Home Brewer Turning Brewer

David Bishop (@Broadfordbrewer) has been quite busy as of late with his garage brewing. He's given me four samples of his recent home brews, and to be honest, he's put a lot of hard work into these, and his recent home brewing in general. He asked me to let him know what I really thought, so instead of writing a couple of (slightly impersonal) 140 character tweets, I thought I'd let him really know what I think here.

Four different beers, four different styles.

Stylus; 4.5% Pale Ale.
I was talking about home brewing Pale Ales earlier today. I think it's a lot easier to brew a Porter or a Stout, because they're so full of flavour regardless, from the flavourful malts used. I think it's much harder to produce a good light % Pale Ale well, that has something more about it, these days. A little darker than expected. The aroma is all about the citrus fruits, grass and fresh hay topped off with loads of sherbet. It's slightly thin on the mouthfeel, but it has a nice, refreshing, depth of flavour which is similar to the aromas. Dry with a nice lasting bitterness.

Aire; 4.5% Porter.
This brew pours very dark brown with a chalky white head. The aroma is fruity with quite a bit of chocolate biscuit malt. I get a lot of light roasted bitterness and just a hint of that dairy like creaminess, you sometimes get in darker beers, in the body. A lasting chocolate malt dryness in the finish is quite prominent. As the beer warms up a bit I get a really nice burnt toast flavour, making the beer really moorish.

Damn Nation; 8.3% Belgian Golden Strong Ale.
This cloudy Golden Ale has some great aromas. Bananas and cream, lemons, rhubarb and custard penny sweets. It's certainly a Belgian Ale for sure. Loads of buzzing carbonation, a nice yeasty bready bite, all the flavours mentioned in the aroma and then some. It's a beautiful beer, which is definitely my pick of the bunch. It's better than a lot of Belgian beers we sell! I think I saw Dave asking if it would benefit from some more time in the bottle last night? (it's very fresh) - I don't really think so, it's pretty perfect now.

Progress; 6.1% IPA.
Last of the bunch comes an IPA. Progress sits in the glass with a clear deep amber orange hue. It has a lot of big juicy aromas. I'm getting grapefruits, tangerines and again, lots of sherbet dryness. I (and others) talked about IPA in my previous post, and this really seems like a UK style of Indian Pale Ale rather than a IPA. (Think a more fruity version of White Shield rather than a hop bomb US IPA.) Loads of sherbet tang in the the flavour. Moorish, easy drinking, and a pleasure to sup as I type.

I can only say thanks to Dave for passing these beers along to me. It's obvious that a lot of thought and hard work has gone into these beers, and when you do that you end up with something that you can be truly proud of. For now I'll keep a keen eye on what's happening in Bradford, but what I will say though is; when is this beer going to come along??