Hello and welcome back to the Eternal Hoptimists,
Happy Valentines Day from all of us at The Eternal Hoptimists, and to show our love to our readers and followers we have allowed Mark to have a rummage through his beer cupboard to see if he can come up with something special for this day of love.
I’ll be honest in saying that it did not take much rummaging to find a couple of appropriate beers as I have been saving this pair of appropriately named Thornbridge Brewery beers to mark the occasion and of course to review for TEH. The first that I will be looking at is a Gooseberry sour aged in white wine barrels called The Heart Desires. This will be followed by a sour red ale aged in burgundy barrels with cherries called Love Among the Ruins.
See, we told you that we love you!!
1. Name : The Heart Desires (6.5% abv)
2. Brewery: Thornbridge, Bakewell
3. Hops : Not specified
4. Grain : Barley, Wheat & Yeast. Also includes cultures of Brettanomyces, Pediococcus & Lactobacillus
5. Aroma : Wow, this has an incredible nose with a sharp gooseberry tartness dominating proceedings with the white wine barrel also present. Based upon the aroma one cannot wait to dive into this!
6. Appearance : Pours a light amber with quickly dissipating head and the sediment that you could see floating in the bottle transfers into the glass.
7. Body : Has a light to medium body with a very moreish mouthfeel.
8. Taste : Oh yes, I was hoping that the aroma would transfer to the taste and boy does it! This is an incredibly complex beer with a fantastic level of sourness coming from the zingy gooseberry with subtle grape and apple flavours also present. The white wine barrel aging adds so much to proceedings creating great balance and making this a beer of serious quality.
I cannot say anything more than this Thornbridge Barrel Room Series – Vintage 2018 bottle of The Heart Desires is absolutely stunning!
Aged in wood barrels for at least a year and over 18 months on gooseberry’s there has a lot of care and attention given to this beer and it certainly shows. The aroma is wonderful, the taste is stunning and the whole presentation of bottle stye, label and cap just oozes class.
Now excuse me a while, whilst I finish the remains of what is in my glass before I bring you the next of the Thornbridge Valentines specials, which if it is anywhere close to as good as this will be very special indeed!
Our overall rating: 4.5/ 5.0
1. Name : Love Among the Ruins (7% abv)
2. Brewery: Thornbridge, Bakewell
3. Hops : Not specified
4. Grain : Barley, Wheat & Yeast. Also includes cultures of Brettanomyces, Pediococcus & Lactobacillus
5. Aroma : Wonderful oak barrel aroma with a lovely morello cherry nose. This is a beer that you can spend a long time inhaling before you take a sip.
6. Appearance : Pours a lovely deep red with a quickly dissipating head
7. Body : Nice, rich, full body with a delightful mouthfeel
8. Taste : This beer is more tarte than sour, this allows the palate to fully appreciate the delightfully rich morello cherry flavours which are backed by the oakiness from the burgundy barrels. This is a very well put together beer that gives off different flavours with each mouthful.
A gold medal winner in the Wood and Barrel-Aged Sour beer category at the Beer World Cup 2016 and it is easy to see why. My 2018 vintage bottle has certainly proven to be yet another fabulous beer that I thoroughly enjoyed every mouthful of.
Love Among the Ruins is another incredibly complex beer that is rich, flavoursome and well balanced with a subtle rather than face curling sourness and this is a good thing as you get to appreciate the aforementioned complexities with each mouthful.
A high-quality example of a Flanders Red Ale that I can highly recommend, not just for Valentines Day but for any day of the year. Great stuff!
Our overall rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Well, well, well…..what a fantastic pair of beers that I have been aging for our Valentines Day specials. Both different, both high quality brews and in all honesty I really couldn’t decide which I preferred. This is testament to the time, patience and effort put in by the Thornbridge brewing team, so bravo to them!
The|Eternal|Hoptimitsts 