Harvey & Son Ltd, Lewes, East Sussex:
` I received a sample of this strong pale ale from an acquaintance who'd visited the Harvey Brewery after it suffered a huge loss after flooding in October 2000. This ale was produced with the malt left fermenting while the flood waters raged beneath. It's very red in colour, almost like an Amontillado sherry. Mmmm, it brought to mind walls and walled-in corpses, not floods. The first taste was surprisingly innocent for the strength, unlike the executioner it could prove to be. It was a very pleasant drop. It's good to know that if a brewery floods all is not lost...Harvey's Ouse Booze (6.5% ABV -- reviewed 16 April 2001)
Heist Brewery, Sheffield, South Yorkshire:
` This is a collaboration with Sheffield’s own Heist Brewery, so it’s an all-Sheffield collaboration. Brewed with Chinook, Cryo Cascade, Cryo Centennial and Cryo Simcoe hops, it tastes like my sense of smell has become recently: multi-faceted, four-dimensional, like walking down a street and smelling every garden, every fruit bowl, every kitchen, and every wet pavement all at once. It's definitely the character of fruit surrounded by ozone. This is a rapidly nature-appreciating brew. So if I stop at Triple Point after work, can I get a pint of this? If I walk down the hill to Heist, can I get a pint of this? Or do I have to meet somewhere midway? Let’s see, according to Google Maps and my pub triangulation, that would be the Kommune multi-venue dining centre in Sheffield City Centre, which does have a bar. Hmm, I wonder...Shots Fired West Coast IPA (7.2% ABV -- reviewed 3 October 2022)
Hermosa Brewing Company, Torrance, California:
` The can of this Czech pilsner features a graffiti-style graphic of a DJ. Brewed with Saaz hops, this is very full bodied, with the slightest bit of haze, and a slightly surprising sweetness to the start. When we first poured the beer,, Kim said it smelled buttery. Fortunately that buttery sweetness blew off after a few sips, and the beer became quite a pleasant pils.Czech Your Head (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 15 July 2024)
Highwater Brewing Company, Sacramento, California:
` This beer comes in a 16-ounce can, so it's a full US pint. Brewed with Citra and Mosaic hops, it's actually quite exciting, but it's probably not as stressful as watching a couple of macaques attacking each other with cleavers. Actually, I would say it's much, much, much less stressful.Monkey Knife Fight Hazy IPA (7.0% ABV -- reviewed 25 July 2023)
Hogs Back Brewery, Tongham, Surrey:
` This beer was the Silver Medal Winner in the Great British Beer Festival of 2000, not to mention the Best Bitter Gold Medal Winner. I have yet to try this on cask, but out of the bottle it poured well, imparting a fine quality bitterness, good for soothing a downtrodden spirit. As I downdrank my sample I noticed the label says "For the taste of yesteryear still enjoyed today." Well, as far as I know, this is today, not yesterday, although we're all living a fraction of a second in the past, so who's to say? Also on the label is "Best drink of the day." Mmmm, now that coffee time's over, yes! I heartily agree! This is a good traditional English bitter, precisely as it says on the label. Everything claimed is correct. It is not wrong. This is an honest, true, right, normal perpendicular beer, not the least bit crooked -- a straight beer for eccentric tongues to use as a roadmap. This is a clearly-posted beer, no detours -- so you'll be home in plenty of time for tea.T.E.A. (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 18 July 2001)
Hopback Brewery, Salisbury, Wiltshire:
` This is brewed with barley and wheat malts, maize, and Pioneer, East Kent Goldings, Spalter, and Saaz hops -- and coriander. It does what it says on the bottle. It's a delightfully hoppy, bitter, spicy, golden ale. To be a bit redundant I would say it's very very ultra satisfying.Crop Circle (4.2% ABV -- reviewed 31 May 2009)
Hoppy Road, Maxeville, France:
` This session IPA was one I purchased at a bottle shop in Bordeaux, and as I was so busy out visiting wine bars, wineries, and microbreweries, I brought this home with me to drink. Hopped with Embankment, Centennial, and HBC 630 hops, it’s a collaboration with Hazy, which is a bar in Paris. This beer was very mild and cute, not terribly exciting, but with that low an ABV in a can, one can’t always expect a roller-coaster ride. There was a gorgeous but slightly mysterious graphic on the can of a woman with a towel-wrapped head and body draped in a bathrobe, and she was smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder with a cat on her lap, an open book nearby, and several unidentified objects, all seemingly floating on their own little clouds. The illustrator was Maarten Donder, a Dutch artist and musician who lives in Paris. So basically this is proof that France is brewing great craft beers just like the UK and America. In fact, when I suggested to my Bay Area beer-tasting friend that we should meet in Paris some day and explore all the new breweries there, he heartily agreed. (Maybe some day? Well, anything’s possible...)Take It Hazy (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 18 May 2024)
Howling Hops, Hackney Wick, Greater London:
` Brewed with El Dorado, Azacca, and Citra hops, this is a pleasing sparkly hazy pale, very light in colour, with that sensuous sweatiness of El Dorado spiked with Azacca and sizzled with a slice-of-lemon touch of Citra. It was very pleasing on the equinox sort of day that I drank it. It was finally spring, the temperature was not quite so bitter cold, and it seemed like Life was good. What a lovely celebration of a beer. The simple graphic design on the can looks almost like op art. The Fun Loft Pale Ale(5.6% ABV -- reviewed 15 April 2024)
I drank this single hopped pale ale with Triumph hops on a frozen Friday, while Croatia played Brazil in the World Cup. As the 0-0 score quickly changed in the final minutes to 1-1, my fingers kept turning white from the cold. So I figured the Triumph hops should be good for my entire wimpy, nesh constitution. Triumph is yet another hops from Washington State which is gently aromatic and quite tasty.Thunderball Express (4.8% ABV -- reviewed 20 December 2022)
Humble Sea Brewery, Felton, California:
` This is a double dry-hopped foggy IPA with Citra, Azacca, and Nelson hops, and I chose this in the brewery's Santa Cruz bottle shop because I used to be an avid boogieboarder when I was in my teens. My friend Rick and I drank this late at night while we were sitting in our private patio overlooking the Santa Cruz Pier on the California coast while listening to the roar of sea lions. It was nice but a bit fruitier than what I would have preferred, and as my stomach was rumbling a bit from overroasted broccoli, I could have used something a bit drier.Boogie Board Olympics (6.4% ABV -- reviewed 4 July 2022)
Innis & Gunn, Edinburgh, Scotland:
` This is one of the most unusual beers I've had. Produced in a limited amount of only 64,000 bottles, this beer is aged in American White Oak casks which are hand-picked in Kentucky and shipped over to Scotland. Then the casks are locked inside a traditional Dunnage warehouse and aged for a minimum of 30 days. After blending the beer is matured for a further 47 days. What this results in is a strong hoppy beer with a fresh burst of orange and the classy oakiness of a fine California red wine -- that gorgeous wine the California vineyards don't export to the UK because they keep it for their own state. This is a truly fine beer. Fine. FINE! What a great unique character it has! I want to settle down by a roaring fire and read this beer, flicking its lovely pages with my fingers. An iPad simply would not do it justice.Innis & Gunn IPA (7.7% ABV -- reviewed 5 December 2010)
Jennings Brewing Company Cockermouth, Cumbria:
` Brewed with English Goldings and Slovenian hops, this is easy-drinking but sparklingly hoppy in that old-fashioned English pale hoppy way. I thought I recognised something: that distinct Goldings flavour from my Kent and Shepherd Neame days. I really like this theoretical beer! It's named in honour of John Dalton, who was from Cumbria and was famous for proposing in the early 1800s that all matter was composed of atomic bonds. That taste of Goldings reminds me of the olden days, when we were still allowed to kiss and hug each other, Britain was still part of Europe, the USA wasn’t in danger of becoming a fascist dictatorship, and lip-reading had not become an obsolete skill. Yep, I suppose that proves what a dinosaur I must be.Atomic Theory IPA (3.8% ABV -- reviewed 23 November 2020)
` This beer was name for the invention of the pencil in Cumbria, where graphite was discovered back in the 1500s. This is a hoppy beer, or HB, brewed with New World and Antipodean hops. It's pleasant and easy-drinking. I didn't try sketching a cartoon with the can, though.Fine Line (4.0% ABV -- reviewed 4 May 2020)
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