Best of the West!

[Ceejay]

This might be a slow thread; but I'm sure the other West Country forumites (or anyone else that fancies it) will help me out here...

I think I might start reviewing various beers I find from the West Country, since that's where I live and I have access to a tonne of them. Tonight I have on hand 2 tasty looking beers, one from Devon, one from Somerset:

O'Hanlon's "Stormstay" http://www.ohanlonsbeer.com/
Moor Beer Company "Revival" http://moorbeer.co.uk/

Reviews will come when I've drank them...

 

[Dunfie]

Great idea Ceejay. I'm holidaying in Cornwall this year so it will be good to know which local beers to keep an eye out for. :thumb:

 

[Ceejay]

I imagine a fair few peeps will be down this way on their hols - so yeah, I'd love to be able to point people in the right direction. There's the usual Tribute and Doom Bar, which are good beers but you can get them everywhere these days...

Anyway, first up - Moor Brewing Co. "Revival". Now the days are ever so slightly longer and things are starting to thaw out, this is a lovely Pale Ale, but with a fair amount of hop bitterness and aroma. On the pour, it's straw to light amber and there's not much head to speak of. It's well carbonated though - just right, IMO.

The initial aroma is like sweet grapefruit - like when you put sugar on a grapefruit. On tasting you get earthy, spicy hop bitterness, and then the full whack of citrus. There is some residual maltiness there, but just enough to balance the hops - I'm not sure there's any crystal or anything in there. This beer weighs in at only 4% but boy does it pack a tasty punch. It could teach the Americans a few things about packing in hop flavour without going gravity crazy.

On the whole a very easy drinking beer that really brings the best out of the hops. Very clean - I reckon this would make a great curry beer.

I have to wonder about the 660ml bottle though. You're meant to pour it in one go, but most folks who drink this will do so from a pint pot... :hmm:

 

[rickthebrew]

Sounds lovely :thumb: Can you get these beers in Tuckers? I like the look of the triple J

 

[Ceejay]

Sure can - they sell all of them. I will warn you - JJJ is £9.50 a bottle! :shock:

I drank the O'Hanlon's Stormstay on Friday night. I have to confess I didn;t really read the label and for some bizarre reason I thought it was an IPA!

Anyway, it's Premium Bitter, and it definitely is that. Lovely balance, slightly weighted towards the malt but with a nice crisp/sharp finish. I love the use of American hops in this as you get a good whack of citrus in the aroma. I can;t really remember too much about it now as I've had a few of my own #2 brew which I'm starting to really like when compared to commercial offerings.

Anyway, I'd definitely recommend Stormstay, and I'm definitely going to try more Moor Brewing Co. beers. That Revival is something pretty special - it's just so fresh and invigorating.

As an addendum, I actually had a couple of cask pints of Sharps Doom Bar when I was visiting my folks in Hampshire yesterday. It's a beer you can get almost anywhere in the country these days, and for good reason. It's just a really drinkable, quality tasting pint.

 

[Ceejay]

I was out in Exeter last night and came across Sharps Atlantic IPA, which I had a few pints of.

It's an absolutely crystal clear, amber coloured IPA at 4.2%. Absolutely clean as a whistle and super refreshing. It helped that the pub was keeping it quite cold, I'd estimate about 9 or 10 degrees. It had a superb balance, like all good beers should have, and wasn't assertively hoppy, just about right. Quite light in body for an English ale, so it almost felt like an APA in the mouthfeel, but without so much fizz. I couldn't quite place the hops, but there's definitely some citrus type in there. I detected a hint of sweet candy in the malt, but only a hint and this offset the hops perfectly.

Atlantic IPA is honestly one of the best cask beers I've had for a long while so if any of you are in the West Country, i'd fully recommend a few pints of it.

 

[micmacmoc]

Heres my experience of the last few weeks drinking here in Cornwall:
I know these are more pub reviews, but what the hell!

Nathan Outlaws Bistro in Rock (Near Padstow). Sharps Atlantic, £5.50 a pint and served bottled from the chiller. Gave it a miss, the brewery is within 10 mins walk and yet they serve it like a lager and would'nt be told otherwise. There may be folks who like chilled real ale, I'm not one and neither have I met one. The food was really quite ordinary for a place ran by someone who has had Michelin stars for his other, really good, restaurants. Disappointing would be an understatement.

Turks Head, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, the best pint of Tribute ever had, utterly divine. I had to be dragged from the pub.

Mermaid, St Marys IOS. Ales of Scilly 'scuppered' really good session ale, balanced hops and malt. Quite fruity. My lager drinking mate loved it too.

Bishop and Wolf, St Marys IOS......tooo many pints of tribute and one of Proper Job. Superb again! Massive hangover!

New Inn Tresco.
This pub has always been a fave, so disappointing to see how it uses its position to milk the punters with below average fare at stupid prices. An average cheddar ploughmans? £10. Well theres no average ploughman who would pay that, especially as the cheddar was still chilled and tasteless. My pork belly was'nt crisp, this is a sin. Boo!
The beer was good, expensive and again, Tribute or Betty Stoggs. I only found one pub on the islands selling 'ales of scilly' again that was disappointing as its all sharps, st austell and skinners around my way (Mevagissey). My mate Bob tells me that Admirals Ale is coming on draught at some pubs already, I think this will be the summer repllacement for HSD. If you are down here the pub in Polgooth sells it, will report back soon.

Re-openings in SE Cornwall:
Good to see some pubs coming back when so many are closing: Llawnroc at Gorran Haven will reopen in May, as yet unnamed but likely to be very foodie and winey from what locals say.
Barleysheaf in Gorran Churchtown has re-opened and does Sharps Doom Bar as its standard ale with a guest every Friday. So far I've missed Timmy Taylor, London Pride and Broadside.
The Rising Sun at Portmellon has closed, sadly.

 

[John_Henry]

Great idea. Love the St Austell brewery, especially HSD. Fond of Rattler too... (guilty pleasure). Look forward to the reviews. Ta

 

[Ceejay]

My folks were down from Hampshire at the weekend, so an ideal time to show my Dad some of our local brews. We went out to a pub called the "Linny Inn" which is in a small village called Coffinswell between Newton Abbot and Torquay. If anyone is ever in the area, I'd strongly recommend checking it out. Very un-pretentious but very excellent food. The best steak I've had in a long while. On tap they had:

Teignworthy Amy's Ale
Teignworthy Scrum Down
Another local one which I can't remember the name of!

We started with the Amy's ale and I have to say this is one of the best balanced, most drinkable pints I've had. I do have a bit of a soft spot for the Teignworthy beers, as the brewery is about 1/2 mile from my house but I genuinely have always had really good beer from them. Amy's is no exception. A real quality pale ale, crisp and clean with a very slight hint of fruit. Incredibly smooth bitterness, without a hoppy flavour and just a shear pleasure to drink. There's also this "ovaltine" kind of aftertaste that I've noticed from a lot of beers that use Tucker's Maris Otter malt. It kind of puts the icing on the beer cake for me! Delicious.

"Scrum Down" was still an excellent beer, though a bit more hoppy and slightly thinner bodied than Amy's which I thought I'd prefer, but I really thought Amy's was a better, more balanced beer. In fact it was so good we had to have a couple more pints of it and completely ignored the third beer!

If you're out in the Teignbridge area and you see Teignworthy beers on tap or in the bottle, be sure to try some. These guys know how to make great beers :

http://www.teignworthybrewery.com/

 

[rickthebrew]

I agree - great brewery and excellent ales that are available in quite a few places, haven`t been to the linny for a good few years but will have to make the effort soon :

 

[Ceejay]

Haven't posted on here for a while, and I haven't brewed for what seems like ages! Anyway, all that's because I've been going to beer festivals, having mates down, enjoying the weather, gardening etc...

Anyhoo, a quick update on my South West Odyssey of beer trying; been to 3 really good beer venues over the last 2 weeks.

Tucker's Maltings SIBA Beer Festival in my home town of Newton Abbot. This is the SW division of SIBA, 76 breweries, nearly 300 beers. The highlights for me were:

Teignworthy Beachcomber
Summerskills Blondie
Moor Brewing Co. Somerland Gold
Keltek Magik
Forge Litehouse (won best in show)
Bristol Beer Factory - Southville Hop

This weekend I met some friends over at The Globe Hotel in Topsham (nr Exmouth) where they were having...a beer festival! :drink: :whistle: :drunk:

I mainly stuck to the spring beers as it was a really hot day and it just seemed right. Some corkers though, not all from the SW, but my highlights were

Darkstar APA - what a cracking pint - a perfect APA in my book
Bath Ales - Golden Hare
Branscombe Brewery - Summa That
Butcombe Brewery - Mendip Spring
Castle Rock Brewery - Harvest Pale

They also have a microbrewery on site which I was able to go and have a look around. They brew decent beer here and sell it in the hotel under the name "Topsham Ales". Food looked great and they have accomodation too. I reckon it'd be a great place to stay if you're coming down to the area.

After the Globe we went down the road in Topsham to a fantastic pub called the "Bridge Inn" which is situated on the bank of the river Clyst. It's a bizarre pub with lots of small snugs and the back of the bar is a small living room!

Anyway, I only went for one beer all night there because it was so good and that was Moor Brewing Co. "Simplicity". What a drink!! It's a spring beer but really, really hoppy. They've clearly used american citrus hops but this is an English spring beer, not an APA so it's only 4% and super-refreshing. I've a feeling to write to them and get some pointers for a recipe because it's an absolute belter!

Oh, at the Bridge Inn, the only food they do in the evening is an award winning, local Pork Pie! Delicious :

 

[luckyeddie]

I believe that Castle Rock's Harvest Pale won 'beer of the year' last year at the SIBA competition, but I could be wrong.

It's brewed in Nottingham, and the brewery's 'Show Pub' is the Canal House, about 50 yards from Broad Marsh bus station. The Canal House also do a good selection of Belgian beers.

 

[Dunfie]

Skinners Cornish Knocker

Brewed in Newham, Truro.

Golden Ale, 4.5% abv

To be honest, since I have been down in Cornwall I have been drinking Rattler Cyder but we had to pop into the supermarket and I picked up a couple of local ales.

On first appearance it looks deep golden, a bit like ttl or deuchars ipa.

Good fresh and clean nose which reminds me of styrian or bobek. Clean malt on the mouth with a bit of a prickle from the CO2 but there is enough bitterness to hold it all together.

Quite a nice beer - there is a good chance that I will pick up some more when we pop in again later in the week.

 

[Dunfie]

Skinners Betty Stogs

Session bitter - 4% abv

Nice dark straw colour which I can only think is due to a small addition of some crystal. There is wheat in the mix which will explain the very good head retention.

Light fruity aroma similar to the knocker so I think there must be a bit of styrian in there. Very light mouthfeel with enough bitterness and a refreshing aftertaste. Overall it does what it says on the bottle.

Off to the Eden Project tomorrow so I am cooking up a plan to visit the St Austell Brewery if we get away in time. :whistle:

 

[rickthebrew]

Have fun Callum - the eden project is an awesome day out, keep an eye out for the eden ale (brewed by sharps), doom bar is always a winner also

Skinners do some fine beers - betty stogs is a great example, if you can find skinners cornish skin dog surf lager on tap its worth a go. I bought some bottled ales when I was in cornwall a couple of weeks ago from the Wooden Hand Brewery - also Truro based, the cornish buccaneer was lovely!!!

http://woodenhand.co.uk/index.htm

Have a great time !!

:drink:

 

[Dunfie]

Have fun Callum - the eden project is an awesome day out, keep an eye out for the eden ale (brewed by sharps), doom bar is always a winner also

Skinners do some fine beers - betty stogs is a great example, if you can find skinners cornish skin dog surf lager on tap its worth a go. I bought some bottled ales when I was in cornwall a couple of weeks ago from the Wooden Hand Brewery - also Truro based, the cornish buccaneer was lovely!!!

http://woodenhand.co.uk/index.htm

Have a great time !!

:drink:

Thanks Rick, we had a good time at the Eden Project and were lucky with the weather. We got there pretty sharp so the kids were getting pretty bored around 1 and instead of fighting the queues for some of the veggie fare on offer we nipped over to the St Austell Brewery for some lunch. A steak baguette and a pint of Proper Job later I felt fully refreshed.

I then nipped downstairs from the pub and got myself a mix of beers. First up:

Admiral's Ale

Champion Bottled Beer - Great British Beer Festival 2010.

Bottle Conditioned - 5% abv

Lovely deep ruby colour with a roasty fruity aroma (styrian Golding and cascade according to the bottle). Gorgeous sweet smooth malt and withou too much bittering (this could almost be a Scottish beer). Lovely head retention that laced the glass. Very morish and slipped down far too fast.

Top beer - will certainly try another.

 

[Dunfie]

Proper Job

IPA - 5.5% abv

First off, as mentioned in the earlier post I had a pint of Proper Job at the brewery at lunch and on the menu it mentioned that it was 4.5 abv but the bottle version is 5.5 abv. The cask version was stuffed full of hops, a full juicy body and a great length. Unfortunately this bottle is a poor imitation. The aroma is hard to detect (you have to get your nose right in there), when you see they are using williamette, chinook and cascade then they must have been very sparing with them. The malt profile is very clean and the bitterness holds up fairly well but the aftertaste is more of the sweet malt rather than any hop characteristic.

I'm not sure what happened there but this was not what I had expected considering how good the cask version was. :hmm:

 

[unclepumble]

Proper Job

IPA - 5.5% abv

First off, as mentioned in the earlier post I had a pint of Proper Job at the brewery at lunch and on the menu it mentioned that it was 4.5 abv but the bottle version is 5.5 abv. The cask version was stuffed full of hops, a full juicy body and a great length. Unfortunately this bottle is a poor imitation. The aroma is hard to detect (you have to get your nose right in there), when you see they are using williamette, chinook and cascade then they must have been very sparing with them. The malt profile is very clean and the bitterness holds up fairly well but the aftertaste is more of the sweet malt rather than any hop characteristic.

I'm not sure what happened there but this was not what I had expected considering how good the cask version was. :hmm:

Tribute in the bottle is the same "Pish"

Anyway, first up - Moor Brewing Co. "Revival". Now the days are ever so slightly longer and things are starting to thaw out, this is a lovely Pale Ale, but with a fair amount of hop bitterness and aroma. On the pour, it's straw to light amber and there's not much head to speak of. It's well carbonated though - just right, IMO.

The initial aroma is like sweet grapefruit - like when you put sugar on a grapefruit. On tasting you get earthy, spicy hop bitterness, and then the full whack of citrus. There is some residual maltiness there, but just enough to balance the hops - I'm not sure there's any crystal or anything in there. This beer weighs in at only 4% but boy does it pack a tasty punch. It could teach the Americans a few things about packing in hop flavour without going gravity crazy.

There Brewer is from california, he was on The BN Network a few weeks ago, hence the American hops in a british ale fusion style.

UP

 

[rickthebrew]

It`s sad but true Proper Job is amazing on cask but bottled So sup plenty unless you can get it up your neck of the woods on cask? :?

I`m lucky to have plenty places near by that sell it along with tribute and doombar - they seem to sell this trio in a lot of cornish pubs

 

[Dunfie]

Tribute in the bottle is the same "Pish"

I haven't bothered with the Tribute, I've not been in many pubs so I have just left the bottles on the shelf.

It`s sad but true Proper Job is amazing on cask but bottled So sup plenty unless you can get it up your neck of the woods on cask?

I think I am going to have to live on the memory of the pint I had at the brewery. Infact it is on my list for brewing in the autumn so I will be in touch for some help with the recipe (if you don't mind).