Summer Lightening, Golden Ale: Hop Back Brewery (Salisbury)

So at last as we get to beer number three we get an English ale and an award winner no less.  Summer Lightening, by Hop Back Brewery has won the  CAMRA gold medals for best new brewery in 1989, best strong beer 1992 and 2001 and best bottle conditioned ale 1997, as well as a gold Brewing industry international award in 1996, a 1998 National Hop Association, England award and a 2004 Taste of the West Food Awards gold.  None in the last six years though.  So is it trading on past glories?

Beer Review no. 2: Snake Dog IPA, Flying Dog (Maryland)

'...suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?' It's almost certain that beer did not inspire Hunter. S. Thompson's famous first page in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but nevertheless the man liked a good drink... really, really liked it.  Pretty natural then to quote him on your bottle - 'Good people drink good beer' HST - and then hire his long-time friend to do your label designs.  Its a killer combination and one that I couldn't resist.  So here we go with American beer number two, brewed in Maryland this time but originating in Dr Gonzo's hometown of Aspen, Colorado in the Flying Dog pub, where the owners made friends with Dr. Thompson, hence the branding.  This time I'v gone for an IPA, one of my favourite styles and one popularised in the states by artisan brewers extrodinairre Sierra Nevada.  Let's see how Flying Dog's rendition works out.  Oh and 'no point in mentioning these bats... Poor bastard will see them soon enough'.

Beer Review no.1: Hades Belgian Style Ale; Great Divide Brewing Co. (Denver, Colorado))

There's a myth that ale is an old mans drink.  This is something that's perpetuated by any footage you see of the large beardy men in control of CAMRA (I intend to be large and am often beardy so don't take this the wrong way) and young codgers like James May.  I think this is pretty unfair.  One fifty-something who should no better - you know who you are - has repeatedly told me he doesn't like to drink ale 'because it tastes of fart'.  How rude.  On the other hand almost all my friends are ale drinkers and I think this is indicative of a wider trend.  Ale fits perfectly into the current interest in traditional British products, provenance, local buying and all of the other trends which have been mercifully rescued from the sandals and socks brigade.  The Germans, Belgians and Czechs have lager and wheat beers, the French, Spanish and Italians have wine, we have ale.  This item won't just look at ales or British beer, but I would like them to be a focus.  So it is with regret that I kick of my beer reviews with an example made by our cousins from across the pond, where micro-brewing is as cool as Lilly Cole buying a Rothko and has exploded way past our still endangered, if growing scene.