Yeovil Ales

Passing through Yeovil recently was a good opportunity to call into the brewery of the same name to buy some of their excellent beers. The brewery is located on an industrial estate as is quite common now for smaller breweries. The signage around the brewery is not great and it is easily missed.

Three beers from Yeovil ales

Having spent a lifetime working for Regional brewers, it is quite sobering to realise how few people keep the mash tuns churning of smaller breweries such as this. However their beers are none-the-less still very good.

Star Gazer flavour wheel

I purchased three examples of their beers. The first thing that struck me was the branding on the bottles. All are clearly part of a quite distinctive family style. The labels are clear and offer good standout, in fact they are right up their with some of the better labels I've seen and very good for a smaller brewer.

Star Gazer is a really easy drinking 4% bitter. A good beer in this style is one that is not too challenging but has enough flavour to keep you interested. Star Gazer has a degree of floral hop balanced with roast malt, but the key is balance, its easy to drink.

The flavour is a toasty roasted bitter beer with floral hop. Also interesting for a relatively low abv beer such as this is that its a bottled conditioned beer.



Lynx Wildcat flavour wheel

Lynx Wildcat is a 4.3% brewery conditioned beer. The aroma is grassy and touch herbal, but overwhelming hop. The taste is biscuit malt but an overriding tropical pineapple hop is the dominent flavour. I really liked this beer. It is in the English IPA style, drinks well and is on a par with other classic English brewed beers of the same style.

The name commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Yeovil built Lynx Helicopter.

Stout Hearted flavour wheel

The final beer I tried was the Stout Hearted, as the name suggests a fine 4.3% dark stout, plenty of roasted malt and hint of chocolate on the aroma, but one unusual thing about this stout is the higher than normal level of hop you might get in a beer of this style. Not quite a black IPA, but certainly there is a hint of this in the taste of this beer. 

 

All told I really like the Yeovil Ales. They were good quality and very drinkable. The label designs were excellent and easily as good as many of the larger brewers produce. I'd certainly recommend beers from this brewer.

 

 

Stouts & Porters

Without doubt the most popular beer style at the moment is IPA. These heavily hopped golden beers have really caught the imagination, fuelled by the interest in craft beers and use of American and Australian hops. However one other beer style that is also making something of a comeback is the good old fashioned stout or porter!

Now, most brewers bottled beer range is not complete without a beer of this style and its great to see. They are really very different to IPA's and Pale Ale's and have also moved forward from the harsh roast flavour that some stouts have had in the past. It's now common in these beers for chocolate and coffee to be dominant flavours making them sweeter and fuller.

Hook Norton Double Stout is a fine example of this style, a good balance of chocolate and roast and not as sweet as some of the more modern stouts can be. St Austell Brewery's recent addition of 1913 Cornish Stout is step back in time as the name suggests. Well balanced again, it has that touch of liquorish and roast typical of an oatmeal stout that make this a bit more of a savoury drink. Fullers London Porter is a quite superb beer and in my view one of the best beers of this style on the market. Finally, just like a dessert, Meantime Chocolate Porter is the perfect beer to finish the night on.

There was a time when the mere mention of the words stout and porter would be a firm indicator not to buy! However the next time you visit the local supermarket, sidestep the IPA's for once and give one these great beers a try. Don't spend the whole night drinking them, you won't enjoy it, but they do make a superb contrast to your normal beer choice so slipping one of these into your repertoire of an evening will enhance your overall enjoyment of drinking beer.

And to finish, if you did not already know, the difference between a stout and a porter is historically strength (abv%). Porter was traditionally the standard fayre that the London Porters drank and stout was a word used to describe the strongest beers - in fact historically there were even pale stouts brewed, but then that's another story.....

  

Importance of Beer Festivals!

One thing I've enjoyed reading over the weekend are the tweets emanating from people attending Reading Beer Festival. This along with conversations I've had this week with the organisers of Plymouth Beer Festival, has reminded me of the vital role these festivals play in showcasing and promoting sales of cask ale.

However, there are problems...beer quality at these events can at best be described as variable. Most regional CAMRA groups - the most common of beer festival organisers don't have the finance or equipment to provide cooling on their beers. Thus although different methods are used to try and keep the beer cool, much is often served at room temperature, particularly as the festival progresses in time.

The more popular the event, the more people and the hotter the room gets and the more beer in each barrel  that is drunk, increasing the serving beer temperature a lot quicker. Not great when most brewers and many pubs are stringent in ensuring their beers are served at perfect cellar temperature. So more often than not, the beer festival that is designed to promote the sales of cask ale, ends up serving beer that is too warm, indifferent quality, not that palatable and certainly not what consumers are used to experiencing in pubs.

Financially beer festivals are a risk - beer is expensive and a lot of money has to be invested up front to buy stock. It's easy to get wrong. Have too much and you can lose a lot of money. Have too little and you end up with a lot of unhappy paying customers.

Barrels at Bristol Beer Festival

So why do this and why are beer festivals still so popular? For one it's down to passion. The people that organise these events are passionate about beer. They are real ambassadors for the category and live and breath cask ales, working tirelessly to ensure beer festivals are a success.

Another reason is that many consumers see cask ales as British. They want to be patriotic and see a home grown product succeed over and above the larger mass produced lagers, kegs and a certain Irish stout. Many consumers are willing to overlook a slightly warm and unpalatable pint, in-fact it's almost expected and part of the experience - unpleasant as some warm beers can be.

Beer Festivals are also great social occasions where friends can meet, enjoy a drink and swap stories. Beer is a great ice breaker for strangers to converse, the one thing they have in common is a taste for beer so instantly there is something to talk about. Music has also become a key part of some festivals so the event is more of a party.

From the brewers perspective festivals provide a vehicle to show case their brands, launch new beers and reward beers and brewers for excellence. Every brewer wants to win an award at these events, no matter how small the festival or beer category. They are important from this respect giving the smaller brewers in particular a level playing field to compete against the larger more establish regional brewers.

I have spent many a long day at beer festival's, both socialising but mostly working and believe their importance is huge. Every person that goes to a beer festival is a potential ambassador for beer. Brewers should be trying hard to reach these people and interact with festival organisers, who themselves are important opinion formers. Some brewers spend a great of money on marketing and overlook this grass roots form of reaching customers. Perhaps that's to the benefit of the smaller brewers whose only marketing option is to look at events like this - interesting then that the surge and interest in cask and craft beers has come with the growth of smaller brewers!

Good luck to all Beer Festival organisers. I for one am looking forward to my next event at Plymouth.

Beer & BBQ's!

So at last the sun has arrived and suddenly everyone starts thinking about al-fresco dining and the good old English BBQ. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, BBQ's were something only the local pub did as a treat but now every back garden has one.

Instantly BBQ's are associated with a can of Fosters for refreshment, but just like the food we cook has moved on to become more adventurous, our choice of refreshment needs to change as well.

That's not to say there is anything wrong with a refreshing lager on a hot summers evening, but don't limit yourself to that when it comes to the choice of beer. So what beer's go best with a BBQ? Lighter golden beers seem to be the most appropriate as naturally we drink with our eyes so here are a few suggestions of great beers to enjoy. Somehow the heavier stouts and strong ales don't lend themselves to this, great beers that they are though!



Old Empire & Summer Lightning

Marston's Old Empire is packaged in a clear bottle and looks attractive. Be careful of light strike but this beer is a good old fashioned English IPA. A clean refreshing bitterness with good but not over powering hop. It also has a good alcohol punch at 5.7% abv so a beer to respect. You don't often see it on draught but in bottle it's a gem.

Hopback Summer Lightning is a real favourite of mine. A classic beer and one of the first golden ales. It is a CAMRA prize winner and has managed to become an all year round beer rather than just a beer for the summer. The aroma is a grassy hop and hint of lemon. The taste is hop citrus, grassy and dry refreshing savoury finish, but not at all harsh. Hoppy yes, but not for hopheads.

St Austell Proper Job is a wonderful beer, packed full of citrus hop, lemon and pineapple, the Chinook hop gives a pine resinous character while the cascade compliments with a touch of spice. One of the first real hoppy English beers in the American style, its been overtaken by many imitators now in terms of hoppiness, however the bottle in particular is really well balanced drink. Plenty of bitterness without being completely unbalanced.

All three of these beers are great with the BBQ, far more interesting than a lager but just as satisfying. Do look for other IPA's though. If you like hops then go for the American style ones but for a real balanced beer that will not overpower your dinner, the English IPA's work best.