Posted on 13/05/21
Oli Meade
After a subdued week last week, this week’s new beer releases have pretty much been the polar opposite!
A mega drop from Maltgarden! New hops from DEYA! Verdant! Polly’s!
An epic sours haul, and barrel-aged goodness over on the dark front… all in one good week of new beer releases.
The only question is, in this week’s roundup, where do I begin?!
Oh yeah – with something pretty special from Northern Monk…
If you’re going to try just one beer this week, you could do a lot worse than make it Northern Monk’s The Pilgrimage TIPA.
Wicked can art thanks to a collab with the street artist Smug One. A base loaded with oats and wheat, double-mashed for a sugar-laden, rich, silky wort, then hopped up with Idaho 7, T90, Citra Cryo and Incognito.
Truly tropical, think mango, pineapple, papaya and orange and you’re along the right lines. A 10% belter. Great work!
Meanwhile, everyone’s favourite Cheltenham-based juice-pilots DEYA have teamed up with brewery of equal prestige Wylam for a wicked new fruity DIPA!
DEYA / Wylam’s Suitable Fruit Mirage DIPA… well, it’s all in the name, innit? Juicy and intense, expertly balanced, another belter from two breweries at the top of their game!
And finally on the hop front this week, I’m recommending Track’s To Live Is To Fly Gold Top DIPA.
Extra pale jumbo oats, flaked and malted wheat plus a big hit of lactose make this unbelievably soft. Citra, Taiheke and Eclipse all bring the joose – expect guava, peach and mango, all intermingling in the soft, smoothy and pillowy, velvet goodness. Yes!
Vault’s Key Lime Pie tops the sour bill this week. So rich you could cut it with a knife, Vault reckon, which is an accurate description, with a zing factor reminiscent of a barrel of Tangfastics.
Hello Maltgarden! As well as coming out with a host of new DDH hop-offerings (check out the hazy – you won’t regret it), Maltgarden have launched a series of serious sour sensations!
Pick of the bunch is First Level Poetry Pastry Sour, a double fruited pastry sour. With raspberry. And strawberry. And blueberry. And marshmallow. Yes! Sweet and sour and sensational from a brewery you need to check out.
I also gathered up a big old haul from BBNo this week – including some great IPAs, lagers and whatnot, and I can tell you now BBNo’s 19 Solaro Gose should definitely be on your repertoire this week.
BBNo have swung to recreate the fabled summer ice-cream here, smashing it out the park!
This beer has it all – a smooth, sweet and saline, triple-fruited sour sorbet filled with mango, guava and passion fruit. And the colour on this – toxic waste orange! It’s the shade Donald Trump wishes he was.
Above, my friends, is none other than Maltgarden’s special dark to celebrate the brewery’s 2nd birthday!
Maltgarden are first and foremost dark geniuses, and Funky Garden Vol.8 Imperial Pastry Stout proves as much. First off, the numbers. 10.3%. As is customary, 500ml.
Munch your way through this chocolate, coconut, caramel, cinnamon & coffee birthday cake stout, dusted off with a sprinkle of vanilla. It might not be the traditional season for darks, but this is a dark you don’t want to miss.
Double-Barrelled’s Reach Imperial Stout is an espresso martini inspired beer and, at 12%, pretty much just as strong!
Indulgent, sweet and silky, it’s a celebration of coffee. Made with specialist coffee roasted by Girls Who Grind. Plus, a charitable donation with every purchase.
Finally on the dark front, I had to make a call between the serious new Belgian Tripel just out, and something altogether more bonkers… and on this occasion the child in me has chosen S43 Brewery’s Imperial Coconut Snowball Pastry Stout as victor!
You remember those coconut snowballs you used to get as a kid? Milky chocolate casing, topped with coconut, that cracked to give way to sweet vanilla marshmallow underneath? That’s what you have here… a brilliant fun beer.
On top of all the above, this week saw more fun from S43 in the forms of Pineapple Upside Down Milkshake IPA and their Cherry Bakewell Pastry Sour. S43 are developing a following for their madness. The interesting thing is, the brewing is actually first-rate.
I’ve already mentioned I gathered up a load more of the ever-popular BBNo’s latest offerings this week, supplementing 19 Solero Gose with 19 Pina Colada Gose and also 05 West Coast IPA and even 30 Organic Lager. Fill up.
Verdant joined the lager charge this week too, with Helles… plus Cornwall’s finest treated us to Sniffing the Wrong People IPA (which is receiving rave reviews), and there’s a restock of some trusty favourites including Fruit Car Sight Exhibition DIPA mark 3 and Even Sharks Need Water IPA.
The customary new Polly’s drop is in so, fans, have a scout around, and be sure to check out Totally Not Enormous DDH IPA when you do – the number of hop varietals on offer is bonkers, even by Polly’s standards.
That other hop stalwart Burnt Mill has come back with their unique takes on, first, the West Coast Pale in Grapefruit Bitter Falls, and also the West Coast IPA Skärgård. A much-loved brewery that know what they’re doing.
There’s a banana-clove Hefeweizen from Double-Barrelled, there’s St. Mars of the Desert’s Raspberry Fruit Stingo, tons of Drop Project including Sliced Triple Fruited Sour, an upmarket smokey Barrel-Aged Peated Imperial Stout from Kees, Pastore’s Passionfruit & Guava Waterbeach Weisse is a delicate 3.8%, and remember that Beligan Tripel I mentioned?
Kleinbrouwerij De Glazen Toren’s Ondineke Oilsjtersen Tripel showcases proper, grown-up, new frontier brewing.
Really hope you get to try some of these brews this week. I’ll be able to get orders in the post marked next day delivery so long as they’re placed by 1pm.
Cheers & happy drinking!
Oli
(The founder)
Step 1
We trawl the globe tasting great beer
