The Session Goes Local on the Road

“The Session,” as regular On the House readers will know, is the Beer Blogging Day that falls on the first Friday of the month and sees an international gang of beer scribes and bloggers all reviewing a beer or beers chosen along the same style theme. This time out, Snekse, of the Gastronomic Fight Club, has chosen for us a theme rather than a style. That theme is Local Brews.

As I note over at my other blog, Beaumont’s Beer Blog , “local,” for me, can mean anything from what’s down the road from my home to the brewery around the corner from wherever I happen to be in the world at the time. And at this time, I happen to be on the Scottish island of Islay, where about 15 minutes up the road resides Islay Ales.

Started “as a joke” by Paul Capper, Paul Hathaway and Walter Shobert in 2003, Islay Ales is as small an operation as commercial breweries come, but does some wonderful work nevertheless. (And, I should add, some marvelous merchandising, as well. Their shop just outside the town of Bridgend is almost twice the size of their brewery, carrying all sorts of branded merchandise from sweaters to pencils.) They brew several different ales on a regular and seasonal basis, including the beautifully balanced Angus Og Ale, which I was supping between drams last night at the Bowmore Distillery’s rollicking “Burach,” or ceilidh, presented as part of the Islay Festival of Malt and Music.

For this Session, however, I decided to focus on the brewery’s hoppiest ale, the 5% alcohol Single Malt Ale.

If you’re a Scottish ale aficionado, you’ll appreciate that beers with high hopping rates are a bit of an anomaly in this country, so the brewers can perhaps be forgiven for the slight lack of malty balance fund in this otherwise appetizing and delicious bright golden ale. Certainly there is nothing wrong with its rich and fragrant nose, holding notes of peach and fresh mandarin behind robust florals, or the lightly fruity start that explodes into a body of spicy, piney hop backed by cling peach notes and a whiff of citrus. But the finish is somewhat harsh, with citrus peel and lemon lingering on the tongue along with sharp, bitter, spicy hop.

All said, though, I would have no problem sipping this as an aperitif, alongside a good curry – it would be nice if the town of Bowmore’s otherwise excellent Taj Mahal restaurant would add this to their lamentable selection of Cobra and Tennents lagers – or on it own as a summertime thirst quencher.

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[snekse]

The Session #4: Local Brews Round-Up is now posted!