Mikkeller @ Cask

Fuggles was very excited last Saturday, almost beside myself with excitement.  I couldn't quite believe that Cask Pub & Kitchen were playing host to my brewing hero - the legend that is Mikkeller.  It was clearly a sentiment shared by most others in the pub, judging by the respectful silence that hung in the air while he spoke.  It is rare to see Mikkeller on tap in the UK, although most good specialist beer pubs will have a selection of bottles.  You certainly won't see 12 Mikkeller beers on one bar again in a hurry.

Mikkel himself is an unassuming and modest type, whose mission in brewing is to keep making better beer, always push the boundaries and try something unusual - an ambition that's hard to fault.  What is perhaps most amazing about his modus operandi is that rather than run his own brewery, he 'rents' other people's breweries to produce his stuff of magic.  This may mean that no two beers are ever quite the same, but after all he doesn't exist to keep churning out the same beer year after year.  Although it seems this spark of genius may be borne less of creativity or financial acumen and more of pragmatism, Mikkel professing to a particular dislike of cleaning his equipment. 

What was particularly special about this meet the brewer event was the amazing atmosphere.  It was more like being at a house party (but with better booze).  Random conversations easily struck up with people at the bar, or the next table along.  The sense of excitement in this shared experience, and obviously a proliferation of opinions on the beers providing an easy common denominator.
So onto the beer.  I could list them all as great beers, but I'm not here to regurgitate a beer menu to you, so I'll just note my top picks.  Faced with the dazzling menu, and realising we couldn't drink it all presented some tough conundrums.  It should be noted that the inevitability of trying to drink them all hadn't even occurred to us, we were still quite sensible at this stage.

An early crowd pleaser was the "Nelson Sauvignon" (pictured at the top with "A Pale Ale").  Apparently one of Mikkel's own favourite beers.  A beer of high acidity, but still fruity, vaguely reminiscent of caramelised pineapple.

The "Double Shit Coffee" (or VB Kaffestout) was a beer to rival Dark Star's Espresso.  Rich chocolate notes on first tasting give way to a fuller bitterness, like chewing on roasted coffee beans.  A truly wonderful stout.

The "Black Hole"s matured in a variety of barrels were also tasty.  Our favourite was the Tequila, as it cut through the stout and lifted it, leaving a slight hint of Tequila at the end.

 And finally we come to what may have been our undoing.  But was probably just the straw that broke the camel's back (having worked our way up to it through the rest of the menu).  The "Black 2011" weighing in at an almighty 17.5% was just too tempting to resist.  I've had strong beers before that had little to say for themselves apart from their strength, but this was stunning.  Rich, meliflous and terribly naughty.  According to the Beer Gremlin, if they served beer in a den of iniquity (which I'm sure they would?), this would be it.

It was great to meet the man behind the beer, and sample so much of his repetoir side by side.  Whilst I am eternally grateful to Cask for playing host to my brewing hero, I would just make a small plea that you start serving his beer in thirds...

Beer and Food Matching

Whether you're a regular experimenter with beer and food, have the odd dabble, or never tried it before, I really cannot recommend highly enough an event put on by beer professionals to learn something new.  That said, there's something equally satisfying about having a go yourself next time you're in a great cask or speciality beer pub.  Try something new, something you think won't work, it just might.  In this vein of adventure, off trotted Fuggles to South West London.

Billed as Battle of the Sexes.  John Keeling vs Melissa Cole.  (Or Fuller's beers vs non-Fuller's beers).  Six courses, each with 2 beers matched with it - one selected by Ms Cole, the other by JK, you judge and jury - which works best? It sounded like a gastronomic delight going down at the Red Lion in Barnes on 14th October.  And that was before we discovered that one of the "courses" contained 4 different charcuterie, each of which was matched with 2 different beers.  Those warm up drinks suddenly started to feel like a bad idea.

To start was a test of the time honoured matching of porter and oysters.  I must confess to never having tried this before - remaining in the curious but unconvinced pool of people.  Fuller's London Porter squaring up in this instance to Aspall's Premier Cru.  A lovely cider (or should I say cyder?) in normal circumstances, but in this case I found it wholly too acid for the oysters, and the warm comforting blanket of the London Porter coated the Oysters in a surprisingly silky way on the palette for me.  1-0 to John.

Onto "Course" 2 (part 1) - smoked duck breast with cherry compote.  Anchor Liberty vs Fuller's Chiswick.  I'm a massive fan of Anchor beers (see Beer Fest in a box for one of my favourites).  But when it came to pairing with the sweet and smoky duck the Anchor was entirely too powerful for the food, and the mellower Chiswick won out.

(Part 2) - air dried ham and fig.  Honeydew vs Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted.  Again, I found the Bitter and Twisted just a little overpowering for the dish, whereas the Honeydew pulled out the sweetness of the fig and exploited nicely that classic sweet and salty combination that is so moreish.

(Part 3) - salt cod brandade on ryebread.  St Austells Clouded Yellow vs Fuller's Discovery.  Melissa had it for me here.  Clouded Yellow is a great beer, but the real secret lay in the thin layer of horseradish between the brandade and the bread.  The spicy notes from the coriander in the Clouded Yellow teased this out perfectly, allowing the spicy flavour to linger on the tongue.

(Part 4) - Devils on Horseback - Chimay Blue vs HSB.  This was almost too close to call.  So I won't.

Main 1 - Yam Fatt Putt.  OK, I'll explain it.  Chinese style pork belly with sweet potatoes in a big yam doghnut.  Fuller's Past Masters Strong Ale vs Thornbridge Kipling.  Much as I love Thornbridge, it was way too hoppy for the sweet plum sauce of the pork belly.  Past Masters XX had it for me by a country mile.  Rich, sweet and mellow, I'd never have thought of pairing it with anything but a sharp cheese, but it surprised me by not being cloying with the sauce.  Nice pick JK.

Main 2 - Lahmacun (AKA spicy lamb pizza - sort of) - Fuller's London Pride vs Williams Bros Grozet.  For me the intensely herbal Grozet - the stuff that Williams Bros do best - was a clear winner here.  London Pride is a great session beer, but it didn't add to the food, didn't detract from it.  It just didn't interact.  One more to Melissa.

Dessert - Pear Tart Tatin with Fuller's Double Stout Ice Cream.  Dark Star Espresso against (you guessed it) Fuller's Past Masters Double Stout.  I love the double stout, it's a quirky stout, with some aniseedy notes, and really does the style credit.  But the espresso here with its intense coffee flavour and greater sweetness, almost like a tia maria, just toned in nicely with the dessert.  I think we're about 4 - 3 to JK now.

Digsetif - Chilli salted Caramel Tart - I loved this course, sweet, salty, spicy, so hard to match!  You need a BIG beer to deal with that, let alone add to it.  In the red corner, Fuller's Golden Pride, in the blue corner, O' Hanlons Brewers Reserve.  It could only be the bigger beer that won out in this heavyweight competition.  In this case it was the fruity, mellow, marmalade mitts of Golden Pride wrestling the chili caramel down your throat.

So 3 hours later, satiated in the extreme, I left the night reminded of three things.  Firstly that matching beer with food can be equally, if not more powerful than matching wine with it.  Although on the flip side it can also miss the beat entirely, which I find happens less with wine.  Secondly that Fuller's has a staggering range of beers.  We tasted less than half their range, and no two were even a similar style.  And thirdly and most importantly that experimentation is always a good thing, and life can only be the richer for it.

Many thanks to the staff of the Red Lion for the exquisite food, and Melissa and John for their careful pairings and tutelage on the night.

Hallelujah

I'm not sure this is something to be proud of, but after many frustrated hours I have finally found the button that allows me to reply to comments on my own blog.

Fuggles is exhausted, but satisfied.

Celebrating beer's diversity

I’ve been meaning to eat this particular slice of humble pie for some time now, as a recent trip to Cornwall reminded me.  If you’ve been reading this blog for long enough you may remember a rather negative piece I wrote following the acquisition of Sharps by international brewer Molson Coors.  At the time I could only see this meaning the end for the Rock brewery, and the innovative fruits of head brewer Stuart Howe’s exploits, with a wholesale transfer of Doom Bar production to Burton, or somewhere else better connected than Rock (which, let’s face it, wouldn’t be a tall order).  How wrong I was.

At a welcome to the Beer Bloggers conference in May, a man (whose name and position I ashamedly can’t recall) from Molson Coors, the major sponsor of the event, stood up and talked about celebrating beer’s diversity.  His point (or my interpretation of it) was that there is a sort of symbiotic relationship between the major brewer and the micro.  The major brewers have the marketing power and the mass appeal to bring new drinkers in to the cask ale market.  A vital role when you look at the tough time the cask ale market has been having at holding share in recent years.  The micro, or craft brewer is then able to innovate and take seasoned ale drinkers to new levels with more unusual and sometimes challenging tastes.  Thus the major brewers bridge the gap between the newly converted and experimental drinker and ensure a steady influx of willing guinea pigs.

The problem with being a self-pronounced beer connoisseur is that you can sometimes inadvertantly become a beer snob.  This was the point at which I realised I was guilty of this.  In a world where small breweries are springing up all over the place and producing new and exciting beers it is easy to forget that regional and national brewers have in fact been doing this for hundreds of years, and clearly doing it rather well to have stayed the course.  We never actually lose our love for the classic beers that first got us into the style.  But they become a bit like a favourite toy – still played with often, but not the shiny new one we want to shout about and show off to our friends.

And so back to my humble pie.  Coors announced two weeks ago that they would be spending £5m tripling the capacity of the Sharps brewery in Rock with a shiny new brewing plant.  In the interim, a couple of additional fermenting vessels will be added to accommodate the rapid growth (currently tracking at over 50%) that has followed the financial backing and logistical support from Coors.  Hardly the action of someone who places no value on heritage, and sees their product only as a commodity.  So perhaps shame on me for my cynicism, but I’ve never been happier to be proved wrong.

St Austell Tasting

In a week of many beers, Fuggles took a night off from GBBF (just the one, mind you) and headed over to the Real Ale Shop in Twickenham.  Busman's holiday?  Well, yes, but when you like buses...  What could possibly tempt me away from Earl's Court in a week like this, you might wonder.  Well, Zeph and the crew were playing host to none other than Roger Ryman, head brewer of St Austell, for a tutored tasting, and the launch of the beer brewed in collaboration by St Austell, Realale.com and the Rake in Borough.  Nuff said.

We started off with Trelawny Bitter, a session beer packed full of fruity flavour from the complex mix of 3 hops and 3 malts.  Roger then explained the importance of his relationship with the farmers who grow his barley and proudly boasted that Cornwall had some of the best barley in the country this year.  This is a theme I am hearing more and more these days.  With the growing demand of the bioethanol market and pressure on farmers to increase the yield from their fields, they need a reason to grow brewers barley.  Being able to drink a pint of Tribute and say "I grew that Barley" is not a bad one.

We then moved on to Proper Job IPA and Roger enlightened us as to the origin of the name.  Inspired by the IPAs of Portland, Oregon, Roger returned to Cornwall determined to brew a similarly strident and punchy beer.  As all westcountry folk know, a job well done is a "proper job".  Devoid of a name, the 2 barrel brew was simply labelled "proper job" IPA.  And it stuck.

Roger then talked us through one of his special brews - a Bock style lager, made with well roasted malts this lager is amber and sweet, and packs alot of flavour.  Then it was time to try the collaboration brew - Big Smoke.  A mild porter with a beautiful smoky nose and fruity palette.  But they had still saved the best til last.

Smugglers Grand Cru is a Barley wine aged in oak whisky barrels for 9 months.  The unfilitered beer is then bottled in Champagne bottles, topped up with some yeast from Camel Valley vineyards down the road.  (Incidentally, if you've never tried Camel Valley's sparkling Pinot Noir, you really should.  It beats Champagne any day).  The result is a deep and complex beer.  The aroma is fruity, with a touch of sourness (think lambic), the palette is rich, spicy and tart with a hint of the whisky coming through.

It is incredible the transformation that St Austell has undergone under Roger's care.  He has taken it from a 15,000 barrel brewery in 1999 to 70,000 barrels today.  He's not afraid to experiment with unusual styles or push the boundaries.  Every beer you try from there (even Tribute) started life in his 2 barrel microbrewery, and I'm confident we can expect many more where they came from.

Craft Beer Co hosts Southern Tier

I write this almost one week on from the spectacular opening night of Craft Beer Co in Farringdon.  Somewhat lazy, you might say, but a significant delay was incurred while I rode out the hangover - Fuggles was in no state for writing for at least 2 days, and then it was the weekend - topping up the hangover, etc.

So here we are, belated congratulations to the owner of the fabulous Cask Pub & Kitchen for repeating his success, and then some.  Boasting no mean 16 hand pulls and 21 fonts is close to my idea of beer heaven.  It was harder than being at a beer festival, where at least you can write off a significant number of the beers as being ones you have already tried.  Confronted with 30+ beers that I had never even seen before in the space of 10 metres, I nearly went into meltdown.

To describe it as 3 deep at the bar would be an understatement.  The beer world and his wife had turned out to check out the latest shrine to the craft beer revolution.  Rumour has it the scotch eggs and pork pies didn't last past 9pm.  My disappointments were therefore only two-fold.  Firstly, lack of pork scratchings.  These have the benefit that you can stockpile them in great numbers, even in a small pub.  And I'm yet to find the scientific evidence, but cling to a belief that beer and pork scratchings somehow constitutes a balanced meal.  Especially if it's fruit beer.  And secondly that Black Albert was just too lively to be tamed into a glass on this particular occasion.  Hopefully he'll visit the bar again for a second attempt.

I knew when I walked in the door that taking any comprehensible notes on beer would be a tall order.  But apart from working my way through the 3 Mikeller beers on offer, I was very taken with the beers from Southern Tier.

The IPA was predictably gorgeous and slipped away quite nicely.  But I was blown away by the Choklat stout.  It's true what the reviews say, it is the most chocolately beer I have ever had.  I challenge you to find one more so.  I am long since past expecting a beer with chocolate in the name or tasting notes to actually taste anything like chocolate, I think of it more as a euphamism for porter.  But oh my god have they done something right at Southern Tier.  Even if you don't have a sweet tooth, I commend you to try it.  Dangerously high alcohol, at 11%, this silky smooth mocha of beers earned among us the affection moniker "Kahlua beer".  I rather suspect that this beer may have been the root of my undoing that night.  But I'd knowingly overindulge again, given the choice.

Revelation Cat

It is not often Fuggles turns down a Mikkeller beer, but I found myself with a conundrum earlier this week.  My favourite pub, Cask Pub & Kitchen, had laid on a "meet the brewer" event with Alex from Revelation Cat.  He'd brought with him, all the way from Italy, a number of beers that I probably wouldn't get to try again for some time, if ever, and mostly in the range of 6 - 9 % ABV.  Wisely sold by the half pint, I wasn't convinced I'd get through everything even so, and had to limit myself.

Revelation Cat focuses on two main styles (as it happens, two of my favourite styles).  The sour lambics, often with a twist - such as maturing in whisky or rum barrels - and west coast style IPAs.  So, pacing myself not quite the forefront of my mind, I started with the Laphroaig Lambic.  This 9% beer (matured, as you might have worked out, in Laphroaig casks) captured the character of the whisky casks better than any other example I've seen.  The nose was amazing - such powerful peatiness, it was like sniffing the whisky.  This was followed through by a quite astrigent palate with a very strong whisky taste.  Less impressive (not helped but rapidly following the former) was the Martinique Rum, which had only a light overtone of rum notes floating over the top of the palate, and left me slightly wanting by comparison.

The brilliantly named "Mad Walloper" was the cloudy dark chestnut beer pictured below.  A very unusual beer, with a rich warming fruity nose that reminded me very strongly of sherbert.  But it took you by surprise when you drank it as it tasted neither dark nor sweet.  Still fruity, but very sour and almost woody.  I still haven't quite made my mind up on it, but for me it had more potential than the Martinique.

Top of the pops for me on the West coasters was the West Coast Double IPA - a rich mellow IPA, packing a punch at 9% with slight citrus on the nose and a rich fruity body on the palate.  The Creamy bitter was also great - fresh and zesty hops singing out.

I really like what Rev Cat are doing, taking great edgy styles and pushing the boundaries a little bit further.  These boundaries may or may not be to your taste, but experimentation is often the precursor to greatness, and they should be admired for their boldness.  More please!

Oh, and I might have let myself just have a little taste of Mikkeller's Sorachi Ace (after the hops) at the end of the night - well worth breaking my own rules for!