Craft Beer Rising London 2017

Last weekend we went to Craft Beer Rising beer festival in London's Brick Lane. This is a yearly tradition for us, and it was great once again. We met some old friends, made new acquaintances and tasted some excellent beers and ciders. Here is only a quick overview of the beers tasted, accompanied with a few photos.

Hoppy Seabird is a new craft beer range by Gower Brewery in Swansea in Wales. These were lovely new beers to get to know. They also had a friendly and enthusiastic guy talking about the beers and the brewery. I just loved their branding. 

My lovely partner won me a t-shirt featuring this dinosaur from the Butcombe Brewing Co.'s wheel spinning game. What a good win and nice beers to go with it. Their dinosaur beer's logo is one of my favourites anyway. I always appreciate good artwork on beverages and food, and that can be a major factor when making purchase decisions.

There were also some Scandinavians preset: Amundsen and Ægir breweries from Norway had brewed an excellent collaboration beer. We visited Ægir in Norway last autumn, so it was nice to see them in this country. I hope both breweries will be successful in the British market. From Sweden there was Kungsbryggeriet from Stockholm, once again great beers.

Prancing Pony Brewery from New Zealand was another new acquaintance for us. I really liked their beer and branding, and we also bought a couple of bottles to take home. We are still saving them for a special occasion.

We already visited UBREW last autumn in the Bermondsey Beer Mile in London, but I just had to get another dinosaur beer. 

Some of our old friends were luckily there, it's always nice to see a familiar face: Big Hug Brewery with their lovely beers and cans, Goose Island, who now even had a tap room downstairs, Caple Road ciders had some new products to taste, and on the snack side my favourites, Karkli, spicy handmade Indian style lentil snacks.

We didn't eat a lot there, as the vegetarian food offering seemed to be a little bit less this year. We managed to get a decent mac'n'cheese though. However I would have hoped for a bit more veggie food. 

 

So this was it, hopefully we can go again next year.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Craft Beer Rising London

Here are a few photos from my visit yesterday to Craft Beer Rising beer and cider festival in London. This year I thought that it was even better than ever, as they had moved it into a slightly bigger and brighter part of the Old Truman Brewery. We tasted many different beers and only one cider, but it was very good.

The highlight of the festival for me were Mikkeller. I hadn't seen them on the list of the brewers in advance, so I wasn't expecting them to be there. Their Blueberry Bluebic and Peter, Pale and Mary Pale Ale were just amazing beers. I was sad that the bluebic sold out before I could have more, but on the other hand glad to see that it was successful.

Big Hug Brewery had some excellent beers once again and they are just such nice people, so it's a pleasure to support their brewery. Also by buying their beer you can save the rain forest at the same time.

From Goose Island we tasted this amazing stout, which has been aged in bourbon barrels. I might make a separate post about it later, as we also took a couple of bottles for take away, but it was just incredible, so not sure if I could find the right words to describe it.

As I mentioned we concentrated more on beers this time, but the new cider I detected is a really significant find and they had quite a proud cider section this year, which was nice to see. You might remember my recent review of the Caple Road cider. Well, they were there introducing their new dry version of the Caple Road! I really liked it, and I would expect to post more about this soon. 

Also the food offering was better this year and we got to taste some yummy vegetarian street food like margherita calzones and Indian lentil snacks. I was so happy that we took a six pack of cheese and onion pies by Square Pie with us for the train journey back. No train snack has ever been better, I now also want to make some mini pies!

So that was my day out yesterday, today I'll be just chilling and cooking at home.

Your VegHog

Craft Beer Rising 2015

Last Saturday I visited a beer festival called Craft Beer Rising in London for the second time (here is my last year's post of my visit there). I liked the event so much the last time around that I knew I would return again. This year it might not have been the perfect timing after an excessive beer tasting trip to Belgium, but at least these beers were now quite different. Again I had some pretty special beer tasting experiences from mostly the UK, but also the US. Here follow some notes on the beers and ciders that I tasted.

Bear Hug Brewing: I tasted this nice Hibernation White IPA (5,2 %) already last year and was hoping that the Bear Hug Brewing would show up at the festival again this year. They are very friendly people promoting some excellent beers. The Himalayan Red Rye Ale (5 %) was a new beer for me. It tasted of pine and grapefruit with rye bread toast and had a long bitter finish.

Purity Brewing Company: Longhorn IPA (5 %) is a fresh, well-balanced beer that has almost like sweet grassy aftertaste and heads of tropical fruit. They had really cute cow beer cans there, but unfortunately the cans weren't on sale at the festival. Surely I can get them online...

Orchard Pig: Hog Father (7,4 %), was the only cider I tasted now, but It's Hog Father! As you may already know, the Orchard Pig ciders are some of my main favourites at the moment. This one was a few months ago couple of times at my local pub on tap. It's a strong still cider with a slight cinnamon flavour and vanilla in the aftertaste.

Black Isle Brewing Co.: Hibernator (7 %) is an oatmeal stout, and I wouldn't have thought that it could be this good. Because I had never tasted an oatmeal stout before, I was being somehow sceptical. The beer has bitter chocolate notes with rum and raisin. There's a liquorice and coffee smell and a smooth rich malty finish. Smoked Porter (5,5 %) seemed like the most unlikely beer for me to like, but I absolutely loved it! It has tar and whisky smell, slightly woody taste, hint of raisins. It's smooth and smoky with an aftertaste like Islay whisky.

London Fields Brewery: A local London brewery with tasty beers with nice names like the Shoreditch Triangle IPA (6 %) that has some grassy hoppy notes, has been dry hopped, dry, aromatic and tastes like a home brew. Hackney Hopster (4,2 %) is a Pacific Pale Ale that has a somewhat German style malty character and is more continental.

Beavertown: I do adore the Beavertown beers in the quirky cans and often buy them at my local beer shop. Now I didn't find the people serving especially friendly, so it also seems to have been that off putting that I forgot to write down any notes on the beers. I drank Gamma Ray (5,4 %) American Pale Ale and Bloody 'Ell (7,2 %) Blood Orange IPA. However these might appear in my blog later for a review.

Euroboozer: I tried the Schremser Bio-Roggen (5,1 %), which is an organic Cloudy Rye Beer. This beer was unfortunately served a little bit too cold. Rye would have tasted better at a warmer temperature.

Founders Brewing Company: These Founders products are just exquisite and came with a very nice service. Backwoods Bastard (10,2 %) is a Barrel Aged Scottish Ale with a blast of caramel whisky, toffee, vanilla and raisins. It's also very smooth. I have tasted the All Day IPA (4,7 %) before. Its tasting notes are resin, pine, maybe papaya and it's very fresh and easy to drink.

Hopefully this could give you some guidance for choosing quality beers, or to inspire you to visit the festival next year in London or at its other locations. Here are also a couple of atmospheric London photos I took on my way home.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Your VegHog