This is not about whisky – Endeavour True Vintage Beer

Endeavour True Vintage Beer 4 pack

This is not a post about whisky... again. Recently, thanks to the handy work of our now remote member, The Converted, and The Trish Nicol Agency  we received some Endeavour True Vintage Beer samples. Not to be a hog and with only 2 x2 samples to try I passed over some samples to fellow member El Capitan to deliver his interpretations as well.

Endeavour True Vintage Beer is a small independent Australian brewer started in 2007 and located in (form all appearances) in or around Sydney NSW. According to the website these 3 chaps do not as yet have a brewery of their own and rely on the facilities of another anonymous helpful brewer. Endeavour True Vintage Beer boasts 2 'hand crafted' yearly expressions being a Reserve Amber Ale and Reserve Pale Ale. Though completely conjectural and judging from the pictures I suspect the brewing is currently done at the Australian Brewery at Rouse Hill NSW just outside of Sydney, something about the vats, light and corrugated iron walls (don't quote me on that it is just a guess but maybe they can enlighten us?).

2011 Reserve Amber Ale
Brewer: Endeavour True Vintage Beer
Hops: Topaz
Colour: Rich Amber
Location/Region: NSW, Australia

2012 Reserve Pale Ale
Brewer: Endeavour True Vintage Beer
Hops: Galaxy, Summer and Southern Sazz hops.
Colour: Medioum Cloudy, Golden Hues
Location/Region: NSW, Australia

2011 Reserve Amber Ale

So let us get on with our interpretations. Firstly let's look at El Capitan's views and then The Baron's.

El Capitan interprets:

2011 Reserve Amber Ale

Colour : Very dark brown and hardly translucent. Little light penetrates through. A bit mud like or could even be stew.

Nose: A very yeasty beer, with a strong malty presence. Vegemite notes are very clear to me.  It's very inviting and quite intriguing almost.

Taste: A thick and chewy beer with a lot of earthy characteristics. I think this is a very complex beer. You can really think about the flavours you are tasting. Those hints of vegemite are present along with a hint of bitterness.

Overall: I found this an extremely unique beer that I haven't tried the like before. It was very enjoyable and well worth going out of your way to try. 6 out of 7 lightning bolts.


2012 Reserve Pale Ale

Colour: It's quite a dark rich, deep amber. Reminds me of manakau honey or burnt caramel as well.

Nose: Light, fruity sweetness with a huge lychee hit. Nice. There's big malty notes as well. It's smells invigorating and is very inviting.

Taste: Quite hoppy, full body Pale Ale. Quite a heavy beer with strong malty flavours. A lot of similarties to a wheat beer for me.

Overall: This is the sort of beer I like to consume over a long period. A good one for chewing the fat with some old mates. It's quite heavy for my palette but still retains some interesting characteristics. 5 out of 7 lightning bolts for me.

2012 Reserve Pale Ale

The Baron interprets:

2011 Reserve Amber Ale

Colour: A deep rich amber, you know this one has some booty. On pouring I see a corona of green coming off the amber tainted thick foam indicating to me that the hops are going to be all over the flavour profile. Extremely fine and fast beading continues to rise all the way to the bottom of the glass.

Nose: Chocolate malts in the forefront and sweet fresh cut wheat's in the background showing some real complexity. I really enjoyed nosing this exotic baby.

Taste: Again sweet malts enriching the pallet followed by even bitters and green cut hops in the rear. Flavour remains crisp throughout but I find the sweetness a little intense on its own.

Overall: The sweet malts become pallet overpowering after the 4th or so mouthful. I found, like many of these heavier Ales food is a constant and welcome companion. My choice was to go with a sharp cheddar to restore the pallet and added the needed balance but it would certain entertain something heavier like a hearty steak. Though bottle conditioned there was no cloud and no residue in the bottle or around the cap suggesting conditioning is coming primarily from the vat. It also shows a great consideration has been taken to ensure a settled bottling process. I give it a 5 1/2 out of 7. Good for one or two prior or during a meal but might be a little intense every day. It is somethignspecial and should be taken for the quality not the quantity. A x4 pack at $14.99 at Dan Murphys is a great option and I like the introduction into the market in these smaller selections over recent years.


2012 Reserve Pale Ale

Colour: Golden hues with a medium cloud. On pouring the beading was much larger than the Pale Ale but continued to the end of the glass. I found residue yeast in and around the cap seal. Though residue on the inner cap is fine the yeast along the seal may have compromised this beer in the future.

Nose: Light mild citrus's and snapped passion fruit vines but little else of note.

Taste: A little dry across the pallet and hops bitterness all in the forefront with mild passion fruit sweetness in the back. Spicy across the pallet overall. Very crisp but too drying for my likes.

Overall: I found this too pallet aggressive, especially in the dryness. I just did not find the love in this ale at all.

Overall: 4 out of 7 for this little one. As soon as I tasted this one I knew there must have been Galaxy hops in it somewhere. My past experience with Galaxy hops (even in my own brewing at home) tends towards just too much passionfruit vine tangs going on. I think it a rather brooding hop that looks mild on the onset that will suddenly erupt when overdosed (not that I am a brewer of any noted standard). Maybe I need to give this another 1/2 mark and ignore my personal experiences. I am assuming that a nice paper wrapped packet of fish and chips would probably go lovely

Before completing a word on bottled conditioning. For those not in the know effectively bottle conditioning is about ensuring yeasts and sugars are unfiltered and remain in the bottling process and or added in addition to the bottles in filling. By ensuring the yeast's and sugars remain ensure the beer continues to develop over time and under good conditions will deliver extended years of shelf life with developing flavours. If you love these kinds of beers put some away in a dark cool environment and see what develops. Preferably if you do not have a cellar or cold dark room, find somewhere under the house and dig a hole, maybe line the whole with some bricks and pop a cover over the top. It is all about cool temps and no light what so ever for development (just be suspicious if you hear some clinking on occasion and whispers of "my precious").

These beers have neither been given the 'crafty wash' or gimmick marketing ploys to sell the beer and I think that is great! There is just too many 'crafty' beers in the Aussie market now and when we are outlaying anything up to $22 for a 6 pack for pure rubbish it is refreshing to find something good, reliable, and clearly 'crafted' for the love of it.

Thanks Endevour we will come again.

The Baron and El Capitan


D.T.W.C. was supplied a sample for review. All views and opinions are our own unless otherwise stated. 

Writing About Whisky, Writing For Yourself, While Writing For Others

D.T.W.C. 'Australia's Premier Whisky Club' or at least how we like to see ourselves

Quite recently I was asked again how do I write reviews for whisky. My answer always is "Writing about whisky is simply putting your experience into words that others can relate to". Unfortunately it is not that easy and not really the answer anyone is looking for. What the question really implies is how to I translate sensation into words and what methods do I use to do this. With a few new members to D.T.W.C. 'Australia's Premier Whisky Club', as The Colonel-in-Chief always puts it, I thought it time I shared my take on how I write my reviews so help inspire those yet to post. So this is how I do it…

It is good to note at this stage that I have a problem reading and writing and it has impaired my development since a very young age. Though this low level dyslexia is real it has never impaired me so badly from running my own business and communicating with others on a daily basis. Writing for me though is a struggle and setting some base rules has allowed me to contribute quite readily to our little forum. Noting that, it is also good to remember that none of us in the club are professional writers in any sense. We contribute to this blog as an extension of D.T.W.C. 'Australia's Premier Whisky Club', so that anything we experience, buy, given, taste, and so on will give other members knowledge to influence their own next purchase. We all know each other and how each of us describes and talks about whisky, so why should your writing be any different.

For me my writing style falls into a category often classed as Free Writing or Writing From The Mind. It is a method of writing without taking into consideration grammar, spelling and structure in order to evoke some very raw, rich, and sometimes incoherent sentences. From there you can break up and structure much of what your have said and strip out what is useless. This is how I was able to break through my reading and writing issues since I was very young though I never knew until recent years what the method was ever called. Though it is my way of compensating I find it an excellent method especially for writing whisky tasting notes. I know The Diplomat is freaking out at this stage even thinking about how I write.

Write For Yourself

Be yourself and describe things as you see them. If you feel the whisky is over priced then tell us. So what if you smell sulphur but the notes say otherwise as this is what contributes to your experience. This is your experience and we want to taste it. Don't think about if you make too much sense or even what others may say. As The Diplomat said to me recently when we were discussing responses we get to our posts and writing for the blog in general, "Stay True To The Blog".

Experience

Your first experience is often the best. Create your tasting notes as you taste the whisky (try free writing it) in exactly the same process. Do not to linger on being too expressive and describe those sensations as they appear to you. Shoot from the hip so to speak and try not to refine or filter too much too soon. If you want to return to a whisky and write your notes agin by all means do so but keep those initial notes as they should bring back that experience in its purest form.

Descriptors

Descriptors are important as they give currency to what it is you experience but ensure they are coherent to others. All too other people allow pre-written descriptors influence there own senses. I make a point of not reading the packaging or others notes prior or during a tasting so I formulate my own interpretation. try using the Whisky Tasting Wheel if you need help.

Structure

Lastly structure can be most important and will set a useful guide each time you write. I take the following structural approach.

1. Take a photo of the bottle. No really this helps to no end.
2. An intro paragraph describing why you are writing the post and introduce the subject matter/ whisky. What influences allowed for your choice? What inspired you to tell others about it?
3. Include some brief but relative and interesting information on the distillery and whisky. Where did it come from? Why it is called that name? Who distilled it? What sets it apart from other whiskies? Does it belong to a family or group of whiskies? Have you tried these other whiskies in comparison? 
4. Deliver a short profile on the whisky for quick review. Name, Distillery, Style, Region, Alcohol, bottle or batch number (if it has one). Though you may not find it relevant now anyone retiring to your post to get some details so they may go buy that whisky should not have to sift though the entire post to extrapolate a few details.
5. Profile your whisky in 5 main ordered steps: Colour, Nose, Taste, Finish, Balance. You may choose to use all or some of these steps but you will find without Nose, Taste, Finish your review is incomplete to most whisky appreciators.
6. Deliver an overall synopsis of your experience and closing statement. Rate your whisky on a scale others can relate too. We use a scale of 1 to 7. Include what were the stand out points, why you liked it, why you did not, and would you buy it again.

For those first time writers these links should be helpful:

• The Whisky Flavour Map
• The Whisky Tasting Wheel
• Beginner's Guide To Whisky

So in a nut shell that is how I, The Baron, write to contribute to our blog. As you see I am no literary genius and struggle to even read and write on a daily basis but it does not stop me contributing. For those members yet to contribute I hope this helps and for those that may be thinking to create their own whisky blog maybe there is something that can be taken from this post.

The Baron

Your Whisky Movie – Do You Have One? If Not Get One!

Blade Runner and Lost In Translation – My ultimate Whisky Movies

Do you have a Whisky Movie? I do, in fact I have a few.

I know it is a bit of a odd post but recently with the heat of summer putting me off Single Malts I found that if I was to think about what would get me in the mood for whisky it would be such things as a rainy day or stormy night, cool weather, and in particular some movies came to mind over and over again. Well not being able to control the weather (air con is the short fall) I could at least look forward to a good movie in the evening and set my mind to what whisky I would enjoy in the process. Amazingly it works… for me at least.

What is a Whisky Movie you would be asking by now? Let us just make one thing clear before we go any further, a Whisky Movie is not necessarily a movie about whisky, nor that whisky should even make an appearance in the movie at all. It is more about the sense that watching the movie puts you in the mood for whisky.

I have 2 stand outs amongst many, Blade Runner and Lost In Translation with Gattaca coming in a close 3rd. Funnily enough both these movies have whisky in them though I can say that this is only a small factor in my choice. Primarily these movies moods make me contemplate either my youth, love of science fiction, how rich and enjoyable things were for me when Blade Runner was released (Atari rocked!), or my time spent in Japan on and off many years ago and how Lost In Translation was such  perfect fit of my experiences. Yes whisky does make you think.

That square edged whisky glass from Blade Runner 

Now this would not be a proper post without a bit of whisky talk added in. So ask yourself, can you remember what whisky Rick Deckard drunk? Johnnie Walker Black Label. Jump online, do a search you will find there is an entire community out there obsessed with the glasses and bottle used in this movie. You can still buy glasses from the original manufacture and a replica bottle is also for sale. It is a more interesting fact to know that the bottle that made an appearance in Blade Runner was not actually created from some whacky sci-fi futuristic impression of what Johnny Walker may look like. It was a bottle liberated from the Annie movie being filmed on an adjacent set around the same time. It then had a JW label slapped on it.

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time

Lost In Translation of course clearly promotes the whisky used within the film, Suntory Hibik 17yo. It just happens that Suntory Hibiki is also my favourite blend to date and I had actually purchased a bottle of this whisky for the Father-In-Law aka The Grey Bush on my last trip back to Japan just before this release of this movie.

So do you have a whisky movie? If so let us all know as I am sure with this post it will be a topic of discussion at our next D.T.W.C. meeting. Otherwise I hope you discover at least one for those days you just need to get in the mood.

The Baron

Getting A Bit Heavy – Hakushu Heavily Peated

Hakushu Heavily Peated – Master Of Malt 50ml Sample

For my Dramcember review I actually had a couple of whiskies lined up but in the end time and heat got the best of me and I have only just finished this review by the end of Dramcember.

My choice was the Hakushu Heavily Peated Japanese whisky. I had recently purchased this through the Master of Malt, Drinks By The Dram sample selections.

Hakushu is noted to be one of the highest distilleries in Japan, located in the southern Japanese alps on the main island of Honshu. Hokushu distillery draws its water from the adjacent Kai-Komogatake mountain which attributes to the water being much softer than many other distilleries in Japan. Certainly next time I am in Japan I will be visiting this distillery as from the photos and accounts I have heard it is also one of the most beautiful distillers nestled in a luck green forest. As to where the peat comes from noted in the name I cannot say nor how I even found any references about it.

Hakushu Heavily Peated
Distillery: Hakushu / Suntory
Style: Single Malt Whisky
Region: Japan, Honshu, Southern Japanese Alps
Alcohol / ABV: 48%
Other: 50ml sample from Master Of Malt

The nose delivered immediate sweet florals all in the foreground, dry dates and apricots, medium sea essence smokiness with feints of tobacco, all leading to a very complex nose with very fine highlights. Probably the closest Scotch Malt Whisky I could attribute this too for reference would be a Laphroaig Quarter Cask.

To taste the florals are there but fade almost instantly though it has a cushioning tackiness almost oily as it moves through the pallet. Lips begin to tingle as does the tip of the tongue. Toasted woods, vanillas and liquorice are, no dried fruit as the nose led on, but the astringent starchy texture is just too much and balance is broken. Very medicinal, vegetive and aggressive to the pallet. Harsh to say the least.

A big burn in the upper chest for the finish followed by a metallic tang and a long dryness enveloping the pallet soon after. Quite unpleasant and it made me frown after every sip.

Overall I was very very surprised with the nose which just built me up for what I expected to be some exciting pallet flavours. A terrible balance on the pallet that was totally confused while the finish is quite horrifying. I suspect the oak barrels were old or not up to scratch tainting the whisky heavily. Amazingly the nose still held up after a few sips so not all was lost.

If I was to give a dram 3.5 out of 7. The balance was near non-existent once it passed the nose.

The Baron