Bad Seed Brewery... in CANS!

Now we've made no secret of the fact we LOVE Bad Seed, so much so we even made a beer with them last year! They were also a key player in our favourite beer festival of this year, Beertown Malton. We'd noticed a distinct lack of their bottles on the shelves of our local bottle shops over the past few months, and now we see why this might have been as they have relaunched their beers in cans! Here's what we made of the first two canned releases...

Seismic - Session IPA, 4.0%

Classically Bad Seed! Sweet grapefruit on the nose is coupled with a slightly piney hop aroma, with Mosaic coming to the fore. Crisp and clean with a delicate spicy note on the palate from the American hops (this brew also contains Simcoe, Comet and Cascade), with a decent malt backbone and a refreshing, bitter bite on the finish. Ridiculously quaffable. We reckon this is a great one for Bad Seed to get into can first, showcasing exactly the kind of brew these guys are so well known for. We'd definitely recommend this one for anyone looking for an introduction to this brewery.

Crush - New England Hopfenweisse, 4.6%

Before pouring, we got a massive hop aroma straight from the can. But once in the glass, this slowly rounds off and gives way to that familiar bubblegummy aroma with hints of pepper so synonymous with a wheat beer. Incredibly soft on the palate, with the yeast character that's left behind being well balanced with a juicy burst of hops. It's got that New England fresh hop character which we have found quite challenging in the past, but combining this with a wheat beer has led to a really interesting interpretation of the style and it's great to see something a little different being created.

A big thank you to the Bad Seed chaps for welcoming us back into the world of booze after a month off with these tasty little pods of joy!

Cheers,

Jim and Laura

Mojito: Lime Gose - A Collaboration Brew

It all started last Halloween (ooo spooky) at the most recent Brewdog Collab Fest. Our local bar, Sheffield, had teamed up with Bad Seed Brewery to create a white IPA with Sorachi and Equinox hops, cunningly named "I am the one who Equinox". We headed down to Brewdog to sample this along with the rest of the Collab Fest brews, and were quickly introduced to team Bad Seed - James and Chris - who'd popped along to check how their beer was going down (very well indeed, I seem to remember!). Surrounded by so many collaborations, ranging from the rather interesting (such as Bristol and Moor's Rye IPA) to the frankly ridiculous (Glasgow and Fallen Brewery's Big Raspberry Dog Chew, a 10% raspberry and salted caramel imperial milk stout, springs to mind, and delicious it was too), conversation inevitably turned to the ideas we've had for collaboration brews. A passion of ours (particularly Laura's) along with beer is cocktails, and the way in which individual flavour components can be added together to produce something altogether spectacular to bring out different elements of the sum of its parts. Couple this with Bad Seed's prowess in the sour beer arena, and Mojito: Lime Gose was born.

Yep it's a kettle!

And so, to a snowy(?!) day in late April and an early drive up to Bad Seed HQ just outside Malton. The brew day itself wasn't the most eventful, as with a beer that is to be soured most of the work is needed during fermentation and conditioning, but we got stuck in where we could. Firstly we mashed in, with a grist of pale malt and a decent portion of wheat (around 35%, if I recall correctly). Next we mashed in for a second time - a pot of coffee on this occasion - and helped to unload the van from Beertown Malton, the local beer festival which had taken place the previous weekend, which we definitely want to try to get to next year. And it was at this point we realised an ulterior motive to the collab: extra bodies! (Although Laura was pretty useless it has to be said...)

During the spare and transfer into the kettle, we headed out for a quick bite to eat... honourable mention at this point to Malton Relish for an excellent lunch, including literally the best brownie ever...

Now nicely energised, whilst the wort boiled away it was time to dig out the mashtun!

Once the boil was complete, to our wort base was added literally all the mint in Malton, to be followed a few days later with tubs and tubs of salted limes.

Whilst we waited for the heat exchanger to do it's thang and cool down the boiled wort to 44 degrees, we had a little sample of some of Bad Seed's excellent beers, both very much enjoying the Vic Secret Sour and Bretted Saison.

Lastly, before heading home it was time to add the magic... pitching the lactobacillus yoghurt culture.

It felt like a long wait until the beer was ready without being able to sample it! The first bar we were aware it had made its way on to was the Rook and Gaskill, just outside the city walls of York, one of our favourite day trip destinations, so we wasted no time in hopping on a train and going for a taste. And we were blown away by how well it has worked! Against a delicately salty gose background, the mint and lime work in perfect harmony with the style to produce a beer which is tart, refreshing, and lip smackingly delicious without overwhelming the taste buds.

Thank you so much to James and Chris for hosting us at your brewery, and for nurturing the beer so well!

Cheers,

Jim & Laura

A Firkin Beer Festival at Picture House Social

Since the bar under the old Abbeydale Cinema, right in the heart of our local stomping ground on Abbeydale Road, was re-opened last year as Picture House Social, it's quickly become one of our go-to places for a relaxed meal and a good drink. So when we heard there was a beer festival curated by the excellent bottle shop Hop Hideout (conveniently located just across the road from the Picture House) we had to pop in for a few.

With 18 beers on the festival bar and another 3 on keg, the range of beers was excellent for such a fledgling festival. Tons of variety and oodles of quality were on offer, with intriguing beers and exciting collaborations aplenty.

First up was a collaboration brew from Fyne Ales and Siren, Wee Milky Way - a 3.1% Black IPA brewed with lactose. Creamy, rich and smooth with a powerful hoppy aroma. A great example of how a lower ABV doesn't mean the taste has to be comprised.

Bad Seed and Northern Alchemy have teamed up to create a Belgian Rose ale (4%), with rose petals added in to the fermenter. Rose tends to be one of those flavours that divides people, but we really enjoyed it - delicately balanced, with just the right amount of floral headiness. Lovely.

With Dinner for Two and Dinner for Three, Vienna pale ales from Siren and Elusive Brewery, both available,  a little taste comparison seemed a good idea. Sampling the releases side by side, the high vienna malt bill gave a biscuity quality to both. Dinner for Two had a tad more bitterness, with Dinner for Three being slightly more floral. While both of these beers are made using similar recipes we each had a different favourite of the two.

We ended the evening on a Cromarty Anniversary III Belgian Quad at the lofty strength of 11%, and crikey was it good. Big fruity flavours, figs and caramels combined with the characteristic belgian floral yeastiness that comes with a quadruple stout overwhelmed the palate deliciously, and frankly despite the high strength it was altogether too easy to drink. We had another.

Alongside all this festival fun, it has to be said that Picture House Social has quickly made a reputation for itself as a purveyor of excellent pizza and snacks. Our favourites are the anchovy and salsa verde pizza, the anchovies giving a real salty hit, with the fresh herby nature of the salsa providing a good level of balance, and the meatball piadina - a cross between a pizza and a sandwich, stuffed full of tasty meatballs, spicy tomato sauce and some leafy greens.

The arancini, served with salsa verde, are the perfect little snack - a crisp outer shell with the perfect amount of melted cheese in the middle. They're just about bitesized, but don't be fooled to gobble a whole one as the centre remains at a molten temperature for an AGE. These went brilliantly with Buxton Brewery's Ace Edge - a Sorachi Ace hopped variation on their Axe Edge IPA.

The regular drinks menu is extensive and interesting, with unusual draught beer, a great bottle menu from Hop Hideout, and a cocktail menu which changes monthly. An eclectic mix of 60s tunes, psychedelia and indie vibes, played at a volume that doesn't instantly put a stop to all conversation, provide a laid back atmosphere.

The whole complex is ever-improving, with one room being brought back to life at a time. Alongside the broodingly elegant main bar, and the diner-style eating area, the festival area is usually a games room complete with table tennis tables. Most recently, there's even a mini-cinema, a brilliant nod to this building's former purpose.

The festival is running throughout the Easter bank holiday weekend, so still plenty of time to try some of these brilliant beers for yourselves!

Cheers,

L&J