South and North

This is the last of my posts about my trip to the UK a few weeks ago, mainly because I didn't really take lots of pictures of the many beers I drank while I was there. For example, I have no pictures from the wonderful pub crawl I went on in Inverness with a long time friend of mine, unless you are interested in Aitken founts that is (and if you are interested, Black Isle Bar & Rooms on Church Street is the place to go). Even for this post, I only have a couple of pictures.

With the conference over, we arranged to meet at Piccadilly Circus, but I had about 90 minutes before meeting up, so I dropped my laptop at my hotel, nipped to Westminster Abbey to get a key chain of the venerable building for one of my sons, and experienced unexpected garden envy.

To get to Piccadilly Circus from Westminster Abbey, I had decided to skirt St James' Park on Horse Guards Road, past the Horse Guards Parade - being an army brat it was instantly recognisable from many viewings of Trooping the Colour on TV. Before you reach the Parade itself, you pass Duck Island Cottage, which had the delightful garden you can see above, it made me miss my little garden back in Virginia.

I have to admit that walking around the City of Westminster was one of my favourite things, and the stroll from Westminster Abbey to Piccadilly was a delight, though obviously with a distinct lack of traffic cones on the statuary. Even so, I had badly mistimed how long it would take, and so ended up at Piccadilly Circus a good 30 minutes before I had arranged to meet everyone else. What to do then? Well, find a pub obviously, so I looked up pubs in the streets just off the Circus itself. St James Tavern it was then, a corner pub where Great Windmill Street meets Shaftesbury Avenue. Finding a spot at the bar, I may have mentioned this before, but I loved being in buzzing, busy pubs again, I squeezed in and ordered a pint of London Pride.

By this point in my trip, I was having an identity crisis, as I was actively enjoying pints of best made with crystal malts, and London Pride fresh from cask is such a lovely beer, even without a sparkler on the swan neck. Perhaps it is a case of absence making the heart grow fonder, and in many ways this is stating the obvious, compared to the stuff we get in Virginia, proper Pride is night and day. I reviewed my Old Friends post about Pride as I was drinking this first pint, and the biggest difference is the brightness of being fresh, and the hops are actually obviously present. Since returning to the US, I have longed to just sit in a London pub enjoying multiple pints of fresh Pride. As it was, I had time for a second before meeting up with the folks I was at the conference with.

I wish I could remember the pub that we went to immediately after meeting, but eventually we wound our way to a Sam Smiths pub called the Glasshouse Stores. This was the first time I had ever been in a Sam Smith's pub, and unfortunately they didn't have any of their famous beers on cask, everything was keg. Having got our orders in, I started on my trek through the various bitters available, we snagged a seat, all the while keeping a beady eye on the table in the charming bay window, so we could relocate once it was available. It wasn't long before we took our opportunity, and by this time I had relished the dark mild as my precursor to the bitters - a lovely beer from memory, the kind of thing that would make for a wonderful autumnal session with the rain pouring outside. I had also had the first of a couple of pints of Sovereign Bitter. Eventually though I would settle on the Old Brewery Bitter as my tipple of choice, no doubt lamenting aloud that it wasn't on cask.

Apparently we moved on to a few other stops, but I have no pictures of those, either mental or on my camera - yeah, drinking at scale happened and it had started to gently rain...I may have got myself a little turned around walking back to my hotel, but eventually I made it to my bed and gratefully collapsed in a heap.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Ah...you have to love a clear cut category. We move on beyond the vague orange/red/brownish world in to proper brown and black beers, the kind of brew you take a single look at and know you are drinking a dark beer. Dunkel, tmavé, schwarzbier, porter, mild, stout, those kind of things. Onward, into darkness we go...

Virginia

• Dark Starr Stout - Starr Hill Brewing, Crozet
• Inexorable Stout - Reason Brewing, Charlottesville
• Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria

Honorable mentions: Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing; Tweed Dunkel - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville.

There is a large dose of romantic sentimentality here. Many years ago I worked in the Starr Hill Brewing tasting room in Crozet, and each flight ended with Dark Starr Stout, still, even after several years of not being part of the core range, the most award winning dry Irish stout in America. When it was originally discontinued, I have to admit I had a chat with the brewers at Starr Hill and heavily based my homebrew stout on Dark Starr. Earlier this year they did a special run of Dark Starr, for reasons which escape me right now, but I knew I needed to get some. With it on tap in the new tap room in the centre of Charlottesville, I spent a very happy afternoon ordering a beer, letting it get to the right temperature and have near religious moments with what is, in my world, basically the perfect stout.

Rest of the USA

• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT
• Karlův 13° Černė - Schilling Beer Co, Littleton, NH
• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC

Honorable mentions: Rennsteig - Schilling Beer Co, Littleton, NH.

Another beer that made the trip from New England to Virginia in the spring, and if you know me at all it should come as no surprise that it was Schilling's superlative 13° tmavé, Karlův. Some may wish to quibble about me calling a beer a tmavé which the brewery labels a černé, but in reality there is no difference in Czechia other than the capricious whimsy of the marketing department. Karlův hits every high note of a Czech dark lager perfectly, marrying the rich maltiness with a clean finish that sits somewhere between a Munich Dunkel and Thuringian Schwarzbier. Eminently drinkable, and a beer that would more than hold its own in Czechia, it is another example of Schilling just getting things absolutely right.

Rest of the World

• Hirter Morchl - Privatbrauerei Hirt, AT
• O'Hara's Irish Stout - Carlow Brewing, IE
• London Porter - Fullers, UK

It was on the strength of their lovely, lovely, pilsner, that the next time I saw beers from Privatbrauerei Hirt in my local bottle shop, I picked up a four pack of Morchl, an Austrian iteration on the Munich Dunkel style. While there wasn't the noticeable difference between the Austrian and the German that I saw with the pilsner, Morchl was a superb example of the dunkel style of lager. Hefty malt character that makes me think the grist is redolent with Munich and Vienna malts, married with a a clean noble hop bitterness and what you have here is the kind of beer that cries out for a biergarten in autumn, as golden leaves start to fall and you want something a touch richer to drink. As with the Hirter Privat Pils, this is a social beer than demands to be drunk in beautiful surroundings with great company.

There is something deeply alluring about dark beers, whether they be top or bottom fermented. Perhaps though it is the fact that my first legal beer was a famous Irish stout that colours my choice of Fuggled Dark Beer of 2022. However, the fact remains that Starr Hill Dark Starr Stout is a beer that I have loved for many years, and it's return this year was so incredibly welcome. That it was still the beer I raved on about to so many patrons at the Starr Hill tasting room in Crozet made me so happy, and I know that whenever it is on tap I will be making my way over to get myself a pint or three of the best session stout I have ever had.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Here at the dark end of the spectrum, life can sometimes feel a little more tricky. For all the pale lager I drink, and I do drink a fair old whack of the stuff, it is the darker beers that I spend more time thinking about. There is something comforting about dark beers, especially in the depths of winter, which is also my favourite time of year, I just love dark nights and cold air.

Virginia

• Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing
• Schwarzbier - Port City Brewing
• Protocol Porter - Alewerks Brewing

So far this year I have done a couple of tastings of schwarzbiers, a style that I seem to have found more of this year than in the previous 11 in the US. I am hoping this is the beginning of a lasting trend as I am big fan of dark lagers in general. In both of the tastings, Devils Backbone Schwartz Bier was my favourite example of the style. It is a beer that I drink pretty regularly and in my opinion is one of DB's best regularly available brews. As part of their Lager Series, Port City have a regular rotation of lager styles, and for some reason I missed the Schwarzbier last year. This year I made sure to rectify that fact and I was very glad that I did, it is pretty much nailed on. Talking about mass tastings of dark beer, earlier in the year I had planned to do such a tasting with porters available in Virginia. It never materialised, other than one combination of Protocol Porter from Williamsburg's Alewerks, a gloriously luxuriant, rich, sipper that makes for wonderful drinking, especially at cellar temperature. Of the three, Protocol Porter is my Virginia Dark Beer of 2021 - I know you are shocked that a top fermented beer beat out a couple of dark lagers, but heck who am I to be predictable?

Rest of the USA

• Loonar Eclipse - Utepils Brewing, MN
• Modernism - Schilling Beer Company, NH
• Trösten - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Honorable mentions: Landbier Dunkel - Schilling Beer Company, NH; Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, VT; Steinbier - Bierkeller Columbia, SC.

Oooo....shock, horror, bottom fermented beers walk it for the best dark beers in the rest of the USA. It is perhaps truly shocking that two of the three are Czech style dark lagers (sorry I can't do the whole pluraling of tmavé by just adding an "s"), shocking in the sense that finally the American craft beer world is waking up to the reality that tmavé is distinct from dunkel and schwarzbier. Both Loonar Eclipse and Modernism are excellent examples of the category - style is not really an accurate term to describe the tmavé family. If either of those were served in Czechia, they would be very, very well regarded. Trösten is something of a rarity when it comes to rauchbiers in the US, it is actually nicely smoky rather than just having a "hint" of smoke, "hints of smoke" rauchbiers just do nothing for me. On draft, this offering from Von Trapp Brewing in Vermont is a delight, again especially when you let it warm a little to unlock all the complexity of the beer. The winner of the best Dark Beer in the Rest of the USA for 2021 is one of my favourite types of beer, from a brewery that is new to me, and everything I have had from them has been fantastic...Utepils Loonar Eclipse it is!

Rest of the World

• O'Hara's Irish Stout - Carlow Brewing, IE
• Foreign Extra Stout - Guinness, IE
• London Porter - Fullers, UK

Honorable mentions: Köstritzer Schwarzbier - Köstritzer, DE; Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock - Brauerei Heller-Trum, DE.

A final three entirely devoid of lager? Whom am I? What have I done to myself? Fullers London Porter is for many the archetype of what a porter should be, and while I don't really drink it often, it is always a delight. There is something alluring about the classic range of porter flavours, you know all that coffee and chocolate stuff, coupled with the signature Fullers yeast marmelade thing, it just works. Both the O'Hara's and Guinness are tied to one of my favourite drinking sessions of the year. Back in October I went up to Rhode Island for my best mate's birthday weekend. On the Sunday morning we were sat in an Irish pub for brunch, and they had O'Hara's on tap. The pints were going down very well, when I noticed the pub had bottles of FES...such a classic beer that makes me wish that regular Guinness was available without the abomination of nitro. The winner though is the Fullers London Pride, an old friend that never disappoints.

Two porters and a tmavé to choose from for the 2021 Fuggled Dark Beer of the Year, but in the immortal words of Connor McLeod, there can be only one...and that one is from the dark north of Minnesota. I wish Utepils were available in Virginia in general as I would love to try the rest of their selection given how impressed I was with both the Receptional Oktoberfest and Loonar Eclipse. Any beer that reminds me of a beer I loved back in Czechia has to be good, especially when those memories are of the Autumn Dark Special from Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, that should tell you just how good Loonar Eclipse is.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Between Orange and Brown

Darker than pale, lighter than dark brown is something of a mouthful, hence I renamed this part of the annual review of year simply "between orange and brown". Still suitably vague and subject to my capricious whimsy, but "BOAB" is less of a painful acronym than "DTPLTDB". Onwards then to the runners and riders...

Virginia

• Franconian Kellerbier - Port City Brewing
• Alt Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing
• Fest! - Beltway Brewing Company

Honorable mention: A Stone in the Woods Brown Ale - Patch Brewing Company.

I know dear reader you are shocked that the best three BOAB beers of 2021 are examples of German style beers. While it is true that I didn't drink as much Franconian Kellerbier this year compared to last, it was just as fantastic and went just as well with harvesting chores like shelling peas. For about a month in the late spring and early summer of this year, Devils Backbone had their Alt Bier on tap, and every weekend for about a month Mrs V and I would traipse down, often with friends, and sit in the sunshine with half litres of frankly gorgeous Düsseldorf style beer. Fest! was the winner of the Virginia section of my annual Oktoberfest tasting, and was a rich, nailed on märzen that would have been the overall winner but for a beer we'll mention later. While it is difficult to separate out a winner from these three, and it is the one I am happy to drive 75 minutes to get a few pints of...Devils Backbone Alt Bier.

Rest of the USA

• Receptional - Utepils Brewing, MN
• Munzler's Vienna Lager - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Vienna - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Honorable mentions: Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC; Oktoberfest - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC; Celebration - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC.

When my colleague Jerry Fagerberg sent me a selection of Minnesota Oktoberfest lagers the name Utepils rang bells from somewhere, somewhere I still can't place. Receptional came top of my MN Oktoberfest league, and it was a fantastic, fantastic beer, a beer I would happily drink all year round given half the chance. In each of the last handful of years I have wanted to try Olde Meck's spring seasonal Vienna Lager, Munzler's, and finally this year I made it to the brewery in time. I was so glad that I finally got to try another example of an excellent lager from Charlotte's finest. Von Trapp are an old faithful brewery, a regular in the fridge, and as such it is all too easy to take them for granted. As a permanent part of their line up, Von Trapp Vienna is quite possibly to my mind the best regularly brewed Vienna lager in the US, as such it wins the best BOAB beer in the US for 2021.

Rest of the World

• London Pride - Fullers Brewery, UK
• Oktober Fest-Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, DE
• Eiszäpfle - Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, DE

Fullers in bottles is a fairly common sight here in Virginia, and Kardinal Hall seems to have it in that format regularly, and I enjoyed several throughout the year. Recently though they had it on draft, not cask sadly but such is life, and so it was a no-brainer to go get some, and it was just perfect, once the chill of an American draft line had worn off. Oktoberfest season is when I get excited for the Fest-Märzen from Ayinger. Sure it's an outlier in terms of German "Oktoberfest" lagers but I love the big malty chewiness. The only downside was finding a mere pair of four packs in the store during the appropriate season, and then only 330ml bottles, where were the half litre bottles this year? I didn't know that Rothaus have a year round märzen, Eiszäpfle. Now I do, and now I want to see it in the store year round and not just in the late summer, early autumn, delicious. Of the three, the plaudits, and title of best BOAB beer in the rest of the world for 2021, return to the UK for a second year running with Fuller's London Pride.

Three absolutely cracking beers, but in this case the local hero wins hands down. Since Devils Backbone got an open fermenter and horizontal lagering tanks to complete the authenticity circle when it comes to their central European style beers, everything has gone up a level, from excellent to just plain perfect. Altbier is one of those styles that I wish we saw more properly made iterations of here in the US, and the fact that one of my locals brews it at least once a year makes this Germanophile a very happy camper indeed. Well done Devils Backbone Alt Bier for being the BOAB beer of 2021!

Old Friends: Fuller's London Porter

In the late 19th century, my great-grandfather left rural Somerset and moved to the metropolis to be a porter. Sadly for any tie-in to this tale, he wasn't the kind of porter for whom London's most famous beer invention was named, he was instead a parcels porter for the London and South Western Railway, eventually becoming a Foreman Parcels Porter. Thus it was that the first of my paternal ancestors moved to London, settling first in Battersea, then moving to Merton, and spreading out from there.

I've mentioned before that my dad grew up in Chiswick, just a few miles up the river from Battersea, though on the north side rather than the south, and as such I have a great affection for Fuller's. The fact they make damned good beer helps, obviously. Having already done an Old Friends post for each of London Pride and ESB, it only felt right to complete the hat-trick and pour myself a dimpled mug of the legendary London Porter.

It is perhaps sad to admit to, but it took we a while to decide on which of my various British style pint glasses to use for this tasting. Eventually though, as you can see, I stumped for my nicely old fashioned dimpled mug for no other reason than my own capricious whimsy. For whatever reason my tulips, nonics, and pint pots just didn't seem right.

Anyway, enough of glassware, we are after all more interested in the beer itself. As you would expect from a porter, it is dark, very dark. With the sun streaming through the window it was a deep inky pitch, topped with a half inch of tan foam. There is something about dark beers, top or bottom fermented, that I just find alluring to look at, perhaps it harkens back to my early drinking days of Guinness and Gillespie's? Maybe there is something about the darkness that exudes an air of mystery that isn't really present in pale beers as you look right through and see the other side of the glass? Turning momentarily to face the sun and see the beer with the light coming through, the darkness becomes a deep, deep chestnut brown, flecked with auburn. The foam thinned out a little and then just hung around, clinging to the glass as it went down.

Taking another little side perambulation here, why are porters and stouts invariably "paired" with dessert at the end of yet another unimaginative beer dinner menu? Sure I get it that the aroma often contains chocolate, but chocolate goes great with beef too you know. Chocolate was present here too, a rich dark chocolate in the vein of Bourneville rather than Dairy Milk. I own the fact that perhaps my sense of smell does odd things, but I also get a hint of soy sauce as well as some molasses to add a savoury note to the bitter chocolate. Under all of that is the classic spicy tobacco that Fuggles brings to the table. I have never been a smoker, but sometimes when driving through the tobacco growing region of Virginia between Lynchburg and Danville, I have been known to wind my window down and breath in the smell of the fields. That's what I have in mind when I say Fuggles reminds me of tobacco.

All of that rich aromatic complexity is present in the tasting as well, yes the dark chocolate, laced with Italian espresso, toast, even hints of molasses, and an earthiness that brings an agricultural element to this most industrial of beers. While it is nowhere near as prevalent as in its stable mates, the "Fuller's" yeast flavour is there, loitering with intent behind the goings on in the foreground. 

I am a fan of porter in general, and would love to see Three Notch'd rebrew Blackwall London Porter, the 19th Century style version that I designed, but in Fullers London Porter you have in many ways the archetype of a great modern porter. The luxuriant silky mouthfeel, rich mélange of aroma and flavour, and the sheer ease with which this beer is drunk, quite rightly puts this in the very highest echelons of beery excellence. In the coming weeks I will be drinking a bevvy of other porters alongside the Fuller's to see if any of them can truly ever compare. It promises to be a fun little experiment.

Fuggled Beers of the Year - Darker Than Pale Lighter Than Dark Brown

How's that for a description of colours in this category? Suitably vague and broad of scope I would hope you agree.

Onwards then to the runners and riders

Virginia

• Franconia Kellerbier - Port City Brewing
• Rauch Märzen - Port City Brewing
• Alt Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing

Honorable mentions: Doppelbock - Port City Brewing; Bavarian Prince - New Realm Brewing.

As I mentioned in my last post, this year has been stellar from Port City, so it is no surprise to see them dominating the DTPLTDB category. I drank loads of the Franconian Kellerbier earlier this year, often while harvesting fresh green things from my garden, the experience was a series of delightfully rustic moments in the midst of this most odd year. 

When you compare a rauchbier to the glories of Spezial in Bamberg, you know you are drinking something, erm, special, Rauch Märzen is just such a beer. A gorgeous drop of rauchbier that hits my sweet spot with unerring accuracy. 

Technically speaking, Devils Backbone Alt Bier was my first beer of 2020, from the zwickel at the brewpub while brewing Morana back in February. When finally Morana was on tap, and people were allowed to reserve tables in the Devil Backbone meadow, we did so. With double digit numbers of crowlers of Morana acquired, I was drinking the Alt Bier, revelling in the sense of normality with a version of altbier that could actually pass for a German beer. 

This years Virginia DTPLTDB beer of the year is Port City's Franconian Kellerbier, a beer so good it pretty uch made up all of my drinking for a couple of months in the summer.

Rest of the USA

• Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Oktoberfest - Von Trapp Brewing, VT
• 40 - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC

Honorable mentions: Winter Ride - JosephsBrau, CA; Yule Bock - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC; Vienna - Von Trapp Brewing, VT.

Very much a tale of old favourites here. I wax lyrical about Olde Mecklenburg at length to anyone crazy enough to listen about the glories of decoction mashing, extensive lagering, and a commitment to making beers with malt, hops, yeast, water, and "nothing else". Whenever I have the opportunity it is Copper that takes up a fair amount of space in my fridge. 

For the second year in a row, I did a mass Oktoberfest tasting, and Von Trapp's eponymous beer is probably my favourite version of the style, though it didn't win the blind tasting. However, a maß at Kardinal Hall on an overcast Friday afternoon brought a ray of sunshine to an otherwise grim day. 

I know you are shocked, a top fermented, American hopped, IPA made it on my list of contenders this year, but it is Sierra Nevada and they are simply one of the best breweries on the planet, and in "40" they had the perfect beer to mark such an august anniversary. 

Sierra Nevada then, in their anniversary year take the honours as the best DTPLTDB beer in the rest of the US for 2020.

Rest of the World

• Vintage Ale 2016 - Fuller's, England
• Oktober Fest-Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Germany
• Maudite - Unibroue, Canada

Honorable mentions: Orval - Abbaye d'Orval; London Pride - Fuller's.

With the lockdown in its infancy I decided to hit the cellar for some of the old ales, barleywines, and other assorted heavy hitters that had been lingering for a while. From those DTPLTDB beers the 2016 iteration of Fuller's Vintage Ale was the standout beer, and I am eyeing at least one more bottle of it before the year is out. 

Sure, I know Ayinger's autumnal festbier is not strictly speaking an Oktoberfest lager, it is though the one German lager of that season that I look forward to most, chewy, fully bodied, warming, echt lecker.

I renewed acquaintances with Maudite early in the year for an Old Friends post, such a nice beer, one that I have had a couple of times since, when the urge for a well brewed dubbel strikes (admittedly something of a great conjunction in my lager driven world). 

Not only was it the standout cellar beer of 2020, Fuller's Vintage Ale 2016 is the standout DTPLTDB beer of 2020 from the rest of the world. A worthy taker of the accolades.

Decisions, decisions...As ever it is tricky for me to choose one, but in reality given the amount of it I drank earlier in the year, and the fact I drove 60 miles round trip to pick up several unexpected 4 packs, the winner of the Fuggled DTPLTDB Beer of the Year is Port City's glorious Franconian Kellerbier, and I look forward to indulging in more in 2021.

Old Friends: Fuller's London Pride

The Old Friends series makes a return today, and in some ways goes right back to the beginning. The first beer of this series was also from Fuller's, their style defining ESB, but when I originally conceived this notion, it was today's beer that so nearly went in the trolley, London Pride.

I may have mentioned this before, so forgive me if you have a better memory than me, but I have a soft spot for Fuller's due largely to their location. The Griffin Brewery is in Chiswick, a parish in the ancient county of Middlesex, near where my dad grew up, and not far from Chiswick County Grammar, where he went to school. At the tender old age of 16, my dad joined the army as an apprentice radar engineer, and so began 30 odd years of being paid to traipse around the UK and Europe, being shot at on occasion for the privilege. Most of my memories of that part of the world are from when we would go and visit my nan in her ground floor council flat near Gunnersbury Park.

I haven't been to London in many years, not since I used to make epic bus trips from Uig on the Isle of Skye to Prague, some 1400 miles away. I have never really been a fan of flying, so taking the bus from Uig to Glasgow, then Glasgow to London, and finally London to Prague, a total of about 48 hours, made sense to me, yeah I'm weird. In fact it has been so long since my last trip to London that it pre-dates my interest in decent beer, and so if I did drink when I was there it was usually something like Guinness in my glass.

One of the reasons that I went with the ESB for the first Old Friends post was that at that point I would pick up a four pack of Pride at least once every couple of months. In the two years since that post that has dropped away dramatically, so why not reacquaint myself? On to the beer then we go...

• Sight - copper/amber, thin white head that quickly dissipates, reminds me of the scum you get on a London cuppa sometimes, magnificently clear
• Smell - the "Fuller's aroma", Seville orange marmelade esters, toffee, subtle black tea, and sweet spices, think nutmeg
• Taste - toffee sauce ,some fruitiness like plums, plain scones fresh from the oven, slight grassiness in the finish
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 2/5

There are times when I drink this that I really understand why American brewers and drinkers have such a hard time grasping the fact bitter should be, well, bitter. It's not that it is terribly sweet, though the mouthfeel feels a little like undissolved jelly cubes, it's that the hops are nudged out by the famous Fuller's yeast character, as well as not being the same kind of citrus as folks are used to here. So many breweries here use very clean top fermenting yeasts that the character of the beer is so different, and I wonder if American breweries under hop the style as a result?

Having said that, it is still a lovely beer and one that is incredibly consistent. I found my tasting notes from a post I wrote about several English ales a few years back, and was pleased to see many of the same descriptors. I am not sure it will return to being a regular in the fridge, my tastes are very much in the lager world again these days and I actually found the switch to top fermented beer kind of jarring.

I suppose when winter comes I should complete the triumvirate of Fullers beers and pick up some London Porter...

Raiding The Cellar: 2016 Fullers Vintage

I have a maroon elephant in my beer cellar, almost a decade's worth of Fuller's Vintage Ale spanning the years 2008 to 2016. For some reason I haven't been able to find anything post 2016 to fill out the collection, but there we go. In looking for something to dip into last week, I thought it would be interesting to try one of the youngest of the collection, so I pulled a bottle of 2016...

I always enjoy reading the blurb on the back of the box when I dip into the Vintage stash, and apparently this version was brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops. Now, I have a confession to make, it has been a very long time since I knowingly had a beer with Nelson Sauvin in it, the previous one being New Belgian's Shift Pale Lager back in 2012, and I haven't used it in my own homebrew.

With the bottle having spent the requisite hour or so in the fridge to bring it down in temperature a wee bit, my cellar is pretty settled at around 60ºF, which while not perfect doesn't seem to negatively affect the beers, but I like to drink my British ales at about 50ºF, I poured into my current favourite glass from Olde Mecklenburg Brewery in North Carolina, they call it a Franconia.

What a simply beautiful beer it is, crystal clear, rich copper, light red at the edges, all topped off with a firm quarter inch of ivory foam. Minor ranty detour, but I am sure I am not alone in thinking that all these soupy things that are all the rage these days are just plain ugly. Sorry, ok not really, but if I wanted an alcoholic beverage that looked like fruit juice with whipped cream on top, I'd buy a bottle of orange juice, tip the requisite vodka in and make free with the aerosol "cream". Give me a clear beer any day of the week, rant over.

As I say, it had been a long time since my previous daliance with Nelson Sauvin hopped beer, so I really didn't have much of a frame of reference for what I was sticking my nose into. What an incredibly floral hop this one is, and at the same time rather herbal, it actually put me in mind of lavender. Being a good, solid British strong ale, there was plenty of biscuity, digestives not savory scones, and toffee like caramel notes. I was looking forward to this one.

Now, I don't know whether to put this down to subliminal marketing stuff, but there is a very noticeable white wine character to this beer. Not being one to trust my general lack of interest in the boozy grape juice world, I asked Mrs V and try it and let me know what she thought, without telling her the hops involved. Sure enough she said it tasted somewhat like the Sauvignan Blancs that she is a fan of, replete with the slight mustiness that seem sto be par for the course with such wines. In amongst the mix was the classic Fullers flavour, which always puts me in mind of marmelade, and which I really like. Sure, there are some for whom "the Fuller's flavour" is something they don't care for but I am a fan. I also, and again this may be entirely sub-conscious, thought the beer tasted rather like a Werther's Original, likewise a good thing.

What a cracking, cracking beer this is, and perhaps I caught it in a good moment, but I look forward to trying the other 2016 vintages I have floating around in the cellar, as well as doing some brewing with Nelson Sauvin, most likely in my best bitter recipe to begin with, though I can imagine it working rather well in my lime witbier too.

Old Friends: Fuller's ESB

Wandering around the shop yesterday getting the weekly necessaries, I got thinking about what beer I wanted to buy. I have plenty of beer in the cellar at the moment, but most of it is dark, porters, stouts, that kind of stuff, there was very little pale beer, and no lager (purely because lager gets drunk pretty quickly in my house as I love the stuff). Usually when we go to our preferred supermarket we do our booze shopping last as the wine and beer sections are in the back corner. I have a confession to make, I am really bad about trying new beers and breweries at the moment, mainly because it is difficult to place any faith in the consistency and quality of many of the start up breweries flooding the shelves. Anyway, looking at the shelves of British beer available there were so many familiar names, but beers that I had not tried in goodness knows how long, and thus is the genesis of this new series on Fuggled, "Old Friends".

I almost picked up a four pack of London Pride, a beer I know well and enjoy drinking reasonably often. Between the stash of Pride and London Porter were a pair of ESB four packs, so I checked the best before date (a sad necessity in these parts) and took home the one pack that was still within the freshness range. It had been years since I had last indulged in a pint of Fuller's ESB, and that was on draft one homebrew club night many moons ago. Extra Special Bitter, as a style rather than the Fuller's brand in particular here, is one that gets brewed relatively often by American breweries, and even though it is part of the bitter family, I am much more of a best bitter drinker, and quite often leave the ESBs I see alone. Anyway, on to the ur-ESB...

As I said, it had been a long time since my last pint of Fuller's ESB, so for some reason best known only to the recesses of my memory I was mildly surprised at the beautiful copper colour of the beer as it sat in my freshly cleaned nonic imperial pint glass. I remember having a similar feeling when I had a few pints of cask London Pride in Inverness a couple of years back, why did I think they would be darker than that? I loved the colour, especially in the late winter sunlight streaming through the doors to our deck, with a schmeer of off white foam, every prospect pleased.

There are some breweries whose beer have a distinctive smell and Fullers is one of them. For some folks the familiarity of that aroma and taste has bred contempt, I find it deeply comforting as I know when I smell a Fullers beer it will be a good beer. The aroma is that of marmelade made with Seville oranges, citrusy, lightly floral and with traces of crystalised sugar. Tastewise, again that marmelade character is evident, though it is not overly sweet, being balanced with pithy hop bite that cleans the palate and leaves you ready for more.

Goodness me what a lovely beer I had been neglecting all these years, perhaps in part because of the 5.9% ABV, which while not strong (the average for core range beers in Central VA is about 6.5%), is a good 20% stronger than most beers I drink regularly. I still have a couple of bottles in the fridge, but they'll be gone soon enough, and I imagine ESB will be finding it's way more often in to my drinking life again, though more as an evening indulgence, perhaps while reading or watching something on Netflix once the twins have fallen asleep and Mrs V and I have an hour or so to ourselves of adult time. It'll be a welcome addition to the routine...

Going For An English

I seem to have a thing for underappreciated, and in some cases misunderstood, beer styles. There are, in my unhumble opinion, few pints that I enjoy more than an imperial nonic glass filled with mild, pilsner, or porter. I especially enjoy them when said beers are straight up versions of the style rather than some craftified wank with additional ingredients in some vain effort to be 'innovative'. Perhaps the most underappreciated and simultaneously misunderstood, at least here in the US, of my favourite beer styles is the family of bitters; ordinary, best, and extra special.

Obviously I am fortunate in many respects that my favourite local brewery, Three Notch'd, brews Bitter 42 every year. Bitter 42 is a best bitter that I designed and is inspired by my favourite pints of best from the UK, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted. Speaking of Bitter 42, if I remember rightly is should be hitting the taps again in a month or two.

Anyway, this post is about wandering around our newish Wegmans and deciding to do a comparative tasting of all the English pale ales I could lay my hands on, and that were still in date. Thus it was that I wandered out of the shop, pushing a trolley that as well as the usual groceries included the following:

• Black Sheep Ale
• St Peter's Organic Ale
• Fuller's London Pride
• Samuel Smith's Organic Pale Ale

Before getting into the beers, I quite often get asked by folks what the difference between an English Pale Ale and a Bitter is, to which I usually respond 'nomenclature'. If I have understood the history correctly, the breweries called the beer a pale ale while the drinkers referred to it as bitter. Simples (and if I am wrong I am sure Ron, Martyn, et al will correct me).

On to the beers then, starting with the lowest ABV....

Black Sheep Ale

• Sight - rich orange/amber, solid half inch of ivory foam that lingers, bit of chill haze
• Smell - oranges, honeyed toast, slight lavender
• Taste - honey on digestive biscuits, tangerines, some spicy hop character
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 3/5
• Notes - Slight metallic note in the finish, but generally wonderful balance, something that makes you long for a day's cricket at Headingley

St Peter's Organic Pale Ale

• Sight - golden, thin white head, almost like a pilsner
• Smell - little bit of funky weed straight out the gate, Jacob's Cream Crackers
• Taste - crackers, clean hop bite, slightly vegetal
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2.5/5
• Notes - really dry finish, with bitterness that builds with drinking, resulting in a tannic tea character that's really pleasant.

Fuller's London Pride

• Sight - dark amber/copper, half inch of cream white foam
• Smell - that Fuller's smell, you know what I mean, orange marmelade
• Taste - toffee and toast, slight grassiness, all wrapped up in that Fuller's flavour
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - beautifully balanced, though not as enjoyable as the cask version, still bloody marvellous

Samuel Smith's Organic Pale Ale

• Sight - deep copper, quarter inch of ivory head
• Smell - bread, herbal hops, light citrus
• Taste - scones fresh from the oven, dulce de leche, toffee
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - smoth, almost creamy, fuller mouthfeel than the other beers

4 variations on the theme of an English pale ale, all of them very nice, though I have a clear and distinct favourite. Black Sheep Ale has long been something that I pick up in bottle shops whenever I see it, and it seems our local Wegman's has it pretty much all the time, so I'm picking it up more often now. I do wish more breweries stepped out of the mainstream and made bitter over here, not including all the overly sweet ESBs that do the rounds come autumn and Christmas time, and while bottled beer never lives up to the glories of cask, I'm glad I can get my bitter on whenever the mood strikes.

Several Jars of Porter

A couple of months back a friend, and colleague at the company that is my day job, of mine was in Oxford for work. Naturally I asked him if it would be possible for him to bring me back a bottle or two on Oxford beer. After a week of seething jealousy as him sent me messages from places like the King's Arms, he came back to Central Virginia with a bottle of Shotover Brewing's Oxford Black Porter, which spawned a plan to do a tasting of as many porters as I could lay my hands on.

Originally the plan had been to find as many British porters as possible, but then I decided to broaden that out to include US made porters as long as they didn't have weird shit ingredients - I really fail to understand why craft brewers insist on putting extraneous shit in their dark beers (or in their beer at all to be honest).

Thus after Thanksgiving I had collected the following porters for my tasting:

• Fuller's London Porter
• Shotover Brewing Oxford Black
• Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter
• Deschutes Black Butte Porter
• Great Lakes Brewing Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
• Port City Brewing Porter

This weekend just gone, and last night, I got round to drinking this little bevy of dark bevvy and here are my thoughts, a la Cyclops...

Fuller's London Porter

• Sight - dark chestnut brown, light tan head
• Smell - chocolate, caramelised sugar, roasty
• Taste - toast, cocoa, molasses
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - very smooth, complex, moreish

Shotover Brewing Oxford Black

• Sight - dark brown, red edges, off white head
• Smell - spicy, slightly phenolic, touch of band-aid
• Taste - lightly roasty, bready, trace of rubberiness
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 1/5
• Notes - bit thin, muddle of flavours

Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter

• Sight - rich dark brown, red edges, loose tan head
• Smell - light coffee, cinnamon, molasses, slight tobacco
• Taste - dark brown sugar, some coffee, roasty notes
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - dry, slightly lactic finish, great balance

Deschute's Black Butte Porter

• Sight - rich dark chestnut, crimson edges, tan head
• Smell - molasses, bittersweet chocolate, burnt sugar
• Taste - bittersweet chocolate, slight roast
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - medium bodied, great balance, moreishly drinkable

Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter

• Sight - deep brown, light tan head, dissipates quickly
• Smell - bitter chocolate, molasses, light roast coffee
• Taste - bready, nutty, cafe creme
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - beautifully balanced, medium-full body, ideal for fireside in winter

Port City Porter

• Sight - very dark, almost black, ruby edges, tan head that ligners
• Smell - burnt sugar, light treacle, coffee, chocolate
• Taste - sweet molasses, chocolate spread on toast, spicy
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5
• Notes - rich, unctuous brew, really well integrated

Other than the Shotover, each of these porters was a beer than I would be happy to drink whenever the porter mood strikes. If there was one take away from this mini session it was the American made beers tending to be sweeter, fuller bodied, and maybe a bit more complex, without having that much higher an alcohol content - only the Great Lakes and Port City brews were over 6%. It seems sometimes as though porter kind of gets lost in the IPAness of the modern craft brewing world, but for those of us who like dark beers, there are some decent ones out there.

Beers and Breweries of 2015

The Christmas tree is up and decorated, the salmon and beef for Christmas lunch have been bought, the tin of Quality Street chocs awaits opening and tipping into a fancy bowl for me to raid for the caramel barrels, so it must be time for a review of 2015. I have grown rather attached to my pale, amber, and dark beers from Central VA, rest of VA, rest of USA, and rest of world approach, thus I will not abandon it.....

Pale

• Central VA - South Street My Personal Helles
• Rest of VA - Port City Downright Pilsner
• Rest of USA - Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Rest of World - Pilsner Urquell
• Honorable mentions - Three Notch'd Ghost of the 43rd, Devils Backbone Trukker Ur-Pils, Cromarty Happy Chappy, Hi-Wire Lager, Rothaus Pils

It has been a great year for this lagerboy (on a side note, I sometimes get the urge to have a t-shirt made up with the slogan 'What's wrong alehead, not got the palate to appreciate lager?'). South Street's My Personal Helles has become my go to lager when I fancy a pint in Charlottesville, one I wouldn't worry too much about if it was all I had to drink for months on end. Port City continue to make the best regularly available pilsner in the USA, bar none, and it graces my fridge often. But the winner of the Fuggled Pale Beer of 2015 is Pilsner Urquell. Now available in brown bottles, cold shipped from the Czech Republic, and just delightful drinking. The crowning glory though this year was that a local bar had nefiltrovaný Prazdroj on tap a few months ago. Sure it was $7 a pop, but it was worth every single golden drop, as I raved about here.

Amber

• Central VA - Three Notch'd Hydraulion Red Irish Ale
• Rest of VA - Mad Fox Altbier
• Rest of USA - Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest
• Rest of World - Fullers Vintage Ale 2009
• Honorable mentions - Yeungling Traditional Lager, Orval

Another collection of really good beers to choose from for the amber beer of the year. I drink Hydraulion fairly regularly, it's easy to get in to and stay with. Mad Fox's Altbier was a revelation when I was up there with my parents a few weeks back, once I got over disappointment of the Mason's Dark Mild not being on tap. It made me wish more American breweries made Altbier and got it so emphatically right. I have been drinking through my various Fullers Vintages this year, having come to the conclusion that storing them for a 'special occasion' is pretty much a waste of time, and each vintage has been lovely, with 2009 my favourite so far. If truth be told, the Fuggled Amber Beer of the Year was sown up months ago. I am not sure if I was on my second or third 12 pack of Sierra Nevada's collaborative Oktoberfest, but I knew that I would be drinking a lot of that beer while it was available, I think I ended up with about ten 12 packs all told, and several pints on tap, simply delicious.

Dark

• Central VA - Three Notch'd Oats McGoats Oatmeal Stout
• Rest of VA - Port City Porter
• Rest of USA - St. Boniface Bull's Head Mild
• Rest of World - Pokertree Seven Sisters Black Treacle Oat Stout
• Honorable mentions - O'Hara's Leann Follain Whiskey Barrel Aged, Skye Black, Starr Hill Dark Starr, South Street Back to Bavaria, Three Notch'd Method to My Madness Mild

Regular readers of Fuggled will know that I love drinking milds, porters, and stouts. Through the American Mild Month project I enjoyed several very nice milds this year, including a crowler of the St Boniface beer brewed for that event, which made it's way to central VA through the family of the St Boniface brewer, and was enjoyed with gusto one Saturday afternoon. I still remember well the first time I had Port City Porter, in a restaurant in Alexandria where I had several pints before looking at the ABV, a 7.5% drop that tasted like it was 5%, fantastic. Another Three Notch'd beer that I drink regularly, especially in the damp of cold of autumn and winter, Oats McGoats is silky smooth and moreish, all the more so once it gets to the proper temperature. However, the 2015 Fuggled Dark Beer of the Year comes from the north of Ireland. I only had one bottle of Pokertree Seven Sisters, brought over by Reuben of Tale of the Ale, and it was a revelation, one that I am hoping to recreate in my homebrewing at some point.

Fuggled Champion Beer

If the Amber Beer of the Year was sown up months ago, then the overall Fuggled Champion Beer for 2015 was also practically decided at the same time. Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest was everything I look for in a beer, superbly made, flavourful, on point for the style, and drinkable beyond measure. I drank a lot of this beer, often from my 1 litre Paulaner glass, often demolishing a 12 pack in a single afternoon. I drank it, I cooked with it, I revelled in every single drop. I wish I had stocked up more before it disappeared from the shelves of supermarkets and bottle shops. There was no finer beer I drank this year.

Breweries

• Central VA - Three Notch'd Brewing
• Rest of VA - Port City
• Rest of USA - Sierra Nevada
• Rest of World - Fullers
• Honorable mentions - Plzeňský Prazdroj, South Street Brewery, Hi-Wire Brewing

Looking back at last year's review of the year, I noticed that 3 of the 4 breweries listed here were listed then as well. This tells me several things, but most importantly that I value breweries that produce consistently well made and tasty beers, that have a solid core range that I am happy to drink anytime, and also that I am out of kilter with many a craft drinker in that I am happy to stick to a single brewery rather than taking a scatter gun approach. At one point earlier this year, I was worried that I wouldn't have drunk enough beer to warrant my annual trawl through the pale, amber, and dark delights that constitute my drinking habit. It wasn't that I had inexplicably given up on beer rather that I found my self drinking almost exclusively Three Notch'd beer, hence they are again the Fuggled Brewery of the Year. Whenever I see their wonderfully simple tap handle in a pub I know what I'll be drinking, and I know I will not be disappointed, what more can you ask from a brewery?

Yes 2015 was a good year for drinking, here's hoping 2016 is just as good.

Beers of the Year

In years past I have written multiple 'Review of the Year' posts, across various beer styles, and then colours. This year, I am feeling somewhat lazy and am writing just the one long post highlighting what I think have been the best pale, amber, and dark beers from Central Virginia, the rest of Virginia, the rest of the US, and the rest of the world. So without further ado....

Pale Beer of the Year:

• Central VA - Blue Mountain Classic Lager
• Rest VA - Port City Downright Pilsner
• Rest US - Samuel Adams Alpine Spring
• Rest World - Oakham Citra

Overall Pale Beer of the Year: Oakham Citra, which I wrote about here.

Amber Beer of the Year:

• Central VA - Devils Backbone Vienna Lager
• Rest VA - Port City Oktoberfest
  
• Rest US - Highland Gaelic Ale
  
• Rest World - Timothy Taylor Landlord (bottled)

Overall Amber Beer of the Year: Timothy Taylor Landlord, one of the best beers in the world. End of.

Dark Beer of the Year:

• Central VA - Three Notch'd No Veto Brown Ale
• Rest VA - Mad Fox Mason's Mild
• Rest US - Green Flash Double Stout
• Rest World - Fullers London Porter
  

Overall Dark Beer of the Year: Three Notch'd No Veto, probably the beer I drink most of, when not bashing Session 42.

From those three Beers of the Year, this year's Fuggled Champion Beer of the Year is...

Timothy Taylor Landlord. 

I have come to the conclusion that there are insufficient superlatives to describe the bottled version of Landlord. Simply one of the best beers on the planet in my opinion and one which is so insanely difficult to get hold of on this side of the Pond that it astounds me that it never makes the 'Best Beers in the World' lists (oh wait, it's not a boozy hop bomb and/or Belgian). I never tire of drinking it, and in many ways, Session 42 is something of an homage to it.

The Other Burton Beer

Despite the fact that the making of beer has been part of the human experience for at least 6000 years, indeed one of the marks of being civilised in the Epic of Gilgamesh was to be a beer drinker (though I am sure ancient Sumerian 'beer' was a very different beast from the modern stuff), there are places which are renowned for their beer throughout the world, for various reasons. Whether it is Plzeň for its pale lager, which spawned endless imitations, Dublin and the stout porter that would define not just a beer style but an entire country in the minds of many, or Munich for its dunkels, there are some cities where beer is the very stuff of life.

One such city is Burton upon Trent in the English Midlands, an area rich in the history of the Industrial Revolution. At one point the city was home to more than a dozen breweries including such world famous names as Bass, Allsopp and Ind Coope. To put that into context, Burton is about the same size as Charlottesville and in the city proper there are currently 2 breweries. When people think about the Burton brewing industry they think of a style of beer which has come to embody in many way the modern brewing industry, India Pale Ale. However, when in 1948 The Brewer's Art listed the four main types of beer being brewed in Britain they were 'pale ale, mild ale, stout and Burton'.

Burton Ale is one of those beer styles which is almost extinct, I say almost because it would seem from my reading (mostly Martyn Cornell's 'Amber, Gold and Black', various of Martyn's blog posts and magazine articles, and naturally Ron Pattinson's blog) that the style lives on in the Winter Warmer genre of strong English ales. In common with many beers, Burton Ale evolved. Over the years it went from being a super strong nut brown ale shipped to the Baltic region to the Victorian era beer made to a recipe of pure pale malt and Kentish hops to create a beer which was about 6% abv and slightly less hopped than the IPAs being sent from Burton to India. Seemingly, and again most of this information is from Martyn, as the Victorian age gave way to the 20th Century Burton Ale became darker again and then in the decades immediately after the Second World War, the style practically died as the public turned away from dark, sweet beers in favour of pale, bitter ones.

According to Martyn's book though, there are still some beers out there which meet the description of a Burton Ale, whether the paler 19th century version or the darker 20th. Fuller's 1845 is apparently based on a Burton style recipe from the Griffin Brewery, Timothy Taylor Ram Tam is an example of a lower strength dark Burton, and Young's Winter Warmer is, according to Martyn, a 'classic of the Burton Ale type'.

Of those three, I have only had the pleasure of the Fullers 1845, and a mighty great pleasure it is, but I have it in mind to try creating some clone recipesof the various stages in the development of Burton Ale for my homebrewing this year. Brewing old beers is one of my favourite types of history (and history is probably one of my favourite things in general), the type you can drink.

In Praise of Familiarity

Earlier today I sat down to write a post for this blog and my mind was blank, what should I write about? What would people be interested in? Questions flashed through my mind and no answers came forth to announce themselves. So I had a cup of coffee, read the news on the various websites from which I glean my knowledge of world events, the BBC and the Guardian mostly, caught up on the football gossip, hoping to see that Liverpool had sign Gylfi Sigurdsson.

It's not as if I didn't drink anything over the weekend. I drank mostly homebrew admittedly, mainly my German pilsner, though with some lime witbier and the few remaining Černý Lev Czech Dark Lagers chucked in for good measure. I worked at the Starr Hill tasting room on Saturday, and yesterday after painting in our new house I sat with a large New Belgium Fat Tire to wash down some Mexican food. There was no beer revelation, nothing new to tickle and tantalise the taste buds, nothing worth taking notes about, though I have practically given up on that particular activity, and you know that's perfectly fine by me.

While it is true that I have never been the kind of person to go chasing half way across town just to try a particular beer, let alone to another country, I wonder if at times I lose sight of that fact that beer is just part of life? Since leaving the Czech Republic almost three years ago I have come to cherish, and miss, the wonderful solid predictability of being able to walk into any of my favourite pubs and be guaranteed a beer I would want to drink. Whether it was Štěpán at Pivovarský Klub, Zlatá labuť at U Buldoka or even Leffe Bruin at my nearest Potrefená Husa.

Don't get me wrong, I love going to the pub over here, but there is often an element of doubt in my mind as to whether there will be anything I am in the mood for, given the frequent rotation of taps, and the near constant chasing of the new thing, the latest big beer and that which contains the oddest ingredients.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but at the same time the familiar is a comfort, something reliable to go back to, knowing that it will be satisfying. Whether it is tankové Pilsner Urquell in the Czech Republic, London Pride in Southall or Samuel Adams Boston Lager here in the States, there is much to be said for those beers which are familiar, oh so familiar.

Planning Ahead

I sometimes think that homebrewing is an exercise in being one step ahead of the seasons. As such, I am already in the planning phase for my winter beers.

I love winter with a passion, I sometimes think I have SAD in reverse, the darker and colder it gets, the happier I become. With Mrs Velkyal soon to start work again after the summer, she teaches 3-6 year old children, my thoughts turn to beers to brew for the long dark nights, hopefully dark, cold and snowy - I love snow. Random side story, almost every year in Prague it would snow on my birthday.

Anyway, to some of my homebrew plans for winter and Yuletide. As I have done for the last 2 years, I plan to brew my chocolate Export Stout and spiced Belgian Amber Ale. Both those recipes are pretty well established in how I like them, so I doubt I will be tweaking too much, though I do plan to make 2 batches of each.

Although not a beer for the coming winter, I will brewing the third rendition of my Samoset Vintage Ale, which I brew in November for the Thanksgiving of the following year. Now that I have a little mash tun, this year's version will include Biscuit and Victory malt on top of a Golden Promise base, with extract making up the difference, and hopping with First Gold.

I am also planning to brew a couple of clone recipes, in particular the Fuller's London Porter from a recent Brew Your Own magazine, for which I am playing with the idea of pulling out the little polypin to try and condition it almost a la cask. Staying with the Fuller's theme, I want to create something akin to 1845, which is still one of my favourite beers on the planet.

As ever then, lots of plans, ideas and thoughts, what will you be brewing with winter in mind?

Beer Commercials

Friday mornings are pretty easy. Get up, walk dog, shower, shave, read beer blogs, go to work. While I was sat in the comfort of an armchair, I read the latest post from Tale of the Ale. The post is mostly about the Beer Bloggers Conference that took place in London last weekend, but the thing that caught my attention most was the new advertising campaign from the Czech branch of multinational beer conglomerate SABMiller, better known as Pilsner Urquell.



I am sure that if you know anything about the history of Pilsner Urquell you will see the glaring omissions and logical flaws in the advert. Actually if you know anything about the history of beer, you'll know that the "world's first golden beer" claim is also a pile of shite (the first pale ale was marketed in the early 18th century). Any way, as it is a Friday and I am in a fairly chipper mood, I am not going to rant about these things, after all who really expects truth and historical veracity in an advertising campaign? Also the fact that I rather like the advert, it is certainly well done and if it encourages more people to drink Pilsner Urquell, go to the Czech Republic and try the unpasteurised version and then demand its availability in Blighty, that can only be a good thing. No, I think today I will just post some of my favourite beer commercials, and we'll start with the other internationally renowned Czech beer, with a quick language alert for the faint of heart....



While we are on mass produced Czech beers....



Jumping across to Blighty....



and finally, down to Australia....