An IPA a Day #22

Six days to go until International IPA day and we're getting into the big hitters now. Sooner or later it would have come to this one, I have lost count of the amount of bottles I have consumed in the last three years. Lots anyway.
Regular readers of R.A.B will probably have guessed what it is.
At a not inconsiderable 5.9% abv this beer is very nicely balanced. At the point of writing this it has 1191 ratings and a score of 96 on Ratebeer.
It goes really well with Chicken, Pork, curries, Gouda & blue cheese - well everything really.
It won gold medals at the World Beer Cup and The Great American Beer Festival - 10 years apart those awards...
The Brewmaster at the brewery recently left, and is now pursuing other interests(cider), good on him too, he's done an amazing job in the last 23 years or so. Thank you sir...Oh and he's also one of the nicest blokes on the planet.
Have you guessed what the beer is yet? Well if you haven't let me give you some tasting notes...

Colour : Light copper or Bourbon coloured.

Nose : Lots of fruit mainly citrus fruit like lime & orange and floral although not being a florist I couldn't tell you which.

Taste : Lots of citrus, lime, lemon, orange or mandarin, and a biscuity dryness which just makes the beer all the more..er moreish.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you haven't already guessed, I give you Goose Island I.P.A. (cue applause)

Speaks for itself.

An IPA a Day #21

Next in my lead up to International IPA day on August 4th(1 week to go folks!) is another Belgian beer and I have to say.....Wow!

Back in the sands of time, at the turn of this century a four newly qualified brewery technicians straight out of KaHo St. Lieven, the best known brewing school in Gent, were finding it increasingly obvious that they'd have a hard time getting brewmaster jobs in the Belgian beer world and decided that they should use their own enthusiasm and efforts to create the Muskateers Brewing Co.

After that they needed a name for the beers they were creating and eventually the agreed on Troubador. You can read more about the history of the brewery here.

The Troubador Magma is a great Belgian IPA because it has the body of a triple but what gives it the big IPA style is of course the hops! The massive fruity aroma come from the dry hopping process with American hops which are so popular today! It's a beer of incredible balance and flavour and I'm trying to get more for The Rake! Love it!

An IPA a Day #20

To Chico we go now and the extremely popular Sierra Nevada Brewing Co and probably my favourite of their beers, Torpedo Extra IPA.
I've written about this on more than one occasion, but I'm not sure that multiple drunk diary entries really count.
For me the greatness of this beer all starts with the colour of the label, it's a darker, more mysterious than the boring old Pale Ale label that everyone knows so well and orders without even thinking. Don't get me wrong I think the Pale Ale is still a great beer but the Torpedo is phenomenal!

It's 7.2% and as you can see it's a beautiful light tawny red and when you stick your nose in the glass you get a mental blast of hoppy Pineapple, Mandarin and Pine, when you taste it there's so much bitterness up front that it almost drowns everything else out. After the second or third sip though your taste buds are working overtime and really getting the citrus and a slight malty sweetness in the middle and the citrus bitterness hits you on the arse at the end!
Such a great beer! I can't recommend this enough, get some down ya!!

Beer and Bieber

A couple of tweets this morning have got me thinking. Viral marketing has been around for a while now. The boys at Brewdog do it quite well as their fan-boys will attest to but they've become a bit mainstream and dull so I think it's time that the rest of the beer industry and it's commentators joined in!

Here are some tips from a rank amatuer...

Bloggers! Get more hits on your sites by putting words like Sex, Bieber & X-Factor in your titles and posting them on twitter! When they click on the links they will find the world of craft beer waiting for them! (who cares if Bieber fans have an average age of 6, you'll get hits and that's what matters!)

Imagine if you will, how many more hits not-so-young Dredge's blog would have got this week if it was called 'Pencil and Winehouse's crack Spoon'? Simples.

Other examples of people who really need to get their blogs more exposure would be Pete Brown - Imagine how much better it would be if his blog was called Pete Brown's Bieber Blog? 

My own blog would jump considerably up the wikio rankings if the name were change to X-Factor Sex Bieber! Of course, unlike those examples I'm nowhere near talented enough to keep peoples attention so I might ACTUALLY do this!

Tweeters : Get more followers by including a superstars name in your twitter handle, one such example might be Chunk who's twitter handle should be BeerBirraBieber. 

Who needs a #ff when you could have twitter handle such as @#changewordinnameofsongtocraftbeer? stroke of genius if you ask me....

Craft Brewers : change your brewery name to something sexual for Brewdog see Brewdogging, well easy, this malarky, for Summer Wine Brewery see Sexy Wine Brewery, does what it says on the tin, innit!

So I leave you to make up your minds people, this craft beer revolution will not be won by playing the big boys fairly, use every edge you can find....or make shit up!

Until next time, 

love, 

Bono. ;-)

An IPA a Day #19

21st Amendment is a brewpub in San Fransico which is doing some spectacular beers. Founded in 2000 by Shaun O'Sullivan and Nico Freccia in the shadow of the San Francisco Giants stadium, it has eight rotating taps of top quality craft brews and a restuarant that serves fantastic food! This is the place where I discovered the spicy food and IPA pairing which I enjoy so much.

We're down to my top ten IPA's in the lead up to International IPA Day and the inspiration for two London beers, Kernel Black IPA and Military Intelligence, Back in Black IPA.

I'm lucky enough to have amazing friends who bring me amazing beers from across the pond every now and then and this was one such beer. I've had it twice now, first brought back by my friends Matt and Karen and another can by Mark Dredge. I blogged about the beer and at the risk of being a repetative bore I'll give you the aromas and flavours I got from this.

Aroma and taste : Liquorice, Orange and Mango were the most prevalent in both the taste and aroma and had a dark chocolate bitterness to it aswell.
What more can I say? The branding is some of the coolest I have ever seen and the people who run the brewpub in San Francisco are great, what's not to like?

An IPA a Day #18

Off to Maryland for the last IPA before my top 10 in my lead up to International IPA Day and Flying Dog Brewery, based in Frederick.

You'll recognise the Flying Dog bottles on the shelves or in the fridges of your shops and bars by the distinctive label designs. Designed by Ralph Steadman the art work is that of a demented genius(Flying Dog's words, not mine) and it has really brought the flying dog brand to life so that not only do you get a fantastic beer, you also get a work of art on the bottle to take home should you so wish.
The Snake Dog IPA is the hop monster from Flying Dog, at 15 Plato (7.1% abv) it's 60 IBU's give it the perfect amount of bitterness for a beer that strength. Brewed with Warrior and Columbus hops there's a big Grapefruity kind of character to this beer which also is nicely balanced with a caramel maltiness.
Flying Dog also share my opinion that big hoppy IPA's deserve a wonderfully spicy meal to pair them with and this beer will go really well with a spicy Thai or Mexican dish or something with lots of Wasabi. Who am I to argue, I just say, get it down ya!
Flying Dog Brewmaster Matt Brophy was also one of the first to sign The Rake's wall too, one Sunday before we started opening on them!
The Brewery's motto is "Good people drink good beer" Indeed they do.

Parliament does something right

Got sent this link by a friend on twitter. It's one of those pieces that you want to see in our newspapers every week rather than the ridiculous 'lady beers' or the stories about how Britains booze culture is ruining civilisation as we know it.

In a nutshell UK based Michelin starred chef Sriram Ayulur has been named 'Britains Beer Drinker of the Year' by the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group.
Ayulur heads up Taj Groups Quilon restaurant in London which is well known for having their South west coastal cuisine paired with beer!
He also did a fantastic job for the British Guild of Beer Writers at our annual awards dinner last year, it's very easy to see just why he has that Michelin star.

I love these sorts of stories.