Yup, this blog is exactly what the title says. A summary of beers we have been having over the festive period, what our opinions were of the beers and some updates on what's going on with Premier Hop this month.
Some beers are what we sell, and some are what we have bought as special treats for ourselves to enjoy...
Firstly we kept back some of our stateside beers which is not often as we would usually rather our customers get chance to try them...couldn't resist on Doctormentory by Monkish & The Veil. The colour speaks volumes...not too strong in taste. Tropical flavours poke through with enough bite to draw you back in. One of our faves last month.
Yup, kept ourselves back the highest ever rated DIPA on Untappd? We think?...gotta be done! King Jjjuliusss. A great beer no doubt, however, we've tasted better beers than this. It wouldn't be our favourite beer ever, but we are sure glad we tried it and tick it off the bucket list of beers.
DDH Attacus Atlas - Parish Brewing - IPA - 9% ...This hazy DIPA is a full on Galaxy Hop explosion! It has 11 pounds per barrel of Galaxy Hops loaded, and one of the largest dry hop additions they have done. Certainly not for the faint hearted. Earthy flavour from the Galaxy with a slight green bite! Madness 😀
Parish, Holy Ghost was the next one kindly given by our friend Andy. A big brash old boozy TIPA. Certainly doesn’t take any prisoners and it’s not one where you see the tasting notes of “There’s no sign of the ABV” Great hop line up of Nelson, Galaxy & Citra Cryo! An 11% boozy cocktail! It was still very green and glad we have another can to leave for a few weeks!
Bottle Logic, kings of pastry stouts and we have a few in the cupboard gathering dust, we decided to crack one open one in between the Christmas and New Year period where you don’t know what day is what! So onto Fundamental Forces 2019 - Imperial Stout Aged in Bourbon Barrels with Tahitian Vanilla and came in at a staggering 18% ABV…It’s certainly BIG and a SIPPER. The vanilla is subtle (could be the age now?) with big bourbon flavours. It took a good hour to get through it. A lovely treat for sure!
Moving onto the sours... Evil Fusion by Evil Twin Brewing. This was amazing! The combination of Apple, Cranberry, Vanilla Soft Serve, Cinnamon & Graham Cracker flavours was outstanding and worked so so well together. A pastry sour that delivers flavours exactly what it says on the can. It is more of a novelty beer, and could have had the sourness cranked up a little more.
The combo sounds great for Il Crumble by Pastore. We've had many similar beers from them that have been outstanding but unfortunately this one didn't hit the mark for us. Although it tasted fine, the smell of it wasn't great which made the drinking of it difficult. The honey comes through nicely with the raspberry but couldn't taste the pear. Tasted a bit watery too. It probably didn't help that we had such a good sour before it. Perhaps if we drank this first we wouldn't have picked out so many flaws.
Our highlight of all our festive drinks... Fou Foune, Cantillon. This is just beautiful. The apricot is sublime. Not too sweet. We could have carried on drinking this all night. Always a treat when we get a bottle of this.
Camerise Lambic - Cantillon ...very well recommended by so many of our friends and customers. It was nice for the first glass, but for some reason we couldn't get into the aftertaste of the beer (could have been the honey?) It's a shame as we were really looking forward to this, and the colours was tremendous.
And finally this beauty...Lou Pepe 2018 - Cantillon ...CHERRY ALERT!!! Absolutely gorgeous. Finished very quickly and colour was immense. Our first time trying a bottle and will be on the look out for more!
What beers stood out for you over the break? What are you looking forward to trying this January? Don't know if you're like us, but we are looking out for the new styles the breweries will be working on, plus need a few lower percentage ones for the next couple of weeks haha. However, soon as we see something to take our fancy I'm sure we will cave especially with Putty around the corner and an overtone order just put through...keep an eye ;)
Don't forget to sign up to our mailer for exclusive discounts and news on stateside beers! Plus our offer this month is 15% off your website order or saves box if over £75 with code JANBLUES.
Hope you've enjoyed this blog and we would love your feedback so please feel free to comment below. Have a lovely day :)
Hema & Rohit xx
