I picked up these last time I was in New York, far western IPAs making their way across the continent. While I have had a number of North Coast brews before - like their Rasputin Imperial Stout - and have seen them fairly regularly, it was only around last Christmas that I noted the Lagunitas starting to make itself known on central New York beer shelves. According to the Beer Advocate, Lagunitas has a broad range of styles in its portfolio and there is every chance that to someone south of the 49th parallel this new found addition to my beery experience might seem like a sign of a sheltered up bringing - you see, they have these parties...420 parties...where people have more than beer and where the cops couldn't buy any if their lives depended on it. So lets see how they stand up and see if they say anything about California to someone up here in the Great White North.
- Lagunitas IPA: tan foam and rim over orange-straw ale. An intersting take on the American IPA as it does not really leave the hops out there on a ledge hanging over everything else. Plus there is that orangey note like in the line of ales exemplified by Youngs Special London Ale, Eye of Hawk and Shipyard Export. To be sure, this is hoppy with pretty distinct green overnotes partnering with a twiggy baseline. The malt is fruity with apricot and apple along with good rough graininess. Lots of texture and complexity within a well balanced ale. If I were to question this IPA it would be on that twiggy baseline which is played with a fairly heavy hand, making for a fairly pronounced spice bitterness. But this is an IPA after all and a lingering length of spice is well within order. This beer could certainly take on a hot curry or Thai dish handily. Five percent of BAers raise questions, complaints laying mainly with its hop allocation strategy.
- Acme California IPA: More of a medium amber than orange ale with a rocky fine while head. Even lighter still in hops if not body. Less fruity, none of the orange marmalade construct, much more focused on the grain as grain and and makes use of its spiced hops with a much subtler hand. The whole beer has a quieter voice, like something you might get from the Brooklyn Brewery, but like that New York brewer's mildly agoraphobic East India Pale Ale. But when you listen you hear. Yet even more BAers find fault - a full 10%! One makes a very good observation about an oily pine like quality. I suppose that is a negative if you are all down on oily pine tree taste. I think the claim is perhaps more indicative of the problematic place IPAs find themselves in, sort of the place where ESBs used to sit uncomfortably. If you think that the IPA is only half-an Imperial IPA you may find this style now lacking. But I think that is unfair to the style and the brewer as one can take the extreme position in anything only so long.
Comments
Ron Pattinson - May 27, 2006 7:03 AM
>the problematic place IPAs find themselves in, sort of the place where ESBs used to sit uncomfortably<
I'm quite sure what you mean by this. Do you mean ESBs started to appear half-hearted when the hop-monster IPAs appeared? I hadn't ever looked at it that way, but I suppose on this side of the Atlantic we don't get much of the aggressive IPA style.
Incidentally, do you have any idea when Fuller's introduced their ESB? I think it was the first beer to use the name, but I could be wrong.
Alan - May 27, 2006 9:48 AM
There certainly is a "maximum hop" trend in the states that makes the lesser styles apparently lesser which adds to the lack of respect for styles as points on a continuum leaving them more as brands to be slapped on a label. I don't know about Fullers but was wondering where you would put Abbot Ale in the scheme of style of pale.
Ron Pattinson - May 27, 2006 10:32 AM
I would probably call Abbot Ale a strong bitter. That's how it's usually presented in pubs. If I remember correctly, it's at the dark end of the colour scale for bitter.
If I sound a little vague, it's because I was never that keen on strong bitters. I realise now that my dislike stems more from such beers being served too young, rather than their intrinsic qualities.
According to their website it was first brewed in the 1950's. I would guess that, like Young's Special, it's a beer that was created as a result of "style splitting" at a time when the gravity of standard bitter was falling. Many strong bitters came into being by this process.
Consulting book number 396 in my collection (a history of Fuller's), I see that ESB was first brewed in 1974 to replace Old Burton. It must have been one of the last Burtons brewed in the UK. Now there's a style some enterprising US micro should revive. One of the standard draught beers in 1946, within 30 years Burton had not only disappeared, but been totally forgotten.
BTW, there's a fascinating article by Brian Glover about "Home Brewed", another sort of strong Brown Ale, in May's What's Brewing. I have a label of Warwick's Home Brewed Ale and had always wondered what sort of beer it was.
Alan - May 27, 2006 10:43 AM
I understand that Sam Smith's Winter Warmer is their Burton renamed but that would make sense as the distinction between an ESB and Winter Warmer is about 1% and maybe a notch in hops.
Ron Pattinson - May 27, 2006 12:28 PM
Do Sam Smith's brew a Winter Warmer? They have a Winter Welcome Ale, but that isn't dark.
I can find these British Winter Warmers:
Fenland, Ely, Cambridgeshire 5.5%
Goddards, Ryde, Isle of Wight 5.2%
Guernsey, St Peter Port, Guernsey 5.8%
Swaled Ale, Gunnerside, North Yorkshire 5.5%
Thwaites, Blackburn, Lancashire 5.5%
Yates, Carlisle, Cumbria 5%
Youngs, London, 5%
So I guess about 5.5% is typical for the style.
Wahl & Henius (1902) define the characteristics of English beers thus:
OG pounds hops per US barrel
Burton Mild Ale 1053-1058 1.25-1.5
Burton Strong Ale 1064-1069 2-3
Burton Pale Ale 1064-1069 2.5-3
Burton Export Ale 1069-1075 3.5-4
It seems to me that the Burton Strong Ale is the Burton we've been talking about. So the same strength as Pale Ale with not much difference in the hopping rate, either.
That would make WInter Warmer strength - around the same as the strongest bitters - about right, too.
Wahl and Henius also have an analysis of Bass Pale Ale from 1888:
OG 1069 FG 1011 ABW 6.06 (about 7.5% ABV)
I can't imagine the Mild and Strong would have been fermented out anything like as far. I would guess at the mild being about 5.5% and the Strong 6.5-7%%
So in the intervening 100 years, around 2-2.5% ABV has been knocked off each od the styles.
Sorry to bore you with all of this detail.
BTW, you have Martyn Cornell's "Beer: The Story of the Pint" don't you? Look at page 288.
Myths 32 and 33 (page 285-286) were, coincidentally, amongst the topics Martyn and I discussed when we met last year. He's about the only person who interprets Obadiah Poundage's letter in the same way as me.
Alan - May 27, 2006 2:43 PM
That is right - I meant the Winter Welcome - but what do you mean about dark? Winter Welcome is left and I would say that is about right for an ESB. Here is the Beer Advocate's take on ESB which (at 6% and up) I'd say is indicative of the US scale of things being higher than the UK. My favorite ESB is Canadian - Halifax's Propeller - which from recollection is generally similar to Winter Welcome.<p>So there is a plausible working theory for me: Burton strong ales became ESBs. Ratty will be pleased.