5 more beers that deserve a repeat visit

I wrote a post recently about beers which I’ve drank plenty of times and always really enjoyed, but never actually blogged about as they’ve been around for a while. I felt it was a gross injustice for those beers to go without coverage as they are great beers which any budding beer geek would do well to give a chance.

The only problem with the post was that it got me thinking about all the beers I’d missed out. The beers which possibly should have been included, but I essentially forgot. So that’s what you’ve got here. This isn’t to say that these beers are less worthy than the first five I talked about, in fact some of them, such as the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, are amongst my favourite beers ever and deserve their place in any beer lovers cupboard.

Budweiser Budvar Dark (Keg, Bottle)

Just in case you didn’t know this already Budweiser Budvar is a completely different beast to that American Beer, and is brewed in the Czech town of Budweis by a completely different brewery i.e. it has nothing to do with the watery yellow crap known as ‘Bud’.

Budvar Dark is, as you might have guessed, a Dark Lager. It’s a relatively modern beer but brewed to be as close as possible to how all Bohemian and Bavarian lagers tasted before bottom fermented golden lager stole the show in the mid nineteenth century. The first time I tried it was on keg at Mylo’s in Leeds (who still have it on the bar to this day) and I loved it straight away. It has all the refreshing qualities of a lager but bags of smoked malt flavour too, its good in the bottle but if you can find it on keg it’s stunning.

Worthington White Shield (Cask, Bottle)

In many ways White Shield is an old fashioned British IPA, as it doesn’t have all the tropical fruit flavour of some of the modern IPA’s such as BrewDog’s Punk or Thornbridges Jaipur, but do you know what? It’s all the better for it.

This is a time capsule of beer, and perfectly highlights what traditional, but really good, British IPA’s should be. In some ways similar to Meantime IPA, White Shield has complex, slightly spicy hop flavour balanced by biscuity malt and a really satisfying dry finish. It’s a classic for a reason and a beer that everybody should try.

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (Bottle)

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout was the first big Imperial Stout I ever tried and is still one of my favourite beers of all time. The interesting thing is that despite the name this beer doesn’t actually have any real chocolate in it, and isn’t overly sweet; they achieve the distinct dark chocolate flavour through the use of a variety of specially roasted malts and a three stage mash, which gives the beer this deep, rich, chocolatey roasted flavour. Despite being over 10% abv this beer is always a pleasure and never a chore, and is shockingly balanced, approachable and drinkable.
If you’ve never tried it then you are in for a serious treat.

Harviestoun Schiehallion (Cask, Keg, Bottle)

The first time I tried Schiehallion in the bottle I liked it, but wasn’t blown away. I think I had it straight from the fridge and the ‘lager’ label on the front had me not expecting too much. Then I tried it on cask and I loved it. It was served cool but not cold and had a dry almost grapefruity citrus hop character alongside that classic crisp malt lager flavour – it was stunning. Since then I’ve actually gone back to the bottle and enjoyed it even more as the things that I had noticed when drinking it on cask seemed clearer, and I was confident enough in the beer to drink it at slightly warmer than fridge temp.

Despite being brewed with lager yeast its flavour profile sits somewhere between lager and pale ale when you have it on cask - a fantastically refreshing beer that’s really drinkable yet has bags of flavour.

Hardcore IPA (Keg, Bottle)

I mentioned Zeitgeist in my previous post and this is another BrewDog beer that I drink pretty often and always enjoy, it just seemed a bit fanboy to put BrewDog in the list twice even though I drink their beer a hell of a lot.

Get it fresh enough and Hardcore IPA has a really nice juicy tangerine aroma and flavour alongside that big resinous bitter American hop character. Dry yet quite sweet, with a subtle underlying malt that is obliterated by grapefruit, lemon peel, bitter citrus, and an almost gin like herbal and pine quality it's almost overly aromatic and challenging, but if you are looking for an Imperial IPA that is truly in the American style then this is one of the easiest to get a hold of in the UK - and still tastes as good now as the day it hit the market.


3 comments:

  1. 100% agree on all of those! Schiehallion from the keg rocks it and when you get a good bottle of Hardcore it's just about as good as a DIPA gets.

    BeerBirraBier.

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  2. Can't argue with this list. All beers that cause me to sigh with relief when I see them lurking in the fridges in otherwise hopeless trendy bars.

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  3. I am about to pop my Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout cherry sometime this week, sounds marvellous, I'll let you know how it went

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