Cheddar Ales Totty Pot

Well, with a name like this I had to use my top totty to pose with the beer for the picture!

We know Cheddar ales well, thanks to Little Nik, but I had not come across this particular beer before. The brewery 'nestles on the slopes of the Mendip Hills and is within a stones throw of the famous Cheddar Gorge' according to the web site (http://www.cheddarales.co.uk/). This particular beer has apparently just won a gold medal at the national brewing industry awards.

It is a bottle-conditioned dark porter. It is brewd using Marris Otter, wheat and dark malts and and hopped with a blend of English whole hops. It has an ABV of 4.7%

It was definitely smoother to the taste that the Cotleigh's Buzzrd, the last dark beer I tried, and I liked it better.

In case you're wondering, Totty Pot is the name of a swallet hole or sink hole in the Mendips

Kirkstile Gold

This is another interloper. The story behind it is that Helen took me away for a few days to celebrate my milestone birthday and the place she took me to was called the Kirkstile Inn, which is at Loweswater, one of the more remote villages in the northern part of the Lake District. Not only is it a beautiful setting, between Loweswater lake and Crummock Water and in the lee of Melbreak and so ideal for walking and running, but the food has (justifiably) won awards and, best of all, it has its own microbrewery. It has just been awarded the CAMRA Pub of the Year award for 2008 for West Cumbria. More details can be found at http://www.kirkstile.com/

They have been brewing since 2003 (though apparently the inn used to brew its own beer back in the 1820s) and they now have production of 6 barrels a week. I tried several of their beers while I was there, and we brought home with us a few bottles of this one, Kirkstile Gold, though they also have a very acceptable bitter and a dark ale

It is, as its name suggests, a golden beer. It uses German hops apparently and has masses of tropical fruit flavour. Lovely! It is 4.3% ABV and is bottle conditioned.

I have handed out a few bottles to other people so I am expecting some comments on this one!

Dentdale Clipped 'Un

Right, this one is an interloper, and it won't be the last. It did not come with my 60 beers. Instead, it was part of a prize that Helen won when we did the Dentdale Run in Cumbria at the weekend - 14.3 miles of severe Northern Hills in a northerly outpost of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Helen was fourth in her age group, which qualified her for a prize which consisted of a tee shirt and two bottles of beer. She is modelling the tee shirt in the pictures. The front, as you can see, shows the brewery's name and logo, as they were the main sponsor of the event. The back shows Ram's Bottom, which is their strong ale. Unfortunately, all you can see in the photograph is the ram's bottom and not hers.

The beer that she won is called "Clipped 'Un". Apparently, this is a traditional Dales term which refers to somebody who is moving notably fast, like a sheep that has has recently been sheared and is therefore free of its heavy wool fleece. The name was chosen to resonate with the runners who took part in the 2009 Dentdale Run, which was the 25th staging of the event. The beer was brewed to commemorate this memorable event.

It is a copper coloured ale that would be a bitter if it was on draught, well balanced and tasted quite acceptable. There are no technical details given other than it is 4% ABV and uses malted barley. Hence no details of hops used or anything like that.

If you want to know more about the Dent Brewery, they have a website at http://www.dentbrewery.co.uk/.

Cotleigh's Monument

Well, well - another one from Cotleigh's. This one I liked- a lot. It is called Monument after the Wellington Monument which was erected to commemorate the Duke of Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo in the Blackdown Hills just outside the town of Wellington in Somerset. Wellington is of course not far from Wiveliscombe, where Cotleigh's brew their beers.

The beer itself is a golden ale. It is made from American Cascade hops, which account for its pleasant aroma and fruit filled finish. Apparently it won an award in the Excellence in Food and Drink Awards in 2006 and according to the judges it "tastes like summer and has a fresh aroma and a fruity finish."It is 4.0% ABV and is not bottle conditioned.

As far as I am concerned, this is up there with Barn Owl.

Cotleigh's Buzzard

This is another one from the (smaller) brewery in Wiveliscombe, but quite different from Barn Owl, which is described below. This one is a bottle condistioned Dark Ale, 4.8%ABV. It gets its darkness from the use of chocolate malt but the colour is a deep copper brown rather than the colour of Guinness which you might expect. It has a smoky, smooth finish. It is very nice, but Barn Owl was a bit more to my taste.

Coniston Bluebird and Branscombe Vale Drayman's

My friend David came round on Wednesday and I explained to him the concept of sixty years for sixty years. Of course the explanation could not be entirely theoretical, so I provided him with some empirical evidence or to put it another way we sampled a ouple of the beers.

We started with Bluebird from the Coniston Brewery, very appropriate since I had not long been back from the Lake District. This is an award winning bottle conditioned bitter - in fact it was the CAMRA Supreme Champion Beer of Britain in 1998. The label suggests it is best served at 58 degrees in a straight glass at the Black Bull Inn at Coniston, conditions under which I have in fact tasted it. What they forgot to mention though was that you should run the 14.3 miles round the lake first, in order to work up the requisite thirst (as indeed I did). It is a fine session ale (4.2% ABV) with a light golden colour. It uses English Challenger hops, well balanced with Maris Otter malt, and is supposed to have a faint hint of scented geranium, though I can't say I picked it up. The brewery was founded in 1995 by the son of the owner of the Black Bull and the beers use "the pure waters of the Coniston hills". You can find out more at http://www.conistonbrewery.com

We then moved on to Drayman's Best Bitter from the Branscombe Vale Brewery, which we finally established is located near Seaton in Devon. This brewery is a little older, being established in 1992, on the site of an old farm that is now owned by the National Trust. When they started up, they apparently dug their own well! They don't seem to be sophisticated enough to have a web site, but the beer is very nice. It is a bottle-conditioned mid-brown beer with a distinctly hoppy finish, quite a contrast to the Bluebird. No technical details are given but it is 4.2% ABV