Drink Along - York Minster Ale

Old Mother Nature is a cruel mistress at times. The nights are drawing in, the mornings are getting wetter, I’m dreading the clocks going back and then – as if to poke a wound – it starts to warm up. Compared to the terrible summer we had, it’s almost tropical in London at the moment. High’s of 28; where was this weather in August!

Rest assured, it is definitely autumn now, and as we hurtle towards Christmas, it’s time to draw a line under the summer 52 Weeks Beer case. We draw that line with a bottle of York Minster Ale from the York Brewery.

I visited York brewery on a Twissup earlier in the year. Their Centurion’s Ghost ale is great (I wrote about it here). I can force them into a nutshell with this: two flagship session ales, both with pale malt and crystal malt, both with challenger hops, one is called “Guzzler”, the other “Yorkshire Terrier”. Yeah?

York Minster is amber in colour, ‘flame’ if you like, with a slight haze to it. The aroma is very slight. This isn’t even that cold in my glass, but it’s offering very little. Ammonia again, must be me, but I get that hair dye, hairdressers, bathroom-after-the-missus-has-coloured-her-hair aroma. What is that!?

In the mouth it’s quite thin bodied, tart and there’s a tanginess to it. The finish is bitter, bitter in a real prickly, sharp kinda way. There’s some biscuity malt character right on the back end. I can’t taste any obvious faults in this, nothing by way of an infection or bad fermentation or anything like that, it's just lacking in something major to comment on.

Help me out ...


You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Cotleigh Barn Owl

After all those golden ales we’ve been drinking, this one comes as a shock to the system. It isn’t golden, or see-through, or highly carbonated! What the hell! It’s getting colder outside though and as much as we try to deny it, the nights are starting to draw in whilst the mornings get lighter. Despite being in the summer case, this style of beer feels kinda right.

The aroma is pretty complex. I get a lot of German Rye bread, the tangy, almost sour, savoury quality you find in that horrible German Rye bread. There’s toffee and treacle; malty sweetness that tag-teams with slight roasty notes to create something akin to Nutella. It smells good. Actually, no, it smells great.

But then when you drink it, it’s a little disappointing. It’s all a bit thin and empty, the body isn’t there and the finish is all metal and tannic astringency. That aroma sets you off thinking about big barley wines, roaring fires and cold toes; but the flavour just doesn’t deliver. Booo!

I mean it’s far from bad, don’t get me wrong. That toffee, chocolate, rye and roast follow through into the mouth and they’re nice. They’re pleasant, and the finish does become increasing balanced-out as you drink down the glass. That aroma though, it just promised so much more.

Let’s finish with two questions. Yep, two. What do you make of the beer? If you had to assign it a style, which would you pick? I – putting arguments as to whether or not it’s a single beer or a style aside – can kinda see this as an ESB. The malt profile hits me all very-small-barley-wine and that just makes me think Extra Special Bitter.

You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Oakham Ales Inferno

When Oakham Citra is on form, I think it’s one of the best cask beers around. Ditto JHB. So, in much the same way as when we tasted Dark Star Sunburst, the bar of expectation is raised a little higher this week.

Oakham Inferno is a golden ale of 4% alcohol; it’s brewed with pale malt and five different US hop varieties. In the glass it's a vibrant gold with a loose white head. The aroma is lead by American hops, I’m getting cascadey grapefruit and citrus and a background of pine and slight resin. There’s a leafy, almost dank quality to the aroma that suggests extensive dry hopping has taken place.

The initial flavour doesn’t offer much sweetness; in crash those hops, bringing grapefruit pith and peel, some of that piney quality and perhaps some lemon. There’s a lovely grainy quality towards the backend and then a big hit of bitterness. That bitterness is great at first, but quickly builds and threatens to become too much. A slight suggestion of something metallic and then it’s gone.

And as you get further down the glass that bitterness does get a bit much. There’s almost a salty quality to it - like we saw with the Blond Witch.

Nice though, I liked it. It’s not Citra or JHB, but it’s pretty decent.

You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Moorhouse's Blond Witch

"Moorhouse’s first ever ‘Blond’ ale, this beer is as light as you can get with a lager colour (minus the bubbles). Drinks to the strength of any good White Witch."

So ... looks like Moorhouse’s could do with a bit of advice on the marketing front. Far too often I find myself reading a beer description on a brewery website and screaming internally: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!

I managed to glean from the bottle that this one is 4.5%, is hopped using fuggles and has a sweet-malty and citrus-hoppy flavour. Seriously though, some basic information about the flavour of your beer and how it was made, surely it’s just obvious that that needs to be on your website? Maybe it’s there and I didn’t look hard enough.

To me the aroma is quite muted. I don’t get much citrus at all – but then I wouldn’t expect to from fuggles – instead I get a slight spicy hoppiness and lots of sweet, biscuity malt. First taste is good, some real sweetness up front, a gentle spicy hop character and then a firm bitterness that lingers around nicely after you swallow.

Halfway down the glass, beer is warming up and things are changing a bit. That bitterness is getting big, maybe too big, it’s overtaken the sweetness and I’m left with an almost saltiness immediately after every sip. There’s some buttery flavour lurking in the background too, I don’t know if it’s just me or if there is some diacetyl there, but it’s not very pleasant.

I’m being a bit harsh here because this is pretty drinkable if not mind-blowing, I can imagine this working really well from a cask and the grassy, spicy notes from those fuggles hops are actually quite nice.

In seven words: sweet, malty, bitter, grassy, spicy, buttery, decent.

Is that buttery, margarine flavour just me or is that something that’s definitely in there?

You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Williams Brothers Seven Giraffes

For some reason I haven’t really tried many Williams Brothers beers. There always seems to be something more rare or more interesting to try instead, so I never get round to them. They’ve got a reputation for making good beer and, truth be told, if it wasn’t so easy to get hold of their stuff, I’d probably be more active in trying to track it down.

Seven Giraffes – no, the name makes no sense to me either – is a pale ale brewed with seven different varieties of malted barley, lemon zest and elderflower. It’s 5.1% and immediately has me asking myself: why would you use seven varieties of malted barley?

The aroma is initially quite unpleasant; to me it’s got that classic cider-like aroma that typifies homebrew kits made with large percentages of white sugar. Given a while that seems to blow off slightly, and through comes a lot of malty sweetness, perhaps some honey and then a little alcohol. No sign of that lemon zest and elderflower.

Flavour is initially very sweet, malty and honeyed; a bitterness builds in the finish, going far enough to balance out that sweetness. That initial cidery flavour is nowhere to be found – what was that all about – there’s some slight alcohol warmth and a feeling on strength that’s magnified by a smooth, thick mouthfeel. This reminds me of a heller bock, I think lager fans will enjoy this and it might work better served at a colder temperature.

Despite the initial impression, I quite like this. It’s not really the sort of thing I usually go for but I found it pretty enjoyable. Still no sign of that elderflower and lemon zest though ...

What did you make of this one? You can find out more about the Drink Along here.

Drink Along - Ilkley Mary Jane

Quite looking forward to this one to be honest. I had it from cask at Craft Beer Co on their launch night a while back, and it was fantastic. Simple and elegant, uncomplicated but just really well put together. I’m always dubious as to how well sub-four-percent beers really work from the bottle, so it’ll be interesting on that front too.

Here goes ...

Ilkley Mary Jane is a 3.8% pale ale that’s brewed with large amounts of Amarillo hops (YUM!). It won gold medals at the Northern SIBA competition in 2009/10 and a took a bronze medal at the national finals.

Colour is golden and bright. Aroma is full of toasty, biscuity malt and then very ripe fruits. I get an almost stewed fruit aroma that follows through into the taste. It’s making me think yellow and fruity: peaches, mango, apricot, maybe some tangerine; things like that, all when very ripe. There’s some of that grainy, malty character in the taste too and then it’s all wrapped up and rounded off by a gentle bitterness. Lovely.

I’m really impressed actually; this is flying down, it tastes great and it’s only 3.8 %. I know from homebrew attempts that it’s difficult to pull off beers at low ABV in a bottle; there’s nowhere to hide, mistakes shine through because everything is pared down and scaled back, but this really pulls it off.

Top stuff, no?

Find out more about the Drink Along here

Drink Along - Ossett Yorkshire Blonde

The Oval test match getting washed out, evening runs in the pouring rain, taking an umbrella to work just in case, is it really the middle of August? A golden ale like Ossett Yorkshire Blonde almost feels out of place today, maybe something like a strong stout is more suitable. Anyway, no use complaining when there’s important work to be done ...

Yorkshire Blonde is a 3.9% “Lager-Style Beer” that’s hopped with “a generous late addition of Mount Hood hops”. In the glass it’s the colour of lemon peel, pale and bright; there’s a small little head that doesn’t last long.

Here’s a question: why make a “Lager-Style Beer”? Why not just make a lager?

The aroma is very subtle to me, maybe I’ve got the beer too cold but there’s very little to smell at all. As it warms up I get some lemonade aroma and, call me crazy, but ammonia. Ammonia like the smell you get with hair dye – if you’ve ever spent a morning waiting for the other half in the hair dresser, you might know what I mean. Weird.

In the flavour there’s some initial sweetness, this is broken up nicely but the bitterness in the finish. I’m not sure what happened to that generous late addition of Mount Hood, but they don’t seem to have made it into my glass. There’s a lemony tang going on; with the sweetness and thin body it reminds me of lemonade. I said this about one of the other beers we’ve tasted, but if you told me this was a lager top, I’d probably believe you.

There's a biscuity, toasty, malty character that comes through pretty strongly in the finish.

This beer is kinda just there. The ammonia, hair dye thing is odd, but, that aside, it’s difficult to really like or dislike a beer like this. It’s just there.
I bet it’s much better from cask.

Thoughts?

Find out more about the Drink Along here