by colinmcgray | Nov 11, 2014 | Lock Box: December 2014
(4.8% ABV. American Amber Ale, Evercreech, Somerset, England) 330ml bottle Wild Beer Co. have many brewing talents, one of which is utilising bold new world hops varieties to enliven old world beer styles. Ladies and gentlemen, Scarlett Fever. West Country craft beer pioneers Wild Beer Co. are rapidly becoming best known on both sides of the Atlantic for their increasingly creative and admirably consistent funky saisons and pucker inducing sour beers. In addition to their more esoteric beers, Wild Beer Co. brew an outstanding selection of core beers, beers like their highly quaffable Fresh pale ale, dank and resinous Madness IPA and their reimagined English red ale Scarlett Fever. Scarlett Fever is the careful result of blending a traditional English amber pub ale with big bold citrus and pine evoking New World hops. The deep caramelised backbone of the beer is perfectly offset by a robust earthy bitterness while the late addition hops provide a fresh pithy finish. The aroma has a wonderfully concentrated herbal bite. Scareltt Fever is proof, if any were needed, that Wild Beer Co. are one of the U.K.’s most exciting and diverse craft breweries, able to brew everyday session beers of the highest standard, as well as some of the most interesting and challenging beers in...
by colinmcgray | Nov 11, 2014 | Lock Box: December 2014
(4.5% ABV. Sweet Stout, London, England) 500ml bottle Artisan roasted coffee is rapidly becoming a standard fifth ingredient in the professional brewers arsenal and when the end result is this good, you might start wondering why it took so long! Brewed in collaboration with South London coffee roaster Alchemy, this single hopped milk stout is allowed to condition on heaps of Costa Rican Zamorana beans, producing a rich, but extremely sessionable beer that evokes many of the best attributes of an early morning latte. Sweet, ever so slightly creamy, with a deep dark roasted cocoa roast, it is one the U.K’s standout low ABV. stouts. There’s no actual milk in milk stouts, their sweetness is derived from lactose or milk sugars. The beer is brewed exclusively with Perle hops, a German all purpose variety with a delicate floral quality, perfect for a sessionable stout with a lot of complex and potentially conflicting flavour and aroma characteristics. Try pairing this sweet little number with a bar of your favourite milk chocolate and you’ll be utterly hooked; possibly to the point of writing a thank you email to the beardy weirdies at Weird...
by colinmcgray | Nov 10, 2014 | Lock Box: December 2014
(2.9% ABV. Session IPA, London, England) 330ml bottle Style defining Session IPA. All of the hop forward character of a much stronger India pale ale at only 2.9% ABV. A crown jewel of modern British craft brewing. Kernel Table Beer has become something of a modern classic. Alongside the abundantly hopped likes of BrewDog Punk IPA and Thornbridge Jaipur, the bright sunshine coloured beer has proved to be an important ale in Britain’s craft beer revolution. At its easy drinking, yet fully bittered heart, Table Beer is a highly aromatic modern American pale ale. The hops Kernel uses to brew the beer can and do change from batch to batch, just enough to keep things interesting though, never enough to significantly alter the overall character of the beer. So too the ABV (alcohol by volume) of the beer can and does fluctuate slightly. The ebb and flow of the hopping regiment and ABV craftily reminding the drinker that beer is and should be respected as a live product. As one of most impressive examples of modern British craft brewing by one of the U.K.’s most creative and consistently above par brewers, we felt that Kernel Table Beer had more than earned its slot in our first Beer...
