by gillmang » Sat Aug 06, 2005 7:53 am
Bob, all the beers you mentioned are good English beers especially Ruddles County (in the green can). The Ruddles in particular has the true English taste. The Boddies is less good and is ruined in my opinion by the nitro widget, I dislike that effect with the sole exception of Draught Guinness. Also Boddies uses a very pale malt and is not that strongly hopped anymore, it is okay, it reminds me of a more assertive Molson Export Ale. Old Peculier is a classic, it has the black fruit-like ("damson plum") overlay some English beers have. But good as these are they are still filtered pasteurized beers. They don't offer the full richness and flower of English ingredients cask ale or a non-cask-but-close local draught beer like Buzzards Bay which uses English malts and hops. And if (when, I hope) you taste English cask ale at Gingerman you'll see the bottled English scene is quite different from English cask-conditioned beer.
On the other hand, when American hops are used in the right way the beers can be extremely good too. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the classic example. Its Celebration Ale, too. Recently in Buffalo, New York I had a great local ale from the Finger Lakes area, Canandaigua Lake Ale made by Canandaigua Brewing Company. It has a rich biscuity malt taste and the hops (with signature "grapefruit" taste) are woven in very skillfully. I don't like when that taste hits you over the head though and I find it can contribute to bad headaches the next day. But CBC gets it just right, these guys are pros and know exactly what they are doing. The beer tasted too like it may have been made from locally made malt and maybe the hops too (hops are being grown again in New York in a project to revive the 19th century hop growing culture there). So American ales are good too (the best of them) but the fresh Goldings taste you get in many of the classic English cask beers is quite different and unbeatable on its terms. It has a particular earthy/lemon-like taste. Ruddles County - when very fresh, check the best by date and make sure it is a year ahead or so - gets pretty close for a canned beer (we only get the canned one in Ontario). Sometimes I'll add the yeasty dregs from a local microbrew to my glass of canned Ruddles and it gets quite close to an English cask ale. Fuller 1845, again when very fresh, is quite close to some English real ales because bottle-conditioned.
Gary