Tag Archives: February

Funky funky

Well that was an unexpected delve into funky sour beers. February’s meeting threw curveballs in both the location and the selection of beers on offer.

Firstly thanks to everyone at The George for the (very) warm welcome and help setting up. The Hop House was a great venue for the meeting, plenty of space and quiet enough for easy conversation and sharing of beer details. I think if we set up more talks or presentation this will be an ideal location.

The Hop House at The George

Then to the beers – without any prompting this session turned into an exploration of funky sour beers. A pineapple sour, a Flanders red, a lambic and a cherry lambic. Quite an exploration of the sour palette and some amazing examples of the layers of complexity fermenting with something other than saccharomyces cerevisiae. The night was topped off with a super Ginger stout that reminded me heavily of Dandelion & Burdock from the Pop truck.

One other difference was the later closing time of the pub – which meant a lively discussion about everything beer and not lasted quite later than usual. A great night all round.

Cheers

February change of venue

Our next meeting on Wednesday 23rd February has had a change of venue away from Unit 4 at the brewery to the Hop House at the George inn. https://www.georgeinn-eton.co.uk/hop-house/

The George in Eton


It’s not too far away from our normal venue and, having had a drink in their in the past, I think is perfect for us.
The reason for the temporary change is that unit 4 is hosting the Knightclub and launch of Windsor & Eaton’s platinum jubilee celebration beer Castle Hill https://shop.webrew.co.uk/products/castle-hill-12-x-500-ml-bottles
This means they are moving their regular quiz to Wednesday and I don’t think we could compete with pondering the longest river in Asia as we discuss the beers.
Everything else will remain as normal – 7:30 start and a bring anything theme. (Remember March theme will be Easy drinking)
Look forward to seeing you there.

How do you like those apples?

Maybe it was the cold weather, or maybe it was the Man City v Real Madrid game being on TV but it was a slightly reduced turnout for the February meeting. The lower numbers didn’t stop lively informative debate and some surprising beer tasting going off though.

We sampled a direct comparison of a Fusty Ferret clone that had been boiled for half an hour compared to one boiled for the full hour. The difference in both appearance and taste was huge and drove some interesting conversation and thought. This was followed up by a classy mild and a, rather hot, Dubbel – both good choices in the cold rainy February weather.

We settled into some technical discussions around water chemistry, fruit moulds and carbonation before sampling an old Fruit stout – which had aged pretty well and finishing with a Windsor Cider. This was a refreshing palate cleanser and was very reminiscent of the Northern Spanish sidras with their flamboyant pouring culture in Asturias.  

We finished the night discussing the Champion Homebrewer contest and trying to predict which box would be the most popular with Knightclub members and ensuring that we can help as many members as possible enter the large format contest.

March’s meeting will be looking at Bitters as a style – so if you have some to share or just love trying them we’ll see you there. Cheers.

Coming next month Windsor ESB