American Beer Selection !

The reason why I have been very quiet on the blog front recently is because all of our time is currently focused on planning our Wedding.
We have spent the last week trying to figure out what to do for our honeymoon...it is currently between Italy and the USA...with the latter winning at the moment.
Now I have only really had a couple of American beers (mainly Brooklyn Lager ... thanks to Reds True BBQ in Leeds!!) as I tend to mainly go for local beer in the pubs around my area. So I thought, if there is a chance that I will be going to America I really need to see what they have on offer in the UK.
For this I headed down to M&S, at the moment their craft beer selection is excellent (if a little pricy, it is good for all the hard to find beer, but for example Ilkley Pale Ale is 40p more in M&S than in Morrisons).

So I came out with the following:
Brooklyn Lager
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Torpedo
Goose Island IPA
Anchor Steam Lager
Anchor California Lager

At first I planned on sampling these all in one night, the sister in law was staying for G&T's and Prosecco and I needed something decent to drink. Safe to say I did not drink them all in one night, which would have been dangerous considering the percentage of the beer.

Brooklyn Lager is becoming more readily available in the UK now, if you are not quite feeling an Ale but want to avoid Carling/Carlsberg rubbish then I would recommend you try the Brooklyn, it is dark for lager (a kind of coppery colour) and has quite a sweet flavour to it.
Sticking with the lager I moved onto the two Anchor lager's, not a great deal to be said for these as after drinking the Brooklyn the flavours of these are quite bland, which is a shame as I had looked forward to trying these.

Back to proper beer. The Goose Island IPA does exactly what it says on the tin. Small taste of hops but mainly of the malty taste that you would expect, perfect for an afternoon session.

Finally we move onto Sierra Nevada. I first tried their Pale Ale about 5 years ago and up until recently I struggled to find it (most city center bars and some supermarkets now regularly stock it). On pouring it the Ale has quite a strong citrus smell. The flavour itself was typical Pale Ale...and I know it sounds silly but it felt like a 'soft' drinking beer...unsure how to elaborate on that, but it was my first thought on taste.
If you are trying the Pale Ale then you have to also try the Torpedo (7.2%). The taste and appearance are similar to the Pale Ale, however Torpedo has a richer taste to it, more crisp and refreshing. On my facebook page this beer was described as a 'Hoppy Beast'...which is now what I think when ever I see a bottle.

Just to end...by the time we finished sampling the beer (and finished writing the blog) we decided to book the USA, Vegas followed by NYC...so if you know any decent bars that are worth trying then tweet!

- Sam