Meteor beer,???

[hughjamton]

At this moment I'm sitting having a drink in France, meteor beer.
I'm not a fan of French Beer normally but this is great!
I can't pin down the flavour, her indoors reckons it's sloes, I don't think so.
Anyone tried it?
I'd love to try to make it.

 

[nickjdavis]

Meteor can be had relatively easily over here....its a while since I had it but I remember it being quite a crisp tasty thirst quenching lager....a step up from most International Pale Lagers.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

At this moment I'm sitting having a drink in France, meteor beer.
I'm not a fan of French Beer normally but this is great!
I can't pin down the flavour, her indoors reckons it's sloes, I don't think so.
Anyone tried it?
I'd love to try to make it.

Which one? Meteor is an old brewery that being in Alsace effectively has a "German" lineup of lagers, radlers etc and a "Belgian" lineup of stupid big Christmas beers etc. So there's no one "Meteor beer".

 

[hughjamton]

So I found out, I think it was the IPA, although it didn't taste like an IPA.
Unfortunately the girl in the bar didn't know.
I was only there for a couple of hours as I was traveling down to Spain.

 

[hughjamton]

Meteor can be had relatively easily over here....its a while since I had it but I remember it being quite a crisp tasty thirst quenching lager....a step up from most International Pale Lagers.

It wasn't the lager, although they had it, I think it was the IPA.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Well the official word is :
https://www.brasserie-meteor.fr/en/nos-bieres/38-meteor-ipa

• Nose: very fruity (exotic fruits) thanks to simcoe hop and a new alsatian "top secret" experimental hop.
• Taste: malty aromas are balanced by frank hops notes and laced with exotic fruits and mango notes. Delicate carbonation
• 
  
• Biterness (UA) : 40
• Coulour (EBC) : 18
• Mellowness(%P) : 3,5
• ABV : 6,2% Alc. Vol.
• TOP Fermentation

Since they're in Alsace they'll have access to the new French hops, their equivalent of Jester and Harlequin etc which you won't see over here (Barbe Rouge maybe). I'd probably use Simcoe and Jester as a first approximation?? Can't see how you'd be getting sloes from that lot, but maybe from one of their darker beers?

 

[nickjdavis]

you can get Barbe Rouge here in the UK if you search for it (I believe i am not supposed to put up a link)...several online shops sell it. I used it successfully a couple of years ago in a Biere de Garde.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Fair enough, I see Farams now stock it so it's easy enough for retailers to get it in now. It doesn't seem long ago now that it was near-impossible to get here, I almost got some sent from Alsace to someone I know in France....

 

[Sadfield]

I've seen catty used as a hop aroma descriptor before, never specific dog breeds.

 

[DixeySJ]

I remember a great Meteor beer sold in 10x25cl bottles in Majestic years ago. At 5% it wasn't as thin as the Alsace or French lagers you could get in similar sizes in supermarkets. Alas, they haven't stocked it for IDK how long and I've never found another one I like as much ... Not even sure if Meteor make it. I did once find a Meteor ?pale ?lager on draft in a restaurant in London, it was OK but nothing special. Would really like to source that bottled one again.

 

[An Ankoù]

I think I've seen meteor IPA on the supermarket shelves. I'll give it a try. As for alsacien hops, they're quite light weight, but nice. Aramis is a great all-rounder, barbe rouge is fruity, then there are mistral and triskel, and one of my favourites-strisselspalt, but it's very delicate. They don't strike me as IPA hops, except, perhaps Aramis. There's a French IPA made by Ninkasi (near Lyon) which I thought was half decent. Of the lot I'd recommend Aramis for English style bitters, it's a lovely hop.
We used to have a member called something like alsace_brew. I wonder what happened to him, he'd be a great source of info.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I think I've seen meteor IPA on the supermarket shelves. I'll give it a try. As for alsacien hops, they're quite light weight, but nice. Aramis is a great all-rounder, barbe rouge is fruity, then there are mistral and triskel, and one of my favourites-strisselspalt, but it's very delicate. They don't strike me as IPA hops, except, perhaps Aramis.

You wouldn't describe any of those as "new" and "experimental" though - as I say, it will be the Comptoir Agricole equivalent of Harlequin or Godiva, along the lines of Elixir which was only released in 2020 and is suitable for le Pale Ale et l'Hoppy lager apparently : Achat Elixir Pellet T90 - Comptoir Agricole

 

[An Ankoù]

Le Hoppy Lager, huh? God preserve us. Yakima Valley's description says it's ideally suited for dark beers while Comptoir Agricole reckon it's suitabe for every style under sun, but no mention of dark beers. I'm putting in an order with Autobrasseur later on so I'll get 50 or 100g and give them a whirl. I've been disappointed with the claims made for hops recently (Lemondrop. Hüll Melon) so I won't get too excited just yet, but I will feed back.

https://yakimavalleyhops.com/products/elixir-hop-pellets

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Heh - sounds a bit like Flyer in some ways.

To be honest, "experimental" usually implies "not got an official name yet", so in this context I suspect it's more likely to be something like P10/9 or P13/17 :
https://www.comptoir-houblon.fr/hou...ace/359-p109-cones-houblon-experimental.html#https://www.comptoir-houblon.fr/hou...ncs/360-p1317-cones-houblon-experimental.html

 

[An Ankoù]

It's all a bit funny with new hops. I think people expect something to knock your head off, like Citra when it was new. Very few hops are going to hit bullseye like that. I tried GP75 from Stocks Farm in a pretty bog-standard quaffing bitter and loved it. Nothing overstated, just a nice, clean, bitter and understatedly aromatic hop. I'd love someone to come out with something saatzier that saatz to give more of that aroma without becoming grassy. I suppose some of the NZ do that while adding a character of their own. I've yet to try Godiva and Harlequin, which are languishing in my fridge as we speak.

 

[hughjamton]

Well the official word is :
https://www.brasserie-meteor.fr/en/nos-bieres/38-meteor-ipa

• Nose: very fruity (exotic fruits) thanks to simcoe hop and a new alsatian "top secret" experimental hop.
• Taste: malty aromas are balanced by frank hops notes and laced with exotic fruits and mango notes. Delicate carbonation
• 
  
• Biterness (UA) : 40
• Coulour (EBC) : 18
• Mellowness(%P) : 3,5
• ABV : 6,2% Alc. Vol.
• TOP Fermentation

Since they're in Alsace they'll have access to the new French hops, their equivalent of Jester and Harlequin etc which you won't see over here (Barbe Rouge maybe). I'd probably use Simcoe and Jester as a first approximation?? Can't see how you'd be getting sloes from that lot, but maybe from one of their darker beers?

Good info, thanks.
It was her indoors that said it had a taste of sloes but I didn't get that.
I think there's enough info there to give it a try when I'm back in the UK, won't be for a couple of months though.

 

[nickjdavis]

. I've yet to try Godiva and Harlequin, which are languishing in my fridge as we speak.

Godiva has nice gooseberry notes and works well in dry crisp pale beers where it doesn't get overwhelmed by the malt or other hops. I brewed a Japanese Rice Lager last year with Godiva which turned out really well.