The Tale Of The Ale

Life And Limb

2012-02-05T12:16:00.000Z

This is a collaboration beer with Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada* called Life And Limb. It's an incredibly sweet beer, well it would be because they put maple syrup and Birch Syrup in it. I don't even know what Birch syrup is but I imagine it is essentially the same as maple syrup, just a different tree. I wonder does it taste any different?
The beer is designed to be aged they say, I drank mine fresh so it will be interesting to how this batch turns out in a year or two. It's also what they call a small beer, which is a beer produced from the second runnings of a stronger beer. They also age it on two different types of wood chips.
I have one very minor, ok major gripe with the description on the website. It says:

Life and Limb is an easy drinking "session" beer-an antidote to the heavy sippers-that begs for another glass.

Now on what planet is a 10.2% ABV, 750ml bottle considered a Session Beer? To be sessionable in my book, it should be between 3% and 4.5% at the most in my book. 5% would be over but still a little sessionable if you are careful but 10.2%? Not even close.

So griping aside, how is the beer? That's the most important thing. Well if I had pancakes available, I might have poured it on them. In fact that sounds like a very good idea to be honest. Actually it might be pretty cost effective as well because the 750ml bottle is €15.99 at drinkstore. Maple syrup on the other hand is about half that price, but for a tiny little bottle, about the size of a bottle of hot sauce, perhaps 200ml and probably less. So pouring this over your pancakes might be more cost effective. Of course that's only over here, maple syrup is much cheaper in the US and Canada so pouring it over your pancakes there would only be for the added benefit of alcohol early in the morning.

The beer is packed full of fruit, mostly dark fruits like prunes, raisins, plums but also cranberry and cherry. It is also pretty obvious that this is a strong beer. Hiding somewhat is a little chocolate that comes out as the beer warms a little. Throughout the whole thing is a syrupy sweetness and unlike most Sierra Nevada beers, it's not hopped to hell so there is nothing to counteract it. If you like sticky sweet beer then this is perfect for you.
For me, it is simply a novelty beer that I might not try again or I might; but I have no intention of stocking up.
I enjoyed it but that's about all I can say. I was not blown away but it was interesting to see what the two breweries came up with, that is the point of collaboration brews after all and I am glad I tried it.

* Two of my favourite breweries.

Meoww - The Session #60

2012-02-03T15:42:00.003Z

This month the session is all about growlers and is hosted on the Washington Beer Blog. In Ireland, a growler is a rare sight. I have heard that in Cork, the Bierhaus now has a growler service. In Dublin, the Bull and Castle was looking to get branded growlers and getting a refill service but there is no sign of them yet.

My own growler is this 2L of Hopus that I got late last year. Part of the swingtop is a carry handle. After I drank all the hopus, I had nothing to put into it. Maybe some day I will get it filled with some beer but in the meantime I can always use it for bringing homebrew to meetings.

John pretty much hits the nail on the head as to why we don't have much in the way of growlers in this country and that is probably because of public transport and our pub culture. In fact the only real use for a growler that I can see is for special beers that are rarely available. For instance it might be nice to go to one of the upcoming beer festivals and see if Barrelhead will fill my growler with their pale ale or one of the other breweries with specials that I am not likely to see till the next beer festival.

This weekend I am planning on heading in to Dublin to visit the new Black Sheep pub, owned by the people behind Against the grain, Oslo etc. I will not be bringing my growler.

When Hops Kill

2012-02-01T09:58:00.000Z

A great premise for a B movie; Rampaging killer hops shooting Alpha Acid that melts their victims... or maybe not....

Hops Kill? Nazis* is a bold name for a beer, a name that demands something to backup it's claim. This beer should level your taste buds in a bitterness black hole. Sometimes, Brewdog can be all talk although they do tend to back up their talk with a good product. Hops Kill is an imperial red ale so I am expecting a lot of chewy caramel and am not disappointed. Also various forest fruits along with pine and grapefruit on the nose. In the mouth, there is a lovely subtle, smooth carbonation. It's a melting pot of various citrus notes, plenty of sweet malt and quite a lot of hops.
It's not much of a hop bomb as the name might suggest but it is an absolutely gorgeous beer.

* When it was a prototype beer, I think it was supposed to be called hops kill nazis.

Brew 39 & 40 - Back to homebrewing

2012-01-29T15:00:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago I did a double brew weekend because I had my new order of pale malts. Unfortunately I failed to order more interesting speciality malts as I thought I had more than I did. I still had enough to make these, two new versions of beers I made last year.

New Zealand Pale Ale 2

14-B American IPA

Author: Reuben Gray

Date: 14/01/2012

Size: 23.04 L

Efficiency: 82.09%

Attenuation: 81.0%

Calories: 141.13 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.043 (1.056 - 1.075)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.008 (1.010 - 1.018)

|====#===========================|

Color: 7.14 (11.82 - 29.55)

|===#============================|

Alcohol: 4.55% (5.5% - 7.5%)

|#===============================|

Bitterness: 66.4 (40.0 - 70.0)

|======================#=========|

Ingredients:

3600 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt

523 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

25 g Pacific Gem (15.9%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m

10 g Nelson Sauvin (12.6%) - added during boil, boiled 30 m

10 g Nelson Sauvin (12.6%) - added during boil, boiled 15 m

25 g Nelson Sauvin (12.6%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m

1 ea Danstar Nottingham

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Dark Stranger Stout 2

13-A Dry Stout

Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)

Size: 24.84 L

Efficiency: 80.8%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 183.1 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.055 (1.036 - 1.050)

|=============================#==|

Terminal Gravity: 1.014 (1.007 - 1.011)

|================================|

Color: 82.99 (49.25 - 78.8)

|==========================#=====|

Alcohol: 5.41% (4.0% - 5.0%)

|==============================#=|

Bitterness: 51.9 (30.0 - 45.0)

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Ingredients:

3,500.0 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt

330 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

511 g Amber Malt

500 g Chocolate Malt (pale)

500 g Black Malt

605 g Roasted Barley

36 g Progress (6.3%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m

16 g East Kent Goldings (5.2%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m

45 g Fuggle (4.1%) - added during boil, boiled 30 m

25 g Progress (6.3%) - added during boil, boiled 15 m

1 ea Danstar 3767 Nottingham

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Vive La France - (Except during Rugby of course)

2012-01-28T14:51:00.000Z

Apart from the Cantillon, I also brought back three French beers to try at home while I spent those wonderful hours in Brewberry.
Agent Provocateur is another Craig Allen beer, brewed at a brewery he does not own. I'm not sure how I would feel about that, I think I would rather have my own brewery but there are probably advantages to renting time at a brewery. Less overhead for one. Anyway this is essentially a cross between an American pale ale and a Belgian blonde, or as it turns out; just an American pale ale. It's nice, it ticks all the right boxes of citrus grapefruit, orange and lemon. I'm not sure what the Belgian twist is, perhaps a Belgian yeast, it is a little yeasty but not much in the way of esters.
I certainly would be happy to be in France and have the option of drinking this.

Next we have something a little less interesting. From Bière Artisanale Artzner comes Perle La Mondiale 2011, a somewhat strange beer but to be honest I rather enjoyed it. It was way too fizzy of course, and there was little on the nose except some cereal (I did have it cold) but it got a little more interesting as time went on, the fizziness died away and it approached room temperature. Out came a little chocolate and plum to peak from behind the massive wall of sugar cubes. This is a very sweet beet, one that makes you think it's time to visit a dentist. You have to sip this beer because to down it would probably give you a sugar rush akin to when Bart downed the super squishy.

And finally La Bracine gives us, a Brune. Well they probably could have called it a Noir because it pours like a fizzy stout. It's practically black with an off white fluffy head. The aroma is all dark fruits, dark sugar, burnt toffee and a hint of alcohol.
In the mouth we start off with a bitter, burnt toffee start leading in to a sweeter caramel and a hint of coffee with a thin but very bubbly body and finishing with some sourness and dry alcohol.
Not a bad beer, not a particularly impressive one either but enjoyable and well worth trying at least.

Those Debaucherous Belgians

2012-01-26T11:30:00.000Z

I picked up a bottle of Rosé de Gambrinus in Paris. It was pretty exciting as I have not had this one before. Unlike the Kriek, this one is fermented again with raspberries so I was expecting something rather tart and mouth puckering. It was that to be sure but I did not think it was anywhere near as sour as the Kriek or Gueuze. In fact, this might be a perfect introduction to the world of sour beer. It's full of tart raspberry, plum, and lemon sherbet. It all comes together perfectly and the sourness keeps your palate entertained. The fact that there was a fair bit of residual sweetness compared to other Cantillon beers means that a first time drinker of sour beer will not run away screaming.
And the label is just awesome.

Stout face off

2012-01-23T19:57:00.001Z

I actually had proper glassware and beer mats for this, well one beer mat at least. Since Trouble Brewing now bottle, and their lovely Dark Arts porter is available, I thought I should put it to the test and compare it to good ole reliable O'Hara's stout.
This is no blind tasting, this is just a side by side to see what's what.
At 4.3% and 4.4% they are pretty much the same strength. On pouring I noticed an immediate difference in head. The O'Hara's had one for a start while Dark Arts disappeared in a puff of voodoo magic. In fact it was gone before I could turn the camera on. The aroma is also different with O'Hara's having a more lactic sourness with coffee chocolate and caramel. Dark Arts was dominated by chocolate, and more like milk chocolate or at least a weak dark chocolate like Bournville, less coffee and plenty of caramel. It smells sweeter. The taste is also quite different, in fact it seems they do a bit of a switch. From the aroma I would think Dark Arts will be sweeter and O'Hara's more bitter but I found the opposite was true. O'Hara's had a more lactic sourness as I expected and more coffee with lashings of toffee. Dark Arts had a sort of woody vanilla start which progressed to bitter dark chocolate (nothing like the aroma) and some coffee in the middle. Towards the end, a slight sourness came through but it was not as evident as O'Hara's.

As many times as I have had both these beers, I have never tried them side by side so it was great to see them being quite different. I do not have a clear favourite as both are beautiful. I think at a push, if both were on tap I would take Dark Arts because I know that to be better on tap. In bottle they are on a par and I can't decide between them. And don't even ask me about cask, the only time they are ever available on cask at the same time is at beer festivals. Maybe I will try a little side by side at the Winter Ales and Cask Festival in a couple of weeks. This is what I thought of it last year.

For readers outside of Ireland, O'Hara's is quite easily available* in many countries. Even on cask as far away as the USA. Dark Arts might be harder to get as it's a much smaller brewery and bottling is a recent development for them.

*as far as Irish craft beer availability abroad goes.

K9

2012-01-21T11:23:00.001Z

I remember years ago a movie called K9. Then there was a sort of sequel called K9000, a TV movie that had none of the original cast. In fact it may not have been a sequel at all in the same way that Highlander 2 was really not a sequel to Highlander. It was just bizzare stuff altogether. It looks like Jim Belushi came back and did a few more sequels in more recent years though. Sorry I guess I'm in movie mode as I saw two movies at the cinema last night. Haywire (excellent) and Underworld: Awakening in 3D. The latter was an enjoyable way to kill 89 minutes while waiting for my wife to finish her late shift.
Anyway, moving on to the beer. Unlike the original K9 movie, which was fun and harmless, the K-9 Cruiser is a little boring and; well I suppose not harmless at 7.4%. The aroma is full of caramel malt, orange and a sort of effervescent fizz. On tasting, the orange rears it's head in the form of bitter orange pith. In fact it's extremely bitter all around and begs the question, is this really only 30IBU? That's 7 less than bog standard Sierra Nevada pale ale and this seems far more intense. Overall the bitter orange drowns out anything else that might be interesting in the beer. My advice, forget the seasonal and pick up one of the many other excellent Flying Dog beers available.

Bracia

2012-01-18T14:48:00.001Z

Weird is the word that sums up this beer. Bracia from Thornbridge is a 10% dark ale with honey, and not just any honey either. It uses honey specifically from the foothills of the Italian Alps. It pours like a stout, pretty much black with a large tan head.
The aroma is one of peat, bubblegum, lavender and liquorice. A very interesting bouquet to be sure. It is possibly the most flavoursome beer I have ever had, certainly in terms of conflicting flavours screaming for attention. I found it had an oily yet fluffy mouthfeel. Coffee, peat, vanilla, dark fruits, honey and perhaps a little nuttiness. It's all a bit weird but you know what? I liked it. Certainly as a once off beer it's interesting but I don't see the a market other than a one off. I'm not sure who would drink this on a regular basis but then, is it meant for that? I suspect this might do well with a little age added to the bottle. Maybe next year I will find a bottle on a shelf that has been sitting there for a year and try it again to see how it has matured.

Vice Versa

2012-01-16T09:18:00.000Z

I came across another Thornbridge beer that I had not had yet so I decided to give it a go. Versa is a weisse beer, something that's usually hard to get excited about, however sometimes you come across a real gem that surprises you. This is not one of those unfortunately. It's a wheat beer and that's about as much as I can say. Some clove and banana, a little extra spice and some bubblegum. There is a little sourness which I like in a wheat beer.
I think the conclusion here is that Thornbridge brewed the beer for the sake of having a German style wheat beer. It's a solid and well made beer but nothing that makes me want to buy it over a German import like Schneider, though certainly I would take it over Erdinger and maybe a Franziskaner.

I do have a slightly more interesting Thornbridge beer to write about soon.

Beer For Hobbits - Harrington's

2012-01-13T10:52:00.000Z

Only my second time drinking beer from a New Zealand brewery. Harrington's in Christchurch has been brewing beer since 1991. So 20 years on and they still seem to be going strong, well if managing to get their beers to all the way to Ireland is anything to go by they are.

The Rogue Hop is an organic Pilsner according to the bottle. It's a nice and refreshing beer, citrus in the form of grapefruit and lemon along with the cereal and hay like malt backbone. It's a good solid brew, but not a patch on Mac's Hop Rocker to my tastes.

Far more pleasing to me was Classy Red which as the name suggests is a red coloured ale but is of course an ESB. They use 5 malts in this, the sort of number I tend to use in my homebrew as I like interesting malt combinations. It shows because there is a strong malt backbone of sweet caramel that's balanced with lovely tropical and citrus notes from the hops with a bitter finish. My only complaint would be that it's too fizzy for my liking but then that's how they like it in the southern hemisphere.

I would say hands down that this is probably their best beer, at least of the three I tasted.

On the other hand, Wobbly Boot is pretty much as the name suggests. A little unsteady on it's feet. There is nothing much wrong it it mind, it's just not too interesting. It's a porter so you get the expected coffee notes, though it does seem to have a bit more coffee than your average porter. Caramel and dark chocolate as well as you would expect. I think the only reason I'm not a little more impressed is that again, the carbonation is like that of a lager. It's just too gassy, especially for this type of beer.

A big kudos to Harrington's for 20 years in the business to be sure but especially for their website. It's not the best or prettiest website I have seen but they do allow users to rate their beer on the website itself. It's just a star rating but at least it's something. It's interesting that the lowest rated beer on their site is called Sobering Thought, a 1% beer originally brewed for the cast of Lord of the Rings so they could act and drink without falling over hobbits and now available. I'm kind of curious to try this one. That's the nerd in me talking.

Czech face off - Blind tasting

2012-01-11T09:18:00.001Z

Two icons in the lager brewing world. This is the first time I have done a blind tasting at home. My wife did the honours in the kitchen while I sat watching TV. Both beers went in to identical Pilsner Urquell glasses*, the only difference being what's written on them but I did not know which one was poured in to which. Shown in the picture in order, beer 1 on the left turned out to be Pilsner Urquell and of course beer 2 on the right was Budvar or Budweiser (Czechvar in the US) but for the sake of not confusing it with the inferior American muck, I will refer to it as Budvar.

I have never had these iconic beers within months of each other, let alone on the same night but I was fairly sure I would be able to tell them apart. I was less sure about which I would pick as my favourite. The first thing I noticed was the difference in colour. I have never seen the beers side by side but one beer was very pale compared to the other. I suspected that Budvar was the paler beer. Yes that makes it not a 100% blind tasting but the colour did not matter to me as I have never noticed the colour of either before.
I moved on to the aroma and there was a sharp difference in aroma which was interesting. There was a stronger sense of cereal and biscuit and more hops in beer 1.
On tasting it was clear that beer 1 is Pilsner Urquell, you can't mistake the sheer amount of Saaz and combined with the stronger caramel malts backbone. Beside it, Budvar tasted like a Kölsch. It's a lot more delicate and seemed to have a little honey sweetness.

It was clear that Pilsner Urquell (beer 1) was my favourite. I figured beforehand that I would probably like it better but I could not say that for certain until I tried them side by side.

Not a very enlightening or exciting test mind, but I enjoyed it all the same.
I'm curious though, would the result be different from a tap? I doubt it but I bet the flavour from the beer is different. In fact I reckon a blind taste test between either or both of these beers in bottle and keg would be interesting. I suspect the kegged version would be superior.

The point of the exercise was not to find out which is the better beer, they are both excellent beers. The fact that I prefer Pilsner Urquell is simply because I prefer a more bitter beer. I'm rather partial to Budvar Dark more so than their regular pale lager but their standard lager is a lovely beer as well, especially if you want something a little less harsh and would prefer a more delicate drop.

I think the main point was to see just how much of a difference there is. Neither of these beers are just pale yellow fizz. They could not be more different to be honest.

* I have since knocked over and broken one of my Pilsner Urquell glasses. That made me sad.

Brewberry - Paris - It's not as lame as the name suggests

2012-01-09T15:25:00.000Z

On the contrary, Brewberry is actually a little gem of a place, a somewhat hidden treasure.
I actually went there expecting a beer bar but it's more like a liquor store/off-licence with seating and serves food. You peruse the shelves and buy beer. If you would rather drink it in the shop then so be it. Needless to say, we picked a load to drink in the shop. We arrived just after opening*1 and were there for a number of hours.

There are shelves with beer arranged by country/region. I was mainly interested in the French beers but that did not stop me snooping around the entire shop. It was interesting to see that Nøgne ø was more expensive in Paris than Dublin.
The only "Irish" beer was Guinness Foreign Export, though St Peters was listed as being Irish so I let the lovely girl* who runs the place know and she changed it. I also gave her my details and directed her to Beoir.org for a list of Irish Craft Breweries in case she wants to get more in.
The picture here shows all the Belgian beer, by far the biggest section.

The low ceilings give the place a cavernous feel and it is rather cosy. There is not a lot of seating, and indeed we had the place mostly to ourselves with the off person popping in and leaving with beer.
After a couple of hours a group came in and sat down so the place livened up a little. They seemed to be more interested in Belgian beer. They also ordered a cheese platter with seemed an awfully great idea considering the volume of beer we had already consumed so we ordered the same.

This shelf and part of the one to the left are the French beers. Not a hell of a lot but better than I was expecting considering just how hard it is to find French beer.
We did not quite get through them all but we did our best. I put four on the counter to bring home and then opened the rest to consume on premises. If I needed help, the owner was on hand. She helped with some translations and knew all about the beers she had and what they tasted like. Clearly she drinks her produce, always a good sign.

First up was Fleurac Dark IPA, an 8% beast of a beer. Grapefruit and caramel on the nose with a hint of alcohol. On tasting, the first thing I noticed was the carbonation which is explosive, a bit much for my taste in beer and it makes it hard to properly taste any complexity in the beer. A treacle like backbone mellows the harsh bitter hops.
This is a bitter beer and rather tasty. You can tell it's 8% but there is no acetone harshness.
I was told that it's a Belgian brewer, brewing in France.

St Glinglin Tripel is brewed by the originally named Brasserie Artésienne (website not working?). It's a 9% beer which had an aroma that was nothing short of a jar of honey. In fact when I tasted it, I could have been drinking fizzy mead.
It's not my sort of beer so my wife finished it off. I imagine it's the sort of beer that would see a swarm of flies buzzing around it in the summer.

And then there was only one beer that had to be tried. Only one beer could pack enough of a punch to rid myself of fizzy sugar water. The label is brilliant and promises to save me. Super Power from La Belle is a double IPA (8%) and it was a very welcome beer. The colour screams orange marmalade and I was not disappointed. Oranges and lemons were mixed in with grapefruit to create a bit of a citrus bomb. It was lovely stuff.
While it is rather bitter, there is enough of a sweet malty backbone to keep the beer balanced and it was perfectly carbonated. Not too fizzy, just enough pop to keep it goldilocks.

If there is one French beer that I wish was available in Ireland, it's this one.

Anosteké blonde from Brasserie du Pays Flamand is far less interesting, though is still a decent beer. There was little going on beyond strong grapefruit and sweet candi. I think part of the problem was the carbonation was just too high. The finish is quite bitter. At no point did I get the feeling I was drinking another 8% beer.
I wonder if I had left it long enough for the carbonation to die down, would it have developed more character....

Well now, we come to an interesting tasting. The labels for these beers required translation as I did not know what they meant. The girl* behind the counter had to look them up herself. Both are from Brasserie Bourganel and both were the strangest beers I have ever come across. It should be noted that these are speciality beers, they also produce normal beery beers.
On the left we have Myrtilles which is essentially a blueberry beer. So much so that it tastes like a blueberry soft drink. Thin but tasty. You know it's beer, just about anyway. High in Fructose and mouth puckeringly tart with some sourness. As if that's not weird enough, the other beer is green and not because it was dyed for St Patrick's day. Verveine velay is a sort of green tea beer. If green tea was a beer, this would be it. This is a cold sugary, fizzy green tea. Awful stuff, I can't think of any market for this. I just wish there were other beers from this brewery to try for a more balanced assessment. Both were 5% by the way.

Back to some sense of normality with a dark wheat beer dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin. And why not eh? Cuvée d'oscar is actually from De Proefbrouwerij in Belgium and not French at all. That said, it's contract brewed for Craig Alan (he did one of my take-home beers). This was recommended to me by Cécile though so I don't recall if I picked it up from the French section myself or not. This 7.5% beer is absolutely lovely, though I'm afraid am now at the stage where taking tasting notes is a challenge. If sour grapes was a beer, this would be it. We both loved it.
No doubt there is a level of complexity I found it hard to appreciate after the taste bud rapage before it but if you come across this beer, buy it without hesitation.

I think my palate had recovered somewhat by this stage. Perhaps the cheese plate helped in that regards. Both are from the Lancelot brewery.
Telenn du is a dark oaky beer with a fair bit of lactic sourness. In fact it was the sourness that made me fall in love with this beer. It's also packed full of chocolate and a little espresso bean. the body is quite thin and has a very lively carbonation and impressively, my wife, who hates stout and porter type beers loved it as well. Probably because it's not actually a stout/porter, I think it's a dunkel weisse (de blé noir). At 4.5% its sessionable too.
The other one is called Morgane and is a 5.5% organic blonde. There is a slightly sour aroma mixed in with that of honey. the mouthfeel was a little thin and honey was clearly evident as well as a herbal/floral quality. Again the carbonation is lively and it was quite tasty and easy to drink.

And now the final two beers. On the right, we have Perle démenthe from Bière Artisanale Artzner. Possibly the most boring of all the beers I tried but there was nothing wrong with it. Aroma of cereal grains and caramel, again a slight sour fizz. I was surprised that it was not very carbonated, the level was just right. It was a little on the thin side but that just makes it easier to drink. At 4.6 % you could have a session on it if you like, it's not less interesting than many a English pale ale.
Lastly bring us full circle back to the brewery I started with.
Fleurac La Noire is oozing with character. On the nose I got plenty of prunes and muscovado. In the mouth? Coffee and lots of it. The finish is slightly spicy with a hint of liquorice. I would almost think there was coffee in the beer but there is no mention. A lovely beer and I wish I had grabbed the rest of the Fleurac beers to bring home with me.

And that's it. A long day drinking beer in an absolute gem of a drinking establishment. It was new years eve so we eventually ended up in The Frog and Rosbif as I already mentioned.

* I have referred to "the girl" a few times. I think her name was Cécile and I got the impression she owns the place. Anyway she is very helpful and clearly loves beer.

*1 We actually arrived before opening, we were told we could go in and look around but we decided to go to lunch. Unfortunately we made an error in lunch destination and picked a restaurant at the end of the street that like to rip you off. I contested the bill and got some money back, I was still short by €5 by my reckoning but by then it was past time we got to Brewberry.

So under no circumstances should you eat in L'Atlantide. Not unless you are a local as they will probably rip you off otherwise. The food was fine (Moules-frites) though.

Paris - O' Neil's brewpub

2012-01-06T18:57:00.000Z

The only reason I didn't go to O' Neil's a second time was because it wasn't open yet. I know because we walked past it disappointed the following afternoon.
On the evening of our second night (I think), the four of us (VelkyAl, myself and our wives) followed my iPhone GPS to get ourselves to the only independent* brewpub in Paris. The others being chains (Frog pubs & Les 3 Brasseurs).

Inside we find a very cosy bar with vaulted wooden ceilings, a sort of mix of American and British styles I thought.

The food looked good, everyone seemed to be getting some sort of Pizza looking thing but it was not actually a Pizza? I forget the name of them, flambée perhaps. We were there for the beer though and we sucked down our fair share.

There are four main beers that they produce. A typical French lineup of a Blonde, Brune, Ambrée and Blanche.
Neither myself nor Al did anything nerdy like note talking. We were with our wives so a certain level of dignity must be maintained, though no doubt if it was just myself and my wife, I would be taking notes with her rolling her eyes.

The way I recall, the Blonde Lager Ale; I kid you not, actually stood out as being very tasty indeed. We asked our waiter (cool French guy with Aussie accent) is it a Lager or Ale. He didn't know but the brewer was drinking below us so he discovered it is an ale after all.

Sorry I can't give you a better description of the beers but I recall them all being well made and certainly worth a visit. Apart from the beer, we all really liked the atmosphere of the place and next time I am in Paris, I will be sure to go back.

Maybe Al recalls more about the beer than I do and will either write about it himself or add a comment.

* By independent, I mean not a chain. That said, there is mention that it may in fact be owned by the Les 3 Brasseurs group so it may not even be independent. There might be other brewpubs that I don't know about as well, always a possibility in a non English speaking country where my google searches fail and there is no point in searching for "Brasserie in Paris" as you can well imagine.

Paris - Frog pubs

2012-01-05T17:25:00.001Z

On December 29th, we set off to Paris to ring in the new year. We met up with our friends, VelkyAl (Fuggled) and his wife for the first two nights. Unfortunately they flew home on the 31st so we would not be celebrating new years eve together.

So after meeting up at our hotel we headed off to The Frog & British Library as it was in the area we had to go to first anyway. Al had been there before a few years back and I had read reviews that the beer was not the best. We Al was happy to discover that things have changed. The beer is now excellent, at least on par with the rest of the frog pubs. We also had fish and chips which was nice enough but let down by using French fries instead of proper chunky chips. By all accounts the wine was also pretty good.

We also (the second night I think) ventured forth to the original frog pub called The Frog and Rosbif. It's a sort of derogatory name for both cultures. The French being Frogs and and English are Rosbifs or Roast Beef. I imagine it's something to do with the stereotype of a French person eating frogs legs and the same idea for rosbif. Anyway it's all in good fun and the beer is tasty too.

InSeine is on cask here and it was absolutely lovely. Sure it's a typical English bitter but it is packed full of flavour and the Styrian Goldings really shine. Oranges, grass, biscuit and caramel are the driving forces here. I was also rather partial to Dark de Triomphe (we even had a pitcher) and Parislytic. Both were good and solidly brewed beers. In fact they were all good beers but it was In-Seine that really stood out and we downed many pints of this. Al has already mentioned that we tried it both sparkled and un-sparkled.

The sharing platters are worth eating and are pretty good value. I certainly enjoyed the food and I'm sure the others did too.

Blonde (left) - Parislytic (right) - I think

Myself and my wife also spent a lovely New Years Eve at The Frog & Rosbif. The place was actually dead, there was only 20 people at most. They had even made 200 quesadillas in anticipation. I'm not sure where people went, perhaps to the Eiffel tower for the fireworks. The staff did their best to make the best of things and liven the place up. I did not mind, I would have hated it had the place been packed to bursting.

Random pub patron reading his kindle*

So; if you find yourself in Paris and crave some decent beer, you can do a lot worse than checking out one of the frog pubs.

More to come soon from Paris.

*Al took this picture, I just modified it a little.

Yeti Imperial stout.

2012-01-03T10:32:00.000Z

Yeti Imperial stout from The Great Divide brewery (a favourite of mine) is big in every way. The name is big, the bottle is big, the head is big as is the flavour and abv of 10.5% and not to mention a bitterness IBU of 75.

The aroma is a sort of boozy milk chocolate and caramel mixture.

Interesting that there is a little smoke on the palate and perhaps a little hazelnut. It's a lovely beer and so incredibly drinkable. There are more interesting beers of the style out there but not too many that make you want to keep drinking it.

Lovely stuff.

Bristol Beers

2011-12-31T08:05:00.000Z

When I was at Steve's house the other weekend, he gave me some beer in exchange for beer I brought up to him. I love it when I get beer from a brewery I have never come across before.

The Bristol beer factory have a nice, simple website that is very effective. They make great use of social media like twitter and even youtube.

Bristol Stout is a 4% bog standard stout. Sweet caramel on the nose with some hints of coffee. In the mouth you find a smooth, low carbonated stout. While thin, it's also a very drinkable session stout. I prefer my stouts a little more bitter, dry and roasty but that's just me.

On the other hand, their Milk Stout is a little less my cup of tea (or coffee). The aroma is like Bristol stout but milky.
It tastes rather like a very milky coffee and is tooth rottingly sweet.
I could feel the cavities forming while drinking it.
An enjoyable beer but hard for me to drink with that level of sweetness.

The Ultimate Stout was hands down my favourite. Not a whole lot on the aroma other than coffee and caramel. When I tasted it though, the beer just came together. It's not complex, not full of amazing flavours or much subtlety. What we have is a very balanced and very tasty strong stout. A sweet toffee concoction with coffee, chocolate some treacle a little alcohol.

I really liked this one. I look forward to finding some of their other range of non stout beers.

It's a hardknott life

2011-12-28T18:33:00.000Z

Steve gave me a few Hardknott beers in exchange for a Shandon Century stout 1 litre bottle. This was at the Belfast beer festival a few weeks back.

I like Dave and his beers ever since I went to visit him at the woolpack. Since he sold the pub and moved the brewery to Millom, production has upped and his beer is now available around the UK, though I imagine sparsely as his brewery is still very small.

They are still not available in Ireland sadly.

Dark energy is is like static electricity. You know the type, when you wear nylon clothing and you keep getting shocked.

The aroma is a sort of fizzy sherbety sour concoction. Not what I was expecting from a stout but did fit the name.
The taste was odd, I found it incredibly gassy. It was also rather oily and I got a lot of lemon. To be honest, I did not get a whole lot more. I suspect I got a dodgy bottle because I got none of the expected chocolate or roasted notes. By all accounts this is a much more interesting beer.

Far more interesting to me was Code Black. This is a black IPA and all arguments about the stupidity of naming a pale ale; black aside, this is a beautiful beer.
Yes it tastes like hop juice and I love it for that. It may not be the most complex beer I have ever tasted, but it's big and bold and in your face. It's quite thick and has a hint of treacle mixed in with the
big hop profile.

And finally we have Vitesse Noir, a coffee, vanilla and chocolate infused; triple imperial stout. This little bottle packs a punch at 11%abv. The beer is essentially flat with almost no carbonation to speak of. In the case of this style of beer, that was quite welcome, though a little bit of fizz would not have gone amiss. Still it did not detract from the beer.

The aroma was full of coffee, chocolate syrup and vanilla.

It tastes like a mocha coffee with alcohol added. It's rather boozy but in that pleasant way rather than a harsh acetone. Creamy with slightly bitter finish. Plenty of treacle in the middle. It is a lovely beer but I shudder to think of the caffeine content because I avoid caffeine usually.

And now for something completely different: Computer Games = Mega Money

2011-12-26T10:31:00.000Z

I have not done a non-beer related story in a while and there's no better time than the day after Christmas to do one. Christmas is a quiet time for bloggers as we are far too busy drinking in the festive cheer. Don't worry, I have a number of beer related articles lined up.

For Christmas, I got a copy of the new game in the Elder Scrolls series. Called Skyrim, it takes Oblivion like graphics, turns them up a few notches and leave you with a rather polished and beautiful to behold open world to wander around. Like the previous games, it's open ended. You can ignore the main game plot and do whatever you like. If running around and murdering every living creature is your thing, then go for it.

In terms of how good the game is? Well for starters, this game seems to be in reverse. Previous Elder scrolls games were designed for PC and ported to console but the opposite seems to have happened here. That means that the interface is clearly designed for a console and is not as good as previous games due to the limitations of using a game controller compared to keyboard and mouse.
There are also issues or bugs with the game, namely that changing your keyboard layout does not work very well. You can play the game just fine, but the screen will always tell you to press the default key and does not know that you changed it. This makes dropping items in your inventory a challenge until you figure out that it's the "sheath weapon" key you need to press.

The PC version also has another flaw. It uses steam; even if you buy the physical game in a shop, you still have to install steam. I ran in to problems. Firstly, my email address had already been registered with steam but I could not log in. I also could not reset my password as each time I did, steam sent me a code to unlock my account and it failed. This is a common problem with steam it would seem. I logged a call with the helpdesk but wanting to play the game, I just registered a new account with a different email address and thought I was good to go.

Not so, there is another issue. Steam then decides it needs to go off and download about 3.5GB or more of game data as it does not realise I have a physical disk with the bloody game on it. So more internet trawling to discover a method of forcing it to install off the disk.

A 3rd flaw with steam is that as far as I know, if my internet connection drops at some point, my game will come to an end? I don't know for sure as I have not tested it but it seems that's the case from what I have read. A bloody cheek when I own the game, have a physical DVD in the drive and it's a completely offline game that does not use the internet in any way. Again, there are ways around this but it should not be the case.

Sorry about this post, it was going to be short and mention the immense amount of money made from games these days and it ended up being a sort of game review. Don't let the negatives put you off getting the game though, it is an astoundingly beautiful and immersive game.

Back on point, when I started looking up how to sort my installation issues, I discovered that Skyrim had only been out a month and already had earned $650 million. Yes million!!

I then discovered that Modern warfare 3 earned even more. 1 Billion in 16 days? Those numbers are stunning. Modern warfare made more money than avatar and I would hazard a guess that it cost a lot less to make. Now I see why blockbuster movies usually have a computer game version as well. If the avatar game had made the sort of money that modern warfare 3 did, then James Cameron would be very happy indeed.

Anyway I hope everyone had a great Christmas day. Try not to over eat too much today, I could barely sleep last night while digesting all that food.

Yuletide Greetings

2011-12-24T10:00:00.000Z

I thought I would celebrate this Christmas eve by mentioning two Irish winter warmer from one of the Irish independents.

8 degrees brewed A winters ale using only the finest ingredients, and where possible they used ingredients from local sources such as the spice mix which came from Green Saffron.

It's was a mix of toffee with coves and other spices which give a real kick to what is essentially just a strong porter. I found it a little thin but the liquorice middle and spicy finish along with warming alcohol made up for it.

More seasonal specials from the Irish craft breweries please.

Yesterday I picked up my Christmas beer selection from Drinkstore. A mix of winter warmers, standard Irish craft beers and some new world beers. It seems the day before, a shipment of Yule Ól (white gypsy) arrived in the store so the good folks at drinkstore added it in for free.

It was the first beer I drank last night, and the only non standard one. The rest were O'Hara's IPA and Stout.

This is interesting because Cuilan, the former and sometimes current brewer for Messrs Maguire (depending on if they have a current brewer), used to brew Jul Ól. No longer, a new brewer is in messrs by all accounts and he brewed their batch of Jul Ól so Cuilan has changed a single letter in his version.
I doubt they are the same beer, Yule Ól certainly casted nothing like last years Jul Ól.
The in question pours a beautiful rich ruby red/mahogany with a fluffy off-white head. There is a strong toffee on the aroma as well as a shertbety fizz indicating that it will be pretty carbonated. It is quite gassy, perhaps a little too much for my liking, especially in a winter warmer. The alcohol is obvious, though not harsh. It does give a very drying quality down the back of your throat. A toffee and caramel; malt driven body with chocolate and a hint of coffee, a little plum and other dark fruits. I got the slightest hint of cloves but not a lot and there may not even be any in the beer so it could have been a yeast produced flavour.

All in all, the beer is quite nice but too gassy for my liking. You can pick up a bottle in drinkstore of course, or if you want to sit in a pub today or over the Christmas period then The Bull & Castle also got a couple of cases in.

Merry Christmas to everyone and enjoy your beer this Christmas.

The Salthouse - Galway

2011-12-22T13:05:00.000Z

My first (and as yet only) trip to The Salthouse was a few weeks back for the second Beoir AGM. We had the whole bar to ourselves for over an hour while we held our meeting. Our generous hosts provided their bay brewery beers to us for free. What lovely fellows.

I did of course have to buy some beer while I was there. Free beer is all well and good but there were beers I had not yet managed to try. Alternator by the Metalman brewery was on tap so I just had to give it a go. The beer is packed full of carbonation as you might expect from a German & Belgian hybrid wheat beer. The aroma was straw, a little sourness and some bubblegum. In the mouth, the carbonation is very lively. It was fairly wheaty with that nice sourness you might expect from a Berlin styled wheat beer; and a Belgian like spiciness with coriander and pepper. I thought the body was a little on the thin side, which in this case was probably a good thing. I also thought that there was a hell of a lot of flavour, not complex or especially interesting, just plenty of it. The slightest hint of acetone was the only real flaw. A brilliant summer beer I reckon and I'm glad I got it before it was all gone for the season as it's an Autumn special.

The Salthouse itself is tiny, the bar consists of one room; similar in size to the Bierhaus in Cork. It is more American style beer bar than Irish pub, not a bad thing. As the day wore on, more and more locals came in and since I had to get the bus home, I could only stay till about 6ish so I reckon the place gets pretty packed at night. VelkyAl from Fuggled loved Galway the last time he was over and I know this is the sort of place the two of us would happily spend an entire Saturday from opening till closing time.

The Salthouse is owned by the same people who bring us The Oslo in Salthill (Galway) and Against the grain in Dublin. The layout and vibe is similar. No TV, and music is played at a low enough level so you can talk without issue. There are some great beers on tap and plenty more in bottle as well as a cask beer engine, possibly the only one in Galway?

If you find yourself in Galway and enjoy good beer, then it's somewhere you must get to. In fact it's working making a special trip to Galway to enjoy the fine beer in a friendly environment.

Random Britishness

2011-12-20T21:50:00.000Z

My wife was over in London a few weeks back and was nice enough to bring me back some beer. She bought them at a market and they purveyor said she was having a Brit fest.

First up is Caskade by the Oldershaw brewery in Lincolnshire. The aroma is a lager like biscuit and cereal with a grapefruit citrus bite. On tasting I got a bitter hit up front with a crisp citrus finish.A very dry and bitter beer this and I quite liked it. It's not an interesting beer, it is simply a good sessionable thirst quencher (and generator).

Hmmm A brightly coloured label and a beer called Scotch Madness. The camp label aside, the Madcap brewery have put together something that is quite simply; mad. The beer pours a dark brown and starts off with a fluffy white head but this disappears in moments. It's a little winey with prunes being prominent; some ash and liquorice; brown sugar and olives? Where there hell did the olives come from?

The beer is very fizzy and also quite thin on body. It's a bit of a malt bomb and the most interesting thing is that there is a saison style sourness to it. The overall effect is a fizzy; sour prune juice concoction. I did like it but it's 8.5% and you can drink it like it's juice. That may just be what makes it Scottish come to think of it as it seems more Belgian to me.

Ebulum elderberry black ale is from the reliable Williams Brothers. Well known for their traditional style herbal infused beers, the Williams boys have produced a nice fruity elderberry porter. It's not especially interesting but that's not the point of the beer. It's simply a very well put together beer that is very pleasant to drink. Lovely stuff.

The Loddon brewery is another one with a camp label. Hullabloo is a British best bitter. There is nothing camp about the beer however. It's a cracking beer actually. The aroma is nutty, a little wine like with dark raisins and other dried fruit. There is a strong caramel malt backbone to this beer with a beautiful earthy hop profile from the fuggles. It tends to lean more towards the sweeter end of the scale. A lovely beer I thought.

The Lancaster brewery use a simple naming system. This is their Black and while dark ruby red is closer to the mark, you can see where they are going with it. The aroma is all molasses; chocolate, fruity, caramel and liquorice. The taste is bitter at first, somewhat thin but packed full of flavour. Molasses, bitter dark cocoa, herbal hops to finish. A lovely beer by any standards.

And finally is Double swan from Elgoods. This is a rather simple pale ale and there is little wrong with that. A crisp nose with earthy hops and caramel. It starts off with a bitter hit down the back of the throat and then moves on to a slightly metallic and dry finish. A good quaffer on a warm day.

A brewdog Christmas.

2011-12-18T13:41:00.001Z

How do you make a Christmas Porter? Well the method Brewdog used was to take their existing Alice Porter and add some festive fun. They needn't have bothered because this beer just seems wrong for some reason. It's not a terrible beer or even a bad beer, there is just something lacking, something that leaves you wondering why they bothered? For a start, there is little about it that leaves me in a festive spirit. I want a Christmas beer to remind me of Christmas and this did not even come close. It starts off promising with a smoky aroma with hints of coffee, fizzy sherbet and caramel. It suffers when you taste it and are instantly assaulted by an overpowering bitter orange pith, a sort of Jaffa Cake beer but without the sweetness that backs up a Jaffa cake. It was just plain weird for me, I still enjoyed it but it was just a weird beer. My advice is to just drink Alice Porter and not this Bastardised version.

Old word Russian imperial stout. That's a bit of a mouthful. The interesting thing is that there is no mention of brewdog on this beer at all. In fact the only indication it was made by them is the signature of James and Martin on the back. In actual fact this is Rip Tide in a pretty frock. It's Brewdog creating a stores own brand so to say. Most of the 10,000 bottles went to Total Wine in the US so that's the most likely place you will find it, other than on the brewdog website for sale.

Unlike Christmas Porter, this beer (Rip Tide) is shockingly beautiful. The aroma starts off on a high with liquorice and caramel morphing into milk chocolate, vanilla and a hint of espresso. It's hard to believe that the wonderful aroma can be topped but from the first sip, this beer draws you in and surrounds you in a blanket of comfort. Silky smooth, luscious chocolate and caramel prove a sweet backbone to what is actually a rather bitter beer. Plenty of bittering hops are used and the effect is a burnt coffee bean finish. The whole beer just comes together perfectly with almost none of the 8% abv making itself known. There is only the slightest hint of booze, hidden behind the complex rich body.

An astounding beer. Get this one for Christmas instead and don't worry about Christmas spices that would just ruin the experience if beery excellence.

Thanks to Steve for the bottles.

When brewers go mad for Christmas

2011-12-16T16:53:00.001Z

I mentioned last month, the secret Christmas ale I was asked to brew for a large Irish brewery. It was never to see the light of day, just an internal competition for brewers. It could be anything they liked but the idea was to make it festive. I was given a recipe that was never brewed, and with good reason because it was rubbish and made no technical sense.

Well I got the finished product. And in fairness it looks the part. Theirs is on the left* and mine on the right. They filtered theirs and it looks quite appetising. I am comparing theirs with my bottle conditioned version as the keg is long gone and the kegged version was of course a lot clearer, though not as much as their filtered batch.

They decided that my Christmas cheer was too subtle, as in they could not taste it. Weird because it was pretty obvious to me and most others that tasted it, though they were beer geeks like me. Anyway they wanted more cheer so they went a little overboard with spices, especially the cloves.

What they ended up brewing was a clove bomb. It was almost undrinkable but I did battle through my two bottles. I had been intending to bring the second one up to Steve last weekend but I forgot it. He does however have a bottle of my bottle conditioned version so maybe he can leave a comment with his thoughts. Was there enough Christmas cheer for you Steve?

Baring in mind, the recipe I put together was as close to the boring recipe they gave me that I could make and still have it in some way worth drinking. Had I been brewing a Christmas beer of my own accord, I would certainly be using more interesting ingredients, starting with a more interesting yeast instead of a Neutral one.

As it turns out, they did not win the competition with their beer. They would have failed on the beer alone but in fact the best beer does not necessarily win, it's the best overall presentation so labelling and spiel behind the beer goes a long way. Interestingly when I gave them the bottle conditioned version, I was told that had they brewed my recipe exactly, they might have won it. When I gave them the samples from the keg, it was only a day old and force carbonated at that. The kegged version did condition nicely and after a couple of weeks it was beautiful.

Moral of the story? Professional brewers in mega breweries should listen to small scale brewers a bit better.

*If you zoom in a little, you might figure out the brewery in question. No names though.

Oh for something sessionable...

2011-12-14T15:25:00.000Z

This is my first outing with Norwegian beer full stop. Nøgne Ø is a microbrewery that seems to have a bit of a reputation for making some very fine beers. I love that drinkstore stocks them but they are shockingly expensive. That said, the good folks at drinkstore said that they have had Norwegians enter the store and be pleasantly surprised that the beer is so cheap. It's far more expensive in Norway it seems. Finally some revenge for the fact that I can buy Irish whiskey in almost any other country, far cheaper than I can in the county it was produced.

Starting off with the Pale Ale. At 6% this is the lowest abv of all the beers. And so begins an ever increasing alcohol level for me to get through. This is your typical American style pale ale, though it's more like an American IPA. The beer is good, well made and is exactly what I would expect from an American influenced pale ale. It is not worth the price though, and considering the beer is even more expensive in it's native Norway, I wonder where you have to go to get it at a reasonable price?

Taking a jump in the abv scale, the IPA is almost the same as the pale ale, except for the 7.5% abv starts to show with a little booziness. Other than that, I think I preferred the pale ale.

An Imperial India Pale Ale next? Why not. This 10% monster makes a mockery of the term pale ale. It's as dark as a porter or dark mild. I'm not getting much of an IIPA vibe off this at all. It's more like a barleywine but no where near is IPA like as Bigfoot for instance. Dark fruit of the forest, port wine and toffee dominate this beer once you get through the booze. Don't get me wrong though, this is a beautiful beer and very nice to drink as a winter warmer. Imperial IPA though? Well it's not like any I have ever had before.

I thought I might be in for something a little different after all these pale ales. I was wrong. #100 as you can probably guess, is/was their 100th brew. It is another Imperial IPA meets barleywine but it was a little more interesting. Rum and raisin chocolate bar, prune juice, toffee and sherbet dominate this one. It's also easier to drink as the booziness is more subdued leaving your tongue to enjoy the flavours instead of being raped by acetone.

Oh for feck sake. Do we really need a porter with an ABV of 7%?? Really?? Toffee, vanilla, brown sugar and a hint of coffee are the main players in this one. A slight acetone finish just ruins it for me. It's a nice beer but 7% is just too strong for a beer that should be sessionable.

The Saison on the other hand I was expecting to be high in alcohol. Surprisingly it was less than the porter at only 6.5%. I think this might have been among my favourites as it was incredibly drinkable and the 6.5% was not much in evidence. A yeasty fruity bouquet in the aroma with a hint of sour candy. I thought it tasted like a cross between a German wheat beer and a saison, but what is a saison really? It could be anything when all is said and done. Banana, yeast, spices (perhaps not clove though), digestive biscuits. A tart sourness complements it nicely. Weirdly though, I thought it had a very oily finish. It was like an oil slick down the back of my throat, or maybe some cough syrup. I don't think that detracted from the overall beer though. I loved it.

An imperial stout, just what I need. This one is 9% and thankfully it does not show it as much as some of the other beers. It pours like bottled oil, perhaps bot as viscous of course but certainly the same colour. Absolute black, the sort of black that you expect dark matter to look like. Perhaps that's why we can't find any in the universe? The Norwegians have bottled it all, either that or drinking this beer will have Nibbler like fecal results. Anyway, enough shiteing on about... well shite. The beer is certainly not that, it's rather lovely actually. A sort of fruity cocoa concoction with a hint of coffee. A little vanilla is hiding in there somewhere as well as a slightly lactic sourness to keep things interesting. I did think it was a lot thinner than I expected, considering the that time and space was being drawn in to the glass. That just made it easier to drink.

And finally comes the Christmas beer. A bit of a bah humbug here I'm afraid. Only in the sense that I could not detect any Christmas spice nor captured Christmas cheer. Of flavour though, there was plenty to keep me interested at any time of the year, though this was perhaps my least favourite of them all. It's a sort of fruity porter style with chocolate, prunes and coffee dominating. A little vanilla and some booziness finish it off. It's nice enough but a little nutmeg or cinnamon might not go amiss. Something to make it more a Chrismas beer and not just another porter.

My experience of Nøgne Ø was mixed then. On the one hand I thought they were all excellently made beers and I would happily drink any of them again. Just so long as someone else was paying of course. The cheapest of them was €6.50 with most being closer to €7. There are a few more available in drinkstore and I'm not sure I will try them. I have already used the word booziness a record number of times in one post so I think I will try some normal earthbound abv beers now.