Clown Shoes Galactica DIPA (8%) - Harpoon Brewery, Boston, MA, USA

As it says on Clown Shoes Beer website, the brewery's motto is to produce beer without pretension while being free and a little crazy. I think we can all agree that's an decent philosophy which also goes some way to explaining the totally bonkers themes of their beers. I pulled this one out of my fridge and up, up and away I went with the courageous hop staff-wielding woman on the front of the can on her quest to promote good beer...

The style of this particular brew is a first to feature here: the Double IPA, or DIPA. This is a style big on hops and big on booze, which left me big on hope of what was to come.

Galactica Double IPA pours a hazy dark amber with a healthy surge of off-white head, making for a very inviting glass of beer. 

Massachusetts within the USA

As you'd expect from a beer dry-hopped with three different hop varieties (one of which being the very apt Australian GALAXY hop), you're greeted on the nose with a big hoppy whiff of tropical peach and mango, a trail of a spirity note from the 8% ABV following closely behind.

Like a space shuttle navigating through a meteor shower, my mouth was bombarded with everything at once (except in my case, of course, that was a good thing): A rich malty base is complimented by juicy pine notes and contrasted with a huge dose of citrus hops, which leave a strong, bitter aftertaste. It's thick and juicy with a semi-dry finish, and a lingering, alcoholic warmth.

Galactica's punchy flavours mean nothing is lost when it's cold but there's plenty of complexity to delve into when it's not. What had started off as a tasty, refreshing brew when it emerged cool from my fridge, ended up a rich, warming beverage when it finally reached room temperature, and both brought me enjoyment of cosmic proportions.

Rating ★★★★★★★★☆☆

🍻Cheers us on Facebook🍻

The brewery
Website here 
Facebook page here

Where to buy
£3.80 from Left Field Beer

Irish IPA (6%) - Crafty Brewing Company, Co. Kildare, Ireland

On a weekend food shop at Lidl in Calpe, Spain, there were a number of things on our shopping list that were to sustain us over the couple of days we were there - crisps, milk, bread, ingredients to be placed in amongst the bread - but the search was put on a prolonged hold as soon as I entered the beer aisle. 

Highly prominent among the impressive selection was a range of beers from this Irish brewery, leading me to wonder whether Calpe had a particularly high concentration of Irish expats, but it emerged that the Crafty Brewing Company (AKA Rye River Brewing Co) brew exclusively for Lidl as part of Lidl's craft beer range, the hipsterèsque moustache on the label seemingly hinting at the beer's crafty nature. 

This beaut poured a hazy golden amber topped with a lovely puffy white foam, and I knew straight away things were off to a good start.

Sticking my nose in for a whiff I was greeted by a potent mix of tropical fruits, sweet pine and a slightly herbal quality that all in all makes for a uniquely inviting character that would've had my moustache twitching for more if I had one.

Co. Kildare within Ireland

I wasted no time in diving in for a gulp and out of nowhere this crafty bugger pummelled my mouth with enormous bitter hop flavours, along with a few handfuls of peaches, apricots and mandarin segments.

Thick and juicy with a dry finish, this fruity blend's flavours linger on for you to enjoy long after you've sipped, along with a lil kick from the 6% ABV. 

Having wondered what qualities an Irish IPA might yield it's clear that this one has opted for the BIG New World character we've all come to love about the style, although taking its hops from Down Under rather than across the pond has brought about an interesting, complex flavour with a difference, and that's to be sure to be sure. 

Appearance 3.5
Aroma 4.5
Flavour 4
Mouthfeel 3.5
Overall 8/10 

Like Beer There, Drunk That on Facebook

Rye River's website
Rye River on Facebook

Crafty Dan 13 Guns American IPA (5.5%) - Thwaites Brewery, Lancashire, England

Barely a week has passed since my craft-beer-in-a-cannie virginity was taken and I can't help but go back for more, this time from another English brewery that's embraced the craft beer drinking community's new-found appreciation for cans, a brewery that's not only remained a family brewery for two hundred years, but has caught up with recent craft beer trends with astonishing nimbleness, whilst at the same time retaining its heritage with its core range of classic, traditional ales. It's managed this by opening a craft microbrewery in 2011, giving rise to its Crafty Dan range, one beer from which I took a particularly close look at.

Lancashire within England

The refined looking can design pictures a cannon with six cannonballs, perhaps representing each blast you can expect from the whopping six hops used. With a new trend for extravagant artwork taking hold, I like to think of Thwaites' more understated approach as a statement of another kind, a sophisticated bucking of the trend.

The beer pours a gorgeous dark amber with an off-white head that settles to a perfectly compact, puffy cushion.

The intense hit of hops promised on the can is delivered as soon as your nose swoops in, with resinous pine and tropical mango aromas presenting an unmistakable New World character.

One swig brings another big wash of juicy pine and mango flavours, joined by some citrusy lemon and lime notes, as well as grapefruit to add some bitterness, balanced by an undercurrent of caramel biscuit sweetness. The contrasting qualities of six intense hops with four kinds of malt make for a rich and complex flavour that at the same time remains astonishingly balanced and highly quaffable.

Full-bodied and well-rounded with a medium-dry finish, 13 Guns is fresh, intense, fruity and clean. At the same time it delivers on big New World flavours but opts for sophistication over brashness, being in-your-face yet staying effortlessly classy, keeping the measured character of a beer whose recipe tastes like it's been devised with extreme precision. Crafty Dan has proven to be one masterful son of a gun.

Appearance: 5/5
Aroma: 4.5/5
Flavour: 5/5
Mouthfeel: 4/5
Overall rating: 9/10

Thwaites Brewery
Web: http://danielthwaites.co.uk
Twitter: @Daniel_Thwaites
Facebook: CraftyDanMicro

Cwtch (4.6%) - Tiny Rebel Brewing Co, Newport, Wales

Tiny Rebel, founded in 2012, is among the newer breweries that have shown their gusto for the recent craft beer revolution by sporting outlandish and original label designs like the dark-humoured, psychedelic one on Cwtch (which is pronounced /kʊtʃ/ and is a Welsh word that means "cuddle", something the neglected teddy bear that seems to have lost his way in life pictured on the bottle is in severe need of).

Described as a "Welsh red ale" on the bottle, Cwtch pours more of a brown-amber colour, but held up to the light it can be seen glowing in all its ruby-red glory. A small, off-white head fizzles gently until it settles to a thin layer, but grows a good finger-width high once the glass is swirled around in preparation for some whiffing action.

The aroma is a pungent one packed full of bold New World hops, with citrusy and tropical characteristics of pine and mango. If you sniff around for long enough, which I tend to do to my beers like a deranged dog hoping to find one last treat, some crystal malts start to ooze through as well.

Monmouthshire within Wales

The juicy pine and mango hop flavours are just as bold on the tongue, met with an equally bold caramel malt backing, both working together like two different coloured cans of spray paint let loose to create a harmonious work of art on an unsuspecting urban wall. 

Despite the flavour frenzy that takes place in your mouth, Cwtch manages to stay extremely drinkable, dare I say moreish, with a thick, juicy mouthfeel leading to a long, dry finish tipping in favour of bitterness and an aftertaste just a fraction too stale for my palate. This is a rebellious brew indeed, reminiscent of an IPA but calling itself a WRA (Welsh red ale) and gives a whole new, even more exciting meaning to the sentence "Gimme a cwtch". 

Iechyd da!*

Appearance 3.5/5

Aroma 4.5/5

Flavour 4/5

Mouthfeel 3.5/5

Overall 7.5/10

*Cheers

Session IPA (4.2%) - Fourpure Brewing Co, London, England

One of the best things about being known within your circle of friends and family as a beer obsessive is that people know exactly what to get you for your birthday. Being presented with a large crate of previously unencountered small-batch craft beers does have its problems, though, such as demanding masses of self-restraint. Still, a year older and wiser, I should be able to pace myself sensibly. We'll see how that goes.

London within England

This entry marks the first time I've sampled a small-batch beer out of a can. There's a certain buzz around cans at the moment, widely being trumpeted as having benefits of keeping the beer fresh, fully protecting it against air and light and locking in the flavours of all the lovingly added hops. I've always had more of an appreciation for the bottle-conditioned stuff myself, but I'm up for trying new things and what better brewery to lose my craft beer cannie virginity to than the UK's first brewery to can all their beers from the start?

The can itself has a faint backdrop of the New York skyline, where this particular brew was inspired from. The sides of the can are lined with a malted barley pattern, like some kind of grainy skyscraper.

Session IPA pours a murky golden-amber colour, giving it the appearance of a soup you just want to slurp up. It has a small, bubbling head that leaves a clean glass (a tulip glass, as suggested by them) on its way down.

The aroma is of a wonderful smooth, floral nature with notes of lychee, becoming more pronounced as the beer warms up, which it's well worth giving it the chance to do.

More of those lychee flavours come through in the flavour with a zesty tangerine citrus note to add some bitterness. The big hop flavours complement each other nicely, creating a complex but harmonious character.

With a relatively smooth mouthfeel as you enjoy the fruity lychee qualities, this medium-bodied beer in contrast has a very dry finish which is well suited to it as an IPA, making it crisp and refreshing over all. Extremely quaffable and at 4.2% ABV, Session IPA does a fine job of fulfilling its purpose as an easy-drinking sessionable IPA (and craft-beer-in-a-can virginity taker).


Appearance 3.5/5
Aroma 3.5/5
Flavour 4.5/5
Mouthfeel 4/5
Overall rating 8/10

La Goudale (7.2%) - Brasserie de Gayant, Nord-Pas-De-Calais Region, France

I nabbed this beer (along with a trolley-load of others) from a French supermarket on the way to Belgium a few months ago, and after trying a few from this part of the world it's become clear that there's one prevalent style to have emerged from France and that's the farmhouse ale, or "keeping beer". Farmhouse-style being free-style in nature, though, means it's not necessarily predictable as we're about to find out.

La Goudale describes itself on the label as a traditional blonde beer of "high fermentation". What it means by that is that it's brewed in the style of an ale rather than a continental lager (i.e. with top-fermenting yeasts), which brings me to the name of the beer. "Goudale", as it explains on the label, was how the people of 14th century France would describe "good beer". In other words, "goudale" is a corruption of "good ale". And as if looking across the channel towards Blighty for a term to describe decent beer wasn't a big enough compliment, they went one step further to take the English term and make a new word out of it that even we don't have by referring to people who sold the stuff as "goudaliers".

It's a simple yellow-coloured label with the name of the beer printed on it in a kind of calligraphy style font and two small motifs of some hops and barley.

The beer itself is a nice clear, golden-copper colour (not represented in the photographs, I must admit) topped with a smooth, white head with good retention and some superb lacing down the glass once you get round to sipping it down. Bubbling lively from the bottom (of the glass, that is), it almost looks like a slightly darker lager. Since both other French farmhouse ales I've tried have been cloudy with sediment suspended in the glass, I was surprised to see this one pour clear. In this case, they must have decided to filter it.

On the nose it’s very, very gentle. There was something sweet lurking in there with the faintest hint of something herbal, but nothing concrete I could put my finger on. 

In the flavour, though, I wasn't disappointed. The first thing that came to mind once I'd had a sip was that it tasted different from the other ales I'd had from the same style (which isn't that unusual, given that it's a bit of an "anything goes" style, although you normally get similarities across the board).

My second impression came after a few seconds when, out of nowhere, the flavour developed into something else. Starting off fairly nondescript like the aroma, a bit of a malty sweetness going on with a slight herbal influence, you're suddenly faced with a wave of bready malts and honey and some stone fruits, along with some spicy hops and some Belgian-tasting clove flavours too. This then washes down when you swallow, allowing the 7.2% abv to warm your throat on the way down.

This lively wash of flavours makes it hard to pin down exactly what’s going on with the flavour, but what I can be sure of is a total absence of the mustiness I've experienced in other French keeping beers. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

After tasting the beer, with a helping hand from the effects of retro-nasal olfaction, you actually get more from the aroma when you go back to it. This time you can pick out more stone fruits, even some apple in there, and the bready aromas are complemented by some more hoppy, spicy and floral ones.

It’s medium-bodied with moderate carbonation, leaving a smooth mouthfeel overall, not leaving the musty dryness that, again, would normally come with a French keeping beer.

In fact, La Goudale seems so clean on every level that I was left to wonder just how "traditional" it was, as it claims to be on the label.

Saying that, it has a few surprises in store with a flavour that waits until it's washing around comfortably in your mouth before showing what it's capable of. And, even at a respectable 7.2%, it remains very drinkable.

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 3/5

Flavour 3/5

Mouthfeel 3.5/5

Beer Belly's rating: 7/10

Brewery details

Website: www.brasseurs-gayant.com  
Twitter: @brasseursgayant

Santa's Reserve (5.2%) - Ascot Ales, Surrey, England

You'd be forgiven for thinking that at the time of posting this, on the day of the Spring equinox, this is a late entry for a Christmas ale. But of the many different festive brews I sampled throughout the Christmas period (and I stocked up so well that I haven't even got through them all yet) this was one of the more unique ones I tried that was given to me as a well-received gift, and as a seasonal beer not everyone's heard of I thought I'd share it with you.

A little known fact about Santa is that when he isn't busy in his workshop he loves nothing more than to indulge in a bit of homebrewing, and so he's pictured on the bottle of Santa's Reserve kicking back with one of his ales as he relaxes by the fire. The same beer is served from a cask in local pubs under the name of Winter Reserve.

It pours a dark, murky mahogany colour with an enormous and lively cappuccino coloured head that settles into a puffy, snowy cushion. You'll also notice some sediment at the bottom of the bottle, an extra pinch of yeast that produces a natural effervescence and keeps the brew alive from Santa's cask all the way to your mouth. This traditional method is a good indicator that you're drinking something of quality, that a small team of elves have put their blood, sweat and tears into.

Surrey within England

On the nose you get all the things you want from a Christmas ale: chocolatey, fruity and spicy aromas, all smelling natural and not artificial. With a touch of ginger and cinnamon in there, the spicy aromas are the most dominant.

The sweet chocolate malts come through more noticeably in the taste, but spicy, bitter hops prevail, with peppery and herbal flavours leaving a dry finish on the pallet. The full body leaves you with a nice, Christmassy warming sensation.  

While you might expect richer, chocolatier and fruitier flavours from a Christmas ale, Ascot Ales seem to have focused on bringing out the festive spices instead, producing a beer that's probably more bitter and hoppy than you might expect. Whether it's to your taste or not, though, you know you're drinking something of quality, brewed in small batches and handcrafted (with the help of a few elves).

Beer Belly's Rating:

Appearance 5/5

Aroma 3/5

Flavour 3/5

Mouthfeel 4/5

Summary 7.5/10

Late Red (4.5%) - Shepherd Neame Brewery, Kent, England

We're about to leave the autumn months behind so I had to grab this one while it was still on the shelves. Late Red from "Britain's oldest brewer", Shepherd Neame in Faversham, Kent, is a seasonal autumn ale available from September to November. Full of auburn and copper colours on the label, it pictures hops dangling in the late autumn sunset, hinting at what flavours might lie inside.

The clear, characteristically Shepherd Neame-shaped bottle allows a good view of the wonderfully deep amber-ruby liquid inside, although we all know what that could mean: light strike.

It looks just as good in the glass, although the fizzy, off-white head doesn't amount to much and quickly fizzles into nothing.

Nosing about for some aroma, I pick up on berries, something roasted and a hint of toffee along with some hoppy citrus and a slightly herbal aroma from the Cascade and local East Kent Goldings hops, although the aromas are faint and hard to pin down.

Kent within England

Once I dive in the flavours become clearer, with a bittersweet mouthful of sweet toasted malts swishing around with herbal, floral and peppery flavours finishing with a dry and bitter aftertaste. Although complex in nature, I can't help feeling the flavours are a bit too diluted and accompanied by an unpleasant taste of soap (and that's not my fault - I gave the glass a good rinsing).

Late Red started off promising but the more it warmed up, the less I got on with it. Instead of bringing out the character, which is what a warmer temperature should do, it made me wonder if among those crisp autumn leaves a few had been blown out of a gutter.

The crisp, toasted, floral nature of Late Red makes it impressively fitting for this time of year, but if I pick one up again it will have to be chilled enough to mask some of the less welcome flavours.

   

Beer Belly's rating:

Appearance 3/5

Aroma 3/5

Flavour 2/5

Mouthfeel 2/5

Total 5/10

Boondoggle (5%) - Ringwood Brewery, Hampshire, England

"Down here in the New Forest," it says on the back of the label, "we call carefree, lazy days, 'Boondoggle days'". This beer from Ringwood brewery, situated just outside the New Forest in Hampshire has been conceived as just the excuse you need for a pint on those lazy, summer days (if an excuse is really what you needed). The free-living wild boar pictured chilling out on the bottle's golden-yellow label says it all.

Described as a blonde ale on the label, Boondoggle is probably darker than you'd expect. The colour of the label implies it will be a pilsneresque sparkly gold, but in reality what pours out is the kind of amber you're used to seeing from, well, an amber ale. The head is bright white, a little on the thin side and doesn't take long to disperse into a patchy layer with islands of small bubbles.

When I popped off the cap I was struck by the yeasty, bready aroma but once the first waft was out of the way mainly delicate hoppy, floral and herbal notes remained thanks to the First Gold and Fuggles hops. A combination of the yeast and citrus fruits with hints of marmalade remind me of a lemon drizzle cake; a combination I'm happy to try by all means.

Hampshire within England

Take a swig and you're presented with a thick and chewy liquid, smooth all but for the spicy tingling sensation on the back of the tongue which leaves a mildly dry finish, creating a moreish texture overall. The fruity flavour alternates nicely between sweet malts and bitter citrus, the bitter aftertaste becoming sweet and nutty when you exhale. It's interesting yet easy-going and certainly a fine candidate for a lazy summer session. Act with caution on a particularly warm day though, as the 5% ABV will make its presence felt!

Beer Belly's Rating:

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 3/5

Mouthfeel 4/5

Flavour 4/5

Total 7.5/10 

Have you tried Boondoggle from Ringwood Brewery? What do you think? Leave your comments and rating below!