Beer in the time of COVID-19
2020 has been a bit weird, hasn’t it?
Cloudwater’s Friends & Family & Beer 2020 back in February feels like it happened years ago now. The only Beer Voyage that’s happened this year. Time has crawled along at a snail’s pace whilst the country went into lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and everyone remained at home to stay safe.
Now the country has started to open things up again, there’s some semblance of normality returning (whether you think that’s a good thing or not is a whole different blog post). The only difference is, for most activities, you now have to sanitise your hands, wear a mask and keep socially distant from others.
We’re not going to pontificate too much on the current state of the country; the inept handling of a pandemic by the government or the impact of COVID-19 on the world at large - you can read vast swathes of people’s opinions, analysis and hot takes on the rest of the Internet.
Instead, we’re going to look back at how we managed with not being able to embark on any beer-based escapades during These Strange Times.
(Spoiler alert: we bought a lot of beer.)
The New Normal
Both myself and my fellow Beer Voyage compatriot have been part of the lucky group of people whose lives have not been affected by COVID-19 and the country shutting down too much. We are both able to continue working in our office-based jobs from home. We are both able to purchase groceries. We are both able to catch-up with friends and family (albeit remotely). This whole period has put things into perspective and made us realise how privileged we are compared to many others.
That being said, the only thing we haven’t been able to do is travel to new destinations in search of new beer experiences. Or even travel to familiar haunts to drink some of our old favourites. I realise that’s a very minor inconvenience to have considering All Of The Things Happening In The World but this is a light-hearted beer blog. Leave your pitchforks and what-aboutism at the door, please.
To fill the colossal gap in our lives of not being able to carry out our favourite past time, we took to ordering beers to drink at home.
Hooray for the Internet
Ordering beers online is obviously not a new thing but, with the country pulling its shutters down temporarily, it became a huge lifeline to the beer providers we know and love. Breweries, pubs, bottleshops and everything in between were reliant on selling their beers online to keep trading and stay afloat. So we decided to try and help them.
We tried to buy our beers online either directly from breweries web stores or from independent retailers websites as much as possible. Instead of relying on one source, we also tried to spread our spending out to as many places as we could afford to share the love.
A minuscule gesture in the grand scheme of things but it’s an excuse to big up some really amazing breweries and shops and talk about beer. Let me have this.
Here are all the orders we made from mid-March until the end of August.
We hope this list proves useful not just now but going forward when looking for places to order beer online. Something that will likely become a more regular occurrence for many households.
A Vulgar Display of Beer
Weird Beard Brew Co.
Weird Beard Brew Co. are local favourites of ours. Being within a 3 mile radius of the brewery, we took advantage of their free delivery offer and purchased several interesting sounding beers. We placed our order at 1:30pm. The delivery came at 5pm. We were drinking by 5:01pm. Exceptional stuff.
The highlights of this order was a 10.3% stonker of a barleywine in Bearded Nurse which blew us away and a 7.7% double dry hopped DIPA in Anti-Social Social Club which was a fantastic old school interpretation of hazy beer from a brewery that prides itself in not following the pack in churning this style out dime a dozen.
Wander Beyond Brewing
Up to Manchester to purchase some high ABV sweet treats from Wander Beyond Brewing.
Known for their adjunct heavy beers that would make CAMRA cry into their bitters, we’ve always liked Wander Beyond from our first sip of one of their milkshake IPAs a few years ago. They were also one of the first to release beers in 250ml cans making them a bit more affordable and quaffable (how quaffable is a 12% milkshake IPA?).
Milkshake talk aside, it was the imperial stouts from this order that really stood out here. Marauder, a 13% white chocolate and raspberry stout was just the right side of sickly sweet. Eye of the Storm, a 12% coffee and maple breakfast stout was a bit more grown up and smoky, though I’d probably not have it for breakfast. La Adelita was our favourite though, a stout infused with cacao nibs, cinnamon, chipotle peppers and a small amount of vanilla. Inspired by Mexican chocolate cakes; this beer was everything. Warming heat and chocolate notes made us pine for a return to Mexico.
Omnipollo
From one heavy adjunct brewer to quite possibly the kings of adjunct beers and the Reinheitsgebot’s sworn nemesis, it’s those daft Swedes, Omnipollo!
One of the pricier orders of lockdown but well worth it considering the high calibre of beers here. The adjunct heavy pale beers were all wonderful but hard to separate. Finally trying Lorelei (a coconut maple toast imperial porter) was a highlight and made me not hate coconut in a beer for the first time. Silky smooth decadence. Magnapoli (apple pie strawberry cup imperial stout) was a little too sweet and felt unbalanced though.
One of the strangest beers I’ve ever tried was the (*holds breath*) Bianca Blueberry Maple Chocolate Peanut Butter Pancake Lassi Gose. More akin to a smoothie, this beer had so many flavours going on it blew my mind. Sweet and syrupy, it’s definitely an acquired taste but with a sweet tooth like mine I lapped it up.
BrewDog
The BrewDog AGM was a digital affair this year and with it came the release of an AGM box to drink as you attended virtually. We snapped this up for around £40 (and added a Paradox Grain because BrewDog make the best Imperial stouts).
It was a great mixture of new releases including the annual anniversary stout in Dog I, Triple Hazy (a TIPA version of Hazy Jane) and a 2020 version of Born to Die as well as some pales and some sours from OverWorks. Jack Hammer reignited our love of West Coast IPAs after shunning them for their hazier East Coast brethren for far too long.
The Evil Twin collaboration, Roaster Coaster was also amazing. So smooth! It’s weird that it’s available in supermarkets now - a 10% nitro can of stout. What a world we live in.
Cloudwater Brew Co.
With a selection as good as Cloudwater’s, we actually ordered from them twice. Bookending lockdown proper.
The first order being Cloudwater’s own wares including the start of their Crop Year series for this year showcasing different hops across a range of pale beers.
The second order was to take advantage of some US hype beers they had in stock from The Bruery (Oatmeal Cookie - an Oatmeal Cookie-inspired imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels with oats, granola, raisins, and cinnamon) and The Veil (Never Never Mind Mind - a double plum gose). Plus I had to try more of the Crop Year beers because they were so good.
We’re running out of space now - basically, is any UK brewer as consistently good as Cloudwater?
Ghost Whale
Two orders from London bottleshops (Brixton/Putney) Ghost Whale; the first a mixture of the UK’s finest, including a first try of Cambridgeshire’s mixed fermentation and wild wares, Pastore Brewing - Waterbach Weisse, a mango weisse and Wild Saison, a.. erm, wild saison. Both were exquisite. The rest a mix of hazy/pale beers that disappeared very quickly.
We had to go back for seconds when Ghost Whale got their hands on some Finback freshly imported from New York so bundled in some DEYA newbies for good measure. Finback’s Blueberry Drip (blueberry, vanilla, peanut butter, and coffee stout) and Cats Are Forever (a 9% DIPA) being the standouts.
Thornbridge Brewery
One of the cheapest orders during lockdown came from Thornbridge Brewery. A discount code helped lower the price of this order to just £2 a beer. 15 beers for £30 is not to be sniffed at.
We’ve never been bowled over by Thornbridge but they do make good, consistent beers. We’re hard placed to put our finger on a standout beer from this order but there wasn’t a bad beer here. The slightly more modern styles probably just edging it but we were a big fan of the red ales (Colorado Red and Myddle) just because they aren’t as ubiquitous as pales. The Firestone Walker collab Pon Dera was also a highlight.
Dig Brew Co.
They say don’t judge a beer by its cover (they don’t but humour us) but you absolutely should when the cover is as brilliantly designed as Dig’s bottles are. We’d tried some of their beers a few years ago but the rebrand caught our eye.
Each beer is dipped in glow in the dark wax which, whilst a bit of a novelty, was enough for me to place an order with them so make of that what you will. That mixed with the punk-esque font and the stubby bottles make for a unique, stand-out design.
Thankfully the contents was just as good. As usual, we did our tried and tested ‘one of everything’ approach so got to try a mixture of lager, pale, wheat, sour, porter and stout. Oh No, It’s Moon Unit and Eddie Fights Judge Doom win for both having great names and being an excellent DIPA and imperial stout, respectively.
Our first All Together beer too which was a cracker. Definitely a brewery to pay a visit to when we’re allowed.
Beer Necessities
Spreading the love to a bottleshop we’ve never actually been to with this next order. A friend alerted me to Bristol’s Beer Necessities having lots of new, fresh beers in from DEYA and Verdant so we had a peak. Ten minutes later we had placed an order.
It was a bonus to see To Øl’s new beers from To Øl City, the Dane’s new 150,000 square metre craft beverage complex in Svinninge, Denmark. Somewhere we hope to be able to visit one day. The Whirl Domination was the first IPA made in the new brewery and if it is a sign of things to come, we are fully on board.
We drank these all just as the weather was picking up and they were all perfect sunshine beers. DEYA being one of the stars of the year with consistent, weekly releases of fresh, delicious beers.
This was also a chance to try some more All Together varieties from Verdant and North.
Pomona Island Brew Co
Pomona Island probably have the best named beers in the UK. Various quotes and lines from cult favourite comedies such as Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The Peter Serafinowicz Show and Brass Eye amongst others. The names combined with striking simplistic and colourful can designs really help them to stand out.
The liquid inside is pretty good too. Pomona focus on pale and sour beers for the most part (although they do cater to dark beer fans too, just a bit more sporadically) with their DIPA, Thagomizer and IPA, Lefty Scissors showcasing just what they can do.
However, the standout beer was Rip It Up, an orange sour. It’s hard to believe this is a beer because it tasted just like Buck’s Fizz - and looked like it too. Bright orange in the glass with sharp acidity and sparkle from the carbonation. Well worth seeking out if they rebrew it.
Beer Merchants
Beer Merchants got the Beer Voyage online order treatment next because they were offering a box of Barcelona’s Garage Beer Co. at a very good price.
A Barcelona weisse, a porter, some pales and a heap of strong IPAs. The standouts being two collabs - Jumpsuit, an 11% TIPA brewed with Northern Monk and Shoelaces, a 6.5% NEIPA brewed with Whiplash. Best brewery in Spain? You bet your ass.
We also bought a can of Lervig’s Cheap Lunch (an imperial stout with peanut butter, chocolate, vanilla and caramel) which was as ridiculous as the ingredients suggest. We’re a sucker for anything peanut butter and this lived up to expectations.
The Emsworth Brewhouse
One of the revelations and saviours of lockdown came in the form of The Emsworth Brewhouse.
At the start of lockdown when deliveries and companies were overstretched and delaying their orders, this local brewpub stepped up and delivered us our order the same day. Often within an hour or two. Mind-blowing. Their delivery schedule has changed slightly now things are opening up a bit more but they are definitely worth checking out if you live in the surrounding areas.
Not only do they sell their own beers (Wodehouse was a classic English ale delivering hints of spice and a full-bodied flavour) but they had a massive range of guest beers that are very reasonably priced.
We dipped our toes into the waters of some unknown breweries with Davenports Trump-inspired IPL 2nd Term delivering some summer refreshment and S43 Brewery’s GoGo Juice bringing the juice.
However, Wiper & True’s Hop Garden Series No. 1: Sabro blew us away. Designed to showcase everyone’s new favourite hop, Sabro, this was fruity with a slight hint of coconut which made us wish we’d ordered ten of them.
Gosnells of London Meadery
We can’t say we’re connoisseurs when it comes to mead (an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey, for the uninitiated). We’ve dabbled before, trying Superstition Meadery’s batshit concoctions at beer festivals as well as picking some up on a trip to Poland.
However, Gosnells offered a pack of their four core meads for £10 so we thought we’d take a momentary break from beer to sample some mead. On offer were four flavours; hopped, hibiscus, citra sea and sour.
Mead is obviously very sweet but the carbonation in these drinks added a slight effervescence which helped. We found the Hibiscus version to be a little too sweet but the Hopped and Sour iterations were better as they were less saccharine.
However, the winner was Citra Sea. The little hint of salinity at the end gave it an interesting twist and helped balance out the obvious big honey flavours. Worth a punt if you fancy something different.
HonestBrew
The biggest order of lockdown to take advantage of a 20% off code. What better time than a drop of some US fuss beers from the likes of Barrier, LIC and KCBC?
We are always drawn in by the allure of a US brewery popping up online simply because of how rare it is to get to try these beers. Overall, worth the premium despite one of the cans being slightly oxidised.
Topped up with some Verdant, Polly’s Brew Co., Howling Hops, Northern Monk, Naparbier and even a couple of hard seltzers (they are shite, don’t bother).
Slightly disappointing that one of the beers we’d ordered was out of stock and was replaced with a cheaper beer without any acknowledgement or money refunded but we’ll let them off because of how weird everything is at the moment.
Hop Burns & Black
Another double order from beer, cider, wine, hot sauce, vinyl aficionados, Hop Burns & Black.
The first order was an excuse to try some beers from some smaller breweries, namely, Newbarns (new Scottish brewery feat. folk who worked at Siren, The Kernel & Beavertown), Saint Mars of the Desert (Sheffield based artisanal brewery), Beak Brewery (found in Lewes), Baybrooke and Donzoko (top lager producers from Northamptonshire and Hartlepool, respectively). Also managed to squeeze in Gigglejuice, a dry cider from London’s tiny small batch cider makers, Duckchicken!
Beak’s Parade IPA was a standout and I’m looking forward to trying more of their stuff now they have their own brewery space after gypsy brewing for a while. We’re yet to drink Wylam’s Summon Up The Blood but are very excited to. It has all the hallmarks that we love in a souped up Imperial stout.
The second order saw us finally take the plunge and buy some top quality cider from some of the UK’s best low intervention, artisanal cider producers in Oliver’s, Little Pomona and Pilton. A delicious range of dry and sweet ciders that seem to share a lot of traits with natural wine, which is fine with us as we’re big fans. Plus, more beer because you can never have enough.
Staggeringly Good
Portsmouth’s Staggeringly Good were up next due to them releasing a range of sours and a porter as well as having some of their newer beers still in stock.
Souropod is the brewery’s first foray into sour beers with three versions - (1) Dry Hopped Kettle Sour With Idaho And Citra (2) Blueberry, Raspberry, Lime, Coriander Salted Gose (3) Pink Guava, Pineapple, Strawberry Kettle Sour. The pink guava one being the pick of the bunch with the perfect balance of fruity tartness.
Divine/Divide sees the brewery take the same base beer and create a beer from each coast of the US. One a piney, bitter West Coast IPA and the other a soft, pillowy New England IPA. Both fantastic examples of each style.
Lastly, Post Imperial Porter - a souped up version of Post Impact Porter, aged on white oak with maple syrup and vanilla. This was the overall winner. Fantastically thick and sticky and warming.
The Beer Musketeer
Staying in Portsmouth with this next order from The Beer Musketeer, Portsmouth’s only independent craft beer bottleshop. A trio of dessert delights from UnBarred and a duo of retro radiance from Play Brew Co.
The ‘no milk’ Strawberry Maltshake managed to deliver the taste of its counterpart despite the lack of milk being there and whilst the Bueno Shake didn’t really deliver the flavours of the chocolate bar it was named after, it was still a delicious and tasty stout.
We bought the Play Brew Co cans purely for the 80’s/90’s nostalgia on the cans with Lady Luck being the beer of the order. Tropical milkshake goodness with mango, passionfruit, and pineapple delivered in spades.
A Pint of Hops
Trying to support local again with Acton’s small but perfectly formed bottleshop, A Pint of Hops. Marius from the shop contacted us to arrange delivery and whilst doing so, was able to chuck in the Sambrook’s Imperial Stout that had sold out on the website. Great personalised service!
Accidentally ordered a lot of dark beers in the middle of summer along with a deliciously herbal Rosehip Saison from Yonder and some other more summer appropriate beers. Mikkeller/Burnt Mill collaborated to make The Weight of Brunch, a powerful barrel-aged stout that packed a punch.
Estonian’s Põhjala gave us two porters, the classic Must Kuld and Honey Laku, a porter brewed with heather honey, liquorice root and blackcurrants, aged in Pedro Ximenez and Bourbon barrels. This one felt like drinking a spirit. In a good way.
The pick of the bunch was Lervig/North Brewing’s Nitro Hot Chocolate Stout. The brewers accidentally packed too much beer into their nitro cans so it came with a warning to pour carefully. No exploding can here, instead a super silky smooth beer that genuinely tasted like grown-up chocolate milk.
Beer52.com
We’re no strangers to Beer52.com, having been a customer for around a year many moons ago. We even reviewed them back in 2017.
Suffice to say, being Very Into Beer, we’re probably not quite their target audience anymore. However, they were offering 10 beers for the price of postage so we picked up the beers you can see here for the pricely sum of £6.95.
The website and magazine boasts that they offer beers you cannot buy in the supermarket and you’ll never drink the same beer twice. Except at least four of these are now available via a combination of Sainsbury’s, M&S and Waitrose. And we definitely had the O’Hara’s stout in a box in the past.
Alas, we can’t really complain as there’s probably different rules for an introductory box such as this. Plus, we made two batches of brownies with the Millionaire and Peanut Butter Milk Stout so that probably tips this order into the positive category.
The Brewer’s Tap
One of our favourite pubs in Portsmouth got the order treatment next - Southsea Brewing’s The Brewer’s Tap.
We were missing draught beer so made an order for Actual Beer On Tap!!!
Two pints of Southsea Brewing’s very own Posers & Perchers, a mango and guava sour pale ale. This was delightfully refreshing but there’s something about drinking beer from a re-used milk carton that just doesn’t recapture the magic of being handed a freshly poured pint in a pub.
The main reason for the order though was, The Right to Bear Arms, a toasted pecan and maple doughnut stout. We’re huge fans of pastry stouts and this sounded like it was on the right side of sweet without being overly cloying and sickly. And it was! It was probably too far on the bitter side and lacked a little on the maple. Still good though!
A Hoppy Place
We took a week off work as we realised we hadn’t had a full week away from working since November last year. On one of the days, we ventured to Windsor for a little wander around. We popped into Windsor & Eton Brewery, a very old pub and A Hoppy Place - an excellent bottleshop slap bang in centre of Windsor.
We only had time for a quick beer in their beer garden before our train home but did manage to pick up these three as a memento of our visit.
The very helpful chap behind the counter swayed us to purchase Siren’s Affogato. A coffee and ice cream pale that he’d put in the stout section because it’s basically a white stout. He was right. And it was really good.
We also opted for two beers from Boutilliers, both taking their names from video games. First, the Untitled Goose Game inspired, Press Y to Honk - a Triple IPA brewed with pineapple, mango and vanilla that was a lot darker than I expected but still delicious and sticky like a TIPA should be. Secondly, One Winged Angel (named for the final boss battle music from Final Fantasy VII) - an imperial raspberry brown stout that we’ve squirrelled away for when sunshine abates.
Independent Spirit of Bath
Surprisingly, this is the only order we made whilst drunk.
We were perusing the internet late one evening when we spied that, self-dubbed purveyors of fine booze and bad influences, Independent Spirit of Bath had the latest imported US beers from Equilibrium and at a very reasonable price.
A few days later this order turned up and we mentally high fived ourselves for having such great taste.
It appears we ordered the two pastry stouts from Greece’s Seven Island simply because we liked the cans. PBJ Concoction (peanut butter, wild strawberry, Tahitian vanilla & chocolate) and Dulce de Banana (banana, dulce de leche, Tahitian vanilla & chocolate) both filled the gap on evenings when we’d eaten all the brownies we’d made. Sweet, syrupy and delicious.
Both Equilibrium beers were of course fantastic but the other hightlight was DEYA’s Tappy Pils. The perfect beer to sink on a Friday post-work in the sunshine. Glorious.
Ealing Brewing
Last but not least, we return to West London to support another local business in Ealing Brewing.
The brewery originates from South Ealing micropub, The Owl & The Pussycat. After being unable to meet demands on the kit there, Ealing Brewing was born.
The beers are dubbed as ‘progressive beers, rooted in tradition’ which is a pretty good slogan and fairly accurate. Saying that, we know we’ve made the book/cover statement a lot in this post but these beers definitely need a new cover - the labels and logo are a bit naff.
We bought one of everything and there’s a good mix of styles here; bitter, blonde, pale, weisse, stout, porter, barleywine. There’s even a smoked lager! (Note for future reference: we do not like smoked beers. When will we learn?)
The Kellerbier was a deliciously refreshing beer, as was Poca Mon: Nelson Sauvin, an IPA hopped with (duh) Nelson Sauvin. Turner’s Tank was another standout - a well balanced, easy drinking traditional bitter.
Summary
There you have it, a whistle stop tour through our many orders over the last five months or so. In between this there were a few emergency supermarket purchases but they aren’t worth documenting in this post. It is pretty insane how good the beer choice is in supermarkets these days which is great for the consumer but not quite so much for the brewers and shops we’ve tried to champion here (there’s a whole other post about craft beer in supermarkets vs. independents so we won’t cover go into that now).
Go forth and buy beer!
(Please purchase your beer responsibly, socially distanced and whilst wearing a mask.)
