Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer Beery Beer

March 25, 2015

We've spied some shiny new beers, and like some sort of alcohol dependent magpie, we've acquired them-

 Yankee Original Pale Ale Cans, Rooster’s Brewing Company          £2.50

Don’t be fooled by the name, this beer is the product of hops crazed Yorkshiremen, brewed in deepest darkest Knaresborough.  Initially inspired by a love of hop-forward pale ales showcasing exciting new hops from the USA Rooster’s set up in 1993 to make the beers they love and Yankee was one of their earliest offerings.  Light and easy-drinking, it’s a beer that showcases the floral and citrus fruit aromas of the Cascade hop, grown in the Yakima Valley in Washington State, USA, projected against a back drop of soft Yorkshire water and golden promise pale malt. 

Baby Faced Assassin IPA Cans, Rooster’s Brewing Company          £2.99

There’s no getting away from what this beer is and that’s a celebration of hops and, more specifically, one hop in particular – Citra. Grown in the Pacific north west of America, Citra has fast become one of the most sought-after hops in the world, since it first became available in 2007.  Simpson’s Golden Promise pale malt provides an ideal canvass upon which the characteristics of the hop can be displayed.  Light and biscuit it adds a touch of depth to the beer without ever getting in the way of the hops.

Brewed with 100% Citra hops that create aromas of mango, apricot, grapefruit & mandarin orange, along with a lasting, juicy, tropical fruit bitterness, the Baby-Faced Assassin is a deceptively quaffable India Pale Ale that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

 Mongozo Palmnut          £2.99

And now for something completely different…..  Mongozo beers may be brewed in Holland but their roots lie very firmly in Africa.  Mongozo means cheers in the language of the Chokwe people who live scattered throughout Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and is the native language of Henrique Kabia, one of the founders of Mongozo.

When Henrique arrived in the Netherlands in 1993 as a refugee pretty much his only possession was his great-grandmother’s recipe for Palm Beer.  Flavoured with the African Palm Nut this is a really unusual (OK, no surprise there) beer, slightly oily, fruity and dry.

Bayerischer Banhof Gose          £2.59

This is a real trainspotter’s beer – in the best possible way.  It’s brewed by the Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof, sited in the heart of Leipzig’s redeveloped Bavarian Railway Station.  This is a small brewery that mainly supplies its thirsty local market so we’re lucky to see any of their beers make their way to our shores.

Gose is an ancient style of top-fermented beer that features the addition of coriander and just a pinch of salt to give a deliciously thirst-quenching, slightly tart brew.  As Leipzig is in Saxony the Bavarian Purity Laws didn’t affect the production of Gose until 1871 when German unification saw the dominant Bavarians imposing the Rheinheitsgebot on the rest of Germany.  This started the decline of Gose, as well as a host of other regional styles that fell afoul of the new national rules (bloody Bismarck), but the final nail in the coffin was when the heartland of Gose production and consumption fell into communist hands after World War II.  The rediscovery of Gose came about after the fall of the Wall, as well as a series of court cases around the early 1990s which saw the rules muddied sufficiently for brewers to start chancing their arm. 

Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat          £2.15

From Chicago’s Goose Island brewery we have this lip-smacking, crisp, fruity wheat beer.  With only 4.2% alcohol and weighing in at a mere 18 International Bitterness Units (it doesn’t really matter what an IBU is, all you need to know that 18 isn’t a lot of them) this is smooth, creamy and slips down a treat.

 Budvar Dark          £2.80

A blast from the past by legendary Czech Brewery Budweiser Budvar.  The Dark was 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.  Dark gets its roasted flavours from being brewed with three types of malt; Munich, caramel and roasted.

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