What is your favorite beer?

Duck59 said:
Talking of hops, we acquired a small batch of bottles of Hophead, brewed by Dark Star, a brewery near Horsham. There are a few breweries in that vicinity, which is welcome after the sad demise of the King & Barnes brewery which was around for a very long time.

I'm glad I mentioned this because it spurred me to see if they had an online shop. They do, and even better, they sell Hophead mini-kegs. I see an order coming up.

https://store.darkstarbrewing.co.uk/collections/beer
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I haven't had Dark Star for ages - dark, bitter a bit of a burnt taste. Lovely. One of my top favourite beers.
 
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I like the Espresso Stout as well. Remarkably, there are no less than three breweries in and around Horsham. Dark Star is just outside the town. Hepworth is another newish one, as is Weltons. King and Barnes may have gone, but Horsham fights back. There is another good brewery just down the road, the Arundel Brewery.

A friend of mine comes from Brighton and she told me that Sussex in general and Brighton in particular were beer deserts when she lived down there. I remember the dismal Phoenix Brewery in Brighton and can see what she means.
 
The Mallard Tavern is eyeing up beer for the period of the winter solstice. Yeovil Ales is looking distinctly promising at the moment. I have a particular fondness for their Summerset and Stout Hearted brews. Adnams is another favourite among the regulars of The Mallard, so that might be worth a look as well.

A new - at least to me - brewery that I discovered lately is Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire. They seem to have a wide range of brews and it was especially pleasing to see that the brewer is called Claire Monk. Now there's nominative determinism for you.
 
Duck59 said:
the sad demise of the King & Barnes brewery
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You might know that Bill King - the main man when K&B demised - then went onto establish King & Co. This was then sold and he moved onto to establish Firebird Brewing Co., doing somewhat different styles from previously. The product is recommended! Try here.

It was he who told me last year that sussex now has over 50 breweries! I have not yet tried them all.
 
Duck59 said:
Hepworth is another newish
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I would not consider it 'newish' any longer. It was set-up by Andy Hepworth, the head brewer at K&B, after K&B's demise. Moved last year out of Horsham to even closer to me.
Duck59 said:
the Arundel Brewery.
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Not happy with them since I discovered their retail shop prices are higher than other local retailers. Not a good practice, IMO!
 
The most enjoyable beer I've had, was draft Heineken at a hotel bar in Amsterdam. I have come to love beers produced by Abita Springs Brewing Co. in Abita Springs, Louisiana. Amber is my favorite, but Andy Gator and Purple Haze are strong seconds. I can take or leave Turbodog. They also do seasonal beers like pecan and peach. My favorite Mexican beer is Bohemia but there are no distributors where I live. I almost forgot Cave Creek Chili Beer. On a hot day, you can slam a cold one of these back, but then the heat from the serrano chili in the bottle catches up with you.:hyper:
 
Today brought a handy delivery, to whit beer for the Winter Solstice period. Adnams do a nice range of mini kegs, so we picked up a variety of different styles and flavours. We have a Mosaic Pale Ale, which is hoppy and fruity; an Old Ale, which is a style you rarely see (Brakspear's used to do a lovely one many years ago) and is a winter ale; Blackshore Stout, which is an excellent example of its kind; and finally, Sloe Storm, something completely new to me, another winter ale brewed (astonishingly) with sloes.

This lot should keep us amused for a few days.
 
The Yeovil Stout-hearted has been seen off this evening. A very fine example of the genre, I'd conjecture. It's 4.3%, which is around the strength of the utterly abysmal Guinness, so it isn't too much above the strength of a session beer. There is a pleasing range of flavours, with good hop kick balanced with sweeter chocolate and coffee tinges, but bitterness predominates, as it should. Top notch.
 
The guest beer at the Mallard Tavern this weekend is Adnams' Old Ale. This is, as its name suggests, a style of beer that you don't see very often these days. The best way I can describe it is that it resembles a strongish mild, dark brown in colour and with hints of dark chocolate flavour, though I wouldn't call it sweet in taste. One could, I suppose, liken it to a low-strength porter; it's somewhere between a mild and a porter. This one is 4.1%, gentle enough to have a few glasses without too much collateral damage.

The old Brakspears brewery (in Henley, before it was later resurrected by Wychwood) used to make a lovely old ale that was 4.3%. Like the Adnams' version, it was solely a winter beer.
 
Duck59 said:
The guest beer at the Mallard Tavern this weekend is Adnams' Old Ale. This is, as its name suggests, a style of beer that you don't see very often these days. The best way I can describe it is that it resembles a strongish mild, dark brown in colour and with hints of dark chocolate flavour, though I wouldn't call it sweet in taste. One could, I suppose, liken it to a low-strength porter; it's somewhere between a mild and a porter. This one is 4.1%, gentle enough to have a few glasses without too much collateral damage.

The old Brakspears brewery (in Henley, before it was later resurrected by Wychwood) used to make a lovely old ale that was 4.3%. Like the Adnams' version, it was solely a winter beer.
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Lovely - just the sort of beer I like.
 
Something I've been noticing on various retail sites is the preponderance of alcohol-free beer. Maybe it's simply a consequence of this Dry January piffle, but there seems to be an awful lot of the stuff around.

Can anyone provide me with a sensible explanation of alcohol-free beer? To me, it seems like one of the most pointless things that exist on the planet and about as sensible as asking for an egg-free omelette.
 
Duck59 said:
Something I've been noticing on various retail sites is the preponderance of alcohol-free beer. Maybe it's simply a consequence of this Dry January piffle, but there seems to be an awful lot of the stuff around.

Can anyone provide me with a sensible explanation of alcohol-free beer? To me, it seems like one of the most pointless things that exist on the planet and about as sensible as asking for an egg-free omelette.
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I used to think so too but after all, it is just a soft drink made of grains or hops or whatever. Its calling it beer that's the problem. Beer means an alcoholic drink.
 
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