Thursday 10 April 2014, will be known in the future as Un-Human Cannonball Day. Children will be taught about this day at school, grandparents will share stories with their future generations and hundreds of people will look back and say “I was there…. but I don’t remember too much about it”.
As you will all know, I was very excited about the launch of the 2014 edition of Magic Rock’s Un-Human Cannonball. I was one of those up at 7am to buy online, and the day just couldn’t progress quickly enough until the official launch at The Craft Beer Co in Islington at 4pm. There was a second launch starting at 7pm at The Port Street Beer House in Manchester, but more about that later.
Arriving at the CBC just before 4pm, I was surprised that there was only a handful of people were waiting outside. I met Chris & Emma outside and as the doors opened at 4pm we fought our way walked in. Now, obviously this event was all about the headline act, but it had one hell of a supporting line up across both cask and keg. The sensible thing to have done would have been to have started on the (much lower) ABV cask offerings before gradually working up to the big guy. Sensible? Meh.
Straight into the Un-Human Cannonball then. From the keg it was crystal clear with decent carbonation, a good head and smelling fresh as the morning dew. A slightly metallic tinge to the hops, but the sweet pine-laden aroma was spilling out of the glass. The taste was creamy with wave after wave of the big citrus notes crashing through. This was followed by a resinous, almost sticky, wave of pine before presenting a lovely smooth, malty and subtly sweet bitter finish. It’s so well balanced considering the amount of hops that have been that have been thrown at this thing (dry hopped six times according to the pictures on Instagram) that it just makes you want to go back for more.
Which I did, and then if that wasn’t enough, I then decided to try a bottle with Jonny from The Beer Channel for their YouTube review. I have to say, I preferred the bottle and found I was getting greater flavours from it.
So what about the support acts? Bearing in mind I had already had 3 Un-Humans by the time I got to these, don’t expect too much from this…
Cannonball (keg) – tasting on top form, almost out-shining the headliner
Circus of Sour Cherry (keg) – subtle cherry but not as good as the original
Ringmaster (cask) – tasting as good as ever
High Wire (cask) – went for the cask over keg as never had it this way before. Right choice as was tasting excellent, with the grapefruit flavours really shining through
The Stooge (cask) – still enjoying this, was a bit of a wild card compared to the paler offerings that I had been trying
Carnival (cask) – first time for me with this one, it’s the perfect summer drink, bursting with summer flavours and leaves a crisp, refreshing finish
(Picture courtesy of The Craft Beer Co)
That lot pretty much finished me off but once again the event was as much about the people that I shared it with as it was the beer. Thanks to Chris, Chris, Emma, Clay, Mark, Peter, #SomeRandomBlokeOffTwitter, Sarah, Matt, and Jonny for sharing the experience with me. Beer folk are good folk.
While all this was going on in London, the guys up in Manchester had to wait until 7pm to get their mitts on the magic. With thanks to the power of Twitter, I managed to hook up with a couple of bloggers who were attending the event at the Port Street Beer House…
Check out Rowan’s review of Un-Human Cannonball day in her blog here, with images and contributions from Steph.