HB&B Blog — Utopian

The Beer Lover's Table: Tom Yum Pozole and Utopian Brewing Small Pils

Beer Lover's Table Claire Bullen Lager Utopian

The Beer Lover's Table: Tom Yum Pozole and Utopian Brewing Small Pils

I think about pozole a lot for someone who doesn’t eat it that often. This soup hails from Mexico and the southern US, and is notable for its starring ingredient: hominy, or extra-large, starchy, nixtamalised corn kernels. From there, its components vary. It can be made with chicken or pork or offal; it can be verde (made with tomatillos and green chillis) or rojo (made with dried red chillis).But what unites all pozoles is that irresistibly tender-chewy hominy, and their perfect balance between warming spice and citric brightness. Pozole is easily one of my top-five dishes of all time and...

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Our 2022 Big Beery Advent beers revealed

Baron Brewing Boxcar Brew Co Burning Sky DEYA Donzoko Drop Project Duration Brewing Elusive Brewing Finback Full Circle HBBAdvent Kees Newbarns Pastore Brewing & Blending Polly's Brew Co Pressure Drop Simple Things Fermentations St Mars of the Desert Sureshot The Beak Brewery Track Brewing Co Utopian Verdant

Our 2022 Big Beery Advent beers revealed

Beer #24 - Simple Things Fermentations Belgian Christmas And so to our Christmas Eve beer, the cherry on the top of our HB&B advent. Simple Things Fermentations is a small Glasgow brewery doing great things. Here in South London, STF may not have the instant name recognition of, say, a Verdant or a DEYA, but the quality of the beers speak for themselves - every one's a winner. When founder Phil kindly sent us a sample of this Belgian-style Christmas ale, we knew we'd found our Christmas Eve beverage. Lightly hopped, this is packed with all those classic Belgian flavours we love...

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Fundamentals #115 — Utopian Doppelbock Strong Lager

Dark Lager Devon Doppelbock Fundamentals Lager Matthew Curtis Utopian

Fundamentals #115 — Utopian Doppelbock Strong Lager

For the last few years, beer folks like myself – assorted writers, bloggers, podcasters and influencers, not to mention retailers like HB&B – have been trying to make lager happen. When craft beer came along (and by “craft beer”, I mean the most recent, post-2000s wave), some breweries were adamant that drinking lager meant you were a bad person. I won’t repeat some of the blurb churned out by these breweries during these times, but over the years I’ve come to realise that actually, this was inappropriate, and downright classist. Lager is great, all lagers are valid and, as a genre,...

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The Beer Lover's Table: Birria Tacos and Utopian Brewing Dark Lager

Beer Lover's Table Claire Bullen Dark Lager Devon Lager Utopian

The Beer Lover's Table: Birria Tacos and Utopian Brewing Dark Lager

This probably isn’t the first time you’ve come across birria tacos recently. In that strange way that the internet collectively seems to nominate one dish for obsession every few months, birria is now everyone’s digital infatuation. Not that I’m above the fray – birria fever has gripped me, too. As with all internet-famous recipes, it helps that the dish looks good: crispy, golden-fried tacos stuffed with juicy chunks of beef, plunged into meaty broth covered with a bright red slick of chilli-infused oil. However, as Tejal Rao notes in a recent NY Times article, “The Birria Boom is Complicated”, that’s...

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Our 2020 HB&B Big Beery Advent Calendar revealed

Anspach & Hobday Boxcar Brick Brewery Burning Sky Deep Creek DEYA Drop Project Duration Brewing Elusive Brewing Fork Brewing Left Handed Giant Lervig Makemake Neon Raptor Newbarns Pilot Polly's Brew Co Pressure Drop Signature Brew Siren Craft Brew St Bernardus The Beak Brewery Utopian Verdant Villages

Our 2020 HB&B Big Beery Advent Calendar revealed

24. Anspach & Hobday The Pfeffernusse Stout A&H says: Based on the German Christmas biscuit of the same name, the Pfeffernüsse Stout brings together a rich, malty stout with the perfect blend of festive spice. Ginger and cinnamon dominate the nose with biscuity malts and warming spices joining on the palate. We say: Merry Christmas everyone!     23. Brick Lingonberry & Sloe Sour Brick says: A heavily-fruited jammy modern sour ale, fermented with our house Lactobacillus and Kveik yeast and conditioned on Lingonberry juice and Sloe puree. We say: HB&B and Brick couldn't be much more closely linked, from being Jen and...

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