The Beer Thread

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Had this last night, bloody lovely.

[Kaz Hayashi]

I feel the need to promote this North East based brewery, firstly because they’re good mates, secondly because their beers are bloody brilliant (very well brewed, consistent and tasty) and thirdly because their approach to inclusivity is excellent.

Hops & Dots Brewery

One of the two brewers and owners (John) has worked in specialist adult education for a long time, specifically with visually impaired people. He then became a specialist in Braille, becoming one of a very few teachers of Braille in the country. 
Braille is the part of the reason behind the name ‘hops & dots’ and they also add a Braille sticker on their cans so visually impaired folks who can read Braille can read what they’re buying, which I think is absolutely amazing.

Anyway, they’ve been consistently knocking out bangers, and I swear that’s not just a biased opinion. 
Class range for all tastes in cans, bottles and mini kegs:

Oat Milk Brownie Stout.  
Lockdown Lager. 
Sim Specs NE-IPA. 
Fat Fingers Wheat Ale.  
Speadboat West Coast Pale.  
And loads of other small batch stuff in their modified digits line.

Again, I honestly think they’re one of the best micro breweries in the North of England right now. I’m defo taking the opportunity to promote a pals business giving the circumstances too, but I promise, it’s quality stuff. If you spot them in the wild, I’d advise you check them out, or pop by their site next weekend as it’ll have new stock and new beers added.

This is bloody wonderful BTW.

 

[Carbomb]

The fuck is this?!

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

The fuck is this?!

Heaven?

[wordsfromlee]

It’s called an awful photoshop created by a meme page. 

[BrodyGraham]

35 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

It’s called an awful photoshop created by a meme page. 

Aww, you've fuckin' ruined that! I was well up for Chorizo beer, to give to my enemies for a Secret Santa.

[Chris B]

Beer? For breakfast?

[wordsfromlee]

55 minutes ago, BrodyGraham said:

Aww, you've fuckin' ruined that! I was well up for Chorizo beer, to give to my enemies for a Secret Santa.

I wouldn’t really say I ruined it. The picture has a watermark with the meme pages instagram handle on it after all. 

[Carbomb]

Fair enough. I didn't know boxofchowder was a meme page. It seems to have been generating a fair bit of discussion on beer pages.

[Kaz Hayashi]

Over the past 3 years I’ve scoured the land for my favourite alcohol free beers. I know a few people have tried to avoid drinking through this 2nd lock down due to over doing it in the 1st one. So here’s my opinion on what to try. 

Just to clarify, I absolutely detest pretend lager 0% stuff. I’m also not that keen on 0% that tries too hard to taste like a ‘generic’ IPA. They end up too bitter in the aftertaste, over compensating for their lack of real depth, which is annoying after 1 or 2 cans or bottles. They can also suffer from a flatish 2nd half too, (Start well, go flat, bitter ending to make up for it) but again, I’m generally referring to generic 0% IPA’s. I’m guessing they all just follow a formula in order to knock out a 0% for that market, and you can tell. There’s too many on the market that go down that route and end up tasting the same. 

Now, my ultimate goal was to try and find a beer that tasted like a good quality IPA that I was fond of several years back, or as close to that as possible. Best case scenario really. Something tasty, not too bitter in the aftertaste, flavoursome throughout and sessionsble.

My top 2 are as follows:

Mikkeller - Weird Weather 

0.3% - A New England style IPA, in my opinion the best 0% beer you can get. It’s such a familiar taste and if you were doing a taste test, I truly believe it would fool you in to thinking it’s the real deal.

Vandestreek - Playground 

0.5% - Great citrus tasting IPA, with Mosaic, Cascade and Citra hops being very apparent. I had this recently and it’s quality. A very close 2nd place.

[stumobir]

Cheers for that @Kaz Hayashi, I’m really trying to cut back/out drinking but trying to find decent replacements has been a struggle. Mikkeller are great so I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of them before, where did you pick those up from? I’d never heard of them till I visited Copenhagen a few years ago, I think I must’ve tried at least half of their taps in the 3 days that I was there, all of them pretty damn tasty. 

[Statto]

I've been on the alcohol free train for a couple of years now, mainly because I really enjoy drinking beer at pace whilst watching college football games, but realised that starting drinking at 1am & going to bed pissed at 5am was no longer good for me.

My favourites are:

- Brooklyn Special Effects (this is pretty readily available in supermarkets now & pretty cheap at £1 a bottle)

- Infinite Session American Pale & Indian Pale (I now order these direct by the case but you can find in some Sainsbury's, which is where I first discovered it)

- Big Drop Pine Trail (by far the best thing ever to come out of Ipsw*ch, discovered this in Morrison's but often out of stock for extended periods, unfortunately. Would order direct but has been showing as "Stock soon!" on their website for some while.)

[Kaz Hayashi]

11 hours ago, stumobir said:

Cheers for that @Kaz Hayashi, I’m really trying to cut back/out drinking but trying to find decent replacements has been a struggle. Mikkeller are great so I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of them before, where did you pick those up from? I’d never heard of them till I visited Copenhagen a few years ago, I think I must’ve tried at least half of their taps in the 3 days that I was there, all of them pretty damn tasty. 

Best place is the drydrinker site. Expensive as most are priced the same as general IPAs, but a good selection.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Kaz Hayashi

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Tiny Rebels upcoming releases. Honey glazed ham...

[Slapnut]

Any brewery recommendations that could use the business over Christmas? I’ll throw a few into the mix - Glamorgan Brewery and Salopian will both be receiving orders from me.