Canterbury Brewery - Galactic Belgian

And... I thought... It smelt hoppy... On the outside!

Is the only Star Wars reference you'll be getting out of me for the entirety of this review! Maybe. This pungent wonder was donated very kindly by my fellow reprobate "Toothless" Dave McLeod, thanks chap!

Canterbury are known for being a cultural hub in a county that's famed for being a garden, take from that what you will, but all I know is that the place is a Mecca for restaurants and business owners who want to do their own thing. Until recently I wasn't aware that Canterbury had a brewery but now I understand that they have 2: Wantsum brewery and Canterbury Brewery, who work out of The Foundry brew pub, which can be found just off the high street. It is quite a coincidence that this happened to fall into my lap because people have been telling me to go to The Foundry. "You'll love it" they say, "you're a beer guy, they have beer," they repeat, somewhat exasperating the point. I do intend to amass a cabal and descend upon the place for a hefty session but in the mean time I think I can settle for a Star Wars inspired beer that Dave informed me was "HOPPY AS F***!"

High praise indeed!

The first thing I notice is that they use a Maris-otter (standard, tried and true,) a Belgian Abbey, which is bold AND a Munich malt! As a home brewer I can vouch that I don't have the stones for a next-level pro move like that! I doubt many brew pubs would go out on a limb like that. I will explain. The site I get my grain from rates both the Abbey and the Munich as grains to be added to a recipe by brave micro brewers and, on top of that, they've used bold Australian hops.

I've only read the label and I'm already a bit in love with this beer. The pour is satisfying enough and produces a cloudy brown/orange brew with an adorably uneven head and steady carbonation. I can smell the hops and I can smell the malt and I never want this smell to leave my nose. The smell has all the richness of a Belgian Abbey style beer with a big double IPA style kick of hops. I just hope it tastes as good as it smells.

WHOA!

Well, bugger me! That is hoppy as F***! Sweet to start but then INTENSELY bitter! I don't think I'm doing this enough justice; it's almost like eating raw hops, not in a bad way, because it's delivered by this smooth and rich double IPA style body. It doesn't quite taste Belgian to me but it sure does taste like someone has nailed my tongue to a phone book and taken a blast sander to it. Wow! It stops just short of being the beer embodiment of utter violence, it settles for a sentence of 'Hate Crime' before things get out of hand and it starts getting charged with 'War Crimes'.

I haven't actually mentioned, yet, that this is a 6.5% so it's no slouch and even though it is quite obscenely intense, you do eventually become one with the bitterness and you slowly slip into a sort of hop induced daze... Which is most pleasant, somewhat comparable to eating a raw scotch bonnet, except without all the inherent bowel problems.

Definitely not for the weak willed but could be good for that kind of person who likes to see if he can eat the hottest curry in the world. Well don't be fooled if someone gives you a bottle of this...

Food Suggestion: Braised Ewok or a nice thick Bantha steak if you're feeling flush with credits.

Drink this if you like: Being rebel scum.

Lowenbrau Original

It's odd, you couldn't move for this stuff when I was much younger. I've heard stories of how Safeway cut a deal with Lowenbrau and sold it for half of what everyone else was selling it for... And then Safeway went the way of the greedy Dodo and popped its clogs, leaving poor Lowenbrau (brewed by InBev) out in the cold. I haven't seen a bottle it since my trip to Munich and before that I hadn't seen it since I was around 8 years old and at that tender young age I was far too young to appreciate it, I was busy being baffled by the mechanics of transformers. The Munich 6 are like the holy grail for me, each representing a chapter of beer history, so what's the story behind Lowenbrau?

Well, if I may concentrate on the beer itself for just a moment, it smells like honey wafting in a summer breeze and tastes as sweet and as a boozy butter biscuit. Like the rest of the big 6 it is supremely easy to drink, making it perfect for drinking out of giant steins that dwarf your tiny, sozzled, face. The beer is lovely, it trumps most anything else you'll find in the imported beer section of your local supermarket, even fellow German Warsteiner (who I am a big fan of,) falls a little short.

What I like about Germany is that they don't have BAD beer like we have BAD beer. We have Carling and Fosters and Stella, all of which is BAD beer. I asked a German tour guide if there was a "worst" beer in Germany and he said "Ja, zere iz a wurst bier," except in a less racist way, "it is ze non-alcohols bier! Haha!" Which sums it up really. I'd say that Becks is their standard beer over there, the one they sell to tourists, the one they export the most, the one you could compare most to our Carling, but even that kicks the s*** out of our worst beer.

Lowenbrau is now on sale in a Sainsbury's close to where I live... It came out on sale for a fiver... I don't think I've ever been happier to be in a Sainsbury's than I was when I saw that 6 pack sitting, as if nothing big was happening, on a shelf next to the likes of Cusquena and Asahi who, even though they try, are LESSER beers, sitting in the shadow of a giant. It's good to see Lowenbrau back on sale here. Hopefully the rest of the big 6 will follow suit.

InBev have the rights to Franziskaner, which is on general sale here, they also have the rights at all the Spaten stuff and I would LOVE to see that on general sale too. Let's start a petition!

Food Suggestion: German food. Eat any other kind of food with this and you're dumb as a bag of poorly constructed similes that go on for longer than they really need to.

Drink this if you like: Drinking with your friends, wearing lederhosen and practising dances that involve slapping each other on the butt!

Paulaner - Salvator

I wish I had a t-shirt that said "I <3 Germany" with a disclaimer on the back that says "...Well. Just the beer and the efficiency with which it is put in front of me." I went to Munich last summer and I've been in search of the big 6 (Augustiner, Hofbrau, Spaten, Hacker Pschorr, Paulaner and Lowenbrau) since I returned to England. I've found bits and pieces, I've found a bottle of Augustiner (that I greedily snaffled up on Christmas and didn't review due to all the fun I was having,) and a bottle of Spaten Oktoberfest, which was delicious. I had a crappy imitation of a Lowenbrau in a local establishment but the less said about that the better. So it is that I come to Paulaner Salvator, the ORIGINAL Paulaner, the one that monks used to drink instead of eating bread during lent. This has a lot of history and a lot to live up to, but does it?

(Of course it does, I haven't even tasted it yet and I know it's going to.)

On the nose it's soft and malty with a hint of fig and raisins, suggesting that the beer itself is going to be smooth with a good bite of flavour. The other indicator is that it's a 7.9% doppelbock and when you get a beer like that then flavour is somewhat implied. Drinking it is like drinking a smooth version of some delicious brandy with a side of hot crossed buns, dripping with melted butter. The texture is creamy with a little fizz, making it is drinkable as the very tears of god.

The maltiness in it is somewhat reminiscent of malt loaf and there is a bread like quality to it but it is somewhat over powered by the sheer force of the sweet, tangy, raisin and malt flavours. It does taste like you're drinking history, I can easily imagine drinking this instead of eating, though I'd prefer to have this with a meal but if I had to choose between drinking and eating then I'd hope that having a beer blog speaks for itself.

It's so satisfying, sometimes, to drink beer that's ALL about the malt and less about the hops because you get such a deep sweetness and richness that is often lost elsewhere. I would advise anyone who is interested in beer history to give this a shot... A pint... And then a litre Stein.

Food Suggestion: This was made for lent, I'm writing this review around Easter, it would only be appropriate to eat this with a bit of stollen cake or a couple of hot crossed buns. If you're feeling like a glutton then you can crack open you're Easter eggs too. Religious holidays have such odd food associated with them.

Drink this if you like: Kill Your Darlings by Thornbridge is very similar to this with maybe a little bit more of a wild side compared to the traditional demeanour of Salvator.