Category Archives: Beer review

Beer review — Batemans Triple and Samuel Smith Tadcaster

1 July 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Batemans Triple XB Classic Premium Ale 500ml $7.11
This lively copper-coloured beer ticks all of ale’s aroma, flavour and bitterness boxes – in its own rich, complex discrete style. The malt:hops balance is superb and the extra vibrance on the palate probably comes from the inclusion of wheat malt in the blend. This is an exciting and easy-to-drink beer.

Samuel Smith Tadcaster Taddy Porter 500ml $8.28
The line between stout and porter is to some extent arbitrary, but Taddy sits towards the robust end of the porter style. It’s deeply coloured, velvet smooth and balances seductive chocolaty, roasted-grain flavours against its lingering, dry, bitter finish. Despite the complexity and strength of flavours it’s oh so pleasant to drink.

Warming winter ales from the British Isles

1 July 2009Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Like the stouts reviewed last week, English ales suit Canberra’s winter climate. As a group they’re fruity, rich and malty, and a joy to drink at a mild 5–10 degrees.

They vary in colour from pale tan to inky black and in flavour from mild and subtle to rich and chocolaty, with a corresponding variance in hops bitterness.

The richest pickings I’ve seen in Canberra are at Plonk, in the Fyshwick Markets, where there seems to be a continuous flow of new beers from around the world.

A recent raid on their shelves yielded a handful of outstanding English beers (all in satisfying 500ml bottles).

The mid-amber coloured Ridley’s Old Bob Strong Premium Ale ($7.28) features deep, supple, smooth maltiness, beautifully offset by hops aroma and flavour – a harmonious brew built on East Anglian pale ale malt and Fuggles hops.

The low-alcohol Manns Brown Ale ($6.03) focuses on rich, treacly malt flavours with little bitterness. It contrasts gently with the assertive, chocolaty, roasted grain flavours and drying hops bitterness of Taddy Porter, below.

Greene King Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale (7.29) – matured in oak for two years – is another powerful but balanced brew. It’s a fireside ale featuring high alcohol and warm toffee flavours.

Beer review — real stout: Dublin Guinness and Rogue Shakespeare

24 June 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Guinness Foreign Extra (Dublin) 330ml $5.67
Dear Guinness, if you can brew such opulent, glorious stout in Ireland, why can’t you achieve the same in Australia? Or are we just getting what we deserve? This Dublin brew is a benchmark stout – alcoholic, malty, chocolaty and delightfully bitter, but also harmonious and very drinkable.

Rogue Shakespeare Stout (Oregon USA) 650ml $14.85
Rogue, from Oregon, USA, presents a modern but still opulent face of stout. Its vibrant, fresh hops and fruity, estery aroma are novel in such a dark, potent beer. But these give tremendous freshness and vivacity to the underlying deep, roasted-malt flavours and assertive bitter finish.

Enough of anorexic stout

24 June 2009Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Stout, like many other modern beer styles, seems to have been dumbed down, on average, to broaden its appeal. But there’s a countervailing force, driven by craft brewers and consumers keen to savour the power of this great ale style.

To see the difference between stout-by-name and stout-by-nature, you only have to compare, say, Australian-brewed Guinness on tap and the Dublin brewed Guinness Foreign Extra reviewed below.

The local version is pleasant enough. But if you’re looking for stout’s strong, distinctive roasted malt flavours, mid-palate opulence and assertive hops bitterness, you’re unlikely to find it. I’ve tried periodically without success.

The brewer’s art in making stout is to bring the strong aromas and flavours harmoniously together – to deliver flavour, bitterness, complexity and drinkability. Guinness’s Foreign Extra, to my taste, achieves that deliciously.

But the Rogue Shakespeare Stout reviewed today and Mountain Goat Stout, reviewed two weeks ago, show that good stout has many faces.

And they’re great winter beers as they deliver all that lovely, warming malty flavour best when served at around 10 degrees.

Beer review — James Squire Hop Thief 2009

10 June 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

James Squire Hop Thief Ale 2009 345ml 6-pack $18
I rate Hop Thief as the most harmonious of the five hop-season brews reviewed in the last few weeks. It marries tangy, herbal, hops aromas, flavour and lingering bitterness perfectly with the rich, underlying malt flavours. This is another brewing masterpiece from Chuck Hahn and his gang in Camperdown, Sydney.

Beer review — Cascade First Harvest Ale 2009

3 June 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Cascade First Harvest Ale 330ml bottle $4.59
Cascade’s eighth salute to the hops harvest is a medium amber colour brew. It’s lively and fresh, with rich underlying malt flavour and pervasive, refreshing, tangy, bitter hops. The bitterness builds as you sip, but in a pleasant way – and it’s offset by the delicious rich malt flavour.

Beer review — Wig & Pen

27 May 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Wig & Pen Hopidemic ale half-pint $4.20
Brewer Richard Hopkins believes this is among Australia’s hoppiest beers with over 1.6 kg of hops for every 100 litres of beer. But the focus is on fresh, pungent aroma and flavour rather than bitterness – and it works deliciously with the unctuous malt flavours. This is the cask-conditioned and hand pumped.

Wig & Pen Hop Heads ale, Venom ale half-pint $4.20
Hop Heads, a brew for heroes, percolates through a container (Modus Hoperandus) of Galaxy hop heads en route to your glass, giving the full, raw hops experience. Despite the name Venom has less sting than Hop Heads, balancing a dry, malty palate with intense, lingering, resiny bitterness.

Beer review — Brasserie du Bocq and Young’s

20 May 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Brassserie du Bocq La Gauloise Amber Ale 330ml $5.30
This is a traditional Belgian top-fermented ale, re-fermented in the bottle. It has a dark amber colour with a lovely, sweet, fruity/malty aroma. This fruity/malty character comes through on a warming, well-balanced palate with a satisfying, tangy, bitter finish. It’s refreshing, complex and moreish. Imported by Phoenix beers and well distributed.

Young’s Luxury Double Malt Chocolate Stout 500ml $7.00
There’s chocolate in the brew and it shows up as a dry, bitter note in the finish – like strong high-cocoa chocolate. But more than anything it’s a full-bore stout featuring rich, roasted malt flavour, all-round opulence, smooth texture and assertive hops bitterness. A small glass on a cold night would be perfect.

Beer review — Byron Bay and Budejovicky Budvar

15 April 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Byron Bay Premium Ale 330ml $3.49
The website’s sparse on info, but we do learn that it’s contract brewed and named after Byron Bay if not physically connected to it. It’s an attractive, light-golden ale featuring rich malt and a zesty, refreshing finish. It gives balanced, easy drinking but not complexity. See wwwbyronbaybrewery.com.au

Budejovicky Budvar Lager $3.99
This is the original ‘Bud’ from the Czech Republic. It’s a richly flavoured, deep golden lager with an assertive, lingering, drying hops bitterness. But even with a ‘best before’ date of September 2009, my bottle tasted a little tired – still enjoyable but without the vibrant fresh edge that beer should have.

Beer review — Fusion Brewing

8 April 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Fusion Brewing Bluebottle Beer 330ml 6-pack $17.99
Fusion Brewing says its beers are designed and brewed to match specific foods. No, don’t try this one with bluebottles, but bream or prawns could do. It’s suitably delicate for that purpose – light and tangy with a pleasant hops flavour but not a lot of bitterness.

Fusion Brewing Firefly Beer 330ml 6-pack $17.99
Firefly’s a little richer than Bluebottle, a tad more alcoholic and a little hoppier – though it’s far from bitter as pilsners go. It’s clean, fresh and easy to drink. It’s a billed as a companion for spicy food but to my taste it needs more hops bitterness to achieve that goal.