Old Friends: Unibroue La Fin du Monde

Let me take you back in time. It is late December 2008 (yeah, I know, it seems like entire lifetimes ago), Mrs V and I have yet to leave Prague for the United States - in fact, at this point we didn't really know where in the US we would be moving to, given Mrs V hadn't found a job. At that time, my parents lived in an impossibly gorgeous hamlet in the Haute Vienne region of France, in an old farmhouse that still had a couple of acres of land attached. They had a small orchard, a pond, and green fields as far as the eye could see in every direction. Around 5pm every afternoon, the neighbours ran their herd of cattle, and the ground would gently tremor at the stampede. With Christmas just a week or so away, Mrs V and I flew to Paris Orly at some ridiculous time of the morning, to catch the train from Gare d'Austerlitz to La Souterraine, where my parents would pick us up and head to their hamlet.

That particular winter I had ordered a load of beer from the UK, since my parents were visiting my eldest brother, who lived in Kent at the time, so that was waiting for me when we arrived. However, I wanted to try local French beer, such as the La Lémovice I found at Limoges market (fun fact, they are sitll in business and now have a website), as well as some thoroughly disgusting shite being made by an English bloke, for which we drove an hour or so for a night time market - oh well, at least the market was delightful. As was traditional with our trips to the French countryside, a jaunt to the nearest sizeable town, the aforementioned La Souterraine, and a supermarket revealed new horizons. Unrelated to this post, but I love French supermarkets, in this case it was an E.Leclerc. It was at this E.Leclerc that I discovered that it was possible to get Orval for an insanely reasonable €1.30, as well as picking up today's Old Friend beer, Unibroue's La Fin du Monde, for the first time, along with a couple of other Unibroue beers.

Back to the present and having spent Sunday morning in the garden, moving raised bed frames, pruning blackberries, and cleaning up in preparation for winter, I sat on my front porch with the 750ml bottle to dive on in and revisit a beer I hadn't had since before the twins were born, which is 8 years ago now!

I have to admit I was a little surprised by just how hazy this one poured, though it had been in a pretty cold beer fridge for a while, so some of it is likely chill haze. Goodness me though, look at that glorious, dense, cloud of foam sitting there atop the orange beer. It was at this point I took a moment to read the back of the bottle and that Unibroue market this beer as a tripel, not a style I drink very often to be honest. That foam though, it lingered, slowly collapsing in on itself until about a half a centimetre remained, and stayed around until I refreshed the glass - yeah I kept this all to myself, Mrs V was off playing fiddle, in my defense.

Sitting on my deck, the kids playing whatever games they were, I stuck my nose as close to the foam as I dare, and was regaled with a notable graininess, subtly backed with a spiciness like coriander and ginger, and some light citrus that reminded me a lemon zest. Swimming around in the mix was also a gentle sweetness, like light honey or simple sugar syrup. As I mentioned, tripel is not a style I readily gravitate to, but the aroma was doing a number on my senses and I just wanted to dive on in to the taste, so I did.

That sweet syrup thing I had been smelling was definitely not a figment of the imagination, it was there in the flavour, though perhaps with hints more of very light caramel, to be honest it floated between that and honey. Beneath the honey was a biscuity thing that made me wish there were a middle ground between the venerable digestive and a more savory water biscuit - I have a digestive recipe in one of my cook books, perhaps a project to make a less sweet variant is in order? The citrus thing from the aroma decided to join the party too, this time as a marmalade character, but not traditional orange marmalade, rather lemon marmalade - not sure if that is still a thing back in the UK, but I had a moment of thinking about how much I liked lemon marmalade on my toast as a kid. 

Did I mention yet that tripel is not really a style I am regular drinker of? Well, that might have to be caveated with "unless it is La Fin du Monde". So many tripels that get made in my neck of the woods tend to be cloyingly sweet and almost sickly, so much so that I wonder if they are being brewed as a distinctly untraditional all malt beer? By comparison, this had quite a dry finish that, when coupled with the aroma and flavor notes, made me think it may actually use a decent amount of sugar. There is just enough bitterness as well to offset the sweetness, and at 9% abv the absence of an alcohol hit was much appreciated. Thinking back on that foam, yay for bottle conditioning and the carbonation being noticeable but not spikey, as some highly forced carbonated beers are.

Yeah, I'll be buying this again, and not leaving it for goodness knows how many years.

Old Friends: Boddingtons Pub Ale

I am starting to think that my eldest brother has an awful lot to answer for, and not just the horse racing I mentioned in the last post. Fun fact, when my younger brother and I were around 11/12 years old, the eldest, then about 19 I think, came home to stay for a while, and so naturally he taught us how to read the form for the horse racing. 

We loved having our big brother at home, he was our hero and we thought him the very epitome of cool, every Saturday morning we would head up to the local shop, at the time we lived in a place called Sebastopol, not in Crimea, but just outside Cwmbran in Wales, and buy the paper. We would then sit and go through the races for that day, and my brother would give us both a quid to put on any horse we wanted, when the National came round he bumped it to a fiver. It was he that told us to always keep an eye out for a horse that has come fourth in both its previous outings, the frequency with which they win is interesting. Anyway, said brother, the one with an awful lot of answer for, is who I think of whenever I think of Boddingtons, which we called "Bod", it was one of his tipples, along with Guinness.

Apparently Boddingtons is undergoing something of a renaissance at the moment back in the UK, with it being brewed under license by J.W. Lees and available on cask in the pubs of Manchester - not going to lie, I'd be a pig in clover if casks of that found its way to Virginia, but alas it is unlikely. I was blissfully unaware of these developments when I was picking cans and bottles of stuff I hadn't drunk in ages from the shelves of my local Wegman's, including a can of today's friend for a revisit...

It may well be heresy to pour a Lancashire beer into a Yorkshire pint glass, the nonic didn't feel appropriate, nor yet the dimpled mug, and of my British glasses that would have left another Yorkshire glass anyway, so the Sam Smith's tulip it was. Little side story, I was once sat in a diner in Charlottesville when the folks in the booth behind Mrs V and I asked the waitress "what kind of beer is Boddingtons", to whuch she replied "it's kind of like Guinness", I almost spat coffee all over the diner. I guess she was referring to the nitro nature of Bod, but that light copper is as far from Guinness black as you could imagine (artistic license there, yes I know there are paler beers). Still, topped with a healthy amount of firm nitro white cream and strikingly clear, it was a beautiful looking almost pint of beer.

When I drank Boddingtons as a student I wasn't paying much attention to the aromas and all that jazz, seriously did any of us? We were more consumed with whether the drink in our hands conveyed any sense of cool to those around us, though being more of a Guinness/Murphy's/Caffrey's drinker at the time, the only cool I could muster was likely the cold shoulder of hoping nobody would speak to my shy arse, whilst desperately wanting someone to talk to me - ah the joys of youthful insecurity coupled with crushing shyness and the need for Dutch courage. So, having given up ambitions to coolness, I stick my nose on in the glass and came back with...well, not much really (yay nitro beer head that blocks anything interesting). There was a slight sweetness that reminded me of golden syrup, maybe a little earthiness, some fruity notes, like blackcurrants that made me wonder if Bramling Cross hops are in the mix somewhere. That sweetness thing was present in the tasting as well, though more in the realm of Hobnobs than specifically golden syrup, think gentle biscuit and you are there. Alongside the biscuit was an orange marmalade thing that made me think East Kent Goldings, but the kind of marmalade with finely shredded zest in it, including a little pith to just add a whisper of bitterness.

So there you have it, Boddingtons from a nitro can, in my notes I have the phrase "non-descript" and that's really not very fair as that term has become short hand for "boring" or "bad" but Bod ain't bad, and it certainly isn't boring, it's just kind of there, perfectly inoffensive, technically accomplished, and something I'll be happy enough to drink from time to time. It's kind of like coming back to where you grew up and everyone except yourself has stayed at home and is still living like it's 1995, no alarm, no surprises, no changes, no growth. Fine to come home to, but you'll be on your way again soon enough.

Old Friends: Leffe Blonde

Dipping into some of the dimmest and most distant of crevices in my drinking memories today for this resurrection of my Old Friends series. Back in the days when I was a college student in Birmingham, I got the train from New Street early one Saturday morning to go to Esher in Surrey. The main purpose for the trip was to spend the day at the Sandown races with my eldest brother, who lived down that way back then. Having spent the day frittering money away on thoroughbreds of varying uselessness, we headed into central London for dinner at a non-descript curry house, non-descript in the sense that I don't have the foggiest as to what I ate, but weirdly 2 beers are lodged in my memory, the Żywiec I was drinking and the Leffe Blonde that was my brother's choice that night.

Being a good younger brother, by 8 years, I was suitably in awe of his sophistication and worldly wiseness, and so at some point back in Brum I made a point of trying Leffe, in the comfort of the All Bar One. Given that I studied theology at Bible college, I was definitely not supposed to be there as we were supposed to not partake in the demon drink and all that jazz - I wonder if the college authorities knew that plenty of the married students kept a stash of booze in their flats that the singles among us would take advantage of from time to time, or that I would disappear for a few pints of Caffrey's at a pub called The Trees most afternoons?

Anyway, I developed a liking for Leffe Blonde, and so in the shop the other week, seeing it available as a single bottle in a build your own six pack, I thought, what the heck, and on one of the rare occasions the house was empty, I cracked it open to head down memory lane...

Wracking the old grey matter for hints of what lay ahead of me, I had a notion that what I was going to find would be distinctly sweet, even slick and syrupy, with a nose full of sugar. Still, it looked grand going into my one and only vaguely appropriate glass for a Belgian abbey ale.

It certainly poured the colour I vaguely recalled, a beautifully rich, deep, golden with superb clarity - I assume it is filtered. The head was a half inch of white foam, with some large bubbles that soon popped as it dissipated to a thin schmeer. I don't recall if my urbane brother sniffed his beer that night in London, but I certainly did here in Central Virginia, and prominent was a spicy character that made me think of ginger and cloves, not quite Christmas gingerbread from a European Yuletide market, but subtly lingering there, along with traces of golden syrup and marmelade.

Ok, just drink the damned beer already...cloves again - the thing with that clove thing is that it really is like the dark side of the Force, once you head down that way "forever will it dominate your destiny", there is no escaping it, even if it is a yeast derived ester. In the mix though was also dark honey, a trace of oakiness, and dried fruits, almost a rich spiced fruit cake, but with a light pithy bitterness in the background to keep it interesting.

So that sweet attack that my memory had me expecting didn't happen, don't get me wrong, it is sweet, just not syrupy and overwhelmingly cloying. I was actually pleasantly surprised and while it is hardly the most characterful abbey ale in the world, he says as if he drinks them regularly, it was decidedly drinkable and might have to make more regular appearances in the beer fridge, especially for soaking the currants, raisins, and co for my annual Yule cake.

Old Friends: Port City Downright Pilsner

You'd think that a brewery that got 4 mentions in my annual top 10 Virginian beers wouldn't really be getting an "Old Friends" post. Even more so when you consider how often I have said brewery's products in my fridge, and the regularity with which I post pictures on Instagram of their beers, especially their lagers. However, it is the case that for all my enthusing about Port City Brewing up in Alexandria, and my extolling of the virtues of their simply wonderful Lager Series program, I have been criminally negligent of the beer that made me fall head over heels with them in the first place...Downright Pilsner.

If I have the story correct, Downright Pilsner was first brewed in 2012, purely as a seasonal. It sold so well, and in the Velkyal household that included at least 4 cases in a couple of months that year, that it became a part of their core lineup. A pair of those cases were bought for a couple of parties we had that autumn, firstly our house warming, having recently taken ownership of the keys to our house, and later for a Czech night to mark Czechoslovak Statehood Day on October 28th. Downright is billed as a Bohemian Pilsner, and was certainly a hit with plenty of the Czechs and Slovaks at our party, especially among those that emigrated in the wake of the 1969 crushing of the Prague Spring.

As I say, Downright is marketed as a Bohemian Pilsner, and in terms of the numbers it is pretty much spot on, brewed to 12°, if memory serves, 4.8% abv, and 37 IBU of Czech hops, though my memory seems to think that it used to be about 44 IBU, but one quibbles. Keeping slightly out of kilter with it's brethren in the homeland, Downright is dry hopped with Saaz. I spent a good year or so badgering my local Wegman's to start stocking it, they have the rest of the Port City range, so I knew they could. Eventually to my delight it showed up, and then the Lager Series started and I got all distracted.

Feeling guilty, I chucked a couple of bottles into my mixed 6 pack at the weekend, determined to stop ignoring my old faithful and to reacquaint myself with its delights. Thus, with the Sunday evening Oktoberfest clutch done with, and just wanting to enjoy a beer for its own sake more than anything, I poured them into my Chodovar mug...

Goodness me but isn't that a thing of beauty, both the glass and the beer to be frank. I got the glass on eBay as piece of nostalgia for the first Chodovar I ever had, in such a glass, at Pivovarský klub. Anyway, the beer, beautiful as I said, a lovely translucent gold, topped with a healthy white head that persists and left some lovely lacing on its way down the sides of the glass. I mentioned that the beer is jam packed full of Saaz hops, and sure enough everything you expect is there, lemongrass, orange blossom, that spicy note that is difficult to pin down sometimes. In amongst it all is a grainy note, lightly honeyed, classic Pilsner malt really.

Even after all these years there is something deeply comforting about Downright, it just tastes as a well made pilsner should do. Hops, and lots of them, a firm clean bitterness to cut through the soft billowing sweetness of the malt, like drinking a summer meadow in the Šumava region of Bohemia. The finish is clean, crisp (not crispy for fuck's sake, get a fucking dictionary), and satisfyingly refreshing, not in a bland watery way, but in the way that makes you want more, a whole lot more.

So yes the beer is still great, and I shall suitably adorn myself in sackcloth and ashes for having neglected it for so long...might also organise another Czechoslovak Statehood Day bash and buy several cases. The new label though is just fantastic, with the a skyline that looks for all the world like Prague, and folks drinking large mugs, it could almost be the beer garden at Letna, overlooking the Vltava toward Our Lady of Týn on Staroměstké náměstí to the left, and the south tower of St Vitus Cathedral in the castle to the right.

As I said in a previous post about this beer, Port City have this Bohemian style pilsner done right, damn right, and I need to drink more of it.

Old Friends: Devils Backbone Gold Leaf

I spent last weekend camping at the Westmoreland State Park, on the banks of the River Potomac, with my family and our good friends. Whenever we go camping, having a cooler full of beer is a pre-requisite as once all our children are in bed, we stoke the campfire, and enjoy a good drink.

As I was working, it was up to Mrs V to get to the shops for supplies, including at least part of the beer for the weekend. Not wanting to burden her with multiple trips to various shops with the twins in tow, I was more than happy for her to just get a 15 can pack of something, and the first beer that popped into my mind was Devils Backbone Gold Leaf.

Gold Leaf is kind of difficult at times to pin down in terms of style. Sure it is as pale as a German pilsner, but only weighs in at 4.5% abv and is relatively unbitter with 21 IBUs. Sure you could call it a helles, though you would be more in the ballpark of Andechs Vollbier Helles than say Spaten's.

Having had the 15 pack on ice for the best part of the day, it finally came time to have a beer. The kids were suitably knackered from running around and relatively quietly eating their dinner, so pssst went a can and without taking notes or bothering with a glass (the picture is from an old post) we tucked in...

It is quite often that you see people talking about how the context of a beer is important, usually when drinking some mega-swill from a frosted glass on the beach in Greece, but Gold Leaf hit the spot perfectly. Yes, it is a somewhat subtle beer, but those 21 IBUs include judicious amounts of Saaz and Tettnang, giving the beer a lovely floral taste that always makes me think of alpine meadows, replete with all singing all dancing Teutonic maidens in dirndls. 

There is enough heft in the malt side of things to keep it from being watery, and that just aids the refreshment. It took about 3 mouthfuls to polish off the can, and without thinking pssst went another one, and so on, and so on until the 15 were gone, the embers of the campfire were beyond smooring, and sleep beckoned.

An inspired choice then, so huzzah for old friends like Gold Leaf!

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.

Old Friends: Joseph's Brau PLZNR

I have to admit that there really are not that many things that I miss as a result of this pandemic. I am sure that comes as something of a surprise for people who know how much I love going to the pub, but I am lucky that in my part of Virginia most pubs are open with restricted seating and so I can get my fix at least weekly. As a result of the changes brought about by the pandemic, I have limited my choice of boozers in Charlottesville to basically just Kardinal Hall and Beer Run, mainly because I can rely on them to have a good selection of lagers worth drinking.

Perhaps the main thing I miss is the fact that I haven't been on a business trip since last March, when I went, with much trepidation, to Austin for a conference. Usually when I travel for work, I try to fly through Atlanta, simply because I really enjoy sitting at the bar of the Gordon Biersch restaurant on concourse A. It will come as no surprise that my beer of choice when I am there is their Czech style pale lager, served in a half litre glass no less, though often served well over the half litre line, not that I am complaining...

All that is a long winded backdrop to saying, having not been through Atlanta airport for the longest time since I started my current job, I woke up one day in December with a hankering for a pint of Gordon Biersch Czech Pilsner. Said craving may have been stoked as a result of the news that they were closing down their Virginia Beach location, to which I had never made it. All was not lost though as due to the wonders of contract brewing, of which I am a fan, my craving would go satisfied by virtue of Trader Joe's. As you are likely aware, Gordon Biersch are the contract brewer behind Trader Joe's "Josephsbrau" range of central European lagers, and as I understand it, Josephsbrau PLZNR and Gordon Biersch Czech Pilsner are one and the same beer.

As is appropriate I poured a bottle and a half into my half litre Chodovar glass that I purloined from a pool hall in Prague, side note, I hate 12oz bottles for beers like this, is it really so hard to package them in the half litre that such beers warrant?

Ah the classic rich golden colour of a well made Czech style pale lager, it really is a thing most beautiful, especially when the beer is crystal clear and topped with a decent half inch of white foam. The head didn't linger as some Czech beers I have had, dissipating to a patch quilt network of bubbles that clung tenaciously to the side of the glass. The aroma was mostly grainy cereal with subtle hints of honey and fresh bread that made me wonder if there was just a touch of something like CaraBohemian in the grist somewhere. The hops also made an appearance with the spicy, hay, lemongrass notes that I have come to associate with the noblest of noble hops, Saaz. Tastewise, you should know the form by now if you have had a Czech style pale lager ever in your life, a gentle toasty character, with spicy hop flavours as a counterpoint to the malt. Very simple, very classic, very much what I expect, and enjoy.

Whether it is being sold as a Gordon Biersch or Josephsbrau beer, this is a lager that I am always happy to see in the fridge or on tap. While not rippingly bitter, it has a good firm bite to it that cleanses the palate leaving you ready for more. The bitterness is helped along by an excellent clean fermentation that gives the various elements of the beer voice. The finish is dry and with a delicate balance that reaches a high note before collapsing to that moment when another mouthful is required.

I will admit that I have a slight preference for the draught version that I enjoy when I am in Atlanta airport, for all the usual obvious reasons. Bluntly put, draught beer is better beer. Until the conference world restarts, and I am in no rush to get back to "normal" (if "normal" is really something worth getting back to), I will be more than happy to get more PLZNR from our local Trader Joe's, and at $7 a six pack, you really can't complain, unless you are the pretentious wanker type that wants a pilsner for $90 a six pack.

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...

Old Friends: Unibroue Maudite

From time to time I wonder if I have ever really got over the fact that my parents moved back to Scotland after about 6 years living in the Haute Vienne region of France. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to have somewhere to stay when Mrs V and I go to Scotland, but I loved going to the part of France they lived in.

During our 2008 Christmas trip we went into the Leclerc supermarket in La Souterraine, as ever I made a bee line for the beer aisle, where I noticed a few bottles of beer that looked markedly different from the massed ranks of French macro pale lager. Naturally I picked up a couple of each, and some Orval, hoping to try local French craft beer. Those bottles were all Unibroue, and I didn't read the back label at first, so only at my parents' place did I learn said brews came from Canada.

From that moment on I knew that Unibroue beers would be something I would enjoy from time to time when Mrs V and I jumped over the Pond, and so it has been, though usually their tripel, La Fin du Monde. Over the years I have found my tastes shifting ever further away from big hitters, as you probably know if you follow Fuggled with any sense of regularity. Having recently been reminded that I quite like the occasional dubbel, I figured I'd resurrect the Old Friends series and get myself a 750ml bottle of Maudite, Unibroue's dubbel...

First things first, I love the fact that the label is still basically the same as it was in 2008, showing the chasse-galerie of French Canadian lore, which may, if my reading is correct, itself be a version of ancient Wild Hunt stories. Any way, the beer...

This is an interesting one when it comes to describing how it looked on pouring into my goblet because so much depended on the light. Sat looking out of a window, sunlight streaming through, the beer was a deep dark copper, with red highlights, but sit with the light behind you and it appears to be a muddy brown. Whether light is to the fore or behind, the head is slightly off white, rocky, and lingers, leaving some delicate lacing down the sides of the glass.

The aroma is dominated by spices, hardly surprising as this is a spiced ale according to the label, mostly I was getting nutmeg and ginger, with a touch of clove. It immediately put me in mind of the fruit cake recipe I make each Yuletide. Lingering among the spices was a touch of molasses. some grassy hops, and just a hint of dried fruit. All of those characteristics carried on over to the flavour department as well. The fruitcake motif was reinforced, and augmented, with prunes, brown sugar, and just a light trace of banana as it warms - I drank it at the recommended 50° but inevitably it warmed as 750ml of 8% booze is not something for chugging fresh from the fridge, unless you are a philistine of course.

Maudite is definitely on the sweeter side of the spectrum, but the hops that are there give it just enough of a scrape to make drinking the entire bottle anything but a syrupy struggle. While a hefty beer for sure the alcohol is not really all that intrusive, it could even be called dangerous as it lies well integrated in the background. Overall a lovely beer that it was delightful to spend some time with again after many years, and having re-established contact I think I'll go hang out with the accursed crew of the flying canoe again some time soon.

Old Friends: Samuel Smiths Oatmeal Stout

We are on the cusp of a proper change in season here in central Virginia.

The threat of frost has receded, and most mornings when I walk Honza, our Cairn Terrier, it is a rather pleasant 55° Fahrenheit, that's about 13° Celsius for those of you that live in the 21st Century. With the warming days and shortening nights I tend to find that I am drawn to paler beers as my beloved porters, stouts, and dark lagers are banished for these painful weeks until the Summer Solstice has passed and I feel alive again - I am a winter soul through and through.

To wave farewell for a few months, I decided to do an Old Friends post on one of my absolute favourite beers, Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout.

Samuel Smiths' beers are probably the easiest British beers to get on this side of the Pond, and our local Wegmans carries most of their range, including the Organic Lager which may feature more regularly in the coming months' drinking.

Is there an Oatmeal Stout out there that is more closely associated with the style than Sam Smith's? I honestly can't think of one, it is as synonymous for me as Guinness is with Irish Stout, Sierra Nevada with Pale Ale, and Żywiec with Baltic Porter. So how was this most famous, and august, brew?

As you would imagine it poured as black as India ink, and interestingly, just as lustrous. Having mastered the art of pouring into a nonic glass, there was a mere half inch cap of foam that lingered for the duration of the drinking, protecting the precious liquid below. I have given up drinking Sam Smiths beers from my Sam Smiths glasses due to the etching on the bottom of the glass that creates a massive head. The aromas were exactly what you expect from a stout, coffee, chocolate, you know the deal, though I always find with this one that a trace of pipe tobacco forces it's way through the head to make you think of Gandalf the Grey enjoying the finest pipeweed in all of The Shire.

The aromatic themes, as is so often the case with stouts, carry on into the flavour department, think a slice of grannies bestest chocolate cake, served with a fine Italian espresso, then add in the silken mouthfeel of the oats and you have a luscious pint of dessert. Having, as is my wont, let the beer come up to cellar temperature, the carbonation was unobtrusive, just enough to clean the palette and leave you wanting more.

What a simply glorious way to bid farewell to the colder days of winter and early spring, though admitted I am already looking ahead to autumn's return.

Old Friends: Left Hand Milk Stout

Back in October 2012 I was laid off by the company I worked for at the time. It was 10 o'clock in the morning when I got the news that it was happening, about 30 of us were laid off that day, and so I did what any sensible person does on such an occasion, I went to the pub. OK, maybe that's a British response, but by 11am I was on pint number 3 or 4. Said pints were all Left Hand's majestic Milk Stout, one of the few beers for which I will give up my animus against nitro. In a pleasing piece of circularity, I believe the nitro version is on tap at the same pub at the moment.

Anyway, this is not about the nitro version, this is about the non-nitro version that I picked up in the store last weekend, I guess at some point I should do a side by side comparison as I believe Left Hand also do a bottled version of the nitro. Before launching in to the tasting itself, look at this from the label:

I was thrilled to see a suggested serving temperature on the label, and while I won't be buying a 'stout glass' any time soon, my pint pot being more than adequate, I am glad that Left Hand encourage drinkers to take the temperature of their beer seriously. As I mentioned in a recent post I have taken to keeping my darker ales in the wine cooler, which is set at 54°F (12°C), so this was perfect as it poured....

Beautiful, perhaps I am odd finding beauty in an inky jet black liquid, but I found this absolutely entrancing in the glass. That thinnish half inch of mocha head clunk around doggedly. From that thing of beauty came a gentle roast aroma, a toffeeish thing that reminded me of dulce de leche, or creme caramel, all backed up by a lovely spicy hop note. In terms of flavours, lots of smooth chocolate and coffee (think Gervalia brand) going on, lovely stuff. Add to the mix some toast and biscuits with a really clean hop bitterness and you have a veritable smorgasbord of happiness to deal with.

Beauty is a word that ran through this beer like words trough a stick of rock, beautiful to look at, beautiful aromas, tastes, and so beautifully balanced that even at 6% abv this is a beautiful beer to just drink and drink and drink. Even though I will happily drink the nitro version, this is much more in my wheelhouse, and that wheelhouse may just be seeing more of it this winter.

Old Friends: Samuel Adams Boston Lager

What could be a more appropriate way to mark my 1000th post on Fuggled, than to write about one of the earliest American craft beers that I remember drinking? I say 1000th post with some qualification however, as there have been 1066 posts prior to this, it's just that 67 of them were guest posts or Brewer of the Week interviews where most of the content was provided by someone else, so I am not counting them.

There was a time when Samuel Adams Boston Lager was a reliable go to beer when the place I was in had nothing better on offer, whether that be a store or a restaurant. Given the changes that having 12 month old twin sons have wrought, I hadn't drunk it in an age, we rarely go to restaurants any more, and I am brewing more of my own beer than buying stuff at the moment. Still, Boston Lager would sit on the shelves like an old flame winking seductively, and this weekend I succumbed to the temptation and bought a couple of bottles.

Pouring the two bottles into my Purkmistr half litre mug, one of my favourite glasses, it was a delightful shade of light copper or amber, with a firmish white head that lingered for a while, and no visible carbonation. Definitely still looked the part. The aroma was mainly a bready malt quality, with a bit of light toffee sweetness, balanced with grassy hops that danced merrily into floral territory as well.

Leaving behind the olfactory delights, tastewise the bready thing was there in the drinking, with a toasty edge, toast that had been schmeered with dulce de leche that is, and then there was something you hadn't noticed before, a bitterness that seemed out of place, like singed sugar, acrid, distracting, not something you remember, absence may have made the heart grow fonder.

The sugary sweetness definitely dominated here, and given the fact that I am very regular lager drinker a couple of things were missing, bitterness and the clean snap of a well lagered beer. So entirely absent were they that the beer was basically unpalatably sweet and syrupy. I don't remember Boston Lager being so entirely meh, perhaps my tastes have changed? Perhaps the beer was been "re-formulated" to make it "smoother" (brewery code for making a beer bland as all hell by ditching the bittering hops)? Whatever it was, the daliance was a disappointment, and not one I plan to repeat again any time in the near future.

Old Friends: Alewerks Tavern Brown Ale

The brown ale kick shows no sign of abating, at least not in the immediate future, especially given my next homebrew project is to make another batch of my own nut brown ale.

What seems like an interminably long time ago these days, Mrs V and I went for a weekend to Williamsburg in 2010 to mark our 5th anniversary of meeting in a boozer in Prague. Williamsburg was the colonial capital of Virginia, home of the College of William & Mary, (yes, the Glorious Revolution William and Mary), and all round delightful little place to visit for history nerds like myself. We also took some time to head out to an industrial estate and try the beers from Williamsburg Alewerks, these days simply known as Alewerks Brewing Company.

Alewerks' beer regularly shows up in my annual Top 10 Virginia Beers lists, and their Weekend Lager is something that I am always happy to see on tap in the Charlottesville area, and even happier when the first glass is placed in front of me. My first Alewerks crush though was their Tavern Brown Ale, a beer I first had in August 2010 in a pub near Starr Hill Brewing, where I worked in the tasting room at the time, and it was a revelation. At the time I described it as:

wonderfully smooth and tasty, a great beer for sitting on the balcony in the autumn chill and just watching the sun go down over the turning leaves.

Once again the leaves are turning, and while I didn't sit on the deck, I did sit looking out over the deck to the woods at the back of my property, past the garden where the chickens are making a wonderful stab at eating the weeds and clearing out the raised beds.

Anyway, on to the beer itself, which was a couple of bottles stashed at 54°F for a few days. Poured into my Timothy Taylor pint pot, perhaps my current favourite glass. The beer was a deep garnet, with flashes of dark copper around the edges, the small, tan head dissipated rather quickly, and I have to admit that at one point I didn't think I was going to have much foam in the glass at all. The aroma department was dominated by tangy sourdough bread, unsweetened cocoa, and hazelnuts, there were some traces of toffee and caramel, but not much going on hop wise. The bready, nutella theme carried on when drinking the liquid itself, with some added caramelised oranges and spicy hop bite that reminded me of cinnamon chucked into the mix for good measure.

I thoroughly enjoyed Tavern Brown Ale again, and I think pouring it at 54°F as opposed to the usual chill of a beer straight from the fridge accentuated the complexity, making it a more pleasurable drinking experience. The word that kept running through my head as I drained my pint was that this was a "satisfying" beer, complex, balanced, and moreish, the kind of beer that you thoroughly enjoy drinking. It may just have made itself a front runner to be the Fuggled Dark Beer of 2018.

Old Friends: Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale

One of my favourite days of the year is fast approaching, the September equinox. The equinox marks the proper end of summer and the onset of cooler temperatures, nights slowing drawing in, and taking the dog for a walk in the gloom. Autumn and winter have always been my favourite seasons, I am not much of one for heat, and even less so when that heat is overload with lashings of humidity. I am one of the few people I know that would be perfectly happy in Narnia, pre-Aslan overthrowing Queen Jadis that is.

The last few days here in central Virginia have been rather dreich, which is actually far more welcome than the possibility we were looking at this time last week, when Hurricane Florence was forecast to batter the Commonwealth. So, in the midst of all this rain, and with the boys settled for the night, I cracked open my latest old friend beer, Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale.

Samuel Smith's is surely one of the least fashionable breweries on the planet, and a nut brown ale quite possibly the apogee of old man uncool, yet they make magnificent beer for which they are rightly lauded. In common with all the other beers I have chosen for an "old friends" post it was the realisation that it had been so long since I last had Nut Brown Ale that prompted me to pick up a half litre bottle while doing the weekly shop recently.

When I say recently, I mean a couple of weeks ago. For some reason the last couple of weekends have been pretty light on the booze front, I've enjoyed a few pints with lunch but when the evening comes and the boys are put to bed, I haven't fancied anything at all, and so the bottle sat. Thankfully said sitting was in our wine fridge, that's an official term given it has a ratio of 7:1 beer to wine in it, at a steady 54°F - perfect cellar temperature.

As I poured it into one of my Sam Smith's pint glasses, an annual treat to myself is a mix pack that comes with a glass and a few beer mats, a couple of things came to mind. Firstly, clear beer is a beautiful sight, and this was absolutely crystal clear. Secondly, that it was much lighter in reality than in the crevices of memory, where I expected a deep milk chocolate brown there was a shining polished mahogany, with flashes of auburn chestnut. God, this is a thing of beauty. The half inch of ivory foam that remained after I had scraped a knife across the rim lingered, and lingered, just sitting there like an obedient dog.

It's all good and well for a beer to look the part, ultimately it comes down to smell and taste, and Nut Brown is laden with subtle cocoa aromas, earthy hops, and a trace of coffee in there for good measure. Most of the aromas carry on over into the taste department, to be joined by something not unlike a slightly singed piece of toast with a spoon of rich dark honey on top, which tasted far better than it sounds. The malt definitely dominates here, but there is enough bitterness to ensure the beer doesn't cloy.

Nut Brown really was a wonderful beer for a dreich evening, smooth, comforting, autumnal, it was great to get re-aquainted and remind myself what fine company this is. As I sat looking out of the window at the rain pattering on the deck, I realised that brown ales have been scarce in the Velkyal household of late, that needs to change.

Old Friends: Guinness Draught vs Murphy's

Stout was probably my first beer love. Guinness was my first legal beer, when the other options at the Dark Island Hotel on my 18th birthday were Tennent's Lager or Newcastle Brown Ale. I literally chose Guinness because that was what my eldest brother drank, he is also the reason I love The Smiths, Madness, and The Jam, as well as know how to read the form at a bookies for the horse racing (hot tip, if a horse has come 4th in its two previous outings it's worth an each way bet as often a pair of fourth place finished is followed by a first). He has much to answer for.

When I eventually left the Hebrides for the mainland, I found myself drinking almost exclusively in Oirish pubs, they had Guinness you see, and usually Caffrey's as well, which was my back up. I don't recall where I had my first Murphy's, but I liked it immediately, as I did Beamish, and the much lamented (in Velkyal world at least) Gillespie's - my tipple on Friday nights at the bowling alley in Inverness. Oh yes, we knew how to live large in the 1990s Highlands....

I recently bought a four pack of Murphy's on a whim, basically it was reasonably priced, a recurring theme in my beer life at the moment - seriously, prices for self consciously 'craft' beer are getting out of hand. I polished off all four cans in a single sitting, watching the most recent Star Wars film and decided to do an Old Friends post comparing it to Guinness, so here goes...

As expected the Guinness poured black, with deep fire ruby highlights at the edge of my dimpled mug, the classic white nitro foam cascaded its way to about three quarters of an inch and then lingered for the duration, it looked as a pint of Guinness is expected to look. Forcing it's way through that shaving foam cap on the beer were lightly roasty aromas and a bit of grainy bread character too. It sounds like a disparagement in some ways, but it's not really, it tasted like Guinness and if you don't know what Guinness tastes like then when you finish reading this, go drink some. All the elementes were there, coffee, roastiness, and a bit of a hop bite to snap you back to attention, the bitterness of the hops accentuated by the bitterness of roasted grains. I was actually quite surprised at how light bodied the beer was, not watery at all, but more medium light than medium, maybe that's a nitro thing, maybe it's the Draught in general, and maybe it's me being too used to drinking Guinness Extra Stout as my go to Guinness.

On then to the Murphy's, which poured jet black, dark brown at the edges, and this time the nitro cascade left a good three quarter inch of dense beige head. Through the foam came aromas of cocoa, a touch of graininess, and that classic stout roastiness that you just kind of expect. Tastewise we are again in classic stout territory, roasted grains, light coffee, a biscuity character, and also some subtle unsweetened cocoa. The Murphy's has the medium body I was expecting ans an almost velvety mouthfeel that makes for smooth drinking. It is a really nicely balanced, satisfying pint.

So there we go, 2 classic stouts, 2 rather different tastes. I think that the Murphy's is my preference really, say it quietly but it was just a more satisfying pint than the Guinness Draught. I am sure though that both will continue to be regular visitors to the Velkyal fridge as I indulge my love of the black stuff, which reminds me, I need to finish my keg of homebrew stout to make room for my next keg of best bitter...

Old Friends: Bell's Two Hearted Ale

When Mrs V and I do our weekly shop we generally go to the local Wegman's, which conveniently also has a pub, imaginatively called 'The Pub'. Often, with the groceries in the car, and the twins in need of a feed, we'll decide to have food and a pint there while we're in the vicinity. It was sitting in The Pub, and feeling thoroughly uninspired by the beer selection, that I plumped for the least uninspiring option, a beer I hadn't drunk in many, many years, Bell's Two Hearted Ale.

Once upon a time, in my early days of living in Virginia, it was one of my favourite beers, indeed I had four pints of it at Court Square Tavern the night before I was due in hospital to have a huge deep vein thrombosis removed from my leg (it was almost the length of my leg!). Being something of a non-IPA drinker these days, I expected to struggle my way through and be reminded of why IPAs are not my thing. I was wrong, I loved it, and so resolved to get a couple of bottles to include in my ongoing Old Friends series.

Last Saturday was a gloriously sunny day in central Virginia, the trees are starting to blossom, there are birds making their migratory way through the Commonwealth, and it was actually warm enough to sit outside on the deck with a beer. The brightness shone through the orange copper of the beer, the half inch of white foam seemed to glint in the sunlight.

The aroma was everything you would expect from an American IPA, pine resin and grapefruit up front and central, but there is also some spiciness in there too, with just enough malt character to remind you that you are smelling beer rather than industrial cleaning products. That upfront piney tang is right there in the drinking as well, coupled with a bracing pithy bitterness that scrapes away what toffee sweetness the malt lends the beer, leaving you wanting another mouthful.

Drinking Two Hearted is almost like time travel (and there is a such an obvious Whovian tie-in there), back to an era when beer tasted like beer. I know some folks don't like that phrase, but I have found that regardless of style, there is an almost meta flavour that is the essential interplay of malt and hops that is beer. This is an old school American style IPA, and it is all the better for it. No fripperies like fruit juice, no daft shit like only late hopping, this is a classic from the days when craft beer was actually about beer rather than envelope pushing and putting silly shit into mash tun, kettle, or fermentation vessel. That reason alone is why Two Hearted stands, and will continue to stand, the test of time, it is a proper beer.

Old Friends: Devils Backbone Vienna Lager

I am going to make an assumption with this post, namely that you have been reading Fuggled for a while and thus it will come as no surprise to you that I am a devotee of lager. There is just something about most lager styles that I find appealing, given a choice between some trendy glitter bomb juicy IPA and a pint of Miller Lite, I am likely to take the Miller Lite more often than not.

When Mrs V and I made the move from Prague to central Virginia we knew that finding a good local lager was high on our list of priorities. For a while we bounced around Blue Mountain's Classic Lager, Starr Hill's Jomo Lager, and the beer that is today's Old Friend, Devils Backbone Vienna Lager. Eventually Vienna Lager won the day and became my standard lager in the fridge. I really can't think why I stopped keeping a six pack of it in the fridge, probably something to do with the well made contract brewed lagers that I could buy at Trader Joe's.

Being a central European style lager, it seemed only right to pour it into my half litre mug from the lovely Purkmistr in Plzeň that I got at the first Slunce ve Skle festival a decade ago. What a glorious deep copper beer with orange edges and half inch of off-white head that leaves a fine tracery of lacing down the glass.

I had forgotten just how much I loved the aroma of Vienna Lager, laden with a smell that I can only describe as like large amounts of honey spread on freshly toasted bread. Floating around in the background is a lovely floral hoppiness that reminded me of walking in the Czech mountains in the height of summer, side note I have always loved the Czech word for flowers, 'kytičky'.

Anyway, before I lapse into a Bohemian revelry, we should actually drink the beer, that is after all the whole point of this most wonderful of liquids. Teacakes, that's what I get, teacakes freshly taken out of the oven, spread with more honey, and then snaffled with all the delight of an illicit, though simple, pleasure. There is a light citrusy bitterness to the beer that gives the beer a balance that makes it thoroughly moreish.

That thing I mentioned earlier about there being something about most lagers that I find appealing, it is the clean bite that comes with a well made, properly lagered beer. The best way I can think of to describe the perception I am thinking of is that it is a tight snap that leaves the palate waiting for more. Drinkability, that is ultimately what love about lager styles, I find them more drinkable than many of their top fermented cousins.

With it being Friday, I might just swing by the shop and pick up a 6 pack of Vienna Lager to enjoy this evening once the boys have gone down for the night...every prospect pleases.

Old Friends: Starr Hill Northern Lights

Many moons ago, when Fuggled was in its infancy, Mrs Velkyal and I were still living in Prague, and a night out on the lash didn't cost me an arm and leg, a friend brought me a bottle of beer from a brewery called Starr Hill. The beer in question was simply called Pale Ale, and I wrote about it here. Fast forward a few months and Mrs V and I had made the transition across the Pond, a night out on the lash cost me an arm and a leg, and I was working for the very same Starr Hill Brewery, spending my weekends behind the bar at their tasting room.

Back then in the dim and distant days of the late noughties, I actually quite liked the occasional IPA, and given the employee perk of a pay day case of beer, I quite often drank Starr Hill's IPA, Northern Lights, and I quite liked it. Sure, I preferred Dark Starr Stout, but a pint of Northern Lights was a regular sight.Come the beginning of 2015 I decided to move on from Starr Hill and start enjoying 2 day weekends without any work, and as a result I drank less and less of their beer. When thinking about beers to include in my Old Friends series, it made sense to include some Starr Hill stuff, and Northern Lights seemed the obvious choice, so I bought a couple of 12oz bottles as part of a build your own six pack, and poured them into my imperial pint dimpled mug...

I have to admit to almost reveling in an IPA that poured as beautifully clear as Northern Lights, a light copper liquid topped with a good half inch of white foam that lingered resolutely and left a delicate lacing down the sides of the glass.

The aroma was classic American style IPA, redolent with pine resin, positively dripping with grapefruit, and just a hint of herbal dankness in the background, it was like time travel. Tastewise the citrus and pine flavours from the hops where upfront and centre, but being an East Coast IPA there was a sweet toffee note that lent an element of balance. Being a more old school IPA, the bitterness was very much there, firm, bracing, and everything a bitter beer should be, lovers of NEIPA need not apply here for sure.

With each mouthful, and a quick 4oz top up on the 20oz pint glass, the bitterness built, like the layers of hand dipped candles. With an ABV of 5.3%, Northern Lights isn't going to knock you on your arse, but the booze is well integrated and doesn't detract from the interplay of hop bitterness and malt sweetness. Northern Lights is an old school East Coast IPA, but in a good way, a bracingly bitter beer that deserves revisiting by many.

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...