A Beery Advent - Part 4

So the big day is almost upon us and we're definitely raising the festive stakes with this one...

16. Mikkeller - Beer Geek Big Blend, 8.0%
A coffee oatmeal stout with a barrel aged twist... in fact more of a rollercoaster, with bourbon, brandy, cherry wine, cognac, tequila and whisky aged beer all blended together. The result is c
omplex and ornate, much like an "Edwardian armoire" (said Jim, unusually verbose for midday). A beer in harmony - not one of the barrels takes precedence over the others, but each adds another layer of depth and texture. The body of the original beer is still apparent, and is absolutely lovely, but undeniably bolstered by the oaky character of the wood and most of all the time spent in there. One to sip on and savour.

17. Weird Beard - Black Christmas, 4.5%
We've spoken before about our love for Sorachi Ace - an adoration we share, it seems, with the guys at Weird Beard. This festive stout is full of this intriguing hop, which in this context provides an utterly divine coconut rounded nature - we imagine this is what a fruity Bounty bar would taste like. It's a little more difficult to pick out any specific cranberry tartness, but the fruit juice added to this brew provides a welcome lightness and delicate balance. And it's sessionable! Could quite easily polish off a good few bottles of this. Laura's highlight of Beer Advent so far, hands down.

Tosin thought some Beercat modelling was required for this one

18. Red Willow - Baubleless, 6.0%
A trip to Macclesfield earlier this year was predominantly comprised of drinking beer and gin in Red Willow's brewery tap... a great way to spend a day, I'm sure you will agree. This beer is one we've had in since last Christmas, and having enjoyed a couple of bottles a year ago decided to cellar one to see how it would age. Our experiment went pretty well - sweet maltiness provides a lovely boozy backbone to this barrel aged stout, with the tannins from the oak providing a richness which is almost oily in nature. Thick and tasty - a good one to sip on with the fire roaring away.

19. Great Heck - Black Santa, 5.4%
We've been consistently impressed by Great Heck's output over the past couple of years. This brew holds roasted flavours and oaty richness coupled with a vanilla sweetness, lifted by delicate but unmistakably Belgian yeastiness. This is deep yet light somehow both at once. There's something a little bit synthetic tasting in there though that's not unpleasant but just a bit puzzling, given that the brew reports to have used proper Madagascan vanilla pods. An enigma of a beer.

20. Brass Castle - Christmas Kitty, 5.5%.
It's been quite a week for dark beer chez Mashtun as we build up to our festive finale! Bad Kitty is one of our ultimate go-to beers (the cat approves of it too) so the Christmas edition was a must-try for our household. And very merry it it indeed - rich, heady, cinnamon-y aroma that's just like Christmas pudding, and a dark fruit palate with creamy hints of vanilla and festive spices. Bold without being cloying, this is a deliciously well-crafted beer.

Cheers,

J&L

Sheffield Beer Week

Regular readers may have noticed that pretty much every week is beer week chez Mashtun. However, a new initiative has popped up this year to get the whole city (plus beer tourists) involved in celebrating this wonderful nectar. Between the 16th and the 22nd of March, every day will see a whole host of ale-ridden events taking place across Sheffield, from Meet the Brewer evenings to tasting competitions.

We're particularly excited to get to the Rutland Arms on Wednesday for the Siren Craft Brew MTB event, having been fans of the unique, adventurous beers created by Siren for quite some time. We're also hoping to get some scran while we're there, as chef Rico is putting together a special dish involving beer every day during Sheffield Beer Week. Having sampled their Siren Caribbean Chocolate Cake ice cream, there's no doubt that the menu will be epic. There's another Siren event held at Shakespeare's (who are hosting something every day!) on Tuesday 17th, with a showcase of their barrel aged beers... Experimental, ingenuitive and downright delicious.

We're also hoping to head to our top new pub of last year, the Tap and Tankard, who are hosting a Great Heck Meet the Brewer on Thursday 18th - another brewery producing consistently excellent products both on cask and in bottle.

The weekend brings SIBA's BeerX festival (preceded by a pub crawl round town, organised by Hop Hideout and CAMRGB - a prime opportunity for us to meet some new beery pals) and a closing party held by Stancill Brewery.

For more information and to see what else is going on, check out the Sheffield Beer Week website or join in the beer chat with co-ordinators Jules Gray and Clare Tollick on Twitter @Sheffbeerweek. We are so lucky to live in a city with such a vibrant, exciting scene for beer drinkers, and this is the perfect way to show it off.

See you at the bar!

L&J

The Obligatory Drinks Roundup Post of 2014

Somewhat belatedly, we thought we'd do a quick review of our favourite tipples of last year, as we aim this month to sample new things through #tryanuary.

Whisky:

Dram
Jim - Bruichladdich Octomore 0.5 - an early test of the 'most peated whisky ever made' in a beautiful Chateau D'Yquem cask, this was drunk in warehouse one of the distillery, making this the most memorable whisky I've ever drunk (more about it can be found here).

Laura - Bruichladdich Duplex - sampled at the Broadfield's "Old and Rare" whisky tasting this was a private bottling of incredible interest. This Petrus cask aged dram encompassed flavours I've never experienced before or since in a whisky. 

Bottle
J - Bruichladdich Cuvée 407 - a rich, chewy, intense whisky, aged for 21 years in Bourbon before being finished in Jerez Pedro Ximinez casks, it is a wonderful full mouthed dram, pleasingly sweet and spicy.

L - Aberlour 16 - put simply, this is just my kind of whisky, enjoyed again and again and never disappoints. Another sherry casked beauty which has a gorgeous Christmas-cakey stickiness to it.

You will see that these whiskies are predominantly from Bruichladdich, with wine and sherry casks featuring heavily - 2014 seems to have been the year that we have discovered our "type" when it comes to whisky! Which is not to say that variety has gone unappreciated - we've been lucky enough to sample a huge range of drams across the year. Honourable mentions to Yamazaki 18, Ardmore Traditional Cask and Sullivan's Cove French Oak.

Beer:

Bottle
J - Great Heck Yakima IPA - this is the only beer that I have bought more than two bottles of to drink this year, and is a wonderful example of how a heavily hopped beer can still have a bold malty mou feel, without the main flavour being just hops.

L - Siren Odyssey 001- another wine cask aged beverage for me! This was enjoyed at the Beer Central bottle share at the Bath Hotel. This was just a fantastic night all round and this luscious 12.4% imperial stout really topped it off. The wonderful Sean from Beer Central has written more about the night here - any Sheffield based readers would do well to keep their eyes peeled for the next one!

Cask
J - Blue Bee are easily one of the most improved breweries this year, with new owners and head brewer who have transformed them from producing middle of the road 'traditional' beers to a more robust lineup of excellent regular cask beers. Into The Abyss is the best of the bunch for me - a Black IPA, that retains the great malty features of a dark beer coupled with a light hoppy freshness. (Drank at The 3 Tuns)

L - Waen Brewery's Snowball is my most memorable beer of the year - a 7% chocolate and coconut stout with a smooth vanilla hit. All three flavours come through powerfully yet maintain tasty, tasty harmony. The highlight of Sheffield's CAMRA beer festival for me.

Keg
J - Mikkeller Black is one of the most interesting keg beers I have drunk this year. When it was released, the 17.5% beer was the 'strongest beer in Scandinavia' and unlike other brews of a similar strength, the high ABV wasn't achieved through freeze distillation but through brewing acumen. (Drank at Brewdog Sheffield)

L - Hitachino Nest White Ale - another drink enjoyed at Brewdog Sheffield (where we've spent many a happy afternoon over the course of the year) this was also one of my favourite bottles of the year, with orangey flavour and a pleasing spiciness. As well as this, the bottle has a very cute owl on it - what's not to like?!

Pub

J - The Sheaf View - Consistently excellent and ever changing bar, with a great selection of not just ales but whiskies and other spirits too. This is my weekend haunt - as a friday evening drink the atmosphere is lively and friendly, and for a Saturday afternoon sandwich the pub is quiet and relaxed and often a completely different selection of beer can be found on the bar.

L - The Bath Hotel (see also our write-up here) - we've made many happy memories there over 2014, including nights with good friends winning the quiz and drinking too much Thornbridge Charlie Brown's peanut butter beer, and of course Sheff Brew Fest, one of our highlights of the year.

With multiple beer festivals (we NEED to go to IndyMan this year...), a gin distillery trip, a holiday to Arran and much more adventuring round Sheffield and beyond to do, 2015 is already gearing up to a be a good 'un.

Let us know your "golden beverages" of the year!

Cheers,

J&L