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| Peak beer: IPA at its finest |
Brought to
you by Rachel Flatt
Hitting the
wall. Having a jour sans.
Bonking. Sport, and particularly cycling, has many terms for the
feeling of having had enough. I’m living all of them today.
Barely
halfway through the annual alcoholic marathon and I’m having a
genuine Paula Radcliffe moment, not least as a result of my
ill-advised experiment with a too young chocolate stout last night.
Whether it’s
the cumulative effect of one beer after another combined with a
particularly busy festive social diary this year, I’m not sure, but
this morning – a morning off work at that – I opened the calendar
and looked upon today’s beer with actual dread.
Doubtless
fuelled by last evening’s creative team Christmas night out, in a
display of sheer bravado stupidity (and egged on by Robin Turner, I
might add), I stated I’d be drinking today’s beer before heading
into the office this afternoon. Thankfully, common sense and an
overbearing sensation of queasiness trumped the rashness and I’ve
left it till much later.
But now,
looking at the bottle, I’m struggling to work out how the Hell I’m
going to manage it. Hasn’t helped that I sampled a few of the
Purple Brewers circle homebrews earlier this evening, of course. Or
that the works drinks trolley came out early today due to it being
Christmas Jumper Wearing day, or some such.
The bottle is
eyeing me as if it knows I can’t handle it. The glass vessel
equivalent of looking down its nose and sneering as if to say I’m
not worth its bother. I’m being stared down by a fucking bottle of
beer. And what’s more, it’s working.
It’s
moments such as these that I question the wisdom of this undertaking.
All I want to do right now is drink mineral water and take milk
thistle supplements, yet I’m presented with a ruddy great hulk of a
beer instead. O me miserum, o me infelicem.
I’ll stop
bellyaching now and get on with it. Bottles can stare at you all they
like. I’ve got a bottle opener and I’m going to use it.
Beer: Buxton
Brewery Ace Edge
Strength: A
genuinely intimidating 6.8%
Smell: It
smells of strong IPA cheese on a cocktail stick with a piece of
dilapidated pineapple chunk. And faintly of unpasturised Stilton,
though that's probably coming from my fingers after having eaten a
rather large portion of it earlier at Mike's.
Tasting
notes: Never judge a beer by its aroma is what I say. This is ruddy
fantastic. I had a feeling it'd be much fruitier than I could face,
but not a bit of it. For the beer nerds, it's an IPA hopped with
Sorachi Ace, the Japanese hop grown in Hokkaido and originally used
in Sapporo beers. Wasted on them, really. It's perfect for offsetting
the kind of malt bill needed for a beer of this strength, cutting a
fine citrusy figure with its lemony chin out and zesty shoulders
pinned back. Right now, it's holding sway in the bar room that is my
mouth. A bar room that's seen all sorts of flavours battling it out
for supremacy tonight thanks to an early evening of homebrew
tasting at Michael and Emma's place in Southwark. Among those vying
for the title were the unpasturised Stilton mentioned above, two
types of chutney, a saison, a dark Belgian ale, a Hefeweiss, a
monster of a beer Andy brought over from Canada cut with biscuit
syrup and a spoonful of biscuit butter from Belgium. I'm frankly
amazed I can taste anything. But this cracker from the Peak District
peers down from Kinder Scout in much the same way as the bottle did
to me earlier and outranks the lot. I don't often give a money-back
guarantee, but I will with this one. Seek it out.
Arbitrary
score: 181,114
Sponsor:
Rachel Flatt 
2 comments:
Buxton Breweery make some fine ales... and its almost local to me. I shall be hunting this one out!
Well worth it, squire.
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