It looks like I’m going to have plenty to write about in the coming weeks.

One beer that I tried a few weeks ago for the first time is actually quite appropriate for the Christmas season – apart from the suitability of its name to being coerced into a naff blog title!  Hoegaarden has been available in this country for quite a while, but I had never got round to trying it until recently.  The bottled version is 4.9% – we picked up a couple of 750ml bottles from Lidl at a very reasonable price.  It’s a very pale straw coloured, slightly hazy wheat beer.  It has a spicy smell, and a very spicy taste – it is flavoured with coriander seeds and Curaçao orange peel – it certainly has the flavours I would associate with Christmas.  It is light and refreshing, but to be honest I was getting a bit bored with the spiciness by the time I got to the end of the large bottle.  It’s the kind of beer that I would probably drink one of just occasionally, but it wouldn’t be one of my regular tipples.

I’m grateful to the book Beer (Eyewitness Companions) and this Wikipedia article for some background detail – the Belgian town of Hoegaarden is located in the wheat growing area of Brabant, and it was famous for this style of beer until the 1950s when the popularity of golden lagers caused production to stop.  A few years later, Pierre Celis, avery prescient local brewer who had previously worked in one of the town’s breweries, reckoned that there was still some demand for this style of beer, and revived it, building a new brewery (De Kluis).  He found that it appealed to a new younger breed of beer drinkers, and it has proved to be a huge success.  It is now part of the Inbev brewing giant, and for a few years brewing of the beer was moved from Hoegaarden to the Jupille brewery near Liège, but since 2008 it has been back at its original home.

Barnstormer (4.5%) – a deep ruby ale, not as dark as a porter or stout, but with a similar taste.  A chocolatey, slightly burnt smell with a bit of caramel – bitter, slightly burnt taste as well, with toffee, dried fruits and maybe a hint of coffee.  Very tasty.

Golden Hare (4.4%) – I’ve really taken to golden ales this year – maybe I’m just falling for the marketing hype, but I do find them light, refreshing and generally very pleasant.  Golden Hare is a full-flavoured light ale, golden in colour as the name suggests, malty, biscuity smell (i.e. it smells like beer!), sharply bitter with a nice long bitter finish.  The bottle notes declare it to be “brimming with condition”, though to the best of my knowledge it is not a bottle-conditioned beer – but then I’m not one of those anal CAMRA types who will only drink bottled beer if it has half an inch of yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle – it’s a good tasty beer, and well worth trying.

Gem (4.8%) – maybe not the jewel in the crown but a very good best bitter nonetheless.  Dark amber, malty, hoppy, and a bitter-sweet taste – maybe a bit sweet for a premium bitter.  I think the cask version at 4.1% would be very drinkable.  As for the bottled version – it’s good, but personally I prefer the other two.

There are a few other beers in the Bath Ales portfolio (including Natural Blonde, a Pilsener-style lager), and I’m hoping to get the opportunity to try those at some point.

I have been known to get upset about brewers who give the impression that they are from somewhere other than where they actually are because it sounds more exotic/trendy/historic (delete where not applicable).  Bath Ales is based in Warmley, just outside the Bristol ring road – but hey, it’s on the Bath side of Bristol so who am I to split hairs (or hares)?

I have to give Adnams credit for their attempt to be environmentally friendly – they use locally sourced barley, grown and malted in East Anglia, and they use English hops – a variety called Boadicea that I haven’t come across before – maybe they are what give the distinctive “boiled greens” smell and taste.  The beer won a Carbon Trust Innovation Award in 2007 – I can only assume that the judges weren’t beer drinkers!

I really like other Adnams beers, so I was very surprised at this one.  It’s a good idea, but not executed particularly well I’m afraid – and that might do more harm than good to the environmental cause.

We popped into Reading to the Hope Tap last Sunday to see what they had – and to meet up with some friends for a meal.  I tried 3 of the festival beers, plus a pint of Loddon Hoppit (3.5%) – a lovely local beer brewed just to the north of Reading.  The festival beers I tried were:  Greene King Boss Hogg Bitter (4.1%), brewed specially for the festival, a very tasty golden ale; Adnams Pale Champion Ale (3.4%), another beer brewed specially for the festival – I think this suffered from following a more full-flavoured beer – I’m sure it’s a very nice drink, but after the Boss Hogg, it tasted a bit thin; Bath Hefewiezen Hare (4.7%) from Bath Ales in Bristol, another special brew for the festival, and absolutely delicious – a wheat beer with fruity, spicy tastes – definitely the best of the session.  The full list of beers, complete with tasting notes, is on the JD Wetherspoon website, along with a lot of other useful information.

I have mixed views about JD Wetherspoon.  They do a lot to promote good beer, and support local breweries, and that is brilliant.  Their pubs are usually quite clean and presentable, and serve a good range of reasonably priced food.  What bothers me a bit is that they are so ubiquitous, and they are such good value, that the smaller, more traditional pubs find it hard to compete, and I’m sure that JDWs, along with other similar chains of bars, contribute in no small way to the rapid rate of pub closures.  What confuses me greatly is the closeness of JDWs and CAMRA.  On the one hand CAMRA are bemoaning the closure of so many traditional pubs, but on the other hand are giving JDW money-off vouchers when you join or renew your CAMRA membership – doesn’t anybody else see the contradiction here?  CAMRA seem intent on blaming the supermarkets selling cheap booze for the demise of the pub – perhaps they should be looking a bit closer to home.

This doesn’t mean that I’m anti-JDW – you know what you’re going to get when you go into one of their bars, so if you’re in a strange town and looking for a decent pint, they are the safe bet.  They do champion the cause of proper beer, and of local small brewers (though I believe they screw them down on their prices – they clearly have the clout that independent pubs don’t have).  Maybe we get the pubs we deserve, and maybe the places we want to drink are changing to reflect our preferences – as has always been the case.  It’s a complex issue, and one that is best discussed over a pint.

The bottle also warns “expect another couple of equally individual beers soon”.  I can’t wait (imagine Jack Dee delivering that line).

The three beers I had been sent were a lager, a pale ale and a porter.   I decided that I would sample all 3 in a single session, and in the best tradition of beer tasting I would go from weakest to strongest, which would also be lightest to darkest (or so I thought).  The first was Brooklyn Lager (5.2%) from Brooklyn Brewery.  Darker than most lagers I’m used to, even the premium lagers that we can get in this country.  It had a nice head, and a biscuity malty smell more reminiscent of a bitter than a lager, a full-bodied malty taste and was quite bitter – but still had that clean crispness that I associate with lagers.  To be honest, if I hadn’t known it was a lager, I probably wouldn’t have thought it was one.  The label declares it to be “the pre-prohibition beer” and “a revival of Brooklyn’s pre-prohibition all-malt beers”.  The history of Prohibition in America is something I know only a little about, but I believe that when it ended the tendency was for weaker, lighter beers.  If this is a glimpse of what beer was like before prohibition, I think it is a welcome return for a very characterful beer.  Available from Oddbins.

Next up was Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale (5.5%).  A spicy, very citrussy smell – overwhelming aroma of grapefruit – to the extent that I had to check the label to make sure that there wasn’t any grapefruit in the recipe (I take some medication that for some reason prohibits me from eating grapefruit or drinking the juice).  There was also a strong hint of grapefruit coming through the malty taste and the hoppy bitter tang.  I’m really not doing it justice here, as when I drank it I thought that it was one of the best (if not the best) beer I have tasted this year.  This definitely goes on the shopping list (available from Tesco).

Lastly, Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter - 8.7% according to the bottle label, but 7.8% according to the website – sort yourselves out, guys!  This is a beast of a beer!  If you’re going to try it, make sure you’re prepared.  It pours like a stout with a lovely creamy head, and is black, black, black.  I was surprised that it smells of little other than malt – I was expecting coffee, chocolate, toast, etc. – but those tastes definitely come through when you drink it.  A creamy texture with the taste of stewed coffee, licorice, cigarette butts, bitter chocolate, burnt toast.  This is definitely a pudding beer – it could take on the christmas pudding and beat it into submission with no problem.  A real rival to the Classic Pale Ale for my best beer award.  Also available from Tesco.

These were 3 beers that were entirely new to me, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to sample them (for free – which is even better).  The craft brewing movement in this country doesn’t seem to have the same impetus or sense of adventure as it does in America.  There are lots of small breweries starting up in this country, which is absolutely brilliant, and they produce some excellent beers – but mostly they are “me too” brews that conform to the more common styles – maybe they are simply giving the market what it wants – after all, they are businesses that need to turn a profit.  There are a few exceptions to this – Brewdog is one that springs to mind – who are prepared to experiment a little with their beers.  And it’s up to people like me (and you) to experiment a little in what we drink as well, in order to encourage them.

Badger dandelion flavoured organic ale (4.5%) describes itself as “a refreshing well-rounded ale with dandelion natural flavour”.  It has a golden colour and a slightly herby smell.  I’m not sure what I was expecting it to taste like – maybe something like the dandelion & burdock pop that I used to drink as a kid – but in fact it has quite a bitter, slightly oily, astringent taste.  I didn’t get the “floral hop tones” or the “delightfully grassy hedgerow aroma” promised on the bottle- in fact I found it slightly unpleasant.  As I got down the glass, it began to taste cloyingly sweet – and still oily.  It was drinkable as a one-off, but I won’t bother buying another.

River Cottage Stinger Organic Ale (4.5%) – Brewed by Badger – “brewed with organically grown hand-picked Dorset nettles”.  I wonder whether Dorset nettles are better than nettles from other counties for adulterating beer (you can probably guess that I didn’t like this one either).  It’s pale, with a very thin head that didn’t last long.  The bottle label says “slightly spicy with a light bitterness and a subtle tingle that comes from the nettles” – definitely light, in fact a bit thin tasting, but does have a bitter finish.  I couldn’t detect any “tingle” or any taste that might have been nettles.  None of the negative characteristics of the dandelion brew, but nothing to go out of your way for – clearly something of a marketing gimmick to attract the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall fans.

As a self-proclaimed big fan of Badger beers, I was quite honestly rather underwhelmed by these two offerings – stick to the good stuff.

On the subject of seasonal beers, and Fuller’s seasonal beers in particular, we don’t have a lot of Fuller’s pubs in my area, and those that we do have tend to stick to the better-known brands such as London Pride and ESB, so it’s rare for me to get the opportunity to sample a seasonal on draught.  Part of the problem is knowing what seasonals are available at any given time.  Perhaps I’ll keep a calendar of when each brewery produces each of its seasonals – watch this space.