06/07/2022
Some beers…
Pirate Life – Raspberry Lamington Stout. 6.5% 355ml can. Smells like fake raspberry and coconut, but still has a nice dark malt scent. Tastes like a stout, then an artificial coconut and a cocoa/chocolate flavour, no real raspberry taste except maybe a kind of berry juice sourness which is probably just a dark malt thing. Its weird, its drinkable, but its too artificial for me.
Pirate Life – Stout. 5.8% 355ml can. Its a stout. Really good, too. Not much else to say. 3 stars.
Rocky Ridge – You Put the Beer in the Coconut, Dry Hopped Sour with Finger Lime and Coconut. 4.0% 375ml can. I haven’t has a sour in so long, and this seems very sour. Theres sourness, maybe some lime sourness but mostly probably lactic acid. And thats about it. Sone lactic funk on the nose. Some hop bitterness is detectable. Its a nice sour drink, sure, but there’s no coconut or way to know its finger limes and not lemon juice or just lactic acid. 2 stars
Rocky Ridge – Rice Crispy, Rice Lager 5.0% 375ml can. Its clean, crisp, slightly sweet malts, lager style smell and hopping/bitterness. A nice clean crisp lager. Good stuff.
Pirate Life & Eyre Roasted – Coffee Porter. 6.0% 355ml can. Really big coffee. Insane coffee. Hard to say if any of the bitterness is actually hops. Big coffee and some well balanced dark malts. Gets a bit sweeter as it warms up, a bit of cocoa and chocolate in there, gets slightly medicinal, and the hops are there in the residual bitterness.
Best of June 2022
Kingdom Come – Time Captives
Abhoth – Recantation of the Forsaken
Defeated Sanity – Consuming Greif
Mayhem – Ghoul
Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come – Time Captives, yes, the Crazy World of Aurthur Brown guy, crazy psychedelic prog stuff, with a drum machine from their 1972 album Journey.
The Abhoth track is just great early 90’s deathmetal, with a lot of the elements that remind me of Soulside Journey.
Defeated Sanity is just awesome. The Disposal of the Dead // Dharmata album this track is from is almost impossible/fucking pricey to find on LP.
The Mayhem track is from their Pure Fucking Armageddon demo which I picked up on vinyl re-release recently. It was also covered by Kvikksølvguttene (insane/forgotten project with Necrobutcher) on their only album.
Burg
27/06/2022
Some Beers.
Dainton – Hopf’n Juicy Blood Orange Hoppy Weiss. Hazy Hefeweizen, 5.5% 375ml can: Has that banana-smell that Hefeweizens have, but I don’t care for too much. Its not bad but there isn’t a lot else going on. It is very hazy, the hop bitterness is hazy style. Wish it had a bit more carbonation. The blood orange isn’t that noticeable, there is some bitterness that could be pith/rind? Its a Hefeweizen with hazy style hopping.
2.5 stars. It fine.
Rocky Ridge – Woodin’ It Be Nice Oaked Pale Ale. 5.0% 375ml can. This smells great, big fruity “juicy” hops (Mosaic, Strata, Vic Secret and Ella), and also vanilla supposedly from the oak. The oak/wood character is interesting in a clean crisp pale ale (its their core range Pale Ale) rather than as usual in a darker beer (or wine). There’s a dryness, a musty note, an astringency of sorts that combines with the hop bitterness? Nice. Different. 3 stars.
Rocky Ridge – 9 New Zealand, Hazy IPA (All NZ Hops). 6.66% 375ml can. First smell; Resinous and sweet, but also pretty juicy, and a bit of white wine? Its an IPA but they have rounded it out to be more “hazy” than the initial aroma suggests. The malts are there in the sweet notes, but not doing much. Its actually a bit uneventful in the end, unfortunately. Motueka, Nelson Sauvin and Nectaron hops. Its just a bit flat all round, Maybe 3 months on the shelf didn’t treat it right. Carbonation is fine, if a bit “sharp” initially. Its pretty easy drinking, and you get some interesting white wine notes. It just doesn’t pop or showcase the N.Z. hops as much as I would want. 2 stars?
2 Paintings
Vasily Kandinsky – Small Worlds VII (1922)
Lawren Harris – Abstract Painting #20 (1942)
Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Pale Ale
No Idea what this was doing at a usually boring big chain beer shop, and in such good quality, not skunked or fucked up at all. One of the best UK Pale Ales and one of the best Pale Ales of all time, in my limited opinion. Amazing beer, amazing and beguiling find.
Some recent beers.
8 Wired – Horseshoe Texas Brown Ale. 6.2% 440ml can. Its an American Brown Ale, maybe a bit more darker/roast malt character, but same mild carbonation. Then there is a far more than usual load of hops even for an American Brown Ale. Its not bad.
Daintons – Burnout Black IPA. 6.2%, 375ml can. This is good and that is because it is well balanced. Its big dark roasty malts, but also big IPA style hops, and they aren’t fruity or resinous so a nice straight Old World/UK bitterness comes through and doesn’t have other hop characters that could get in the way of the malts. Balanced. Very nice.
Eclipse – Brown Ale. 5.0% 375ml can. A straight up Brown Ale. A bit low on carbonation, but it hits that weird area between light fizz and mouthfeel that works anyway? A bit too hop bitter. maybe? Nothing too detrimental. Its fine.
Finlays Brewing – Starboard Stout. 5.4% 375ml can. Black malts, very dark. There’s a nice hop bitterness in there. Its mainly all big dark malt bitterness. Almost a dry finish, nice light carbonation, not any real mouthfeel though.
Daintons – Chipmunk Choc Hazelnut Porter. 6.0% 375ml can. Not a Porter. There’s some cocoa but no Hazelnut. Its a dark mild, but very dark, and unbalanced hops.
A real blast from the past
