Leeds Gyle 479

Leeds Brewery have created a one-off beer for the seasonal period, Gyle 479. It's an itteresting point in itself that Leeds have created a special like this; despite being incredibly popular in Leeds (thier popular, rapidly-expanding Pub portfolio serving as a case in point), they do normally keep things simple and straighahead - a strong core portfolio of beers with now-regular seasonals.

So, is this foray into experimentation any good? In short, yes. For some reason I assumed it would be a stout-esque beer, but it's not; Venkatesh (Head Brewer) described it more as a 'Vintage Ale', and he's spot on. The base beer was brewed in the summer, and then matured in Bruichladdich Whisky Casks until now.

Sitting in the brewery, all neatly in a row, the Casks certainly impose. Cask-ageing of beer is the perfect flavour profile for this time of year, and I'm at a loss to even begin to explain the variances of taste that every single cask can add to a uniform base beer. The beer itself pours a rich mahogany colour; when held to the light there's a lovely plummy red hue shining through. There's some estery fruity-yeastiness going on in the nose, alongside a subtle vanilla note that you'd expect from a cask-aged beer, and a slightly smoky, treacle-like sweetness underpinning the whole thing.

Gyle 479 is smooth; and very easy to drink. Rounded sweetness, full of cherry and sultana, turns slightly spicier as the sip finishes, and that finish is unexpectedly dry - which makes it surprisingly moreish.

Very seasonal, Gyle 479 is a lovely beer, and I'm happy to see Leeds experimenting a little more like this. Venkatesh certainly seems very proud of his creation - and so he should be. It would seem that Leeds don't plan to let the casks sit idle, so I'll be keeping an eye out in the future. If you're thinking about cracking one open to eat with lunch over the yuletide period, I could'nt help but think that a nice slab of rare beef with horseradish would be a match made in heaven for it; in fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that that's exactly what I'm going to do. It's available from The Brewery, Beer-Ritz (Headingley), or Latitude Wines in Leeds.

Thanks again to Venkatesh, Sam and Michael to taking time out of thier busy day to speak to me yesterday. Hopefully next time I come over it'll be warmer out, and my feet won't be frozen!

Zak Avery: Without Beer Ritz, This Blog Wouldn't Exist

As you can read here, I've been an advocate of Beer Ritz in Leeds for some time. In fact, 99% of the beers you read about on this blog are from there; my monthly trip over, returning with a large box full of goodies, really is one of life's pleasures.

A chance meeting over on Beer Advocate with a knowledgable chap called Zak, and then seeing the name again (funny how life works, innit...) in Beers of The World Magazine led to the dawning realisation that Zak actually manages Beer Ritz, and he's up for doing a little interview for TGS

Not only that, but he hosts beer-tasting evenings on his site The Beer Boy (Link over there on the right) which also contains some snippets of his top-notch beer writing. We enjoyed a virtual pint:

Leigh: How's things?
Zak : Very good, thanks. Busy with the shop, the beer tastings, the video blog, and quite a bit of freelance writing at the moment.
You've met Garret Oliver - how was that?
It was great! He's such a passionate, eloquent and intelligent chap that it would be hard not to enjoy meeting him. I met him at a beer & food lunch at Anthony's in Leeds, and then he was good enough to show me round the brewery in Brooklyn a year or so later.
Off the top of your head, whats popular Beeritz at the moment?
Well, our best selling bottled ales are Copper Dragon Golden Pippin and Saltaire Cascade, so it's nice to be doing our bit for local producers. We also stock the hard-to-find Sam Smith's beers, which go well, and generally, the American "craft" beers are doing well. We get through about a pallet of specialist bottled beer a week, so happily the response to "what's popular?" is "good beer!"
...Any beers you still haven't been able to get your hands on?
Not really, we will try to source anything,a nd are pretty good at it too. We've just sourced Kasteel Cru, the "champagne lager", and we sell Deus, the "champagne beer". We get asked for the rare Trappist beer Westvleteren sometimes, but that is really pushing it - by which I mean, I have some at home, and it's mine!
What's coming up for Beer Ritz in the next few months?
It sounds very geeky, but we're going to re-arrange the British beers by colour (light to dark, left to right) and strength (strong to weak, top to bottom). That way, beers near each other will be broadly in the same style, and hopefully will give people confidence to try something next to their favourite beer. Now I've written it down, I have to admit that it looks mad, but I'm sure it will encourage people to try soemthing a little different.
We both espouse beer and food matching - whats your all-time perfect matchup? I'm not really a fruit beer person, but I think that Belgian kriek (cherry beer) and chocolate torte is pretty hard to beat - actually, on the local front, Sam Smith have just starting doing fruit beers, and their cherry beer is pretty good too. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and vanilla ice cream is mind-blowing. Vintage Lincolnshire Poacher cheese and a good strong, hoppy ale is pretty high up there too.
Where do you drink?
I run a specialist beer shop selling about 600 bottled beers, so mostly at home! But when I do haul myself off the couch, The Rosebud in Carlton (I live in Rothwell) is a fifteen minute walk - it's a good, traditional public house, in the old sense of the phrase, that always has a good range of ales on. In Leeds, North Bar, the Cross Keys, the Palace, the Scarborough Taps. I like the fact that you can still walk into North and they'll have something new and exciting on tap.
Running a beer specialist supplier seems to many like a dream job - is it? Have you noticed any trends in trade of late?
I always say to people that apart from the hours and the pay, it's the best job in the world. Trends - hmm, people generally seem to be getting more interested in the idea of good quality bottled beers, and maybe drinking less but better quality, stronger and more flavoursome beers, although that might be wishful thinking on my part.
Ever tried brewing yourself?
It's very close to the top of my "To Do" list. I'm going all out for a full-grain mash rather than using an extract kit - I guess that's the foodie in me - so I want to make sure that I've researched everything carefully.
Go on then - Favourite beer of all time?
No chance! And my top ten has about fifty beers in it!

Zak can be contacted via The Beer Boy.