Thursday 20 September 2018

Seven year itch satisfied by two thousand five hundred beers!

September 2011, there is a real ale fan, let's call him Bevis. He's given up smoking for a year, doesn't go to the pub often due to restraints and needs a distraction to give up the nicotine patches. Right, I can't do that awful third person anymore! I had grown dissatisfied of beer that isn't real ale and the only bottle conditioned beers, well I was fed up with Worthington White Shield, couldn't find Moorland's Hen's Tooth anymore and Guinness Original had stopped being bottle conditioned.

So I'm doing the usual shop in Tesco and have accidentally wandered into the beer aisle. I see Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale & Coopers Original for the first time. I laugh, American beer, that sickly watery flavourless joke. Australia? Like Fosters? I buy a bottle of each along with Brewdog Punk and Alice Porter with the intention of proving my prejudgement of them being bland beverages with no place to call themselves ales or with Brewdog associating with the word Punk. I'm gonna mercilessly rip the piss out of them on social media too.

How wrong I was!  Anchor Steam was so much better than Newquay Steam from nearly twenty years ago. Cooper's Original Pale Ale was like a good pint of real ale from a good pub. Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale blew me away with subtle hops, solid malt base & round body.  Yes I did go onto social media but it was to sing the praises of bottled beer from a supermarket shelf. The Brewdog beers were decent enough too but the other bottles had stolen my heart.

So the journey went from there, discovering microbrewers with smaller batches, better ingredients and superior bottle conditioning. First I found from Timperley Corks Out, an independent wine shop, Wincle, a brewer that bridged from real ale to the new craft beer movement. Then the Beeradvocate website. Then the Beers Manchester blog including so many great obscure alternative music references that it grabbed me and got me involved in the Independent Salford Beerfest. That brought me in contact with the Manchester Aleman (that now runs Heaton Hops) and that the North West had more than just Marble brewpub. My locale had Cheshire Brewhouse, Rammycraft, Torrside, Beer Nouveau and Vocation beers ontap. Occasional visits to Port Street Bar hilighting cask as among the best beer.

I really have to recommend that you get to a proper bottle shop and try out one of Cheshire Brewhouse's Govinda IPAs or Torrside's Monsters (strong ales from the dark side).  Or get down to Beer Nouvea's brewtap for proper real ale from a wooden cask. It's a treat that I wholeheartedly believe makes life a little less weary.

For my number 2500 unique recorded beer, I chose Weird Beard's Hello Grisette Me You’re Looking For, a spirited refreshing beer and I wanted something from Beermoth or The Epicurean for that significant numbered beer. There may be local brewers nearer that might be a little closer to my heart but Weird Beard brews have been accessible and innovative. I also love them for their support of Salford Beer Festival.

But let's get back to the practicalities of beer from the here and now, heading back to the shelve's of Tesco. There are ramping up their craft range and offering 3 for £5.25. Fruity brews seeming to be the main thrust.
Brewdog's Quench Quake, Grapefruit and Tangerine Sour that tastes somewhere between sour jelly sweets & citrus fruit wine. Nice but 'In Bed with Madonna' nice.

Thornbridge's Fresa, brewed in collaboration with Fourpure and my first strawberry milkshake IPA. Some strawberry ice cream flavour but it's battling the grapefruit IPA. Interesting.

Innis & Gunn's Mangoes on the Run, aside from the punny name, is I&G a Macrobrewer? A limited edition, so limited it's been around for four months in a variety of can sizes. The end result is like John Smith's Smooth with a splash of cordial.

Hop Stuff's Juicy Fruit, a 440ml can brewed in collaboration with North Brewing Co. Promising, Guava & passionfruit, which is there in a real fruit juice tasting beer but the aroma, it's like a day old fried egg. I had to drink it from a shot glass to overcome the smell.

So where do we go from here, is it down to a lake of beer? I'd like to get 750 unique breweries, cover every available style of beer. Five thousand different beers? I don't know but it goes on, so, never mind the cheering, get the fucking beer in!

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