Brussels Beer Project and the Good Beer Feast

On the first anniversary of Brussels Beer Project's inaugural brew and the launch of their first Barrel Aged release, we stepped inside what appeared to be an unassuming shop front, to find a highly polished ultra modern brew kit hidden behind a small, modern bar. The first thing to hit us was the enticing smell of pumpkin and mashing malt. Today's brew, a beer to be released for Halloween, comes in as the 29th different beer recipe since the brewery found its home in Dansaert 188, Brussels. 

We arrived pre 11am and quickly found a beer to sip on appropriately named Morning Sunshine (a raspberry and multicereal beer, with a delicious bitter-sweet balance at 5.7%). In the open plan area beside the brew kit, we caught our first glimpse of the beer of the moment, Maoris Tears, a rose wine barrel aged Wakatu hopped saison. With only 800 bottles available, plus a couple of kegs for the bar, we snapped some up to bring home and of course had to try one there and then. The beer prickled with a resinous oak and freshness of limes, dry crispness from the yeast with light phenols joining later on, before being taken over with a robust rose wine character at the end. Unusual, inventive and downright delicious - words which we came to find defined not just this beer, but the whole ethos of the brewery itself. 

Antoine, one of the brewers at BBP, started our brief tour at the goods entrance and malt store, past the mill and a few stacks of wine barrels imbuing their flavour to beer, onto the brew kit and small bottling line. It's clear that being the newest brewery to open in Brussels centre came with considerable space limitations, although these appeared to have quite adequately been overcome - for example, the roof height is low, so fermenters are specially designed to be short and stock of bottles and kegs is all kept off site. The brew kit itself is high-tech with a semi-automated mashing process and a super shiny whirlpool. The brewers are quick to point out that the use of technology, for them, does not detract from their influence on the beer production itself - their focus is on careful recipe development, experimentation and expression of personality. Finally, we moved into the bar, where you sit on repurposed malt sacks next to another, larger, stack of oak barrels behind a glass shutter door. There is something of a cyclical feeling about sitting on the bag that contained the raw ingredients for the drink in front of you, as well the ageing beer to your side. Past Beer, Present Beer, Future Beer.

BBP was brought to life utilising a crowd funding model, allowing locals amongst others to support a modern Belgian brewery wading against the traditional Trappist tide. When the brewery first began, initially as a cuckoo brewery, the first core beer was voted on by those supporting the project. A series of experimental beers were produced and put to the public test - Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta (a coriander and range pale, a paradise seed and juniper saison, cardamom and candy sugar pale and a Belgian IPA respectively) until a victor was left standing. And the Delta IPA, as it is called now, was one of our favourite beers during our trip - a fruity, fragrant IPA with a decent bitterness that cuts through a residual sweetness from malt sugars left behind by the yeast, hopped with Citra and German aroma hop Smaragd (also known as Emerald) - the combination gives the final beer a modern flavour profile that until recently was practically unheard of in Belgian beer. 

At the time of our visit, BBP were also hosting Good Beer Feast, their first beer festival, featuring some great international breweries including UK natives Weird Beard and Anspach & Hobday, as well as Cerveses La Pirata (Barcelona), Kyoto Brewing, Austmann Bryggeri (Norway) and more, plus 'T Verzet, Nanobrasserie de L'Ermitage and Hof Ten Dormaal, fellow Belgian breweries carving a name for themselves under the more progressive banner. The festival used the slogan of "Small Breweries, Big Beer" which comfortably described all those in attendance except perhaps for Stone... 

We had a superb afternoon supping in the sunshine - highlights being Hof Ten Dormaal's Sloe Sour which was amazingly refreshing and aromatic, putting a modern twist on the lambic style, and La Pirata's Black Block imperial stout - just an absolutely sumptuous treat. Overall, it was clear that this one day festival held at the same time as the huge Belgian Beer Weekend was a real statement of intent to provide an alternative to the traditional. And looking round the sea of sunblushed faces of the brewers and drinkers (often one and the same) is hope for the city and country as a whole that the beer scene can continue to expand and develop alongside countries such as America and the UK, as well as retain the long-established and much cherished customs that Belgian beer is so renowned for.

Santé!

Jim & Laura

BBQ and Brewers Night

North Union showcase at the BBQ Collective

Beer and food pairing events are more often than not top of our must-do list, and the BBQ Collective are definitely hosting some of the best in Sheffield. Each month, a different local brewery joins up with BBQ Collective head honchos Jeff and Mat to carefully and collaboratively consider and create a mouthwatering feast where the beer and food work perfectly together. Last month was the turn of one of the newest additions to Sheffield’s beer scene, North Union, based in a railway arch close to the Wicker in the city centre. Head brewer Iain Kenny presided over the proceedings with panache!

We kicked off the evening with a starter of rare beef tenderloin on homemade black pepper crispbread, with burrata and smoked tomato relish. The drink to accompany was a wonderful Oatmeal Stout at 4.8%, with a twist of being nitrogenated rather than being fused with Co2. The smaller NO2 bubbles meant the drink was smoother and creamier and slipped down an absolute treat. A very good example of the style.

The second course was a green chilli, smoked chicken and sweetcorn chowder served with a chicken skin cracker (we could have eaten a dish of these alone!). Alongside we were given a glass of North Union's core release, the Pale Ale, at 5.5% ABV. The crisp freshness of the beer paired really well and cut through the creamy chowder. Little hot link meatballs were a spicy, tasty treat in this one too!

A little surprise for the third course, as we were all ushered outside with a red cup each, into the sunshine where Iain was waiting with a party keg of his 7% imperial lager, “Shy Bairns Get Nowt”.  To go with the American house party feel, the food pairing was a corn dog, served with a dollop of homemade smoked ketchup and Alabama mustard sauce. Our first ever corn dogs and they were a veritable revelation. Crispy outer, doughy and indulgent corn bread inside, all wrapping up the BBQ Collective's signature spicy Texas hot link sausage. The beer was a little sweet for the tastes of some of the group, but we both loved it and we reckon it's damn near impossible to find any other beer with a more "Sheffield" name!

Smoked pork ribs with a tender delicious pull from the bone were up next, accompanied with Indonesian spices and noodles. While this combination might not be initially the most obvious, the outcome was incredible, and the fresh chilli heat from the noodles seemed to bring more flavour out in the sweet wood smoked meat. To pair, Craft Amber - a refreshing lager at 4.6% with a clean balanced palate and a light floral nose, which worked well to cleanse the palate in between bites and ensured that even though we were four courses in none of the flavours became too heavy.

The final course was shots! Dark chocolate and chilli ice cream with cherries, dark Guatemalan rum and the final beer of Dubbel at 6.5%. All rich and bold, the flavours of the three glasses complemented each other well, with rich malted roastiness from the beer echoing the chocolate notes in the ice cream, with a great boozy hit from the glass of rum. We'd have liked the ice cream to have been a little firmer (it was served almost as a milkshake) but this is a very minor criticism in what was frankly an ace meal all round.

There was one final surprise to come. Beer pong! Laura proved the victor and came home with a case of North Union Pale Ale and a red cup (of course) full of Jeff’s smoked tomatoes, which we had tons of fun experimenting with! We used them in a Korean influenced BBQ sauce, a slow cooked ox ragu, and a triple tomato bruschetta topping.

This was the third BBQ and Brewers Night we’ve attended, and it’s great to see that what could have potentially turned into a restrictive theme has just continued to grow, expand, and push the boundaries. Here’s to many more!

Cheers,

Jim & Laura

Whisky Review: Aberlour 16

We were first introduced to Speyside distillery Aberlour through a Waitrose offer a few years ago, with their no-age statement A'Bunadh being one of the first single malts we invested in. Since then it's always been one of our top "go-to" distilleries, with the 10-year being a regular feature on our whisky shelf, so when we spied it's older sister at Bakewell's excellent whisky shop The Wee Dram we couldn't resist. The 16-year is double cask matured in traditional oak and sherry, and is bottled at 40% ABV.

Colour: Rich copper.

Nose: Creamy, with hints of raisin from the sherry cask balanced by a fresh woody characteristic from the oak. The aroma deepens as the dram opens up, giving off an inviting edge of sugary sweet mocha. Given the ABV, we chose not to add water.

Palate: Very well balanced, with the two woods complementing each other and providing delicate harmony in the dram. Nutty, with flavours of almond imparting a marzipan character but without overwhelming sweetness. A honeyed smoothness envelops the tongue as you drink.

Finish: Sweet maltiness and oodles more honey linger on.

Slainte,

J&L

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

Longflint Craft Cocktails

Longflint are a brand new business venture based in London, slotting neatly into the "craft beverage" arena with a range of pre-mixed cocktails made from 100% natural ingredients. Here are my thoughts on their first three products.

 

Rose hip & gin fizz

Made using "premium dry gin" from an unnamed brand and rose hip simple sugar syrup, this had a delicately floral aroma, light carbonation, and a big hit of herbaceous gin bitterness. Dry and quite savoury in nature - definitely a grown up cocktail. The recommended addition of a slice of cucumber really brought out the grassy elements of the drink and gave it quite an autumnal sort of flavour. Very well balanced, and it was so refreshing (in both senses of the word) to have a pre-mixed cocktail that didn't taste fake and full of sugar. This would work wonderfully served alongside tapas - I nibbled on some olives as I was drinking and the combination was delicious!

Rhubarb and vodka seltzer

Very pretty pink colour. Perfect level of rhubarbiness (definitely a word) - tart and fresh with a hint of creaminess but without being cloying or overpowering. Just a little hint of those rhubarb and custard sweets! Longflint pride themselves on using only natural ingredients and it certainly shows here. This was less boozy than the others, although the vodka did help to provide a lovely lingering finish. This worked really well just as it is, no accompaniment required!

Ginger and Rum Fuego

The first thing I noticed with this one was that it needed a good shake before serving, due to a layer of fresh ginger having accumulated at the bottom of the bottle. This is by no means a negative - the ginger gave a huge hit of spicy, zingy warmth which was really delicious and complemented the booziness of the rum perfectly. A slice of lime was added as recommended which provided another layer of freshness, making this the perfect drink to sip in the summer sun. I also popped in a couple of ice cubes containing mint leaves from our garden.

Overall, I felt that all three of the Longflint cocktails were sophisticated, well thought through, and tasted like the sort of drinks I like to make myself at home. They'd look perfectly at home on the shelves of any specialist drinks shop (or craft beer shop/bar as an interesting alternative) and I reckon the contents certainly live up to the beautiful packaging. I'd be interested to know which spirits are used, and a more comprehensive ingredients list generally would be useful, however I've been truly impressed by the products and look forward to seeing what other creations may be released in future.

Cheers,

Laura

Disclaimer: these cocktails were kindly sent to me by Longflint free of charge to sample. This has not influenced my opinions, all of which are my own.

New Belgium Brewery

Neither of us have ever been keen cyclists, but after two trips to New Belgium during our time in Fort Collins we might just be tempted to dust off and re-oil our bikes (currently decaying in the cellar).

On our first trip to the brewery we met with Spokes Model and long serving employee Bryan Simpson in the tap room over a generous pour of their flagship amber ale Fat Tire (5.2%) and he ran us through some of the history of Fort Collins' biggest craft brewery. Established in 1991 after a cycling trip to (Old) Belgium frequenting many of the beer bars and Brasseries the country has to offer, husband and wife team Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan aimed to emulate some the beers on their garage brew kit. And so New Belgium was born.

The original brew kit

As we travelled through the state of the art facility, one of the largest craft breweries in America, we were struck by the sensitivity for tradition in the brewery as well as the want to push forward and produce modern American beer, all against an ideology of environmental care and sustainability. From the original brew kit from humble home brew origins, to the highly polished stainless steel four vessel brew system with steam recollection, to the traditional oak vats used to produce their sour beer next door, to the ultra-modern lab with stir-plates and Erlenmeyer flasks of beer samples. This approach of modern brewing technology coupled with traditional European techniques allows New Belgium to produce one of the biggest ranges of quality beers of any brewery we've been to.

As the tour continued we headed into the foudre forest, an absolutely beautiful room with more than 64 10,000l repurposed wine vats used in the making of slow sour beer, intermingled with a selection of whisky casks from Denver distillery Leopold Brothers, and a climbing wall. All the foudres are filled with one of two different base beers lovingly named Oscar and Felix, the first a black lager and the other being a golden ale. As we stood chatting surrounded by wood we were offered a glass of La Folie (GABF 2001 Gold Medal), an utterly delectable Flanders Red style sour beer with a blend that has been acidifying for anywhere between one year to as much as three. The tartness is reminiscent of apples and peaches, with a light yet lingering oaken texture toward the end. One of the best beers we've ever drunk, and in the most perfect of settings to try it... the heady aroma of the room is the sort you can conjure up just from thinking about it.

The final section of our tour through what is affectionately referred to as the Thunderdome - a frankly enormous bottling line and relatively smaller canning line which took in all around 4 minutes to stroll across. The continuous rattling of glass and clunk of machines highlights the scale of New Belgium's output (as if 64 oak vats of beer weren't enough to do that), capable of 700 bottles a minute with only a hand-full of people operating it. Slick.

We finished up in back in the tap room with a glass of La Terroir, created with the aforementioned Felix as the base then dry hopped to add a layer of complexity, that buoys all the other layers of sour freshness. Another contender for lifetime favourite beer for us both, and impossible to pick which we loved more between La Terroir and La Folie. We brought a bottle of each home just to re-test this theory but still just concluded that both were astounding.

Us with Bryan and Chris from the New Belgium team!

We spent a good couple more hours in the taproom, working our way through the New Belgium core range along with specials including their collaboration with Ben & Jerry's - a 6.3% salted caramel brownie brown ale which was SO up Laura's street (and she got to to try the ice cream the following day too). We massively enjoyed chatting to all of the staff we met, every single one of whom was bursting with enthusiasm for the company they all feel truly a part of (which indeed they are, the company being 100% employee owned). Bryan also told us a story of how Neil Fallon from one of our favourite bands, Clutch, had a go on Bryan's guitar while the band were involved in creating a collaboration beer. Bryan might just be the coolest man we've ever met.

We had such a brilliant day that for Laura's birthday we decided to return, where we joined on the general tour. This followed the same format as the first but was slightly less in-depth but still relaxed and informative. This one included a go on the brewery's helter skelter!

There have recently been a number of rumours regarding the future of New Belgium and the likelihood of it being bought out. We asked Bryan on our first trip who vehemently denied that this was a possibility. Our tour guide on the second visit was a little more vague, which could suggest that it has been mentioned throughout the company but is still by no means a certain. But as the brewery is an employee owned company, it would be hoped that their votes and opinions would be taken into consideration before making a decision with potentially a huge impact on their future.

With a second site in Asheville, North Carolina, having opened earlier this month, it will surely be the case that New Belgium's reputation as a progressive and far-reaching brewery can only increase. Although the brewery prioritises the American market and hopes to sell in every state as a priority over growing export, we are hopeful that before too long we will start to see their beer on our shores!

Cheers,

J&L

DIPA Day

Double, or Imperial, IPAs are all the rage at the moment, with an array of big-hitting breweries all coming out with new releases recently. We had a few of the most highly regarded and eagerly anticipated brews lurking in the fridge, so decided to do a bit of a taste test. Here are our thoughts...

New Belgium - Rampant, 8.5%

Brought back direct from the brewery itself from our trip to the states,  Rampant roars with a chewy, resinous nature but hides its ABV well (probably a good thing as it's the lowest of our selection today...) - surprisingly easy to drink with a delicate floral blossom characteristic. The combination of Mosaic, Calypso, and Centennial hops provide masses of fruit and the malt backbone gives a sweetness which keeps the hop bitterness in check. A lasting bitter, piney finish rounds off what is a very well-balanced beer indeed.

Cloudwater - DIPA v3, 9%

We had this on keg on release day at the wonderful Small Bar in Bristol, where the main delicious concern was whether some wily devil had switched our beer for peach juice. In bottle, pleasingly, much the same is true... Fresh and oh so fruity, with a bite of bitterness that doesn't overpower the sheer peachiness of the brew. For this reason it's not in our opinion a massively true to style IPA (this isn't a criticism). The hops (Mosaic, Comet, Citra and Chinook) come together in such harmony that the effect isn't really a "hoppy" flavour, it's just JUICE, and like the Rampant before it the booziness is hidden by waves of flavour. By contrast the finish is a massive thwack of bitterness that keeps the tongue a-tingling for AN AGE. One of the most-hyped beers of the year so far and we reckon deservedly so. It's delicious.

Tempest - Longer White Cloud, 10.2%

Deliciously boozy and absolutely oozing with a rich toffee penny character. Alongside this are notes of apricot softness and something akin to honeydew melon. This was the only beer we've had in our possession for longer than a few weeks (having bought it just after Christmas) so it's worth considering that some of the freshness experienced in the rest of our selection may well have once been present here too... but we have to say, it's aged incredibly well over the past few months and become almost barley wine-ish in character.

Buxton - King Maker, 10.5%

Obviously, we chose to drink this whilst watching Game of Thrones, it felt only right! Surprisingly creamy in aroma with floral notes and a hint of pine. On the palate, a chewy, tacky sweetness is followed by an intense bitterness and a wonderfully robust mouthfeel. Ever present is a big hit of Sorachi Ace hops which, though delicious, don't really seem to meld particularly well with the rest of the beer but provide an interesting overarching character which reminded Laura a little of those fruity coconut mushroom-shaped sweets! An intriguing brew.

Human Cannonball, not pictured, is lurking in the wings for a Cannonball x3 tasting!

Cheers,

L&J