Beer Tasting: By the Horns Samba King

The first beer of the evening is By the Horns Samba King. This World Cup-inspired beer is a "rye blonde ale brewed with Brazilian lime and lemongrass". That's a fairly ambitious ingredient list, but I'm happy to say that the brewers pulled off a very nice beer.

The lime and lemongrass really carry the beer from beginning to end. The aroma has a lot of lime zest, a bit of lemon rind and some grassy, citrusy hops. It's not overly sweet but there is a nice doughy, biscuity sweetness that serves as a decent base of operations for the exotic additions. The bitterness is mostly grassy but you also get some juicy citrus aspects as well. The body is light and the carbonation massages. The beer has a grassy finish with oily citrus, light zippy lemon-lime, and some further pale bread sugars.

The lime and lemongrass could perhaps be scaled back slightly so that they are more like accents rather than the main attraction, but that's just a minor qualm. Overall it's a nicely refreshing and well crafted beer. (Score: 3.6/5.0)

Beer Tasting: Fourpure IPA

If I were to give a Most Improved Beer award for the year to date, it would go to Fourpure IPA. When this beer first hit the shelves last November it was fairly pedestrian stuff. The original batches were somewhat jammy and bready, the hop character a bit leafy and piney. It was OK beer but it wasn't exciting.

Last week I got a few freshly-packaged cans and, wow, this beer has improved dramatically. Where the aroma was once muted and simplistic, it's now juicy and vibrant, with a dynamic citrus fruit character. The flavor follows along well with the malts now playing a supporting role (they were more of a lead back in the day) and the hops just singing out. There's lot of juicy grapefruit and tangerine, some bitter pine, light oils, and a clean mineral edge that cuts things off well, leaving you with a grassy, lightly floral finish. It's quite a wonderful beer. I'm blown away by the improvement. (Score: 4.1/5.0)

I really have to hand it to the Fourpure guys. According to them, they haven't changed the recipe dramatically since the first batches came out, but have instead improved their brewing practices and processing to better utilize the hops. I'm happy to say their efforts have paid off tremendously.

A fellow beer geek recently compared Fourpure IPA favourably to Ballast Point Sculpin, which is extremely high praise for an IPA, especially when it comes from a guy like Andy Parker, who's tasted (and brewed) his share of IPAs. (Ballast Point is a San Diego-based brewery and their Sculpin is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of the IPA style.) I would agree with Andy that this beer is well on its way to greatness.

Well played, Fourpure. Keep up the good work.

Beer Tasting: Five Points Pale

In the glass today is Five Points Pale, a 4.4% beer brewed with amarillo, centennial and citra hops. Five Points, based up in Hackney, has a tight core range consisting of this pale ale, a porter, a red ale, and a recently-launched IPA. They have also put out an experimental brett porter, which was quite good.

I've had this beer twice before, once from cask and once from bottle, and each time I enjoyed it. This bottle today, though, doesn't fire on all cylinders. It pours mostly clear gold with a frothy, white head. The nose holds a bit of citric orange, some grainy pale malts, dirty hay, wet leaves. The flavor is lightly sweet with pale bread, bitter grain husks, slight grass, orange rind, more hay. It's light bodied with fine, almost soft carbonation; the condition seems slightly wanting. Further gritty bitterness to finish, some astringency, hints of wood and grass, rindy citrus, some soggy white bread. The astringency lingers on the back of the tongue. There could be a bit of over-extraction in here or something. Overall it's still drinkable stuff, but given previous experience with this beer I expect more. (Score: 2.8/5.0)

Bottle came in a mixed case of beers from London breweries, from new online retailer London Beer.

Beer tasting: The Kernel India Pale Ale Citra Galaxy Mosaic

Each of the three hops featured in this beer on its own makes for a fantastic IPA; indeed, Kernel has made a world-class single-hop IPA using each, with the IPA Citra being arguably the brewery's best known beer. Put these three hops together, though, and the outcome is all but guaranteed to be good.  

This beer pours hazy, rich orange-gold with a frothy, white head that settles into a cream. The nose is rife with dank, citrusy hops, piss, orange and grapefruit; this is vintage Kernel right here. Medium sweet flavor with sturdy pale malt structure that allows the hops to really come out and play. This guy is loaded with juicy citrus, sappy pine, overripe melon and papaya, tangerine, some lightly pithy grapefruit and dry pine needles. It's medium bodied with fine carbonation. Good and resinous to finish with outrageous citrus juice and ripe tropical fruits. Moderately bitter with notes of toasted grass and pine. Glorious stuff. This definitely takes me back to the early days of the Kernel, when they first started splashing on to the scene with their brand of clean yet still super dank IPAs. Ah, lovely. (Score: 4.1/5.0)

Beer Tasting: Beavertown Holy Cowbell India Stout

Beavertown recently put out another dark, hoppy beer. They call this one an 'India Stout', suggesting that it straddles the line between IPA and stout. I'm not sure why they wouldn't simply call it a black IPA, but I suppose that at 5.6% it's slightly below what could be considered IPA-strength territory. Nevertheless, this beer carries on the proud Beavertown tradition of making absolutely stonking roasty, well-hopped beers.

I can remember the first time I tried Black Betty - Beavertown's flagship black IPA - shortly after it came out back in November 2012 and being absolutely blown away by it. Beavertown hadn't really made a name for themselves at that point, so to have something that I considered world-class from a relatively unknown London brewery came as something of a surprise - albeit a very welcome one. Indeed, in the ensuing two years, the beer has made quite a name for itself and currently ranks, in a tie with two other beers, as the 8th highest-rated black IPA in the world, according to RateBeer. And at the same time, Beavertown has made quite a name for itself, rocketing into the craft beer collective conscious as one of the UK's top breweries.

The Holy Cowbell takes its place as Black Betty's slightly milder younger sibling, but by no means is it tame. It pours deep, black-brown with a thick, lasting beige foam head - it looks fantastic. There are heavily roasted malts in the nose, some burnt popcorn, cocoa, earth. The flavour is light-medium sweet with further hefty roasted malt character, some tar, burnt molasses, raisins, baking cocoa, burnt toast, rich earth and burnt pine. Medium bodied with fine, massaging carbonation and a chewy mouthfeel. It's well balanced to finish and it has dynamic dark, roasted malt character, plenty of bittersweet cocoa, some oily chocolate notes, scorched earth, burnt wood, some ripe and leathery dark fruits, and more resinous and burnt pine. This is an excellent beer, and there's loads of depth for being sub-6%. The mouthfeel, in particular, is truly exceptional. Basically, what you've got here is another superlative hoppy dark beer from Beavertown. Well done. (Score: 4.1/5.0)

Be sure to pop by Beavertown's new taproom, which has its grand opening today, 5 July. See our Events page for further information.

Beer Tasting: Partizan Pale Ale Mosaic Kazbek

Recently I tried another of Partizan's pale ales; this one uses mosaic (aka HBC369, and the son of USA's simcoe) and kazbek (of Czech extraction, derived from saaz). 

The beer starts rising out of the bottle once it’s cracked - a bit heavy on the carbonation, this one. It pours cloudy, orange-gold with a large, ever-expanding white froth head. There's great aroma here, with lots of fresh, juicy hops, grapefruit, tangerine stuff, pretty much what you might expect from the expressive mosaic. The flavor is moderately sweet with a bit of lightly tangy tangerine, slight rindy bitterness, orange juice, faint minerals and pine needles, mango, a bit of earth. Light bodied with lively, mouth-filling carbonation. Nicely balanced on the finish, with pleasant juicy hop character, lightly dried orange and tangerine, lemon peel, faint dry pale bread, some dried pine needles. Pretty clean overall. Shame about the carbonation, which distracts a bit. Otherwise, it's solid. (Score: 3.7/4.0)

Beer Tasting: Weird Beard Dark Hopfler

In their never-ending expansion into new styles, Weird Beard has brought us Dark Hopfler, a beer that really doesn't fall neatly into any existing style category (not that it matters). This is a fantastic beer, with a depth of character that belies its impressively low ABV. Weird Beard calls it a 'dark milk ale', which doesn't necessarily do the beer justice. I'd say it's part milk stout (the sweetness and the roast), part black IPA (the hoppy edge), part mild (the low ABV). What would you call it?

The beer pours deep, black-brown with a large, thick, lasting beige cream head. It has a great aroma, with lots of burnt pine, dark chocolate, pleasant roasted malts. Light sweet is the flavor with nice overriding dark roast character, some burnt sugars, a bit of piney bitterness, subtle milk chocolate. Light bodied with fine, massaging carbonation. Finishes with moderate sweetness, earthy and burnt pine bitterness, cocoa, grapefruit. Extremely solid. There's a kit going on in here, and it smacks of beer much stronger than it is. This is like a black IPA-lite - a session black IPA, if you will. Whatever you want to call it, it's well executed and very tasty. (Score: 4.0/5.0)