Everyone has, or had, an Auntie Hilda. Even if she wasn't really your auntie. And wasn't called Hilda. And had an Adam's apple. Auntie Hilda was the relation or friend who, on hearing it was your birthday and knowing you liked a beer, went to the supermarket and pciked out some interesting bottles for your pressie.
Which is why, if Hilda was alive in the UK in the 1980's, you ended up drinking Hobgoblin or Fiddler's Elbow.
But what if Hilda's shaky grasp on reality extended far enough to remember you liked beers called 'IPA'? If she went shopping today and plonked three beers into her trolley, what are your chances of getting a decent beer?
There's only one way to find out.
We sent someone - for argument's sake, let's call them Hilda - to a large supermarket close to where they live. The only stipulation was to buy the first three beers with the words that featured 'IPA' on the label.
How well did Hilda do?
Beer number one was Greene King IPA. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth (mine, not Hilda's. Not with the state of her dentures). But, here's the thing - it wasn't bad. It wasn't game-changing, but market leading food and drink products rarely are. That's why they're popular. It wasn't vile, it wasn't fermented from dead babies injected with botulism. It was a mildy hoppy, reasonably carbonic, inoffensive bottle of beer. I would never have dreamed of buying it myself. Not even in one of those technicolour dreams I have after eating too much cheese. But I've drank worse. And would go so far as saying, if I were offered it again at a barbeque, I wouldn't adopt that face that suggests the host has just asked you to have sex with a horse.
Next up - Brewdog Punk IPA. With its Equity for Punks collar. Bringing share ownership to the supermarket masses. Jello Biafra must be shitting himself that he didn't think of that one.My relationship with Punk and Brewdog is like that I have with the pair of collared doves that perch on my garden fence. Most of the time, I love them; predictable, content, reassuring. Sometimes, I wish they'd shut the fuck up. Sometimes, I wish a passing hawk would rip their innards out and arrange it across next door's lawn to spell out 'LOL'.But I'm on an upward slope with Punk at the moment. This bottle was two-weeks fresh, nasally orgasmic and relentlessly fruity. Hilda did good.
And last - but by no means first - was Meantime IPA. So either her Irish national lottery numbers coughed up last week or she was hitting the value gin on her way around the aisles. Not the cheapest bottle on offer, but it is 7% and a 75cl job. And it was strangely un-nerving. I've known it to be dusty and lemony but this was all rather meh. Orange marmalade with a slightly metallic tang. Wet twigs. Old Cointreau. Obvious alcohol and a smear of green apple.
So, in summary: surprised that Greene King wasn't bad; not surprised Brewdog was so good, surprised Meantime wasn't better. And for Christmas, Hilda would be better off spending her heating allowance on Punk.
This post was brought to you in the spirit of supporting IPA Day. Because anything that gets brewers and consumers and writers excited about beer is a good thing, yes? You don't have to buy into the the bullshit of IPA being the "pinnacle of brewing innovation". You may feel that the individuals and organisations behind it are self-publicists who see it as no more than free publicity.
Do me a favour. Grab a beer, drink it down and take it easy. IPA Day is what you want it to be.
Because: IPA isn't a style. It's a declaration of intent. Whether the intent is to say: we're traditional, we're bleeding-edge.
Drink IPA. Don't drink IPA. But do keep an open mind.
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With cap doffed in the direction of Zythophile, tongue firmly in cheek and old garbage from previous posts recycled, here's a few IPA lies that may have passed you by:
1) The name Hodgson chose originally for his export ale was Pale Indian Strong Session. It proved to be a disaster; a fortuitous game of Scrabble with Michael Bass inspired him to rename the beer.
2) East Kent Goldings hops were used in IPA not only for their preservative qualities in stopping the beer from spoiling on the long voyage but also because they stopped the beer drinker from contracting syphilis.
3) Traditional English IPAs actually contained either few hops or none at all, a style that many modern-day English brewers have now successfully recreated.
4) An over-conditioned shipment of IPA erupted en route to India in 1876 resulting in the The Carlsberg Ridge Incident, still the second-largest man-made explosion on Earth.
5) At the height of the IPA trade, Burton’s coopers made enough barrels in one year to stretch from Shobnall to Calcutta nearly three-and-a-half times over.
6) So prized was Burton water that Bass shipped it direct to India where, between 1859 and 1894, it commanded a higher price than the beer itself.
7) The first hop variety grown specifically for IPA brewing was East India Excess Isohumulene Ordinary developed in the village of Hadder by the ninety-year-old farmer Jeremiah McDonald. Brewing ledgers from the mid nineteenth century stipulate the use of “Old Mcdonald Hadda Farm E.I.E.I.O”
8) 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.
9) IPA first arrived in the USA in 1899 when, following the shipwreck of the HMS Chlamydia, Petty Officer Dick Fitztightly rowed on top of a partially-full hogshead and made landfall at Montmorency Creek, New Hampshire
10) Hodgson invented IPA in 1744 when he had a dream about exporting a pale ale. Sadly, he forgot the dream and had to wait many years for severe déjà vu to take hold before he could remember the recipe.
11) IPA is illegal in sixteen US states under “misuse of trade description” legislation. Such beers have to be sold instead as “hoppy pale ales originally brewed for, but not exclusively supplied to, the area of South Asia now known as the federal constitutional republic of India”.
12) It is widely believed that IPA is responsible for 95% of all the beer misinformation on the interweb, with stout/porter and cask/keg responsible for the other 1539%
These IPA lies of mine were first made up for my 12 days of IPA. If you really have nothing better to do today, you can find them in the archive here.
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... because they're aren't enough beards at GBBF already, it's handy to have one in your pocket to share around.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a bunch of brewers, licensees, writers, geeks and other randoms who all have two things in common. A love of great beer. And a love of the 'Ginger Merkin'.
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Maybe it's the good-natured queue. Even when you've been kicked off the steps outside Earls Court ("this is private property").
Maybe it's the stellar volunteers. Every man jack, but props to Craig "Craigie" Garvie and Yan "Blame Pivovar Yan" Pilkington. You kept the beers flowing and your recommendations were spot-on.
Maybe it's the food. Any day that takes in crayfish tails, pork scratchings and curried boar ain't too shabby in my book.
Maybe - just maybe - it's the beer. Draught Girardin. Stone So Cal Hop Salute Imperial Black IPA. Pivovar Broumov Opat Kvasničák Coriander. Greene King Very Specially Full Of Peardrops and U-HU 'IPA'.
Nah.
It's the people.
Way too many to name, but I know this much is true: spending the day bumping into everyone for giggles and ginger-merkin wearing was a big firkin of fun.
Good beer is where you find it. Today, I found it by the pint-load at GBBF. Lest we forget, we wouldn't have been there without CAMRA. 'Nuff respect.
1) I thought of doing the big fat namedrop in the style of Joseph's Coat but I knew I'd miss someone. Gawd bless you all.
2) The ginger merkin photomontage will appear later. When I can be arsed to Photoshop. Which means when I have to be slumped in front of the work keyboard in about eight hours. TTFN
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And in this toper's house, no-one is stirring.
No late planning, no highlighted-lists, no arch strategy-making.
Tomorrow is all about boozing, schmoozing.
And ginger wig wearing.
I want to get as many people as possible wearing it. Not at the same time, of course.
I'll take photos. I'll post them here. And there will be a prize of some sort.
Bonus points can be had if wig-wearing makes you look like Nursie from Blackadder. Or Brian Blessed.
Yes, it had been washed. No, it wasn't coconut conditioner. It was last washed in Mongozo and it smells well lush.
If you're around GBBF tomorrow, come say hello. Or run away screaming up Warwick Road. Just buy me a beer first.
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The idea was to go see what I could do on a Sunday and then find out which beer was best at satiating my thirst.
So I walked to the next village, Via a geocache, for the the first time ever. That's a new hobby that's going to be infuriating for ever more.
The way to the pub looked like this:
When I got to the pub (Royal Oak, Ockbrook) I had copious amounts of Thornbridge Raven. It looked like this:
When I got home, I had an intensive hour of hardcore weeding, it looked like this:
( image removed because no-one wants to see weeds)
And so then I drank Jever. Jever looks like this:
And then I needed something else to work up a sweat with. So I listened to this guy be out. And then not be out. And then be very out indeed:
And then I drank Cantillon Vigneronne and Saison Dupont.
And I watched Jenson Button win the Hungarian GP. BTW - Hungarian GP? I've got to go to that next year. Fast cars and goulash. Full of win.
Anyway.
I then sat down by this eer laptop and thought - what was the best part of the day?
That first geocache? Inquisitive hoverflys at the pub? Those delicious licks from Thornbridge Raven? The undeniable willy-tingle of a cold Jever? Button sticking it up the outside? Every damn mouthful of Cantillon Vigneronne, a beer that makes you glad you have a pulse and a forgiving palate? Or those last gasps of Saison Dupont, almost demanding that you've cycled through pendulous countryside before uncorking it?
Nope. It was this:
Ladies and gentlemen, they are pigs. In shit. And you could tell by their little snuffles that they bloody loved it.
I have no illusions concerning the afterlife. But if I could laze around in the sun and provide bacon 'n chop fun to others when I've gone, I know what I'd like to come back as.
Sometimes, even great beer isn't good enough.
The lunchtime pint of Budvar, full of bubbles re-arranging themselves into serried ranks, was satisfying and satiating. But it left me wanting.... something else.
The afternoon pint of Thornbridge Jaipur, poured straight from the cask, was lip-smackingly citric. But it left me wanting... something different.
There's something about the lazy heat of the city, about the kick-off-your-shoes-and-do-sod-all-because-it's-Saturday feeling that makes me want to find a shaded bar with a suntrap patio. And drink the beers that are indelibly imprinted with the sense of summer for me.
Jever. Orval. Saison Dupont. Cantillon.
But those beers are rather adventurous for Derby. The odd bottle of Jever, maybe, but that's about it. We don't even have a decent offie. So, what's a poor, thirsty toper to do?
Take the bus to Belper. To Liquid Treasure.
Julie Wyllie's shop lives up to its name. Superb wines from family-run estates. Unusual liqueurs. And plenty of world-class beers. Truth be told, I don't spend too much time looking over the ample shelves, crammed to the gunwales with locals heroes from Thornbridge, Spire, Amber et al. Because in the tall fridges that fill the shop's left flank I know I will find...
Jever. Orval. Saison Dupont. Cantillon.
It's about an hour and half round bus trip from Derby for me. And it's worth every minute.
And it got me thinking: where are the great offies in the UK? Where can you wander into and come away with a cool Cantillon? Or even a brewer's minicask? They don't seem to be in the cities - I can't think of any in Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham - so are there gems tucked away in the burbs?
Because sometimes, great beer isn't enough. It's got to be world-class. And it's got to be on your doorstep.
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"Once you label me, you negate me" - Soren Kierkegaard
"I've got the hiccoughs. I blame craft beer"
"Cheese cob. Pork pie. Salted crisps. IPA. Lunch of champions"
"Not where I should be but glad to be home"
"Any reason why I shouldn't have another pint of Jaips?"
"Having sat down, I'm going to struggle getting up. Mentally, not physically"
"If anyone tells you that imperial stout is a bad choice on a hot day, they're an arsehole"
"I'm thinking burger & lager"
"Lots of rabbits out tonight. If only I'd packed a .22"
"Orval update: one ladybird in glass, two ladybirds on their backs next to glass, one spider perched halfway down glass"
"What I did today: rode a fly, walked a dog, moved nuclear waste, used a zimmer:"
"Sat outside the Anchor, Walberswick. Wishing this holiday didn't have to end"
"So maybe I have another career option - freelance ATP luminescence swabber. So it's that and making gravy. Too specialist?"
"I really can't be arsed"
Labels: random. idiot. drunkard. contentment
Sorry, Soren. I'm a big fat staggering label.
Looking back on two months of Twitter: it seems to be saying...
Have A Good Time All The Time.
Those random tweets over the last two months show that, although I've been away, I've never been away too far. Like your 'uncle' who went to 'work on the oil rigs'. Even though there are no oil rigs in Lincoln.
Two months almost-away has been educational. Informative. Entertaining.
Much of it has been spent reading. Bamforth. Hornsey. Jackson. Cornell. Pattinson.
Some of it was spent doing meaningful things. Honestly. Like bottling other people's beer and not fucking it up. Like being mesmerised when legends try to tell you technicalities and you have to stop them, embarrassed, because the science escapes you.
A very small part of it was spent in the sudden realisation that Fergus Fitzgerald, head brewer at Adnams, morphs into Dylan Moran at a certain point of the evening. As he bloody well ought to.
Let's go round again. Maybe we'll turn back the hands of time.
Or maybe the 'craft beer revolution' will fold like a cheap hooker who got punched in the stomach by a fat guy with sores on his face.
Frankly, I don't give a tommy-two-tits either way.
But, sheesh, it'll be one hell of a ride.
Let's go. Let's Scoop again.
Reluctantly ;-)
Moochow grassyass to Ian Dingman for allowing the repro of his most excellent illustration c/o Time Out Chicago.
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Regular readers - yes, I mean you, Dave - will know that my breaks from blogging make the tart grow fondler. Check the time. It's almost time.
My plan had always been to take a few months away. Partly because I wanted to be fresh and feisty for GBBF and the Ratebeer European Summer Gathering. Say what you like about them; social inadequates with too-narrow focus on what makes a good beer? Fuck you. I will be in the company of the finest beery people I know. Some real turds too, for sure, but that's the way the crumble cookies.
Then, strangely, events in the last few weeks have made me wonder why beer bloggers bother at all. Anti-CAMRA, craft beer, new-wave keg... it's not the topics - they deserve to be at the top of the debating agenda - but the attitude. Frankly, bar a few enlightened souls, it stinks.
It seems that original thought is a declining commodity. Yes, I know comment on news is vital and valid. Comment about other blogs - it's a free world, baby. Comments on other blogs that are longer than the OP? WTF?
Knickers are being twisted for no more than the perverse fun of doing so.
Beer blogging in the UK is by parts splenetic, reflective, a release, a mouthpiece. And occasionally obvious, fatuous, worthless.
You don't need to be told the do's and don'ts. They don't exist.
It's not about changing the 'entire producing and consuming beer scene'.
It's about having an opinion. It's about thinking.
Please remember - thinking is so important.
And don't forget, people. It's only beer. It may be game-changing, life-shifting beer.
But it's only beer.
As long as it's good beer...
See you all in August, folks. Be Nice To Each Other :-)
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This month's Session, "Beer Collectibles & Breweriana", is hosted by Brian Stechschulte at All Over Beer.
I squashed my collecting bug before I turned a teenager. A brief flirtation with stamps, a serious fixation with chocolate bar wrappers and a bizarre fascination with badges gave way to far healthier pursuits. Like failing miserably at cricket. And engineering socially-awkward opportunities to try and see Julie ********'s bra. Apparently, if I'd asked, she'd have shown it to me. And it turns out she knew how to throw a cricket ball too.
So the attraction of saving breweriana has never appealed. Tegestology doesn't tickle my fancy. I do have a giant glass full of bottle tops but that was borne out of habit - flicking tops from one end of the kitchen to the other. I've no idea what's in that glass, never mind it being cross-referenced and photographed.
But, strictly speaking, I do have a collection. It's small but perfectly formed:
The Orval label comes from a lunchtime bottle savoured at the Nouvelle Hostellerie d'Orval in the company of brewery's commercial director, François de Harenne, and the beer polymath Phil Lowry. The Chimay cork was one of several popped later that same day by their export manager, Steve Marangon, in the garden of Auberge de Poteaupré. It was a day like no other in my life. Intelligent company. Industrial brewing sat cheek-by-jowl with meditative surroundings. World-class beers.
Every time I look at these things I can again feel the sun on my back. Taste the cheeses. Recall the tales told. Grin like the Cheshire Cat once more.
To everyone else, it's throwaway stuff. To me, it's a tangible link to the greatest beery day in my life. I'm just glad that I remembered to bring them home.
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It's Easter 2004. I'm sat in a hotel bar in Brugge, mispronouncing Duvel and about to have my beer epiphany.
In the grounds of Thornbridge Hall, Derbyshire, a stonemason's workshop is empty. The building that will witness the birth of Jaipur is still semi-derelict.
Over five hundred other UK breweries are still stainless-steel dreams. Five hundred.
Pete Brown has yet to begin blogging about beer. Facebook is only for Ivy League students. Twitter is just what birds do.
Many of the pubs that I drink in now have yet to have their renaissance. Many of the bars that I now visit in London (and a fair few of the beers I drink in them) don't yet even exist.
Seven years. Thousands of beers. A wholly different outlook.
In seven years. If I'm excited about beer now, how am I going to feel in 2018?
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Amongst all the noise about 'craft keg revolutions', let's attempt some clarity.
The majority of draught on-trade beer drank in the UK is kegged.
The majority of that kegged beer is lager.
The majority of the remainder is stout and bitter.
The craft / boutique / artisinal whatever-you-will keg is a niche within a niche.
The revolution will not come from these beers.
The revolution will come when a major brewer with font space secured in outlets throughout a comprehensive national distribution network chooses to enter the market.
Chooses.
When a keg beer is brewed that appeals to the casual cask fan. And the lager fan.
When the market predictions say the time is right.
When a brand can be developed, researched, trialled and promoted.
I fully expect, within the next five years, to see a major nationwide keg brand launched, appealing to cask ale drinkers looking for more consistency and to lager drinkers looking for more flavour. Something gold. Something premium.
And it will shift the axis of the UK beer market.
The revolution will be pressurised. Just not in the way that the geeks think it ought to be.
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The opening gambit. Before you can bore the arse out of someone with tales regaled of obscure limited edition bottlings enjoyed in rustic courtyards, they ask you:
"So, then. What's your favourite beer?"
To which you are duty-bound to answer:
"Ah! I don't have one favourite. It all depends on so many variables, of seasons and mood, of company or solitude, of desire and necessity. For instance, I recently sat in a rustic courtyard with a vertical of a dozen obscure limited edition bottlings..."
Bollocks.
You know what your favorite beer is. You know the one you'd claw through walls to reach. If you're about to meet your maker, your future mother-in-law or the firing squad, you know which beer you'd want in hand.
It's just that few beery people dare to admit it. Why? Fear of offending someone?
Screw that. I have a favourite beer.
I can drink it in the depths of a deep midwinter. I can drink it at the height of a roaring summer. I can drink it from the bottle, from the fridge. I can drink it from a glass, from the shelf, in all its pomp.
I can drink it alone, with friends, among enemies, in a tub full of strippers, in a pub full of sadsacks.
I have drunk it at the best of times, at the worst of times. And I will continue to do so.
It's...
... Orval.
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This summer, I plan to go for a pint or three at the Queen’s Arms in Corton Denham, Somerset. Because I can't recall ever having drunk in Somerset before. There may have been a rugby club trip to Taunton in my polytechnic days. But back then, counties and countries all blurred into one long kebab & flatulence-riddled hangover.
And I want to drink Moor beer. And I really want to drink it unfined. And I want to see if it's a hard knock to sell the stuff.
Maybe UK drinkers accept hefeweizen because they've been told that cloudy is to style. But cloudy cask = fault. Too difficult to persuade cask drinkers that it could be otherwise? Well, if drinkers of the 'nation's favourite' can be taught to accept the fault - I'm sorry, defining feature -of DMS then surely the cask-drinking minority can be persuaded that turbid cask can be flavoursome?
Perhaps the answer lies in appropriate glassware. Or not, as the case may be. I can understand how licensees are loathe to serve turbid cask, lest it be seen as an indictment of their general cellar quality. If they serve you hefe it's likely to be in a branded vase-like glass that positively screams "It's OK! It's supposed to be cloudy! It's foreign muck!"
Given that there are so few UK cask brewers who release unfined beer, perhaps they ought to also supply suitable vessels for its consumption. Something that enhances the flavour and doesn't offend others' sensibilities. Traditional beer, traditional tankard. Or in this case, nano-keg and old-skool leather.
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"My Funny Valentine
Sweet Colin Valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable, unphotographable
Yet you're my favorite work of art
Why do bloggers take you to task?
Do they not know that you love cask?
In its conditioned glory you bask
You're so smart!
Don't change a thing for me
Not if you care for me
Stay, Colin Valentine
Stay.
Each day is Valentine's Day".
There's been a fair amount of t'internet kerfuffle about comments made by Colin Valentine, CAMRA head honcho, about bloggers calling for craft beer/keg recognition.
Yes, he spits out the word 'keg' as if he expects his audience to then stone him.
Yes, he'd probably sooner drink the syphilitic piss of the last leper in hell than drink 'craft keg'.
Yes, he's getting the craft keg/craft beer distinction wrapped round his neck.
But...
I don't want the National Chairman of CAMRA to recant his whole belief system before his AGM.
I want him to defend the divine right of cask to be the automatic choice at the right hand of every level-headed drinker. Defend it with all the passion, dedication and misinformation that noisome bloggers do when they herald the arrival of The Best Beer In The World Ever Until That 'Rare Keg' Release Next Week.
I love how he uses the phrase 'bloggerati'. Isn't that a compliment?
I like how he's clearly pissed off with Tim Webb for not being One Of Us.
(The day Tim Webb doesn't piss people off is the day I know he's stopped writing. More power to his, er, word processor).
And I'd love it if everyone could accept this:
Good beer is where you find it. As to what you find it in: that borders upon the immaterial.
If someone can find within a CAMRA policy document anything that prohibits the promotion of unfiltered, unpasturised KeyKeg, please let me know.
If someone, bloggerati or not, honestly believes that CAMRA ought to embrace brewery-conditioned beer served with CO2, please let me know.
In the meantime, I'm off to listen to My Funny Valentine. I haven't embedded a video. I haven't added a link. Sometime I prefer Chet Baker. Sometimes I prefer Miles Davis. Sometimes I prefer Hue And Cry. Sometimes I prefer the People's Front of Judea. Sometimes I prefer the Judean People's Front.
Even though the latter are just free-form acid-jazz splitters.
* edited 30th May to restore the missing opening paragraph, just in case you had no idea what's going on...
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"Leeds CAMRA chairman, John Rowe said: “The taste that they replicate at the brewery down in Northampton will not be the same as the Tetley’s that has been brewed up in Leeds for the past 189 years".
Source: Morning Advertiser
I think he's right. And I think Jim Robertson, production director of Wells and Young's, was right too when he commented on his brewery's move from London to Bedford:
“There are always part-time experts who harp on about provenance and say that you can’t move a beer and make it the same elsewhere. They are simply wrong. There are places where it is more difficult to make it as well but it’s an insult to my team of brewers to say they can’t do it".
I have no doubt that a brewer can shift production and recreate a recipe. Water chemistry, fermentation geometry, it's all in the maths. And I understand completely how it can never taste the same again for some drinkers.
Because taste is about more than biochemistry. It's inextricably linked to memory, environment, suggestion.
I'll acknowledge that recipes do change over time. So does personal perception of flavour. I'd be disappointed and amazed if they didn't.
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Once upon a time, in a blog not too far away, Mark Dredge came up with the term FABPOW when writing about his food and beer pairing of the week. So it must be time for me to shamelessly appropriate - I mean, pay homage - to the term.
For this pairing, you will need:
- one bottle of Buxton Black Rocks
- two tins of Heinz Alphabetti
- four slices of bread (Warburton's Crusty preferable)
Warm Alphabetti. Toast two slices of bread. Pour Alphabetti onto toast. Pour Black Rocks into pint glass.
Serve.
Then, if you have far too much time on your hands, open the other tin of Alphabetti into a dish whilst toasting the other two slices of bread. Sort letters. Think about how good the food and beer pairing was. And say it with spaghetti-on-toast;
Calculate the total scores for looks, aroma and taste:
Find one-word to summarise
And be honest with how you feel about the term Black IPA:
I've never attended a branch meeting.
Having had a quick Google, my back-of-a-virtual-envelope calculations suggest that 98% of most branch members are of the same ilk.¹
Which gets me wondering - how many of CAMRA's 120,000+ members are in it for the money? I joined up so that I could get free entry to various CAMRA festivals. And nowadays there are pubs offering decent discounts on cask ale for card-carrying members (20p off a pint isn't to be sniffed at). And then there's the Wetherspoons vouchers.
As a regular festival-goer and pub-drinker, I'm getting a good deal out of CAMRA. But are they getting a good deal out of me?
Can CAMRA do more to attract support at branch level? Or are they destined to be funded by a silent majority that may neither know nor care about actually campaigning at all?
¹ Calculated from attendance and membership figures given by several CAMRA branches in the minutes of meetings made available to the public.
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It's not every day that I get an email from a Finnish stranger asking if I'd like to meet up for a beer. But that's what can happen when you're a member of ratebeer.com. The London crew have a fine tradition of looking after visitors to their city - I've been on the receiving end of their epic hospitality. To be honest, they would attend the opening of an envelope if there was a beer involved and a chance to meet up with someone passing through. Fewer ratebeerian tourists escape up to the shires, though, so it was a pleasure to welcome someone and show them around the town.
And Jarmo Makkonen wasn't mucking around. He'd already been in the UK for six days and covered Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, York and Leeds. After days in Derby, Birmingham and Sheffield he was off to Liverpool, Chester, Manchester and the Trans-Pennine Rail Ale Trail. I'm sometimes nervy when I meet ratebeer bods that I don't know; some can be hardcore geek, one hand welded to a smartphone and the other dispatching sips of beer before spouting forth on all manner of arcane tasting gobbledegook. I knew Jarmo and I were going to get along when he bought a half, took a photo of the pumpclip so he knew later what he bought and then started drinking.
His emphasis for the trip was as much about people and place as it was cask beer. The latter was crucially important - he's a cask fan and is madly disappointed with the general standard of real ale in his hometown of Tampere. But his trip was also about finding good pubs and meeting people. I showed him the beery sights of Derby and Sheffield and we talked almost non-stop; why Sheffield has so many pale and hoppy beers, how legal restrictions stifle beer in Finland, how placenames in England sometimes seem to have too many syllables. He educated me on the finer points of how written and spoken Finnish differ. I explained how Henderson's Relish makes fried onions even tastier.
Two things really impressed me about Jarmo. He's undertaking a trip that most British beer fans would never contemplate taking - two weeks, eleven cities, dozens of pubs, a wide range of cask beer. He's going to see some of the finest pubs and bars and drink some of the finest beer in the UK. Would you think of taking that Round Britain trip?
And it wasn't all beer, beer, beer. Food was important - though he said he was getting a bit sick of fish & chips. He made time for sightseeing. He drank soda water or Red Bull when he went out late-night drinking - he wanted to party as well, not just drink geek beer. And when we were in Sheffield, he wanted to take the time to visit Hillsborough. Not the Hotel, as I first thought, but the ground. As a Liverpool supporter, he wanted to visit the memorial at Sheffield Wednesday's ground to the Hillsborough disaster and pay his respects.
Most of my beery days out in the UK revolve around a tight schedule of George-Best-best-session-rate drinking. If I were planning two weeks away in a foreign country, I would barely rota in time to sleep. Drinking with Jarmo has made me think differently.
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Go get a beer and then please do the following:
- think about where the beer came from. What do you know of the brewery, its history, the people behind the process?
- think not about aroma and flavour in comparative terms but how they meld together. Staccato? Segue?
- think about viscosity, carbonation, how the beer feels from your gums down to your throat. What do you feel? How does that feeling change as you continue to drink?
- think about the people you're drinking with (or not), the place where you're drinking, the time, the day, your mood, the weather and how all of these things affect your feelings towards the beer.
And then keep those thoughts to yourself for a while.
Try silent counsel for a change. Leave your smartphone alone. Enjoy the moment.
Reflect. Then Tweet.
Let's improve the signal-to-noise ratio for beer on Twitter.
1 - Yes, I've already started toning the down the volume of my random "I'm drinking this" tweets.
2 - the picture at the top of the article is from an excellent blog by Brian James Kirk, tech journalist and designer, who's well worth a read if you're even tangentially linked to hack writing in any way.
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In the summer issue of CAMRA's magazine 'Beer', Andrew Pring chooses ten books that "no self-respecting beer lover's shelves should be without". Here's nine random recommendations of my own.
Cellarmanship - Patrick O'Neill
I'm the bugger that likes to ask questions. This slim volume is packed full of answers when it comes to the science and engineering of how to store, keep and serve cask ale. Clean line-drawn illustrations, cogent text, keen observations borne of experience. If you drink cask ale and you want to understand fully how it ought to be served, this book is essential.
Widely available. CAMRA members can buy at a discount via the CAMRA shop.
Merry-Go-Down - Rab Noolas.
Difficult to resist any book that's subtitled "A Gallery of Gorgeous Drunkards in Literature from Genesis to Joyce. Collected for the Use, Interest, Illumination and Delectation of Serious Topers". A collection of prose, poetry and lyrics all intimately concerned with drinking and drunks. "We are entirely unconcerned with morality", writes 'Rab Noolas' - pseudonym of the composer Peter Warlock - in the Preface. I'll drink to that.
You should be able to pick up a 1970's reprint for about a fiver from the likes of Amazon or ebay.
The Brewer's Tale - Frank Priestley
From the laboratory at Tennant Brothers in Sheffield to becoming a master brewer at Castle Eden, County Durham, this is a genial autobiography of a man who had brewed through a time of huge upheaval in the industry. When you've read the excellent 'The British Brewing Industry 1830-1980', turn to books like this that put the brewer's flesh and blood onto the bones of statistics.
Widely available online.
Beer Is Proof God Loves Us - Charles Bamforth
Biography, philosophy, travelogue. Reflection, conjecture, anecdote. Religion, science, politics. Beer, beer, beer. Bamforth's book is a darting needle through beer's rich tapestry. And it has an appendix almost as long as the main text itself, for reasons that are readily apparent. And it contains this quote: "... may I tolerate those folks who like their beers smothered in hoppiness just as I would hope they tolerate the skill devoted by the big brewers to making bland lagers so consistently well".
Widely available online.
Real Ale Walks In Norfolk - Warren Wordsworth (ed).
Frankly, I could have picked any of many walks + beer books. But this one is beautifully presented, has hand-drawn maps, clear photos of pubs, just enough interesting history and it's got sensible walks around Norwich in it. If you haven't been to Norwich, go. Go now. A splendid city with a great variety of pubs.
Widely available online.
Good Beer Guide Belgium - Tim Webb
One of the most keenly-observed travel books I've ever read. The last time I was in Belgium, if I didn't have a beer in my hand I had my head in this book. Sensible layout, definitive content. And the advertising blurb on the inner back cover is clearly the work of an erudite genius who ought to be commissioned immediately to write a whole range of work rather than getting pissed and writing this trite tripe for his blog.
Widely available. CAMRA members can buy at a discount via the CAMRA shop.
Beer: Tap Into The Art And Science of Brewing - Charles Bamforth
The most accessible book about brewery science that I know of. And that's all you need to know.
Widely available online.
Brewing / A History of Beer and Brewing, Ian Hornsey
For when you need to know just a little more about anything to do with brewing history or science. Superlative books that, one day, I'll actually own copies of rather than just borrowing dog-eared copies from mates and libraries.
Available from the Royal Chemistry Society online shop. And they would make an ideal surprise gift for the favourite beer blogger in your life...
And may I suggest trying your local library for some of these titles? Here in Derbyshire we get to reserve stuff over the tinterweb for free. You are all members of your local library, aren't you? You do take advantage of the service that a sliver of your council tax goes towards? Here's hoping...
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Is it a porter or a stout?
Is it cask or keg?
Is it bottled conditioned or filtered?
Is it LocAle or imported?
Is it Goldings or Galena?
Is it whole cone or pellet hop?
Is it all malt or with adjunct?
Is it micro or macro?
Is it to-style or new-wave?
Is it barrel-fresh or barrel-aged?
Is it bright as a button or opaquely hazy?
Is it handpump or electric pump?
Is it traditional or modern?
Is it what I always drink? Is it what I've always been searching for?
The next time you find yourself asking one of these questions, stop.
Ask yourself: is it good beer?
The answer to that question is the answer that matters.
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Sometimes in monochrome
Sometimes in colour
You go to pubs and drink with people like this
And this
And this
And this
And you see a brewery grow from this
to this
And you have game-changing days like this
And attend events like this
And go to beer festivals like this
where you meet tickers like this
and this
and after sessions like this
you may need urinals like this
and you may regret looking like this
and giving your camera to someone else like this
And you end up doing this
When you drink beer
"It is called Merry-goe-downe, for it slides downe merrily; It is fragrant to the sent; It is most pleasing to the taste.; The flowring and mantling of it (like chequer worke) with the Verdant smiling of it, it is delightefull to the sight, it is Touching or Feeling to the Braine and Heart; and (to please the senses all) it provokes men to singing and mirth, which is contenting to the Hearing...
...It sets an Edge upon Logick and Rhetorick; It is a friend to the Muses; It inspires the poore Poet, that cannot compasse the price of Canarie or Gascoigne; It mounts the Musitian above Eela; It makes the Balladmaker Rime beyond Reason; It is a Repairer of a decaide Colour in the face; It puts Eloquence into the Oratour; It will make the Philosopher talke profoundly, the Scholar learnedly. and the Lawyer acute and feelingly...
... in Conclusion, it is such a nourisher of Mankinde, that if my Mouth were as bigge as Bishopgate, my Pen as long as a Maypole, and my Inke a flowing spring, or a standing fishpond, yet I could not with my Mouth, Pen or Inke, speake or write the true worth and worthiness of Ale."
Excerpt, "Drinke and Welcome", John Taylor, 1637
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Some might say that online presence is vital for microbrewers. That without a website, Twitter account and Facebook page a brewer is missing out on sales opportunities and marketing potential. And I'm sure some brewers would hear those words, shake their heads and then get back to their business of brewing beer for a sustainable market.
Jo Allsop doesn't need web-based shenanigans to sell his beer. If you go looking for Whim Brewery online, you'd be lucky to find even his phone number. The truth is, his beer sells well in the pubs close to the Hartington-based brewery in Derbyshire's Peak District as well as throughout the county. My local, the Royal Oak in Ockbrook, will clear a barrel of their IPA or Bitter so quickly that there's hardly time to change the pump clip.
Good beer is where you find it. And you don't always need the tinterweb to tell you where that is. (Apart from now, if you've never heard of them before. Irony, indeed).
Why try? Well-made, well balanced, full of flavour. Lets the ales do the talking.
What to look for? Hartington Bitter and Black Christmas (which I've managed to drink in July at the brewery-owned Wilkes Head in Leek).
Where to buy? As well as the Wilkes, Whim beers appear at the Charles Cotton (Hartington) and are regulars at the Flowerpot and Smithfield in Derby.
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Regular readers know I'm a huge fan of Thornbridge. I've brewed beers with them. I go out drinking with them. They send me samples. I've supportive of all they do. I write about them often.
Why?
It's this simple: I still get a buzz when they release a new beer. Do other brewers make me feel the same way? Well, I can count the number of them on the fingers of one hand.
The owner, Jim Harrison, knows what he wants. Head Brewer, Stefano Cossi, knows how to brew it. The whole team know how to deliver the results.
There are three reasons why Jaipur is a world-champion beer. Why styles old and new are executed with thrilling precision. Why I would choose a Thornbridge beer over any other cask in the world.
Innovation. Passion. Knowledge.
You can taste it in every Thornbridge pint.
Why try? They're the best beers brewed in England.
What to look for? Jaipur. Kipling. Brock. And, if you're oh-so-lucky, Bracia.
Where to buy? Plenty of places across the country but rarely better than drinking it the Sheffield Tap, The Bear in Alderwasley, Packhorse Inn in Little Longstone or Greystones in Sheffield. And myBrewerytap have a range of bottles on sale too.
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Gazza Prescott and Dave Szwejkowski of Steel City Brewing can be objectionable, arrogant, opinionated and bloody-minded. That's why I like them; that's why I like their beers.
With a clear idea on what to brew - hoppy as hell - they could have stuck to homebrew bucket-action in a garage. Instead, they operate as a 'cuckoo' brewery, using other brewplants to produce mainly light, hoppy beers in what they call a 'Mid-Atlantic' style. As they have strong opinions about beer - US hops, good; crystal malt, bad - it's good to see them walking the walk and not just loudmouthing the talk.
The results may be divisive but at least they're never boring. As they have full-time jobs, beer production is sporadic but that adds to the thrill of the chase for beer tickers and lovers of humulus lupulus alike.
Just do us a favour, guys. Brew something really hoppy. You know you want to ;-)
Why try? They know what hops can do and they aren't afraid to use them
What to look for? They don't have regular brews: check their website for details
Where to buy? Most likely to be found in Sheffield (Wellington, Rutland), Worcester (Dragon) and, er, Horsley Woodhouse and Kilburn in Derbyshire (Old
Oak and Hunter's Arms)
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The Kelham Island Tavern is famed for its choice of rotating guest ales, their names chalked up on a blackboard to the left of the bar. I never look at it. I never need to. Because the KIT has a regular beer which, if the other Sheffield pubs served it, I would drink in every man jack of them. Brewer's Gold. By Pictish.
Words seem woefully inadequate when trying to explain just how much I love this beer. Which, for a beer writer, is rather a cop-out. But its strength and depth and breadth is more than just a sum of its liquid bread and flighty hop mouthfeel. It's my contented exhalation, a sense of normalcy restored, the bittersweet memory held for the rest of the topering day. For me the beer is inextricably linked to the KIT - I've never drank it anywhere else - and it's become my flavour-track to both beery gatherings of sweaty topers and solitary musings over half-completed crosswords.
But there's more to Pictish than Brewer's Gold. Indeed, they brew a whole heap of single-hopped lovelies which just seem to be more.... complete than other brewer's fayre. The last I drank, Motueka at Sheffield's Sheaf View, was... satisfying. As in, three pints worth of satisfaction. And what's not to love about the brewer saying the single-hopped beers get brewed as and when he feels like it? And that he can't be bothered to write almost identical tasting notes, so he just uses the phrase "A pale, very hoppy beer brewed using [insert name] hops"?
Few beers make an award-winning pub's beer selection an afterthought. That's the power of Pictish at the KIT.
Why try? Seemingly effortless balance, allowing the hops to shine rather than dazzle clumsily
What to look for? Brewer's Gold. Any of the single-hop series.
Where to buy? Apart from Brewers's Gold at the Kelham Island Tavern in Sheffield - and get your hands off, it's mine - Pictish distribute widely throughout Lancashire, Manchester and West Yorkshire.
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Palates change. When I tasted my first pint by Oakham, I wrote that it was "massively hopped - pulls your lips back over your head, a bit too frantic for me". Nowadays, Oakham on the bar is my guarantee of a refreshingly-hopped beer.
What I love about Oakham - apart from their superlative beer - is that they just get on and do stuff that other brewers would crow about and muck up. Collaborative brews (with Newby Wyke and Green Jack), barrel-aging (such as Oblivion or Atilla), and pioneering hop brews(Citra).
I was guilty of sidelining Oakham beers during my scooping years. Now, I drink it out of choice wherever I find it. There are plenty of pubs around Notts and Derbyshire that have Bishop's Farewell and/or JHB as regular beers. And I am more than happy to drink long and deep.
Why try? Hops used judiciously, not afraid to oomph the ABV if it carries the flavour better
What to look for? JHB and Bishop's Farewell. The best cask Citra in the UK. And dark beers like Black Hole Porter. And the full-bodied Atilla or Tranquility.
Where to buy? All over the East Midlands and Cambridgeshire. But best at their own pubs such as the splendid Barton's Arms in Aston. Well worth the trip to Peterborough to drink at Charters Bar, a converted Dutch barge, and their Brewery Tap with its glass-fronted brewkit.
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I love to drink beer in the county where it's brewed. I love to find a pub near the brewery and enjoy their beer on its home territory. And so here's a brewer I've sampled in Manchester and Sheffield but never in their Somerset homeland. Not odd, though, given that I've never been to Somerset.
My introduction to Moor Brewing came though odd casks at CAMRA festivals and found them all to be, well, average brown British bittery beers. The brewer fell off my radar until a few years ago when I picked up a few of their bottles from beermerchants; the branding grabbed my attention as it was so much bolder, more confident - as were the beers. Step forward Justin Hawke, a new broom brewing up stuff that brought more than a little of his native West Coast USA flavour to the West Country.
Tracking down casks of Moor up here in the Midlands is tricky; a real shame as I've still got a taste for some of their sessionable beers. I've also got a taste for their 9% JJJ IPA but that results in a short, messy session. There's only one thing for it - I need to find me a Somerset pub and drink Moor beer all the live-long day. Sounds like an ideal summer weekend to me. I wonder if there's Moor beer on the bar at Somerset Cricket Club?
Why try? Classic styles re-invigorated; contemporary styles mastered.
What to look for? Quaffers on cask like Revival and Peat Porter; sippers in the bottle such as JJJ IPA and Old Freddie Walker.
Where to buy? Errr, Somerset is your best bet. If anyone can recommend somewhere there, please let me know. Meanwhile, you can always buy bottles from beermerchants.
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