All posts tagged beer

St Stefanus : A Beer Brewed To Mature In The Bottle

by Andrew on August 20, 2012 in Online Retailers, Taste with No comments

st stafanusNow available from Majestic - St Stefanus Beer, an authentic Belgian Abbey Beer will offer UK consumers a new and unique beer experience. Combining tradition with brewing expertise, the speciality beer matures in the bottle allowing you to choose the way you want your beer to taste.

St Stefanus is brewed and bottled in Belgium by Master Brewer, Jef Versele. Jef Versele’s family has over six generations worth of brewing experience. It is this extensive heritage and expertise that ensures St Stefanus is created using the finest ingredients and expert techniques.

After brewing, the unpasteurised beer is stored for three months before released from the cellar to allow it to develop deep and complex aromas. At three months, St Stefanus Beer has a fresh and fruity taste and at 18 months of maturation, it develops a deep golden colour offering a beer with aromatic flavours.

Each bottle of St Stefanus is signed by Jef Versele, the Master Brewer, and also features the release date, so you can choose the beer’s age and consume it at your preferred taste. UK beer lovers looking for something a little different are sure to appreciate the mature, deep taste of this authentic beer.

St Stefanus Beer - 7% ABV - 330 ml and 750ml – RRP £2.95 and £8.95

Available from selected Majestic stores and online www.st-stefanus-shop.co.uk


WJKing Places QR Codes in Pubs

by Andrew on November 15, 2011 in On The Web with No comments

wj king beersAward-winning micro-brewery WJ King has become the first brewery in the world to put their head brewer into every pub. Exploiting new technology, the Brewery has added a unique QR code to the pump clip and bottle label of each of its 25 beers. Scanning this code with a smartphone enabled by the freely available QR App, automatically links to a video of Head Brewer, Ian Burgess, talking about that specific beer and the ingredients from which it is made.

Real Ale is the fastest growing sector in the pub trade and new style microbreweries like WJ King are attracting a new generation of real ale fans all over the South East of England. This new generation of beer drinkers is passionate about what they eat and drink and they have a real thirst for knowledge about the provenance, ingredients and manufacturing process of what they are drinking.

Marketing Director Orla Lambe comments: “This is such a fantastic and obvious way to communicate with our customers at the point they are deciding which beer to choose, that we are sure other brewers will follow our example. It will be great for the consumer and we are very proud of being the first brewery in the world, we believe, to put our Head Brewer in every pub.”

WJ King Head Brewer, Ian Burgess, is more knowledgeable about beer than most, due to his 32 years of experience in the business and he is very proud of the natural ingredients and traditional brewing techniques that go into every pint of WJ King beer.

Ian comments “We want to ensure that customers really understand the style and flavour characteristics of each of our beers and how they are made, to allow them to make an informed choice of which beer to try. Being able to see me in the brewery talking about each beer will hopefully help them to develop their pallet and understand a little bit about the art of the brewer.”

The videos of Ian talking about the beers are also available to view on the Brewery website at www.kingbeer.co.uk and on YouTube at youtube.com/user/WjkingBeer for customers who do not have smartphones.

Brendan Shannon, Food and Beverage Manager of the Metropole Hilton Hotel in Brighton says “this is the most innovative way to get customers to choose one beer over another I have ever seen. It is genius and yet so simple and a great learning tool for my bar staff too”…..

The Big Lunch Beer Challenge

by Andrew on June 14, 2010 in On The Web, Tasting Events/Shows with No comments

A little bit about the The Big Lunch Beer Challenge, an extra to the Big Lunch…

- The Big Lunch is an annual event which encourages people to sit down with their neighbours for lunch on one day of the year, Sunday July 18th, in a simple act of friendship and community.

- The Big Lunch Beer Challenge is about finding the rising stars in home brewing. They are inviting the home brewers of the UK to brew a special beer for their local ‘Big Lunch’ and then to hold back six bottles to send to the Sharp’s judging panel.

- The prize for the winner will be to work with the Head Brewer of Cornwall’s Sharp brewery, Stuart Howe, at the brewery in Rock to brew a commercial batch of the winning beer. He also has a blog: http://brewingreality.blogspot.com/

You can find out more info on the challenge (and enter) following this link: www.thebiglunchbeerchallenge.com – deadline for entries is 10th July 2010.

Michelin Starred Kinloch Lodge offers ‘beer flights’ matched to every dish

by Andrew on March 2, 2010 in Eating Out with 1 Comment

Kinloch Lodge on the Isle of Skye, owned by bestselling cookery writer Claire Macdonald, is championing the offer of ‘beer flights’ on its recently Michelin-Starred menu.

Sixteen beers have been selected for the list, and fifteen of these are from Scotland.

Tom Eveling, who manages Kinloch Lodge with his wife Isabella, selected the beers so as to offer guests a wide and gastronomically appealing list. It is one of the most extensive bottled beer lists of any restaurant in Scotland.

The beer flights have been matched to every dish on the menu and sit alongside the restaurant’s established wine flights, malt whisky flights and the ‘beer and a dram chasers’.

The Scottish beers include examples from the islands of Skye, Black Isle, Orkney and Arran whilst the Scottish mainland is represented by Edinburgh, Alva, Alloa and Fraserburgh: All manner of colours and styles of beer are on the list with ingredients as exotic as heather, seaweed and raspberries – historic beer ingredients popular in Britain before the arrival of hops in the 1500s.

Sam Smiths raspberry beer from Yorkshire is the only English beer.

Tom Eveling comments:

“Choosing the best flights to match each dish has been a real eye-opener. People still seem to think that wine is smart and wonderful with food and that, for some unknown reason, beers are not. They are wrong. The reaction from our diners has been very positive. Several have expressed both surprise and delight at the pairings, and there has been genuine interest in trying the new experiences which our beer flights offer.

“Scotland now brews a myriad of fantastic beers. I believe we should be proud of what we brew and match it to all our wonderful Scottish food. It would have been a real oversight not to offer this choice on our menu.

“My current favourite pairing is the Innis & Gunn Blonde, an oak aged beer from Edinburgh, with our ‘Fruits from the Loch’ dish; while my wife Isabella loves our cheese course - Strathdon Blue, with prune and orange mousse, Perthshire honey jellies and savoury cinnamon syrup matched with Ola dubh.

Tom is passionate about offering ‘flights’ to diners because he and Head Chef Marcello Tully believe this is the best way to match the tastes on the plate with those in the glass.

A Berry Good Beer from the Eden Project and Sharp’s

by Andrew on January 29, 2010 in In the Press with No comments

A new seasonal beer created by Sharp’s Brewery and the Eden Project has been flavoured with some very special ingredients - berries picked from bushes at the project’s site in Bodelva. Sloes, rosehips and hawthorn berries were picked by Eden staff in October and then used by Sharp’s head brewer Stuart Howe to create Winter Berry Ale, the latest in the brewery’s Seasonals range.

Winter Berry is a cask conditioned beer with a dark ruby colour, full of vibrant berry flavours, with the sharp fruitiness of the berries balanced and enhanced by the use of top quality malts and hops. This winter beer is now available in pubs across the country and in the Eden Project’s own restaurants and bars.

For the Seasonals range, the Eden team has unearthed the unusual, sometimes forgotten plant products used to flavour beer. The other beers in the range are 6 Hop IPA (spring), Honey Spice (summer) and Red Ale (autumn).

Complementing the new brew is a special pint glass which has a unique ingredients panel on the back.

Tracey Smith, Eden’s Commercial Relationship Manager, said: “It’s great to have worked with Sharp’s on this range, combining our plant expertise with their brewing know-how. Together, we have produced a selection of beers showcasing the best local ingredients that are proving to be a hit with drinkers.

“The glass adds that extra Eden touch too. We’re all about illustrating the relationship between plants and people and if people sipping on their pints get to the bottom of the glass knowing a little more about what goes into their beer, then all the better.”

The relationship between Eden and Sharp’s is long established and has previously produced Eden Pure Ale, which continues to be a popular part of the brewery’s bottle range.

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