The Great British Beer Festival

I am visiting th Great British Beer Festival on Saturday 8th August 2009 at 11am. If anyone is going and would like to come along please email me at mike_foy_email@yahoo.com , if anyone would also like to do any reviews please feel free to send them to me and I will happily post them on the blog accrediting te writer.

I will be conducting a number of mini reviews with the help of the iphone application "Connoissuer" which can be a little fiddly but after a while becomes good to use.

I would appreciate any help anyone could give this as I am trying to rekindle my interest in this blog!

Beer Chimp Back Very Soon

After an inordinate amount of time away from this site due to a few personal matters I will be back within the next week or so with more reviews than ever so watch this space...

I have a number of completed reviews and hope to have them posted up for you soon.

Fuller's Discovery Review

Fullers Discovery (4.5%) is an ale primarily aimed at converting lager drinkers to ale and has been brewed by Fullers since 2004.

The ale is carbonated and looks like a typical pale golden lager. There is a total lack of visible yeast and no head whatsoever. It has a slightly sweet citrus aroma however this is very feint and has little else going on. A real dead ale.

The taste is a cross between Flowers and Carling, and that is no good thing. It is too carbonated, too malty and is almost absent of hops.

As a lager drinker, even I cannot condone this as appealing to lager drinkers, there is nothing spectacular about putting an ale (and not a very good one at that) through the soda stream and trying to get lager drinkers to accept it.

Unfortunately Fullers Discovery is trying to be all things to all people and it does not deliver in any category. As an ale is has little quality and not complex enough to enjoy a good tasting. As a lager it has no qualities other then the apperance and the carbonation. It is as I expected, right in the middle of medeocrity. It is certainly a step in the right direction to get us lager louts to try ale. It ticks the boxes for innovation and a good idea but in my opinion is executed poorly.

I am giving Fullers Discovery a 2/5, the only thing saving it from a 1/5 is the fact that it is trying to broaden appeal in the right direction and hopefully it will develop the beverage into something better.

Hobgoblin Legendary Ruby Beer Review

Hobgoblin (5.2% bottle / 4.5% cask) is brewed at the Wychwood (Formerly the Eagle from 1893 - 1990) Brewery in Oxford, Hobgoblin is Wychwood Brewerys flagship drink.

It is a dark reddish / maroon ale with a off-white creamy head (which dissapears rapidly) and surprisingly looks rather unappealing.

On first sniff Hobgoblin is rather fruity and malty and caused me to look farward to my first delicious swig. The taste is a little chocolatey, you can get some wonderful roasted malty qualities as well as being fruity. There are many other mild flavours you can get from it such as hazelnut but the lovely roasted taste and dark chocolate (some have said toffee but not me) flavours that make this a great ale. This ale has great mothfeel qualities too, there is just the right blend of bitterness and is slightly lively on the tounge.

If I am being honest, I am not an 'ale man' so to speak, but was enjoying hobgoblin so much that I had drank half my pint withour making any other notes apartfrom the aroma. This is a great ale and will make me try a few more of Wychwood Brewerys other products.

I am giving Hobgoblin 4/5, it is my favourite ale (in my limited experience) and I will once again re-review this once my ale pallette is more developed.

I almost can't wait to finish typing this so that I can continue to finish the beer!!

Aspall Dry Suffolk Cider Premier Cru Review

Aspall Dry Suffolk Cider Premier Cru (7%) is the 2008 Worlds Best Dry Cider according to "Beers of the World Magazine" and the winner of the "International Beer & Cider Competition" in 2002, 2003 and 2004. It is brewed in Aspall Farm Hall in its current form in Suffolk since 2000 however the history of Aspall cider dates back for 300 years.

The cider looks like any other fizzy cider but you can smell the crispness in the aroma and the drink oozes quality. It has a very dry taste and makes me assume that it uses very good quality apples. Indeed it is a Cru and it lives up to the name.

I am personally not big on ciders at all however having tasted this at a recent visit to the "Taste of Christmas Festival" in London last year I have developed a new found love for the drink.

My main experience of cider (other than white lightning, snakebite and diamond white when I was 18) is the current popularity of Bulmers, Magners and to some extent Koppaburg which I was enjoying to an extent until my first taste of Aspall. I now look at cider as a much more complex drink and relate it more to a wine when trying to guage the quality due to my un-trained taste for beverage.

I can now rule out Magners and Bulmers as quality ciders (in my opinion) when I compare them to Aspall Suffolk Dry Cider. It is a wonderful drink and my favourite cider by far, I would recommend it to anyone. Especially at the prices I see it at in local supermarkets. It almost make me angry when I see almost every pub I go to offering Magners / Bulmers as the only cider offering when there are better and cheaper ciders on the market. No doubt when it does hit the mass market some idiot will want to serve it smothered over half a pint of ice.

I am giving Aspall Dry Suffolk Cider an 4/5 in this review, however if anyone can offer a more concise review of the drink I will happily upload it here as my knowledge of cider is so limited.

Innis & Gunn Original Review

Innis & Gunn Original (6.6%) is a Scottish Beer brewed in the Belhaven Brewery in oak barrels which where previously used to mature bourbon.

The beer is reasonably dark with some golden qualities and has a slightly off white head. It is very clear and could be mistaken on the shelf for a scotch or whisky.

In your first whiff of Innis & Gunn you will immediately notice a yeasty, oaky smell and a hint of coffee.

In your first taste you will notice a strong malty oak taste but the beer is very complex and I also found coffee, vanilla, fudge, whisky, butterscotch, honey, the list goes on but unfortunately the taste of oak and coffee overpowers the rest of this drink. You can also easily taste the alcohol in the beer which I personally do not like. The beer has a strength of 6.6% and you can taste every bit of it.

The drink itself is very smooth and a little heavy but my main concearn is that that with so many flavours going on the taste of coffee and oak ruins what would be a really enjoyable drink. Unfortunately those flavours are so strong that in a 750ml bottle I can hardly bring myself to pour the second glass.

I am offering a 2/5 for Innis & Gunn, had the main tastes been toned down a little I would consider this to be a great beer.

They do have a very good website though and the production process outlined there is very interesting. Whilst drinking the beverage as it explains plenty about the complex tastes. http://www.inninsandgunn.com/

Weihenstephan Review

Weihenstephan Hefe Weissbier (5.4%) is a German Beer brewed in the Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan (god only knows how to pronounce that without irritating our Bavarian friends) brewery which claims to be the oldest brewery in the world dating back to 1040.

This beer is a golden brown cloudy beer which although not very fizzy has a very robust head. The initial aroma is YEAST YEAST YEAST however when you get past that you notice subtle friuty hints.

With a lack of fizz, this feels smooth but heavy on the pallette and can become a little sickly however as you continue to consume the beer the fruity undertones start to come through which makes this very enjoyable indeed.

In all honesty this beer has been very difficult to review indeed, on the first sip it was too yeasty and simple however by the end of the bottle I feel the need to open another. I have come to the conclusion that this is a wonderful beer, I have not been a great lover of cloudy beers (possibly because I have actually tried so few) however this has made me want to try more.

On first taste I would have given this beer a 1/5 however after the whole bottle I am very satisfied and am awarding a 4/5. A champion beer! I wish I had bought another bottle in order to offer a better review so I may come back to this one at a later date.