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Aged White Shield
The Long Ship, where I misspent much of my youth, was everything you would expect of a pub run by Watney’s on the ground floor of a 1960s office block. Its attractions for the students who made up most...
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So you think you know what porter tastes like …
I am always alert for any comments about how beers tasted in the past. They don’t appear very often, but they’re fascinating when they do. So I leapt upon a line out of a recent blog by Ron Pattinson,...
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IPA: the hot maturation experiment
In any modern account of the history of India Pale Ale, you’ll generally find a declaration that the casks of well-hopped beer sent out to India by ship via the Cape of Good Hope in the late 18th...
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Bottle-ageing beers: the don’ts and do’s
There’s a simple rule for most modern bottled beers when it comes to ageing: don’t. It’s not worth it. Probably the vast majority of beers are designed to be drunk fresh, and all they will do if you...
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Courage IRS: a 40-year vertical tasting
Very few beer brands survive today that have modern examples to put into a worthwhile four-decade vertical tasting. That’s simply because forty years ago there were hardly any beers being brewed that...
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An 1875 Arctic Ale tasting
Legendary: it’s an overused word. But some beers literally are legendary, in the sense that far more people will have heard of them than will ever see them or taste them. Reputed quart bottle of...
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Fuller’s Imperial Stout – the most misunderstood beer of the past 12 months?
Is Fuller’s Imperial Stout the most misunderstood beer of the past 12 months? It didn’t stir a lot of enthusiasm when it appeared last autumn: much muttering about the beer being too sweet, very little...
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Stock (ale) answers from Goose Island and Ron Pattinson
Brewery Yard Stock Pale Ale Let’s get one potentially controversial point out of the way first: this is a £20 bottle of beer. If that shocks you, you’ve not been paying attention to what’s happening in...
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Goose Island hopes it’s laid a golden egg in Balham
The Goose Island Vintage Ale House in Balham, South London BAL-HAM, gateway, if the guys from Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Co are correct, to a new form of gastropub/craft beer bar: yummy grub combined...
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The mystery of the vanishing 2016 Vintage Ale
Vertical tasting: 20 years of Fuller’s Vintage Ale, in the Hock Cellar If you haven’t bought your 2016 Fuller’s Vintage Ale yet, either to drink now, or to lay down for later, or to preserve as an...
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