Here we are again

Well hello again. It's been a while hasn't it? Returning to this blog was like prising open the door of a long locked room. Will the pigeons have found a way in and covered everything in a foot of droppings? Luckily a quick flick around with the duster and it looks good to go,

It's been a busy two years and I thought long and hard before returning here. If I re-start I really have to keep going but I have some more free time now so with a bit of luck we'll avoid the previous hiatus. I'll also be broadening the scope of this blog as well and venturing outside the Dutch beer scene from time to time.

So, with a suitably retro logo, let's get back on the road with Golden Pints 2017.  I've seen one or two of these already and there are quite a few long essays out there. These will be suitably brief.

Best UK Cask Beer
Many great cask beers have passed my lips over the last 12 months but one I keep returning to is Hawkshead Windermere Pale. It's one of those classic sub-4% beers that the UK does so well (and in the same field as Marble Pint, Track Sonoma, Fyne Ales Jarl and numerous others) and never disappoints. At the other end of the spectrum are two dark beers. In Stalybridge Station Buffet I came across as Stout by Squawk. Unlile many other of their stouts and porters this one came in at a heftier 7.4% and was stunningly good.  A heads up too to a brand new beer from a rebranded brewery. Dan's Brewery in Manchester has become Wander Beyond Brewing and among the launch beers was Cave Dweller a 11% maple imperial stout. Too sweet for some apparently but I thought it was glorious stuff.

Best UK Keg Beer
One beer stands out. By a mile. This is Chorlton Brewing's Cherry Sour. You've got to like sour beers but if you do you'll recognise Mike Marcus and his team are inspired brewers and I really don't know why Chorlton hasn't become a cult name.  This was tried at one of their all too rare brewery taps and it's a beer I could drink all day. At the time I likened it to a British Rodenbach - OK if you put them side by side they'd be quite different but it really was that good and the comparison is still valid. Mike tells me he sells most of his beer in London and Edinburgh - it's about time Manchester bars got behind this local star.

Best UK Bottle
Well, UK bottles actually. The imperial stout and old ale range from Marble in all its various iterations has been nothing less that magnificent. They have all been good and I'm not going to choose one above the other (yes, I know, what a cop-out). Also a big heads up to Marble's Pugin - one of the best, no, the best UK version of a Belgian blond bier I have come across.

Best UK Can
Back to Hawkshead again - their Key Lime Tau is a thing of joy and has become one of my all time favourite beers.

Best Cider or Perry
I've had some excellent ciders and perries this year, particularly on a trip to Hereford in November. Our party called in at the excellent Yew Tree at Peterstow which is owned by Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry. After lunch Mike Johnston of Ross-on-Wye gave us a talk and tasting in the attached shop. We all came away with lots of good stuff but for several of us the Moorcroft & Bartestree Squash perry was the star of the show.  It's a blend of two perry pears - Moorcroft from Worcestershire and Bartestree Squash from Herefordshire. The result is deliciously fruity and balanced with just the right amount of dryness.

Best Overseas Draught Beer
I drink a fair amount in Belgium and the Netherlands and this year have had some superb beers. However one that sticks in the mind was tried here in the UK. In December Brouwerij Kees had a tap takeover at Manchester's Kosomonaut and his Barrel Aged Caramel Fudge Stout was knock-out.

Best Overseas Bottled Beers
I see in my last Golden Pints I referenced Tommie Sjef Koenen as  "one to watch". He was a home brewer then. He's professional now as Tommie Sjef Wild Ales. Having subscribed to his crowd-funding for a new, larger barrel store I now get advance notice of all the releases and try not to miss one. The beers are truly great and turn heads whenever they are tried.

Another Dutch outfit making waves (and naturally below the radar here in the UK) is Brouwerij Demoersleutel which is run by four young (check out the Facebook photo - www.facebook.com/moersleutel)  brothers from Heiloo. I first encountered their beers  at Gents Bierfestival and then picked up some bottles in Amsterdam. Their dark beers are notably impressive. Moersleutel means spanner by the way and they badge themselves as "beer engineers".

Best Pub or Bar
I spend many happy Friday nights in Stockport's Ye Old Vic (sanctimonious disclosure - I actually own a tine fraction of the pub having subscribed for shares in the community company that bought it from the previous owner). Beer quality is excellent as is the atmosphere - and it has become the haunt of numerous brewers and beery people who live in Edgeley.

In Manchester it's difficult not to call in at Cafe Beermoth but perhaps my favourite haunt is the cellar bar underneath the Beermoth shop. 

Best Beer Festival
I seem to go to more beer festivals in Belgium and the Netherlands than I do in the UK.  At home I try and never miss the Hawkshead beer festivals - two a year in March and July (usually) and great days out with superlative beer choices. Two other "never misses" are Liverpool Craft Beer Expo and Leeds International Beer Festival. 

However my favourite remains Gents Bierfestival. Not only is Ghent a great city to visit for history and culture but it also has perhaps one of the best beer scenes in Belgium. The annual beer festival is in mid-August an always boasts a very imaginative list - what was on offer for 2017 is here

And finally....

Best Book
Like many I have been beguiled by Peter Brown's Miracle Brew (and for the record  his The Apple Orchard was also inspirational).

Well that's it folks. Back next week.

Dutch Beer of the Week - Bonus Bottle

BROUWERIJ RODENBURG POPULUS 6921 (BARREL AGED)

Happy New Year! And what better way to celebrate with an additional, and very celebratory, Dutch Beer of the Week.

I've already told you plenty about Brouwerij Rodenburg but this beer is a little bit special. For a start it's an 11% quadruple so a very big beer. On top of that it's been aged in a Martinique rum cask for extra complexity.  We'll come back to all of that but first a bit about the odd name.

6921 is in fact the postcode of Populierenlaan in Duiven, which is in the east of the Netherlands, not far from Arnhem.  Apparently 10 local beer lovers live in or near Populierenlaan and decided they wanted to make a beer of their own - Steve Gammage at Rodenburg was happy to help out and so Populus 6921 was born.  They 10 are all name checked on the label too - and it helped of course that one of the ten was Marco Phillipsen who (I think) is one of the main men at the Mitra off-licence chain. 

Back to the beer.  This comes in a corked 37.5cl bottle and immediately on popping the cork there's an enticing aroma of rum (in fact I stood for a few moments just sniffing the cork. Make of that what you will).  It's a red-brown beer with a complex aroma with malt sweetness, spice, rum (or course) and a fruity wine character all jostling for attention. They keep this up as you drink with a notable fruitiness developing (fruit's right up there with malt  in the handy tasting profile on the label).  There's some warming alcohol at the end but this certainly doesn't drink like an 11% beer.  I'd try it again but I think it's been quite a limited edition.

Dutch Beer of the Week

BROUWERIJ RODENBURG BRONCKHORSTER SCROOGE

As it's the festive season let's have a look at a Christmas themed beer. As you can see the jolly chap on the label hasn't really got into the Christmas spirit but I think he'd be smiling after a glass of this.

I've already talked about Brouwerij Rodenburg and, in my opinion, it's certainly one of the stars of the Dutch beer scene. The owner-brewer is Yorkshireman Steve Gammage who has been in the Netherlands for about 30 years and his beers are increasingly confident and successful.

So, on to Scrooge. Tim Skelton's Beer in the Netherlands describes this as "a seriously full-on dark Christmas ale that is a classic in the making".  He's not wrong.  There's a complex grain bill including Pils, Carapils, Diastatic malt,  Cara Red, Whiskey and Peated malts (or so the label tells us).  These contribute to the spicy nose which is also slightly medicinal like thick old-fashioned cough syrup. Beyond that there are very complex flavour notes in there  - wafts of spice, peat, smoke and rich Christmas cake jockey for attention in a very appealing way. 

This could be a cloying malt-fest but it's not because the cavalry arrives in the form of a crisply bitter finish. The hops are Green Bullet, Phoenix and First Gold and bring rather more to this beer than the label's claimed three bitterness units would suggest (given both the hop grist and the notably bitter finish I suspect this must be a misprint). Indeed the thought occurred to me that if I was brewing in a railway arch in London I might be tempted to call this a "Christmas IPA".   

I'm back in the Netherlands in three weeks time (for this) and I'll certainly be looking out for a couple of these to bring home. 

Dutch Beer of the Week

Elsener Bierbrouwerij Pochpoater White IPA

It's been a while but we're now back up and running here at JC's Beer Blog with a new Dutch Beer of the Week (and yes, I know the last one was on 26 October...).

Right then, White IPA.  It's another variant on everyone's favourite beer style and one that I've rather enjoyed so far. It's shorthand for beers that combine serious hopping (usually of the American variety) with the spiciness and grain bill of a Belgian (or Dutch) witbier, and they can be hugely enjoyable and refreshing. There are a lot of them around as Ratebeer demonstrates.

So, on to this little number.  I know very little about the brewery. It's based in Elsen, which is in the east of the Netherlands (in Overijssel province) and it started up in 2014. The website just leads to a Facebook page but it's clear from there (and Ratebeer) that a considerable number of modern-sounding beers have been produced. In essence this was just a random purchase of an interesting-sounding beer in a style I like.

The label tells me that it's a witbier in the American style with a distinct hop profile. There's wheat malt in there so that's good but I see it's just 30 bitterness units and 5% ABV - both at the bottom end of what I might expect for a beer of this description. Pouring, it's a hazy pale lemon with no head to speak of. There's a sweet spiciness on the nose, with hints of orange peel perhaps, and this lingers all the way down the glass (and gets a bit cloying by the end to be honest) - however the ingredients don't indicate there's any spice or other addition to the beer so I'm assuming the esters are yeast-based.  As a drink it's quite light-bodied and while it's refreshing enough the "distinct hop profile" (or the "duidelijk hopprofiel" as the label has it) seems to be largely missing in action. It's perhaps a bit too much "white" and not enough "IPA" and certainly needs a bit more of everything I think.

I'm certainly not writing off this brewery on the basis of just the one beer as it seems to be quite an interesting set-up with lots of ideas.  It's just a shame that this one, on the basis of this bottle, didn't quite work.

Dutch Beer of the Week

BROUWERIJ 'T IJ BRIDGEPORT BARLEY WINE

Most beer enthusiasts visiting Amsterdam will have paid a visit to 't Ij. It's housed in an old bath house next to a windmill which is something of  a local landmark. It's certainly a good point of reference if you are heading there by bus (no. 22) or tram (nos. 10 and 14). On a fine day it's also a pleasant walk from Centraal Station and sitting outside on the terrace, beer in hand, is one of life's pleasures.

I first visited the 't Ij Proeflokaal back in 1994 (the first time I visited Amsterdam in fact) and it's been interesting to see it evolve over the years. Back then it was what might be described as "shabby chic" and was also on the small side with an overflow in the basement. The brewery could be glimpsed through some doors behind the bar as I recall. Today it's expanded to fill more of the bath house premises and is smart and modern.

The full 't Ij core range is available on tap alongside one or two specials - there was a black IPA on tap last time I dropped by (and was enjoyed with a plate of ossenworst, for me another essential ingredient of a visit here). If you've not yet been do make an effort - the Proeflokaal is open every day from 2.00 pm until 8.00 pm. 

The brewery is also something of a survivor. It was one of the early pioneers of the Dutch beer renaissance and opened way back in 1985. The core range has remained the same - a vaguely Belgian influenced range of beers running from Natte at 6.5% to the powerful 9% Columbus, along with an even more vaguely Czech-influenced Plzen. In the early years it has to be said the quality bounced around a bit too much but happily these issues seem to have been confined to the past. Indeed the't Ij beers have been on something of a roll in recent years.

Actually the core range hasn't remained entirely unchanged as the original beers have been joined by a rather fine IPA (7%), the hoppy and sessionable Flink (4.7%) and a range of specials and collaborations (a recurring special is the exceptional Ciel Bleu IPA - but it if you see it).  Most of this has coincided with the expansion of the brewery - and in particular when they opened a second brewery nearby in 2013. One notable collaboration was with the UK's Thornbridge Brewery to produce a tremendous American Wheat Ale which just bursts with hop character - and then we have this little beauty.  

Well, not so little, as it's a bit of a beast at 10%. It was brewed in collaboration with Marz Brewing of Chicago, and is named after the area where the brewery is based there. I have to admit that "barley" and "wine" are two words I always like to see on a bottle of beer and when I first came across this about a year ago I couldn't resist.  I was immediately impressed. Upfront is does all those barley wine things I like - booze, depth, fruity richness - and underneath was a firm supporting bitterness (the hop grist includes Amarillo, Nugget, Centennial and Chinook and they all played their part) which added balance and made this hugely drinkable.

Fast forward to September 2015 and Gollem in Amsterdam. It was on the board but not in the fridge so I had a bottle from the cellar as a nightcap. Beers like this usually present better at cellar rather than fridge temperature in my experience and this, combined with some age on the beer, was terrifically good (so much so the first nightcap was followed by a second...). The hops are still there but play a  more restrained role while the booziness has mellowed and matured. It's all just come together. I'm not sure how much more this would improve with further age - it's probably at its peak now so buy it on sight is my recommendation. 

Not the Borefts Bier Festival

Borefts After Festival

It's been quiet here of late. One of the reasons is that I've been off on my travels but hopefully what passes for normal service will now be restored. Two nights in Lille were followed by five in Amsterdam and these included visits to the Borefts Bier Festival and the excellent After Festival held at the Fenix Food Factory in Rotterdam.

I'm lucky enough to have visited every Borefts Festival and it's been interesting to watch it grow and evolve over the years. Martijn over at The Dutch Beer Pages has already written about this year's event so I don't propose adding much here. The beers were the usual collection of the excellent, the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know of course, but I managed to steer clear of most of the clunkers. 

Apart from De Molen, the Netherlands was represented by Kees Bubberman's Brouwerij Kees! and Oedipus Brewing neither of whom let the side down.  I rarely go with a plan of action but here I was determined to try all of the Kees beers that's I'd not yet had, and that was quite a few.  The festival special was a Black Oyster Saison (just how craft can you get?) which was very good indeed.Other standouts from a wide range were Indian Summer Doppelbock, Oatmeal Breakfast Stout and a glorious American Barley Wine.

The hardworking team at Oedipus always have some treats in store and Borefts was no exception. I enjoyed reacquainting myself with Himbeer, a raspberry Berliner Wiesse, and was very taken by two brand new offerings.  Kinderyoga was an excellently balanced Imperial Stout which I could drink a lot of but the star of the show had to be Hosanna, a double IPA. Fresh, hoppy and doing just about everything you'd want a double IPA to do, this was just great. One of my party thought it was the best beer there.

An innovation last year was the Borefts After Festival in Rotterdam which proved to be an excellent antidote to the frantic activity in Bodegraven.  It's hosted by Kaapse Brouwers who have a brewery, bar and shop in the Fenix Food Factory. This is a converted warehouse on Veerlaan and at the back you can sit outside looking over Rijnhaven and the Nieuwe Maas back to the city centre. What's not to like about that?

Inside, apart from Kaapse Bouwers, there is a cider seller, butcher, cheese shop, coffee roaster, bakery and all sort of goodies as you can see if you follow this link. It attracts families who come for Sunday brunch and you can hire a tray and go round each stall building up your meal. The Kaapse Brouwers bar features live jazz on Sundays too.  Somehow they manage to fit a beer festival into all of this as well (in fact it's not all inside - this year some of the brewers' bars were outside as was a DJ and a handful of food stalls).

There were nine breweries present and seven of these were Dutch - Kaapse Brouwers of course plus: Oedipus (somehow still standing and good to go after two days at Borefts), Ramses, Van Moll, Raven Bone Hill, Oersoep, and Het Uiltje. In short, a cross section of Dutch craft brewing's premier league. They were joined by La Quince from Madrid and Pohjala from Tallinn.
After Borefts my beery mojo had slightly deserted me so I was slightly more restrained than I had been over the previous two days. I had to start with the wonderful Brettalicious from Oersoep. This full bodied, brett-infused and highly drinkable saison never, ever disappoints and set me up for the rest of the afternoon. Oedipus's Hosanna had to be revisited of course and Bea, a rye black IPA from hosts Kaapse Brouwers, was hoppy, black, dry and a fine example of the genre. Rames has always been one of my favourite Dutch brewers and the single hop Koele Kikker didn't disappoint, and nor did the seasonal Lambok which was on cask too! Van Moll's Fruity Loops, a blonde beer with dried red fruit, was pleasant enough but was certainly not the best Van Moll beer I've had.  The same goes for Raven Bone Hill's Cock of the Rock, described as an "Inca purple ale" and in reality an American pale ale. 
And finally - La Quince. I've not had a lot of Spanish craft beer but what I have tried has been seriously good. That track record was maintained here.  Both Double Baden, a big double IPA and Vanillla Black Velvet was a luscious imperial stout (and was even enjoyed by one of my stout hating friends).

I enjoyed the After Festival so much that next year I might just spend one day at the "main event" so I can enjoy this one all the more. We'll see.

Dutch Beer of the Week

Brouwerij Rodenburg Bronckhorster Saison Nouvelle

More like "Beer of the Fortnight" I'm afraid as it's been a busy time here at JC's Beer Blog. Anyway, down to business.

I've been a fan of Rodenburg beers almost since they started back in 2010. I see from my programme for the 2011 Bokbier Festival that I raved about the Dubbelbock ("Fab!!" read my extensive tasting notes). The brewer and owner is Steve Gammage, a Yorkshireman living in exile in the Netherlands for over 30 years now, and his beers are invariably some of the best in the country in my experience. The odd "Bronckhorster" name refers to the locality in which the brewery is situated by the way.

The brewery website doesn't really do justice to the beer range and apart from the one we're about to have a look at I would pick out Hoptimist (a 9% double IPA) and Scrooge (a Christmas beer at 8%) as real star turns out of what is an exceptionally fine selection. 

So, Saison Nouvelle. Saisons were of course very much on trend until recently (then every brewer - at least in the UK - that wanted to polish its "craft credentials" jumped on the sour bandwagon). It's a much used and abused style - too many brewers seem to think that just because they've made something with a saison yeast then, hey presto!, it's a saison. If only.

What I want in a saison are three things - some spice notes from the yeast, a decent hop character, and most importantly, a good dry finish. This certainly delivers on two. It's a honey-amber in colour with some hints of spice and hop drifting up as you pour. There's a gentle sweet fruitiness (perhaps a hint of marmalade - that's about as considered as it gets from me) and then the hops come along to play. Nothing too big and bold but assertive enough to take over and run through until the bitter and, yes, dry finish. A touch more spiciness would turn what is by any standards a very good beer into a classic I think. 

After making my notes I had a look at RateBeer (as you do) and the reviewers there seem to be all over the place with this one - some of the reviews make me wonder if I drank the same beer.