The Empire Strikes Black (Lively Brew)

Here's a lovely little stout from Bunker friends Richard (of Llama Studio) and Geoff at Lively Brew.

Cap off, it's lively but not overfizzy. The pour is as dark as expected, and the thin brown head lasts down the glass.

The nose is complex and pleasant, chocolate malt tones to the fore. On the tongue it's a grippy little number, weighing in at 6% ABV, and infused with "cinnamon, cloves, allspice, vanilla and rum". With that amount of additions you might expect a bit of a car crash in the taste department, but all the various elements of the orchestra work well to produce a sumptuous tune - dark and homely on first sup and just the right amount of bittering in the length. The carbonation is soft and completely suitable.

Richard and Geoff say it's the best thing they've done so far, and having tasted a few other examples - all good - I'd have to agree. As home brewers, they are consistent and improving all the time, and none of the titles I've tried have had any of the tell-tale mulchiness, or 'cigar' notes that can easily be contracted from home kits. Couple this with excellent branding and they could go to local scale quite easily with a very drinkable product like this.

7/10 - A fine, fine homebrew. Lovely complexity and spicy quality.

- The Broadside

Bunker Summit No. 4

Last week saw the fourth Bunker Summit, myself and Ed meeting at Bunker Station Two with summit veteran Glenn.

It ran in the usual format, a blind taste test with each person supplying a category of beer:

Glenn: Brown ales, and a couple of his "Slender Prince" homebrews.

Ed: IPA class. With his own "Bunker Brew" homebrew slipped in.

Paul: Porters & stouts, with two "Station-2" homebrews.

The scores were averaged and the results are below - a fine sunny evening was had, punctuated by homemade beefburger bonanza and some Station Two cheesecake too.

Big Bill's Final Rack (Slender Prince Homebrew)

Good beer, big dominant middle-wood, a dry barky brown but not the fine smooth whiskey oaked epic expected - 5/10

Black Cat (Fallen Angel)

Overly fruity nose heralding a completely off beer bought on general sale in Arundel! - Utterly rank - 0/10

Porter (Harvey's)

Plummy and fruity, a real lock-in pint, almost liqueur like in it's smoothness- 7/10

Bosun's Call (Stumpy's Brewery)

Fruity smell and tang, too big. This beer was in the postcode of off, although not there yet - 3/10

India Pale Ale (Goose Island)

Columo-nimbus head, fizzy and fresh. Massive transatlantic pine hop bomb with a streaky bullet of caramel - 7/10

Endless Summer IPA (Bunker Brew Homebrew)

Lovely homebrew. Lush pine nose, very hoppy but increased malt sweetness, excellent balance. Dry bitter length, delicious - 8/10

Bottle Wreck Porter (Hammerpot)

Sublime chocolate-coffee porter, as smooth as John le Mesurier. Dark magic, a textbook artisan black beer and the evening's winner - 9/10

Doctor Strangehop (Bunker Brew Homebrew)

A nuclear winter IPA, this is as bitter as an old spouse waving photographs. Unrelenting back-end bitterness. Utterly unapologetic, one for atomic hop fans - 6/10

M&S Cheshire Brown Ale (Robinsons)

Well balanced, caramel nose, edge of citrus. A solid brown beer - 6/10

Dark Matter (Station-2 Homebrew)

Unusual pine nose for a porter, coffee and chocolate in spades, lovely rich tiramisu length with hoppy edges, very good dark beer - 7/10

Big Bill's Tricky Brown (Slender Prince Homebrew)

As brown as a 70's kitchen. Tastes of velour, pre-decimal coins and atari consoles. Proper back of the off-license product. Lovely brown booze - 6/10

Tesco's American Double IPA (Brewdog Hardcore IPA)

A hop too far! This splits the hop and takes it beyond it's natural event horizon. Bitter armageddon - 5/10

Almond and Dangerous (Station-2 Homebrew)

No head, minimal nose, quite syrupy. Dominant chocolate tastes laced with fruit, drying early. Almond ingredient not detectable! - 6/10

The wheels then came off and the evening descended into a FIFA 11 tournament, the outcome of which Ed is still angry about.

Look out for new bottle reviews this week!

London Bitter - BruBox Home Brew Kit

I am a homebrewer myself and enjoy making my own beer using the raw all grain method, but i stated out on kits. I recently helped a friend work through his first kit a BruBox. Its around £24 for a 10litre starter kit, with refills around £10 there after.

Its a rather impressive kit, extremely simple in its design and instructions, described perfectly here. A month later my mate popped round with a bottle of the result....I thought its only fair i review it!

London Bitter 4.0%
Pours an amber brown, with a nice gentle aroma, caramel, slight orange and fresh hop pine notes.

The sweetness of the malt is quite quickly over powered with some relatively big dryness that powers through. This leads on to quite pronounced bittering, you can certainly tell real hops were used in this kit. The finished is a lingering gentle hop bittering along with a slightly burnt caramel dryness.

7/10 A very drinkable well hopped session bitter, not a million miles from a Fuller's London Pride, but with the dry malitness of a Shepard Neame Bishops Finger.

With refill kits at about £10 each you can enjoy San Fransisco Steam beer to Belgian Tripel's at 50p a pint!

If you want to have a go at homebrewing but are nervous about the process, you wont find a more simple entry method than this, and most importantly the end result is very enjoyable!

Sleighed Again (Centurion - Homebrew)

Cracks and pours with perfect carbonation, the head on this is unlike anything I've seen since my last draught Guinness, it just won't die! Powerful spices in the aroma, with cloves dominating heavily.

Beautiful roasted malt initially, sweetness and roast bittering in perfect balance. The middle is lovely and light, like a meringue it keeps the sweetness going to the finish when the bittering arrives, it's Cascade so gives a nice depth rather than a blunt snap. The spices linger on the tongue beautifully, nutmeg and most noticeably cinnamon.

Only criticism is the cloves are slightly too powerful for my palate.

7/10 A fine Christmas spiced beer, better than many this site has reviewed, similar to this, but with more spice. Would not be disappointed if I was served this in a pub.

A bottle of homebrew provided by Rimski, have a go yourself with the recipe here.

Bunker Summit no. 2

Bunker Summit Two was again a fine event. As well as myself and Ed, Glenn was on hand to voice his tasting judgements in a blind tasting session. We all bought four ales to try.

Home cooked food was once more provided by the master skills of Commandant Ed. This time a legendary Fuller's Porter steak and ale stew (Recipe here!) with garden vegetables provided the perfect interim energy boost.

The evening kicked off with an auspicious curtain raiser - a review session of Brewdog's AB:04, which isn't released until later this week, but was kindly sent to us for pre-launch review. You can read the full review on this site.

We then moved on to the main tasting event. The scores we gave were completely blind and are averaged below - we had no idea what the product was until the reveal.

Bright (Otter) 4.3%ABV - Summery blond with a tiny ping of spice, a bit uninteresting. (4)

Old Henry (Hobson's) 5.2% - Fireside amber, complex and peachy (7)

First Gold (Hopcloser) 4.6% - Ed's homebrew! (Full details of how that was made here) Rated very highly, sweet and tasty in the US style (7)

Banks's Bitter (Marstons) 3.8% - Short and malty, no finish, a bit budget (4)

Entire Stout (Hopback) 4.5% - Creamy but light stout. Refreshing for a black drink (6)

American IPA (Adnams) 6.8% - Very nice (Ed loves it) extremely citrussy, some tea and depth. Took the evening's Bronze Medal (8)

Organic Old Ruby Ale (Dutchy Originals) 5% - Inoffensive, probably nice with lamb (6)

Humpty's Fuddle (Kingstone) 5.8% - Floral and malty, not much hop for an IPA (7)

ESB (Fuller's) 5.9% - Delicious and the evening's Silver Medal Drink. Perfect balance (8)

Betty Stogs (Skinners) 4% - A bit unbalanced but some nice flavours (7)

Ipswich Pale Ale (St Judes) 4% - Bloody awful, "sewage in a bottle". We can only hope this one was off for the brewery's sake - our first (0)

London Porter (Fullers) 5.4% - Delicious and superbly balanced, a textbook fine porter. The evening's Gold Medal Drink (9)

Poacher's Choice (Badger) 5.7% - Loads of gamey flavours but polarised opinion, a marmite-reaction drink (4)

Vienna broadcast the goodnight national anthem very shortly after this one. Much fun.

Gold Medal - Fuller's Porter
Silver - Fuller's ESB
Bronze - Adnams American Style IPA

- The Broadside