It’s been a while!
Big cheery hello to all the new fans, followers and importantly customers of Beermerchants. It’s been a crazy couple of years, considering that we really only started kicking into gear early in January 2007! After such a hectic last few months, travelling, awards and new ideas and opportunities, I had to sit down and get one of our newsletters out! read more…

Because you love

You’ll know from previous articles (Here and here) that I and a few of us at Beermerchants.com are big fans of Lambic and Gueuze style beers. So much so,  it’s a close call if you were to say that if I had to pick between California or Payotenland, the home of this fantastic style of beer, I would really be stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Lambicland

A recent trip to the hard place, to arrange for Gueuze for the site,  Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, Oud Beersel, Girardin and De Cam – it’s always a pleasure… kinda…

An American IPA from Belgium?
sit back, hold on to your pants, and wait for this stunner to come in from Belgium.   Not a American/Belgian yeast hybrid. This is a true IPA, packed with bags and bags of Amarillo  loveliness.

Guest blogging is a contentious thing, people expect the opinions of those that man the helm of the ship, but here amongst my travels I meet people who’s opinion counts too, but can’t be bothered with the routine of writing something regularly.   So, over the last few months I have kept my ears out for people, inviting them to say what’s rattling their cages, what hop is making them excited, just interesting stuff – here’s the first victim!

One of the most common emails that I get, and always love replying to is the nature of one of my all time favourite beers, Rodenbach. So here’s the story – Rodenbach Grand Cru is actually supposed to “smell like Balsamic Vinegar”, to quote many from beer tastings that I deliver. Yes, it’s a hard to approach style of beer, that of Flemish Red.  Yes, it’s one of the more esoteric styles, and certainly the idea of a sour beer is somewhat foreign in more ways than one – certainly more different to the norms of the British styles that I presume you and I would bump into in a pub in the UK.  These beers are intentionally soured and are absolute classics of the Belgian beer scene and much cherished by beer lovers around the world.

There are two general beers that come from Rodenbach, the normal and the grand cru – the normal Rodenbach is the lesser of the two in sourness, where  as, as you’re aware the Grand Cru is somewhat more Acetic, and now for the history…

Rodenbach Grand Cru

sometimes I sit, try to write a blog  post with Eddie’s jesting in my ears “learn to spell, before you try to write”, about something interesting about beer, at least, but it just never happens.    Sitting writing, even writing a diary, has never come easy.  Over the last few weeks, I have been away in California, hanging with many good friends and drinking good beers -  I have been racking my brains as to write something interesting, telling a tale of amazing beers from far afield like a spice merchant from way back when, but for me it’s the people.  The beers out there are great, events like the SF beer week really does present a show case of amazing beer that is unusually good.   The efforts that those like, Rodger Davis with his Sour and Barrels Festivals need applause… bringing such amazing beers together.