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What’s the most important thing about the beer you drink? Is it the malt, the water or the hops? I’m guessing a fair few of you will be leaning towards the word hops because, at the end of the day, the world of beer is currently pretty damn hop obsessed. And perhaps rightly so.What’s nice about this current fascination, is that we are seeing more and more transparency surrounding the hops used in many of the beers we love. They pop up incorporated in beer names and are fully featured in tasting notes. We’re becoming well versed in what different hops mean for the beers we drink and this is actually pretty exciting stuff.This may not be a totally new thing, but it is certainly becoming way more commonplace and really reminds me of the wine renaissance that began taking shape about twenty or so years ago. With the explosion of wine from regions other than the traditional European countries - grape disclosure on labels became a thing, and there was a shift away from the murky opacity of traditional old-school labelling. It was as if the penny dropped for producers and they realised what the most important sales point of the wines they were producing actually was. The grapes - of course!Similar trends can be with the comparison of old and new world beer producing countries. The latter were undoubtedly quicker to catch on to the singular importance of the hop - but the old world is certainly catching up.This and our modern obsession with hops is exemplified perfectly with the story of Duvel. This beer has a history dating back to the early 1920s and was made with just two hops for almost 100 years, but in 2007 a new expression was released with the American Amarillo hop called Duvel Tripel Hop. It was hugely successful, even attracting its own Facebook group - We want Duvel Tripel Hop, and between 2010 and 2016, six further editions were released - each sporting a new hop. The one featuring Citra was then voted the most popular by fans of Duvel and Duvel Tripel Hop Citra became a permanent fixture in the range.Despite our current fascination and love for hops - I’m still not entirely convinced that we’re total hop pros… yet. Yeah, sure we can all rattle off a decent array of hop names, but can we actually spot these hops in our beers - it’s pretty hard after all?But together we can fix this. It will mean self education and the beautiful thing about study in this context is it means drinking beer - yay!So here’s my suggestion to you - let’s start with Citra (the darling of the single hop world) and do as much homework as we can. It’s gonna be tough - but I’m in if you are?Great - thought you would be ;)

This is the simple story of a whisky, a very good whisky… It begins in 1995 with a man eagerly perusing the whisky shelves at Regional Wines in Wellington. It’s not the first time he’s done this and he’s caught the eye of the store owner. Soon the two are chatting about all things whisky and have formulated a plan to start tastings in the small and unassuming room upstairs. Little do they know, this is the beginning of a long and fruitful endeavour.Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Robin Tucek and John Lamond are also concocting whisky plans. They purchase their first cask and bottle it under the name of Blackadder, and thus is born a new independent label which will also go on to great things.A year later, in the damp cold of the Scottish Highlands, the stills at Ben Nevis distillery are working hard. The distillation here is long and steady which results in a rich distillate that is perfect for sherry casks. Fittingly, on the 6th day of December 1996, 500 litres (or thereabouts) of liquid gold finds a happy home inside sherry butt number 2203. The slow and steady ethos of the distillery is echoed through this cask, which slumbers for over 20 years until it changes hands and finds a new owner. Finally it is deemed to have become the whisky it was destined to be and is bottled by Blackadder in June 2022 at the ripe old age of 25. It is given the slightly austere and bureaucratic name of Blackadder Ben Nevis 25 YO '96 Statement 41, but, hey, as we know, one should never judge a whisky by its name.This bottling date is significant as it tees the whisky up nicely for an eventual encounter at the rescheduled Dramfest, on 4th March 2023 in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is here that the final chapter in our whisky’s story begins to unfold.This is obviously a very special whisky (Statement 41 no less!) and finds itself at Dramfest in the exclusive whisky set that resides under the table, and which can prove tricky to get one’s hands on. Fortunately, our aforementioned whisky-shelf-perusing-Wellingtonian, who goes by the name of Daniel, sniffs it out and spreads the word.It is a stunning drop which, thankfully, is also available in very limited quantities, and despite its weighty price tag, three bottles make their way to Regional Wines. One is destined for a Best of Dramfest tasting which will, rather presumptuously, leave two bottles for the end of year tasting to which only the very best drams of the year are invited.Of course, to make it to the grand finale, it should ideally win its tasting, and this it does, but perhaps not as convincingly as one would have hoped. With a score below nine and the Whisky Cellar House Malt 12 Year Old giving it a good run for its money, there is perhaps a slight feeling of underachievement.But the biggest drams need a big stage on which to perform and at Best of the Best 2023, this is what our Ben Nevis gets. It shares a tasting mat with an old bottling of Glenfarclas 105, Cardrona’s Full Flight 7 YO PX cask #114 62.7%, an 18 YO Aberfeldy Rare Cask and an indie Benriach 10 YO Sherry Wood, giving it the perfect chance to prove its mettle.Quite simply, it is in a league of its own. Layers of dried and dusty decayed fruit, mocha and black chocolate textured by Lafitte-like tannins combine with savoury old oak that could just as well be age-receded peat. It has it all and feels like it has been plucked from the cask at its very apogee. It brings more than a smile to the 80 or so happy attendees and a swathe of raised arms is the answer when asked does anyone want to score this a 10 out of 10? So there we go, the simple tale of a mere whisky - but one (like many others) that has been shaped by so many events, people and moments, and proof that whisky is as much about what happens around it, as what ends up in the glass. No doubt there are others out there with a different tale of this whisky, but this one is ours… Here's the order on the night and the scores... 1) Hart Brothers - Benriach 10yo Sherry Wood 57.5% 8.762) Aberfeldy 18 YO Exceptional Cask Series Double Cask 52% 8.373) Glenallachie 15 YO 46% 8.124) Blackadder Ben Nevis 25 YO '96 Statement 41 Raw Cask 51.9% 9.345) Glenfarclas 105 60% Circa 2006 8.916) Finlaggan Original Peaty Cask Strength 58% 8.447) Cardrona Full Flight 7 YO PX cask #114 62.7% 8.638) Tamdhu Batch #5 59.8% 8.94    

You may remember I wrote about Harland Brewing a while back when we tasted their Japanese lager. It was top notch in every respect, as long as you’re into that slightly anaemic beer style - which I totally am. So I thought it might pay to try another Harland beer and today we’re running with Rumbler - a double dry hopped pale ale.Don’t know about you, but to me, the term double dry hopped just sounds sooooo tantalising… but what does it actually mean, after all, in this day and age we need to be fully armed with decent beer knowledge as everyone seems to be a ‘pro’ and the impromptu beer geek-off seems all too common!Well it’s pretty straight forward. Dry hopping basically refers to the addition of hops at any stage after the boil when the wort has cooled. Of course, the hops still get wet… but don't confuse it with wet hopping - which is the addition of fresh hops at any stage of the process - and which I guess technically means, if you wet hop after the boil you, that you could simultaneously dry hop and wet hop? Jeez I thought this was straight forward!The key element to take away is that boiling hops is necessary to convert the alpha acids in the hops into iso-alpha acids (through isomerization) to create bitterness. But with dry hopping, the volatile oils aren't boiled off, which maximises hop aromas and flavours that may otherwise have been lost without adding further bittering.The technique actually originated with the Brits who added hops to the cask shortly before it was shipped to its destination - I guess to give it a little extra pep and perhaps utilise some of the preservative powers of the hop. There are of course other riffs on the theme…The hop back, which you may have heard of, does something similar, providing a chamber into which hops can be added and through which the wort is pumped. However, as the wort has not actually cooled in this process - it's not technically dry hopping. Timothy Taylor uses a hopback with whole leaf hops - which makes it more akin to wet hopping in many respects.Sierra Nevada has taken the process of dry hopping to the next level. The brewers here were fed up with the standard and rather inefficient technique of filling nylon sacks with hops and suspending them into the fermentation, so they created a piece of kit called the hop torpedo. This is a device shaped like its namesake which they jampack with 75 pounds of whole-cone hops (that’s 34 kg to us metric-lovers). Beer flows out of the fermenter, surges through the hop torpedo, and back into the tank supercharging the hop flavours!Our Rumbler is double dry hopped with Nelson and Mosaic. The Harland website offers nothing on how this has been done, so it’s not clear if ‘double’ just refers to the two hops, presumably added at the same time, or whether there are two dry hopping runs. Anyway, let’s see how it tastes…Pours a light gold with green tinges and a bright white head. The nose is relatively subdued and, as the colour suggests, there isn’t a huge malt presence, but rather some lovely earthy, vegetal notes that intermingle with tropical fruit aromas. The palate is super light and more akin to an extra pale ale, with a deft balance of savoury meets fruit.A great quaffer this one, where the hops don’t actually steal the show - and rightly so I would say. It’s still a pale ale at the end of the day, and so the hops have been kept nicely in check - even with the post boil dry hop additions. What you end up with is hop complexity where you may have typically just found big, burly hops… and in an era where hops have been the defining element - kudos to the brewers for trying something different.

I grew up in the UK in the 80s and 90s, and at that time, Newcastle Brown Ale really did hold a particular place in the drinking culture. It had grit and authenticity, and despite it being a big hit with students, you could still picture it being imbibed after a day at the docks by a line of sweaty workers. It was Newcastle in a glass and somehow stood for something more than just the amalgamation of hops, barley and water. Sometimes beers do this, they transcend the notion of just drinking and become icons in their own right.The beer has a long history dating back to 1927 at Newcastle Breweries, where it was created by one Lieutenant Colonel James ('Jim') Herbert Porter (now there’s a name!).For much of the 20th Century it was rather successful - especially for a Brown Ale and considering that its creator thought it to be a failure, having aimed at something more akin to Bass Ale.Recently though, it has fallen on harder times with a fairly dramatic drop in sales through the previous decade. When you think about it, this isn’t that much of a surprise - brown ale isn't really at the cutting edge of exciting experimental brewing.The brand though has been given a bit of a revamp to bring it back to life. It was bought by Heineken in 2008 and Lagunitas brewery (also owned by Heineken) joined the rather long list of breweries brewing this juice around the world in 2019. Of course, this makes good sense. The brand already had a big following in the states and getting it made locally is a logical step.Lagunitas has also modernised the recipe, with the addition of US hops Chinook and Centennial, pushing the IBUs a touch higher in the process. This approach also makes obvious “marketing” sense too - bringing the beer more into line with current trends in brewing.However, I can’t help feeling it’s also a bit of a shame. It sort of reminds me of the gentrification of a working class neighbourhood - whereby the area is irrevocably changed in the name of progress and loses some of its soul. It also feels like more proof to me of the current trend to push styles towards a convergence on IPA. More hops and bigger IBUs make beers more popular, and we're certainly seeing this with modern lager. Perhaps soon we’ll all just be drinking different coloured IPAs?!Let’s give it a taste and see what gives…It’s a lovely deep mahogany brown in the glass. The nose is a toasty, malty, fruity explosion - with figs and raisins and cherries at the fore, but with some prominent almost medicinal hop notes to boot. The palate is smooth and lighter than expected, but then the abv is lowish at 4.7% - and once again the hops are relatively prominent in the finish.That’s a real drinker for sure - and the brewers at Lagunitas have done all in their power to keep it real, using English yeast, sticking with an all malt recipe and adhering to an ABV of 4.7%.That said, I can’t help feeling that the hops have grown in stature and the perception of the malt has therefore diminished. Maybe I’m looking at this through rose tinted specs - maybe what I really miss about this beer is being a young lad and sneaking a bottle or two in the park with my mates?Of course, beer needs to be commercially viable for all those involved - but at what cost? We can’t stop progress but we should do things to protect national beer treasures, after all, once they’re gone - it's pretty damn hard to bring them back. You could argue that the current incarnation of Newcastle Brown is doing exactly that, keeping a brand going that may otherwise have been canned, but it’s certainly debatable whether this version is still truly Newcastle Brown. Grab a bottle and see what you think!

I’m a massive Pilsner fan, as you may or may not have picked up on over the last couple of years, and I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about trying today’s beer.It’s a SoCal Pilsner from our friends at One Drop and sports a description that mentions a meeting of German lagers and West Coast IPAs.This sounds like a beer that was specially made with my palate in mind as I love hops (I guess you have to be like beer perhaps?) but I also like to taste the malt, and also find descending into the dank armpit of hoppiness just a touch unnecessary. So a decently hopped beverage that still retains the composure of a Pilsner sounds right up my alley!The question is though - can you really do West Coast and Pilsner at the same time - or does one style have to essentially win for it to get close to either?I guess we’re really talking about intention and suggestion here, and with the humble Pilsner existing on the hoppy end of the lager spectrum, it's not that outlandish to suggest it could be pushed down the West Coast route without totally losing its soul.Let’s open it up and see whether it toes the line or veers towards one style more than the other.Pours a golden pale amber with a bright white lacey head. The nose is subtly tropical with mango hints that combine with mineral lager notes to great effect. The palate definitely follows suit and is super quaffable, sumptuously dry and with a bracing bitterness on the finish.It’s another super clever beer from the One Droppers, which seems to perform the impossible - juggling hops and malt with a real deftness of touch. I like the SoCal Pilsner term too, which avoids the complication of combining two opposing styles such as the West Coast IPA and Pilsner.We live in interesting times with beer and its evolution, where styles come and go with the blink of an eye. Even within the niche of hoppy lager-like brews that we’re looking at today we can name Brut IPA, IPL and even Cold IPA - which were all the rage only moments ago but have seemingly fallen out of favour (to a greater or lesser degree).Let’s agree to reconvene on this blog in a year or so and see what's happened to the SoCal Pilsner. If they all taste as good as this one - it’s got a good shot at longevity…