Britiah Summer Ales

It seems very strange writing about Summer beers whilst sat in my conservatory with the rain absolutely lashing it down and disturbing the peace of an otherwise empty house, but the pubs are starting to fill with beers which brewers choose to name Summer ales.

I am often filled with dread as these beers appear. They are pale, around 4% and often very ordinary. Using pale malt whilst utilising the usual boring earthy English hops does not a Summer ale make.

However my recent experiences seem to demonstrate that more and more brewers are getting the hang of putting flavour into their beer, and that flavour may be described as Summery.

It really is, for me, all about the hops, and where good brewers like Oakham and Pictish have led with their heavily hopped beers using stuff like Willamette and Centennial, others do appear to be following. You need a bit of citrussy flavour to be a Summer beer. You get that from using the right hops. US stuff, New Zealand stuff, First Gold from here all do the trick. Fuggles and Goldings really don't.

Loads of the pale beers I had at our beer festival last weekend hit the spot because they used the right hops. Hats off to those brewers that haev realised this and are prepared to spend a little bit more on imported hops. I like flavour in my beer and a Summer beer on a hot day needs just the right type of flavour.

It's Christmas, Let's Put The Prices Up

A couple of days ago Tandleman wrote an interesting piece on his blog about Christmas beers and how they rarely differ from regular all year round beers.

I fully agreed with him. With a few exceptions they are ordinary beers with a seasonal name and a fancy pump clip.

Today though I realised something else about beers with Christmas names: Wetherspoons can put their prices up. Just last month the guest ales cost £1.59 a pint. However my half of Grainstore Three Kings, another unseasonal beer cost me 90p. That's a colossal rise of 20 pence a pint. I'm convinced they get away with it because your average customer does feel Christmas beers are a bit special.

Are Christmas guest ales dearer in your local JDW? I'd be interested to know.

Pumpkin Beers - English Style

We don't have many pumpkin beers in the UK. Indeed when I wrote this article, I thought that the beer from Badger was the only one. As Craig kindly pointed out Bridge Of Allan make one, and as I've discovered, so too do Leek and Wychwood.

The offerings from Badger and Wychwood are readily available in one major supermarket or another, so as it's Halloween tonight, I decided to taste them one after the other to contrast.

My previous experiences of pumpkin beers are few and far between. I have had offerings from Brooklyn and Shipyard from USA, and Uberach from France. The American beers were both very spicy whereas the French offering had more of a vegetable feel and less spicing.

I started off tonight with Wychwood Pumpking. It appears this was last brewed in 2003 and it is unclear why it has taken this long to be reintroduced. It's dark in colour and has fruity malty flavours and vegetable notes. It is apparently brewed with mace although I certanly didn't pick that out, although there was a little spiciness. It's a reasonable enough beer. Not interesting enough to want to drink with any regularity, but worth trying once a year.

I followed this up with Badger Pumpkin Ale. This is a new beer on the scene and exclusively available in Tescos at the moment. This is much lighter in colour than the Wychwood, and spices hit you quite openly in the nose. The taste reveals some subtle spicing. It's brewed with cloves but there is a definite cinnamon flavour to it. This is much more like the American beers; it is pretty refreshing and quite interesting, and the spices add an extra dimension. I would definitely drink this again over the Wychwood, and hope Badger reproduce it for future Halloweens. If any of you have had either of these, or any pumpkin beers this year, I would be interested to hear what you thought.

I suppose it is too much to ask for our better brewers to go down this line next year? Thornbridge Hall Pumpkin Ale would definitely be one to savour.