Beers of the Month - January 2009

My Beer of the Month is Bracia from Thornbridge Hall, which I tried at the Thornbridge tasting at the Rake. This is very special stuff from a brewery that is beginning to really make waves on the back of some superb beers. Their St. Petersburg Imperial Stout wowed me before Christmas, their Jaipur IPA is quickly becoming a UK classic and the selection of beers at the tasting didn’t disappoint. Bracia has a complex taste with hazelnut, chocolate, coffee and truffle flavours from the malts balance by a dazzling array of hops and the sublime signature ingredient, chestnut honey. There’s more information about the beer on their website and Bracia can be bought direct from the brewery at £5 per 500ml bottle. It’s worth it.


My Highly Commended beer for January, comes most gratifyingly, from a new micro-brewery in my local area. Sambrook’s Brewery is located very near to my old office in Battersea. They only started brewing in November 2008, but their first beer, Wandle Ale, a 3.8% session bitter, is extremely drinkable. The choice of Fuggles and Golding hops and Maris Otter malt is quintessentially English and I feel that you could slot the resultant beer into the range of say, Harvey’s, and nobody would be any the wiser. It’s great to have a new craft brewery opening up on my doorstep and with the news that Young’s may open a microbrewery as part of their planned museum on the Ram Brewery site, the year has started on a positive note in the SW postcodes. Wandle Ale is available in free houses across South West London (with Dave’s help, I tracked it down in the Magpie & Crown) so do your bit to support a fledging brewery by sampling it.