IPA Is Dead.

Whatever.

Single hopped beers are not new. But I applaud Brewdog for putting out four variants that fall firmly into the 'what-if?' category of hopping for many beer lovers.

Now, I drank the Citra last night and wasn't exactly blown away. How did the others fare?

Nelson Sauvin: waves of aggressive gooseberry. It turns, waves of bitterness. The flavours I began to fall in love with get pissed all over.

Bramling X: interesting. Starts with strawberries and cream? Segue to earthy fruit and then... tsunami bitterness. Just as the hedge was probing with berries and spices. Damn.

Sorachi Ace: Whooooo-hoooooo! Fantastic aroma; like my fridge when I bury satsumas under a heap of other crap at Christmas. It's creamy, bits of crystallised lemon stick in the palate, that turning orange was majestic. My wife thought it was rank; "I thought you loved me?" she spat. Literally. Meanwhile, I was losing myself in the lemon tea meets piss-ridden nettles sumptuousness of this beer. I ruddy loved it.

So, what to do next? Blend them.

One-third Nelson Sauvin to two-thirds Bramling X was transformational; killed the cattiness, maintained a gooseberry lineage all the way home, somehow took the lingering bitterness away. I'm not saying the sum of both beers was better than its parts but in comparison I'd put it in my top one.

Three parts Bramling X, two parts Nelson Sauvin, one part Sorachi Ace. Good, but not as good as the previous. It just tasted like a good, strong, hoppy IPA. Nothing special.

But I saved the best til last. One part Sorachi Ace to lots more parts of Sorachi Ace.

Moudly orange. It's the future. I've tasted it.

Today's Obviously Made Up Fact About IPA:

With pale malt attracting a premium price, some London brewers tried to brew IPA
with dark malts instead. The export market, however, was non-existent as no-one was
dumb enough to buy a beer called Black IPA.




One last point I have to mention - seven quid postage and it took eight days to arrive. Meantime, other merchant's orders arrived within 24 hours and cost less to ship. Brewdog need to raise their game in the delivery department. >

It only produces 0.7 per cent of the world's hops. Two varieties that have been barnstorming the British beer scene make up less than ten per cent of that crop. So how the hell did New Zealand begin to punch way above its weight in the hop world?

Hops have been in-country since arriving with European settlers in the mid-nineteenth century. Nelson province on the South Island became the industry's cradle, benefiting from a temperate climate, high number of sunshine hours, regular rainfall and relatively wind free conditions. The imported varieties were moderately successful, but the industry was transformed by the introduction of an West Coast American hop in the 1920's.

'Late Cluster', known in NZ as 'Cali', offered better growth and greater yields and became the hop crop of choice. But twenty years later, Cali was crippled by a soilborne root rotting disease, phytophthora, and the country's hop industry was in dire straits.

The response was the establishment of the Hop Research Station at Riwaka in 1949. Tasked with breeding new high-yield varieties resistant to phytophthora, three cultivars were developed (Smoothcone, First Choice and Calicross). By the mid-sixties when these hops were well established, the industry faced a new challenge.

Lager's growing popularity boosted the worldwide requirement for seedless aromatic hops. Whilst Europe was busy eliminating the seeded male hop plant, New Zealand took a different tack. They developed a virtually sterile seedless plant that still retained the aroma and bitterness characteristics of its lineage. The varieties produced (Green Bullet, Harley's Fullbright, Sticklebract and Super Alpha) became the world's first commercially produced triploid hops (ones having three chromosomes).

Further developments saw New Zealand carry out extensive research into aroma cultivars that were adapted to the country's growing conditions. Out of that program came New Zealand Hallertau, currently the most-produced hop in the country at 42% of the total acreage.

Hop production trebled through the eighties and nineties, and today over 80 percent of the crop is exported. But it's still responsible for less than one percent of the world hop trade. Perhaps the true value of its contribution can be found in two unique offerings.

Less than four percent of New Zealand hop production is of the varietal Nelson Sauvin. But, what a hop it is. Released in 2000, it offers an unmistakable aroma of gooseberries that's almost identical to that of the Sauvignon Blanc grape (hence the varietal's name). It's used by British brewers such as Brewdog to enhance the complexity of pale hoppy beers such as Punk IPA. Thornbridge showcase the hop to incredible effect in their South Pacific Pale Ale, Kipling. It's a hop whose impact can only widen as more drinkers experience it and fall in love with it.

There's also major potential for the production of organic hops. With typical viral and fungal hop diseases not an issue and the only significant pest (the two-spotted mite) controlled by a predator, no pesticide use is needed. Nor are herbicides - instead there's a well-engineered solution that both clears foliage around the hop bines whilst depositing natural organic fertiliser at the same time. It's called sheep grazing.

Unique varieties and organic credentials ought to make New Zealand an expanding player in the world hop market. The cost of freighting the end product out internationally may be the major obstacle to rapid returns on export. But when it results in beer that offers a real 'wow!' factor, perhaps it's a price well worth paying. >

One often-overlooked brewer's skill is that of judging hop equivalence. Having crafted a recipe that delivers a particular aroma and bitterness profile, what's a brewer to do if they can't get hold of those exact hops?

If you answered "don't bother brewing it" then you need to go back to bed, wake up on the right side of it and don't forget to screw your commercial head on this time. Sometimes, the required hops just aren't available - demand outstrips supply, harvest are poor, prices are as volatile as hop oil itself, the shipment is stuck on on a freighter/warehouse dock/M62, the hops have gone bad/ran low/never been ordered in the first place. Meanwhile, a copper is waiting patiently and customers have orders to be fulfilled.

It shouldn't come as any great surprise that there's such a thing as equivalence or substitution. In some cases it's scientific, with alpha acid content and utilisation rates taken into account. It can be more subjective, comparing varietal characteristics for broad similarities.

True, some hops are so distinctive that it'd be near impossible to concoct an equivalence; nothing comes close to the funky mouldy orange of Sorachi Ace or the Sauvignon Blanc gooseberry edge of Nelson Sauvin. But to me the challenge of maintaining the hop profile of a beer is akin to the art and science of the whisky blender. Hops have a vintage all of their own, growth and maturity rates differ and so does the resultant aroma, flavour and bitterness. Managing those fluctuations, blending different hops to maintain a beer's consistency is the mark of a skilled brewer. >

It's hard to resist a good pub festival, particularly when it's at one of my favourite pubs on my regular Thursday night ramble. With a host of unusual beers on offer, the question was not how reluctantly I'd be scooping at the Smithfield in Derby but where to start?.

Regular readers known that I'm keen on keeping my figure in shape... and round is a good shape. I'm not one of these uber-thin ticker-types who live on railway station sarnies. So I filled up beforehand on a fantastically tasty Chinese at Yangtze in the Westfield centre; chilli chicken and chicken curry and, er, some other chicken was a clucking good combo to get your ribs sticky enough for severe imbibation. Suitably stuffed, a short walk downriver would land me at the festival. But it would have been downright rude not to stop off at my usual first-drinkie halt on a Thursday. The Royal Standard has made a name for itself with its combination of Derby Brewery Company brews, solid guest beers and cafe chic style. Happy as I am with Trev Harris' solid stuff, the guests are always a draw for me and choosing an Abbeydale beer over the likes of Wychwood was a no-brainer. If I'd engaged said brain, however, I'd have spotted and ordered the York Nelson Sauvin.

So, my plan for only one swift half had gone to cock already. Dear reader, I know you would never have forgiven me if I'd been stubbornly Reluctant and passed this one by. I knew it couldn't be as good as Thornbridge Kipling. Might it be as good as Alehouse's Sauvin So Good? Well, the York had a massive goose-gog aroma with more than a hint of dry nettles nestling in its fruity thicket. Sustained wincing fruit through the flavour, too, before a subtle creaminess calmed the party down. A damn fine beer, all the more so for being an unexpected bonus beer.

Scooping down at the Smithfield was, in truth, unusually un-Reluctant. I'd gone all old skool and compiled a hitlist culled from a Scoopgen post. With the outdoor festival bar not open when I arrived, I pitched up at my usual table in the bar by the jukebox and settled down with half of Oakham's Helter Skelter. It's beers like this that make the Smithy one of my Pubs To Love with plenty of hoppy stuff (the Whim and Headless brews on offer follow suit).

I won't write too much about the Smithfield here- it deserves a proper Pub To Love write-up in the near future - but suffice to say it's a cracking boozer. A recently reupholstered bar and lounge are served by a central bar bristling with handpumps. No festival stillage in either room, though, and the mini-marquees outside had plenty of trestles but nothing in the way of casks. So, where had landlord Roger Myring hidden his festival? Behind one of the downstairs gates, of course - a garage-type room built into the side of the pubs that was deep enough to take a forty-barrel stillage.

There was a fair crowd outside already by seven o'clock as Roger got the show on the road. First beer for me was Thornbridge Karnival, tried before at Peterborough festival bit I wanted a half-pint to savour. The latest beer in their Brewers Challenge, this is newest brewer Matt Clarke's entry. It still has that Thornbridge hop stamp albeit with a crepe sole rather than a steel-toecapped Doc Martin. That makes it a calmer and more contented brew compared to their usual output. Although you expect another hop kick, and in not getting it feel undersold, it's still an
almost assured beer with real self-restraint.

Next up were three beers that I'd eagerly awaited ever since seeing them on the list. Marble produce some darn fine beer; here in Derby, our wholefood shop Sound Bites are stockists of Marble bottles such as Lagonda IPA and their sublime Ginger. Here at the Smithfest, the brewer had three single-hop-varietal beers on offer. Sorachi Ace was very very pale, a wishy-washing-up liquid head with some juicy fruited hop oils prominent in the nose. Really creamy, too; the kind of soft hop that could glide a harsher one across a palate to good effect.

Their Mount Hood was fairly pale by comparison, with soft sherbet edges and a floral blush across the palate. The hops skip across a late aftertaste of lemon balm. But it was Brewers Gold that seized the day. Dark gold body, fresh floral perfume notes, blossoming hop oil on the end of your tongue and a hoppiness that never, ever stopped. This has the capacity to make its Crouch Vale counterpart seem amateurish by comparison.

A run of local beers would now do to see the night through. Headless 5 Gates was.... well, certainly not unpleasant, it just feels like a let-down in the afterwash of a few well-hopped beers. It's not too far removed from their usual output, rounded hops held up in a decent mid-citric body. In fact, it feels just a tad more more bolshy - dry hopped, perhaps? But there's some muddle here with the base beer not being allowed to shine.

Brunswick's Bellpair Vice was a groaner on two counts - a ruddy awful pun and the dread of another English Wheaty effort from the Brunnie. They do somethinga really well down there; White Feather, Father Mikes, beef & stilton baguettes.... but reet exotee brews laik vice? Most of the wheated oddities of theirs that I've tried have been not so much drain-pours but gutter watter. Remarkably, this stuff managed to keep on the right side of the fine line between wheaty sweetness and cloying yak. For most of the time. Best served cold and drank quickly.

Perhaps Amber could match the Bellpair's intentions and declare trumps with more of an edge to their offering. The brewer, Peter Hounsell, gives his beers straightforward names and likes to experiment with bold styles. This as least looked like a rugged wheat beer, with a murky honey coloured collar, but there was no esteryness nor any real wheaty bite coming through. Perhaps the temperature wasn't allowing these wheaty wonders to flourish?

Time for the night's last beer and an attempt to go out on a high. Well, a high ABV at any rate. The Headless Zymosis was brewed back in April and had maturing its way towards being a winter beer. Well, the weather of late has been decidedly parky, so no time like the present for cracking open a cask. Apart from a dulled deep amber body, nothing up front suggested its strength in depth, a fairly bland nose for a 7.5% warmer. Then thirty seconds later, the heat is on... that higher register warmth of spice followed by the reflux burn of candied Deep Heat. With your middle organs now coated, the palate anticipates the aggressive nature unfolding in the glass and replaces spiced fire with hop ire.

It's a Keyser Soze burn, though - a flickering flame, a darting burn along the damp boards til like that... it's gone. Until the next mouthful. My notes on the night compared the feeling to that of inhaling too deeply whilst changing the water in a fishtank. I still have no idea why I wrote that - especially as I haven't kept fish for over twenty years.

Outside it was dark now, the R&B band were in full funk and ordering beers was best achieved by holding up the requisite number of fingers corresponding to the number of the beer on the board. So, few takers for number 39, unless you roped a few others into helping you order it. Though it probably wasn't worth all that effort for a Church End special. I kept on with #1, Zymosis. Hard knock life, eh?

All in all, a good night with mainly decent beers. And *that* jukebox - The Who, Led Zep, Thin Lizzy, Issac Hayes, Suede, Placebo, Cream, Ian Dury, Madness, The Jam, The Clash... stopping scooping was a Reluctant choice, but there's only so much Zymosis a man can drink on a weekday.

A long day's recovery on Friday in front of a static spreadsheet and a regular supply of bacon cobs set me up for a return on the Saturday. Mrs H was tempted out to enjoy some cider and a few of the old faces were bound to drop by. Indeed, Cycling John dropped by (without the Claude Butler) and my erstwhile drum tutor, Andi 'the drummer in Endorphin Rush' Evans was already installed outside with his wife Julia and their rapidly-growing nipper, Emily.

I was in very Reluctant Scooping mode today - the emphasis was firmly on drinking with friends and taking things easy. There were, of course, several ticker tables - some of which were their usual over-zealous selves with bottling lines in full flow and spittled beards outshouting each other over contentious abv recollections.

The weather stayed fragrant enough to stay sat outside next to the bar. That meant the beers were knocked off in quick succession, with more Marble Brewers Gold being the first order of the day. Mrs H was in her element with a barrel of Three Cats medium sweet cider to yomp through. Away from the Marbles and Zymosis, today's beers were OK but not gobstopping - Great Gable Illgill IPA was fairly anonymous, Black Hole Milky Way not as biting as I remember it. The real standouts were from Hopshackle; although their Amber Smooth was fairly anonymous, the Double Momentum and Historic Ruby Mild was were huge beers. The mild in particular had a real edge to it, lactic smacks with very berry fruits catching your taste buds almost unawares.

Ever impressive was the food here - the Smithfield chip butty is a thing of legend and I was more than happy to reacquaint myself with the full-on dripping-butteryness experience. Mrs H's tuna melt looked disgustingly good, too, and Cycling John's sausage cob with onion rings in it looked - frankly wrong, but he assured me it tasted good ('edible skins.... makes all the difference' he assures me).

It's been a rambling write-up, but that was the nature of this fest. Some superlative beers, some threatening a vague promise and not delivering, top tunes, a smidgen of sunshine, good times all round. Roger and Penny do a top job here, it's an oasis of funtime drinking that brings a little of the laid-back country boozer feel into the city. Oakham, Whim, chip buttys, free jukebox. Pub fun? Done!
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Now, I wouldn't usually bother with the likes of a CAMRA festival in Coventry. But this trip had several factors in its favour; a direct train service from Derby, an interesting venue (Coventry rugby club) and the chance to meet up with some of the England Ratebeer.com crew.



It was a gorgeous blue sky morning, so with an early arrival into Cov I set up off to the cathedral for a spot of photography and a trip up the old tower. All 180 steps to the top where you're rewarded with a sobering view of the bombed out shell of the old cathedral. And a view of the multi-story IKEA, where (apparently) devout flatpackers flock on a Sunday morning...

With my heart beating its way out of my chest, I decided a beer stop was in order. Fortunately, there was a Spoons/Lloyds close by, the Earl of Mercia. As well as intermittent free wifi, I got the 'other' foreign-brewer-brewing-in-the-UK-Spoons-fest beer, Tokyo Yoho black. Which wasn't that great - if I hadn't seen it come out of the cask, I'd have questioned whether they'd given me extra cold Guinness.

So, after a tramp around Cov's exquisite ring road (having asked a policeman the way) I found the rugby club. And a fine place it looked, too. Sadly, there was no drinking in the stands which I thought might have been the case.

It was a busy place, a cram of tables in one room and a stillage in a room further along. Getting warm , too - more about that later. Ratebeer stalwart Glen from Oxford was already there and had secured a table. Mark and friends had made the trip up from Northamptonshire and were there too, busy tucking in to some decent ales.

And those ales - some -though not a lot of - fun local beers (Discovery Darwin's Delight was probably the best), good beers from further flung parts (Dark Star Over The Moon) and the occasional standout (Fullers London Porter, Leyden Raglan Sleeve). The beer of the fest for me, though, was Alehouse Sauvin So Good; good to see the Nelson Sauvin hop being used more (as it is to stunning effect in Thornbridge Kipling).

Whilst at the bar, I spotted a familiar face; Mes and Sim without the Sim. He'd blagged a trip in the Phil L beer taxi. Always good to share a few beers and more than a few laughs with him, particularly as he never fails to remind me how good my ratebeer review of Full Mash Drizzlecombe Porter is ;-)

As for Phil L; first time I'd met the man and what fun it was - a genuine, knowledgable, affable guy who knows his onions but doesn't ram them down your throat. If you see what I mean. And, what's more, he brought a couple of bottles to share round the table; Dragonmead Final Absolution (a US Belgian-tripel style) and my first Finnish beer, the incredibly moreish Mikkeller Santas Little Helper.

So, a fest of fun? Just. The venue was OK; a little cramped perhaps and certainly on the warm side. Just before kick-out time (4pm) the beers were getting decidedly warm. The loos worked most of the time. Access was on the level but it was a bit of a struggle for some wheelchair users as everywhere in the place had drinkers dripping off the walls. I didn't try the food (as I did take a Walter Smith pork pie) but the trays of chips seemed to be going down well. And it was a bit of a hike in the wrong direction from the rest of the city.

Let's be clear - it needs a bigger venue (or perhaps a marquee on the pitch after the season's finished). But the beer list was interesting and the ratebeer company was as fun as ever.

Will I be back? Get some coolers on the casks, let us sit in the stands, get Phil L to smuggle some more foreign beers in and I'll seriously think about it.

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