It has been my honour to serve beer for all four of these beautiful, hand crafted, small batch artisan events. It hit the ground running and the first could be held up in equal esteem as the last. This is probably down to the sound organisation skills of Jim Cullen. A man who knows not only good beer but also, probably more importantly good beer people. I could wax lyrical over the four years of awesome beer brought mostly from the North of England, served at the funkiest festival. However as I like to keep this sharp and relevant I would rather gear this section persuading you into attending the upcoming Revenge of the Fifth event.
At this time there are only tickets for Thursday night and Saturday night on the 29th of November and 1st of December. Eighteen pounds will get you admission, official glass, program and £10 of beer tokens, with profits going to charity. Your ticket will also provide access to the friendliest beer festival, alongside exclusive beers from collaborations not seen outside of the event and no doubt live music. But the beer itself, the beer. All brewed by microbrewers, nanobrewers, brewpubs and ale legends that will this year include Belgian stalwarts De Ranke. Served via cask and for the past couple of years on (evil) keg (filth) have been a wonderful balance of truly obscure styles, new takes on regular beers and of course more traditional fare. The Salford Beer Festival has seen Sorachi bubblegum stout, beer made from fermented tea, whinberry mild and more double IPAs, IPAs, pale ales and porters than you could shake an official festival glass at. Treat yourself, it's well worth it, and what could possibly be better than beer served by me?
https://www.salfordbeerfest.com/tickets/
Also nothing new is re-branding and that's what Aldi has done with their 330ml budget craft range. In my 'Budget Craft Supermarket Range' post I put up reviews & photos, that have now all been renamed, thanks Aldi. Hopefully having the brewery of origin at the neck of the bottle will mean that without the anonymity, quality will be kept up to avoid any detraction on the makers name. The beers remain priced at 99p for a 330ml bottle and here are the two beers that I was most curious to see if any change with the re-badge had taken place:
Brain's Dark Matter. Formerly named 'Spill the Beans: Coffee Porter' which was one of my top recommendations for budget supermarket beers. Dark Matter has intensified the coffee, increased the dark chocolate element & bolstered it's body. This has claimed, or reclaimed my title of best budget supermarket beer.
Sadler's Jesse James. Formerly named 'Land of Liberty: American style IPA' and both really highlight that dubious use of the word 'style'. Kind of, sort of, in the vicinity but to be honest not exactly. Think 'olde fashioned style lemonade' where they try and sell you additive full, Aspartame sweetened pop with a picture of a Victorian drinker looking lovingly at a glass of tasty lemonade made with sugar & lemons. Thankfully this new variant has slightly more detectable hops giving a minor improvement with the flavour, not enough though for me to suggest you buy to try.
Brewed under licence and also a re-badge Marston's have another go at recreating
Devils Backbone's American IPA. £1.79 for a 500ml bottle from Bargain Booze. The malt base flavours are improved and hop wise there is more citrus, but what they are improving on is the tastes of a UK IPA. Progress just not necessarily in the right direction.
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