Hitachino Nest

After my first real-world paycheck (excluding agencies), I indulged and bought a shit load of beer. I bought two beers from Kiuchi Brewery because I thought, hey, why not buy some Japanese beers?



The first was Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Ale. Firstly, I love ginger. Any type of ginger - fresh ginger, gingerbread men, gingernut biscuits, ginger in stir fries, Jamaican ginger cake, whatever. I'll go mad for it. Most ginger beers I've tried (Crabbies etc and the like) are often way off the mark - incredibly sweet, no alcoholic flavour and definitely none of the intoxicating gingerness I'm after. For me, the perfectly balanced Old Jamaica Ginger Beer is what I judge every alcoholic ginger beer against, in an incredibly prejudicial way. Old Jamaica has the right balance - carbonation, refreshing and fiery at the same time.

So this is what the 7% Real Ginger Ale is up against. The aroma is definitely ground ginger - akin to gingernuts/ gingerbread rather than fresh ginger. There is a slight fieriness that awakens the nose (like snorting some pepper!). In the glass, the colour is a dark brown with an orange tinge. The beer has a strong malt flavour, and the ginger is quite subtle - you may not even notice it! It's more like a twinge of gingerness. There is a sweet aftertaste, it's a light beer with not much alcohol (deceptively drinkable). Overall, it's unfortunately a bit bland. I still have a long way to go to finding the perfect alcoholic ginger beer!

Next up its the 7% Red Rice Ale - what do you expect from red rice?! I've never had red rice - my palette of rice has extended all the way from white to brown (alright, I've had basmati). Really unusual smell, really unusual. I suppose it smells of rice?! The colour is much clearer - more orange with a light brown - it has an 'IPA' colour. The more I smell it, the more it smells of Budweiser. Brewing beer with rice goes back centuries in Japan, and I don't really want to compare this craft beer to Budweiser (which is alright, but really, no) , but that's what it smells and reminds me of. It has a very clean taste, though slightly sour. Nothing really stands out - its not malty or hoppy, its ricey.


Overall, would i buy them again?No - it was nice to try something new but wish i had bought some of their more standard beers, as these beers seem more like experiments (which are always worth having!). Nevermind, onto the next beer!

Someone's got a Bad Attitutde

Live Beer Blogging at the European Beer Bloggers Conference was one of the highlights of the weekend, allowing us bloggers etc. to try seven different beers in 35 minutes! 5 minutes with each beer and brewer/rep, it was basically speed drinking for the excited beer blogger! One of my favourites (and many others) was Bad Attitude and their TwoPenny Porter.

Coming from Switzerland via Italy, Bad Attitude's packaging and branding are fantastic - alternative and very artistic, they would stand out on a supermarket shelf with their unique

and striking designs. The use of 'Stubby' bottles also give it an unusual edge, and most definitely tastier than the usual French 'stubbies' from the supermarket or Calais! Full of fantastic quotes from confident and uncompromising people (Kurt Cobain, Jack Kerouac and many others) ,they fit in line completely with the ethos that Lorenzo from Bad Attitude (BA) explained to us.

Bad Attitude's 'Two Penny Porter' was simply a magnificent, faithful and tasty Porter. Chocolate and coffee notes, even a slightly salty/soy sauce aroma and taste were mixed with a dangerous drinkability. Topped with a Union Jack bottle cap, it really tipped its hat to the British Porter.

Bottle from the Live Beer Blogging

This beer simply did not taste like an 8.1% beer! On the table, we all guzzled it down with abandon and really enjoyed it. Everyone noticed how easy to drink it was. For many, it was the stand out of Live Beer Blogging. Testament to its fantastic taste, all of the beers that Lorenzo from BA had brought with him were quickly snapped up by eager bloggers!

The funny thing about BA is that, if the rest of the team and brewers are anything like Lorenzo, then they really don't have a bad attitude to how and why they make the beer they do! Lorenzo was funny, charming and genuine about his companies tasty and unassuming beers. Lorenzo and the other fantastic Italian I met at the weekend, Alessio from Hoppy Hour, really see beer as a simple, unassuming product that is social to the very core. I couldn't agree more, and I think BA really could grow with its unique branding and tasty beers! Like all good products and brands (and salesmen), Lorenzo let the beer do the talking and it really impressed us.

What I got my greedy mitts on.

Sneaking away with a bottle of the aforementioned TwoPenny Porter, I also got my hands on a Bootlegger California Common and a Winter Warmer. The Winter Warmer was a well balanced English bitter, tawny coloured and slightly hazy. Again, surprisingly drinkable at 8.3%. Perhaps it's the summer sun and heat, but the beer seemed a bit average in comparison to the Porter. Maybe I should have saved it to the dark winter months, but the bottle was too alluring!

The Bootlegger California Common was a really enjoyable beer, blurring the lines between a Pilsner and a pale ale. Bitter and zesty, when it's cold it really gives you a citrus kick. I think this would be a perfect beer to bring your regular lager drinker into the obsessive world of Craft Beer. It also went excellently with my Cypriot-style olives, with lemon juice, coriander and extra virgin olive oil. A great combo for summer weather and summer beers!

Hopefully, their dazzling success at the Conference will encourage them to get involved in the British Craft beer scene (though expansion is understandably always difficult!). Cheers Lorenzo and BA for some fantastic beer and I can't wait to try some more! Hopefully, they'll get to the U.K. soon! I could really imagine a company like BrewDog importing the beers and selling them at their bars/online/shops, perhaps inspiring a younger generation to try some crafty brews!

Brew in the Face?

Brewdog have recently created the website Beerleaks . It is, in their own words, to expose the "insipid, fizzy liquid...masquerading as beer" and "the slaughterhouse of conformity" that is the modern beer industry.

These are testaments that in many way real ale/craft beer drinkers and advocates would agree with, though perhaps with less pseudo-revolutionary speak and a more nuanced insight into the beer industry's strangehold on Britain's beer.

As Britain's beer industry ploughs more money into marketing campaigns, such as Fullers and Charles Wells, will Brewdogs assertive (dare we say aggressive) campaign help them to stand out, heighten brand awareness and get more of their beer (and other craft beer) sold?

Previous ad campaings by Brewdog have readily included criticisms of the beer industry, from smashing mega brand bottles such as Stella, Becks and Carlsberg to the critiques of using isinglass, malt extracts and other dodgy adjuncts. This latest campagin, with its 1984-eqque 'Ministry of Mayhem' encouraging us to drink bland and flavourless beers, is a much more damning and aggressive of the beer industry as a whole. Most definitely following the trend of previous campaigns, its gung ho and bold. The question, though, is whether Brewdog's focus on overt and hostile PR campaigns will leave them Brew in the Face? (Really couldn't avoid the pun :-] )

It's a difficult question. Out of Britain's burgeoning craft beer scene, Brewdog are unquestionalby its most well known brand and 'advocate'. Known for their daring, deriding and damning ad campaigns and videos, they have a degree of promience and buzz that few other breweries can match. If you agree with their tactics or not, they are giving the beer industry a youthful kick up the arse that few others can contend with. Their media-savvy tactics and insights access people and drinkers that maybe other brewries can't reach.

Most importantly, though, Brewdog does make fantastic beer. I love Brewdog's beer. Recently launched Avery Brown Dredge was a fantastic; incredibly hoppy with a fantastic grape fruit flavour, lingering bitterness a devilishly deceiving drinkability. So good I got normal 'lager' drinkers to even have a couple of sips and enjoy it!

And with that observation, leads to a pressing question; Will this campaign get the average (young) drinker off the street to try some craft ale, or will they continue with their Carling/Carlsberg/Fosters/Stella etc? Will they even see this campaign? Is criticising your opponents (who are rather titanic compared to Brewdog) the best way to get your product noticed, bought and adored over others?

In many ways, Brewdog's video is preaching to the converted, so to speak. Assuming that this online campaign is targeting a demographic that DOESN'T drink real ale/craft beer, will any of them even see it? Firstly, it's not on Youtube. For all the jibes about lesser quality and adverts we may have to contend with on Youtube, Viemo simply can't access the market the way companies on Youtube can. As well as this, criticisng others instead of voicing your positives can sometimes be a risky move (think John Kerry v. George W. Bush), though Brewdogs video is obviously well made and gets it point across.

More and more craft breweries are opening, and the ones that are doing well seem to be doing so without the need to criticise the 'Big Four', at least in public. For all the criticism we may give Brewdog, however, they are criticisng an industry and its practices that at least on a basic level many of us in the blogosphere would probably be in agreement with. Perhaps it's only their methods we don't agree with, but how else are companies going to distract (younger) drinkers away from the 'Big Four' and spend their hard-earned cash on more expensive and daring brews?

What are your opinions? I'm still undecided.

Why do I blog about beer?

This was the question asked by the organizers of the first Beer Bloggers' Conference to win a free ticket to the event. A 140-character answer on twitter about why I blog about beer, my answer was

"I blog about beer because beers excites my imagination and stimulates discussion and good times".

Apart from my woeful spelling and grammatical errors, guess what?! I won!!

I was considering going to the BBC anyway, but it's right before my last university exam and did not think it would be wise! Doesn't matter now, I'm going! Such an interesting combination of lectures about beer history, brewing, blogging and, best of all, meals, beer tasting sessions and some evening parties. It is worth missing out on some revision.

The last conference I attended was about British colonial Cyprus. For eight hours. In a very small room on a very hot day. This conference looks like a much more exciting prospect, and since it's free I'm going to 'drink it up' like no tomorrow. Such a great opportunity to meet fellow beer enthusiasts, industry players and some genuinely nice beer-loving down to earth people.

Can't wait!

What did that guy just say?

Being a student isn't easy. (I first published this by saying is instead of isn't. I really thought I could delude myself!).I know what you're thinking - "all you lazy students, too much time on your hands, doing nothing and getting drunk/high/intoxicated non-stop" - but there is still some difficulties in being a student in this day and age. There is no routine, so much work on so many different topics and then you have to live with dodgy landlords, dodgy student houses and most definitely dodgy beer. I'm writing my dissertation, 12,000 words of what I think Britain and the 1931 Revolt in Cyprus and I'm so nearly finished. Nearly being the operative word there.

I am itching to enjoy my last summer of freedom, drinking as many different IPAs as possible and trying as many continental beers as my stomach can allow me to on my summer jaunt interrailing around Europe.

With all the work work work, it hasn't stopped me from spending way too much on beer/ale/alcohol. It has, though, stopped me from updating this blog as regularly as I'd like. So here we go;

1. Bought my first Mixed Case of Beers from MyBreweryTap. I went for the USA selection, simply because I'm not going to the U.S. anytime soon and I had never tried any good American beers. When I seriously started becoming more interested in beer a couple of months ago, it was such a surprise to find that the U.S. is the centre of the world's Craft Beer revolution. I tried some truly fantastic beers. One particularly that stood out was Victory's 'Golden Monkey', a Belgian-style ale. Spicy notes of cloves and herbal flavours, cloudy and a really enjoyable drink. Belgian beers always seen to make me turn into a postulating professor, with the unusual tastes and flavours buzzing round the mouth. I also tried many Odell and Sierra Nevada beers. Odell is a veteran of the craft beer scene in the States (also the name of a village near Bedford, my home town!), and I throughly enjoyed the 'Amber' and the '5 Barrel Pale Ale'. Both clear IPA's with citrus and hoppy flavours. Sierra Nevada is the biggest craft brewery in the States, and out of the several I tried the best was the Porter. It was one of the best I've tried. Morish, chocolate and coffee notes but also not too heavy on the palate and drinkable so as to have more than one, a rare feat from a porter/stout!

America truly is the centre of where beer is going, though Britain isn't far behind with more and more microbrewries starting up every couple months! It's inspired me to make my own beer and finally go to the U.S., trying as many American beers as possible!

2. Went to the Wetherspoons Real Ale Festival around Reading. I went to all three pubs on my own (I know, sad act right) since most of my friends have gone for the holidays and I was in town anyway. After purchasing some Pork Belly, I went to The Back of Beyond and had two 'festival pints'. A great way of trying all the beers on offer, you get 3 1/3 for the price of a pint and you can use your CAMRA vouchers to get 50p off. Also went to The Hope Tap and The Monks' Retreat Had a few fantastic selections, but have lost my piece of paper which I used to note for!

3. Been using a lot more beer in cooking. At the moment ,the beer world is championing the accompaniment of beer with food in a new way. Newspapers, magazines and bloggers are pairing beer with food at home, in fancy (and normal) restaurants and even encouraging beer-aging, just like wine! I suppose in a world where fewer of us are going to the pub, it makes sense for more and more breweries to offer us not only beers to accompany our home-cooked meals but also for breweries to raise their profile in restaurants and rare drinks for dinner parties, collectors or just for the beer-obsessed like myself! Been using IPA for a fish pie, even used the new Avery Brown Dredge to make a traditonal Scottish recipe, Cullen Skink! Stout and Beef soup. So many options, so little time/money!

4. Wandered in M&S one day and found a '6 for the price of 5' offer on ale,cider and beer. Tried many different ales, stouts and ciders. The two that stound are the 'Belgian Wheet Beer', brewed for M &S by Huyghe, Hazy, spicy with orange peel, corriander and sour fruit flavours. Fantastic find. Also, the Cornish IPA was fantastic too. Brewed by St. Austell brewery, it had a clear, citrus flavour with a lovely hoppy aroma. It was so good even my non-ale loving g/f had to exlcaim "I love IPA!".

5. Contemplating on my own homebrewing. Definitely after I have finished uni, I'm going to make my own. Recently saw an opportunity to buy a rather sophisticated collection of home brewing equipment, might have to dive in at the deep end and get stuck in!

6. Have now read all of Pete Brown's beer-related books. They're a fantastic blur of historical insight (pleasuring to the history buff inside me) but also of the author's personal journey into such topics as beer drinking in different cultures, Britain's beer culture and the history of IPA and even travelling all the way to India, on boats and on a similar journey to those made by the British empire for hundreds of years! Fantastic and funny reads, I recommend them to anyone who is interested in beer, travel and culture writing.

After May, this blog will become much more regular!