h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tonight I 'ave mostly been drinkin' gose.

This is a beer style I've never had before because there aren't many places that brew it, even in its native Germany. This is the style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gose and this is the actual beer http://realalebrewing.com/beers/gose

It's kind of unusual for Real Ale to make something like gose for an anniversary beer - their anniversary brews have usually been big, bold beers, like the 15th anniversary Russian imperial stout. That was a nice beer, and I still have a few bottles left

At 4.4%, the gose is borderline session beer, and so, so refreshing - a slight tartness, a crisp wheat character, a little salty, and a good hit of coriander. Perfect for this time of the year in Texas.

Speaking of which, Austin Beerworks Einhorn (Berliner weiss) should be hitting the taps any time now

Ooh, I had the same one a few weeks ago. Matter of fact, I was so impressed with it I bought my first growler bottle filled with it for a weekend biker rally in Llano. The cute bartender insisted that it was "Her" beer and I wasn't allowed to have any more as she poored me my second pint. It was excellent. It is what Bud Light Lime pretends to be. It is a bit salty, with a small lime kick and is the perfect Texas Summer beer. I doubt I'll get another chance to taste it.

It's a limited edition in that it's their 18th anniversary beer, but they kept making fresh batches of the 15th - I'd often go to the beer shop and see more four-packs of it, even a year later, which I'd always grab one or two of. Hopefully they'll make some more of the gose too

Tonight I 'ave mostly been drinkin' Courage Imperial Russian Stout.

This is, reputedly, the very first Russian imperial stout, as made for the Russian empress Catherine II, who liked a bit of a tipple. It's gone through several name changes as the brewery changed hands and was eventually subsumed by one of the Big Six in the 1970s - Courage. The same Courage who made all those Chas and Dave ads for Courage Best in the 80s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6rsPPqSAuk

These days it's made by Wells and Young, which used to be Charles Wells of Bedford, and Young's of Wandsworth before they merged, who bought the rights to Courage's brands some years ago. It's supposedly made to an old (but probably not the original) recipe. It certainly tastes like it might be - there's a definite tartness to it, which there would have been all those years ago. It's also a beer that can be aged for decades. Here's a record of a 40-year vertical tasting of the stuff http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/courage-irs-a-40-year-vertical-tasting/ (no, not every single year).

My bottle is a mere three years old. But I have two others to sit on for another 40 years

By which time I'll be 97

Last night I 'ave mostly been drinkin' (512) Whiskey Barrel Aged Double Pecan Porter (2014).

Take a beer that's already got a bit of oomph, brew it to almost double strength, then age it in bourbon barrels for a while and put it into 750ml bottles. Oh my This is definitely a beer that improves with age, so I drank this one a bit young, strictly speaking, but it was still damn tasty.

One beer I'm unlikely to be drinking, however, is this one http://jesterkingbrewery.com/jester-king-fantome-del-rey

It's funny, the way that Texas' anti-regulation dogma doesn't extend to the business of making alcohol, whether it be wine, beer, cider or spirits

These supposed anti-regulation libertarians have absolutely no qualms regulating personal issues. That was the trade-off they made when they invited religious conservatives into their tent.

Pre-cisely.

Tonight I 'ave mostly been drinkin' tea. Not beer.

And eatin' chocolate cake. Home made. With chocolate sauce. Not home made.

Tonight I 'ave mostly been drinkin' Bass. Now I remember why I don't drink Bass any more.

It's not Bass anymore.

There's a strange little wrinkle in this, and I can't remember exactly which way it goes. It's something like - Anheuser Busch InBev owns the rights to the name, but MillerCoors make a version of it, or perhaps they make Bass No. 1 Barley Wine, at the British Brewing Heritage Centre in Burton, which they own. Or did a few years ago, at least. Bass Pale Ale is brewed under licence at the Marston's brewery. The Bass you drink in the US is brewed in New York, I think.

I haven't really kept up with all this stuff since I stopped writing for the Drafthouse.

Either way, it's not brewed with a Burton Union like it used to be.

Whatever the details, the swill they sell here in the States is undrinkable, fit only to collect snails from your garden.

All this talk of beer reminds me that I haven't seen a post from Mu Beta for a long time. I hope that's not an indication of another old stalwart who's decided to move on.

Tonight, and for the past few nights, I 'ave mostly been drinkin' Real Ale 18th Anniversary Gose.

When I started going to to pubs and drinking beer, which would have been around 1973 or '74, I could never have believed that half the beer styles I drink these days existed, or could even be thought of as beer as I knew it - bitter and pale ale. The only stouts I knew of were Guinness and Mackeson. Russian imperial stout was unknown to me. Porter was a beer that had disappeared years ago. Mild was also something I thought had disappeared, until I moved to Manchester.

But I had no idea of the existence of most Belgian styles, and anything German that wasn't lager. Hefeweizen, witbier, Berliner Weisse, Lambics, sour beer, tart beer, rauchbier, all would have been something I could hardly even conceive of as being beer.

And then there's gose. a wheat beer brewed with coriander and salt. It doesn't sound too appetising, does it, but it is, and Real Ale have added lime to this version. There's a huge hit of coriander (which is also in witbier) when you open the can, which only slightly goes away as you drink your way through the beer. It's not salty, but nothing you put salt into should be - salt brings out the flavours of foods.

It's also quite sweet, and gets sweeter as it warms up. Let it get too warm by drinking it slowly and it gets a bit unpleasant, but drinking it quickly isn't too much of a problem because it's only about 4.5% ABV.

It's a perfect beer, at least for an initial thirst quencher, in the Texas summer heat. I don't know if I could drink more than two of them, the way I could drink Berliner Weisse all evening.

Beer with salt and coriander. Whatever next.

Tonight I 'ave also been mostly been eatin'

I do like that RA 18th Anni. gose. I had a can of it at a wonderful (but tiny) gastropub called Nobi Thursday evening. Tonight I had a couple of other wonderful Summer beers. One is by a small local brewery, Texas Beer Refinery's Tex's Blonde. It's very pleasant. Just a bit sweet, not hoppy but a bit of spice. I followed this with another blonde, Odell's Loose Leaf. This is a really nice session beer. It has a bit more flavor and aroma than most blondes without being bitter or "perfumey". I've taken a six pack of this to a motorcycle rally (tent camping) and it was one that I quite enjoyed on a warm Texas afternoon in Llano. I liked it even better on tap tonight after a hot bicycle ride.

I haven't had much Odell's since they came to Texas some months ago, and no Jolly Pumpkin yet, but I'll be remedying that on Thursday with a glass or two from a cask of... well, they're not saying which Jolly Pumpkin beer it is yet.

The only other Odell beer I've had the opportunity to try is their 90/ Scottish style. It was hoppier than it needed to be but I still found it pleasant.

Oh, and one of the worst beers I've ever had was an American version of a Scotch ale, Rogness Rook. It tasted like a Doctor's office. If Band-Aid® is a flavor you like then by all means, try it.

I haven't had Rook for a while now, but I don't remember it being like that. A Band Aid flavour is a recognised beer fault, called phenolic by brewers, so you might have got a bad batch. I'll have to try it again, I think. I recall it being very peaty.

Scottish beers can be as hoppy as English beers, by the way. A bit of misinformation, a beer myth, has grown up around the idea that Scottish-brewed beer was generally sweeter and less hoppy than English-brewed beer because hops don't grow so well up north, but the Scottish brewers imported large amounts of hops from England.

I no longer give as much credence to the style guidelines put out by the BJCP and the Brewers Association as I used to, because beer styles don't have to be as rigid as that, nor they always historically accurate. They're just there for the sake of guiding judges, mostly, and for brewers to make beer in a way that judges will recognise.

That Rook could very well been a bad keg. It took weeks to empty that small keg.