Magic Rock Un-Human Cannonball

Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up...

It's a Thursday night and I'm standing on the platform at Willesden Junction station waiting what feels like several eternities for a train. I'm excitedly making a journey towards the Craft Beer Co in Angel where Huddersfield's Magic Rock, one of my favourite UK breweries, are launching their brand new triple IPA, Un-Human Cannonball. According to my super useful beer archiving application, known to most as Untappd, in the last twelve months I have drank Magic Rock Cannonball IPA more times than any other beer. Along with Thornbridge Halcyon it's simply one of the best American style India Pale Ales being brewed in the UK right now, in fact I might go as far as to say that although Halcyon is better from the bottle, Cannonball is king when it's on draught.

So what exactly is Un-Human Cannonball then? Magic Rock already brew a double IPA, a treasured beer known as Human Cannonball which is a big, boisterous and beautiful brew, Un-Human takes this concept to the next level. A single batch of Un-Human is going to be brewed once a year using the freshest, new season American hops available. The beer has a very simple malt bill but has enough hop additions throughout each and every stage of the brewing process to make mere mortals weep into there dimpled pint mugs. Another brewery have a similar concept over in the States, they're called Russian River and you might have heard of their own triple IPA, Pliny the Younger, a beer that is as revered as the sacred Ambrosia itself. Having been lucky enough to try Pliny the Younger back in February I was looking forward to seeing if this beer was to be a tribute, a clone, or a beer that proudly and independently stands atop the Yorkshire Dales screaming it's Un-Human scream.

Earlier in the day a madness descended upon the beer geeks of Great Britain, it started at 9am when Magic Rock released 90 bottles for sale on their own website, these sold out within half an hour. Other websites soon followed suit, even I succumbed to the hop fever and purchased a triplet of bottles from the ever reliable Beer Ritz who decided to release their allocation at 3pm, again these sold out almost instantly. I sat at my desk and observed the madness which unfolded on twitter, as most things beer inevitably do these days and thought to myself, why all this fuss, it's just beer. The Craft Beer Co opened their doors at 4pm where there was already a queue outside, their meagre allocation of 40 bottles selling out almost instantly.

As I made my way towards Craft I remember briefly standing outside Tortilla thinking that ingesting a taco might strengthen my resolve before drinking lots of very strong beer, but with all the excitement I didn't have much of an appetite so I continued pubwards. The bar was predictably crammed when I arrived around 6.30pm but it wasn't long before I saw a few familiar faces in the throng as I queued for my third of Un-Human. The bar seemed a little under staffed for such an occasion but the people who were behind the bar were working their arses off trying to get everyone served. After about fifteen minutes of waiting I eventually made it to the bar where a whole host of Magic Rock beers were being poured on keg and cask. As well as a third of Un-Human I picked myself up a half of bog-standard Cannonball (which to be honest is about as far from bog standard as beer can get) to use as a control as I feel I know this beer like I do the back of my hand.

Un-Human at the back and regular at the front.

I retreat to the much quieter back room of the pub where I join Chris, Emma, another Chris, Justin, Andrew, Ewan and Ben (but more faces came and went as the evening went on) the beer geek forces were out in full this evening. I excuse myself while I whip out my notepad and get into this beer. Where the regular Cannonball was bright and near-transparent the Un-Human was a heady, hazy auburn-amber with a halo of super sticky foam clinging to the rim of the glass. The aroma was as sweet and sticky as the head with the dominant aroma being pine, and when I say pine we're talking about an entire forests worth, seriously this beer was very piney indeed. There was passion fruit and mango there too but it wasn't particularly easy to to detect at first but with a few vigorous swirls of the glass these aromas soon revealed themselves.

I took a sip of Cannonball before I tried the Un-Human, yep, this was Cannonball alright and it was on rude form indeed. Then I enter the world of the Un-Human and it's surprisingly well balanced. Yes there are huge gobs of pine resin coating slices of mango and acres of grapefruit and mandarin rind but it's all over a clean, relatively sparse malt backbone. Human Cannonball has a robust, sweet and bready malt base but the Un-Human dials this down in favour of letting the hops shine through and shine they do but they don't quite harmoniously break into song. The finish is bitter and astringent for a moment but this sensation doesn't linger and is soon replaced with warming alcohol gliding down the throat, this beer is 12% after all and this is incredibly well hidden until the very end of a sip.

I love it, naturally, but it's not quite perfect. I prefer it to Human Cannonball but it's the regular Cannonball that is the winner on the day for me, despite me not being able to taste it properly after the hop hammering my palate has just received. So how does it compare to Pliny, should I even bother, is there a point? It's just beer after all. Me being me, I do compare it to Pliny and yes there are similarities but the thing that struck me about Pliny is how clearly defined and easy to pick out all the flavours are. Un-Human, although delicious, doesn't quite have this harmonious clarity which is why despite being brilliant it falls short of being perfect.

What is perfect though is the setting, this wonderful pub filled with passionate, friendly people that love beer. Faces come and go around my table for the entire evening and the conversation never stalls. Glasses and bottles are constantly being passed around the table, I enjoy a stunning Venison pie and the merriment doesn't stop until it's time to go home. Although the beer was really, really good, it's the company that is the best thing about the night for me. My beer of the evening? Well it just turned out to be Thornbridge Weizenbock which I could only describe as being flawless so make of that what you will.
 

Brüpond Tip Top Hop IPA

I'm sure that many of you reading this will have already had a bottle of Brüpond Tip Top Hop IPA as it's readily available from outlets such as Oddbins and it's been on the shelves of my local branch in Crouch End, North London for a couple of months now. I'm also sure that many of you will have had mixed experiences with this beer, I've tried it on several occasions now and I had decided that this simply isn't a beer for me. My opinion was given a reprieve when I met Brüpond owner and head brewer Dave Brassfield at London's Brewing last weekend. My good friend and fellow beer blogger Justin Mason had contacted Dave regarding a dodgy bottle of Tip Top Hop he had come across and so Dave had agreed to meet with us at the festival to put things right. There I was presented with a glass of this beer, baring in mind that I had quite a few jars beforehand I really liked it, it was full of rich citrus fruit bitterness and a plum jam sweetness so I had high hopes for the latest batch of this beer. This bottle was gifted to me by Dave who obviously has massive enthusiasm and love for his brewery, thanks Dave.

Dave grew up in that most righteous of beery States, Colorado but eventually left the mountains behind to go to college in Chicago and it was here that he discovered beer from the likes of Sam Adams through to Dogfish Head. He states on the Brüpond website that his early beer purchases were often driven by price and he was always looking for the most affordable beer that still had some flavour, hence his big love for Sam Adams. Eventually his love of beer brought Dave to the UK and it was here he met with Evin from The Kernel, this meeting spurred Dave on to founding his own brewery which was established in the London Borough of Waltham Forest in 2012. His idea was to create, interesting, unique and flavourful beers that everyone could afford and so Brüpond was born. 

Brüpond Tip Top Hop describes itself as a 'continually hopped IPA' which is a process used by many distinguished brewers such as Dogfish Head when brewing their IPAs. Most beers are hopped at timed intervals throughout the boiling process where the boiling wort has hops added at the beginning of the boil for bitterness and later on for flavour. Tip Top Hop is hopped continuously throughout its boil which in essence should develop a very rounded and complex hop character, I'm not quite sure how long this particular beer is boiled for but I imagine it's around the 60 to 90 minute mark. Another interesting twist is that this brew uses the new Kazbek hop variety from the Czech Republic which is apparently similar to Saaz in flavour but with a much higher alpha acid content and it is those alpha acids that infuse the beer with the flavour of the particular hops being used. Like most modern American style IPAs this beer is also dry-hopped during fermentation to add more aroma to the beer, but is an earthy, herbal hop more suited to pilsners going to cut the mustard in an IPA? There's only one way to find out...

It has to be said that this beer pours an absolutely gorgeous shade of marmalade orange and has a nice, sticky, oh-so slightly off white head that clings to the glass as if it's very existence depended on it. It's bottle conditioned and despite my utmost care a little bit of loose sediment escapes into my glass giving the beer a misty haze but this doesn't put me off, in fact it's as pretty as a picture to look at. The nose is a different story however, I do get a little plum jam and some candied citrus fruit but there's also an underlying scent of vinegar, my first thought is that this beer has taken a turn for the worse but unusually none of that acidic scent transferred onto my palate. The overwhelming flavour this beer produces is that of wet cigarette ash, there is a slight hint of white pepper spiciness and those sweet, jammy flavours are there but they've been bullied right to the back of the playground when they really should be shining at the centre of the stage. I want a big, sweet, freshly baked malt profile to counteract the herbal bitterness but Tip Top Hop doesn't give me one. I'm loathe to pour any beer away and I persevere with this right to the very end and as it warms that fruity sweetness does come to the fore but not ever in the amount that I desire.

So is this a bad beer? Well it's unlikely I'll be buying it again as it's not to my taste and there is so much available that I do like that I'd rather spend my hard earned notes on but Simon from CAMRGB thought it was rather excellent so what gives? It could be that the earthy spiciness produced by the Kazbek hops aren't to my liking as this seems to be the overwhelming difference between this beer and the IPAs which I love that are packed with juicy American hops. It's early days for Brüpond but I still think that they'll manage to carve a niche on to rapidly growing family tree of London brewers. There will be plenty of people out there that like me didn't enjoy this particular beer but as Simon has proven there will probably be plenty of people out there that do and that's a good thing.

The London Brewers Alliance Festival 2013

So this is probably where you're expecting to read about how terrible and disorganised the 2013 London Brewers Alliance Festival was. Tales of ridiculously lengthy queue times and overcrowding followed by a rant at how the organisers should be burned at the stake. Well I'm sorry to disappoint the gloombringers and the naysayers but I went to the 2013 London Brewers Alliance Festival and had a fantastic time.

Photo courtesy of Justin from Get Beer Drink Beer

I'm not particularly old or wise but what I have learned is that you have to take life as it comes because you're often powerless to do anything about it. I headed to this beer festival knowing full well that it was a sold out event being held in a relatively small space and that it was the first time the LBA were holding an event of this size so there were bound to be a few teething problems. I spent most part of the afternoon reading about how 'terrible' and 'chaotic' the event was and saw some pretty malicious and in my opinion unnecessary tweets aimed at the festival organisers. Be honest with yourself, is giving these guys, who are working around the clock in an attempt to help you enjoy yourself a hard time really worth it? What have you achieved by doing this? Did you expect a nice relaxing experience at a sold out beer festival? If that was the case you could have set up camp somewhere like the Craft Beer Co in Islington where not only do you not have to pay to get in but you'll probably get hold of much rarer and more exotic beers than you would at this particular festival which is simply celebrating the burgeoning London brewing scene.

So I'll say again; I went to the 2013 London Brewers Alliance Festival and I had a fantastic time, here's how it went down...

I finally arrived at London Fields station after taking a needlessly convoluted route that took me well over an hour (I later discovered I could have got there in less than half of that) so I rocked up to the taproom at London Fields Brewery feeling pretty silly and in there I bumped into Nate who had been at the afternoon session with a bunch of his friends. I was joined by Justin who like me was headed to the evening session, Nate and his mates were complaining about excessive wait times and cramped bars but all still seemed happy and inebriated so it can't have gone completely wrong, nothing was going to deter my blind optimism, I simply had to have a good time. Instead of immediately joining the lengthy queue that had formed outside of the brewery I headed to the bar and got myself a half of the stunning Simcore India Black Ale from London Fields, it was licorice and coffee dancing around with the intense pine sap flavours that only the Simcoe hop can deliver, glorious stuff. We we soon joined by my friend Greg and his party who were joining Justin and I at the evening session and after another drink we went to join the back of the queue.

Waiting a little while before joining the queue was our first masterstroke of the evening as the line was already moving when we joined it and we were thrust inside the festival grounds within 15 minutes of waiting. I had purchased the tasting ticket which at £20 got me a voucher for 9 thirds and a festival glass to drink my beer out of, good value in my opinion. To be honest I think this is the only ticket they should have sold, the £5 ticket while seemingly cheap meant that you ended up paying a lot more for drinks on the day and you had to drink out of plastic beakers and I could see people who had the £5 ticket were clearly disappointed with this. So lesson one, the tasting ticket is clearly the only ticket you needed to sell.

The festival grounds consisted of a small alley with two separate bars, each under a railway arch, they had clearly oversold as there was very little room to manoeuvre and both bars were crowded but we ambled up to the second bar and within about 10 minutes I had in my hand a glass of Redemption Big Chief, a lovely British style IPA with big globs of grapefruit and sweet honey notes, lovely. When I was standing in the queue waiting for my glass of Big Chief I made a decision which potentially polarised my festival experience. I had headed to this festival with the intention of tasting as many beers from London's cutting edge brewers as I possibly could but standing in line for my first beer I just thought, fuck it, to hell with the ticking, let's get drunk and have a good time and so every time I went to the bar I made sure I had my glass filled to the brim. It was a glorious decision. Needless to say, lesson two, you need a bigger venue next year guys.

It was this same decision that led me to my next beer, I've had Redchurch Old Ford Export Stout before, in fact I even reviewed it last year and although I wanted to try some new beers I knew how good this was and besides, I'd never tried it on draught. While drinking this luscious, rich, dark beer which has clearly been atomically dry hopped with simcoe I bumped into the lovely Becky and Jon from Art Brew. Despite it's luscious piney overtones I still consider the Old Ford to be firmly in stout territory but Becky disagreed and said it was a Black IPA. This is the WONDER of beer, glorious, conversation stimulating BEER! Becky, Jon, Justin, Greg and I then joined forces in HAVING A GOOD TIME, it was another solid idea.

Me with the lovely Becky and John from Art Brew.

At some point Justin dissapeared into the ether (the other room) and came back with a clutch of bottles, a full glass of Brupond Tip Top Hop IPA and Dave the owner and head brewer at Brupond. Many people, myself included, have had a bad experience with a lot of Brupond beers and Dave was clearly determined to make amends for this, thrusting a fresh bottle of Tip Top Hop into my hands. The glass of beer I was presented with was certainly a million miles away from the smokey, oxidised beer I'd previously had in bottle and I was ready to give them another chance. Seeing Dave's obvious enthusiasm was encouraging and Brupond may yet make a worthy addition to the London brewing scene.

I admired Becky and Jon's spirit and contemplated this while supping a lovely pint of London Brewing Co Highrise that was zesty and full of fresh citrus but just a little lacking in carbonation. Becky and Jon had been invited to the festival to judge beer but when chaos descended the judging went out the window and although most of the judges abandoned the pandemonium for calmer environments these two stuck it out, determined to have a damn good time and judging from the smiles on the faces and the repeated laughter and merriment they most certainly were. More familiar beer came my way, London Fields Black frost stout which has this lactic sourness going on that I can't get enough of and Hackney Hopster because I know it's good and I want to drink GOOD beer so I did. Jon then produces a pint of Weird Beard Black Perle coffee stout and then proceeds to top up my half finished glass of Black Frost with wonderful results. We didn't care too much what was in our glass by then just that it was GOOD and that it KEPT COMING. The Black Perle was the first ever Weird Beard brew I'd tried, and it was good and so it was that it made me get drunk and there was much rejoicing. 

And so the good beer kept on flowing and so I stopped trying to remember what they all tasted like, The LBA collaboration stout was on furious form but didn't quite reach the heights of the Old Ford Export Stout which was the beer of the festival for me. The Clarence and Fredericks Golden Ale was GOOD as was the Crate IPA but Hackney Hopster was better so I went back for more of that. Beer was running out by this point, most of the taps were covered with little plastic cups indicating that they had expired but unlike some it didn't bother me because my glass was full and I was laughing and my face and hands were covered in mustard and ketchup after inhaling a huge Big Apple hot dog. Lesson Three though, is that next year you most definitely need more beer. 

The crowds thinned towards the end of the evening, I assumed most people started leaving once their supply of beer tokens had run dry. Now there was space to relax and take it easy, the frantic atmosphere at the start of the evening was long gone. I went to get some Weird Beard Mariana Trench but this is definitely not the beer that came out of the tap, instead of big South Pacific hops I had a delicious wheat beer full of Banana and Clove. If I wasn't a beer geek and was a regular punter I would have had no idea if this was the right beer or not, so that's how I approached the situation, I had good beer in my glass which soon went in to my belly so what's the point in giving someone whose been run ragged off their feet for the past four hours a hard time? None, zero, nada, that's what. Lesson four however, you should probably make sure the right beer goes to the right tap next year.

It was nearly time to go, I stood in the middle of the main room with a huge smile on my mustard and ketchup smeared face. Justin then approaches me with a glass that contained the cloudy dregs from the end of a cask that had run out earlier. It was in fact Beavertown Blood Orange IPA, the one beer that I desperately wanted to try but had ran out before I had the chance... but here I was with some in my hand. I barely had two sips but it was predictably glorious, I could have stayed another hour and sank a pint or two but I was barely standing and so shimmied off home, chock full of glee.

Lesson five? Make sure you do it again next year, I'm confident that this festival will bounce back in 2014 and it will be bigger, better and I'll be there drinking GOOD beer with a smile on my face.

Because I was having such a GOOD time I forgot to take any photos, so a HUGE thanks go to Justin from Get Beer Drink Beer for letting me use his.
 

Cantillon Gueuze

So potent are you
That both crown and cork keep you at bay
But I know from experience
That you are a beast that can be tamed.

You tumble like late autumn sunshine
Into a new vessel
I throw off Jackson's horse blanket
And I'm transported back to the farm, my youth.

I wander through cooking apple orchards
Past freshly bundled bails of hay
Insect wings hum in my ears
The air is heavy with the scent of freshly harvested grain.

Crisp, dry, tart
My tongue is twisted, Lemniscate
At first you are a challenge but you are soon overcome
Perfection, tradition, in moments all gone.



Dedicated to my grandma, Dorothy 'Peggy' Curtis 1918 - 2004 who still inspires me to write every day. Today would have been her 95th birthday.

Until we meet again, Colorado.

Previously, on Total Ales, I drank Pliny the Younger, yup.

I remember being sat in my Dad's kitchen as I was coming to the end of another trip to the wonderful town of Fort Collins, Colorado. I'd just written a little introductory post about this trip over the pond which I took back in February and was explaining to Dad how I planned to write short, brief yet informative posts about all the beery mischief I'd gotten myself into. Predictably I've been about as succinct as a Presidential re-election speech but thirteen posts and over 15000 words later and here were are at the end of this particular journey. To be honest I could probably write another two or three posts about my last 48 hours in FoCo but it feels like it's time to wrap things up and I feel that the best way to do this is by simply reminiscing over some of the best beers I had during the twilight of my stay.

No-Li Born & Raised is a stunning IPA

My favourite place to grab lunch in Fort Collins has always been the incredible Choice City Butcher & Deli and their beer menu is never short of stunning. There we bumped into Josh and Joe from Verboten Brewing who we had brewed with the day before, I enjoyed a buffalo burger paired with a Utah Sage Saison from Utah's Epic Brewing. The sage flavours were really in your face but complemented those funky Belgian yeast esters nicely, I also had another stonking hangover and this certainly abetted my recovery. 

Later that afternoon we popped in for a few tasters at Fort Collins' biggest brewery by some distance, New Belgium. It was a Friday afternoon and so the tap room was buzzing with people queueing for their growler fills. Highlights here were the exceptional Dig pale ale which I reviewed when I was in Colorado this time last year and the Heavenly Feijoa Tripel which is one of New Belgium's 'Lips of Faith' limited release beers. The bartender was impressed that I not only knew what a Feijoa was (it's a funny looking green fruit from New Zealand more commonly known as a Pineapple Guava with a sweet yet faintly medicinal taste) but had been to New Zealand and eaten one freshly picked from the tree. The tart and slightly herbal fruit quality from the Feijoa really complimented the dry, estery, slightly waxy body of the Tripel, it was beautifully balanced and it was a treat to see this interesting fruit being used in an American beer.

A trip to Fort Collins is never complete without another visit to the tap room at Odell Brewing and for some reason my Dad was determined to make me try all twenty beers they had on offer during the course of my stay. Highlights earlier in the week had been Amuste, an imperial porter aged in Tempranillo barrels with must (the wine equivalent to wort) from Colorado grown Tempranillo grapes and of course their indomitable IPA but tonight the highlight was an absolutely beautiful sour pineapple beer called Pina Agria. It was literally like drinking the freshly fermented juice from the bottom of a can of some tinned pineapples, it was mouth puckeringly sour and yet slightly sweet and incredibly drinkable for it's 7% ABV. My Dad just doesn't get sour beers and didn't get on with this beer at all but I can't get enough of them and this might just have been one of the best I've tried so far.

On my last night in town Dad and I went out for Mexican food and it's here where beer goes out the window and I attempt to drink a couple of Margaritas and still have the legs to walk to the taxi rank afterwards. When we do finally get home we open a bottle of Oil Man, an 11% ABV barrel aged Imperial Stout from Elevation Brewing who are based in the Colorado town of Poncha Springs. This is apparently a very sought after and highly regarded beer and as a result my Dad's local bottle emporium were only allowing one bottle per customer. Personally I found it a little bit lacking in the mid-palate, don't get me wrong I thought it was a nice enough beer with notes of bourbon and oak mingling with molasses and burnt sugar but it was like there was an empty void in the middle where more body and flavour should be, perhaps it was a beer that needed to lie down for a couple of years before it would be at it's best but as we only had the one bottle I guess we'll never know.

The trip finished with a visit to Funkwerks

We follow up Oil Man with an absolutely stunning IPA that we brought back with us from the Northwest (courtesy of Laurie, thanks Laurie!), Born and Raised from Washington's No-Li Brewhouse. Born and Raised manages to reach the same heady heights as some of my favourite IPAs with flavours of mango and grapefruit mingling with a digestive biscuit like malt backbone. I'd definitely say this sits alongside IPAs from the likes of Odell, Deschutes and Lagunitas as one of my favourites and I'd jump at the chance to drink it again.

On my last day in town we had an hour to kill before we headed to the airport and so after I'd carefully packed several bottles into my suitcase, including a highly coveted bottle of Firestone Walker Parabola Imperial Stout, we headed to Funkwerks for a few tasters. I first visted Funkwerks Brewery shortly after it had opened on one of my earlier visits to the Fort and so wanted to see how they had come on, especially seeing as they had only gone and won a load of gold medals at last years Great American Beer Festival. Funkwerks specialise in only one kind of beer, Saison and boy have they mastered the art of brewing this style. My Dad and I work our way through a platter of different takes on the style, each similar and yet slightly different but all clean, rounded and well balanced. I particularly enjoyed the summer fruit qualities in the Montagne and was both impressed and perplexed by the single hop Polaris Saison. Polaris is a new hop from Germany that has been developed from Cascade but it has a unique flavour that for a few moments I couldn't put my finger on but soon it hit me, it was like sucking on a Foxes glacier mint. There were hints of citrus in the background but it was the mint leaf quality in this hop that really shone through in this beer, one to watch out for.

We stopped for a burger en route to Denver International Airport and I enjoyed my last beer of the trip, a delicous New Belgium Ranger IPA (god damn these guys need to start exporting this beer to the UK as soon as they can) which had the usual bucketfuls of passionfruit and mango, I was glad I had another bottle packed away in my suitcase.

I sat in the car and marvelled at the sheer volume of beer drinking I had squeezed in over the last eight days, I had in fact tried 107 different beers over the course of my vacation and y'know what? I bloody well felt like I had too. I nearly drank myself to death in the Mayor of Old Town on more than one occasion, I went to Portland, Oregon and got the flu before driving all the way to Walla Walla, Washington. I drank both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger for the very first time but hopefully not the last, I brewed a beer with the lovely chaps at Verboten Brewing, I visited the smallest commericial brewery I had ever seen and I hung out with some old friends as well as making some new ones. Most importantly though, I had a brilliant time with my biggest beer geek pal, my Dad and I'll be heading back to FoCo in October when he is having very big birthday party... which just happens to be on the same weekend as the Great American Beer Festival...

If you're feeling brave, why not read about this entire trip from the very beginning.
 

In Search of Pliny, Part Two (The Younger)

Earlier in the day I brewed with the guys from Verboten Brewing, read about it here!

If someone had told me at the start of this holiday that I'd get the chance to drink not only fresh Pliny the Elder but also it's bigger brother Pliny the Younger I'd have laughed in their faces. Finally drinking Pliny the Elder was a wonderful experience and thinking back now to that moment I can say with confidence that it's probably my favourite beer being produced in the USA right now. So what about Pliny the Younger? It's a triple IPA that Russian River Brewing Company only produce once a year, it's released on the first Friday in February and generally is around for a mere two weeks. The lengths people go to in order to taste some of this hallowed brew resemble the lengths cultists go to worship their dark gods. Human beings willingly queue for hours just to get a taste of this revered elixir and it sells out in minutes when it becomes available. So if it's this popular why not brew it year round? Well it uses a metric fuck-ton of seasonally available ingredients for starters and then there is the fact that it costs a fortune to brew. Plus the brewing industry needs beers like Pliny the Younger to keep it exciting, interesting and so geeks like me have always got something even more exciting and interesting to seek out and tick.

Russian River Pliny the Younger, Olympian in stature.

So imagine my delight when Michelle from the Mayor of Old Town told me that she had a keg in her cellar that they were going to tap early so that I could try it before I jetted back off to the UK. I spent the whole time I was in Portland knowing that this keg was sitting there, waiting so finally getting to try Pliny the Elder beforehand was even more significant than I had previously let on as I'd actually be able to compare them! Oh the excitement, oh how jealous my friends would be, I spent the next few days FEVERED with hysteria... actually no, that was the flu, but never mind.

So after a long hard day brewing a beer with the guys from Verboten Brewing my Dad and I headed back to the Mayor of Old Town and sat at the bar, as had become our custom. The Mayor weren't officially tapping this keg until next week but as I would no longer be in town they temporarily put it on early for me and for this I am eternally thankful to this wonderful bar. I stare at the 100 taps behind the bar, each resplendent with it's branded tap handle, all except for one which sat there without a handle and a small sign next to it that said DO NOT POUR FROM HERE. I was expecting Michelle to bring out a few small tasters but she goes right ahead and fills a huge snifter for both me and my Dad. 

This years Pliny the Younger weighs in at a mere 10.25% ABV and I can smell it from several feet away. In fact it's the aroma and not the flavour, for me at least, that makes this beer so special. I've never smelt a beer quite like this, you don't so much as take in the aroma as IMMERSE yourself in a thick atmosphere with scents of mango, pine, grapefruit, lychee, passion fruit, lemon and lime whizzing around like dreams and you're the BFG, desperately rushing around trying to catch as much as you can. And what of the taste? Well imagine a fruit platter of grapefruit, mango, lychee and lime being served up with rich slab of malt loaf and a jar of Manuka honey poured over everything, sticking it all together. Then there's the pine, a rich, resinous burst of sap that smothers the palate causing the bitterness to linger almost infinitely.

It's not as good as Pliny the Elder though. This beer is massive, as a control my Dad and I had a glass of Odell Myrcenary which is a double IPA we are both very familiar with and a glass of the well respected Russian River Blind Pig IPA. Strangely, I've not a big fan of the Blind Pig, I find it a little boring, especially considering how good Pliny is and after a few sips of Pliny the Younger it might as well have been PBR in that glass because I couldn't taste anything, my palate had literally been smashed into total oblivion. The Myrcenary didn't fare much better, I still got a little lingering bitterness but this is a beer that in my own words in one of my first ever beer reviews I described as "epic and supremely bitter" and although that bitterness was still there all of the juicy mango and grapefruit flavours were not, the Pliny had obliterated them.

That's why I think the Elder is the boss of the Younger, sure this beer is as revelatory as it is awesome, the brewer behind it is surely a genius, a master of the hop and of the grain but as wonderful as this beer is I don't want to have the ashes of my palate scattered into the ether. Pliny the Elder sings with a supreme chorus of hops and the more you drink the more you want to drink but Pliny the Younger produces a guttural howl from the top of the bell tower, it's impressive, special but something you'd only want one glass of. The aroma though, is still its most impressive aspect and is surely a masterful example of dry hopping.

So how did I follow a beer as big as this you may ask? With New Belgium's superb 2013 batch of La Folie, their sour brown ale. I've had La Folie almost every time I've visited Fort Collins over the last three years and the 2013 batch is in my opinion the best yet by some distance. Perhaps its because I've really come to appreciate sour beers in the last few months but not only did it scour my palate but it lifted it back up, dusted it down and told it to man up and get on with some more drinking. That we did and once again my Dad and I drank the night away and had another brilliant evening at the Mayor but let's be honest, it's pretty impossible not to have a brilliant evening in this bar.

Join me next time as I FINALLY bring this fantastic trip to a close.

Cheap Sunday Tickets for London's Brewing!

Please note, this event has now been and gone and you can read my account here, please don't try using the discount code for future events as it probably won't work!

I'm really excited about London's Brewing, a new beer festival that's been organised by the London Brewers Alliance (LBA) that's taking place at London Fields Brewery on the 4th and 5th of May. It looks like exactly the kind of beer festival that London needs; 40 breweries all based within the M25 who are producing arguably some of the finest beers in the country, nay the world coming together at the hip yet relaxed tap room at London Fields. As well as some more familiar names such as The Kernel, Fuller's and Camden Town Brewery it will be a chance for some of London's fledgling craft breweries such as The Rocky Head and Weird Beard to showcase their wares to a larger audience.

As well as over 100 beers on tap some of London's best food stands will be present including the fantastic Big Apple Hot Dogs, Hoxton Beach and Tom's Coopery plus there will be live music from a host of local bands on both the Saturday and Sunday. Each day is divided into an afternoon and an evening session with tickets starting at a mere fiver, I'll be there on the Saturday evening so be sure to come and throw me a high five if you see me staggering about the place. Worried you can't come because you can't find a babysitter? Fear Not! Tickets for under 18's are free and there is a kids area so you can go about the important business of drinking great beer just like a responsible parent should!

Now here's the really good part: I've teamed up with the folks from London's Brewing and can offer a FIVE POUND DISCOUNT for Sunday session tickets. Simply head to the tickets page here http://londonsbrewing.co.uk/tickets/ and enter the code totales113 to receive your discount. Don't forget that it's a bank holiday weekend so you have full licence to go nuts on the Sunday, quietly suffer in peace on the Monday before coming up roses on Tuesday.

Hope to see some of you there on the Saturday!