The Kernel - Pale Ale Amarillo

You sure would think I'd be sick of Kernel Pale Ales by now, wouldn't you? To me that's like saying you're sick of having more than one flavour of ice cream or you're sick of there being more than one type of cute puppy in the entire animal kingdom. You can't have too much of a good thing because, by definition, that would make it a bad thing... And you've already said it's a good thing...

This single hopped Pale Ale pours a lovely light tan with a blonde hue, producing a generous 2-3 finger head (though I was pouring like an idiot tonight, so that can probably come down to 1.5) that leaves light speckling. The aroma is a heady Amarillo assault, but more a bloodless coup than a full on Bay of Pigs type situation. Amarillo really is a special hop, it's instantly recognisable by smell and by taste and can be used all over the place when it comes to brewing. It definitely deserves to be single hopped and I don't think there's a better brewery to do it.

It's as deliciously smooth and refreshing as every other Kernel Pale Ale but this has a much deeper, pine element that swathes in before the light, tingly, bitterness that arrives fashionably late. I could down this in a few seconds, it's got such an inviting aroma and such a deliciously round body that lends itself to those wonderful pine notes as perfectly as Tom lends himself to Jerry's 50's style tomfoolery/ultra-violence.

Another in a long list of Kernel beers that have struck me dumb with beer fuelled excitement.

Food suggestion: This would go great with some fresh fish, most likely salmon but I can see this going with tuna too. In fact, this would go great with sushi! Smash out the sashimi and get some Amarillo on the go! Boom! Winner!

Drink this if you like: The Kernel. Drink this if you like beer in general.

The Kernel - Pale Ale Waimea

A hop I've never heard of from a brewery I have come to trust implicitly in a pale ale, which has never steered me wrong before. Waimea is the grand daughter of Pacific Jade and from Riwaka... Are all these names ringing a bell? Partizan brought out 2 new beers recently with Pac Jade and the Kernel Nelson Sauvin RIWAKA Tomohawk was gorgeous! New Zealand hops seem to be in vogue at the moment but it's definitely for good reason, they seem to produce the cleanest, freshest, hop flavours, providing contrast to the BIG Americans who have cornered the market until recently.

The pour on this beauty is everything you expect from a Kernel beer, it's well behaved, the head leaves speckling and reduces from a finger to a wafer. The body is pale and cloudy with medium fizz running through the gold. It smells like fresh hops, akin to driving past a hop farm with your windows rolled down, it's subtle and fragrant, enchanting and comforting.

It tastes sweet to start but that only lasts a millisecond, after that you get a big punch of grapefruit bitterness, followed by a light honey sweetness, all wrapped up in a neat little package consisting of pure drinkability.

It's no secret that I love The Kernel way of doing things:

Walk in.
Make simple beer the best it can possibly be.
Make it fresh.
Have lunch.
Walk out.

I love it because there's a certain purity to it and you can see that when you drink their beer. This was bottled less than a month ago and I reckon that may have a lot to do with how good it is but I've had Kernel beer that's been coming up to it's Drink By date and it's still been great beer. I doubt this would be much of an exception.

A great beer which is in line with the great pedigree behind it.

Food suggestion: Posh pub grub with this one I reckon. A fancy scotch egg with home made chutney in a lovely gastro pub (though that name is no longer fashionable,) is definitely on the cards for this little beauty.

Drink this if you like: Any and all of the other Kernel Pale Ales.

The Kernel - IPA Mosaic

In the past I have often questioned the idea of single hop beers, the argument being something along the lines of "if less is more, just think how much more MORE will be!" Using one hop was like using one ingredient to make soup.

"Like mushroom," my conscience said, "and tomato... And chicken... And what about French onion?"

At which point I gave up and decided that I'd been an idiot all along. There are a great many hops out there that can stand on their own and hold a beer, Mosaic is a true triple purpose hop, excelling at bittering, flavouring and aroma AND therefore it would seem rather dim NOT to single hop with it.

The pour is a light, cloudy, pale with a finger of head that withers down to cappuccino foam, yet leaves heavy speckling. The aroma is an earthy pine with subtle hoppiness coming through that almost translates into a slightly meaty smell, alluding to something with moderate hop bitterness.  It feels as smooth as Venetian silk and has that little hint  of Simcoe in there, alluding not too subtly to its own heritage. The kick you expect from an IPA waits for you in this beer, letting you enjoy the delicious picnic it set up for you in the park and then ensnaring you in a net it had set up underneath! This is a smooth and cunning beer with depth of flavour, floral elements and satisfying hoppiness.

This is a well balanced IPA, which in some beer circles is a dirty word, but I always seek balance in beer. Balance with interesting qualities that make the beer special, which this has. Top job... Again!

Food suggestion: Sunday Lunch... Chicken edition! This would go brilliantly with the chicken gravy as well as all those lovely roasty veggies! Boom! Another winner on your hands! You're welcome!

Drink this if you like: Any Simcoe based IPA, especially the Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA, it's like a mellow version of that with 2% less alcohol... But let's get this in perspective, ok? The Weyerbacher is a Mega-beast that'll rip your face off, this is a lovely hug after a long day.

The Kernel - Nelson Sauvin Riwaka Tomohawk

As part of my job, I drive around London delivering beer to people and sometimes I get to collect it too. The best part of my London excursions is when I do a pick up from The Kernel and there are a couple of reasons for this. At the top of the list is the smell, it's like making the sweetest oatmeal imaginable, bottling that smell, filling a pool with it and then going for a swim until you resemble a prune that's been left out in the sun... But is now wet... Because of the analogy. Second on the list is how cool all the people are and how cool the brewery itself is (it's under a railway arch!) And third is that I occasionally get to see stuff I've never ever seen before... Like this, the Nelson Sauvin Riwaka Tomohawk Pale Ale. I'm sure they've made it before but in my head I'm the spitting image of Marco Polo, right here!

Someone said to me that all Kernel beers taste the same, to which I replied that the taste of AWESOME can never become repetitive. I genuinely believe that these guys don't have a level that dips below FRIKKIN' MEGA BADASS, but I'm sure there's a first time for everything... But from the smell of this super-fresh pale ale, I'm pretty sure today won't be that day. This beer is less than a month old and the hoppy aromas smell as if the hops themselves had just been picked. The body is tantalisingly pale with a light cloudiness that reminds you that, yes, all this jazz is bottle conditioned because that's what real men do, men with beards you could keep a stationary kit in, men who think Krav Maga is a type of sensual massage, men who wake up in the morning and feel the urge to go logging... WITH THEIR BARE ANKLES!

Anyway, this pours a beautiful amber and smells like the hungover breath of a fallen angel. On top of that it tastes clean and crisp to start, moving into a round fruity phase before ending with a slight liquorice and blackberry sweetness. THIS is proper beer! If you're starting a brewery or currently own a brewery that makes gallon after gallon of utter piss, buy some Kernel, drink it, think of happier times when accountants didn't dictate your ingredients and then go back out into the world with a slightly more open mind, open heart and learn to both live and love again. The Kernel has the answers to all of your problems people, as long as those problems consist of questions like "I'm thirsty and I don't know what to drink. What beer tastes like THE TEARS OF GOD?!?!?!"

Food suggestion: I reckon this would go great with a lot of Moroccan cuisine, especially those spicy, fruity, sweet, tagines. It'd also smash the house down with some assorted tapas, maybe some olives, some chorizo and some saucy meat balls. MY FACE HAS TURNED INTO DRIBBLE!

Drink this if you like: All of those things that you currently like. Yes... Those ones.

The Kernel - London Brick

You know what I like about all Kernel beers? The freshness! Even the barrel aged ones that aren't technically fresh still feel fresh! With this I imagine it helps that the bottle I've got now was bottled less than a month ago but nonetheless this still looks and smells like a top quality beer! The pour is friendly, producing a creamy, frog spawn, type head which sticks to the sides of the glass but dissipates in the middle. The nose is deeply aromatic with a light caramel edge fighting its way through a hoppy aroma that you would need a cricket bat to remove from your nostrils for any significant period time after smelling it. The body is a deep, oak, brown with that beautiful crimson hue shining through. I've got a feeling that this is going to be a lovely beer... Though I don't think I've ever had a Kernel beer I didn't like.

It tastes as good as it looks! Smooth as silk and sweet as the honeyed words of an amorous poet, the hops serve as bitter punctuation to this deliciously sweet, comforting and refreshing concoction which, at 6.8%, I could happily drink a big sloppy bucket of. The softness of the body is a little reminiscent of Founders Old Curmudgeon but then there's a hint of Beavertown's 8 Ball in there, it's as if the two had a bastard love child on a night out in Bermondsy. The last Red Rye Ale that had "Brick" in the title I had was Brick Red by Sam Adams and this is in a whole different league, it's just got everything I want from a beer!

This is the kind of beer where I make wild, unrealistic claims, like "I could take a bath in this, wash thoroughly and still drink it afterwards," or "I'd drink this even if it were regurgitated from a mother bird." Maybe I wouldn't do any of those but the thoughts of doing both have not stopped me guzzling down this beauty like a python having a go at a rather wet goat.

Food suggestions: Irish stew! Too bloody right! Lovely gravy and hunks of meat with potatoes and maybe some cheesy mash on the side?! Sounds like some sort of beer atheists heaven!

Drink this if you like: 8 Ball by Beavertown and Founders Old Curmudgeon Ale, as previously stated, are similar in some respects but not so much in others. Drink this if you like the warmth you get from a lovely blanket on a cold evening or watching the sea lap, lazily, against a sandy shore... Poetry!

The Kernel - IPA Black

Have I mentioned recently how the Black IPA is my favourite style of beer? No? Well it is! Leading the way in the "Drew's favourite Black IPA (and therefore probably Drew's favourite beer (though we can never really tell because that dude is changeable as a chameleons gas,))" is Black Betty by Beavertown and "Scanner Darkly" the collaboration between The Kernel and Brodies. How will Kernel's efforts alone fare?

Hint: I've had it before, I really like it... But don't let that ruin the rest of the review.

It pours a lively pitch black with a big, bubbly head that may well spill over if you're not particularly careful... Which I wasn't. The aroma has hints of coffee (but they are only hints) and the hop tones are very light and subtle, giving way to a sugary, sweet shop smell that you can't help but be lured in by. The other important thing with The Kernel is to have their beer fresh, I had 2 bottles of Mosaic from them a while ago. I drank 1 straight away and left the other for nearly a month. The difference was subtle but noticeable, not in a bad way, it's just that it felt like a slightly different beer. They do like to push the ideals of drinking fresh, which is quite right! The fresh hop aromas and tastes I've got from some of their beers have been astounding as well as being something I've not experienced from many other breweries, precious few of which have been in this country.

Anyway! Black IPA! I believe a good black IPA should still, in essence, taste like an IPA, with a big hop profile, a refreshing body, no hint of creaminess or thickness or stodginess at all. They should be balanced but impressive. The Kernel's black IPA does this. It has the hop character there with its lingering bitterness that gut-punches you if you chug at it but on the surface there is a sweetness that reminds me of a good cup of coffee with a couple of sugars in it, which is pleasant, but if it stuck around for too long then this would just be a porter and not a black IPA.

This is, indeed, a solid Black IPA and at 6.5% it can be sessioned if you're a super-hardcore beast of a man/woman but is probably best utilised as an after work drink. The question remains though, is this better than Black Betty and Scanner Darkly? Well yes and no, it does different things! This has more roasty toastyness to it whilst retaining a hoppy demeanour whilst Black Betty is full on hops and Scanner is a big Black IPA with big hits of both. It depends what you like. I like all of them...

Food suggestion: Black forest gateaux. I could eat a whole one. Just get me a shovel and avert your eyes... This could get weird.

Drink this if you like: Any of the Black IPAs out there at the moment, if you're into that you'll be in this.

Canterbury Brewery - Seriously Saison (Simcoe Dry Hopped)

It's hard not to like what these guys are doing, completely disregarding the fact that this beer is as pale and inviting as a welcome mat in the shape of Helena Bonham Carter, there is still a long list of easily quaffable beers coming out of The Foundry on top of some slightly more specialist stuff. I told the guys that there are a lot of breweries in Kent but none of them are doing what they're doing, none of them are making the kind of innovative stuff that they are. Gadds and Hopdaemon make some pleasant beer but I've never seen a barrel aged stout from either, I've never seen a pumpkin beer from them, I've never seen a Russian imperial stout from Whitstable Brewery and I doubt I'll even see a Chocolate Vanilla Porter from Goachers. The only brewery who are coming anywhere even remotely close to what Canterbury Brewers are doing are Old Dairy Brewery but when they try to innovate they can be a bit hit and miss.

It is with this in mind that I crack open this pale, spritzy, beauty. Maybe it's not as pale as some saisons but the saison style is very tough to define. The pour is easy to control, leaving a wafer thin head that sticks around for the duration. Of the 3 versions available to me (Simcoe, Centennial and East Kent Goldings,) I decided to go with the Simcoe dry hop and I'm glad I did because the trade mark Simcoe smell is present, the one that smells like a mix between sweets and medicine. It's not overpowering but it is active enough to be deeply satisfying.

The body is deeply drinkable, retaining a smooth refreshing quality that I've come to expect from ALL saisons. The Simcoe runs riot in this, throwing around bitterness and sweetness, sometimes covering the base hops, sometimes showcasing them. There's a lot going on at once and every mouth full seems to be different. At first the Simcoe gut punches you but now I'm tasting grapefruit bitterness, all the while enjoying the bubbles effervesce on my lip like sea foam lapping at the shore.

The first ever saison I had was Foodball by Mikkeller and it was WAY too weird for my liking and it put me off the whole idea of saisons for the longest time but they're really growing on me now. Ever since the revelations of the Grisette range by Partizan and finally getting my hands on Saison Dupont, I've been a changed man. There's no messing around with this, there's no black pepper and orange peel, there's no crushed dung beetle or horse eyelashes in this and it works well for it.

Simply a delicious beer, best had on a hot summers day or, at least, in a hot room that's suffering the brunt of faulty central heating.

Food Suggestion: It may be some sort of racial thing because I do happen to be a little Asian but I'd love to have a bottle of this and a big platter of Sushi. This needs to be sold at Yo Sushi! I would be such a happy man!

Drink this if you like: I feel odd saying it but if you like Black Betty by Beavertown and fancied something on the lighter side then you may well enjoy this. Though this may well not be the case for the EKG and Centennial versions.

Canterbury Brewery - Scrumpkin

Ever drink unlabelled pumpkin beer out of a DeMolen goblet? No? Sucks to be you, huh?! I'm rolling old school like some sort of Jack Skellington pumpkin pimp! Does it surprise you to find out that this is my first EVER pumpkin beer? Yup, that's right, I'm a pump-vir-beer-kin-gin but as I sniff at this mahogany hued temptress I have to wonder what I've been doing with my time. Drinking normal person beer for normal person people? Ridiculous!

This smells like the kind of christmas cake that you can actually tolerate after a 12 course turkey based face pounding. The kind of cake that's so good that you'd risk walking that thin line between "ok" and "...Now I've fallen asleep and woken up covered in my own sick." There's a delicious spicy core running through the aroma that makes me want to take up stock brokering, instantly retire and buy tartan slippers.

The mouth feel is ghostly but not haunting, it's there but you can't feel it, which is dangerous when the beer itself tastes so deliciously sweet and spiced, like a delicious mince pie or the concept of tonsil hockey under mistletoe. Whatever it is, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, even when it's cold, which is perfect for this time of year. It is a shame that pumpkin beer is considered to be seasonal because I'd drink this by the pool on a hot sunny day in July.

It's hard to fault the boys at The Foundry because they're just so passionate about making good beer and making stuff that people may not have tried before. The only other pumpkin beer I've been exposed to is Stingy Jack by Beavertown (review pending) but I've not seen anything from any other UK based craft brewers. Brave move and it's paid off!

Food Suggestion: Turkey dinner! Stuffing, cranberry sauce, red cabbage and those little sausage things wrapped in bacon! Boom!

Drink this if you like: Blankets and darkness before 6pm.

Canterbury Brewery - Canterbury Lager

I sit here drinking a beer that was made around 5 to 10 yards away from where I work. There isn't a road between us, nor is there a path, nor doors, just a jerry rigged metal fence that's been tied to a support strut for when I'm not around. I'm talking about Canterbury Brewers, the guys from The Foundry Brew Pub just off the high street in Canterbury. We share the same warehouse, you see? It was, however, when I was taking a leisurely lunch break at The Foundry that I discovered Cantrbury lager. Now you all know how much I do love GOOD lager, and you all know how I'm so terribly depressed that there isn't enough good, bottle/cask conditioned lager around, nevermind local stuff. Well, it was when I was tucking into a BBQ pulled pork sandwich that was as BIG AS MY FREAKIN' FACE that I found Canterbury lager. All I wanted was a pint that I didn't mind leaving a third of if I had to rush back. I had to rush back in the end but I didn't want to leave a partially full glass behind. I told the guys when I saw them next and they gave me a bottle conditioned version to see what I thought.

Well I know there's a market for this, Curious Brew has shown us that people will go for local lager regardless of where it ACTUALLY comes from. I thought Canterbury lager was on a par with Curious on tap, but how do they compare in the bottle?

On the nose Canterbury is sweet and honeyed, just as you'd expect a good lager to be. It has a pencil thin head that sticks around and leaves light speckling which sits atop a hazy and slightly darker amber hued pool of effervesence. It tastes deeply refreshing, starting with sweet honeyed notes and finishing with a hoppy, bitter, kick. The body itself is light and aides with the perfectly refreshing nature of the drink. It's got flavour, it's got heart, and that's all because it's not simply a lager but a hefty, deep, ale that has simply been given lager yeast.

The yeast is the most important thing, they tell me, and after having tried a lot of their beers it is hard to question their logic.

The only thing that could be improved is the presentation. It's the same problem I had with Wainwrights. The beer tastes fresh and interesting, it tastes like it should be shooting for a younger crowd, a more savvy and experimental crowd or maybe just tourists who want local lager. When given the choice between the sleek Curious bottle and the simple Canterbury bottle your average consumer will go for the fancy one, completely forgetting that you should never judge a book by its cover. All that matters is taste and bottled Canterbury Lager beats the pants off bottled Curious Brew, they just need to sex up their bottle a bit and they'd be all set.

Food suggestion: A refreshing lager with honey notes and a bitter finish?! You know what I'm going to say, right? Bratwurst, Sauerkraut, mash and gravy... And a massive pretzel! (I wrote this during Oktoberfest.)

Drink this if you like: Curious Brew I guess, it's also similar to the Sam Smiths lager and edging towards the Brooklyn lager too.