Anchor Christmas Ale 2011

Sometimes you try a beer that completely blows you away. Occasionally it can be the moment that influences your enjoyment, and when you try the beer again it's not quite as good as you remember – but sometimes it genuinely is that good.

The best beer that fits this example for me is Anchor Christmas Ale 2011. I shared it at Christmas with my uncle and step-dad in a great family-get-together moment, and the beer really surprised me with a world of flavours I wasn't expecting. Suffice to say I'd already had a few and eaten loads of cake, so when I found a couple left in my local beer shop last week I had to see if it really was as good as I remember.

The first thing you get with this beer are aromas of sweet cherry, cloves and ginger, backed up by a touch of classic American piny hop and fern aromas. The palate then hits you with a world of caramel and light mocha malt flavours before those cherries, cloves and ginger follow from the nose. These characteristics build and build, turning into spicy liquorice notes with the tiniest hint of chilli heat on the finish.

It's not a heavy beer like a lot of porter and Belgian dubbel style Christmas beers either, weighing in at only 5.5%. All those flavours are packed into a surprisingly fresh and dangerously drinkable beer, with nods to the German bock style.

Every sip had more flavour; beautifully spiced, complex, warming and moreish. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty chuffed. The only shame is it's a secret recipe that changes every year. On the flip side, I can't wait to see what next year's tastes like.

Moncada Brewery

In my continual exploration of the breweries in London, I've recently come across the newly-opened Moncada Brewery.

Unlike a lot of the breweries popping up at the moment who are largely based in the East End and make modern beers with traditional labelling, Moncada are situated in Ladbroke Grove in West London and make traditional beers with slick and modern label designs.

Run by former chef and Argentinian Julio Moncada – who clearly has a passion for natural ingredients – Moncada brews 3 beers; a Blond, an Amber and a Bitter. Let's see if they taste as good as they look.

Blond
A pale beer with floral and grapefruit aromas. The palate is crisp and fresh with delicate biscuit notes and the fruity hop characteristics of citrus and light tropical fruits. Extremely easy drinking with a nice bitter snap. A very summery ale.

Amber
Gold in colour with leafy hop aromas and a sweet round mouthfeel, the Amber features light caramel malt flavours with fruity hops coming through, bringing citrus and peachy flavours with them.

Bitter
Deep copper coloured with a yeasty nose again revealing leafy hops, plus caramel and demerara aromas. The palate shows some lovely round and slightly chewy malt flavours, with a little hint of dried fruit.

All in all, these are great traditional-style beers, clean in flavour with a good depth, and they showcase mainly British malt and hops well. As with a few of the new breweries, Moncada's bottle conditioning is a little hit and miss at the moment – of the five beers I've had from them so far, one was a bit flat and sweaty and another a little too lively – but this will improve with time. Personally, I think Julio's off to a great start.

Bring Your Own

Theatre Of Wine, situated in Tufnell Park and Greenwich in London, is one of my favourite wine merchants. They stock wines you will be hard pushed to find anywhere else in the UK and their beer range isn't too shabby either.

Every Wednesday they run themed tastings, which I always mean to go to but unfortunately never get round to. That is, until last week when luckily I had the evening off work to go along to their first tasting of the year - this time with the somewhat novelty theme of 'bring your own'. That may sound a little stingy, but you didn't taste the cheese they bought and the samples they supplied to try from their own collection. Excellent stuff.

The attendees ranged from passionate regular customers to friends in the industry, which lead to a really interesting line-up of wines to try. Here's the pick of the bunch:

Par Robert and Bernard Plageles – Mauzac
This is a 'natural wine', meaning it has no added sulphites or other chemicals and is unfiltered. This is not for the sake of following a trend however, as the techniques used pre-date other sparkling wines and it is made in a very traditional style. A little acetic but that gave way to some lovely apple crumble flavours with creamy bubbles. It was cloudy in the glass due to the lack of stabilising sulphites but only in the same way as a bottle conditioned beer.

Villars Fontaine - Haut Cotes De Nuits Blanc 1996
From the heart of Burgundy, this was something else. The producer doesn't release their wines until they've had a good bit of ageing, and this one showed its maturity with aromas of olives and nuts. It tasted a little volatile, like it's teetering on the edge, but held itself together revealing more olive flavours and a saltiness, with a limey punch. Really interesting and delicious.

Valtuille Mencia – Bierzo
A little known variety from a tiny region in north-west Spain and quickly becoming one of my favourites. This is amazingly grown with pre-pheloxera vines and had a wonderfully purity to the flavours. Fresh red fruit aromas and lovely herbal notes with very grippy tannins that subside delightfully to reveal some bright redcurrant and blueberry flavours. Perfumed, slightly savoury and utterly moreish.

Pietracura – Taurasi
Aglianico and the Campania region in southern Italy don't get half as much press as they deserve, with the limelight being given to Tuscany, Piedmont and the Veneto. Aglianico is the star of the show in Campania and this is a superb wine from the tiny Taurasi area. Rose petals and bright red fruit jump from the glass revealing very ripe, ultra juicy red fruit and some savoury, pithy blackberry flavours in the palate. It's wonderfully expressive.

Nach 7 – Pinot Noir 
This wine is the perfect example of what really separates Theatre Of Wine from its competitors; completely mental wines you will be hard pushed to find anywhere. This Pinot Noir is a one off – Swiss wine makers found an old barrel, lost for a few years that had grown a layer of 'flor' (protective yeast layer that you usually find with sherry production). It was a bit rough, so they put it into demijohns on the roof which is a similar process to that used in Madeira production, but it was still a bit dodgy so they fortified it. What was it like? A bit strange. Like a lighter mix of Port, Madeira and Banyuls but with a sticky mouthfeel full of dark cherry flavours.

We finished the tasting with one of the attendee's home-brewed pear and damson wine which was surprisingly delicious and a fitting end to a hugely varied and personal tasting. It's great getting together for informal tastings sometimes. You not only learn new things about wine but you also get to learn more about the people, which can be equally fascinating.