A couple of weeks ago, the hard working new editor of The Bar Towel, Greg Clow, announced that Roland and Russell, an eastern European wine, spirit and truffle distributor in Ontario, was now offering the O'Hanlon range of beers from Devon, England including the famous Thomas Hardy's Ale which I reviewed way back here.
Keener that I am, I ordered some of the Hardy's to arrive at some later date but asked for some review samples of the other beers which arrived today. This led me to the consideration (which is something of a side-track, I admit) of how we get beer in Ontario aside from home brewing and bars. Without corner store beer as they have in ungodly New York to the south and heathen Quebec to the east, you have The Beer Store's shelf (our private macro-brewer retail monopoly), the LCBO shelf (our government retail monopoly), buying special orders from the first two, buying direct from a brewer at the brewery like with Church-Key or buying in another jurisdiction and bringing it in yourself as I do in the states or Quebec. I guess you can also sorta bootleg it in from eBay through the mail or by courier as "collectible glassware" as well.
There is another one: buying from a distributor. Unlike buying from the LCBO, this is not shelf stock and generally is more for the restaurant trade though they also place some products at the LCBO. Unlike buying through a special order, there is a middleman taking some of the risk out of the deal...and that risk can turn out bad. So that's what I am doing with this order with Roland and Russel - mainly to get the products you can't get elsewhere but also to get it in good shape. It will still be delivered through the LCBO but it will not be from the LCBO.
So, what is it? In 2002, Michael Jackson wrote about the brewer who moved from Ireland to Islington before settling in Devon:
The space proved distant: his brewhouse is now in a 1940s hay barn on a 350-year-old farm in Whimple, Devon. "We decided on a lifestyle change," he says, laughing at the cliché. "It's green; it rains a lot; it's in the southwest. It reminds us of Kerry."Excellent. English farmhouse ales. In this group we have a summer wheat, a traditional bitter, a golden ale and a stout if port added. I'll get at them in the next couple of days.
- The Original Port Stout: dark mahogany ale under a light mocha thick foam and rim. A smooth but ash dry roasted wave of stout tempered by some minted hop. The port is subtle but there underneath the toasty scrape enriched by the light cream yeast, lingering around the sides of your tongue. Drying finish with a tiny note of the port. The bottle tells us that this is port-in-stout thing is trick of the Irish bartender, a day-after antidote. It would stand up well against any medium strength English cheeses - but not really, say, a big blue Stilton. The BAers are 1/20 against it. Why? It's both dry and fairly light. If you are looking for a lighter (but not thin), dry (but not astringent) and well balanced stout with plenty of flavour, however, this is a good pick for you.
- Yellow Hammer: subtitled "Devon's Golden Ale. A bit of uncertainty as to the strength as the label says 4.2% but the handy sticky over label applied by someone says 4.7%. Amber honey coloured ale under white rim and froth, clouded from the swirl. A bit cold from the stash, there is a nice combination of lemon and green hop in the snoz. Nice pale malt biscuity graininess in a lighter but not thin brew. Citrus and twiggy hops the label identifies as First Gold with a late addition of Cascade. CAMRA's Good Beer Bottled Guide also says there is further dry hopping with the First Gold. Chalky yeast. Very nice. BAers appear to have yet to find this one, oddly enough. But RateBeer is far from realistic about this one but Greg's comments were quite fair.
- Royal Oak: I am not quite clear on the 1896 date on the bottle as on one spot "since 1896" and elsewhere "we were specially commissioned to recreate this classic beer..." Ah, according to the 2006 Good Bottled Beer Guide from CAMRA, this is an Eldridge Pope brand that, like the Thomas Hardy Ale, moved over to O'Hanlon's when for whatever reason the brewers became non-brewing pub owners only. Fresh with a best before date 14 months out. The beer is russet amber ale under dark cream frothy foam and rim. Quite active carbonation for a English bitter. Pale malt grainy with dry grassiness from the torrified wheat, light honey and raisin from the crystal malt and - maybe as it is cold from the late January cellar - I taste a bit of dry cocoa, too. Plenty of twiggy hedgerow sort of hops and unanimous BA approval. Nice dry 5%, what, ESB I suppose.
- Wheat Beer: Finally, the last of the four. This likely is a lovely clear straw ale under a snow white fine frothy head. I say likely as I have come to like swirling the beer bottle for the yeasty dregs so my glass is now filled with a very cheery cardboard coloured thick cloudy ale under a snow white fine frothy head. This is the business - crisp and grainy with apple and grass and a bit of hard cheesiness from those yeasty chunks bobbing up and down in the rapid carbonation. This only 4%. It has always struck me that a good light ale is hard to find. This one's amazingly flavour packed for such a light ale. Of the four, if I were to buy a case or two, this might be the one. Not likely for 5% of BAers.
