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Talking a good game
Whatever about their products and their prices, it's hard to fault De Dochter van de Korenaar on the self-confidence front. They like to name their beers like they're the best thing out there, and sure...
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Vive la similarité
French ale Bellerose talks up its hoppiness early, promising citrus and lychee on the label, though it also lists "spices" in the ingredients, and the "innovative cocktail of three hops" is the sort of...
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Candy and kippers
MoreFlying Dog-related fun at The Black Sheep and Against the Grain lately. The former had the Red Ale from FD's Brewhouse Rarities series. At 6.7% ABV this hazy ochre beer wields a bit more heft than...
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My hop nemesis
Though they've been a regular feature on this blog for most of its (exactly) eight years, I had sort of lost track of what BrewDog were doing, beerwise, these days. Outside of the mostly...
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Seppuku
A couple of months back, I caught up with Dave for a pint or two in town and suggested Yamamori Izakaya as a venue. I've written about this pub a couple of times in the past and I'm a big fan: there's...
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So you want to be a brewer?
No, me neither. But Chuck is calling the shots for The Session this month and he's looking for "first-hand knowledge of the complexities and pitfalls of starting a commercial brewery". My only...
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Leuven large
A return to Belgium was top of my to-do list for this year. It's been so long they've probably changed all the beers in my absence. Certainly there was no shortage of new things to try. Most of the...
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All of Belgium, all at once
Another national beer festival, another aircraft-hangar-like space crammed with beer stalls and punters. The 2013 Zythos Beer Festival at the Brabanthal on the outskirts of Leuven wasn't quite on the...
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Delays expected
Widmer Brothers of Portland, Oregon are one of the veterans of American craft brewing. These days the brand is tied up with a couple of others in a company called Craft Brew Alliance which has beer...
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Dispense with the formalities
Cask Thornbridge Halcyon was a pleasant surprise on the cask beer engine at Against the Grain a few months ago. I had encountered an aged version at a festival a while back so it was interesting to...
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Working blue
I do like a bit of blueberry now and then: in a muffin, on a cheesecake, ice cream, pancakes, and even in the odd beer. The very odd beer, sometimes. I found this tall boy in La Chope de Lug in Lyon...
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Nailed it
I first encountered Whitewater's new beer Hoppelhammer in The Purty Kitchen last month. It made its debut at the Belfast Beer Festival last November but sold out quickly -- draught and bottled -- long...
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Black marks
I didn't go near the Struise stall at the Zythos Beer Festival this year. A glance at their huge menu board showed lots of beers I'd already tried and none I wanted to run back to. At Borefts they'd...
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Don't have a cow
After a wait of six months, and plenty of pan-European brewing activity evidenced on Twitter, the second beer from the Brown Paper Bag Project landed last week. Oxman is a 5.8% ABV brown ale and was...
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As the crow hops
I just had time for a swift half of Blindfold the last time I was in The Brew Dock. It was one of three Sierra Nevada beers on and is a black IPA of 7.3% ABV. As is usual with this style, I started by...
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Dogwhistle beer
I don't think I'd ever seen a local buzz quite like it. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Ireland's hop-chasers were all talking about Dangerously Close To Stupid by To Øl. The advantage this double IPA...
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On the right tracks
Compulsion! That's the topic for this month's Session, hosted by Glen of Beer Is Your Friend. Hoarding is one of the aspects up for discussion and, while I'm certainly guilty of that, I've elected to...
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Sais who?
I had quite inadvertantly amassed a bit of a collection of saisons in the beer fridge. Never one to pass up the opportunity for a blind taste test I put them all out side-by-side one evening. I knew...
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Pacifically unspecific
Some summery beer from the Craft Brewers Alliance today, this time from their pseudo-Hawaiian Kona range.To start, after one afternoon's hard gardening graft I kicked back with a Longboard lager. A...
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Cherchez la fée
The final beer out of my French haul from last summer, Dauphine Dorée à l'Absinthe, was chosen solely for the novelty value, made as it is with wormwood. So I confess I was a little disappointed when...
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