I am clearing my desk with a renewed vigour and am intending to either "blog it or bin it". A month or two ago I was invited to the White Horse, Parsons Green by beer importers, James Clay, to taste the latest in American craft beers arriving to mainstream London.
Beers from Brooklyn Brewery are coming to town. You may be lucky enough to find the lager on draught in some high end London pubs and bars and some of the more eclectic bottles are available by mail order at www.beerhere.co.uk notably a 10.1 ABV Chocolate Stout, usually one of their classic IPAs and the delicious Brown Ale.
Other beers that were at the tasting and now imported by James Clay included offerings from Anchor (the classic Steam Beer), Flying Dog (try the Raging Bitch and Gonzo Imperial Porter if only for the names alone) and Goose Island (the IPA is gaining ground on the bar shelf and has my hearty recommendation).
The US craft beer revolution is hitting these shores and James Clay, Brooklyn Brewery and the White Horse are all doing their bit for the UK beer lover.
It is timely to also point out that the annual US Beer beer festival is being held this week at the White Horse. This is an absolutely unmissable event in the beer geek diary and I look forward to seeing Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Dogfishhead, Goose Island, Flying Dog, Brooklyn, Left Hand and Stone all represented on Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th.
3 comments:
Some of the earliest craft beers available in the UK were in the mid 90s when Tesco had St Stan’s and Oddbins had Anchor and Pete’s Wicked Ales, but then Glenn Payne when he was Safeway’s beer buyer really upped the ante in 2000 with GI IPA, Hop Devil and Dogfish Head stuff. So all I’m saying is should we be saying revolution now? Especially as I note CAMRA are doing a GBBF tasting with that word in the title.
Indeed 'tis a revolution that has lasted many years in US but continues and is still in good growth. The point I am really trying to get over is that, thanks in part to Glenn's efforts, there is more and more really good American beer now becoming available here. GBBF will have more American beer than ever before - both cask and bottle. People queue 3 deep to pay c£7 a pint at the White Horse beer festival. The mail order companies are on-board as are the beer blogging community. Perhaps the revolution has become mainstream which brings the beer to a wider audience. I'll always drink to that so long as quality is retained. Cheers for dropping in. Steve
So then do we talk about permanent revolution, which takes us into the realm of student politics and chants of ‘what do we want’ ‘er Pliny the Elder please’… ;-))
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