Dark Star Espresso Beer

Dark Star Brewery Espresso Beer

Style: Stout

Alcohol Content: 4.2%

From: Ansty, West Sussex, England, UK

Purchased From: Waitrose
http://darkstarbrewing.co.uk/

The Dark Star Brewery Company started, in 1994, as a small plant squeezed into a corner of the cellar of The Evening Star Pub, in Brighton. The company was founded by entrepreneur Peter Halliday, publican Peter Skinner, and brewer Rob Jones. At that time it was known as Skinner's brewery, but there was another Skinner's brewery in Cornwall, so the name was changed to Dark Star, after Jones's successful recipe for porter.(The resemblance between the names "Dark Star" and "Evening Star" is coincidental). It soon became apparent before long that the brewery could not keep up with the growing demand from the Evening Star’s drinkers, let alone the demand for its beers from other pubs.

In 2001 the brewery relocated to a new purpose-built brewery in Ansty, near Haywards Heath, from where it supplied the Evening Star with a selection of its beers, along with its sister pubs: The Stand Up Inn, Lindfield and The Duke of Wellington, Shoreham-by-Sea. A free trade to other pubs in Sussex and the rest of the UK developed at this time. Upon moving to Ansty, Mark Tranter became Head Brewer before leaving the business in March 2013.

A new 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) site in Partridge Green was opened by Roger Protz in early 2010. This led to a fourfold increase in production, and Dark Star becoming the second largest brewery in Sussex. In 2011 the brewery acquired the The Partridge public house in Partridge Green as a brewery tap.

You wanna get a cuppa coffee?

Colour: A very dark brown or an almost black beer. On the pour you will be rewarded with a luscious white head that is almost as thick and creamy as what you can find on a Guinness. Unfortunately this does not last and the head dissipates down to a light brown foam after five minutes.

Aroma: Well the clue is in the name of this beer. Strong coffee and vanilla notes will fill your nostrils with every sip that you take. The coffee is so potent that it is extremely hard to pick out any other aromas from this beer.

Body: This beer is very sticky on both the lips and in the mouth. The coffee beans make this quite heavy to drink. Have you ever had a large black coffee from Starbucks and found it difficult to finish it all? If so, you may also find this with this beer. In fact this beer took me over an hour to finish.

Taste: When I first tasted this beer, it reminded me of the first time that I tried coffee in the USA. My face grimmest as I was totally not expecting this beer to taste so much like a cup of coffee. Since I started writing about craft beer, I have often been let down by beers that claim to be enriched with coffee beans, so I was pleasantly surprised by this brew. It's fairly bitter and it really tastes like an espresso. This is due to the freshly ground Arabica beans that are added during the fermentation process. What is most interesting about this beer is that the flavour mellows over time.

Something Similar: http://beefsbrewery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/glastonbury-ales-thriller-rare.html
Something Different: http://beefsbrewery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/thornbridge-wild-swan.html

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Thornbridge Wild Swan

Thornbridge Wild Swan

Style: White Gold Pale Ale

Alcohol Content: 3.5%

From: Bakewell, Derbyshire, England, UK

Purchased from: Waitrose

The Thornbridge Brewery is an independent brewery formerly situated in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall near Bakewell, Derbyshire, England. Its first beers went on sale in February 2005. Thornbridge's beers were originally brewed by Martin Dickie, a graduate of the International Center for Distilling and Brewing at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and Stefano Cossi, a graduate in Food Science and Technology at Udine University, Italy. In 2007, Dickie left to start Brew Dog however the brewery has not suffered from this loss.

More than 130 awards have been won by Thornbridge's brews since its opening, including the Silver Medal (Strong Ales) at the Great British Beer Festival (August 2006) for Jaipur IPA (and for Kipling in August 2009), the Gold Medal in August 2008 in the same category, and a Bronze Medal in the Bitters category in August 2009 also. As of July 2010, Jaipur held 70 industry awards after only 5 years of production. 2010 also saw a prestigious World Beer Cup medal added to the cabinet for the limited release Chestnut Honey ale, Bracia. High praise indeed. For this review i will be looking at their White Gold Pale Ale called Wild Swan.

Colour: Very pale in colour so much so It's almost transparent. Like the name of this beer, the colour is almost like gold. As the drink warms, the colour will darken slightly adding a slight brown hue to the beer. On the pour you get a lovely thick white head and you will also notice that this beer is very heavily carbonated. After a minute or two in the glass this will die down and the brew becomes almost flat.

Aroma: On the nose, you will be bombarded with beautifully ripe citrus notes. It's almost like a glass of cloudy lemonade with hints of freshly cut grass. If you get close enough you can also pick out hints of grapefruit. Like all beers of high quality, the smell will stay with you though out the pint.

Body: This beer is extremely light and refreshing. Like the smell, the body is like a glass of cloudy lemonade. Once the carbonation dies down, the flat beer really hits the spot. Its a lovely easy drinking beer that can be enjoyed in a beer garden. I can just imagine myself enjoying this beer with my friends in Kingston upon Thames on a long hot summers day. Ah bliss! Now this next statement may be a bit controversial but I really believe that this beer as the potential to covert those pesky flavored cider drinkers over to the craft revolution.

Taste: On my first sip, this beer reminds me of a gin and tonic. You get heavy notes of Juniper berries and bitter lemon. It is almost like a adult lemonade with a hint of bitterness. Think hooch with a twist. As the beer warms, the flavors dull slightly. Now I'm not sure if this is because I was getting use to the beer or that the flavors where not to intense, but either way the flavors were not smacking me in the chops like before. It's a shame really as its the only negative part of this beer.

I Heard you where a Wild One!

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Tripel Karmeliet

Tripel Karmeliet

Style: Tripel

Alcohol Content: 8.4%

From: East Flanders, Buggenhout, Belguim

Purchased from: Waitrose

Bosteels Brewery is a Belgian brewery in the East Flanders Buggenhout. Bosteels Brewery was founded in 1791 by Everarist Bosteels and has to date been 7 generations in the same family, successively by Everarist founder, Joseph Martin, Leon, Antoine, Antoine Bosteels and Leon. Over the years, brewery Bosteels grown. Tripel Karmeliet is their most successful beer, which was launched in 1996. In recent years, production has been significantly increased, but still can not meet the demand. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 is therefore always an investment of 3 million euros. The total turnover in 2011 was 17.2 million, with a total production of 90,000 hectoliters of beer.

Pow right in the kisser!

Colour: Straw yellow. On the pour, you get a lovely thick white head that will stay with you throughout the drink. In some aspects, it's very similar to Duvel which I reviewed earlier on this blog. It's very heavily carbonated and the bubbles keep on coming and coming. That being said these are very fine bubbles that are most likely to tickle you throat on the way down. One thing I noticed is that this beer actually darkens in colour as it warms up. The yellow darkens quite considerably after 15 minutes.

Aroma: Bananas and a faint hint of minerals on the first sniff. When you go in for a second bite you are bombarded with notes of brown bread or biscuits. There are also notes of cloves.

Body: This drink is actually a lot heavier than it looks. This is due to the high level of alcohol that is in the drink. When you have your first sip, you are almost knocked for six by the power it holds. The drink is also quite creamy and has a certain Weiss beer quality to it. If you every try this beer yourself, I would recommend having a sip and move it around your mouth. This brings out a rich chewy texture that is also like placing a toffee in your mouth.

Taste: If you have ever tried Muller's fantastic banana and custard yogurt, then this is extremely similar. If you start to move this drink around in your mouth, the drink is very chewy and you get a certain bubble gum taste in your mouth. As the drink is quite alcoholic, the drink can feel quite spicy with ginger or cinnamon notes. As the drink warms up slight you will also get the slight taste of pineapple. This is a drink that you need to take your time with and nurse. Drink it to quick and you will be on the floor within seconds.

This will leave you off your feet

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Meantime London Stout

Meantime London Stout

Style: Stout

Alcohol content: 4.5%

From: Greenwich, London, England

Purchased from: Waitrose

Normally i would begin each blog by writing about the brewery. However, as i have review Meantime's Chocolate Porter earlier in this blog, i thought i would write a bit about the origin of the stout (I promise i will keep this brief).

If you lived and worked in the London Docklands during the 18th and 19th centuries, you would of most likely of known a porter. A porter (much like today) would help move your bags between the ship and your hotel. Eventually (and simply due to the sheer volume that they consumed), Porters would lend their name to a strong dark ale. Before 1700, London brewers sent out their beer very young and any ageing was either performed by the publican or a dealer. Porter was the first beer to be aged at the brewery and dispatched in a condition fit to be drunk immediately. The stout first appeared in the 1730's. Stout where first classed as strong Porters, but as time evolved, they became there own unique style. For example, Guinness Extra Stout was originally called "Extra Superior Porter" and was only given the name Extra Stout in 1840. Stout is now enjoyed the world and Guinness has become one of the biggest players in the commercial beer market.

Brief history lesson over. Now onto the tasting.

Colour: Dark as the knight or jet black like all good stouts should be. On the pour you notice a large head is formed. The head takes on a whitish brown colouration that is rather bubbly (not like the creamy head that normally accompanies a Guinness). 

Smell: From the bottle, you are hit with scent of toasted biscuits with a hints of vanilla and milk chocolate. These aromas come from the mix of dark malts and hard water used to brew this beer. This beer is very inviting. 

Body: Very similar to that of a Guinness but without the creamy edge. This beer has a velvet/silk mouth-feel.  It definitly feels a bit heavier than the chocolate porter that i reviewed earlier in this blog. However, that being said you would be able to have a couple of these before you would noticed how full you where.  

Taste: This beer is full of earthly complex flavors. On your first sip, you are greeted with a mild filter coffee taste. You also get some sweetness which will make you think someone has slipped a sugar into your coffee, i mean beer. Also on the palate, you get notes of hazelnut with a slight mineral finish. I can imagine that this finish comes from the hard water that is used to brew this beer. London has traditionally been know as a hard water area. Hard water, is water that is high mineral content as opposed to soft water which has a low mineral content. Good examples of soft water style beers would be Pilsner. One thing i will note is that the hops used are not overly powerful creating a very mellow flavor  This is a sipper beer which would be best enjoyed by the fire on a rainy winters day.

Hello Guvnor !

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