizen pops up all over the place, and their main offerings are pretty boring. But in the taproom we have a decent version of one of my favorite styles - Lake Hopper, 6.2% hopped cider. Not bad, although UFF in Portland is still my winner in this category.
Another day, another beer(or two). Just one brewery on the agenda. Foam Brewers are right on the lakeside in downtown Burlington. It’s a fantastic spot for an afternoon beer. This is Magnetic Fields : Nugget. 8% DIPA made, not surprisingly, with nugget hops. Very fruity
I've been to Burlington @SomervilleAddick (about 12 years ago) but I don't remember there being a craft brewery on every corner! You're having a cracking beer tasting weekend there for sure.
I've been to Burlington @SomervilleAddick (about 12 years ago) but I don't remember there being a craft brewery on every corner! You're having a cracking beer tasting weekend there for sure.
Foam is pretty recent. Maybe 6-7 years. The others are outside downtown, about 2 miles, taking in some of Vermonts finest road works, including a spot where both sides of the road had signs telling me the sidewalk was closed and I needed to cross.
Cracking find here in Cuiabá although by their standards very expensive. £5 did not get a pint. I put money on a card and was able to pour however much you liked from the taps and your credit was reduced in accordance to the quantity poured. My last pennies were used having a second helping of this very tasty APA.
Thursday night In Portland, Maine, for the last three nights of Portland Beer Week. The Kings Head has a superb collection of beers on. I’ve already had a couple of Pliny the Elders, but this is a magnificent sour. Definitive Portals - 6.3% , dragon fruit, passion fruit and vanilla. It’s much more tart than other US sours, the vanilla balances out the fruit nicely.
And straight on to number two, as phone service was crappy at Goodfire. Lone Pine. I was going to keep away from the high octane beer, but they tempted me in with Strata DDH Oh-J. Regular Oh-J does taste citrusy, This version less so, more hop bitterness. Very nice, but I’m not sure 8.1% is where I planned to be on beer 2. I suppose I could have ordered a half, but why?
Bonus from UFF - Barrel Aged Arlo - 6.9% cider made with golden delicious aged in Maine Craft Distillers barrels. Doesn’t say what was in the barrels, but the effect is that it smell like calvados. Flavor is very light apple, very dry.
The longest walk between breweries. That must have been 4 minutes. Now at Belleflower, my favorite small brewery in Portland. Hexology, 7.3% NEIPA. Smooth, but not as fruity as most, and quite dry. Best pared with food from the taco truck.
Extended the walk between breweries. This must have been 5 minutes. Rising Tide - one of the older breweries who I think have been left behind in the quality race. But this is their wet hop, Maine Harvest and it’s a pleasant enough old school IPA.
Somerville is living the life ( even if I can’t stand sours)
This is like doing the Bermondsey Beer Mile, which is on my list off things to do. I’ve been to a few of the breweries, but never done the whole thing.
Austin Street - last of the Bayside breweries. I thought I’d try something different as I’ve had their IPAs before, and unlike most other breweries, they don’t keep making different variations of the same beer. Fair Fight - wheat beer with ginger and peaches. You have to try very hard to taste the peaches over the ginger.
Comments
Cracking find here in Cuiabá although by their standards very expensive. £5 did not get a pint.
I put money on a card and was able to pour however much you liked from the taps and your credit was reduced in accordance to the quantity poured.
My last pennies were used having a second helping of this very tasty APA.
And straight on to number two, as phone service was crappy at Goodfire. Lone Pine. I was going to keep away from the high octane beer, but they tempted me in with Strata DDH Oh-J. Regular Oh-J does taste citrusy, This version less so, more hop bitterness. Very nice, but I’m not sure 8.1% is where I planned to be on beer 2. I suppose I could have ordered a half, but why?
Ok, something different. Urban Farm Fermentory. Although they do make some beer, they are really a cider/kombucha maker.
I haven’t been here for a while, so a bit of kombucha tasting. These are all 1.5%.
Anise Hyssop - I had to look up hyssop, used as a medicine and paired with anise, it’s a bit bland but smells like germaline.
Arctic Kiwi - can’t say I tasted any kiwi. Just tasted like sour black tea, which is fine.
Ginger - tastes like ginger, and one of my favorites.
Ghost Chili - not as ferocious as I expected, but still hot. I won’t be drinking that by the pint, but it certainly livens up the tastebuds.
Hopped - definitely hopped, but sweet/sour. An odd one.