An American craft beer classic, Sierra Nevada’s flagship beer is nothing short of an absolute joy.

Fruity, spicy, lightly carbonated, with a lovely deep amber colour and a complex character awash with citrus notes and a deep, toasted flavour in the background.

It might be available everywhere, but it’s a great beer and a classic of its style.

I’m slightly embarrassed that I haven’t written about it sooner…

The Drunken Duck has an ace up its’ sleeve.

Out the back, they’ve got their own micro-brewery.

Barngates Brewery was founded in 1997, as an experiment to supply the Duck’s bar with some of it’s own beer.  In 1999, the operation was expanded to a five-barrel plant, and in 2008, with the help of some shiny new equipment, into a ten-barrel micro-brewery.

Production is now up to about thirty barrels a week, using the Inn’s own water supply, which is very soft and has a slight brownish tinge from the peat hills (“reminiscent of a malt whisky”, they say, romatically stretching the point).  We were warned that the water wasn’t to everybody’s liking, hence the presence of bottled water everywhere, but, I quite liked the earthiness of it, and this background note follows through into the beer.

Barngates produce seven regular beers, each named after one of the Inn’s former pets.  Mothbag is a light, golden ale, with the stab and tang of citrus.  It’s lively and bitter.  Tag Lag is similarly light, copper in colour, dusky and bitter.  Red Bull Terrier is a beast of a beer, a dark red brew with a hoppy smell and a malty taste.  It’s spicy and sweet, with a distinctive caramel undertone.

Barngate’s other beers include Cracker, Pride of Westmorland, Westmorland Gold and Chesters.

I’ve got a bottle of Chesters to try, but (foolishly?) vowed not to drink anything in January (there, it’s public now.  I’ve got to do it).

It’ll have to wait until February, good as it looks.

Barngates Brewery

I realised the other day that I haven’t written anything at all about Leeds Brewery yet.

The brewery has been in production since 2007, and it’s got a stable of good, solid modern beers, and a trio of staggeringly good pubs to sell it in.

Leeds have three permanent beers, supplemented by a range of seasonal brews.  Of the permanent fixtures, Midnight Bell, a dark, chocolatey mild is the pick of the crop, a lovely smooth drink.  Pale is very dry and bitter, packed with hops, and it’s extremely good indeed.  Best is a classic bitter with a carefully balanced taste.

The seasonal beers include a very good lager, brewed upstairs in a micro micro-brewery at The Brewery Tap, just across from the station.  Next up in August is Funfair, trailled as ‘a summer thirst quencher’.

It’s good to see a Leeds success story, in the long shadow of Tetley’s sad and painful divorce from the city.

I won’t dwell on the pubs, but I’ll come back to them later.  It’s enough to say that I think The Brewery Tap has hit that perfect balance between being a proper pub and being modern, open and accessible.  It’s a real joy.

I’ll leave the more in depth reviews to the brilliant Culture Vulture for now.