Tryst in me, Part I: Amarillo hop

Tryst Brewery's Amarillo beer.

Tryst Brewery in Falkirk is doing this fantastic thing at the moment for craft beer converts. They're producing bottles of single hop beers. They call this series Hop Trials, but I think Hop Wars would be a better bit of marketing. Anyway, it all means you can try a beer and get to know what flavour of hop you're drinking. You can compare two or three to get a sense of the variety of hop flavours. But remember, these are SINGLE-HOPPED BOTTLES. That means there's been no fancy mixing to see which hop goes with what hop. Tonight ladies and laddies, this is Singles Night.

So, I pulled an Amarillo. It's the one in the picture, see. It's sharp and pungent on the nose. Strong too, with a foosty bitterness.

On the pour, this bottle-conditioned beer offered up a tonne of carbonation with a good lingering head. Pale gold and clear it was too. The photo makes it look darker than it was.

Has a strong malty biscuit flavour, I thought, and an earthy yeastiness, with the Amarillo bringing hints of citrus and sweet orange. Texture was smooth and velvety, and on the swallow, a dry yet tangy bitterness. ABV was 5%.

Nae bad at all.

Alechemy Cockleroy Black IPA

I didn't want my first review of 2013 to be a bad one. Start positively and that, but then I remembered my Ne'er Day review of Williams Brothers' Joker IPA. Huzzah! My conscious is clear.

I wrote a while back about Alechemy's magical Cairnapple IPA, a delicious ale I'd gladly buy again. Well, I tried their Cockleroy Black IPA in the dregs of 2012, and ...

Och I want to be nice, but it just wasn't for me. While its dark malt colour and citrus aroma are intriguing certainly, and the glass boasts of fulsome promise, I found it a tad thin on the palate and I was left a wee bit wanting. More so when I considered the other fine, chewy black beers out there. Pity.

I'll probably try it again one day, just to be sure.

Anyway, Livingston-based Alechemy's another wee micro-brewery that's opened up in Scotland's eastern lands, and like Edinburgh's Barney's Beer, it's a wee business with a heap of passion and big ideas. That, I do like.