It’s an exciting thing to get stuck into!
Beak are indeed great and we’re lucky that the supermarkets stock some world class breweries these days;
Thornbridge do some really good beers, Green Mountain is a nice Summer beer.
Mikkeller are often in Sainsbury’s and M&S. As are To Øl and Polly’s.
Agreed on Hung Drawn and Portered, fantastic beer.
I’ve certainly ‘assessed’ many at this stage!! One of the best quality UK ‘new’ breweries I’ve tried is cloudwater, think they’re based in Manchester, certainly worth a try if you see them, anyone else tried it?
Bevertown - Neck oil and Gamma Ray
Brewdog - most of them. HazyJane is fantastic
Camden Hill
I tend to drink “weak” ales, a.b.v around 3.5% to 4.1%. I’m not a fan of the strong stuff, and people thing I’m a bit weird when in New England I look for the weakest possible IPA they have, even at a beer festival!
One of my favourite beers is from West Berkshire Brewery, Mr. Chubbs. Unfortunately recently they were in the news as they have been taken over, thankfully not by a bigger brewery, but by the lord of the manor, literally.
My next adventure will be to brew my own beer, just unsure when that will be as I need to work out the space and logistics.
Yeah agreed Cloudwater do some good stuff. They used to be hard to get outside of Manchester a few years back and pricey as a result but seems to be slightly more readily available now and more competitively priced.
I’m trying to ‘get back’ into lower abv beers. I hopped on the DIPA/TIPA bandwagon when they were everywhere and when chewing through a thick 8-10% beer is the standard, it’s eye-opening how quickly a 4% beer starts to basically taste like sparkling water.
I also find it’s easy to get tired of the mega juicy hazy East Coast style ales.
Howling Hops are doing a really good 5% West Coast pale (Hang Ten) at the moment that is a really balanced beer with a decent hop content but still malty enough that it tastes like a beer and not a fruit juice.
Of the four you mentioned I think Gamma Ray, partly because Beavertown were so instrumental in making craft ale so accessible and widely available, and partly because it’s a great clean beer with a good abv.
My two favourite beers ever are Pale Fire by Pressure Drop. It’s one of the beers that got me into craft when they had it on tap at my then local (Sebright Arms, Hackney Road) in early 2014. And House IPA by Howling Hops because to me it’s a perfect balance of haze, strength, hops and bitterness. Also one of the few beers that seems enjoyable on a cold Winter evening but also refreshing enough on a Summer’s day.
Honorable mention would be Booty Call by Warpigs. I had it at their incredible taproom in Vesterbrø in Copenhagen but their beers are notoriously expensive and tricky to get hold of outside of Denmark.
@“BlackCatCoffee” Duration are a fantastic brewery, there is also a roastery ‘the brew project’ nearby as well and the head brewer is a big coffee fan. As far as breweries I can recommend: Burning Sky have incredible beers and special releases, the Kernel make great London and Belgian styles, Newbarns and Donzoko in Edinburgh have great lagers and pale ales on top of great specials and collabs.
There are loads more breweries I have tried and could recommend, depending on your tastes and also what you have locally.
Finding a good bottleshop with knowledgeable staff is probably the most important thing, so you can explore and try new breweries. The ones I use in Edinburgh are Cornelius, the beerhive and beer zoo.
Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more
I’d not heard of Donzoko thanks! Nice to see a brewery doing some lager styles.
Ernie1 quickly a 4% beer starts to basically taste like sparkling water.
Generally 5% is the sweet spot for most beers, not too strong and it brings out the volatiles etc nicely at that strength plus the abv is at just the right level there. I generally find a lot of the craft beers too much after maybe two, so generally return to the established if I’m going to consume more! I know a few home brewers and it can be done really well with practice. One mate made a chilli lager a couple of years ago and it was beautiful. Unfortunately I only got 2 of them, I need to check him out again!
My go to beer is this….
First came across it watching a Gordon Ramsey cookery programme many years ago where he decided to match beer with food instead of wine.
The beer kitchen by Melissa Cole is a great book for using beer in cooking, good recipes and beer selections to use and to pair with food
Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more
Fyne Ales in Cairndow and Roosters now in Harrogate also Ossett in well Ossett
5 litre Casks are my preferred ones
+1 for Cloudwater and Verdant. Lervig are on a similar theme and great.
One of my favourite breweries is Westwood Ales, based in Cheshire. Fairly typical bitter / real ale styles.
If you want to try something a bit crazy and don’t mind spending a bit more then Omnipollo are always fun.
If anyone is near a Wholefoods they have a surprisingly good selection of craft beers - second only to the wonderful craft beer shops around that drain your wallet even faster than the classifieds section!
I personally prefer real ale more than IPA / hazy craft beers, and for real ale you really can’t beat draught, so sharing pub recommendations now, my favourite pub in the whole wide world is the King’s Head in Waterloo.
Last thought on the topic of real ale, if you haven’t tried your favourite real ale as a shandy….do it!
I’ve only tried a couple of Lervig beers but they’re indeed fantastic.
Of all places I also bought an Omnipollo beer in Sainbury’s last year. An 11% pecan mud cake stout. Really good but you definitely wouldn’t want more than one.
The thing I can’t seem to get past with cask ale is that it’s cellar temperature and flat, although I had a good one from Stroud brewery recently.
Unless it’s a stout, I just really enjoy beer to be cold and somewhat carbonated. Even some porters and brown ales taste better to me from the fridge. Sacrilege possibly!
The omnipollo pecan pie mud stout is an interesting one, almost a dessert, the same with wild beer co wineybeest, 10.5% stout aged in pinot noir casks.
I like cask beer, not always my first choice but I have had some really great ones. Takes a lot more work to clean and maintain the lines and once a cask is open it shouldn’t be kept for more than a few days but I think it can be worth the extra effort.
Anyone got any opinions on sparklers for cask beer?
Coffee Roaster. Home: Sage Dual Boiler, Niche Zero, Ode v2 (SSP), 1zpresso ZP6 Work: Eagle One Prima EXP, mahlkonig e80s, Mazzer Philos and lots more
Just tucking into this - 8% DIPA from Howling Hops.
It’s from Kveik yeast which obviously makes for some really good beers. Purity also do a beer using the same yeast that’s worth a try.
I’d say that’s tasty? Not too many though…!
