Christmas Special - The Bottle Shop

Twas several nights before Christmas and all through the house no creature was stirring... Because stirring is for tea and we only drink beer in my house! Bam! Christmas is right around the corner and, as per usual (if I had been aware that the place had existed for longer than a year,) I found myself in The Bottle Shop spending fresh green on bottled ambrosia. No! Not custard! Learn your classics, you oaf! As a Christmas present to myself the owner Andrew Morgan kindly presented me with a Bottle Shop branded pint glass and my girlfriend with a branded half-pint glass. So what I figured I'd do, in return, is NEVER STOP USING THE PINT GLASS... And write a multi-review featuring a bunch of the beers I purchased from Canterbury's (of not Kent's) première bottled beer establishment.


Thornbridge - Kill Your Darlings

I've never been to Vienna, I've heard it's beautiful there but I've never had the urge to go but if this is the kind of beer I can expect when I get out there then I need to put some serious consideration into booking a ticket. It's just full of surprises, this beer! When you hear the word "lager" you think light, you think refreshing, you think you should be able to see clear through the glass. Nope. 3 words: Soreen Malt Loaf. It smells like something you should butter and have with a cup of tea after a day out in the rain and tastes like plump raisins dipped in the greasy pit sweat of MIGHTY THOR! It tastes thick, malty, fruity and rich, like if a summer pudding decided to give up on being a mediocre dessert and become a totally awesome beer. There is very little bitterness but the sweetness is interesting enough to keep you playing the game, though that's not entirely necessary because the texture alone is the kind that just leaps down your throat like a ninja's shadow.

Thornbridge range from £2ish to £12...ish and it's easy to see why. They can make beautiful beers for the masses like Jaipur and Wild Swan and they can make white label, small batch, beers for the man who likes to invest in the well being of his liver. The term "kill your darlings" hints at the ruthlessness with which Thornbridge make their beer, they claim that they do not want to be too precious about what they make and that their only goal is the finished product. Right now, all I know is that I don't care what they cut out of this beer because what they kept just works. It doesn't taste like a lager or look like a lager, it looks more like a standard brown ale but it has such delicious sweetness and maltiness that I fear this beer may well be gone very quickly... It's like a wet hug from Grandma or like being attacked by a dog made out of fruit cake.

Food Suggestion: You can only get them around Easter but when that pointless holiday does roll around you will be able to buy, from Waitrose, Heston: Earl Grey and Mandarin hot crossed buns. Butter those bad boys up because they were made for this beer! (Well, they weren't but it definitely feels like it.)

Drink this if you like: Most anything by Thornbridge. There are other British brewers flying the flag out there but few are making quite as unique beer as Thornbridge, I've not had a bad pint from those guys. I've not even had an average pint from them.


Emeliesse Blond

A Dutch blond huh? Christmas really has come early. When I bought this it was in retort to my purchase of Schieven IPA, a Belgian brew that was, at the time, described to me as perfect. The Bottle Shop expert on hand begged to differ with what I had previously been told and suggested I get my gums around this blond and see what went down in China town. I've got to say that on pouring it produces a very aromatic head that now has a steadily reducing bite mark in it because it smelt so good that I had to chomp at it like a rabid dog at a postman made of bacon. There are delicious, light, fruity notes that hint towards gooseberries but with a sweetness to the smell that reminds me a little of a gooseberry crumble with caramelised brown sugar on top. The head remains as pure white as the driven snow and as sticky sweet as a home made marshmallow throughout, which adds a little bit of fun to the proceedings.

Whoa! This has got some depth to it, the first impression is something along the lines of "meh, yeah this is beer alright," but then the thing just starts running riot in your mouth! It hits you with heavy treacle tastes and finishes with sour fruits there's a hints of the gooseberries I mentioned as well as a drop of grapefruit but, for some reason, I didn't expect the beer to taste like this. It's sweet and sticky but not stodgy, it's definitely not a chore. It's times like this when I wish I had a rating system so I could objectively conclude which one is better, this or the Schieven, but a complex opinion cannot be summed up with numbers so I guess you're just going to have to deal with words.

This beer is as tasty as drunkenly drinking Buck's Fizz in a hop field. Four ingredients, 2 whole paragraphs... Impressive.

Food Suggestion: Honey. Toast. Honeycomb. More toast. Make sure it's brown bread with seeds and those weird white bits all over it.

Drink this if you like: It may seem a bit counter productive since I'm comparing this to Belgian blonds but if you do like any Belgian blonds then you've seriously got to try this!


De La Senne - Schieven IPA

It's hard to reduce your expectations when a beer is described to you as PERFECT! I look at the bottle and try to analyse what constitutes perfect when  it comes to beer. Well, where to start? The bottle art is as good a place as any... Hops, though hop (singular) is more accurate. It's simple and effective. It's from Belgium, which I consider to be in the top 2 beer producing nations in the world (I secretly think they're number one but recent nostalgia and general patriotism are playing with my perceptions of objectivity.) It's 6.5% which is strong enough to make it interesting but not so strong that you would not consider having a second directly after. The pour is what you would expect from any Belgian beer, it's frisky and playful with a bucket of head and an instantly noticeable aroma and, since this is an IPA, that aroma was of hops. Lots and lots of hops, with all the citrus elements that generally entails.

The initial taste is light but that doesn't last long before a MASSIVE burst of citrus and hops scorches through your mouth like a Chinese dragon that's substituted in for the bull in the china shop. This certainly has a punch to it but it's not entirely overpowering and the lingering tingle of bitterness makes you crave it. This is not a beer, this is a drug, this is something you could become addicted to. The hop burn even extends (if you drink it like I do... Like a duck,) to a lingering whiskey smoulder, the embers of which remain throughout the drink.

This is true to the nature of the IPA but it's got Belgian craft written all over it. It presents itself as modest when, in fact, it is Isambard Kingdom Brunel with a sledge hammer and a stick of dynamite instead of a cigar, holding up a puppy in an attempt at fooling you that you're in for an easier ride than you actually are. This beer is big, bold and would be intimidating to all but the most seasoned beer drinkers... Even I'm a little scared of it, but I respect it enough to take the bastard down.

Food Suggestion: A big bitter beer needs a big and savoury meal, it needs to be challenging. Pair this with a vindaloo or a phaal and we shall see what you're made of. No weak sauce around here, go big or go home!

Drink this if you like: Meantime IPA is quite similar in taste but isn't nearly as powerful as this is.


The big question is: Who wins? Schieven IPA or Emeliesse Blond? Well, personally I much prefer the Schieven IPA because it appeals to constant search for beer that will challenge me and although I think the Blond is a delicious beer, I'm the kind of guy who really enjoys beer with power and substance.

These 3 and so many more delicious, challenging, refreshing, mesmerizing beers can be found at The Bottle Shop, which you can find at the Goods Shed next to Canterbury West train station.

Evil Twin - Ashtray Heart

If you pop the cap, have a sniff, have a taste and don't instantly react in either shock or surprise then you are not drinking an Evil Twin beer. Ashtray heart is the definition of an Evil Twin beer, it is big, bold and brutal, it's a smoked imperial stout that smells like cigars, burnt sugar and Islay single malt whiskies. The beast swirls like a conger eel and pours like runny cake mix, this is truly a beer born of a fevered imagination and a thirst for the peculiar. I've never had a smoked stout before but now I never want to drink anything else... I obviously will but the smoky elements mix in with the smooth body and the high alcohol content to do exactly what it says on the label, it gives you a warm sense of well being whilst leaving a beautiful tobacco and coffee taste on your palate.

You know what I love about this beer? Apart from the taste, texture, smell and alcohol content? I love that on the bottle it says that this should only be consumed by "heavyweight beer champions" saying that it "makes invalids of supermen." I'm not sure who is on their marketing department but I want to kiss their ruddy face for having the fortitude to plaster something potentially off putting but brutally honest on a beer that they wish to sell... To the public... For money. There's something about the Mikkeller brothers that it is hard to resist, they don't care who you are or what you like because this beer isn't about YOU, it's about the art, it's about making something that THEY want to make. Mikkeller seem to enjoy subtlety more than Evil Twin, who rather enjoy trying to blast your face off your skull with ALCOBOOZE! The last Evil Twin I had was their Christmas special from a couple of years ago, which got me drunk by the half pint point.

I've noticed that Ashtray Heart is produced and bottled at Brouwerij De Molen, a brewery that are the closest I can think of in spirit to Evil Twin. What a delicious coincidence.

So, should you buy Ashtray Heart? Well, at £6 for a small bottle you're paying top end beer prices... But you're getting TOP END BEER that challenges you and taunts you before eventually bowling you over. If your idea of top end beer is Guinness then you should probably steer clear of this... And of living in the big bad world... I should probably add that this tastes SUPER BAD FOR YOU. Don't drink this if you're a bit wafty like that, or have ever considered eating a salad.

This, on top of a million or so other barn stormers, was obtained from the good people at The Bottle Shop in Canterbury. They've bought out their own brand glasses, does someone want to buy me a branded pint glass for Christmas... Or my birthday... Or because they just want to?

Food suggestion: Food?! No! Cigars! Big, fat, Cuban, cigars like a freakin' dictator. Castro would be so proud!

Drink this if you like: Anything else by Evil Twin or high strength stouts like Rasputin by De Molen or Big Mofo Stout by Brodie's.

Whitstable Brewery - Raspberry Wheat

If you brew, bottle and then sell a beer a raspberry wheat beer then you are inviting the comparison between what you have made and Belgian brewing dynasties like Liefmans, Timmermans, Bachus and Delirium... You are ALWAYS going to fall short. So Whitstable Brewery fall short, sure, but they don't fall short by much, their Raspberry Wheat has charm and flavour in abundance, it's even cheeky enough to smell like a good Belgian Framboise. So why does it fall short if it's got all the characteristics of the Belgian bunch? I'll tell you why, it doesn't have the excitement, it doesn't have that initial WOW factor, it doesn't possess a complexity that can keep my attention to probe deeper just to see what's going on. On the surface it tastes a bit like beer and raspberries and then beneath the surface it still tastes a bit more like beer and raspberries... Which is nice, it's just that it was EXACTLY what I expected.

There's a lot to be said for the element of surprise in beer, which is why I'm much more likely to give a good review to a beer with a completely unintelligible name. When I crack open a beer in the evening, precisely what I don't want are any spoilers... It's fine for there to be a description on the back because I don't have to read that and it's fine for the beer to be named "Stout," "Porter," or "India Pale Ale" because there is such a vast spectrum of textures and flavours associated with each of those but telling me, straight up, that I'm about to drink a raspberry flavoured wheat beer somewhat ruins it for me. Imagine drinking a beer called "Hi! I'm a stout and I taste a bit like coffee."

I like Raspberry Wheat, it's a competent beer made by people who obviously love what they do. I just wish they'd quit it with the spoilers.

I bought this beer from my local Waitrose for a discounted price because it's being discontinued from the range... Meaning that others share my grievances. However it can still be found in specialist beer shops and off licenses around Kent, especially in Whitstable.

Food suggestion: Goats cheese and fig salad, this needs something light and subtle.

Drink this if you like: Belgian fruit beers but can't find any.

Maredsous (Guest Writer)

((Hi there! My name's Drew and I'm the guy who's been writing all the reviews that you obviously love... Or at least tolerate. Today is a special day because I didn't write this review, this one was written by Drew's Brew's very first contributing author. His name is Russell Gammon and we go way back, so to make a differentiation between the two of us I shall call this review the following...))

Russell in Brussels

by Russell Gammon

Brussels. A city known for the Eurostar, overpriced hotels and boredom. What do these people do all day, given the lack of character the city has to offer? They drink. That’s what. They drink beer and they like it!

On a recent trip over there, a colleague and I took to the hotel bar, intent on sampling the beers on offer. The local barkeep (we’ll call him Pierre) told us to try something different; and so, a Maredsous was selected.

At 6 Euro for 6% (albeit at hotel prices), they offered some kind of symmetry you wouldn’t get with a can of warm Special Brew. Another thing that it didn’t have in common with the aforementioned tramp-fuel was the taste. It has a strong, not overpowering taste that is a delight on the throat. The thing that really pleased me about this beer was its consistency.

One qualm I often have with similar beers is that, like Usian Bolt boxing in a dimly lit room, they pack a powerful punch initially but run away into nothingness almost immediately. This beer isn’t afraid of hanging around and giving you a good time.

An excellent beer with a smooth yet strong taste. One of the better Belgian beers... And Belgian beers are good.

Food suggestion: Well given that I’d just had a lovely Kosher dinner, despite my lack of Judaism, I would suggest that this is a beer that is best enjoyed with foods that are blessed using methods from faiths that you do not hold. Specific.

Drink this if you like: Strongly flavoured Belgian beers! Also, does your mouth ever feel like it hasn't been assaulted enough during a drinking session? Yes? Well get this down you! Yummy!

Fuller's - London Porter

This is what old people should smell like! This deep, dark, intriguing mixture of bitter coffee, chocolate and alcohol is a delicious pint and an example of what I expect when I drink a porter. Many in the porter/stout family have the coffee/dark chocolate characteristics in differing quantities but this seems to have them just right. The body of it is so dark, it looks like someone has just coloured in the insides of my glass with a felt tip pen and spilt some cappuccino foam on top, it looks like melted obsidian and tastes like it should be really bad for you... I imagine it is, drinking a pint of something that black and thick can't be healthy... There's probably a joke in there somewhere.

Fuller's have long redeemed themselves in my eyes for their errors in making Chiswick bitter, a beer I remember absolutely hating, by wowing me with ESB, Their Vintage, Honeydew and, now, their London Porter. What more is there to say? Fuller's set the standard for English beer because they've been around since the dawn of time... Beer time, and they've made award winners the same way I make letters happen with my fingers. Would you be surprised if I told you this one was a prize winner? You shouldn't be. Does it matter what prize it won? Not really. What prizes have you won recently? Exactly.

I've had a lot of really exciting Porters recently, it seems to be the style that breweries go to when they really want to show off. It's the style that you go to when you want to make big tasting, bold flavoured, black as a black hole playing with a pot of black paint, beer that can be anywhere between 5% and 15%. Even after having all of those exceptionally creative and delicious Porters, I will always be happy if someone plonks a bottle of this down in front of me.

Food Suggestion: Cheese, strong cheese, strong cheese that's flinty enough to cut you if you eat it at the wrong angle. Hovis biscuits, screw the people who say you shouldn't have them with cheese because they're too sweet. They're WRONG!

Drink this if you like: Any bitter-sweet Porters or Stouts. This is the standard, this is the thing that other things should be compared to.

Goose Island - Nut Brown Ale

Breweries who make delicious beer do themselves precisely no favours by doing so. I drank Goose Island IPA with no expectations and it quickly became one of my favourite beers, the bottle looked fun, I liked the idea of geese brewing beer, though after talking to their representatives I am now sure that is NOT what actually happens, and the beer itself bowled me over as if it were a blind child with glandular problems who really needed the toilet and we were both in a narrow corridor. So what did I do? What COULD I do? I had to find more, I had to see what else Goose Island had to offer, and so it was that I stumbled upon Nut Brown Ale at The Bottle Shop. I leapt at it like a fevered Civet cat and now I sit here, the weight of expectation skewing my every thought.

...Yay! When they say it's a nut brown ale they mean it's a brown ale that tastes rather nutty and not, as some companies tend to do by accident, a brown ale that is coloured like nuts. The aroma is of the hazelnuts you get wedged in bars of Cadbury fruit and nut and the taste has hints of the rest of the bar in it too. A smooth and easily drinkable character helps this beer along and the low carbonation almost gives you the impression that you're drinking nutty milk with a little alcoholic kick, like if Eggnog was awesome and filled with nuts or if you put ale and custard in a blender... Just less of a mess and more of a mellow masterstroke.

This beer is more inclusive than it is exclusive, I've had beers that should only ever be had by beer connoisseurs and I've had beer that even a child would find more drinkable than Sunny D. Goose Island, or so it seems to me, make beer that EVERYONE can enjoy and, this is the best bit, you can enjoy them on any level. I can see myself drinking nothing but Goose Island down the pub but, instead, here I am analysing it. It's uncanny is what it is. That's 2 for 2, I've got 1 more lined up but it won't be for a while, I'm looking forward to seeing what else they've got and you should too.

Nut Brown Ale seems to be available in the UK only at speciality beer shops, even when I look it up online Google gets confused and insists that it's a European beer... Yes it's done in an English style but I'm pretty sure Chicago is in America.

Food Suggestion: Double deep fry those chips and salt them up like a bout of kidney failure waiting to happen, shovel them down your face by the fist full you big mess and enjoy Goose Island Nut Brown Ale like a freakin' king!

Drink this if you like: Chocolate stouts like Choklat by Southern Tier but want something a bit smoother and a bit more easy going. You can drink this anywhere and at any occasion, you could drink it on the bus if you wanted to... I imagine no-one would judge you, in fact in my head I can only see people cheering.

Ebulum - Elderberry Black Ale

One of a number of interesting looking ales I picked up from my local Dobbie's which, for those who don't know what that is, is a garden centre with amusingly shaped toilets and a penchant for selling delicious but awfully out of place food and drink. The beer seemed to be predominantly Scottish so I decided to just run with it and buy a basket full.

Now, when the Scottish say something is black, they mean it's black, so when they say this is a black ale, they mean that it is a glass full of liquid shadow. Light may hit it but no light ever escapes, it is complete darkness, dim the lights and you'd only be able to work out it was there by it's, latte foam, head. The smell is heavily of coffee with little hints to the elderberries that it advertises which leads you to think that this is going to be a thick chocolatey stout but what you actually get is a hint of bitter, sticky, stout but a beer that is a lot like a fruity glass of spring water... How very odd. It tastes very subtly of berries and goes down a lot easier than it looks like it should. There are little hints of caramel and bread but something about this beer just seems a little off. Maybe I can't hack the idea of not drinking with my eyes, I would hope that's all, but now that I sit and analyse, I do rather feel a bit of hairiness in the mouth, a light version of that sensation you get when you wake in the middle of the night directly after you've had a heavy night of drinking.

It's not unpleasant and there are several things to like about it, especially that it's a very refreshing drink... It's just not refreshing enough to be had in Summer and not thick and chewy enough to be had in winter. It's such an odd mix because it has the look of a winter beer but the taste of a summer one and, unfortunately, that means that it fits into neither. I like it enough to say that it's worth a try, but only if it's on offer... Or someone decides to give you one.

Food suggestion: Light enough to go with a salad, if you can believe that.

Drink this if you like: Drinking odd grog from the Scotch land.

Brodie's - Hackney Red IPA

Having already sampled an absolute monster by Brodie's in the form of Big Mofo Stout, I was intrigued to see where their craft could take them and, so it was, to that end I went on the search for the rest of their range, the first to be stumbled upon was the Hackney Red IPA. It is, inevitably, a disadvantage for Brodie's to have had their big, beasty, stout reviewed before this one as my expectations are now so high that they can, logically, not be met.

Hackney Red IPA is a beautifully dark IPA with a strong, clean, hop burst on the nose and a gorgeous, rich, almost light compared to the big mofo, body that it has hints of bitterness that appear in the wings and a smooth cereal core with little flecks of red fruits popping their heads up. It's almost like one of the brewers had made a rich, hoppy, IPA and accidentally spilt their breakfast into it. At 6.1% it is strong enough to keep you in check but not strong enough as to not be sessionable if you've got your wits about you.

This is a good IPA made by a company who really know what they're doing and it's breweries like Brodie's who should be at the forefront of English beer alongside the likes of Thornbridge because, unlike some people, when Brodie's say their beer is bottle conditioned, it means THEIR BEER IS BOTTLE CONDITIONED. Brodie's don't need to tell people that they follow the Bavarian Purity Law because THEY HAVE NO NEED FOR AN INGREDIENTS LIST! This IPA is as satisfying as a cup of earl grey or a home made soup when it starts to snow, it's as comforting as knowing that the annoying children who scream in supermarkets will grow up to be disillusioned adults with crippling debts and it's as balanced as 2 gorillas, sitting on a see-saw, eyeing each other with contempt. This beer was poured and then it was gone in a matter of minutes. I love IPA's... Yes, in a weird way, and this is the way I like them, with hints of power and a taste like a coquettish transvestite, partially convincing but there's no hiding that stubble... Or those MASSIVE HANDS!

Food Suggestion: If you can't stop stuffing your face long enough to enjoy this on it's own, which you should do because it's delicious, then I guess this would go well some sort of fried fish, though I'm really liking the idea of this with some fish and chips. Buy this, go to your favourite chippy, drown those chips in salt and vinegar and then thank me when you wake up.

Drink this if you like: A bloody good IPA that is interesting, tasty and is in that lovely ground between average strength beer and beer you can embalm small mammals in.