A British Brew Review - Moray IPA

Beer - Moray IPA
Brewery -SpeySide
Strength - 5.5%
Type - IPA

Moray IPA is the first beer in the British Brew series, and I've chosen it for a reason.

I'm a big fan of IPA's in general, some have even received 9's and 10's on the Grover-Debs Beer scale, but it takes a rare care to get the delicate balance of smooth bitterness and full hops to compliment the perfect carbonation. This is why I love trying new IPA's, and I also love reviewing them.

SpeySide Brewery is set in the Moray Country-side in Scotland, along the river Spey (Hence the name) It shares the area, and the highland water, with some of the worlds most renowned single malt whiskeys. The area is well known for it's Beer, Whiskey, and Food - giving the Moray IPA a tough reputation to live up to.

This Ale was first brewed to provide a Pale Ale to our troops in India. Obviously this was in the days before air travel and so the Moray IPA had to be shipped over, a trip which can take several months.
To survive unspoilt for this passage it was very highly hopped, and had a higher alcohol content than most other IPA's. This extraordinary formula has survived unchanged to this day, so I was expecting a lot from this small Scottish brewery.

I was not disappointed. It's golden and rich in colour, and has a very distinctive hoppy aroma.
The medium-low carbonation is expected from a normal IPA, but this is far from normal. The expected hoppiness continues into the taste, and it creates a rare tangy hop flavour which is finally complimented by a bitter citrus aftertaste which lingers for minutes or more.
This is likely the hoppiest IPA I have ever tried, but it somehow pulls it off.

Most will not appreciate the hoppy flavour though, and once I was through most of the pint, it did start to lose it's appeal.

Be that as it may, it's still a delightfully satisfying IPA, and the increased hops give it a flavour to remember. Not a game changing beer, but one I will visit again.

                                                                      GDBS - 8

INTRODUCTION - A British Brew Series

Over the past few weeks me and my esteemed tasting colleague, Mr. Debenham, have been talking about imported beers (If you scroll down you'll find a very interesting article from the man himself on the matter).
Imported beers tend lose out on the taste originally designed and crafted by the brewer, and you'll have to travel to the country of origin the get the real flavour - The taste that it was brewed for.

We often try to make the most of our time abroad by trying foreign beers, and getting a real feel for both the brew, and the brewer.
Unfortunately this is not always possible, so over the next few weeks, whilst continuing our normal programming, we will be visiting some of the most celebrated, and some of the rarest local British Brews.

If you have any favourite British Lagers, Pilsners, Ales, or Stouts, please send them in and we'll do our best to get them in the series!

Happy Drinking,
Benjamin "Pale Ale" Grover

ABSTRACT - "National Beers" and the problem with exports

"National Beers" and the Problem with Exports

A lot of beer we drink in England is a foriegn import. Estrella, San Miguel, Peroni, even Guiness are all prime examples. All popular beers in England but all imported from factories based largely in mainland Europe or (in the case of Guiness) Ireland. To the average beer drinker this makes no difference. I´ve been trying beers imported from other countries and have tried beers in the countries that produced them.

All of them taste better in their home countries.

This isn´t surprising, but it is somewhat annoying. On the surface, knowing that San Miguel tastes better while sitting in this study in my hotel in Barcelona than it does from a tap at my local in England does little to phase me, but knowing that I could be tasting superior flavours to what I get in England is more than a mere annoyance. The popular (and unattributed) saying "life´s too short to drink shit beer" comes to mind - why should I have to drink a lower quality beer than what it was intended to taste like?

And this is my point. When I visited the Guiness factory I tried Guiness there and it was amazing. The flavours were exactly how the tour guide had just described them to me and I was certain this was the best generic beer I could aspire to taste with my mortal taste buds. Returning to England and cracking open a fresh bottle from the local co-op I was shocked to find not only is it a lower ABV (a requirement for exports) but it just didn´t give me all the flavours that the tour guide had spoken to me about. I didn´t feel like I was drinking Guiness, more "Guiness Lite".

If we´re going to allow exports of beer, why do laws exist that regulate the ABV of beer, and indeed the methods and ingredients used to produce them? Surely the creativity and development, the study and effort that goes into producing every drop of beer desrves the respect of being delivered to anyone in the world exactly how the brewer intended?

Till these laws change, you´ve not had a real pint of anything brewed off our tiny little island until you hit Europe. Generic beers suddenly taste less generic and more how they were meant to taste. So to any budding beer tasters out there, come to Europe, the pint glasses are ready for you here (well, litre jugs, but who´s counting?).

And finally, if we really want to develop a true art in beer making on a wordlwide level, can we really achieve this when we so closely regulate the export and import of even the most common beers on the market? Food (or drink) for thought.

REVIEW - Estrella Galicia Premium Lager (In Spain)

Beer - Estrella Galicia 1906 Reserve (draft)
Brewery - Hijos de Riviera Brewery
Strength - 5.5% (before export)
Type - Premium Lager

I´m on holiday - it was bound to happen sooner or later - and I thought of many marvellous ways to continue to spread the beer tasting revolution across the world. But the best was to try some international beers while here (in Barcelona) and tell you how they compare to some of our English beers, and most importantly how they compare to the imports of similar styles.

Estrella Galicia may sound familiar to anyone who has had Estrella, but it´s not the same company - Estrella (the red coloured bottle we often see in England) is by a mass-production generic beer company of the same name, whereas Estrella Galicia is produced by Hijos de Riviera Brewing, a company that is and always has been 100% family owned. It must be noted that I am reviewing the 1906 Reserve version, as it is draft and so much fresher than many of the slightly warmer beers that are available here.

The first thing to note about the beer is the smell. It holds fruity notes with the double malts sneaking in afterwards, and it´s this smell that properly describes the flavour - sweet and fruity, with a refreshing initial taste but a full malty flavour to back this up. I´ve often had a dislike of many "fruity" beers, feeling that when the fruity flavour is overdone the beer´s flavour suffers as a result. far from this, the beer is complex and enjoyable. Hints of cheery barrels slip into the aftertaste with the malts to leave a smooth finish on the pallat.

I had this beer while eating a steak dinner and found it to compliment the flavours of dark meats much better than it would anything in the lighter end. Sweet and light with a small fluffy head, this beer is well worth trying. It cannot achieve the perfect score, however, because despite using the double malt technique it does not taste as malty as you would expect from a double malt beer. None the less, this beer ranks highly for me. Definitely worth a try, on it´s own or with a meal.

GDBS - 8

(N.B. apologies for the horrible formatting and any spelling or syntax errors, I´m not used to using an international keyboard!)