Archive for the ‘real ale’ Category

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At the end of the learning curve

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Barrels outside Brodie's Beers brewery, from their website.

When we heard in 2008 that brewing had begun again in the small set up at the back of the William IV pub in Leyton, only a few minutes from our house in Walthamstow, we were very excited. We were only more excited to discover that Brodie’s planned to brew a wide range of beers, from traditional milds through to fruit-flavoured beers, via imperial stout. At that time, London breweries were few and far between, and this was right on our doorstep.

In those early months and years, however, we were painfully aware that these were brewers on a learning curve and others (see the comments on that article) agreed. When James and Lizzie Brodie kindly sent us a box of beers to review, of the ten or twelve provided, only a handful were really impressive. The others hinted at greatness but had too much of the plastic-bucket homebrew about them — too much yeastiness, muddy flavours and, er, variable conditioning. (Beery carpets. Joy.)

Well, it seems safe to suggest that, now, three years on, they have reached the end of that learning curve. We keep reading breathlessly admiring comments on their beers on Twitter from all kinds of discerning people, and the pint of their Citra (3.1%) we had at Cask in Pimlico last week was as good as any pale and hoppy beer we’ve had from any other brewery. Crisp, well-defined, clean flavours; sparkling carbonation; and all at barely any alcoholic strength at all. A real knockout.

If you’ve been wary of Brodie’s having been a disappointed early adopter, it’s time to give them another go, and see what all the fuss is about.

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Posted in beer reviews, london, real ale | 13 Comments »

Smutty pumpclips: no thanks

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

We wrote this for the head-to-head feature in the most recent issue of CAMRA’s BEER magazine. You can read Simon “Reluctant Scooper” Johnson’s argument in favour of “Ginger Tosser” et al over at his blog. This is the unedited text we sent them with never-seen-before deleted scenes and bloopers a few extra sentences. If this kind of dynamite material doesn’t convince you to join CAMRA just to get the magazine, nothing will…

Smutty pumpclips with badly-rendered ‘busty wenches’ and willy-waving vicars do nobody any favours. They don’t sell beer. They rarely, if ever, make anyone laugh. And, perhaps worst of all, they give the knockers another stick with which to beat beer and those who drink it.

Wine producers don’t market their lovingly crafted, artisanal products this way because they know they deserve to be taken seriously. Nor, for that matter, do German breweries, of any size. Perhaps British ale brewers are naturally self-deprecating?

Smutty pumpclip apologists will say that it is po-faced and middle-class to complain about them (as if the middle-classes have a monopoly on good taste). They will also argue that a ‘wacky’ pumpclip does sell beer. They argue that it grabs attention at the point of sale and so, for minimal outlay, helps the little man stand-up to the giant marketing budgets of the bigger breweries. Yes, the occasional pint of a rudely named beer might sell on novelty value, but that won’t win longer term converts. People watched the Carry On films, for a while, but they didn’t save the British film industry.

The long-term survival of good beer, and especially cask ale, depends on it being accepted as a mainstream product for men and women with discerning taste (like free range meat or good cheese) rather than a niche product for a small number of punning oddballs.

Think about Thornbridge’s pumps and their success in competing for attention on the pub bar. Their simple, colourful, contemporary design stands out from the competition without being the graphic equivalent of Colin Hunt, the attention-seeking office joker from The Fast Show. It doesn’t offend or embarrass anyone and, importantly, appeals to people who might not normally consider drinking ale.

We’re going to put more words into the mouths of those imaginary critics: “This is superficial nonsense! It doesn’t matter what the pumpclip looks like, or what the beer is called, only how it tastes.” But it does matter. Even before we’ve tasted a pint, the way it looks in the glass, its name, provenance and, yes, the image on the pumpclip, are stimulating the pleasure centres of our brains. They say you eat with your eyes and we think the same is true of drinking beer.

Or not. One particular turn off for us is when beers have names that refer to urine. Seriously, who wants to be thinking about wee when they lift that glass to their lips?

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Posted in design, Generalisations about beer culture, real ale | 12 Comments »

Pale but… not so interesting

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

At some point between when we started taking an interest in beer and now, the niche ‘golden ales’ had found in the market got taken over ‘pale and hoppy’ ones.

A few weeks ago, we had a bottle of Summer Lightning for the first time in a while and, although we enjoyed it, we were taken aback at how sweet and yeasty it tasted. It was one of our first loves and, in our minds, was a super-hoppy, crisp, clean beer. Not so. The same day, Neil Chantrell of Coach House Brewing, said almost exactly the same thing on Twitter.

Exmoor Gold was even more of a shock when we drank it at the George Inn at Middlezoy a fortnight ago: like golden syrup and, sadly, not that enjoyable. We dumped it: “It’s not you, it’s us; we’ve moved on, but you’ve stayed the same.”

We don’t think either beer has changed, though. It’s just that we’ve come to expect a certain lightness and much more bitterness from yellow-golden ales. At the George, our second pint, Glastonbury Ales Mystery Tor, hit the spot: tropical fruit and almost-but-not-quite puckering bitterness were present and correct.

Where does this leave the previous generation of golden ales? Should they change to keep up? And will the same fate befall the current crop of pale and hoppy beers in ten years time?

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Posted in Beer styles, real ale, Somerset | 12 Comments »

Pop Culture and Beer

Monday, November 14th, 2011
Boat with ABBA hallo written on the side

That weird boat in Lübeck with ABBA hallo written on it for no obvious reason.

These are just a couple of thoughts prompted by reactions to our last post.

1. You can’t write a set of rules for “cool”. Trying to define “good beer” or “craft beer”* in a form as definite as the CAMRA conception of “real ale” is impossible. Defining “indie” is pretty tough, too, but you know it when you see it.

2. People have often have very different taste in music or films when they’re just finding their way than they do later in life. They might start with the pretentious stuff and get over themselves; or they might prefer brash, loud and attention-grabbing, but begin to appreciate something more thoughtful as they mature. Our respective dads thought our respective tastes in music were terrible, but they were just glad we liked music at all.# If people just starting out on beer happen to get all excited about Guinness, or crazily hoppy American IPAs, we should be encouraging them, not sneering.

Footnotes

*. Actually, we’re not going to footnote ‘craft beer’ every time we use it. We’re going to link to this new permanent page.

#. That sentence is a perfect example of what a pain in arse this “two bloggers with one voice” thing can be. That’s the last time we’ll mention our respective dads…

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Posted in Generalisations about beer culture, real ale | 2 Comments »

Is old keg the same as new keg?

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Watneys Red Barrel: detail of beer mat c.1968

In the ongoing discussions about whether CAMRA should or should not do more to support quality kegged and bottled British beer, one of the key sticking points is this: what makes the kegged beer of today any better than the bland kegged beer of the 1960s and 70s which provoke the campaign’s founding?

Or, to put that another way, is ‘new keg’ just the same shite as ‘old keg’?

Having read Martyn Cornell’s marvellous Beer: the Story of the Pint recently, we were prompted to contrast the motives of the makers of ‘old keg’ — big conglomerated breweries like Watneys — with those of the new breed of keg brewers.

Old keg: post-World War II, cask ale got weaker and became more temperamental until, to paraphrase Beer, a change of landlord or barmaid could be enough to push punters towards less exciting but more reliable bottled beer. Sales were dropping alarmingly. Kegged beer was the breweries’ response to that — a way of ensuring consistently adequate quality (less vinegar) but at the cost of excellence. The cask versions of their beer at the time were hardly earth-shatteringly brilliant either.

New keg: some smaller brewers, with a focus on flavour and quality, whether you agree with them or not, believe their beer tastes as good if not better without cask or bottle conditioning. (“Too fizzy” and “too cold” are subjective complaints). Others might prefer to cask-condition but, to expand their business, as an expression of beervangelism, or a bit of both, want to get their beer into as many venues as possible, and believe kegging will help them achieve that. Many of these beers are stronger, more intensely flavoured and much more varied than the cask conditioned beers commonly seen in the average pub.

What do you think? Are they the same thing?

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Posted in real ale | 17 Comments »

Beers from beyond the grave

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

It’s getting easier then ever to buy and drink beer brewed to specific historical recipes and to get at least a sense of what beer tasted like before the 1970s.

Here’s a list of some notable beers which are recreations of specific beers based on recipes from the archives. We’ve also included a couple of beers which, although perhaps not exactly recreations, can help us understand specific aspects of the beer of the past.

1. Harvey’s Imperial Extra Double Stout (9%, bottle)
It’s hard to work out if this is an accurate recreation of an historic recipe but, nonetheless, it is reckoned by some to be the best chance most of us will get to experience the sour Brettanomyces character which would have been present in many 19th century beers. (As they say on Wikipedia, CITATION NEEDED.) It’s pretty intense; you might not even like it the first time you try it (we didn’t) but it’s well worth trying twice and is one of our favourites now.

2. Fuller’s Past Masters XX Strong Ale (7.5%, bottle)
Based on a recipe from 1891, some work went into this, including tracking down a specific variety of barley and then having it malted as it would have been at the end of the nineteenth century. Trying to understand styles gets our heads in a whirl but, as we understand it, this could be called a ‘burton’, a type of beer rarely found these days.

3. Fuller’s Past Masters Double Stout (7.4%, bottle)
This was brewed from an 1893 recipe and, despite the ‘double’ moniker, is interesting because it represents what you might have got if you’d ordered just a straight stout in a London pub at that time. Great to contrast with Fuller’s London Porter.

4. Westerham’s Audit Ale (bottle Cask)
An occasional but award-winning product from this Kent brewery, Audit Ale is “brewed to the 1938 strength and using the same ingredients as the original best selling bottled beer of the Black Eagle Brewery”. We haven’t tried it, but we’d like to. Thanks to Ed for tipping us off to this one.

5. Kernel’s historic range (bottle)
There are too many beers in this range to list them all. Each recreates a porter, stout or IPA from a specific year and, the brewer tells us on the Twitter, most are based on specific historical recipes. Kernel have also collaborated with Thornbridge on a burton for this year’s Borefts festival. Again, we haven’t tried any of these, but others have.

6. Worthington E (4.8%, bottle)
A sullied name because it was applied to a Worthington keg beer in the 1970s and 80s but, we are told, this is brewed to the 1965 recipe for Bass Pale Ale. Again, we haven’t tried it, but Zak has. Thank to the Beer Nut for the tip on this one.

7. Harvey’s Ration Ale (2.7%, cask)
We’ve only seen it for sale once and they don’t mention it on their website but this is a recreation of a beer brewed during World War II when raw materials were scarce and beers got very weak. From what we’ve seen in Ron’s tables, only milds generally got down this low, but the point is made. We expect to see it crop up again now there are tax breaks for beers at this strength.

8. Greene King Suffolk Strong (6%)
This strong beer is interesting because, as many beers would once have been at point of sale, it is a mix of ‘stale’ beer matured in wooden vats (Greene King’s 5X, which they don’t sell) with a younger, ‘milder’ beer.

9. Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild (6%, bottle/cask)
According to the brewers, this is a strong mild brewed to a pre-World War I recipe. We’ve never tried it but everyone else in the entire world has.  The idea that milds are weak, sub-4% beers is quite a modern idea after all. (With thanks to Graeme Coates for reminding us of this one.)

10. Courage Imperial Stout (tbc)
The word on the street (actually Ed’s blog again) is that Wells and Youngs are planning to revive Courage Imperial Stout. Which recipe will they use? Who knows. UPDATE: it’s out in the US.

Need we say (again) that we think this kind of thing is fascinating and that we’d like to see more breweries give it a go?

Of course, the main reason for this post is to keep everyone busy correcting us and adding to the list while we’re away in Spain for a fortnight. Hasta luego!

UPDATES

20:49 23/09/11 Somehow we missed Pretty Things and their Once Upon at Time series, which they worked on with Ron Pattinson. There’s a 1901 Whitbread KK, an 1832 Truman Mild and an 1855 Barclay Perkins East India Porter. Thanks to Dave for tipping us off to this in a comment below.

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Posted in Beer history, Beer styles, bottled beer, real ale | 18 Comments »

Hunting for Ale in Exeter

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

A pint of Exeter Brewery 'fraid Not at the Waterfront pub

We couldn’t find many recommendations for pubs in Exeter on the Blogoshire, so thought we’d use our instincts and try out a few places on spec.

We started with the Wellhouse Tavern which is attached to Michael Caines’ hotel and restaurant on the cathedral square. We’re always interested when chefs say they like beer: it’s usually done in the middle of a spiel about how normal they are and how nothing hits the spot like good beer, after which they proceed to recommend Innis and friggin’ Gunn. Anyway, in this case, Chef or (at last his bar manager) turns out to have decent taste with five west country ales on offer, and not just the usual suspects. Standouts were O’Hanlon’s Stormsayer, a gingery, chunky 5% beer, and Bay’s Up and Under, a refreshing and moreish amber bitter. The pub itself can’t quite decide if it’s trying to be a real ale pub (large selection of beer), a party pub (bangin’ dance tunes and Jäger bombs) or a gastropub (sandwiches with pancetta) but definitely worth a look.

Thanks to the Baedeker raids, where there ought to be quaint backstreets and half-timbered buildings, there are post-war shopping complexes, and so the city centre seems short on pubs. We headed out of the immediate centre towards the Topsham Road and came across the White Hart. This is a proper, wonky old coaching inn with a courtyard, hidden rooms and cosy corners, despite attempts by Marston’s to turn it into a plasticky chain pub. Of particular interest is their unique house beer, Old Wallop (5.6%), brewed by Ringwood (part of the Marston’s empire). It’s got a really rich, chewy toffee character, set off nicely by that famous Ringwood yeast. Good stuff.

Down by the quayside, there is The Prospect, another large, historical pub. Unfortunately, they’ve gone even further down the chain pub route having done away with the cosy corners, leaving one great big echoing chamber. It feels like an upmarket Wetherspoons or a cut-price Pitcher and Piano. Cotleigh Old Haka, with Motueka hops, was in good nick, though, and the first beer from this brewery we’ve really enjoyed in a while.

The Waterfront, a few metres further along the quayside, was a pleasant surprise. From outside, it looked like a chain tapas bar but, inside we found attractive arched brick ceilings, friendly bar staff and regulars, and several ales in absolutely excellent condition. It’s the first time we’ve had O’Hanlon’s Yellow Hammer in a state where we could appreciate the subtle spiciness. ‘Fraidnot (4%) by the Exeter Brewery was the highlight of the trip — a golden ale with the kind of lip-smacking, doughy, bready malt flavour we associate with JW Lees Bitter and Bristol Beer Factory beers.

The Hourglass, around the corner on tucked-away Melbourne Street, is a fabulous old pub building with early 20th century brewery livery and some quirky decor, like a backstreet bar in Brussels. Lots of laptops and Moleskines about, if you catch our drift. It’s a pity that the beer was in indifferent condition and that the range included two from Otter (a brewery we just don’t get). They had another Exeter beer, Avocet Ale, which was herbal, watery and, frankly, weird tasting. This is probably an amazing place in which to drink red wine and philosophise but, on the beer front, we’d recommend the Waterfront over this.

It’s probably an indictment of the Exeter beer scene that one of our top recommendations is still the Imperial, a Wetherspoons that’s a ten minute walk from the station and occupies the old Imperial Hotel building, including its incredible orangery. The beer is reliably good and they have by far the best range of unusual local beer. We particularly enjoyed Bath Ales’ Ginger Hare (not very gingery, more like singed cinnamon UPDATE: and maybe not Ginger Hare at all, as Bath Ales tell us they’ve not done a cask for a while — did someone forget to change the pumpclip?) and Eddystone by South Hams  — a rare West Country beer with veritable hops!

We didn’t find any really top-notch pubs and began to realise the benefits of big regional brewers: with no St Austell or Fuller’s of its own, Exeter is being filled with invasive species: Marston’s and Greene King pubs. Not local and certainly not exciting.

Finally, a food tip: Lite Deelite is a very authentic Chinese/Japanese snack bar and restaurant on the Cathedral Square. We’ve been twice and been very impressed by the food on both occasions. The gangs of trendy Chinese students tapping away on their iPhones only add to the atmosphere.

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Posted in pubs, real ale | 13 Comments »

Weird bar staff quirks

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Here are a couple of oddities we’ve come across lately.

1. The barman who warned us not to mix the sediment from our St Austell clouded yellow into the glass with the beer or we’d “end up very poorly”. That’s clouded yellow. It’s a British take on a Bavarian wheat beer, and the bottle advises that it can be served with or without the yeast sediment mixed in. Yet more evidence of the British fear of suspended yeast and its supposedly poisonous qualities.

2. The barmaid who thought we weren’t looking when she held a sparkler near the pump in the last few seconds as she pulled the pint to lively up the head. She didn’t attach it, she just held it in place while she put the finishing touches to our pints. Without this bit of weird jiggery-pokery, we suspect they would have been completely flat.

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Posted in pubs, real ale | 13 Comments »

We need to talk about Greene King IPA

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

The sign outside a Greene King pub in London.

For a beer many people consider bland an over-exposed, Greene King IPA doesn’t half get talked about a lot. To us, it’s the cask ale equivalent of Budweiser — brewed to be nearly flavourless, not too intoxicating and uncontroversial. It was, in fact, for that reason that it was the first cask ale that Bailey got the taste for, many years ago.

Zak Avery, Paul Garrard and others stick up for it, however, arguing that it is subtle rather than bland, and that it suffers because it is often sold in pubs which don’t know how to look after it. The latter is certainly true, and also applies to, e.g., London Pride when not served in a Fuller’s pub.

Zak suggests that we and others who find GK IPA boring need to recalibrate our tastebuds. We know what he means — a pint of our usual after a fortnight in Spain last year tasted like an extreme hop-monster — but can’t agree that GK IPA is an unfairly neglected classic. If faced with a choice between GK IPA and a cold Cruzcampo, we’d take the latter every time, and that’s saying something.

We recently described GK IPA, rather than ‘craft keg’, as the thin end of the wedge in the battle against crap beer: it’s got more in common with John Smith’s smooth keg ales than it has, say, an exciting brown bitter like Harvey’s Sussex Best.

Which is not to say that people who enjoy it are wrong to do so, or that they’re not really enjoying it, just that it would be a shame if that was as far as they got. It’s like upgrading from Dairylea to mild cheddar and thinking you’re eating ‘proper cheese’. (That sounds snobbish but we can’t find any other way to express this — and beer and cheese aren’t things you need to be rich or Eton-educated to enjoy.)

What’s most frustrating, as Zak also points out, is that Greene King make some interesting beers, but their flagship brew just happens to be their worst.

Another beer which we’re beginning to think about the same way is Sharp’s Doom Bar. It’s hugely popular but, in our experience, often disappointing. We had a great pint of it a couple of years back but, since then, have always been let down by its dusty cardboard flavours and believe us, we keep trying. Recently, we had a pint alongside one each of St Austell HSD and Marston’s Pedigree, and Doom Bar lost. (But now we need to do that taste test blind.)

UPDATE (16/12/2011): we had another good pint of Doom Bar last night — bright, fruity and very alive. Still not a great hit rate but we’re not writing it off yet.

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Posted in Generalisations about beer culture, real ale | 21 Comments »

And shall Trelawney die?

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Hand pump for St Austell's Trelawny ale.

Being down in the West Country, it’s fair to say we’re not short of St. Austell pubs, usually carrying the same range: Tribute, HSD and, if you’re lucky, Proper Job. So we were excited to hear about a new brew, Trelawney, which was launched at the Royal Cornwall Show. (You have no idea, by the way, what a big deal The Show is down here.)

Trelawney is a light brown brew, at 3.8%, with Tasmanian Galaxy hops. It’s darker than Tribute but has a similar coppery glow.

At a guess, it might be an attempt to update old fellers’ favourite, Tinners. Our first thoughts are it will fill that slot quite well, as it’s not too scarily hoppy and satisfies the perceived need for “something brownish” to go with the ever-dominant Tribute. It didn’t immediately grab us, though, being a little burnt-sugar sweet (rather than malty) with some fairly nondescript, harsh hops at the end. Still, we were in Devon, on the wrong side of the Tamar, so maybe we’ll have a proper Cornish pint before passing final judgement.

When are St. Austell going to get Ron in and do a Fuller’s? All of these old family brewers should give this a go.

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Posted in beer reviews, real ale | 2 Comments »

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