The two beers we have on are Yin & Yang, one a 10% Imperial IPA & one a 10% Imperial Stout that can be enjoyed separately or blended together to make a hardcore black & tan named Taiji.

These two will not be on the bar for long so we suggest you come, get a third of each, try, then blend.

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San Francisco is the home of Anchor brewery and their Steam Beer is everywhere, however I went for Fat Tire by New Belgium brewery based in Colorado. This is a new American classic like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, these pioneering beers have captured the imagination of beer lovers worldwide and I was on the west coast near where the craft beer movement began. Fat Tire was amber, sweet & hoppy, everything you come to expect from a yankee craft beer, it hit the spot, I was in the cradle of the craft beer pioneers.

There is plenty more to discuss, drinking with a fantastic budding new brewer, getting served a ‘dodgy’ Alvinne and paying through the nose for the pleasure and hunting Magic Hat beers in NYC with a regular at PSBH. However, I thought I would break it up into bits, beginning with the top ten beers I drank whilst on the moon.

As follows are the beers in no particular order:

New Belgium – Fat Tire
Classic American amber ale. Sweet, hoppy & balanced

Pacific Brewing Lab – Squid Ink Black IPA
Seriously hoppy with tobacco & citrus notes. Added squid ink.

Pacific Brewing Lab – Hibiscus Saison
Refreshing & dry with loads of funk. Bright pink.

Green Flash – Rayon Vert
Belgian Pale Ale. Amazing yeast character with new world punchy hops.

Unibroue – Blanche de Chambly
Seriously good Canadian Wit bier. Lovely aromatic yeast with spicy aromatics.

Lagunitas – IPA
Really good IPA without sweet malt. Massive hop character.

Dogfish – Chateau Jiahu
Serious contender for the best beer I’ve ever tasted. Sake barrel aged blonde with honey & grape juice. Sweet, woody, balanced with slight sharpness.

Allagash – cuRieux
Jim Beam barrel aged tripel. Belgian style blonde tripel aged in bourbon cask. Amazing vanilla sweetness, with slight sourness.

Dogfish – Saison Du buff
On draft at Eataly. Collaboration between Victory, Stone & Dogfish. Aromatic yeast with spices.

Loverbeer – Madamin
Stunning Flanders style brown ale made in Italy. Beautiful malt balance with sour notes & red fruit.

SOLD OUT
Doors 5.30pm / Event runs 6.15pm – 8pm

Buxton Brewery began brewing in 2010 and is based in the famous Spa town in Derbyshire’s Peak District, establishing itself as world-class craft brewery with a growing reputation for producing flavourful, aromatic and high quality craft beers.

The brewery produces batches of around 800 litres of beer at a time, and has a portfolio of seventeen distinct beers, with more being added regularly. The beers range from their tasty and aromatic 3.6% Pale Ale, ‘Moor Top’ all the way up to their sublime 9.5% Russian Imperial Stout ‘Tsar’. The brewers’ favourite style is India Pale Ale, of which they brew five variants.

Working at maximum capacity, the small group of committed beer lovers produce 30,000 pints of ale per month, and are enjoying rapid growth in sales close to home, nationally and internationally. An expansion project which will double the capacity of the brewery is nearing completion, with the final pieces of equipment due to be commissioned by the end of April. The brewery is regularly picking up awards and plaudits from beer drinkers all over the world and sends beer as far afield as the US and New Zealand.

www.buxtonbrewery.co.uk

We enjoyed beers including Cool Fusion, Continum, Code Black, Colonial and  a very special 3 year Old Infra Red! Not forgetting the fabulous sausage and cheese from Melville Tyson butchers in Cumbria.

Thanks to all who attended and made it another sell out success. See you all at the next Meet The Brewer with Buxton brewery on Monday 30th May.

From time to time, although we think all of the beers on offer are worth a mention, sometimes we get a delivery of something that warrants a little more of an introduction. On both counts this is definitely the case for a selection of beers from a certain De Struise Brouwers that arrived in our fridges a week or two ago. The reason being that not only are they from Belgium, the country whose ‘beer scene’ is revered across the world, but in their relatively short history (well we all know that Belgium’s beer heritage owes a special thanks to a certain type of balding, dress wearing men stretching back several centuries).

De Struise have been voted as the ‘best brewery in the world’ (as voted for by the Rate beer members in 2007 only 4 years after they first began brewing), they were also voted as the ‘best brewery in Belgium 2010′ (as well as 2007) and have received numerous accolades individually for a number of their beers. So you can see why we think they are worth a special mention.

The beers we have for your delectation are as follows:

Pannepot – Possibly De Struise’s best known beer, is named after the old fishing boats that could be seen in the ports bordering France during the early 1900’s and is in the style traditionally enjoyed by the Fishermen who sailed them. A unique dark and flavourful beer with warming malt and sweetness.

Pannepot Grand Reserva – As the name suggests, this is Pannepot with a twist. Aged on Calvados (apple brandy) barrels, this reserve pours deep black with an amazing sweet aroma. Lots of dried fruit and wood on the palate.

Pannepeut – First brewed in 2006 specifically for the for the Danish Københavnske Øldage beer festival this Belgian strong ale has a rich dark fruit nose & sweet finish and due to it’s popularity production now equals that of Pannepot.

Rosso – Lively amber beer with nose of red fruit & yeast. Pours hazy orange with flavours of caramel with pleasing sour (ish) finish

Elliot Brew – Part of Ratebeer’s masters series this beer is a collaboration brew with the Danish heavyweight Mikkeller. Big IPA hop profile with Resinous notes & some sweetness and a big malt body with nice bitterness.

So now you have read about them, maybe it’s time to try one or two and make up your own mind or add your own tasting notes to the site. While you do so here is a little bit of useless trivia for you to ponder whilst you savour one of these beauties.

You may have noticed that on the De Struise crest there appears the image of an ostrich. The reason being that the beers were originally produced by owners of an ostrich farm-cum-bed and breakfast, for their guests. The company also takes it’s name from the historic Flemish word for ostrich, which also is a contemporary slang term meaning ‘tough’, and this why De Struise are referred to as ‘The Sturdy Brewers’. Considering the accolades they have received this is probably quite apt, if not a little little humble…. Enjoy!

Words by John Paul Cassidy

struise.noordhoek.com/eng

Brewery info /

This brewery was originally located at the Woolpack Inn, at the foot of Hardknott Pass, near Boot in Eskdale but in Feb 2010 the pub was sold and the kit taken to an industrial unit in Millom. The pub continues to sell at least one of the beers.

The inn was bought in February 2004 by Ann Wedgewood and Dave Bailey. They decided in 2005 that the Bunkhouse was not making a significant contribution to the business and so they decided to replace the Bunkhouse with a microbrewery. The Woolpack was known to have brewed beer in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Dave became famous as Hardknott Dave for his blog, which you can read it by clicking here.

Port Street Beer School Presents :
Meet The Brewer with Hardknott

Monday 30th April 2012
doors 5.30pm / event starts 6.15pm

£8 tickets available from the bar or 0161 237 9949
Port Street Beer House, Manchester, M1 2EQ

http://www.hardknott.com/

Record Store Day is a day to celebrate the cornerstone of our society that is, the independently-owned record shop. Special vinyl, CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists across the globe make special appearances and performances. This annunal event is celebrated on the third Saturday every April. We suggest you get off your arse, visit your favourite record shop and purchase some lovely music instead of downloading tracks for free, go support.

Our local emporium Piccadilly Records will be taking part in the event, we recommend you support your local dealer. Our big brother Common will also hosting a veritable feast of DJs on the day, you can read more about that here.

So now is you chance to pay us a visit and more importantly we would like to know YOUR favourite beer from the past couple of weeks. Let us know by posting a comment below, maybe get a bit of debate flowing?

Highlights for us have been Camden Black Ink and anything by Gadds, two of the best brewers around at the moment! Amazing beers.

The Festival has proven such a success we have decided to make this an annual event, bring on 2013!

Come down at 7pm to meet Josie and hear the story behind ‘IPA Is Dead 2012′, as well as drinking each one individually you can also blend all four together and construct your own personal IPA! It will be a great event that lets the drinker taste the major differences between hops of varying genus and global orientation, lots more information will be revealed on the evening.

Hope to see you down here.

Brewdog blog piece – http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/some-cool-beers-that-are-in-our-tanks

We enjoyed cheese all the way from High Weald Dairy, Sussex… all in all, good times!

Cheers!