Day 117, Beer 117 - Okell's "1907"

Today's Beer

Name – 1907

Brewer – Okell's

Classification – Commemorative IPA

Strength – 6.1% ABV

Verdict - At A Glance

On the eye – Rich, deep amber.

On the nose – Fruity, malty, spicy, with plenty of torque. (Maybe you ought to read on...)

On the tongue – An evocative, fruit-rich ale with proud malts, helmet and full leathers. (And again...)

On the subject – I've already dropped plenty of hints about this in various places, but this Isle of Man-based brewery really ought to be embraced more warmly by us mainlanders, along with beer loving folk in every other nation. The ales we're missing out on are just too good.

On the market – Well, therein lies some serious comedy. As I've just said, Okell's beers are already hard to come by 'off island', but this particular one is a limited addition, so even if you're on the Isle Of Man right now you're going to have to fight like a dog for one. If you know a collector or a specialist dealer, it's probably better to call them. Unless, however, certain recent rumours are true...(see below)

On the whole – 7.5/10

Full Review

This beer drinks like motorbike racing.

I would love to say I'm just being blasé and kidding around, I honestly would, but the reality is that this is a hard fact that we're dealing with here.

This is liquid biking.

Now, some of you will be quick to suggest that I may have been somewhat influenced by the theme of this beer, which has been brewed to commemorate 100 years of the Isle Of Man's famous 'TT' motorcycle racing event, but to those misguided cynics I will simply say this...

That's more than likely.

So, having brushed my critics aside with all the cocksure swagger of a shame-ridden oaf, let me explain precisely why the branding of this beer and it's character are so perfectly matched.

And deliberately matched, too. Okell's knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't conjure up a beer and then decide how to pitch it to the market. They had the idea to mark the centenary of a globally famous biking event and brewed a beer precisely for that purpose.

Given the outcome, that shows genuine craftsmanship and ingenuity, because 'hey presto' – a true bikers ale was born.

1907 is powerful, explosive, weighty, robust, it's got dynamic shifts of flavour, and it's consistency even has a very subtle but extremely delightful 'oily' quality which magically evokes the sense of a finely tuned engine.

Ish.

But you get the idea. It's no wimp, it's unashamedly 'macho', and it's got plenty of 'oomph.'

There's little doubt that I'd start banging my head against a wall if I thought too long and hard about the suggestion that this is yet another 'IPA', and I don't like banging my head against most things – especially walls – so if you don't mind I'll just try to think about something else.

But before I do, (you just knew I wouldn't let it go that easily!) let me encourage you to read one of my more recent rants about the term 'IPA' rapidly losing all meaning, and I'll also point out that Okell's have sent me four beers, one is a wheat beer, one is a porter, and then two other very lovely beers – which have almost nothing in common with each other, one of them being fairly deep brown in colour and malt-dominant in taste. Both of these other two beers are called IPA's.

I'm actually shaking my head right now.

I wrote that down because there's no way you would have known otherwise.

Also, if I see one more mention of a supposed IPA being a rendition of an 'original recipe' – I think I'm going to take up base jumping and call time on this blog. Because I'm clearly not fitted with the right kind of brain to collect all of this contradictory evidence together and make sense of it.

Many of the beers making such claims are hugely different from each other – surely their various claims to be 'based on original recipes' cannot all be correct?

Please feel free to put me out of my misery here, either by providing me with the presently unimaginable solution to this riddle, or a year's membership of a decent base jumping club.

Anyway, whilst breweries worldwide continue to come down with this strange illness which compels them to call every decent beer they brew an 'IPA' (a disease known in certain jungle communities as Fashion-Slave-Itus, or Fear-Derived-Bandwagoning) we're all just going to have to accept that the word 'ALE' is now spelt with three entirely different letters, and will continue to be until somebody finds a cure.

I hope they do so soon.

But in the meantime, let's move away from this beer's given status, and get back to the beer itself.

Because, at the end of the day – it's a very good beer.

In fact, so well received has this beer been among the privileged few who actually managed to get hold of it – that a certain amount of follow- up bottling has since occurred, and rumours now abound that this brew might yet become a mainstay of the Okell's range.

If that really is the case, then bikers all over the world will have serious reason to rejoice!

And, when I've finally managed to calm myself down, I think I might just be joining them.

Day 106, Beer 106 - Okell's "Doctor Okell's IPA"

Today's Beer

Name – Doctor Okells's IPA

Brewer – Okell's

Classification – India Pale Ale

Strength – 4.5% ABV

Verdict - At A Glance

On the eye – Lovely. Just about as 'amber' as amber can get. A noticeable absence of bubbles.

On the nose – Deep malts and vivid fruits.

On the tongue – Fruity (both in a rich way and in a zesty way) and nicely balanced with warm nutty malt. Mysteriously, a little bit lacklustre in feel. Read on...

On the subject – Over the years, by virtue of their colourful Isle-Of-Man heritage and their hugely admired but elusive ales, Okell's have cultivated something close to 'legend' status. Their beers have developed highly unique characters since the brewery was founded back in 1850, and there's an infectious sense of fun about everything they do. This beer is named after the company's illustrious founder.

On the market – Notoriously hard to come by outside of the Isle Of Man. So very notorious, in fact, that I invite anyone knowledgeable enough to leave availability suggestions in the 'comment' section. Frankly, I'm at a loss.

On the whole – 7.5/10

Full Review

I was a bit flummoxed by this.

By virtue of an all too brief trip to the Isle Of Man many moons ago, I already knew this beer. Therefore, I thought I knew a little about what to expect. Much of my expectations were met, and some of them were even surpassed. But one element was not at all as I remembered.

Let me start by highlighting what's so good about this beer.

As a relatively low strength IPA (certainly low against the backdrop of the current fashion for very potent versions) this is a rendition that you could easily enjoy a few jars of in one sitting. This is something to be grateful for, because it's a lovely tasting beer, and one which is equally disinclined to follow the fashion for ultra-hopping an IPA, preferring instead to focus on balance and nuance.

The malts, which can so often by sidelined or effectively shunned in the modern IPA (and indeed in a great many other types of contemporary ale, too) are given some decent time in the spotlight here, and I know many drinkers (who feel their tastes are being largely ignored these days) will surely welcome this.

The so-called 'hopheads' are not without something to droll over here too though, with a scintillating orange-zest principle theme searing through the entire drink, and some sharp floral notes interweaving around several other supporting citrus flavours.

But it's all mercifully tempered, reigned-in, under control. The urge to raise the hop bar ever higher and leap over it simply does not preoccupy this drink. And the rapidly expanding list of IPA interpretations is made all the stronger for it.

However, there is still that surprising quality to this beer which - after I went and opened a second bottled to double check - seems now to have been made a set feature of this product.

Basically, it's all a lot less 'lively' than I recall.

The absence of carbonation was extremely noticeable, both on the eye and in the mouth.

In the far distant land of Dieting, one of the many mantras these days is to go 'low-carb', but until now I wasn't aware that this concept had migrated to the much closer territory of Bottled Beer. But substitute 'carbohydrates' for 'carbonation' and there's little doubt that what we have here is a genuinely 'low-carb' bottled ale.

Certainly, many bottled beers suffer greatly from being too gassy, and that's always something a brewery should seek to avoid. A beer that feels like 'fizzy pop' is always going to struggle to impress.

But I reckon Okell's have perhaps been a little overly-cautious here, and taken things a step too far in the opposite direction.

And this issue is all the more concerning when the ale itself is so very excellent. But there are very few beers on Earth delicious enough to compensate for a sense of feeling 'flat'.

The situation became clear early on, when I had to raise the bottle high up toward the ceiling in order to produce any kind of lasting head for the photographs. It became clearer still when I opened that second bottled and found similar results.

Of course, it's perfectly possible that this is an isolated issue with this particular batch of bottles. And that would actually be fine by me. Slight variations in character are often a sure sign of properly 'hand crafted' produce. I'd be interested to grab some more bottles later in the year to explore this theory.

But until then, all I can say is that this is a very lovely IPA, with tremendous appeal to those who look for balance in preference to total hop dominance, and one which would be even more perfect with just a little bit more 'va va voom.'

And I really do mean just a little bit.

This beer is literally a few bubbles short of perfection.

(As a footnote to this – there is a third bottle of this IPA currently in my possession, which I will surely not be able to resist for too much longer. If I find any differences in the 'gas' department, I will update this post.) 


(Stop Press  - Update - Okell's have since responded to this post, and have provided me with some very crucial information regarding this gassy mystery. Check out to my subsequent article here - where I reveal the truth.)

Okay Okells!

Speeding all the way from the Isle Of Man to my ever grateful doorstep are these tantalising bottles from Okells Brewery.

This company - created by a certain Dr Okell - has a pretty mighty heritage, and can trace it's roots back to a revolutionary steam powered brewery, which itself was built some twenty-four years after the brewery's original inception way back in 1850.

"A mighty heritage implies mighty beers," he cackled to himself, tossing his head back wildly like someone who'd just received yet another large case of free beer.

The brews I'll be exploring over the coming weeks are (from left to right) -

'Aile' - (Traditional Porter) 4.8% ABV

'Maclir' - (Light Wheat Beer) 4.4% ABV

'IPA' - (India Pale Ale, as you might have guessed) 4.5% ABV

'1907' (Limited Edition IPA-Style 'TT-Races' Commemorative Beer) 6.1% ABV

Goodness knows how I'm going to stop myself from cracking all of these at once. I'll probably have to chain myself to the wall again...

Only six thousand of the '1907' were ever bottled, and I'm now in possession of three of those. That's practically ten percent!

(...ish!)

Look out for the reviews over the coming weeks to see just how 'mighty' these great looking ales really are.

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