Another month and another blog about a new beer being added to the liberty beers list. So far so normal.
But these ones speak to us. These ones are from our heartland in East London.
We spent a day the other week visiting two new breweries out East. we saw Beavertown and Hackney Brewery, both within a couple of miles of one another and definitely and defiantly part of the new East End.
Hackney Brewery is located in traditional style in a Railway Arch, and they have a cool little brewery there that has been going for a few months now. They called us in to see if we could help them get their beer out to a few more places in London, and when they said that their current special was called 'Liberty' then we knew that they where aware what time it was. How can we turn down an obvious match like that? So this week the first deliveries of Hackney Best Bitter, Blonde, American Pale and of course Liberty are out of the door.
The Best and Blonde are fine examples of the style, with a significant hop presence, but with an equally warm malt balance, The American Pale is a bit darker than you might expect, heading off toward Amber, but has a good flavour to it with the usual mix of American aroma hops, but with a bit more malt bite than many. The Liberty is brewed with, as you might guess, Liberty hops. Liberty is a hybrid American/German hop that can be used for aroma and bittering, and gives a good blend of the new American style and a very solid traditional German lager aspect. I really liked it, even if it didn't have such a brilliant name....
Beavertown.....oh Beavertown.
Dukes Joint is a pub just off the New North Road, it's got that look of slightly shabby bohemia that is clearly very expensive to achieve, and is run by a couple of guys whose photos on their website made me think where exactly the sort of hipsters that I was going to hate. Irritatingly enough, Logan and Byron turn out to be thoroughly good blokes, and along with James, who was schooled at The Kernel, do a fine job.
Stuck in the corner of the pub, across from the open plan kitchen, is the brew kit. Yeah, there is beer, but there is also a huge monolith of a smoker in the kitchen. The smoker is full of mesquite smoked Beef ribs. I've now lost interest in beer. I love ribs, I'll tell you about the ribs later.
Oh yeah, the Beer. They where brewing 'Smog Rocket' the Smoked London Porter when we got there, and it led to an extended conversation about the level of smokiness that the smoked malt gave the beer, and how the malt they had brought had different results from bag to bag. This batch is apparently back to form after a slightly less smokey result last time, but unless you tried them back to back you wouldn't call it anything but a really good and unusual smoked beer. We'd taken Ric, the Beer Sommelier from The Old Red Cow, along with us, and he liked it. A lot. If you drop into the Old Red Cow in Smithfield this week you might catch it on the bar there, if you get there in time.
Apart from Smog Rocket, you get 8 Ball, a Rye-PA that we really rate. There is a slight vanilla sweetness mid mouth with this that more traditional malts don't give you, and as you'd expect, plenty of Hop to finish. I like the style and along with the new Rattlesnake from Binghams, expect to see a few more Rye beers appearing over the next few months. Neck Oil is their 'standard' Best Bitter and it's also bloody good. Easy drinking it isn't as pallet blitzing as some beers can be, whilst retaining a fresh and modern aspect.
There are also the Alpha and Omega ranges, artist produced labeling and more experimental brews available in strictly limited runs. We'll see what we can rescue from the Cellar for you before it all goes.
