What to drink now? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks knee deep in rich porters, big seasonal ales and generally anything that’s dark and wintry. So I’m kicking off the New Year with something a little bit fresher for a change, just to shake me out of my hibernated state.
Looking back over the past few week’s columns, there have been a lot of modern "craft" breweries featuring. Their wacky, new-fangled brews with unusual ingredients and flavours are perhaps necessary to get them noticed and keep things "fresh" in a competitive world where new breweries are all shouting for attention. So I thought this week I’d try out some of the old school beers from Germany and the Low Countries – beer’s spiritual heartland, to my mind at least – to see why these guys are still lording it over the new kids on the block.
Having just spent a week in Cornwall, where the craft beer scene apparently hasn’t caught on too well (at least not where I was staying...lots of ales though), it was nice to come back in time for the West End Beer Festival last weekend and check out some more interesting brews by a number of Scottish producers. Obviously there was a much wider range on offer than I can talk about now, but here are some of the beers we have in the shop that were available on tap at the festival too.
I’m a real sucker for natty branding, I must admit. Whilst I am well aware that one should never judge a book by its cover (nor indeed a beer by its bottle) I do love it when breweries manage to combine both cracking contents with what can only be described as a well gilded lily.
I’ve been tasting a few "not like your usual beer" beers recently. Those of you who read last week’s column will remember my affinity with fruit beers having a look in.
When I was thinking about which beers to feature this week, it occurred to me they mostly have something a little bit different about them, which fits rather nicely with me being a different beer geek for you.
