– Ilkley Brewery Specials / Festival Of Britain(s Beers)
Next week we are proud to present two very special beers that will launch Ilkley’s new ‘Origins’ range and as such will be a departure from their current branding.
They will of course retain the quality, hop-forwardness and drinkability that you would come to expect from an Ilkley beer. They are incredibly excited to be launching this range at next weeks Festival Of Britian(s Beers) they include:
Medina: This is a Moroccan style Saison, brewed in collaboration with esteemed Beer Writer Pete Brown. It is 6%, dark brown and has hints of coriander, ginger and orange.
Siberia: A Rhubarb Saison, Siberia was brewed in collaboration with Melissa Cole (yet another renowned Beer Writer). The sour rhubarb is balanced by vanilla, and there is an underlying heat to this 6% Saison.
Cheers and beers.
– Review – Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale / By DJ Adams
And now for something completely different. Last week Port Street Beer House took delivery of a small number of cases of beer from the Kiuchi brewery based in Ibaraki-Ken, Japan. Craft beer from the USA? Check. Classic beers from Belgium and elsewhere in mainland Europe? Check. Amazing small-brewery beers from the UK? Double-check. But craft beer from Japan?
Beers from Japan are making an inroad into the UK via importers in Europe, Italy in particular. Port Street Beer House has heralded Hitachino Nest’s arrival in Manchester by being the first establishment to stock it, in particular the Weizen, Espresso Stout, Sweet Stout, Amber Ale and the Red Rice Ale.
If the first word that comes to mind is ‘sake’ when thinking of Japanese breweries, you’re on the right track. Hitachino Nest is the main beer brand from the Kiuchi brewery, but they only started brewing beer in 1996. Over 150 years prior to that, the brewery was established by Kiuchi Gihei to brew sake from the warehouse stocks of rice collected from farmers as land tax on behalf of the dominant Mito Togugawa family in that region. After the end of the Second World War, when demand for sake increased, the Kiuchi brewery, by then under the leadership of Mikio Kiuchi, bucked the trend and remained true to quality and craftsmanship, resisting the temptation to mass-produce.
So, Red Rice Ale. Not as unusual as it sounds, rice is a common starch adjunct used in brewing beer, most famously (infamously?) used in Anheuser Busch’s Budweiser pale ale. Adjuncts are used for a number of reasons, from cost saving measures (rice is cheaper than barley) to introducing taste, body and mouthfeel features. The addition of red rice is additionally interesting as traditionally it is regarded as ‘weedy’, in other words a variety that produces fewer grains per plant than cultivated rice, and is considered a weed or a pest that grows despite, rather than because of, cultivation.
That the red rice starch adjunct is considered a weed becomes completely irrelevant when you consider the immensely positive impact of it’s addition to the brew of this amber ale. With a pinkish pale colour and impressive soapy-white head, a light sweetness is at the heart of Red Rice Ale, with a fruity rice aroma on the nose reminiscent of rose water, and a subtle strawberry-laced experience throughout. I never thought I’d say this as something positive, but a waxy mouthfeel lends a distinctively pleasant note to the drinking experience. None of the 7.0% ABV strength is evident (except when I walk from the bar to a nearby table to write this review), and the beer is a very easy drinking experience.
Hitachino Nest has been established in the USA for a decade or so now, and rightly so. With its distinctive Owl logo, quality top-fermented beers and innovative techniques, it’s only a matter of time until they’re established over here too. Until then, get yourself down to Port Street, and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.
Brewer: Hitachino Nest
Brew: Red Rice Ale
Style: Amber Ale
ABV: 7.0%
Words by DJ Adams http://www.pipetree.com/qmacro/
– Festival of Britain(s beers)
We’ve had a summertime American Beer Festival along with an autumnal Europtoberfest, so we thought it was high time we dedicated ourselves to showcasing the very best that Britain has to offer. We try and offer the best British beer all year round with our cask lines and a dedicated UK keg font, however we think we can do better, we’ll be aiming to have a complete British tap takeover (barring one or 2 branded fonts). The festival will be kicking off on Monday 26th March with a very special ‘Meet the Brewer’ event hosted by a very special guest (to be announced soon), who will also be helping us curate our selection of beers for the festival.
We wanted to give you an opportunity to get involved with the festival from the outset by providing some suggestions of beers you think are worthy of being included in a celebration of the beers of Britain, cask, keg or bottle. So speak now or forever hold your peace, or at least until next year.
– Perfect winter warmers
We have couple of special super-limited beers on the bar today.
Firstly, available for a very limited period is Thornbridge Bracia aged for 3 years in Pedro Ximinez casks. Thornbridge’s multi award winning, much lauded beer, the brainchild of their recently departed head brewer Steffano Cossi. The strong, dark, old ale/stout is a triumph in it’s bottle conditioned form, but we have one of a few casks of a barrel aged version, the choice of barrel was the famous Pedro Ximinez sherry casks. The PX sherry is famed for it’s deep almost treacle sweetness, with lots of dark and stewed fruit flavours along with deep oak flavours from the wood combine with the ale to give a complex and very refined finish to the beer. Definitely one to try while it’s here, just sip at a third and enjoy.
Also while we’re on the subject of big beers, we have one firkin of Moor Beer‘s ‘Sloe Walker’, another prize winning beer given a twist, a seasonal version of Old Freddy Walker, with sloes surprisingly enough. After a days foraging, a whole bunch of sloes are cleaned, frozen and pricked then weighed out and distributed among 10 casks, the beer is then racked over the top and left to mature for several months. The result gives a subtle acidity counterbalancing the bold flavours of the beer, it’s recommended you leave it to warm up a little to allow the flavours to really come out.
Words by Jonathan Heyes