When everything is made to be broken.

Dearest fellow Zymurgists.

This week has been hectic, GBBF week always is.

On the one hand we have the fantastic news that Moor Beer ‘Revival’ won a Silver in the Bitter class, on the other it’s plain that CAMRA still haven’t got the hang of what these hateful young people with their training shoes and trousers de’Nimes are doing, and what business they have with Real Ale, what with their Colonial Hops, strange Continental stylings, and even beer in Kegs that they claim to be better than Old Throbbeer’s Peculiar Mild.

But seriously, why can you buy a German Lager on Keg at the GBBF, but not a pint of Lovibonds 69 IPA? It makes no sense. Maybe Jeff ought to invest in more rugger jerseys and jester hats, or get a marching band.

Anyway, I digress.

This week sees a debut for new signing Black Iris Brewery, they arrive at Liberty’s Purfleet training ground with a strong variety of beers ranging from a single hop Chinook pale ale, through to a Black IPA that is also single hopped with American hops. In-between there are American and Kiwi hopped Stout and Porter, a couple of interesting looking Reds, and a couple of nice hoppy session strength offerings. We hope you will all make them welcome.

We seem to be talking about Welsher scamps Tiny Rebel every week at the moment, but they are back for pre-season training (you liking this football shtick?) with a new Simcoe/Centennial Pale called ZOOL.

There is no Dana, only ZOOL.  (I thought that was Zuul, wasn’t ZOOL an old video game? That would make sense what with Hadouken as well. No wonder the beer choosing and Morris dancing division of CAMRA is confused, I’m puzzled as well.)

Whilst vaguely floating around the subject of Tiny Rebel, we have Hank back for those who missed him the other week, and loads of Galaxy in Billabong.

Red Willow are also back on the menu this week, with another selection of confusingly named beers ending in ‘ess’ or Roman numerals. You should know most of them already, but I do have a few Kegs of the latest ‘Faithless’ series, Gooseberry Saison and a hopped pale with loads of Amarillo, Chinook, Citra, Columbus  and Simcoe. At the high end of the IPA/DIPA spectrum, there are also a small number of Shameless and Sleepless in cask, and Ageless in Keg. Finally, one and only one keg of Witless III, a 7% Wheat with American hopping. Massive.

Lastly, back to the beginning. Moor Nor’Hop is in short supply for the next couple of weeks, so if you want it and particularly if you want it in a Keg (yeah, sorry old chap, it tastes magnificent under pressure.) then order NOW for the next fortnight. Yes, it won a badge at the big show, but we haven’t got any Revival apart from one lonely keg, and Illusion and Radiance are back in stock, as well as Bottles, Glassware and other goodies.

Have a splendid weekend.

Steve and Justin 

OOooh You little Tart.

Hi, Long time no see.

I do these every week, and send them out by email to our lovely customers, but it's been pointed out to me that I really ought to have some way of archiving them, so as of today I'll be posting the weekly beer blah that our customers get up on here as well. It's the one bit of the week's admin that I really enjoy doing, so I hope that people enjoy reading them as well.

As usual, feedback, abuse, corrections or free cakes like the TMS team get will all be appreciated.

Enjoy (or not, up to you really)

Greetings Beer Pickers!

Yes, it’s a little tart, but the boys at Buxton have been busy with some fabulous new beers. There aren’t many of them about, but we have some of their Black Sour which I’ve tried and is EPIC. We also have their Saison, and most excitingly the first collaboration with To Ol from Scandiwegia. These guys are some of the best brewers in Europe right now, and let me tell you that along with some re-branding, Buxton is going to be the hot name to watch over the next few months. Of course, we also have some casks as well, and in that area they have a new ultra hoppy session ale called Jacobs Ladder, which also has the benefit of donating some money to their local Mountain Rescue team for every cask sold. Good Work Charitable fellas.

On the Tart theme, we also have The Kernel’s Biere de Table this week to sit alongside the London Sour in your fridge, I’ve not had the chance to try Evin’s take on Belgian Farmhouse Ale/Saison, but I know I want to (Steve won’t, he hates sour beer….the big glass of water.) both are in classy Stella-a-like 330ml bottles for your whoopin-an-a-hollerin’ pleasure.

If you need any more persuasion on the Continental side, we found a pallet of ‘Claudia’ kegs that brewer Tom at Moor had tried to hide from us, he failed and so we have the last 10 kegs of this year’s production available to you, our lovely customers. As Jeremy Clarkson might say, “Some people say this is the best beer that Moor have ever produced, all we know is that it’s a bloody good Berliner Heffe-Weise.”

Anyway, you know I went to Manchester the other week? Well I also got my hands on some new Kegs from Summer Wine as well, so this week we have the second ‘Devil Loves’ series beer, this time it’s Chinook’s turn to do the hopping. There are two more new keg beers to come from them in the next fortnight, in the meantime we got some fresh supplies of favourites like Zenith Pale, some Diablo and for the old people, Resistance Mild. (how is Saison trendy, and Mild pensioner worthy? When they were both brewed for the workers to quench their thirst? Does drinking like a Belgian farmer really make you hip?)

I think Mild is a bit of a Black Country thing, and so is Neck Oil from Beavertown. To help the workers kill that thirst, kindly Mr Plant and his Colonial friend Mr Byron have given us a chunky discount on their fine Black Country Session Beer to pass along to you all.

Right, what else?

Oh yeah, loads of Casks from Anarchy, with some of their great new Keg recipes making the transition to cask. We have Citra-Star (name speaks for itself really, blonde and loads of Citra hops….) Crime Scene American Amber, and Quiet Riot big NZ hopped IPA in the house.

That’s about it for this week, stock has been boosted on the Tiny Rebel as well for those of you who missed out last week, so have a bog weekend and go crazy!

Fin.

Justin and Steve. 

Liberty versus food

You seen that show on TV? Man vs Food? Where the American fella travels the land eating truely ridiculous amounts of grub from some very American places?

Yeah, well, some of it is nonsense, but you can't help but envy some of the stuff that he gets to try, and what always gets me is the BBQ. The Americans have a way of smoking and cooking meat that you just don't get in the UK, big servings with a halo of smoke in the meat, a 'bark' on the outside from long slow cooking and flavours that knock your head back.

We found that, right here in London.

Dukes Brew and Que up there is Hackney.

14oz Beef Ribs, Mesquite smoked and absolutely gorgeous.

Race you there.

Straight outta Langport

You don't really expect to find an American guy turning out truely cutting edge beers all the way out here in the Somerset Levels, but that's what Justin at Moor Beer is doing.

California born and bred, Justin Hawke arrived in Somerset via LA, San Francisco, Berlin and Oxfordshire. He brought out the old Moor brewery a few years ago, updated the equipment and started to brew some really good beers. He has a strong antipathy for finings, so sends out a lot of his beers unfined. To those brought up on the British mantra of clarity equalling good beer this is a little odd, but in reality the soft haze of Moor beers adds to the flavour and mouth feel, and does nothing to detract. The Germans and Belgians of course have no problem at all with hazy beer, so why should we?

Moor also use a fantastic wooden shield as their instantly recognisable pump clip, they just change the paper insert in the centre for the different beers. It's a simple solution to the pump clip issue, and looks a lot better than many of the plastic wonders that other brewers send out.

New out this week is 'Hoppiness' a 6.5% Pale with lots of hop admittedly, but a sweet and fruity charecter that leans toward a barley wine more than anything else. It's brilliant in the 660ml 'Bombers' that Moor bottle their beer in, but even better on Keg.

Remember, Drink Moor Beer!

Smokin' beer from the Bow outback.

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.

Things, they are a changing....

More updates from the Liberty Beer nerve centre.

This week sees the introduction of our new reciprocal agreement with Bath Ales down in Bristol. In simple terms it means that they will be transporting both our and their beer to the new Liberty Beer base in Ilford, and we will be distributing their products to their customers in the London area. Liberty aren't selling Bath Ales products ourselves, but we can smooth the way for any of our customers who want to try their stuff.

New base you say? Yes, Liberty now have a more permenant home just off the A12 at Ilford. We are currently rushing about like lunatics to get it all straight and ship shape, but it has an extensive chilled area to ensure anything that isn't straight onto a van from the supplier will be kept in the best possible shape whilst it stays with us. We aren't changing our policy on 'just in time' delivery, but we can streamline supply of some none temperature sensitive products like Cider so that we can supply more lines, and means that we control the temperature that our Ales are stored at.

New Beers? Obviously. We are welcoming Buxton Brewery, Marble from Manchester, Mallinsons Brewery from the Northeast, Hawkshead from The Lakes, and Revolutions from Yorkshire over the next Month, We also have Brewshed from Suffolk comming soon, and finally have a proper deal in place with the marvelous Arbor Ales in Bristol for supply of three product lines that should be available on a weekly basis from now on, increasing as they move to their new larger brew kit later in the year.

Foreign Beers? Well, maybe. Steve and I are planning to speak to some US brewers about regular supplies on Keg, and a tasting trip to Copenhagen to check out the Danish micro scene.

More news soon.

So, do you like the new website?

As you might notice looking about, we've had a little update of the website. When we first did the job we used a lot of stock images and talked about the vision that we had for the business before it became what it is today.

What we have done now is start to use more images of our own products as they are presented by our own customers, so you might well see your own Pub on the site. we have also changed up the text to better reflect our personallities and where liberty beer is going today.

If you have any feedback for us on the changes, please get in touch.