Blog o’ Beer

Tasting Notes: Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale

Brewery: Morrissey Fox (or Morissey Fox, or Morrisey Fox... you choose)
Location: Marton cum Grafton, Yorkshire, England
ABV: 4.2%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

Long Intro...

I'm sure everyone is well aware by now that actor Neil Morrissey and chef Richard Fox are currently starring in a TV micro-series - Neil Morrissey's Risky Business - about the pair's venture into micro-brewing and pub-owning, the first two episodes of which have aired on Channel 4 recently.

I had no idea that the beer was linked to a TV series when I picked it up in Tesco the other week. I bought it because it was just something new to try and maybe, just a little bit, because I once met Neil Morrissey at a bookstore event that I helped to run back in my book-selling days - he and Martin Clunes were promoting one of their Men Behaving Badly spin-offs and came along to do a live in-character interview and Q&A session, which I seem to remember resulted in a damn good night had by all.

I tried Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale last night and then watched the first episode of the series (courtesy of our Sky+ box) this morning. I thought the most interesting parts of the first episode were the segments in which the two intrepid micro-brewers sat down at a London marketing agency Antidote to discuss an advertising campaign that would catapult their product onto the supermarket shelves. Most probably because I work in marketing myself; beer plus marketing, best of both worlds.

Anyhow, the chap they were talking to (I think it was agency owner and M.D. Tim Ashton) was presented as the voice of sanity and reason amidst the wild, laddish enthusiasm of the other two. And the main point he kept coming back to was a rebuttal to Morrissey Fox's mission statement - to present themselves as young, enthusiastic, passionate (and media-friendly) micro-brewers and by doing so convert a whole slew of lager drinkers into real ale quaffers instead - which could be summed up quite nicely with a pithy: "so what?"

As in: so, guys, you've bought a pub and a micro-brewery and made an initial batch of homebrew and tested it by giving freebies away in Harrogate and folks seemed to like it... but so what? What does Morrissey Fox have to offer that will make the venture stand head-and-shoulders above the hundreds of other micro-breweries with much better brewing credentials, above the 5,000 or so beer varieties currently produced in the UK, and above the huge amount of corporate competition for that all-important, coveted supermarket shelf-space?

To be fair the pair were quick to acknowledge that their main asset in their long run has to be the quality of their beer, the success or failure of which will be the main determinant of the overall success or failure of the entire project, long after the media-buzz (which has to have helped get their bottles on the shelves of Tesco, surely?) has died down again and they're left with the serious business of actually running a pub and micro-brewery.

So they key question has to be: how does the beer itself shape up against other micro-brew products of a similar ilk? Is it just a case of a gimmick that plays on Morrissey's celebrity status, or does it have a genuine strength of character that will enable it to stand on its own, without the additional media attention? You know, I'd really like to have been able to voice a resounding "yes!" at this point - if only because the show is very entertaining and I've learned quite a bit about brewing, just by watching the first episode and both Morrissey and Fox seem like good blokes and all. The thing is, though...

Actual Tasting Notes...

Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale is a 4.2% pale ale which, the label claims, lies "somewhere between a lager and an ale" brewed with a blend of "aromatic, fruity" hops and lager malts. And I suppose that, given the previously mentioned mission statement to convert lager drinkers to real ale, this makes a certain amount of sense. But the result is a beer with a bit of an identity-crisis which, given the decent amount of choice generally on offer in most supermarkets, isn't going to help it get past the 'curiosity-satisfying' purchase stage and turn it into a staple cellar-filler. It's pleasant enough. And as the vast majority of the taste-testers who were filmed said, it's "not bad". But then, it's not "great" either. Nobody on the TV show said "wow!" when they tried it, and neither did I...

The first thing I noticed, on sniffing the bottle-neck, is a rather pungent aroma of... well, I wasn't really sure what, but it was something not entirely pleasant. The beer poured a very light golden colour with a frothy white head and luckily the aroma settled down and became more recognisably beer-like in the process. First impression on tasting was of a definite effervescence, a malty, biscuity flavour, a hint of sourness, a hint of hoppiness. After that, things got a little... flat. It was beery, definitely, but lacked the outright mega-hop hit of a good IPA (and I've had a few big IPA's recently, so they're still fresh in my mind) leaving it languishing rather in bland summer ale territory; it reminded me a little of the Theakston's Lightfoot Bitter I tried a while back (which is ironic, seeing as the pair seem to have rather fallen out with Paul Theakston). The hop notes did develop towards the end of the glass after it had been breathing a while, but overall I'm afraid I was left with a sense of... yeah, "not bad". Nice enough, but... so what?

Further Thoughts...

I could hazard a guess (without having seen episodes 2 and 3 yet) that, in an attempt to make their debut brew palatable to those legions of pre-conversion lager-drinkers out there, they could've dumbed it down to make it (literally) easier to swallow. But in that case, I'm rather afraid they've probably dumbed it down to the point of depriving it of a distinct character, something to make it stand out from the rest of the real-ale crowd. Which could either be chalked up as a failure or a success, depending on your point of view. And I rather think that - given the intention to establish this one as a supermarket-regular, commercial brand rather than a characterful (but perhaps, more commercially limited) Real Ale - Mssrs Morrissey and Fox would actually prefer their first beer to be described as a lager-like summer beer that's easy enough to drink but won't leave you feeling like you've tried something too new, or too distinct.

Let's not forget, as well, that this is just their first brew and they've already announced plans to release two new ones in the near future. So perhaps with their next batch, having established themselves as a presence on the shelves of Tesco with their Blonde Ale, they might actually go for something a little more interesting and challenging.

To summarise: I, personally, wasn't hugely impressed with Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale, but then I don't think I, or any of the other Blog o' Beer guys, or anyone who might get around to reading these tasting notes, will be the intended audience. And I'm not going to write these guys off just yet. They might not be doing anything quite as interesting as the likes of Meantime or Brewdog or any one of hundreds of other well-established, small, independent and/or micro-breweries, or at least not just yet. But they are prepared to use Morrissey's celebrity status, Fox's reputation as a chef and the production budget of a Channel 4 documentary show to promote the cause of real ale and real ale drinking... and that alone seems worth supporting.

So I reckon that even if you only buy one bottle of Morrissey Fox, just to give it a go, and then never go back again, you should at least do that. I've had my one, and I probably won't be having another Blonde Ale in a bottle, but if I find myself in Marton cum Grafton in the near future then I'll definitely nip into the Olde Punch Bowl to try a pint of the draught version, and to see what sort of new additions they've made to the range.