Eating isn't Cheating: Porter

Showing posts with label Porter. Show all posts

Beer with a porky grin

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I've really got into smoked beers over the last year or so - with my favourite probably being Aecht Schlenkerla Eiche, it's an Oakwood smoked variety meaning the smoke is quite light, but at 8% and with a big malty body it's still a beast of a beer.

The Thornbridge Beadeca's Well Smoked Porter I tried recently in the excellent York Tap is a very different take on a smoked beer though. Lighter in strength and smokiness, but darker in colour, this is much closer to sessionable and the smokiness blends in with the roasted malt flavour rather than sitting proudly on top of the beer with a porky grin.

It's rich, smokey and ashy yet there's enough lightness to the body and bitterness in the finish to make the whole thing go down so damn easily. It's an interesting, tasty beer, and yet it's also something I could drink a lot of, which in my eyes is a big compliment to the skill of the guys at Thornbridge.

Oh, and just because this is meant to be a beer and food blog. It goes REALLY well with Pork scratchings.

That counts as a beer and food match, right?

The Kernel

The Kernel Brewery - hitting home run, after home run

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Friday, July 01, 2011

There are a lot of things I like about Kernel. I like that they are a genuinely tiny artisan craft brewer, I like that their bottles look put together by hand and that there is a distinct lack of branding (or very clever minimalistic/naturalistic branding perhaps), and I like that they seem to just produce a beer then sell it, with little fanfare and generally in small batches.

But all of that is completely trivial compared to what the beer inside the bottle tastes like, and the thing about Kernel is that, on top of the aforementioned merits, the beer inside the bottle is consistently, almost unexplainably brilliant. The Kernel beers I've tried, such as their awesome Black IPA, have ranged from very good to jesus-christ-I-want-to-drink-this-forever amazing.

At the end of a recent weekend trip to London I was in The Euston Tap having a few drinks before getting my train back to Leeds and wanted a bottle to take and drink on my way home, something Imperial Stout-like, a sipper for the long journey. I didn't fancy spending a small fortune on a big beer from America so the ever helpful barman reccommended the Kernel Export Porter, which he told me weighed in at 8.5% although on closer inspection it was actually 6.5%, but that doesn't really matter.

Now, I've Googled Kernel Export India Porter and I can only find mention of a 5.7% version, whereas the one I tried stated an abv of 6.5%, which because of Kernels habit of brewing different batches and versions of beers I'm going to assume is correct. Not sure whether it's still available or not, but I'm sure if they've got another 'Export India Porter' available it will also be great, so give that a try.

NB - 'Export India Porter' might sound like a weird beer style but actually Porter was being exported to India from Britain around the same time we were sending over super-hopped pale ales (not yet called 'India Pale Ales') for the famously thirsty British Raj. Pete Brown's book 'Hops and Glory' has loads of great info about this and is a genuinely interesting and exciting read, part travel book, part historical beer quest, and interspersed with warm humour, if you're interested in beer then it's a book you have to read.

Kernel Export India Porter 6.5%

This pours more like a stout than a porter, with a thick looking body and tight off white head. There's a big fruity aroma of stewed orange and citrus, with a faint background milk chocolate.

In the taste there's a definate chocolate-orange flavour fom the combination of juicy, fruity, dry hops and sweet chocolate malt. A little light smokiness and roasted malt, no coffee as such but there's a roasted richness in the background which does hint towards it. Also a light herbyness, almost like mint.

The mouthfeel is actually not too full bodied, with a fairly light mouthfeel which suits it's porter title, and as is the norm for Kernel there's perfect, mouth filling, soft carbonation.

There's a nice balance between sweet, savoury, juicy, bitter, which creates a really nourishing tasting beer. It tastes good for you somehow, with a lovely freshness.

Another home run from Kernel. These guys have seriously raised the bar.

p.s. YES that is a plastic cup, I know I know, after the hoo hah I made about drinking from the right glass, but I was on the train and needs must I'm afraid.

Saison

Nogne O Brewery tasting session

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Nøgne ø are a fairly new craft beer brewery from Norway (they started in 2002) and I think that like me most people won't have had the chance to try many of their beers. Despite some product being sold at outlets such as Utobeer on Borough Market, and a few other very specialist places, they haven't officially entered the UK market so their beers are still pretty rare over here. But that's something that is hopefully set to change.

Last night I was invited to be on a tasting panel being conducted (with a little help from North Bar's Matt) by a marketing research team working for Nøgne ø brewery based in Norway - no they unfortunately didn't fly us over there, it was held in Leeds!

NB - In case you're wondering how to pronounce Nøgne ø; going by the way our Norweigen hosts said it, I think the pronunciation is something like "Nerg-na-ya oh" but please don't hold me to that. Let's just agree it's hard to say and leave it at that.

We started off by talking about what beers we liked, how seasonality effected our choices, how we got into 'good' beer and some other general beery subjects while the tape recorder rolled and a few of the marketeers made notes.

During the discussion we were served some of the brewery's Pale Ale and were then asked our thoughts on it. Which is pretty much how the rest of the session panned out - a bit of chat while drinking, then a talk about the beer itself after we'd tried it. Everybody there was very honest and forthcoming about what they thought of the beers and there was a really informal atmosphere (we were in a bar afterall), exactly what a tasting session should be.

My notes below are what I thought of the beers, much of which I repeated to the group at the time, but some of which I have contemplated in retrospect.

Pale Ale 6%

Quenching and refreshing, this beer drinks like a good session pale yet has an American hoppyness too it aswell. I liked this beer but it didn't have chance to wow me, and I don't think it got a fair outing. It's the kind of beer you appreciate over the course of a pint, not a small amount being swirled around an oversized wine glass!

Saison 6.5%

Admittedly, it's not a style I've drank a lot of but this one left me distinctly underwhelmed, probably my least favourite of the session. It had a yeasty, slightly citrus aroma which carried through into the flavour which was also earthy and slightly spiced with hints of clove or coriander seed. It was nice, but if all five were on the bar I think this would be my last choice.

India Pale Ale 7.5%

This smelt amazing, with a huge passionfruit led aroma and hints of other tropical fruit such as mango and grapefruit. The flavour didn't quite deliver on the smell but was still damned good, tart and hoppy with big citrus flavours running right through and a dry, slightly boozy finish. I liked it but a few of the others were a little dissapointed and didn't think the flavour matched up to what the smell was promising. I would agree but I think it might have been judged a little harshly by some (Dean!). As we said during the tasting there are so many awesome IPA's flooding the craft beer scene that we are a little spoilt for choice. If you'd have given us this beer a year or so ago I think it would've knocked all our socks off.

Porter 7%

This was a really good, classic Porter. It had that typical roasted, slightly chocolatey coffee flavour yet a nice dry hoppy finish which balanced everything out. It also had that straight-after-an-espresso after taste that I love to find in Porter, where the roasted coffee flavour and hops come together to dry your mouth in the same way that a coffee does. It was really good and something I could have drank a pint of (but probably shouldn't at that ABV).

Imperial Stout 9%

They really saved the best for last with this one - It was the unanimous favourite with the group. A really deep, rich, thick to the point of being oily, Imperial Stout. This was a beer to be savoured. I'm a massive fan of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and this was the closest I've tasted to it. It wasn't quite as good, but it wasn't far off. The group were bouncing flavours off each other with more mentioned than I can remember, but I'll try: Dark Chocolate, Coffee, Liquorice, Blackcurrant, Peat, Salt, Brown Sugar, Molasses plus loads more. It's the kind of beer you could serve as a dessert with a scoop of good vanilla Ice-cream, and in fact, that's exactly what we ended up doing.

Does that count as a beer cocktail I wonder?

Big thanks to Matt at North Bar for the invite, Nøgne ø for the free beer, and everyone who attended (including Rob from HopZine, Nick from Beer Prole and Dean from Mr Foley's) for making it such an enjoyable few hours.

Wright Brothers Oyster and Porter House

Beer Review: Meantime London Porter (M&S)

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Thursday, February 03, 2011

This is a beer I've bean meaning to review for some time now after it was recommended to me by a beer geek friend. I must admit I was a bit reluctant to trust Marks and Spencers with a Porter, I mean, what do they know? But then a quick Google search landed me with a piece of information that came like ruby red light at the end of a deeply dark tunnel; it's brewed by Meantime.

Based in Greenwich, (get it?) Meantime have built a solid reputation for producing high quality craft beers, and a flare for truly authentic traditional British styles. In other words, they are the perfect brewery to brew this Porter for M&S.

Personally I've had mixed experiences with Meantime beers. For example, I absolutely loved their Meantime London Stout on tap. I spent a good few hours, and a fair few quid, eating fantastic seafood and drinking stout at the unmatchable Wright Brothers Oyster & Porter House next to Borough Market. It was perfectly carbonated, smooth and rich with flavours of chocolate, light smoke, coffee and herbal hops - and utterly fantastic pint after pint.

On the other side of the spectrum, I found their Meantime Coffee Beer almost undrinkable. A mess of bitter, washed out filter coffee flavour fighting against a flat and slightly stale tasting body. Whether I got a bad batch I don't know, but from what I tasted it seems fitting that the beer no longer features on the brewery's homepage. That said, the eminently reliable Roger Protz didn't mind the beer when he reviewed it here, although I can detect in his tone a few extra points given for effort rather than achievement.

So on to the matter at hand. Well first of all it has to be said that this is a great looking bottle of beer. I think the meantime designers must have had a hand in the label design for M&S, because compared to their other offerings (Bull silhouettes on the Spanish Lager and a White Rose for the Yorkshire bitter) it's a bloody work of art.

The beer pours with a small bubbly head that quickly dissipates to a thing ring that leaves a small amount of lacing but never quite disappears, spot on for the style I'd say.

It has a crystal black colour that has edges tinged with ruby, almost raspberry red when held to the light, and equally the body actually looks more of a dark mahogany brown when light comes through.

There's a strong roasted smell when you first give it a sniff, but also strong, good milk chocolate and smoked malt come through, along with a very faint whiff of hops, but not strong enough to pin down further than that.

The beer starts very similar to the smell, with a big roasted malt flavour upfront. But then a big hop bitterness comes in and completely lifts the beer before it turns slightly sweet with milk chocolate and malt, then becomes slightly dry and smoky in the finish. It's very complex, and one of those beers which has a very clearly defined begin middle and end.

The mouthfeel is very smooth and rich, but also surprisingly light with a chewy character that manages to never become cloying. It's extremely refreshing for a beer with such strong flavours, and hides it's 5.5% extremely well. For me a porter should be drinkable and refreshing, with a strong hop profile to keep the roasted, malty, chocolatey flavours in check. This porter absolutely achieves that. It's one of the most true to style porters I've ever tasted; and excellent stuff from a great brewery.

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