Kommen sie bitte und listen to Kraftwerk

It is that Oktoberfest time of the year 'Lager! Lager! Lager!'
Now shouting out:
'IPA IPA IPA' with the continuing Hipster trend for the big hop profile American craft ales.
So let me get this straight from the offset, I know a bit about history, I know a little about beer and I know a tiny bit about brewing history.  I started off drinking bitter in the early nineties, was it my dad being a real ale fan? Was it me being into the alternative music scene and not wanting a beer as trendy and as vapid pop acts and boy bands? Was it I liked beer with some flavour?  So bitter was proper northerner, dark mild was proper granddad, lager was part poser part hooligan and IPA was a distant dream where American beer had flavour or proper great, great, great granddad's beer.

Just a second? Bitter must have come into being at the start of the twentieth century. Lager was being stored away in Germany from way before it made it to the UK in 1835. IPA was being sent over with the troops from 1840. However, dark mild must have been the new thing from beer pumps from about the nineteen thirties, so it was a granddad drink because our granddads were drinking it first.

There you have it, what's new is old, what's old isn't so old and I'm wanting some beer. It's Oktoberfest so I'm sampling lagers of varying price & origin and also looking at US craft style beer on a budget.

Let's start with US craft style. It's easy to hate on Hipsters, whilst musing on this social trend was working on the ideal that they were trying to ditch conformity whilst creating their own rigid set of what is acceptable, but isn't that any counter culture? What they have lost with a declining music industry they have gained with a golden era of beer brewing, however with austerity looking here at budget US craft style beverages with one top range for comparison.

Brains Craft Brewery's Black Mountain, £1.29 for a 330ml can from Lidl. The can promises a black IPA, a style that makes you ponder, where does that end and hoppy porter begin, well it isn't here. Luckily not a total wash out, just delivers more of an above average dark mild.

DE14's Fight Suit, £1.29 for a 330ml can from Morrisons. Owned by Marston's, their small brew set has made some good beers, this however is not one of them. It's aroma is of over used pencil eraser and tastes like flat unsweetened Tizer.

Bad Co Brewing's West Coast Pale, £1.29 for a 330ml can from Asda. West Coast? What like Blackpool? It's more North West Bitter, which is drinkable and better than average but it is like selling barm cakes as brioche rolls.

Crate's IPA, £1.80 for a 330ml can from Tesco. Actually a decent quality US style IPA, solid body giving a biscuit like malt base to highlight the classic grapefruit flavour.  Close, so close lets say B plus (The Session IPA pictured).

Torrside's Monster's Double Spartacus, around  £5 independent retailers. Thirteen percent abv, bottle conditioned, near perfect balance and flavour proving for genuinely authentic US craft, really, you need to buy top quality local (for hop freshness) or top quality American import.



Its also easy to be overly judgemental on lager drinkers. Drink what you enjoy even if that's big brand lager. What we have here is craft and import lagers, not all budget & not all from the UK. Do they give you more flavour than the big brand bland? Let's find out!

Bad Co Brewing's Perfect Pilsner, £1.29 for a 330ml can from Asda. Perfect, no. Drinkable, definitely. Enjoyable, slightly. However, it does bring to mind a near perfect pilsner, we'll discuss it later.

Frankfurter Brauhaus' Perlenbacher Hefeweissbier, 99p for a 500ml can from Lidl. Okay, stretching lager to include German bier so I get some variety. A decent bier for the price, I like it because there's wheat & clove but little banana. I'm with Kyle from South Park there, I hate banana.

Privatbrauerei Eichbaum's Festbier, 99p for a 500ml can from Lidl. Basically the flavour comes out like a malty strong best bitter. This I quite like it but will lager drinkers?

Fourpure's Treeline, £1.80 for a 330ml can from Tesco. An India pale lager, IPL Now regardless of top or bottom fermenting, yeasts and malts all of the India pale lagers that I've had up to now, when it comes to the actual drinking, with the higher hop profiles have been like session IPAs. I think the bigger five point nine percent abv takes us away from that. Like a lime cheesecake, not massively flavoured but not tasteless, cream, biscuit and citrus.

 

Cheshire Brewhouse's Dane'ish, £3ish, independent retailers. I'm not a big lager fan but the bottle conditioning and the quality ingredients shine through. Nice aroma with obviously malt led subtle flavours with some Saaz hops and bitterness but all very subtle and extremely refreshing and  near perfect mouthfeel. This is what I will expect from now on from lager. WOW!

So there you go, whatever the popular trend, when it comes to the actual supping, you can't beat genuine authenticity and quality ingredients.