london | bierebelle

The Revolution Is Now

Posted on March 5, 2015 by bierebelle

As a leisure cyclist for 6 years and commuter for roughly three of those, I’m a relative newcomer to cycling as a

Never thought watching one woman ride round a track for an hour would be this engaging!

spectator sport. How exciting could it be? Of course, the success of Team GB at 2012 introduced cycling to a whole new audience and I was one of them. I was lucky enough to see the Olympic BMX finals, but it was the track that really got me hooked. During the BMX events spectators were allowed to use the bathrooms in the velodrome next door and this was the first time I’d actually seen a track in real life. It wasn’t the wall-of-death steep banking or the scale of the place that grabbed me. Walking in just days from so many Team GB golds it was the atmosphere and the memories of what I’d been following at every opportunity on the television (or sneaking glimpses at my desk). It was breathtaking and inspiring. The re-opening of the Lee Valley Velodrome in March 2013 means I am now only a short train-ride away from world-class events.

A regular event at the velodrome is the Revolution Series which features an elite championship for the men over the course of the series, sprint and endurance events for men and women and a ‘Hoy’s Future Stars’ competition for the junior hopefuls. There’s UCI Points up for grabs to add to the drama.

Lining up for the men’s keirin. Max Levy (in the white) won both the race and best kit (I think anyway)

The series takes place over 6 events hosted in Manchester, Glasgow and London. The Revolution attracts some pretty big names – Ed Clancy, Peter Kennaugh and Jack Bobridge to name a few although the girls have put on the most engaging performance lately. At stage one back in October I witnessed some incredible racing between two personal cycling heroines, Marianne Vos and Laura Trott. The most recent event was extra-extraordinary thanks to the awe-inspiring attempt at the hour record by Dame Sarah Storey. OK she didn’t quite get the overall record but she still came away with the Masters (senior) and UK records and I think we could all feel it when she finally got the opportunity to sit in a comfy chair and instead slumped lifeless to the ground. I haven’t witnessed such an electrifyingly enthusiastic crowd since I was at the Olympic Taekwondo when Jade Jones took gold.

Of course, I don’t go to the velodrome for the booze. Being a sports venue it’s got to please everyone but at least has a local pale and IPA from Meantime at £5 for a pint. Not badly priced in a venue but not a particularly flavorsome offering. I always look back to the first Revolution hosted there with fond memories, back when the beer was provided by Look Mum No Hands. Thankfully we’d made a stop at Bottle Dog for a few sneaky walking beers, one of which was Snakecharmer from local brewers One Mile End who, unlike Meantime, don’t seem to be afraid of chucking a few hops in. At a modest 5.7% ABV this was a flavor-packed juicy sweety with ultra fruity hops.

Of course, if you didn’t plan ahead there’s always the Tap East, resident craft beer haven in the soulless temple of consumerism that is Westfield. On the 6 cask and 10 keg taps you’re likely to find a number of dull crowd-pleasers for the broken-down shopper to toss down their parched gullet in an attempt to forget the apocalypse is happening around them. However you’re also likely to find at least one or two little gems. On the day we were there the best thing on the bar was Drink Me – Pimiento & Rosemary from the Scouser Mad Hatter Brewing Company which was an incredibly well-executed wit enriched with aromatic rosemary. It made me want a Sunday roast to eat with it even though I don’t really even do roasts. Yummy!

We definitely saved the best till last and the beer of the weekend was on the way back to the train at The Craft. Having missed the Wild Beer tap takeover the previous night, we headed in and to our delight there was still plenty left including the beer I was most excited about. As the girl who can clear a chip-shop-sized jar of gherkins in less than 48 hours, I had high hopes when I found out that one of my favorite breweries were making a beery tribute to my favorite snack and they did not disappoint. Cool as a Gherkin, at 2.9% ABV, is a beer I could happily drink all day and beyond but I’d be just as happy with a bourbon chaser on the side. Tangy, sour, dill gherkin deliciousness – what a way to end an amazing weekend.

A birthday to remember!

Posted on August 17, 2012 by bierebelle

Well the Olympics is over but what a fortnight it was! If you are anything like me, you will have been glued to the Olympics at every spare moment! At work, I’ve discovered the very best reason to have an internet browser with tabs. I have absolutely no idea how I passed the time in the dark days before the games came to London! What a memorable week to hit a milestone birthday! Last Monday I hit the big 3-0 and I really don’t mind if you know that since I still get asked for ID (so there!). We had meant to get tickets for the Olympics on that day but

Birthday beer time!

weren’t lucky enough. Since we’d heard London was actually not too manic we decided to venture up there to spend the day generally wandering round and soaking up the atmosphere. In a dramatic but very fitting diversion from the usual coffee train-beer, I had been keeping a special birthday beverage to one side. Æther Blæc 28 (7.7%ABV) is Hardknott‘s phenomenal Stout Beer aged in barrels which had been used to distill Inchgower Whisky way back in the year I was born. Out of all the barrel-aged stouts I have tried, this stands out as one of the best, if not the best. Well-balanced, rich, dark fruits, bitter and hypnotic depths of complexity. So far I’ve had two of the 420 bottles made. I will count myself very lucky if I get another!

The Æther Blæc set me up for a crazy awesome day combing the streets of London in search of the painted Wenlock statues dotted around the city – there’s apparently 80 in total! Since this was hungry work, I had the ideal excuse to try out Tonkotsu the new ramen bar in Soho which I’d heard about from various beery sources on Twitter and had pretty much the best ramen ever! The mains on the menu consist of only two pork ramen and one vegetarian but they excel at what they do! I have never raved about hard-boiled eggs so much – you will not regret ordering extra! The reason it’s popular with beer fans, of course, is its rather enviable and fairly-priced beers from local breweries Beavertown & The Kernel, as well as Brewdog. I went for a Beavertown Smog Rocket (5.4%ABV) which was a deliciously smokey porter and the OH went for their impressively hop-tastic IPA, 8 Ball (6.2%ABV).

More Wenlock-spotting called for more thirst-quenching beer. Just my luck then that The Cask had a ‘Meet the Brewer’ event with Red Willow brewery! What a fantastic place to watch as Jason Kenny took another Team GB gold in the mens sprint, an event I became a little obsessed with. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to let out a cheer as he crossed the line. I drank halves so I could try as many as possible and I can pretty honestly say that I didn’t have one bad one but the stand outs were the liquorice black IPA SoullesS (7.2%ABV) and sweet but smokey and incredibly drinkable porter, Smokeless (5.7%ABV). Unfortunately, the day had to come to an end early as I had to be at work the next day so to round off a rather lovely birthday we got a lovely pudding to take on the train. The perfect pudding? A cakey, figgy Vanilla Tree Dubbel (7.5%) by Westbrook Brewing Co. Only another two working days until we’re back in London for the Great British Beer Festival and seeing the Olympics for real.

A night in with The Kernel

Posted on June 10, 2012 by bierebelle

The Kernel – where have you been all my life!? How could I have missed this brewery? As a bit of a social media tart, I’ve seen quite a few people chucking back a bit of the Kernal’s special sauce on Untappd and Instagram. I’ve been fairly intrigued since everybody seems to think quite highly of them but for some sad reason, although we’re not far from London, there’s only one place I know of stocking these beers and they don’t have the Export Stout London 1890 (7.1%ABV) which I’d heard so much about. This made me such a sad panda that I brought one all the way back from The Bottle in York on the aeroplane and winding down from my trek around Salisbury seemed like just the right excuse to get it open.

I say – this Kernal’s rather dashing

The Kernel are proud to say their beer is ‘bottled alive’ so it can grow and develop in the bottle. This little monster was kicking and screaming when we let it out; even though the bottle was sitting in the kitchen for a week since we bought it we got a little bit of a spray. Maybe it was all that beautiful flavour waiting to burst out. In appearance it’s everything I would want in a porter – total opaque darkness, the alcohol evident in the slight oiliness on the sides of the glass as I swirl it around. The aroma is outstanding rich, dark chocolatey malt. The taste is all this and more. Rich, thick mouthfeel with bitter espresso and sour red berries. A bite of decadent dark chocolate is lifted with a touch of vanilla. Perfectly balanced. Why is it called ‘Export’ anyway? I want it for myself!

Happy birthday to Brew (Dog)

Posted on April 29, 2012 by bierebelle

Brewdog Camden celebrates!

Bierebelle does not feel too good. What happened yesterday? Ah yes that would be the illustrious Brewdog’s fifth birthday party at their Camden bar where they had a total tap takeover featuring over 19 of their beers! I can’t even remember how many of those I tried but I think by the state of my wallet it was quite a few. We started the day with good intentions and I even kept notes on the first few drinks but with so much choice including some incredibly rare and never-before-seen beers it was never going to end well. The first drink was a very easy decision. I was very very excited to see Tokyo (18.2%ABV) on the taps – I’ve been putting off buying it for a while because of the price tag but this was the perfect opportunity to try. It’s an astonishingly beautiful porter ‘brewed with jasmine and cranberries, dry-hopped then aged on oak chips.’ This is one of my fantasy beers I’ve daydreamed about making in my imaginary brewery I sometimes think I’ll have one day, but Brewdog have gone and beaten me to it! Although the jasmine is quite subtle, the aroma is a generous big summer picnic of cherry jam on brown bread. A real femme-fatale, the taste is wicked dark chocolate with dried cranberries and cherries and it feels like a mouthfull of velvet.It’s a luxurious deep brown and so thick it leaves little legs when you swirl it around the glass.You wouldn’t leave Tokyo alone with your boyfriend.

No birthday is complete without cake (and 'IPA Is Dead' Motueka)

Moving on from the sophistocated elegance of Tokyo, I set my sights on a real bad boy for my next drink, Libertine Porter (5.9%), an ‘an irreverent, devil may care rollercoaster of a porter.’ What a rollercoaster ride indeed. Just about as inky black as a porter can be, it’s rammed with hops which dance and shout for attention but once they calm down, there’s a flash of blackcurrant and liquorice. It smells like it’s been painting the town black then crashed for the night in a hedgerow of hops and brambles. This is some bad-ass refreshment but the super-dry finish means it goes down rather quickly. Wiki says a Libertine is somebody ‘devoid of moral restraints.’ This Libertine is devoid of any restraints at all and today he had brought his crazed hound, Dog A. Oh yes, the Alpha dog was in the bar and I was faced with a dilemma – would I splash out or live to regret it? I thought about this as I shared a bottle of Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale (6.7%ABV) with my two companions which was a rather pleasant change of pace. A traditional, farmhouse-style Saison with an aroma rather like hay which made a wholesome and sunny interlude but there was a dog still jumping around, wagging it’s tail to catch my eye.

Who let the dog out of the box?!

Dog A (15.1%) is a rare beast. Everyone wants a puppy when they’re 5 and Brew Dog went ahead and got one, albeit a crazed, slightly vicious but utterly beautiful one. This Imperial Stout originally appeared as the legendary AB:04 but has made a much anticipated return for the aniversary celebrations. It contains ‘copious amounts of dark malts, pure cacao, coffee and subtle naga chilli’ so pretty much all the best things you could put into a beer. Presented in a beautifully sinister black box, you know this is gonna be pretty special. The aroma is incredible; you get so much of the chocolate and naga it reminds me of my home-made chocolate chilli but with shed-loads more awesomeness. The flavour is warming, full of dark malts with a real bitter-sweet kick of the blackest chocolate and followed with a subtle after-burn. Exceptionally silky with a tiny hint of smoke. Without a doubt the best beer of the day which is just as well since my note-taking stopped here (possibly rendered speechless by the majesty of the Dog A). Thanks for letting us come to your party Brewdog – it rocked!

A lost afternoon (London part 2)

Posted on March 3, 2012 by bierebelle

For the beer enthusiast, London has a lot to offer. The Rake, The Craft Beer Co, The Porterhouse, The Southampton Arms just to name a few. We had started the day with grand plans to at least drop into The Rake but the amazing Brew Dog had us trapped for the best part of the day. We reluctantly managed to drag ourselves out eventually and back out into the big city. Some cake and a walk round St James’ Park were all we needed to prepare for part two of our beer adventure at The Cask.

Nestled into a block of flats in Pimlico, The Cask is an unusual-looking place from the outside. Nevertheless, it’s great if, like me, you have become fed up with being pushed and shoved around central London and just want to go somewhere a bit quieter. It’s spacious, modern and has plenty of seating. The staff are friendly and always ready to answer any questions. It’s just as well because they normally have a few taps dedicated to Mikkeller’s concoctions which I always have to ask about just because there’s different ones every time, normally with charmingly hand-written pump-clips that tell you very little. As well as Mikkeller, recently I have seen a lot of Magic Rock, Southern Tier, Dark Star and Thornebridge on the taps alongside other less well-known brewaries. I never fail to be impressed by their bottle selection which you can also buy to take home. Their selection includes beer from all over the world, most of which I have rarely seen sold anywhere else.

Sadly, as the hours in the day were running out and I had to get a train home at some point, I could only stay for a couple of drinks so I had to choose wisely. My first half was a Southern Tier Imperial Creme Brulee Stout (10%ABV). I always expect great things frorm Southern Tier; I truly believe their Pumpking is the very best Pumpkin ale on the planet and is one of my all-time favorites. The Creme Brulee surpassed expectations. Although it was a deep silky black in the glass, it tasted pretty much like somebody had whizzed up a Creme Brulee in a blender. If somebody had actually liquidised a Creme Brulee and asked me to compare it with this stout in a blind taste test I’m not confident that I would tell the difference. It’s brewed with real vanilla beans for a big vanilla and caramel hit. You even get a sense of the burnt caramel topping. It’s really a pudding dressed as a beer with absolutely no bitterness. I kinda wish I’d had this after my lovely Fish & Chip supper.

Yummy! Fish & Chips in a posh fryer basket!

Having said that, my final beer of the day was a pretty refreshing accompaniment for the food. To round off the day as I had started it, I went for a Mikkeller with one of those hand-written pump clips I mentioned known as The Big Hunt for Pine (6.5%ABV). Although it wasn’t really extraordinary, this dark, cloudy amber ale did remind me of the lovely pine sugar from the Heston Blumenthal mince pies I’d had over Christmas which made me feel slightly nostalgic. Light and sweet with a little light hops and malt, it was the perfect thing to round off a lovely day in the big city.

Bierebelle in the Big City

Posted on March 1, 2012 by bierebelle

Since last Saturday was a day of fixing bikes, grocery shopping, household chores and other angelic pursuits (ok maybe the cigar and pint of Dark Star Original not so angelic) Sunday was bound to become carnage. What do they say about all work and no play…? And where better to run amuck than foggy London town. Since the other half is a Geordie, it seemed only fair to start the festivities on the train so breakfast was a lovely Mikkeller Koppi Tomahawk x Guji Natural (6.9% ABV). When you think coffee beers, you would normally think of the darker varieties but, given that this is Mikkeller, it probably comes as no surprise that they actually came up with (possibly a world first) coffee IPA! Made in collaboration with the Sweedish coffee house, Koppi, organic Ethiopian Sidamo coffee beans were used along with American Hops in this unique beer.

Nice breakfast coffee

First impressions from the aroma made me slightly anxious as the smell was predominently hops with a hint of banana and only a suggestion of coffee. Having been smashed in the tastebuds by the hops some of Mikkeller’s creations in the past, I approached with caution. However, I was rather pleasantly surprised by the overall candy-sweetness, followed by a little waft of coffee with a lingering dry, hoppy finish. Altogether a very well-rounded flavor with the coffee sneaking up as you get through the bottle. It’s rather too drinkable and made an excellent start to the day.

So with a Mikkeller already down the hatch, the day was off to a good start. To be fair, it made Camden that bit more bearable which was our first port of call. After battling through a few shops, we decided that we had earned a little rest. As Brew Dog shareholders under their Equity for Punks scheme, we were also duty-bound to finally pay their Camden pub a visit. It’s less than 5 minutes walk from the mayhem of Camden tube station but my goodness it’s a blessed little oasis of calm. Plus, the staff are friendly and know their beer. We found a lovely seat by the window and made a start on the taps. I had been very keen to try the Hitachino’s Nest at the event held by Brew Dog a couple of weeks earlier but sadly live too far away so I was excited to see that they had two on tap, as well as a wide range of bottles.

The first beer had to be Hitachino’s Nest Nipponia (6.5%ABV) which is their golden ale. What a beautiful beer to look at. A cloudy yellow gold with a little bit of a light head and teeny tiny bubbles.The aroma is sweet toffee with tropical banana and pineapple and a little hops. The flavour is so sweet and lovely like a banana split with a little delicate hoppiness at the end, followed by toffee. The end is long and dry with a tiny waft of smoke and this makes it quite more-ish. I could have gone for another one of these but Nipponia wasn’t the only one on the taps I was eager to try! Thankfully, I had brought my lovely boyfriend along as an accomplice which meant we could try twice as many beers.

Swatting up at Beer School over a Hitachino's Nest Nipponia

For his first drink, being a bit of a hop-head, he went for a Mikkeller 1000 IBU Light (4.9%). A cloudy sunset in a glass, the scent is exotic, hoppy and spicy with fruit and maybe even raisins. It’s such an incredible, complex scent but to taste it’s hops, hops, HOPS. Just an uncompromising assault of hops and take it from me as not-an-overhopped-beer-fan, it’s actually rather good! First, you get a hoppy smack round the face, then there’s a little sweet flourish where you can bask in the sunset colours in the glass, then the hops come back round and kick you in the ass for good measure so you’re left with a long, bitter end. My partner actually believes the bitterness of the light is actually harder-hitting than the full-strength 1000 IBU.

By now, we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would probably be here a while – it’s not every day you’re presented with such an amazing range of ales to try (especially since there’s about two decent pubs where I live)! It’s also incredibly rare to find not one but two Hitachino Nest beers on tap. However, I have a little confession to make involving a tiny mix-up. Being impressed by the Nipponia and obsessed by owls, I had intended to go for a half of the Amber (5.5%ABV) and the OH wanted to the try Southern Tier Phin & Matts (5.4% ABV) since we are also big STBC fans. In the interests of keeping my reviews as honest as possible, I try not to find out much about the ales before I try them. This kind of backfired when we were presented with one deep, dark, minstrel chocolate brown beer and one glass of light, golden sunshine (some might say Amber?). So we decided that the dark was the Phin & Matts and the one we had labelled ‘Amber’ was the Amber. It was only when I read an online review of the Phin & Matts that I realised our mistake. Big fail, big lesson learned at the Brew Dog Beer School!

Like a nerdy little CAMRA beer-ticker, I took my little note-book to London with me so I could use my notes to bring you this blog so I’m just gonna switch the notes on the Phin & Matts and the Amber like nothing ever happened. In fact, it wasn’t such a bad mistake since both were lovely in their own ways. The Hitachino’s Nest Amber had the aroma of black treacle and a rich chocolatey burnt toffee flavour with hops at the end. More burnt toffee snuck in for well-rounded finish.

The Phin & Matts on the other hand was pretty much the opposite. Wafting out of the sunshiney glass comes the sweet smell of hops, vanilla, bananas and peaches. Now generally, I prefer dark wintery styles but if more summer beers were like this I might be a little more tempted. The taste is liquid sunshine – sweet, refreshing citrus, white chocolate and vanilla with a finish of sticky-toffee-pudding.

Bratwurst, pickles, saurkraut, onions...what's not to love!

All this drinking was making me hungry so to accompany our beers (and soak up the booze to prepare us to be released back into society) we decided to sample the delights from the Brew Dog kitchen. The small menu is mainly pizza & burgers. Since they had run out of pizzas the decision was made a little easier so I went for the hot-dog inspired Milwaukee and the boy had a anglo-Indian Whitechapel. Then we decided they were both so good we switched and had half of each.

After our little food-stop, we decided that as share-holders, we owed it to ouselves to make our next half-pints Brew Dog so I ordered the Rip-Tide Imperial Stout (8%ABV) and the OH had the Hops Kill Nazis (7.8%ABV). I always expect great things from Brew Dog. I love their no-compromise attitude and the sense of fun they bring to their brewing. The Stout was everything I had hoped for; deep, dark liquorice black in colour with a thick, foamy head and a caramel, malt and dark chocolate aroma. The taste was an unsurprisingly sturdy, well-rounded and strong Imperial Stout. In each beer, Brew Dog cram in about 15 times more hops than most brewers so the trademark bitterness was still there but this gave way to a long finish of burnt toffee and black coffee with a waft of smoke.

I’m sure Hops Kill Nazis has way more than ’15 x the hops of other brewers.’ Seriously – how on earth is this stuff so deliciously drinkable? It’s such a pretty dark treacly amber and the hops aroma is so true to the flavour which is citrusy and floral but with not a lot of the dryness you might expect from this style. The finish is just delightful and thirst-quenching leaving you with an impression of lemon sherbert.

So as you can see we made ourselves very much at home at the Camden Brew Dog for a large part of the day but there was still some shopping to do and we had plans to visit The Cask too! Our plans to visit any of our other London haunts had pretty much vanished as soon as we saw the burger menu. That’s probably enough for one blog post though – watch out for London part two!