Golden Pints 2024

Feel that sun
Like a great gold gong that's beating,
Like a brass-bell fanfare greeting,
Summoning the day.

 

Best UK Cask Beer:

I was lucky enough to catch a green hop beer this year and draught Thomas Hardy's Ale which was cool as fuck. But it's Thurstons Horsell Hop that wins. It had that zingy fresh hop taste that makes it beer of the year.

Best UK Keg Beer:

Having been abroad I've suckled at the devil's drainpipe in the heathen manner. And my mate Marek has at times brought keg been over when it's his round. Wonderful human being that he is he wasn't brought up in the faith so doesn't recognise the spiritual peril he is placing himself in by doing this. What was favourite though? Who knows? I don't pay attention to such things. I did enjoy our walk to Rivington brewery though so something from them.

Best UK Bottled Beer:

Carefully selected for me by my favourite nephew Harvey's Tom Paine hit the spot. 

Best UK Canned Beer:

Oh god, cans too. Surely this can't be pleasing to god. The ludicrously waxed can a mate got me for my happy birthday made me laugh and it was filled with an imperial stout which I approve of so Decimus Rusticus from Baron Brewing.

Best Overseas Draught:

Time to go back to one of my trips to a heathen land: the IBD study tour of Ireland. Though it's not totally devoid of beer served as god intended I didn't get any myself and the ones I can remember are the big three stouts: Guinness, Murphy's and Beamish. Though big three's probably pushing it as Guinness dwarfs everything else. It's not my favourite though, nor the sweeter Murphy's. The winner is the more bitter Beamish.  

Best Overseas Bottled Beer:

What have I had this year? Hmmm...I did go to the Guinness brewery so let's have FES, another great beer that sticks it to those think diacetyl has no place in beer. 

Best Overseas Canned Beer:

It's bad enough having to try and remember a British canned beer. I did neck a can of something Polish at the airport though so that's this year's winner. 

Best collaboration brew:

Have I had any? I've a vague feeling I have but I can't remember what. 

Best Overall Beer:

Thustons Horsell Hop.

Best Branding:

Let's go with the waxed can as I didn't cut myself getting rid of the wax.

Best UK Brewery: 

Thurstons.

Best Overseas Brewery: 

Guinness was amazing, it's like a bleedin' city. 

Best New Brewery Opening 2024

Can't think of one.

Pub/Bar of the Year:

The Crown of course.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2024

Can't think of one of these either. 

Beer Festival of the Year:

Hmmm... Woking's gone. No GBBF. Didn't get to Farnham. Oooo...there is the beer festival the Crown has so that. 

Supermarket of the Year:

Waitrose had Golden Pride for less than London Pride so them. 

Independent Retailer of the Year:

 Cobbett's Real Ale is handy when I'm in need of something special so they're the winner again

Online Retailer of the Year:

I actually bought some beer online this year as the special offer on the Fuller's (Asahi) advent calendar was a bargain so they win this one. 


Best Beer Book or Magazine:

The one I've enjoyed the most is Martyn Cornell's Around the World in 80 Beers. I suspect beer list books are the ones that sell but the subtitle "a global history of brewing" sums it up better. It's far more than just a list of beers. There are some fascinating facts in it that I found a delight, I mean who knew the first person to swim the English channel drank beer on the way? Or that the heather ale recipe myth Williams Bros. use is hugely popular in Russia? But ignore the bit about the male Fuggle, there ain't no such thing.

Best Beer Blog or Website:
 

A Good Beer Blog this year.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer:

It should shift to Blue Sky really so I'll go for Boak and Bailey  who are over there. 

Thomas Hardy: My Part in his Downfall

I was going to use Return of the Native for the title of this post but I'm so slow other people have got there before me. I don't know what the book's about anyway, it was Far From the Madding Crowd I was forced to study at school, in all its interminable tedium. It didn't leave me with a high opinion of Thomas Hardy. The man was clearly being paid by the word and milking it for all he could:

“That’s my fist.” Here he placed his fist, rather smaller in size than a common loaf, in the mathematical centre of the maltster’s little table, and with it gave a bump or two thereon, as if to ensure that their eyes all thoroughly took in the idea of fistiness before he went further.”

Dull, dull, dull. 

Thomas Hardy beers on the other hand are a different matter. I was quite partial to Hardy Country when Eldridge Pope still existed and their other beer that referenced the tedious twerp, Thomas Hardy's Ale, has a well deserved legendary status. One of the five bottle conditioned beers still in production when CAMRA were formed it's managed to survive the closure of Eldridge Pope, being contract brewed at O'Hanlon's, Meantime and now Hepworths. 

The last is of particular interest to me as I worked at Hepworths when production moved there. For this legendary beer another beer legend, Derek Prentice, is the brewing consultant employed by the brand owner and we worked with him to bring the beer back again.

Derek during mashing in of Thomas Hardy's Ale

I wasn't doing much actual brewing by that stage of my work at Hepworths but I made sure I brewed one of the batches of Thomas Hardy. Oh yes, I wasn't going to miss that opportunity. Unlike at Eldridge Pope it's brewed as a single gyle and it proved to be surprisingly problematic. At the Ridgeway brewery on the Hepworths site we already brewed a few barley wines so I have to say I wasn't expecting any problems with the fermentation. Sadly the yeast had other ideas.

Fermentation started well but it was a struggle to get to target gravity

We had to throw everything we could at it to get the beer down to target gravity and the ABV up to the strength we wanted. It spent a long, long time in tank. Some of the first batch, made of three brews, was bottled before I left Hepworths but I never saw it in the wild in the UK so I suspect it all went to Italy. After the beer stopped being brewed by O'Hanlons the brand was bought by the Italians of Interbrau who I guess don't distribute in Britain. And as far as I know the Armagnac barrel trial never got beyond the samples I hand bottled so it wasn't distributed to anyone at all. 

The barrel trial

Well, I did get some samples myself. Purely for professional purposes of course, those organoleptic properties needed to be assessed. It was absolutely gorgeous. 

Another batch of Thomas Hardy's Ale was brewed soon after I'd left the company. I did enquire how the fermentation had gone and you'll be glad to hear that lessons had been learned as this time it went fine. The beer's also now got a British distributor and some was even made available on cask:

This did get me doing some searching and I managed to get some thanks to a detour to The Rake on my way to see Alexei Sayle. 

Who is that fat bastard?

I've drunk it from all of the breweries it's been made at but I'd never had it on cask before so I'm delighted the timing worked out for me. It was a great start to the evening, strong and rich it certainly lives up to the name of barley wine. I hope that putting some in cask becomes a regular feature when it's brewed and that the brewing continues for many years to come. 

A visit to Teeling distillery

The last stop of the Irish study tour for me was Teeling distillery. Most people went on to Whiplash brewery afterward but I had to meet my cousin's husband so on this occasion you won't get to see me acting like a maniac. 

Teeling Distillery was built in 2015.

They have a wet mill and do single infusion mashes in a lauter tun at 66°C twice a day. Malt and pot still whiskey is made, the pot still being 50% raw barley with added alpha amylase and beta glucanase enymes.

Three tonnes of grain make 150hl of wash at 62°S. Crystal, crystal rye and chocolate malts have been used in the mashes as well as purple wheat. The washes go to wooden washbacks made from Oregon pine for 12 hours before moving to stainless steel vessels. 

A mix of distiller's yeast and white wine yeast is used for fermentation, along with lactobacillus and wild yeast.

Final gravity is below zero and ABV over 8% after four days fermentation, which starts at 18°C and free rises to 35. 

A single brew fills the wash still which takes 8.5 to 9 hours to make the low wines at 30% ABV. Two wash runs fill the low wines still and one low wine run goes to the spirit still which comes out at 82% ABV. The stills are heated by external plate heat exchanges and the lyne arms have a 5° slope.   

The new make spirit is cut to 66% ABV for barrel filling. In Ireland the barrels don't have to be made of oak. Losses are 5% in the first year (2% from filling), 3% each year after that and 2% on emptying. The whiskey is cut to 46% ABV for bottling and is not chill filtered. 

The tour ended with a tasting, led by a comrade from the study tour, I was soon back on the beer though. 

Crossing boundaries

Considering that debate still rages about the 1974 county boundary changes I would tread very lightly if I was proposing any boundary changes myself. But CAMRA currently has a plan to change its branch structure so no branch straddles CAMRA region or county boundaries. From what I can gather it's a top down proposal from the National Executive. 

It has lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth on CAMRA's internal forum, with 877 comments at the time of writing. And my inbox has been busy with disgruntled members sharing their displeasure on my local branch's email list, for my local branch is in two counties. 

But for how much longer?

Personally speaking I'm a bottom up man so am dubious about the proposal. Though a devout member of our Mother Church I'm not vey active in the branch, but it is the branch I've been in since I was a teenager so I would be sad to see it end. Our branch chairman has written a long reply detailing how the branch came to be and why its current structure works. 

I've also seen Good Beer Guide tickers make the point that "GBG Counties" are a law unto themselves, which makes imposing strict borders against the wishes of those on the ground all the more peculier peculiar. For the sake of Real Ale I hope an amicable solution can be found, the trouble with pissing off volunteers is volunteers are free to piss off. 

An online petition against the changes can be found here. 

The Rotherhithe Round

There are few genuinely innovative things in beer. So when me and a mate discovered a pub crawl that not only loops round to end where it starts but involves going both over and under the Thames I knew we were on to something rare and special. #PubPeople I bring you The Rotherhithe Round. 

It didn't start well for me as I'd made a mess of the public transport. Fortunately my mate Luca was chilled about my late arrival at the Prospect of Whitby, our starting point. I had a pint of best from a brewery I forget, but it came in jugs which gives the pub a bonus point. It's a big pub but it was rammed so we didn't get to sit on the riverside and only stayed for one. 

We headed down the river to The Grapes, which was also rammed. 

Luca studied philosophy so I was able to ask him about Platonism, something I've become curious about thanks to listening to the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast. I'd previously thought of pagans as primitives that believed any old bollocks but in fact they believed in extremely sophisticated bollocks. Certainly from where the SHWEP has got to so far it does seem that “the safest characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

But more importantly the pub served Landlord so we stayed for two (2) pints. Not the sort of thing you normally do on a pub crawl but hey, I love Landlord. Our extended stay gave meant the conversation had time to get round to fact the actor Ian McKellen owns the pub. Which explained why there was a statue of a wizard in a corner and a staff behind the bar. 

A wizard's staff has a knob on the end

We were on to the innovation after that by getting on a boat, which I think it's fair to say is not something normally done when on pub crawls. 

We called in at The Blacksmiths Arms, where I can report that the Pride was drinking well. 

South London just didn't have the crowds we'd found North of the river which was a great improvement. There seemed to be some locals in this pub which I suspect was not the case in the previous two. We got a seat in the courtyard out the back where we sat in the sun as we ate a meal. A pub crawl is a marathon not a sprint so it's good to have some sustenance. And something to soak the booze up. 

Ready for the next round we walked along the river using psychogeography to find the next pub. Nowadays this term seems to get used for wandering around aimlessly, which four (4) pints into a pub crawl was certainly not something we were doing. Oh no! So looking at the housing we were walking past we discussed how changes in capitalism have led to what was once working class areas being socially cleansed and redeveloped for more affluent residents. 

The first pub we found was The Salt Quay, a barn of a Greene King pub, which is not something I would normally seek out. But the psychogeography had worked a treat and this one was a winner. The one cask beer was something I'd never heard of and I can't remember the name. But it tasted of American hops and was really nice. There was no trouble getting a riverside seat here, which was key to completing our ground (or should that be water?) breaking innovation. 

Settled in our riverside seats Luca took in the view and to my surprise said "is that the Prospect of Whitby?" And sure enough on the other side of the river was our starting point. 

This of course got us thinking how we could get there. Google quickly found the Rotherhithe Tunnel for us, which actually has pedestrian access. Google also found us such gems as never walk through the Rotherhithe Tunnel. But five (5) pints in were we going to let a mile long fume filled nightmare stop us? Oh no! So off we went. Annoyingly you can't get down the stairs at the ventilation shafts but this did mean we got to do the the full mile of noxious horror. 

Take it from me, we did not need the sign telling us there were exhaust fumes and not to loiter. It really was toxic.

When we finally emerged into the daylight and could go back to breathing air not fumes we found we were close to Cable Street, site of the famous battle where the fascists did not pass despite the best efforts of the police. Though I'm sure it doesn't count as psychogeography if you know where you're going we detoured down there whilst discussing physical opposition to fascism, something that has sadly become more necessary again. 

Arriving back at The Prospect of Whitby we were able to get a seat outside this time and look over the river our previous stop.

A short swim or a long and toxic walk away

And with that we had completed The Rotherhithe Round, perhaps the greatest innovation in pub crawls since 1911. 

My public transport woes continued on the journey home but my spirits were high. We had achieved something that can only done by using the combined power of alcohol and stupidity. 

A visit to Guinness brewery

Back in Dublin for the first time since 1911 I finally got to go round the Guinness brewery at St James's Gate. 

Diageo own "46-50" breweries, of which only five brew draught Guinness, most making the far superior Foreign Extra Stout (FES). It has a lot of diacetyl though  (>250ppb!), which just shows that it's not always a bad thing. 

They were in the process of commissioning two new 1000 keg per hour kegging lines when we visited. The fill 20, 30 and 50L kegs, with high gravity beer being cut to sales strength just before packaging. The beer gets 25 Pasteurisation Units (PUs). CO2 is 1.8-2.4 volumes and nitrogen 2.5-4. Which sounds quite a wide range to me but  you can't argue with hastily scribbled notes when you try and decipher them. 

After its initial hiccup Guinness Zero has been way more successful than anticipated. They are however extremely cagey about how they make it and we had one of the strangest experiences I've seen on a brewery tour talking to they guy in charge of it. We only got as far as the outside of the building in which it's made and most of our questions were nervously answered with "I can't tell you that". The smart money was on it being dealcoholised by reverse osmosis. The lack of alcohol means it gets 80 PUs. In Ireland you can get Guinness Zero on draught, an opportunity I did not take up as you can also get Guinness draught on draught. 

In the traditional Irish manner the lauter tuns are called kieves on the information display but they seem to have forgotten when making the banners. 

Whatever you call them though they're bleedin' huge. They make 7 million hl a year of beer at high gravity. Which I think it's fair to say is lots. There are three Steinecker brewing lines, the Guinness one making 1000hl at a time from 20 tonnnes of grist, 11 times a day. The ale and lager (Smithwicks, Harp, Hophouse, Carlsberg) goes at the same rate but with a brew length of 650hl. Due to demand some Guinness is also made on the ale and lager line. Lastly there's a roast malt barley extract stream. Given the awkward experience with the Guinness Zero guy I didn't ask about the Guinness Flavour Extract so the secret of the ooze will stay secret. 

They have four roller wet mills, Mash Conversion Vessels (MCVs), Lauter Tuns, Kettles and Whirlpools. The barley used is all Irish, Planet being the current malting variety with presumably feed barley for the raw and roast barley. The weak worts are recycled. The roast barley is unmilled and adds colour, flavour and aroma. The roast malt extract is combined with the Guinness stream in the kettle for a one hour boil. 

They mash in at 64.5°C rising to 72°C. There are two MCVs and one lauter tun for each stream. 

Fermentation takes two and a half days at 22°C with the ABV reaching 7.2%. The yeast is used for eight generations. They have 100 tanks ranging in size from 1200 to 4000hl. 

The roast house uses converted three tonne coffee roasters. They have bigger blades as barley grains are smaller than coffee beans. They are indirectly heated up to a maximum of 232°C (that's only for 90 seconds!). The last 20 minutes in a process taking two and a half hours are critical. The roasting chamber has water sprayed on at the end of the cycle to lower the temperature immediately. We were told 10% of the grain is roasted (though I'd heard 8% before) but my mind really got to boggling when I heard it's 20% in FES. It definitely has a darker head then draught Guinness. It will be as Guinness Flavour Extract that's added though. FES also has three hop additions. Probably extract there too mind. 

Sixty breweries worldwide produce Guinness under licence and samples from all of them are sent to Dublin for analysis. The lab has lot of shiny kit and sensory analysis also takes place by a 12 strong panel of trained tasters. They also deal with RTDs and the spirits Diageo makes for Africa. Local raw materials such as sorghum, millet and maize can be used and they have to be careful about Phenolic Off Flavours (particularly with sorghum) as the Guinness yeast is POF+. The limit for 4VG and 4VP is set at 0.25mg/l as that's the flavour threshold for most people. And they may allow a lot of diacetyl but they keep acetaldehyde low. 

pH and total acidity as acetic acid is measured. The haze meter uses 90° light at 650nmhey need to use a smaller cell for stout than lager though! 

Sorghum in particular is high in oxalic acid which can lead to beer stone problems. They measure calcium content, treat with nitric acid and measure again to show calcium oxalate. Not entirely sure how that works but give me the SOP and I'd have a go. 

The pilot plant was spread over four floors with of course the hammer and roller mills at the top. 

They have 10hl and 5hl breweries, which use 300 and 90kg respectively. 

They have a mash filter as well as a lauter tun. Wort's heated with an external calandria. 

The keg filler will go at 30 kegs/hr and they have a hybrid can and bottle filler. 

As Guinness supplies the UK from Dublin a lot of beer is tankered out: 60-65%! Forty 300hl tankers a day leave the site, most going to Runcorn, some to Belfast. They can fill a tanker in 45 minutes. 

That was the last brewery I went to on the Irish study tour and they really had left the best till last, it was fantastic. But did it make the best Irish stout? More on that later. 

A visit to Rye River brewery

After our distillery detours it was back to breweries. Rye River brewery was founded ten years ago, initially by getting their beers contract brewed, including in the UK. This didn't go down well locally but when they build their own brewery it was Irish made, possibly the first Irish built brewery in a century? 

The 25hl kit has been kept busy with production currently at 38,000hl/pa. This means brewing six times a day, 24/7 or in layman's terms a lot of human misery. They have had a lot of staff turnover. 

Head Brewer Bill Lauktis

But the hard work, and selling a minority share to Warsteriner, has paid off.

The old kit

A shiny new 100hl brewery was being put through brewing trials when we visited. It's a five vessel system: Mash Conversion Vessel, lauter tun, pre-run tank, kettle and whirlpool. 40-50% of the wort goes to the pre-run tank and then on to the kettle. There's a two stage calandria for wort boiling and it can go in reverse on to the top of the hat/spreader to flash off volatiles. The boil is 30-35 minutes. The whirlpool has a shell and tube heat exchanger for cooling on the way in to 70 to 85°C for hop additions or to avoid DMS formation in lagers. A Plate Heat Exchanger is used on the way out. They're currently trialling aeration instead of oxygenation (on the cold side). The mash vessel can raise the temperature by 1°C a minute. A sugar dosing station is used for sugar additions. 

The new kit

Over 30 beers are made, plus seasonals and several supermarkets are supplied. Four yeasts are used: Kölsch, Ale, Lager and Belgian. They are propagated in house. 

Sixty seven people are employed, 15 on the brewing team. 

There are two 26 tonne pale malt silos, a four roller mill capable of 2.5 tonnes and hour and a three tonne grist case. It only takes 12 minutes to mash in through a vortex hydrator. 

Water is Reverse Osmosis treated, going into a 240hl tank. The Hot Liquor Tank is 540hl and the Cold Liquor Tank (kept at 3°C) is 530hl. 

Spent grain goes to a 24 tonne silo with the trub from the whirlpool. The silo has to have heaters to prevent it freezing in Winter!

Fermenting vessels are 25hl  x2, 50hl x4, 75hl x3, 100hl x15 and 200hl x3. There are seven Bright Beer Tanks. A decanter centrifuge deals with the dry hops. 

They have a 24 head, 8(?) capping heads, 7-9,000 bph bottling line and  smaller linear can filler. 

See how happy CPD makes people! They love learning!

We had lunch here so there was time to give the beers a proper organoleptic assessment.