| DUNKLES & JAFFA CAKES |
| Saturday March 1st of 2008 brought the first Founder Members Committee Meeting of the New Year at Roberts Manor. With the winter chill still giving us the shivers, it was the perfect occasion for Lord Tim and myself to taste some wintry high-gravity ales. Fortified with some delicious tucker prepared by Lady Roberts, we set about lubricating our taste buds with the ales that were on offer. First up then.... 1) Coniston Brewery Bluebird Bitter XB (4.4%) Well, okay, this isn't exactly a high-gravity winter ale but the original Bluebird Bitter proved to be so popular with the Dunkles & Jaffa Cakes team that we were gasping to taste the XB, which is hopped with Mount Hood hops from the Pacific north-west. Could it match the original Bluebird ? It was a no-brainer ! With the American influence clearly at the forefront, Bluebird XB featured an orangy aroma combined with a mild hoppy taste and an exceedingly pleasant peppery finish. A beautiful refreshing session beer with a strong essence of orange. 10/10 The Black Bull Inn, in Coniston, Cumbria (way oop north) - home of Bluebird Bitter 2) Fuller's 2006 Vintage Ale (8.5%) Fuller's Brewery of Ye Olde London Town are indeed London's last remaining traditional family brewery, dating back to 1845. Their Vintage Ale is the bottle-conditioned version of Fuller's Golden Pride Ale, and is released each year in limited quantities to salivating beer lovers all over the world. The 2006 Vintage Ale is unique in that it wasn't released in Ohio, which made it a right pain in the arse to get hold of. We had to send our senior butler at Roberts Manor down to rural Kentucky in order to pick up a couple of bottles. Thus, we felt privileged to relax at the Manor pub while sipping a bottle (each) of the 2006 Vintage Ale. First impression: cherries - both in the aroma and in the initial taste. This was followed by the classic trademark malty taste that dominates so many of Fuller's ales. The 2006 model also gave a little bit of a mild hoppy taste - a rarity amongst Vintage Ales. More berries appeared in mid-bottle mixing with a relaxing smooth, warming body (I'm referring to the beer !). Distinctive notes of blackberries and malt rounded off an absolute classic of its kind. A magnificent example for a winter's evening. 10/10 Incidentally, the great Michael Jackson's favourite tipple was Fuller's Chiswick Bitter - not a lot of people know that ! 3) Clipper City Holy Sheet Uber Abbey Ale (9%) The Holy Sheet Uber Abbey Ale is part of Clipper City's Heavy Seas series, and so far every beer I've tasted from this series has been bloody fantastic. It's a bit trendy these days to use the word "Uber", and Clipper City are not the first brewery to use it -- Southern Tier brewery from New York state also comes to mind. In my view it's a bit on the posey side, but no doubt it gets a particular beer noticed. Well, it poured a gorgeous bright ruby colour - like holding a glass of fine port - and gave a bouquet of fresh raspberries. That's where it stopped for me as the flavours had me reaching for a tin of extra-strong mints. The Holy Sheet had a heavy body with a nauseating luscious bitter cherry taste (rather like a cherry liquor) with a sickly bittersweet finish of bitter raspberries. There was a lot of "bitter" going on with this ale, and it reminded me -- quite strongly -- of that nasty raspberry lambic that Lord Justin was drooling over at Christmas. The Holy Sheet was very much in the style of dark, bitter, Belgian ales. Ghastly ! 1/10 4) Thomas Hardy's Ale -1990 Vintage (12% when originally brewed) Right, now it's time for one of our famous Roberts Manor history lessons that have proved so popular with our viewers. Thomas Hardy's Ale is no ordinary ale. It first saw life in 1968 when it was brewed by the Eldridge Pope brewery in Dorchester - at the request of The Thomas Hardy Society - to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Thomas Hardy's death (for you English Literature students, Thomas Hardy was an author). It was bottle-conditioned, and matured for 9 months in oak sherry casks. It's icing on the cake was that it was brewed to mature in 25 years ! Sadly, in 1999, Eldridge Pope gave up brewing in order to concentrate on their pub estates and consequently, that was the end of Thomas Hardy's Ale... ...that is until 2003, when urged on by Thomas Hardy's Ale fans in the US, the appropriately named US company Phoenix Imports commissioned O'Hanlon's Brewery in Devon, to bring Thomas Hardy's Ale back from the ashes. And, as they say, the rest is history ! The bottle of Thomas Hardy's Ale shared by Lord Tim and myself was one of the original Eldridge Pope brews from 1990. So, we almost made the 25-year "peak" year -- 18-years isn't bad ! I nervously removed the gold foil from the bottle, being careful not to disturb the yeast that had been fermenting the ale for these 18-years. Carefully pouring this ancient brew, it poured a murky red in the glass. The opening tastes were of massive creamy caramel and butterscotch flavours with some toffee thrown in for good measure. This then led into distinctive whisky notes (shades of those sherry casks) with roasted malts rolling off the tongue. This smooth, rich and powerful ale concluded with a vanilla, caramel and whisky finish. It's hard to rate this one because it was such a unique opportunity to taste a truly "vintage" ale. It was a special moment in time, and we really didn't know what to expect from an 18-year old ale. If I rate it on flavour alone then I can honestly say it wasn't my cup of tea - a wee bit rich and way too much caramel for me. And goodness knows what the abv was after all these years of fermenting in the bottle. But, there again, a moment like this is like Brentford winning the Premiership: unheard of. So, for the integrity of the 1990 Thomas Hardy's Ale, we at the Manor have decided to give it an "unrated" score. Unrated Thomas Hardy's Ale was a fitting finale to our winter evening of ale tasting -- and a fine quartet of ales we tasted too ! As per tradition, Lord Tim and myself watched a couple of episodes of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares; there's nothing like a good dose of swearing to accompany a good dose of ale tasting. Cheers ! |
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| IAN'S 3/01/2008 COMMITTEE MEETING REVIEW |
