I live in the UK, I have access to dozens of microbreweries within easy reach (in normal times) and to “beer boutiques” if I want to drink at home. My inclination is to try all sorts, I am not a fan of BrewDog draught or bottled. Thank you for your suggestions though.
I am not convinced that micro breweries or craft beers (which BrewDog isn’t) are always the best options.
Rather misses the point of an export ale.
Aldi’s response to Yaldi IPA was to suggest the name “ALD Ipa”:
?
Ironic really given the origins of IPAs.
17 letters? More like 28, going to need a bigger word.
That’s the clever thing about Aldi and Lidl’s packaging. Side by side they’re sufficiently different to the product they’re er, paying tribute to, but seen in isolation they definitely remind you of the more famous brand.
My friend got a job with Brewdog by buttonholing the CEO at a beer festival and going on at great length about how far he’d taken his homebrew hobby. He’s a master brewer there now. They’re ok people; not many CEOs will go for that.
I think this is an interesting avenue for beer. When I used to brew, I stopped 6 or so years ago when I was diagnosed as coeliac we absolutely could get Pacific Northwest grown US varietals and the craft beers used to advertise their IPAs as using US hops. Interestingly New Zealand was also pushing their varietals. That’s interesting to me as NZ is the newer wine country that really, and credibly, pushes terroir. It annoys me when people focus too much on cépage “I don’t like Chardonnay”. How can you say that? How much is a bone dry Burgundy or a blanc de blancs Champagne like a vanilla treacle Ozzie Chardonnay?
Returning beer to local agriculture and terroir seems like a great way for craft brewing to go. Not the way venture capital wants it to go of course. And some export strength like IPAs so we get to taste each others beer.
They’re apparently pretty cool people. Expanded early on by selling shares for cheap to locals and fans, sort of early take on crowd funding. Something like 20% of the company is still owned by those folks. I’ve heard they’re very good to work for.
They just aren’t small by any measure.
That is very much the thing in the US, and for the last 5 years “hyper local” has been the growth driver in a lot of places.
We are however seeing the massive downsides to that model. It’s very, very reliant on sourcing and tourism. Many of the very small breweries that targeted this market as their only or primary market are struggling badly. A lot have gone under all ready. The more stable ones are turning to out of state distribution. The farms that provide the small production ingredients for these beers are struggling badly as production cuts have hit many, many breweries.
Whatever comes out the other end may end up closer to what wine does. Pitching that unique only from here flavor for sale elsewhere as opposed to selling it direct in the local market. But that’s going to require some of the popular styles to shift off a recipe that’s only “fresh” for 3 weeks (I’m looking at you NEIPA’s).
Hops are responsible for skunking in beer, hop compounds curdle into sulfer and off flavors when exposed to light. So the more hops the quicker and worse a beer will skunk.
Thing is that skunked beer is entirely safe for consumption, and hops will help prevent other spoilage like mold or bacteria. And at points in the past, and in some cases today, skunked flavors are desirable. Like certain Heineken super fans will actually leave beers in the sun to maximize that signature skunkyness. So gets there safe to drink doesn’t neccisarily comport with today’s impression of “fresh”.
But the origins of IPAs are a bit over sung, or misrepresented.
The original IPAs were higher alcohol content and more hopped, but as compared to British pales and milds of the time. So higher alcohol meant like 5% and more hops was still less hoppy than most German beers. They were also shipped in barrels or completely enclosed wooden crates stuffed with straw. Blocking a lot more light.
Beer styles are not stable as we tend to assume. The old school British IPAs we know today developed for consumption in the domestic market and were never really meant to be shipped. A localized development from the popularity of those original beers meant for export. And picked up higher abvs and hop levels than the originals to compete with German beers, and and other then new styles that were hoppier and stronger. So the British IPA as we know it isn’t any more shelf stable than any other British beer.
But that fundemental misunderstanding of what was going on there is part of what inspired early American home brewers to just keep throwing hops at it until the American IPA style developed. And it’s kinda the same simplified, things never change history that lead to modern craft Russian Imperial Stouts that in no way resemble what was being drunk in Imperial Russia. Today’s Guinness stout is descended from their export stout developed for the Russian market way back when. And while it’s been reformulated dozens of times the versions still sold as variations of Extra Stout and Foreign/Export are most often cited by historians as the sort of beer the Russian court was into.
I have now sampled the Aldi equivalent, not awful. First taste and aroma are quite pleasant, still has the rather unpleasant and lingering aftertaste that characterises so many of the stronger IPAs. Not one that I will be rushing back to.
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