Beer Review: Herta by Floodline Brewery

Herta by Floodline brewery

It might only be 18-months-old but craft brewing palace Drygate, in Glasgow's east end, has already made a massive splash on drinking and brewing.

As a venue, it's superb. There's a beer hall, restaurant and beer shop, and the big glass windows mean you can watch the brewing team at work. It was the obvious venue for this September's Craft Beer Rising, and has also hosted comedy nights, gigs, weddings and markets.

But it's the wee 250-litre brewkit that is making waves among Scotland's new generation of brewers. Anyone can rent it, meaning you and your mates now have the opportunity to brew your own beer on industry-standard equipment and even launch your own brewery ... which is exactly what Floodline have done.

Floodline's brewing team - Nina Ballantyne, Ed Evans, Pete Sansom, Liam Hainey and Claire Dobson - all met while student volunteers at Glasgow University's Queen Margaret Union, and although on disparate courses, they shared a love of good beer, so that when the notion for a brewery was mooted - round a pub table of course - there was no real option other than to run with the idea. 

The five friends, all in the early 20s, launched Floodline in January, having spent months cobbling together enough money to rent the brewkit at Drygate and for the ingredients for their first two beers: Fearless Nadia IPA (5.5%) and Herta wheat beer (6.2%).

Herta is a friendly clash of traditional Munich malts and modern American hops. Its aroma is sharp esters and tart toffee, along with the banana and cloves so typical of wheat beers. It pours an opaque amber gold with a thick, cream-coloured head. It's a frothy beer, and noisy, like the distant sound of seaweed popping under the hot sun; its smooth, lively texture envelops your tongue.

The tartness you got on the aroma is there in force when you take that first taste.It's sharp and mouth-smackingly bitter, with notes of orange citrus and juicy tropical hops coming through; the sweet malt character maintaining body and balance. Then it settles down, fades like a wave at the end of its reach, leaving a mellow, salty and satisfying finish in its wake. 

Five other beers from Drygate
Gladeye IPA (5.5%)
Drygate's flagship IPA, an accessibly easy-going pale ale with smooth caramel and bitter citrus zest. 

Inevitable Conclusion Double IPA (8.9%)
Newly released beast of a beer from the Drygate Brewing Co. It's big, very big, on hops, bitterness and strength.

Ymir India White Ale (5%)
Pale wheat ale with heaps of citrus from Heidrun Brewing Co, another Drygate co-venture. 

Bellwether IPA (5.5%) A new beer from Monolith Brewing Co, another start-up to emerge out of the Drygate brewkit. A brilliantly received beer, it doesn't hang around.

Apex: Peak 1 (7.3%) Brewed especially for Drygate's first birthday, it's a potent saison-inspired hybrid.

Beer Review: Unforgiven red rye ale by Tempest Brewing Co

Unforgiven red rye ale by Tempest Brewing Co. 

It's been a good year for Tempest Brewing Co - the Borders brewers have lived up to many people's expectations and continued to create the fantastic beers they've quickly became known for.

Five years after starting out, they've opened a big beautiful brewery Galashiels in the Borders and begun rolling out a new line-up of great beers. They've a history in making some outstanding beers and a lot of people have been looking forward to the first batches from their new bottling line, and it's no surprise they were tipped as one of the hottest breweries to watch in 2015.

With a new brewery, Tempest also underwent a bit of a rebrand, slicker labels but smaller bottles. Their first wave of bottled beers comprises Brave New World, a potent, murky IPA (7.4%), Red Eye Flight mocha porter (7.4%) and In The Dark We Live black IPA (7.2%).

Their Easy Livin' Pils is part of Aldi's Winter Beer Festival, which launched at the start of October so hopefully there's still some left.

Earlier this year, Tempest also  released Unforgiven, a 5.4% smokey red rye ale with as much attitude as the Man With No Name. No surprises at the aroma. It's sweet campfire smokiness with tart gooseberries and bark. Pouring gives you a clear and deep amber, the colour of dying embers, with a light tanned head.

But the taste is surprising. It's shockingly alive and complex, and may be something of a challenge for anyone who's not a fan of smokey beers. The smokiness, obviously, is dominant but there's a lot more going on: fruits, spices, salt. The initial hit is peppery and exciting, like a gun battle in your mouth.

There's something sweet there too, like vanilla or caramel or wafer biscuit, but, like a shooting star in the night sky above you, it's away in a moment. And then there's a sourness, almost bloody, and a gentle sweetness of nectarines; light hops bring the notion of a soft breeze carrying the scent of those loch-side reeds near to where you sit by your campfire. It finishes slowly, bitterly and dryly.

Beer Review: Aldi Winter Beer Festival

Lochtober Fest by Loch Lomond Brewery

Aldi have long been supportive of Scottish breweries, and they've smashed it again with another sensational line-up of ales for its Scottish Winter Beer Festival. 

The best festival kicked last week, and since then Aldi's Scottish stores have been filling their shelves with beers from the majority of Scottish breweries - 50 in total. The beers, from breweries such as Williams, Cairngorm and Inveralmond, are a sterling representation of the world-class ales and lagers being produced in our wee country.

Fans of good beer are in for some treats, with beers such as Alechemy’s Red Rye IPA, Top Out's Copperheid and Windswept's Wolf; but the festival is also a terrific way for Scotland’s breweries to showcase their core beers to drinkers reluctant to make the step away from bland, mass-produced beer. The offering reflects the many different types of beer styles, hops, malts and methods being used across Scotland, from traditional British bitters to hop-heavy IPAs, oatmeal ales to bourbon barrel-aged beers.

It’s also a prime example of how large retailers should be co-operating with small producers. Brewery after brewery praised Aldi for the support it has given to Scotland's craft breweries, highlighting the open and collaborative stance it has taken - an insight as refreshing as the beers themselves. Aldi’s beer buyers Michael Whiteford and Kirsty Reid were singled out for praise.

Isla Mercer of Lerwick Brewery said: “Aldi’s beer festivals are a fantastic initiative that allow smaller breweries to showcase their beers and reach a much larger audience than they normally would. It's great from a consumer point of view to be able to have such a broad selection of quality Scottish products so easily available. Aldi are to be congratulated for putting in so much work to promote local, Scottish produce in their stores.”

Some beard-lovers, of course, may grumble that the line-up doesn't carry enough of the darker beers, such as porters and stouts, traditionally drunk as winter creeps closer. It's a valid critique, though the success of Aldi's beer festivals suggests they know what they're doing; while the beer curation is in fact a reflection of what the breweries themselves want to showcase. It was an assertion repeated by the likes of Williams Brothers, Drygate, Inveralmond, Black Metal Brewery, West Brewery, Tempest, Top Out, Barney’s, Cairngorm, Alechemy, Loch Lomond, Cromarty and so on

Beer drinkers after small-batch specials, spicy porters and the likes, your local independent beer shop will be delighted to help you.

But pedantic grumbles aside, this supermarket beer festival is an outstanding opportunity to access a wide range of Scotland's craft breweries, often thought of - incorrectly - as too pricy or elitist. The beers are priced from £1.29 to £1.99. 

Hopefully this festival and the ones to follow will encourage more people to think craft and to think Scottish. So, while it feels unfair to pick out a handful of beers from such a great selection, here are:

SIX GREAT BEERS in the ALDI BEER FESTIVAL

Lochtober Fest by Loch Lomond Brewery (5%)

The soft fruity aroma gives little away but inside is a little beer treat. Amid the toffee and toast malts, you'll find fruity and mild spiced flavours in this amber-coloured boch style beer, with the taste conjuring up the scent of an autumnal orchard.

Easy Livin Pils by Tempest Brewery (5%)

Proof that Czechs don’t have the rights to great pilsners, Tempest’s lager is honey, apricot and citrus on a light biscuit malt. Delicate and subtle with a brilliantly crisp and bitter finish.

Bourbon Barrel by Eden Brewery (6.5%)

Sweet, spirited and well rounded, this is easily one of Eden's best beers and a brilliant choice for them to showcase. The toffee and dark chocolate sit very well with the rich oaky flavours from the bourbon.

Orkney Blast by Highland Brewing Company (6%)

A potent pale ale with a sensational nose of summer woodland. Tastes of mandarin, nectarine and caramel malt with the citrus becoming ever more pronounced as you move towards a well-rounded finish.

Redact Red Lager by Williams Brother Brewery (4.4%)

A lovely little beer that comes in easy-drinking 330ml bottles. The addition of darker amber malts to the lager style is a nice touch as the toffee flavours blend easily with the citrus and autumn fruit aroma and mildly bitter finish.

6.2 IPA by Broughton Ales (6.2%)

Bid, bold and brilliant, you really ought to buy two. It’s probably worth trying the Knops IPA too for comparison. Oh, and you’ll need some of BrewDog's Jack Hammer while you're at it.

Here’s the full line-up:

West Brewing Co, St Mungo Lager

Williams Brothers, Redact Red Lager

Deeside Brewery, LAF Californian steam beer

Tempest Brewery, Easy Livin Pils

Lerwick Brewery, 60 Degree North Lager

Burnside Brewery, Wild Rhino Blonde

Belhaven Brewery, Speyside Oak Aged Blonde Ale

Cairngorm Brewery, Trade Winds

Highland Brewing Co, Orkney Blast

Jaw Brewing, Glide Ale

Sulwaith Brewers, Galloway Gold

Orkney Brewery, Corncrake Ale

Top Out Brewery, Copperheid Ale

Traquair House Brewery, Bear Ale

Archerfield Fine Ales, Archerfield Golden Ale

Black Metal Brewery, Yggdrasil

Wooha Brewery, Wooha IPA

Windswept Brewing Co, Wolf

Spey Valley Brewery, Stillman’s IPA

St Andrews Brewery, Oatmeal Pale

Knops Beer Company, Knops IPA

BrewDog, Jack Hammer Ale

Ayr Brewing Co, Hiphopopotamus Hoppy Pale Ale

Cromarty Brewing Co, Happy Chappy

Scottish Borders Brewery, Elder Flower Ale

Houston Brewery, Crystal Ale

Caledonian Brewery, Bill’s beer

Hebridean brewing Co, Berserker Export Pale Ale

Barney's Beer, Volcano IPA

Drygate, Ax Man Rye IPA

Islay Ales, Angus Og Ale

Broughton Ales, 6.2 IPA

Inveralmond Brewery, Thrappledouser red ale

Isle of Mull Brewery, Terror of Tobermory

Stewart Brewing, Embra Ale

Arran Brewery, Arran Fireside

River Leven Ales, River Leven Dark

Kelburn Brewery, Ca’ Canny

Valhalla Brewery, Old Scotness

Mor Brewing, Mor Tea, Vicar

Speyside Craft Brewery, Bottlenose Bitter

Loch Ness Brewery, Spookyness

Isle of Skye Brewery, Skye Red

Brewmeister, Pump’d Ale

Loch Lomond Brewery, Lochtoberfest festival ale

Alechemy Brewing Co, Five Sisters Red IPA

Black Wolf Brewery, Florida Black

Eden Mill Brewery, Bourbon Barrel

Strathaven Ales, Ginger JockOban Bay Brewery, Skelpt Lug

Beer Review: Rascal London Porter by Inveralmond Brewery

Rascal London Porter by Inveralmond Brewery

Porters have nothing to do with port or Portugal and everything to do with the London porters who hoiked hogsheads, hessian sacks and hefty boxes onto carts, wagons, steamboats and trains. Or so the stories go.

Style-wise, they're a dark heavy-hopped beer - a precursor to stouts - and were hugely popular during the Industrial Revolution but fell out of favour after the Second World War; an unfashionable weak drink for old men. Now, however, thanks to our ongoing renaissance in good beer, brewers have increasingly been looking back to old styles to brew great new beers and have revived this wonderful old style.

Midnight Sun from Williams Brothers, Smog Rocket by Beavertown and Porter by Anchor are great examples of the porter style. So too is Inveralmond Brewery's latest offering, Rascal, a dark, smooth and beautifully balanced bittersweet beer that comes in at 5.6%.

Rascal's the third release in Inveralmond's Inspiration series of world beers, and follows the Sunburst pilsner and De Mons Belgian Abbey beer. Those two were excellent, and Rascal is a very worthy successor, so much so that it won Wetherspoon's Champion Beer of Britain only a few weeks after its release (and prior to its official launch).

Crack this rapscallion open and you're greeted with chocolate aroma, roasted malts, and some tangy citrus hops. Spices and a bit of salt too. 

Rascal pours a deep, dark and broody brown, with a head the colour of bone washed up on the beach. 

Taste it though and this is a beer full of life and character. Initially, the tangy citrus hops work wonders with the rich, dark malts - a bit of young sapling there, also some blackberry and burnt sugar; the roasted flavours so well balanced by the vibrant bittering.

And then it eases, slightly, into a long, amiable bittersweet finish that hugs you and asks, very persuasively, for more. A brilliant beer.

Beer Review: Unforgiven Red Rye Ale by Tempest Brewing Co

Unforgiven Red Rye Ale by Tempest Brewing

At the start of the year, and five years after starting out, Tempest Brewing Co opened their big beautiful brewery Galashiels in the Borders and started rolling out a new line-up of great beers. They've a history in making some outstanding beers and a lot of people have been looking forward to the first batches from their new bottling line, and it's no surprise beer experts tipped them as one of the hottest breweries to watch in 2015. 

With a new brewery, Tempest also underwent a bit of a rebrand, slicker labels but smaller bottles. Their first wave of bottled beers comprises Brave New World, a potent, murky IPA (7.4%), Red Eye Flight mocha porter (7.4%) and In The Dark We Live black IPA (7.2%). Their Long White Cloud American pale ale (5.6%) is part of Aldi's Scottish Beer Festival, which launched yesterday so hopefully there's still some left. 

Tempest have also recently released Unforgiven, a 5.4% smokey red rye ale with as much attitude as the Man With No Name.

No surprises at the aroma. Its sweet campfire smokiness with tart gooseberries and bark. Pouring gives you a clear and deep amber, the colour of dying embers, with a light tanned head.

But the taste is surprising. It's shockingly alive and complex, and difficult for anyone who's not a fan of smokey beers. The smokiness, obviously, is dominant but there's a lot more going on, fruits, spices and salt. The initial hit is peppery and exciting, like a gun battle in your mouth. There's something sweet there too, like vanilla or caramel or wafer biscuit, but, like a shooting star in the night sky above you, it's away in a moment.

And then there's a sourness, almost bloody, and a gentle sweetness of nectarines; light hops bring the notion of a soft breeze carrying the scent of those loch-side reeds near to where you sit by your campfire. It finishes slowly, bitterly and dryly.

Beer Review: Celia gluten-free lager by Zatec Brewery

Celia gluten-free lager

The Czech people and beer go back a millennium or thereabouts, so they've got a slightly different take on what makes craft beer. But it's nice to see them also cater to modern trends, in this case the rise and rise of gluten intolerance. 

Zatec brewery in the town of Zatec in the north-east of Czech Republic has a bit of history. Hop cultivation and brewing in the area goes back some 1000 years, but the brewery itself is a relative newcomer, mashing its tuns for the first time in 1801. It opened due to growing demand: the town's four other breweries couldn't cope with the locals' need for beer!

The brewery - built inside the town's castle walls - suffered during the era of Communism, and in 1991 it was bought over, lavished with investment and has thrived since, recognising that the global market is vital for breweries in a country where beer is cheaper than drinking water.

Among Zatec's core range of bottled beers is its gluten-free lager Celia. This beer won the Best Gluten Free Beer prize at the 2013 FreeFrom Food Awards, and, to be fair, stands up well against your typical lagers, so isn't just for coeliac sufferers and gluten intolerants.

The aroma is a familiar, rich yet delicate lager malt with a spicy, musky undertone. A shade of earth and drying grass there too.

On tasting, there's a quick crisp and refreshing lager hit that develops into a light-bodied vanilla and caramel biscuit malt character (the malt is sourced locally, and the gluten protein then extracted to less than 0.5 mg/100 ml).

The texture is lively and rich with a refreshing amount of carbonation.

The malt backbone fades abruptly, but not before delivering a wee wave of lemony sweetness then settling down into a surprisingly long finish that also contains some sourness. Though light-bodied, there is enough of a malt character to balance out the local Saaz hops.

And as the photo shows, they do a dark version too. 

Available in some good beer shops and from Premium Czech Beers.