Friday, 30 January 2015

Beer Glorious Beer

I bought my son a present for Christmas, a beer tasting evening contrasting real ales with craft beers. As he is a young impressionable lad of sometimes-questionable opinions, I felt obliged to offer him guidance and accompany him on this evening of beer tasting.

It was a really cold evening in Leeds and we were early, this was the first of our really hard decisions. I was strong armed into a local hostelry for a pint of Terrier from the York Brewery. Prior to that my son had already lost his footing on the ice, and that was before any beer had ben imbibed.

The tasting was another evening hosted by Laura of Yorkshire Wine, branching out this time into her true love – beer. There were around twenty hardy souls gathered at the Radisson Hotel, a further eight or nine had failed to make it through the icy weather. I am not being glib, but that meant more beer for the rest of us. It was a really mixed crowd, with some beer buffs (beards compulsory) to people who had come along for an interesting evening.


 The premise of the evening was that we would taste a craft beer and a traditional beer from four categories, India Pale Ale, Old Ales, Stout, and Milk Stout. First of all there was the traditional smelling of the hops, contrasting traditional hops with the new fangled hop pellets. In my view the pellets had a very unpleasant smell, and I thought that was reflected in the modern pale ale in which they were used.

The India Pale Ale was not a surprise as IPA is one of my favourite brews, particularly in summer. In truth both the traditional brew from Burton-on-Trent and the more modern brew from Manchester were really good beers. The old ales were much more clear-cut. Theakstons Old Peculiar is a very traditional ale brewed in Masham, North Yorkshire, one of my favourite drinks. Interestingly it is called Peculiar because Masham is a parish, which does not belong to a diocese, so is known as a Peculiar. It was pitched against a modern Christmas ale from Ilkely that I thought was really unpleasant. It conforms to my rule that you should not add foreign bodies to beer.

The stout tasting gave me a real discovery, we drank Imperial Russian Stout, so called because these beers were exported to Russia and were rumoured to be a favourite of Catherine the Great. I can only say that this beer was stupendous just a fantastic drink, the only problem is the strength – a small bottle would be enough for me. So if you can get yourself down the Northern Monk Brewery in Leeds to buy a bottle. Finally there were the milk stouts including a Mackeson. The least said about this classification the better.


 As you can see by the accompanying pictures the evening was thoroughly enjoyed. My readers may not believe this but it was also very educational. Hic….

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