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Tasting Notes: Black Sheep Riggwelter Ale
Brewery: The Black Sheep Brewery
Location: Masham, North Yorkshire
ABV: 5.7%
Version: bottled
Source: Asda
Father Christmas was there when I bought this. Not shopping - I don't think he shops in Asda - but sitting around in a shed charging little kids to go and see him. I wonder if my kids have ever noticed that ... the fact that Santa charges for them to go and chat with him for two minutes then get a present? I doubt it, and that's nice. Oh to be a kid again.
This is a lovely drop. I've sampled it many times, but I don't think anyone has blogged about it here, so I thought it was about time. It pours a lovely golden brown, maintaining a generous head all the way down the glass. It's a very smooth ale-perhaps too creamy? - but the taste more than makes up for that. Rich, complex, beginning banana-sweet and ending with a definite coffee aftertase, though not too cloying. You can taste the strength of this one too, and after a couple of bottles you can feel it.
Santa noticed that I'd bought a couple of bottles of this, and he made admiring noises. But his nose was red enough already. It was only 2pm, and he had hours to go, so I promised him - in front of my kids - that I'd leave him a nice glass of single malt on Christmas Eve. He didn't seem as pleased as I'd hoped.
Zero Degrees, Motorhead, and Tetley’s from a can
Usually if a friend leads me to pub shining with acres of chrome and glass, a huge screen displaying a couple of dozen men kicking a ball around a field, and 'architectural features' like exposed steels and pipework, I'd be more inclined to politely decline and head off to the nearest boozer for a pint of Abbot. However, last Saturday - 15th of November - my opinion of at least one chain of such pubs changed forever.
I was in Cardiff to watch Motorhead. The natural thing to do before a Motorhead gig is to drink a few pints to numb your senses a little, lest they be permanently damaged come the onslaught of noise later in the evening. Excuse thusly made, my mate Gareth and I embarked upon a little tour of Cardiff. "Have you heard about Zero Degrees?" he asked. After I replied in the negative, he took me to a splendid pub. Very splendid.
This is Zero Degrees. There's lots to like about this place, once you get past the clinical, dare-I-say trendy look of the pub itself. Actually, it calls itself a restaurant, but any restaurant dominated by the sights and sounds of a working micro-brewery - and the place is built around the brewery, not the other way around - is a pub in my book. And the main thing to like (after the beer, but I'm getting there) is the staff. When we approached the bar and asked what beers they served, the barmaid gave us a detailed run-down of their brews. And it wasn't a by-the-numbers speech ... you had the feeling that she really knew what she was on about. Then she offered us a taste of each of the beers on offer so that we could decide which to go with first.
We drank halves ... it was to be a long day, and we wanted to do our best to try all 5 brews they had on offer. And they were interesting, to say the least ...
The first I went with was their Black Lager. This really was black, and it tasted much more like a good heavy stout to me (I'd love to see an habitual Fosters drinker ordering and tackling a pint of this). Dark, heavy, the flavour was very intense ... the dense malts gave a rich coffee flavour, with a chocolate aftertaste that was very pleasant.
Next, their speciality beer, which at the time was a mango-based ale, brewed with crushed and diced mangoes no less! A strange one this, because it looked very pale and cloudy, smelled like a fruit-based alco-pop, but it tasted divine. Sweet, but not too sweet, the strength came through very nicely, and the fruitiness, though overt, was certainly not overpowering. I could have done without the slice of orange the barman popped in (what was that all about?), but an interesting and experimental brew that I'd certainly track own again.
I also tried their wheat beer, and though I don't usually go for these, I found it very palatable.
Something that struck me here was the intensity of the tastes. This definitely isn't the sort of place where you'd go for a big session, because drinking in halves was just right to get the most out of these flavours. I think if I'd had a pint of the Black Lager to begin with, I might have been put off trying something else.
And something else for which I offer high marks: they're true experimenters. Evidence of this? The mango beer worked surprisingly well.
So hats off to Zero Degrees. It's a trendy, upmarket pub and restaurant, but at the same time it's a dedicated micro-brewery, trying to draw people in and give them something of an education in the type of ale they should be drinking, whilst pretending to be a pizza restaurant at the same time (actually that's a bit unfair, I'm sure their pizzas are fantastic ... but you can see where my interests lie).
If only that could be said of the gig venue ... Tetley's from a can. Please.
Tim Lebbon: Beheaded at the Polperro Beer Festival
[DT:] Ladies and gents, it gives me very great pleasure indeed to present BlogoBeer.com's very first Guest Post. The author of the following piece is none other than Mr Tim Lebbon, one of the UK's best-loved and most prolific modern horror and dark fantasy writers. He's the author of recent novels including Dusk, Dawn, The Everlasting, Fallen, Mind the Gap (with Christopher Golden) - and many, many more besides, see his website at www.timlebbon.net for details - as well as the winner of multiple awards for his fiction and a thoroughly good bloke to boot.
Tim and I were e-chatting a couple of weeks ago and he happened to mention a forthcoming trip to Cornwall, during which he was planning to make a point of sampling a few local beers. I asked if he'd be interested in writing a guest post for us, Tim said he was up for it (I said "Huzzah!") and so, without any further ado, here we go:
Beheaded at the Polperro Beer Festival, by Tim Lebbon
Sometimes, I don't think my wife believes me. Let's face it, we booked that weekend in Cornwall at the beginning of the year, and it was only a week before we were due to leave that a friend told me that the Polperro Beer Festival was on at the same time (3rd – 5th October). Once we arrived at our caravan site and her suspicions faded away, we popped along with the two kids for a couple of hours trying out some of Devon's and Cornwall's finest (I was doing the trying, not the kids). It would have been rude not to.
The Old Mill House in Polperro is a proper pub. The atmosphere is very friendly, locals sit at the bar with their lazy dogs, the staff are welcoming and very cheery, old pub games hang on the walls or sit around on little tables, and there's a cat sleeping on the bar. "It's a real one!" my 5 year old son merrily confided in me as he poked it in the head. It was indeed.
The theme of the festival this year was 'Beer Less Travelled' - in an admirable effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the event, all the beers were from local breweries. There were twenty-nine ales on offer, ranging from light session beers to several stouts and porters. My kids didn't fancy a pint, and my wife isn't a fan (I know ... I know ...), so I ordered food for the hooligans and a prawn curry for Tracey, and went about trying a few for myself.
I headed straight in with a pint of Black Prince from St Austell Brewery. I'm a big fan of dark ales - Hobgoblin and Theakston's Old Peculier are two particular faves - so Black Prince was an absolute delight. Deep and dark when it was poured, a rich nutty nose, and it went down a treat, leaving a surprisingly full-bodied fruity taste afterwards. A gentle 4.0% volume, it tasted stronger, very rich in body and feel. I'd have happily had a couple more ... if there weren't twenty-eight other ales on offer.
So next I plumped for Organic Brewhouse's Serpentine. Not as heavy as the Black Prince, this was a deep ruby colour, quite tangy (a bit too tangy for me, I think), and though it was 4.5%, there was something lacking. Perhaps going for a lighter pint after Black Prince was a mistake, but this one didn't quite do it for me.
The kids were almost finished with their meals now, and Tracey's prawn korma was reduced to a single sad bugger swimming around in what was left of the sauce. Startled, I took a closer look, but the ripples were merely caused by my son kicking the table. "I'm bored!" he said, so I offered him a swig of Serpentine. Bless him, he quite enjoyed it. Fighting the temptation to ensure a good night's sleep for us all, I finished the drink myself, and then went up to peruse the menu of ales.
The pub has a perfect set-up for an ale festival, with the barrels stacked nicely in a marquee that connects through a set of French doors into the rear of the pub. So those not indulging in the festival ales (and it's a very reasonable £3.00 entry, which includes a commemorative glass and a programme) can sit at the bar and enjoy the still-impressive selection of beers available as standard. But I didn't want that - oh no - not with twenty-seven other brews to choose from.
I guessed this would be my last pint. Sadly, with a tear in my eye and a flutter of excitement - or was that trepidation? - I ordered a glass of the festival's winning ale, Beheaded, from Keltek Brewery. I say trepidation, because this was noted as a 7.6% ale ... and I have to say, every hint of that was there in the taste. Gorgeous. A beautiful deep golden colour, and sweet to the taste, though not cloyingly so. Its power was obvious, but the brewers were patently not simply out to produce an ale of almost apocalyptic strength - they have taken great care to ensure that taste is still present. The name is apt, as I'm sure that after three pints of this you'd feel as if you'd been beheaded and shown your own backside.
I waved a fond farewell to the Old Mill House and all those lovely ales, and promptly went and spent £40 on a leather fedora-like hat. My kids think it makes me look like Indiana Jones (but without the diamond stud earring and bank balance, eh Harrison?), and though I purchased it whilst in the cosy fuzz of real ale squiffyness, at last nearing the age of 40 I believe I've found a hat that suits me. "Since when have you been a cowboy?" some kid in my village asked recently. I asked him when was the last time he'd played baseball.
And it's all thanks to the Polperro Beer Festival.
There are already plans afoot to attend next year as well, but this time for a full weekend, not just a flying visit (live music in the evenings, too, which is also a big draw). I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone looking for a fabulous place to stay. Polperro is one of our favourite places in the world, and that love has just been boosted ten-fold. It has many comfortable hotels and bed and breakfasts (including the Old Mill House itself ... sleeping above a real ale festival ... there is a Heaven after all), and some excellent places to eat.
Also, pasties. Need I say more?
On our long weekend away I also tried several more local brews in bottle form ... but that's a story for another time, and another hat.
