Pumpking

It's coming up to Hallowe'en and so here is the second ale that I am trying that is themed for the time of the year. Also, as a pumpkin ale, it gets to take part in that huge argument and controversy online about pumpkin ales. Coming, as I do, from the UK I really don't see many pumpkins (more now than when I was young) and so I don't see many ales that are pumpkin themed either. Alas, I have not yet seen the brewdog offering but I have picked up a Wychwood Pumpking that claims that it is evil pumpkin ale. I have, actually, had this three times before in a forlorn attempt to review it around this time last year but I never got round to it.

Truth be told, I actually like this ale. But it never hurts to offer a proper review of it around the right time of year and so I present to you the review at the right time of year for Pumpking. Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Dunkel Fester

What ho! It is coming up to Hallowe'en and, unlike last year (see here), I thought that I would actually have and review an ale early enough that people could act upon it to buy in ale for Hallowe'en. Novel, I know. Of course, All Hallow's Eve, held around the same time of year as Samhain, is very much a Christian festival with the superstition of 'evil spirits' woven in for good measure as the nights turn longer and darker. Samhain, being a festival of light, has more in common with the very British Bonfire Night, which is also associated with Autumn bonfires and, well, the equinox. All of which is a very long-winded way of saying: I had some Dunkel Fester in the garden today, by Wychwood, and decided to review it here for your delectation.

Thankfully, I shan't be plumbing any further into the history of the events of October (and so any errors are mine and shall forever remain errors) as I enjoy the ale more than I enjoy splitting hairs over historical things (and for those of you that know me, you know that this is high praise indeed). So, would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Fire Catcher

Ooh, is that the time? Time to start a review of some ale! What do I have in? Um... Ah, yes, this will do for the moment. May I introduce you to Fire Catcher, a golden ale from the Wychwood brewery that has the sort of bottle art one would expect from such a company that likes to juxtapose the fantasy setting with the ales that they produce. There's definitely mileage, I feel, from researching the links between folklore and the ales that hang around it trying to get some of the rub-off effect but I am not the historian you're looking for to make that link and make it interesting enough to read!

No, my job is just to taste and review the ale. Without further ado, then, let us get started! Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Black Wych

A long day draws to a close, a long week behind it, and I am in the mood for some relaxation. A chance to kick back was lost recently and so I am grabbing this one with both hands and hanging on for dear life! It is a dark evening, a little nippy, and there has been a lot of rain. Not the proper kind of rain, the niggly little stuff that will drench you given time but somehow fails to wet the soil effectively and thus plants still need watering. Yet the stuff is constant. Also, the Boy wished to go out and ride his bike. Excellent. I can't really complain, but it is a good time for something dark and brooding, maybe even a tad emo, if I may, and so I have brought out some Black Wych.

A shame this wasn't out during Hallowe'en as it would have been perfect for the battle royale that I cooked up then (here) but, alas, twas not to be. Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Gold

Always believe in your soul / You've got the power to know: / You're indestructible / Always believin' / That you are Gold. Wychwood Hobgoblin Gold. Left at the house by a friend of mine over the Christmas holidays and sadly neglected ever since. However, it was a sunny day, it was lunchtime, I was looking after the Boy and he wanted to go on the trampoline. Obviously it was time for me to have a decent ale in my garden because it's been a while since I did that and I wasn't going to waste a lovely sunny afternoon with an exuberant Boy.

Full disclosure: the Boy lasted but two minutes on the trampoline before abandoning it and running inside because, and I quote, there were "too many medium-sized flies". Thus I stayed out a little while, enough to take a few sips, and then it was back indoors to supervise the Boy playing with cars and racing them around the dining room.

Would you like to know more?

Hallowe'en Showdown!

It's All Hallow's Eve and there are plenty of themed offerings about. I realise that the actual day/evening isn't until tomorrow and that there are plenty of other names for this particular thing (Samhain springs to mind, but was lunar, so not on the same date every year) but I digress. Themed brews means a good excuse to crack open some beer and have a review, doncha think? Also, if I review tonight you may just have time to pick some of this up for yourselves should you so wish.

For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, this all means that I am pitting Moorhouse's and Wychwood against one another in a kind of battle royale. But, you know, without the Japanese schoolchildren trying to kill each other with a variety of weapons. Oh, and Hunger Games which is the sanitised and slightly badly plotted western film version (no, I haven't read the books).

Now that I have alienated some of my audience of three, would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Dark India Pale Ale

Tonight, Matthew, I shall be mostly trying something what is specially brewed for Tesco. In doing this I know that I'm selling my soul but it did intrique me and I have to know, dammit. It is Revisionist Dark India Pale Ale and thus is the first ale to come under two headings in my new system,. Bully for them. Interestingly, the brewmasters of Wychwood are the ones behind this little number, which would suggest that they have their fingers in many pies.

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Beer Review: Wychcraft

It's been rather a long time since I tried anything from the Wychwood stable. My bruising experience with Forest Fruits (here) probably had something to do with that. However, on a trip to a less than local Co-Op whilst out at a large Hall with the family I picked up a selection of ales that I hadn't seen anywhere else.

Yes, along with a lovely chilli-con-carne (well, more chilli-con-funghi, it was Quorn mince) made by the lovely Willow, I am having some Wychcraft. It is thrice hopped too, much like the Hopping Hare (here), but makes less of that fact than its rival. Mind you, the gold foil on the bottle is similarly slightly green. maybe there's something in this odd colour choice...

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Beer Review: Forest Fruits

I was eating blackberries we picked from the park back in Summer (yes, we are heatens and we refridgerate those we don't eat or turn into jam) and I was thinking, hmm, I likes me fruit beers, like Fruli and I likes me beer generally.  I know, I shall have a fruity beer.

Cue tonight's ale: Forest Fruits by Wychwood brewery.  It was in a very attractively dark bottle (do I detect a note of red in the glass?) and was attractively priced at the supermarket of choice for picking up nice beers.

It said it was best served chilled.  I obliged and had it in the fridge for a good long while before opening it.  I almost forgot about it and so it did not accompany a meal or any food, rather coming soon after it into the evening.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, Riggwelter does better this way and Leffe Blonde can have its moments too.  It was a respectable 4.2% ABV too.

But I'm not a fan of this.  Perhaps it has been too long since I had a fruity beer or perhaps I have become too much of a CAMRA styled beardy-ale-drinker or perhaps work is getting to me too much.  I don't know.  There was a definite fruity taste and smell to this.  A sickly-sweet hint of cranberries on the nose and an attempt at blackberries in the taste.  They claim to have added berries to the beer to give it a distinctive taste and maybe they have but they have also added copious amounts of sugar to it.  It obscures what should have been a good tang and some sharp berries.  I like my blackberries slightly sour and I like them picked freshly (I remember eating them in the park back in August with the Boy).  I do not like them when they've been drowned in sweetness and light in some badly made crumble.  It is the crumble that has the sugar in it and the filling that is there to contrast with that, it's the whole point!  Other writers point to the overpowering taste of strawberries, but I'm a great fan of Pegasus strawberries so, being sour, I did not make that association, but they may be right.  Willow tasted strawberries.

As a consequence I couldn't quite bring myself to like this beer.  Willow is more of a fan and I suppose it would have its place.  Drink this with a dessert rather than the main course and drink it after something like Thoroughbred Gold too, it is a dessert beer in all senses of the word.  I can't imagine having more than one in a sitting and I can't imagine having it with anything other than a meal.  Drink last and not to get drunk.