Left Hand are a very well-regarded Colorado mob, and their milk stout is delicious. A milk stout, for the curious, is one in which milk sugars are used in the brewing process, and was often given to pregnant women to drink during the Regency era to promote healthy growth and shore 'em up for the rigours of childbirth.
Carbon Smith is a nanobrewery (or possibly picobrewery, I'm not sure) from Edinburgh founded by my mate Ollie from uni, and before you think it's just nepotism, the Cardamomnomnom Stout is currently on tap at BrewDog Edinburgh. BrewDog are pretty picky about their guests, so he's got their seal of approval and rightly so. Dark beers are a great love of mine, and his one is flavoured with cardamom for a beautifully-crafted finish. One of the more sessionable ones on the list.
Canterbury Brewers are, somewhat unsurprisingly, brewers from Canterbury. They do something called Itzamna, which was originally an occasional beer but you can now get it all year round, and there's really no reason why you wouldn't. A lovely, glossy, rich stout, with biiiig chocolate and vanilla flavours, Itzamna's just a lovely thing to drink - though get a half, because it's a slow one and also 9%.
BrewDog Hardcore Maelk is a collaboration with noted Norwegian headcases To Ol (I don't know how to make the O have a line through it, sorry) that is *shuffles through notes* a black milk IPA. It should not work. It really, really shouldn't work. Like, not even a little bit. But it so does.
Kernel are nice chaps from under a viaduct somewhere in London. I can't tell you where despite having been round the place, or possibly because I've been round the place. Don't remember much of that particular excursion, if I'm honest. Anyway, they're one of the most consistently inventive and consistently excellent brewers in the UK, and they've never made a bad beer - which is laudable considering they've made about three hundred different ones.
Harviestoun are another bunch of odd Scots, but their Schiehallion is a perfect summer lager - a proper lager, not the semi-frozen can of dog urine popularly called lager by Americans and people who ought to know better. It's something you can drink all day and feel pleasant. Not that we condone that sort of behaviour at KURACS, goodness no. <.>.>
Weird Beard are weird. Presumably they also have beards. They are a craft brewery based out of somewhere in West London, so it's more than likely. Miss The Lights was an experiment of theirs, and I prefer it to the standard Hit The Lights - partly because the flavour profile meshes together a bit better in my opinion, but mostly because I am a non-conformist and probably also a filthy Commie.
Ah, Mikkeller, without whom no list of interesting and/or mental beers is complete. A Danish man who wanders around like some kind of mad brilliant ale hobo, Mikkeller tries very, very hard to make the kind of beers people are excited about. Their Beer Geek Brunch was an enormously potent coffee stout, and the Brunchweasel version uses that coffee what's been through an Indian weasel thingy. It is mad and brilliant and I love it.
Evil Twin was founded by the brother of the guy from Mikkeller, and takes a similar - if admittedly more restrained - approach to crafting both beer and hype. Christmas Eve... is one of those beautifully made beers that you only get to see rarely, but it's like drinking a Leonard Cohen song; smoky, soulful, and deeply affecting. Like the lower end of Laughing Len's quality spectrum, it also means you feel sleepy and have difficulty rising from your chair afterwards.
Last, but by no means least, the Moor Beer Company (they of the brilliant slogan "Drink Moor Beer") are a happy-go-lucky bunch from the Somerset Levels who sporadically have to shut down and rebuild their factory for various reasons, primarily because people want their beer too much. Old Freddie Walker is a wonderful winter ale, sweet as fruitcake and with a kind of prototypical Englishness about the whole thing. You drink it and you feel like you're sat in front of a log fire, the landlord knows you by name and you them, and there's a dog and some interesting books to read that you'll get round to one day but John from down the lane's dropped by and he's one for a chat, and before you know it it's a lock-in and the pints are getting cheaper and all your friends are here.
You'll forgive a little rambling, I trust. Real ale is something very close to my heart - indeed, the stuff takes up much of the space that, in normal people without cable-knit jumpers, is reserved for the liver - and I'm not hugely fond of the implication that I'd made up some of my personal favourites. I trust this is a suitably in-depth discussion of the drinks in question to satisfy you that they do, in fact, exist. =]
--Scapegrace,
Media and Merchandise Officer,
Kent University Real Ale and Cider Society.
