Monday 23 January 2012

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.

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