Wine of the week - Manz Cheleiros, Dona Fatima, Jampal (2011)

We've been fans of Portuguese wines for a while now, grasping the opportunity to taste them when available. This bottle of Manz Cheleiros Dona Fatima was bought completely on a whim and the recommendation of the salesman in Oddbins when given the brief of 'something interesting' by Sam. He wasn't wrong, this is a really interesting bottle.

Jampal is a rare Portuguese grape variety, which Jancis Robinson described as a "southern Portuguese grape with possibly unrealised potential" in her 'Guide to wine grapes' back in 1996. I think she's right, and according to the Manz website this is the only example of a single varietal Jampal in the world.

The wine is pale lemon in colour and has lush fruit aromas of green apple and citrus, with hints of stone fruit and an oily minerality. To taste it's dry with a medium body and acidity, and a long finish. There are hints of nuttiness, the citrus on the nose delivers through the taste with a grapefruit pithiness,  lemon, and then some stone fruit follows afterwards. The flavours are bright and it's a really interesting wine with some very complex flavours.

RRP £15, Currently available from Oddbins.

Beer of the Week: Partizan Brewing's Grisette Saison

Slightly cloudy on the pour with very little head, golden in colour.

On the nose you get wheaty yeasty notes and sherbet, and to taste it's very similar. It's very refreshing, slightly earthy and biscuity, with wheat, a slight grassiness and the predominant sherbet taste. It reminds us slightly of a Belgian Wit but with less of a funky off flavour than you'd normally get with these.  Overall we both loved this one and look forward to tasting more from Partizan Brewing.

4.8% ABV, available from various London locations - see their website for details.

Beer of the week - Brewdog Torpedo Los!

For my birthday, we visited the fantastic Lichtenstein retrospective at the Tate Modern last week. If you get the chance make sure you get there before it finishes in a few weeks time. I remarked as we walked around that Lichtenstein's bold use of primary colours and comic book aesthetics make for a visually satisfying experience. My favourite section of the exhibition is the section of Lichtenstein's homages to masterpieces by the likes of Picasso,Van Gogh and Mondrian.

In celebration of this exhibition at the Tate Modern, Brewdog have produced a pale ale named after a Lichtenstein classic, Torpedo Los! On the label Brewdog modestly liken themselves to the artist claiming to be revolutionaries creating abstract beers. I was going to make some less complimentary comparisons by talking about copying classics using a primary palette and broad brush strokes but then thought it might come across like a piece of GCSE art history homework. Instead I'll talk about the beer.

It's a very good beer in the US pale ale style with a little bit of red rye to give it some colour and composition. The US hops are fresh with piney greens and bright yellow lemon zest. Good structure comes from a solid malt canvas. In fact the broad strokes used in the creation of this beer are impressive for one designed to be sold in an art gallery. This beer isn't a masterpiece but it's far more than just a pretty label, so well played to Brewdog, more like this please. 

The Lichtenstein exhibition is on until the 29th May so hurry to see it before it closes. It's well worth the trip.
The Beer is available in bottle at the Tate Modern and on tap in the Brewdog bars. 

Beer of the Week: Warsteiner Premium Verum

We were really pleased the Warsteiner came in a brown glass bottle, eliminating any chance of it being light-struck. A German Pilsner, with a refreshing, crisp, clean taste. On the nose you get aromas of hops, and this follows through on the taste where the bitterness lingers, with quite a long finish. Perfect for a glorious summers day (which as it happens when we tasted it, it was).

It also comes in an alcohol free version which we didn't like as much, but then we've yet to taste an alcohol free beer which we've enjoyed!

Available from Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Tesco & Morrisons at around £2 for 500ml.

London's Brewing: Beers of the Festival

Just a quickie today with a summary of our favourite beers of this weekend's London's Brewing beer festival.

Zero Degrees - Gari (4.2%)

A German style hefe-weizen and in this case a good solid wheat beer. It's what you'd expect for this style of beer with a slightly fruity funky flavour. Small amount of diacetyl on the nose. Full creamy mouth feel, not blowing me out the water, but certainly a very nice pint.

Beavertown - Dark Saison (5.4%)

An impressive Saison which has tasted better in bottle but here still shines. The rich and slightly sour malt notes are beautifully offset by the funky yeast character.

Weird Beard - Five O'Clock Shadow (6.6%)

We've been waiting a long time to taste Weird Beard's beers and here we were initially disappointed. It turned out they had the wrong and quite horrible beer on instead of the Mariana Trench we were expecting. But when we tasted the wonderful Five O'Clock Shadow we knew it was the real deal. Thick, deep and a thoroughly satisfying hop bomb. Tropical fruit and floral hop flavours are balanced with a solid malt foundation and well controlled bitterness. This is a clever beer that will impress anyone who drinks it.

All in all we were really disappointed with this event. There was no beer list on the website (I like to plan my beers in advance to get the most from any festival). We arrived dead on 12 when the doors were due to open, and then were left standing in the rain for 45 minutes before they actually started letting anyone in. Given they'd opened an hour late on the previous (trade) day, this wasn't really a very good result. When were were finally let in we were confronted by a very small bar and a very large queue. In fact 'crowd' would be a better word than 'queue' - and it filled a good proportion of the small venue. I don't know if they'd underestimated how popular the event would be, but this event was really poorly organised. The bar was far too small for the number of beers they were serving, the bar staff didn't seem to know anything about the beer or what they were doing, and it took them an hour and a half to get the second bar open, which even when it had opened only had a small proportion of the beers available. Disappointing.

the bar - it was busy...

Beer of the Week: Charles Wells and Dogfish Head, DNA New World IPA

Some of the most interesting beers come with an interesting story. Last night we were at the launch of an unlikely collaboration between a traditional British family brewery and one of America's most creative craft breweries which is surely a story I had to hear. When Jim Robertson, International Brewmaster at Charles Wells, impressed Dogfish Head founder (and part time rapper) Sam Calagione with his Banana Bread beer a transatlantic relationship began.

Sam tells us about his genetic experiment

With a passion for novel brewing techniques and a respect for the traditional, this friendship has culminated in DNA, this New World IPA. But this is far from an ingredients or recipe swap between the two breweries. Dogfish have taken their 60 minute IPA, reduced it down to create a beer syrup and shipped it to Charles Wells where they added it into the boil of a 4.5% IPA made with galaxy hops and finally it's dry-hopped with Simcoe.

The breweries have injected the Dogfish DNA directly into this beer, but for such a unique brewing method they have created quite a traditional tasting beer. Sessionable and very moreish, it is an example of balanced British brewing. The Simcoe hops on the nose give their typical citrus and pine aromas and the careful use of malt has created a dry beer with just a hint of sweetness which aids its inherent moreishness. The citrussy bitterness builds with every mouthful and like any good pint, when the end of the glass gets closer you start thinking about the next one. 

DNA is available now on cask at selected Charles Wells and Young's/Geronimo's pubs during April and will also be available in bottles and keg.

The Charles Wells yeast is set to take the return trip to Delaware to be part of the US version of this very interesting experiment. 

Look out for Episode 3 of the Beertalkers for an exclusive interview with Sam and Jim where they share their thoughts on Craft beer.

Beer Cheese Slices

Flicking through my cookbooks looking for beery inspiration I came across something interesting in the weighty and but approachable Modernist Cuisine at Home. My eye is always drawn to any recipe that uses beer in an interesting way. The "Perfectly Melting Cheese Slices" recipe uses wheat beer in an emulsion with  cheese which lends it the slightly plasticky quality of a cheese slice. It was a lightbulb moment, if this recipe can be used with any cheese and any beer, the combinations are limitless. Indeed you could use any cheese and beer pairing to make the cheese slices of your dreams.

You can see the melting cheese slice levitating in this sandwich.

I settled on two types of cheese slice. For St Patrick's day I went for a Guinness and strong cheddar slice and just for the hell of it a weissbier and goat cheese slice.

The recipe requires Sodium Citrate as an emulsifying agent which can be purchased here. I was planning to give you a tested recipe for home made sodium citrate using lemon juice and bicarb. But believe me that the cost of the ingredients, the effort that goes into it and the quality of the final unpurified product means it is much easier and cheaper to buy a big tub. It will last you ages and can be used for all sorts of emulsifying needs (the cheese sauce recipe in the book is delicious).

Stout and cheddar at the front, slightly gooier goats cheese and weissbier at the back

The recipe is easy and is as follows for the cheddar/stout version. The original can be found here

Makes 500g (12-14 Slices)

Ingredients

130 mL stout

14g sodium citrate

380g grated strong cheddar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to its lowest temperature.

2. Lightly oil some baking sheets and place in the oven to warm while you prepare the cheese.

3. Combine the beer and sodium citrate in a pot, stir until dissolved, and then bring to a simmer over medium heat.

4. Gradually add shredded cheeses to the simmering liquid. Use a handheld stick blender to blend in each addition until it has melted and is completely smooth.

5. Pour the liquid cheese mixture onto a warm baking sheet. Tip the sheet as needed to form an even layer. 

6. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until fully set, at least 2 hours. Then slice 'em up and put them on a burger.

For the goats cheese do the same but with these quantities of ingredients

75 mL Wheat beer

11g sodium citrate

380g chopped up gooey goats cheese, rind and all.

Some advice:

• Because the beer requires some heating it is probably best to be wary of strongly hopped IPAs. The bitterness can become unpleasant with extended heating. 
• It seems that harder cheese works better for this. You can put more beer in and therefore more beer flavour. 
• Get those oven trays quite hot so you can spread the cheese mixture quickly and thinly.
• Do a test spoonful of the cheese, if it sets too quickly or thickly add a little more beer to the mixture and beat it hard to get it to mix in before trying again.