I’m a fan of sour beers and the following all do excellent varieties:- Magic Rock Tiny Rebel Beavertown Wild Beer Brewdog Well worth a try.
The king of sours at the minute is Brick. They did a winter berry sour including a limited edition, though Fourpures Key West is really good too. Based on key lime pie and even has a slightly biscuit note to it too. Though think you're right with Wild Beer, some of their experimental yeast creations are mind boggling... some are even really tasty too! ;-)
I'm off to the BBNO tap room any minute... I don't think i'll be posting again til some time tomorrow ;-)
Off to Berlin first weekend in August for the Beer Mile....should be 2500 different beers on from all around the world. Third time we will have done it and it's highly recommended
If anyone is local to Sheffield, my uncle owns and runs the Beer Central shop in the new Moor Market. Stocks all sorts of real ales, ipa's, stouts ect from local breweries, mainstream real ale brewers and overseas if anyone is interested. Plus he is a reds fan just don't ask for a case Carling
I'm into my IPA at moment. My Mrs gets me a dozen every weekend and I quaff em all but can never remember the names. There is an absolute stack of micro brewery's around these days. It's a great time to be a drinker.
there's no such thing as a good sam smiths pub ( and i us a sams wmc ) try adnams broadside very dark and strong in the bottle 6.3% and about 4.3 draught local to east anglia
The 'Kings of Sours' are BrewDog Overworks, Thornbridge, Wild Beer Co and Burning Sky. The problem with sour beers in this country is nobody really does it right as they're kettle sours rather than wild fermented and aged - it means people aren't experiencing the true style that you get in the US. Definitely getting better though. The amount of breweries ageing barrels has improved no end which is great, but as is the issue with craft beer there's so much rubbish out there as well.
Some good ones here but also some real superstars missing (list below). London Beer Factory and Titanic don't belong on that list really with the route you've gone down for proper craft. Lost and Grounded, Neon Rapture, Burning Sky, Wandeing Beyond, Duration, Deya, Verdant, Pressure Drop, Little Earth project, Buxton, North Brew Co. So many to name. The most exciting more traditional breweries are the likes of Kirkstall and Roosters locally. This list doesn't even touch on the beers available from the US - you'd be here forever. I'm hopefully checking out the breweries at Stone, Avery, Alesmiths, Ballast Point, Modern Times, and Lost Abbey over the next few days in San Diego.
I just go on flavour... pressure drop is toilet, tried many beers many times and always poor. Verdant aren’t bad, not a fan of dry or floral hop, so anything that finishes that way I’d rather chuck down the toilet direct. That’s the joy at present is taste and preference rather than puritanical process. I love titanic porter, I loved gipsy hill anorak but don’t see it any more. I go to tap rooms,bottle shops and craft beer pubs and decide purely on taste that suits me. Back from bbno and multiple ddh ipa, delicious, bit that’s just what I enjoyed today
Lambic is where my pure sour taste lies, but obviously UK doesn’t do true lambic. Brick truly is king at the minute in my neck of the world. Rosehips, lemon and limes, junipers and wild berries, seriously good beers worthy of trying.
And yeah agree on us ones... only one I’ve enjoyed of late is bolero snort which bbno ran, I pretty much finished bull abides keg on thirds! Us beers I gladly miss, bit with so many breweries it’s easy to miss good ones
Just to let you know, all draught beer, whatever it is, or wherever it's brewed can be served with or without a head...its the dispense equipment that puts the head on. 'Craft' as such is a relatively new term that distinguishes producers of Keg beer ( that is beer that has the natural yeast filtered out, and then requires pressurising by Co2 to add the sparkle back and push it out of the keg)...Hobgoblin is Cask beer, also known as Real Ale, the barrels still contain the yeast and produce their own sparkle naturally. Cask ( at its best) is the highest expression of the brewer's art, the only thing it doesn't have is long term shelf life once tapped, Keg however lasts much longer and doesn't require settling time for the yeast, or a temperature controlled cellar as it can be put through a flash cooler. The difference between Craft and the keg brews of the big brewers of the 60's and 70's is that it is usually brewed with much higher hop and malt rates, often higher ABV and is undoubtedly of a much better quality.
