Ed's Beer Site

Niet Djavol!

2012-02-13T20:36:00.003Z

The Westerham Brewery shop has bleedin' well shut. Looking at the twitter feed on their website it seems the shop's landlord put the rent up by 43% so they were forced to close it.

Where am I going to get Orval on my way home from work now?

KNDL

2012-02-08T21:35:00.004Z

Yesterday I went to Reading to pick up some empty casks. Kegwatch keep track of errant casks that draymen from big companies have uplifted in error. For us they eventually end up in Reading (when all goes well) but we'd also had a load that ended up at 'KNDL Thatcham' which is close to Reading so I went there first.

Though the satnav gave me enormous grief making me play 'press the dot' before I could get going eventually I was directed to a large industrial estate. Having learnt a thing or two about satnavs I get wary when I've almost arrived as it's when you're close that you start to realise post codes can cover quite an area.

So as I couldn't see any sign of KNDL and the building I was being directed to said 'Kuehne and Nagel' with an anchor logo underneath so I pulled up before the entrance and started looking for the KNDL phone number. Fortunately before I could phone then and tell them I was sat outside Kuehne and Nagel and ask them how to get to them I noticed a security guard on the gate leaning out of his window and waving at me. I then noticed that behind the gatehouse was the biggest stack of casks and kegs I've ever seen in my life. Yes, I felt like a right 'nana. KNDL stands for ' Kuehne and Nagel Drinks Logistics' it seems.

Oh well, without much further ado I had 14 casks picked up and was soon on to the Kegwatch depot in Reading for the rest. You live and learn.

Another craft beer conundrum

2012-02-02T22:12:00.002Z

When I came in from work the lovely Lisa was creating one of her lavish curries. And she'd got beer to go with it. She asked me is Dark Star a craft brewery? Thinking I know a thing or two about beer I didn't hesitate to answer "yes". But when she flourished the bottle and said "does it still count if it costs a quid?".

Since then I've been beset by doubts and I fear my sleep will suffer so can anyone help me out here?

The Merry Harriers, Hambledon

2012-01-27T09:34:00.000Z

I called in at The Merry Harriers on Sunday.

To the uninitiated it may have looked like I was enjoying a Sunday afternoon pint in an excellent Good Beer Guide listed pub. In fact I was hard at work checking the Copper Top was on form. It's a hard job being a brewer.

The continuity brewery

2012-01-23T19:35:00.000Z

Last week I visited the old Young's brewery. Having been closed for years it's a bit of a sad sight, but amongst the gutted buildings there was a glimmer of hope.

Tucked away in the old laboratory is a firkin sized (9 gallons) mini-brewery cobbled together from bits of the old brewery as it was being dismantled. Brewing has continued once a week since Young's closed, maintaining a tradition of brewing on that site that goes back to at least 1550.

The redevelopment plans for the site include a museum micro-brewery so after a rather dramatic downsizing brewing in Wandsworth could be on the up.

Would you like sugar with that?

2012-01-23T08:29:00.000Z

You never know where beer nerdery might lead you. Mainly to the pub obviously, but sometimes it can take an odd turn.

During my researches into the origins of Goldings hops I found that there's Royal Worcester Mathon Hop crockery, with a design dated circa 1795. How could I resist?

I must not go OCD over the OCB

2012-01-19T22:39:00.001Z

I've been a bit of a beer bore recently. "Nothing new there I hear you say", but more than usual anyway, though a hop bore would be more precise. I really need to give it a bit of rest, and get out for some fresh air.

But having said that there's always more to learn about beer, and as I now own the Oxford Companion to Beer I have been dipping into it. The book caused some controversy amongst my fellow internet beer nerds when it came out, and it was suggested you should wait for the second edition before getting a copy. But I couldn't be doing with waiting for years so I got a copy for xmas.

Most of the criticism focused on some of history parts that were, quite frankly, a bit rubbish. From the few articles I've looked at I wouldn't say the book is rubbish, though it's not brilliant either, it's more a mixed bag of the good and the bad jumbled up.

There are articles from world class experts: when you see they've got Geoff Palmer writing about the aleurone you know they've not only got an expert, but the right expert. Some of the articles are not so good though, in fact they look like they've been written after a quick google. The editing looks decidedly ropey in places too: there's an entry for Corn (maize) but further on there's an entry for Maize (corn) by a different author. And I've spotted one absolute howler, which I'm sure will shock you as much as it shocked me, when it says Staphylococcus and Clostridium are Gram negative. That one got me ranting, oh yes.

I have joined the wiki that was set up to comment on the book so I can point out the things I've spotted but I really do have more important things to be getting on with. Like obsessing about the origin of hop varieties.

The Farnham White Bine hop

2012-01-15T11:05:00.001Z

The origins of the Goldings hop varieties: The Prologue.

As I've said before, I've long been interested in the history of Farnham hops and how they were once considered the best of the English hops. I've been even more interested since I found out that plants originally propagated from Farnham hops are still grown as part of the Goldings group.

I've been looking through books, and on the internet, and even going to the Surrey History Centre and I think I've now got a fairly coherent account of this most prized of hops.

Richard Bradley, writing in 1729, shows that Farnham was already an important hop growing area:

"I should have been more particular concerning the building of the hop-kiln but there are so many of them to be seen about Canterbury and Farnham that everyone may be easily satisfied of their structure". (1)

He provides no details of specific hop varieties though, saying instead:

"Most of the hop planters make three sorts of hops, one of them they name the good or master hop, or the manured or garden hop. The other they call the unkindly hop, and some call this the Fryer, others call it the male hop, but without reason. The third sort is that which they call the wild hop, and some likewise call this the savage" (2)

Hops were first named for the character of their cones, e.g. Long White, Oval, Long Square Garlick; or by the colour of their bines, e.g. White Bine, Green Bine, Red Bine. (3)

Early hop varieties will have originated from landraces, and genetic analysis shows that "at least two populations existed in ancient times and the hops cultivated in England originated from or are related to both populations". (4)

Propagating cuttings from the best plants, or plants with desirable characteristics, has for centuries been how most hops are grown commercially. Whether the Farnham White Bine originated as a cutting or a seedling wasn't mentioned in the first account I found of its origins, Valerie O'Rourke's history written in 1973, but it did name the man behind it:

"Around 1750 a new strain of hop was introduced to the Farnham growers by a Mr Peckham-Williams of Badshot Place, Badshot Lea (a small village in the parish of Farnham). This was a White Bine Grape hop, and was to become famous as the Farnham White Bine, which would be grown in the Farnham hop grounds until the disastrous inter-war years, when the blight hit so badly the growers changed to another variety". (5)

This lead me on to further research that says it was grown from a cutting (12):

"Several varieties of hops are here grown; but the best, and that which is cultivated to the greatest extent, is the whitebine grape-hop, which was first raised from a single cutting about fifty years about by Peckham Williams, Esq. of Badshot Place, near Farnham, who whould never suffer any other sort to be grown on his plantation, which is still kept up by that alone."

Unlike Mr Golding or Mr Fuggle it's clear cut who Mr Williams was, and some sources even accord him a similar honour by naming the hop after him: William's White Bine (13). My brief research has revealed he was born 1718 (or 1719) and died in 1785. I'll leave it there though. The lovely Lisa have been very patient with my Farnham White Bine obsession but she started wailing and gnashing her teeth when I began whittering on about Peckham Williams as well.

Farnham White Bines were considered the best hops in Britain and commanded the highest price:

"The Farnham hops generally fetch one-third more, and sometimes double those of other districts." (6)

Quite why this was the case was the cause of much speculation by William Stevenson in 1809:

"It cannot be scribed to the particular variety of hop which is cultivated at Farnham [...] cuttings from the best Farnham hops have been sent into Kent, and if this were really the case, we may be assured it would long before this have produced the same effect there as at Farnham. (7)

Farnham White Bines grown at Canterbury in Kent were called Canterbury White Bines, and white bines grown at Mathon, Worcestershire were called Mathon White Bines or simply Mathons (14). Though the last white bines in Farnham were grubbed up in 1929, Canterbury White Bines and Mathons are still grown to this day, though they're both sold (to brewers, if not to hop merchants) as Goldings.

Farnham hops were particularly prized for their pale colour and delicate flavour. Stevenson doesn't seem overly impressed by this and says Farnham hops are picked before they're ripe adding rather sniffily:

"We shall not examine whether such hops ought to be called more delicate, or weaker than those of other districts." (8)

He concludes that the reason Farnham hops get the best price is due to "the name of Farnham hops" (9) i.e. the brand value.

This doesn't really tell us how Farnham hops got to be such a good brand, but fortunately for me a previous researcher looked at this issue in some detail so I shall quote Ashton Booth on this (10):

"In summarising the factors which lead to and maintained their higher price we discover some factors necessary for commercial success in any enterprise.

First, natural advantages, in the case of soil and topography. Secondly, a high quality product, with quality control maintained through all the growing and processing operations. Thirdly a grading system which ensures evenness of the quality. Fourthly, high quality packaging, prestige wrapping and publicity. Fifthly, a monopoly hold on the best selling site; sixthly, the continued existence of the market demand."

The practices of the hops growers in Farnham were quite distinct from those of the growers in Kent, which I may return to later. I'll note at this point that unlike the hop gardens and oast houses of Kent the Farnham growers it seems had hop grounds and hop kilns.

East Kent and Farnham undoubtedly have the right soil and climate for growing hops. The Farnham growers took more care in their picking and packaging than in other hop growing areas and they were dried without sulphur:

"Mr Lance observes, that sulphur is made use of in Kent and Sussex with a view to give a light colour to the hops. The truth is, that this sulphuring is a process of bleaching, an abstraction, and not addition of colour. The slow combustion of sulphur produces sulphurous acid, and that acid (which does not contain a full does of oxygen), acts upon the hops as it does straw in the manufacture of bonnets. It removes the brown tint, and gives brightness in lieu of it. On this subject Mr Lance says, that at Farnham they avoid sulphur "and yet obtain a delicate colour, because they sort out the bruised hops, and pick early before they are injured by the wind. These Farnham hops are found to keep their strength longer than the Kent, because they have not any brimstone in them. In Kent, the most delicate coloured hops are likely to be the most inferior in strength. The oil and flavour of the hops are exceedingly volatile; the atmospheric air will take them away in a short time, and more particularly when sulphur is incorporated with them. In drying them with sulphur much of the aromatic bitter passes off with the fumes of the sulphur" (11)

Farnham hops were carefully graded and only the finest were sent to the fair at Weyhill near Andover. They held pride of place in their exclusive booths on Blissimore Hall Acre, some of which still stand and were particularly prized by West Country brewers and private gentlemen.

With the coming of railways improved transportation diminished the importance of Weyhill fair and increased competition made it harder for Farnham hop growers. Their premium price became eroded, which made it more difficult to recover after bad years as their land rent and other costs were higher.

Extremely bad summers from 1875 to 1884 caused the start of the decline and many hop growers gave up, and the land was used for other crops, housing or quarrying for gravel.

A series of bad attacks from downy mildew in the years 1925 to 1929 spelled the end of the Farnham White Bines and they were grubbed up and replanted mainly with Fuggles (15), a popular English variety but not one that will have commanded a premium price. The last Farnham hop ground at Holt Pound closed in 1976, the owner blaming EEC regulations (16).

References:

The Riches of A Hop-Garden Explain'd. Richard Bradley. 1729. p99.
ibid. p37-38
Hops. Burgess, AH, 1964. p39.
Hop Variety Classification Using the Genetic Distance Based on RAPD. A Murakami, Journal of the Institute of Brewing. Volume 106, No. 3 2000. p157-161.
Hop growing and its decline in the parish of Farnham 1873-1973. Valerie D O'Rourke. 1973. p7
The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Nov 14th 1835. p445.
General View of the Agriculture of the County of Surrey. William Stevenson. 1809. p372.
ibid. p373.
ibid. p374.
Farnham and District Museum Society Newsletter. Ashton Booth. Vol 5, Dec 1978.
The Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. Vol V, March 1834-March 1835. p525-526
The Beauties of England and Wales. Frederick Shoberl. Vol XIV, p242.
The farmer's encyclopædia, and dictionary of rural affairs. Cuthber William Johnson. 1844. p632
Hops. A H Burgess. 1964. p64.
Valerie D O'Rourke. Op cit. p50
Ashton Booth. Op cit. p59

Top of the Hops

2012-01-11T19:53:00.000Z

When I saw about this beer (brewed with 2012 different hop varieties) over at Pencil and Spoon I was certainly interested but I didn't suppose I'd ever see it. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it on the bar when I next called in at the Sovs.

As regular readers of my blog will know, because hops are normally grown from cuttings every individual plant grown from seed counts as a new variety. At the breeding programme of Wye Hops Ltd they grow around 1000 new plants each year. Most of these plants won't be developed further so their hops will never get to be used to make beer...until now.

The Great Yorkshire Brewery have taken from from 2012 of these plants and made a beer with them. As you'd expect it's pale and hoppy but I was pleasantly surprised to find out it's actually balanced with a bit of malty body. Obviously there's no chance of working out what any of the individual hop varieties adds to the beer (and most will soon be grubbed up anyway) but there's definitely a touch of citrus about it. I liked this beer, so I had a some more, just a couple mind.

The Bat and Ball, Farnham

2012-01-09T20:05:00.000Z

I was convalescing at the weekend, having been under the weather for days. Who would have though the old nose to have so many bogies in it? "Out, damned snot" I went as I blew my nose yet again. Oh yes, you get proper literature on this blog.

But enough of this nonsense. On Sunday the lovely Lisa and I went for a stroll in the forest at Alice Holt, which just happens to be right by Holt Pound farm. Unless I'm mistaken that was the last place hops were grown in Farnham. You wouldn't believe how excited I got as we drove past.

Alice Holt was good, if a bit busy. After doing the whole healthy thing: you know, getting fresh air and stretching our legs, I was feeling much better so it was time for some refreshment.

We called in at the Bat and Ball, a nearby tick. It was a large old fashioned pub with a log fire going and we managed to get seats nearby.

They had half a dozen beers on, and free roast potatoes waiting on the bar, a practice I thoroughly approve of. As seem to be the case in most pubs on Sunday afternoons nowadays there was a profusion of ankle biters wandering round. What's wrong with sitting outside with a bottle of coke and a bag of crisps, eh?

As you would expect in a pub called the bat and ball the was cricket stuff on the wall, but of more interest were the old pictures of hop pickers and a brewery yard with those giant barrel pyramids they seemed so fond of.

I had a pint of Timmy Taylor's Golden Best (3.5% ABV) which isn't as good as Landlord. Lisa had a Itchen Valley Winchester Ale, a well kept malty red beer which seemed to go down well.

Then it was time to head back and get the roast on.

On the Origin of Hop Varieties by Means of Artificial Selection

2012-01-04T18:53:00.001Z

Or the Preservation of Favoured Hop Varieties in the Struggle for Life.

My latest beer obsession has been how there came to be ten varieties of Goldings hops in the National Hop Collection. To explain how this came to be I shall not only have to bore you about hop history, but plant physiology and selection methods as well. No whimpering at the back there.

Hops are in the main dioecous, having separate male and female plants. As nothing ever seems to be totally clear cut in biology, occasionally monoecious plants will grow from seeds with flowers of both sexes, though in this case either the male or female flowers are often infertile (1).

It is overwhelmingly the female plants that are of interest to brewers, as it is the hop cones from the female plants that are used in making beer. In some countries it's even illegal to grow male hops.

Outside of breeding programmes hops are grown from cuttings. Even in England, where male hops are grown alongside the females at the rate of approximately 1:400, this is because it helps protect them from mildew and is not because the seeds are used for growing new plants.

The reason for this is that there is great genetic variation in hops, and seedlings are very seldom like the parents. Ian Hornsey (2) writes:"Because the sexes are separate the species is highly heterozygous with the resulting extreme morphological variability of plants that are raised from seeds. This causes problems for the commercial grower who strive for consistency. For this reason, therefore, a commercial grower will propagate the crop vegetatively, there being three major methods:

from hardwood cuttings;

from growing shoots that have been cut up and planted in sterile peat (called mist propagation);

by 'layering', This latter process involves the laying down of a growing bine and subsequent overlaying with soil. After the growing season the bine is unearthed, cut up and planted out."

Though Hornsey has modern science to back him up it's nothing new that hops are grown from cuttings. Burges (3) quotes T Mortimer writing back in 1761:

"Experiments have been made in raising a hop garden by sowing the seeds, but it turns to no account, because it is not only a tedious way, but the hops so produced will be of different kinds, and many of them wild and barren."

More detail is provided by Samuel Rutley (4) writing in 1848:

"I once grew a great many plants from the seeds of the Golding hop; there was nearly an equal number of male and female plants, but there was not one female plant that produced a hop at all like a Golding hop, nor was there a single plant amongst them all that produced a hop that I would have raised a plantation of, or was not very inferior to any hop I ever saw growing in a plantation."

It's interesting to see that in 1848 Rutley talks of male and female plants. The full significance of this was not fully known until 1900 with the re-discovery of Mendel's work on inherited traits and the understanding of genetics that came with it.

Each of the named 'varieties' of hops known to brewers are in fact cultivars, being genetically a single female plant cloned by taking cuttings. Well, not quite all of the 'varieties', as I've already mentioned there are ten different cultivars of Goldings in the National Hop Collection, but more on that later.

Despite the fact hops are commercially grown from cuttings it is still possible for genetic variation to occur through selection of mutants for propagation (7):

"Occasionally a plant will produce a bine which differs somewhat in character from the other bines; this is called a 'bud sport', or 'bud mutation'. The difference may be either in the direction of improvement or depreciation in the quality of the cones, or in the cultural character of the plant. If a cutting from this individual bine is used for propagation, the plant which is obtained, and its vegetative progeny, will retain it characters. In this way, by selecting bines with improved characters, new and better types of hops have been introduced from time to time."

The process of clonal selection is in fact necessary to maintain hop varieties (8):

"The production of bud sports and the intrusion of chance seedlings into gardens from which cuttings are taken for propogation leads, ultimately, to a mixture of types and, in the case of stray seedlings, to different varieties in what should be uniform stock. This has happened to most of the older varieties which are still in cultivation, and has made it necessary to select, from the mixed populations, plants having the desirable characteristics of the variety; than, after observation and testing over a number of years to raise clonal races from the best of them.

Hops can of course be grown from seeds, early varieties will have originated as landraces but are commercially grown from cuttings. Prior to the release of hops from the breeding programme by Wye College only two English varieties in commercial production were known to have been grown from seedlings: Fuggle and Whitbread Golding Variety.

Though my interest in the origin of hop varieties mainly relates to Goldings and the Farnham connection having got this far I'll add a few words on polyploidy for completeness' sake.

Normally hops are diploid, containing two sets of ten chromosomes in their cells, except in their sexual cells (pollen and eggs) which only contain one set and so are haploid. By chemically treating growing buds it is possible to produce cell with four sets of chromosomes in each cell (tetraploids). Why this is of interest to hop breeders is explanied by Burgess (9):

"The sexual cells of the 'tetraploid' form of a plant will, therefore, contain twenty chromosomes, i.e. the full number characteristic of the original diploid variety. If a tetraploid female hop is crossed with a diploid male, the cells of its progeny will contain three sets of chromosomes - two from the tetraploid female and one from the diploid male. They are, therefore, called 'triploids'. As they contain a full complement of chromosomes from the female plant, they will have a very much greater chance of resembling that parent. Dark proposed in this way, by using disease-resistant male plants, to produce disease-resisting varieties closely resembling existing varieties in their other general characters, but, because triploids are usually sterile, containing less seeds."

Burgess was writing when this research was relatively new but in the Barth-Haas Hops Companion published in 2009 there are triploid varieties such as Galaxy and Willamette listed so it seems it's proved a successful way of producing new varieties.

Right, I think I'm ready to get back to Goldings now...

References:

Hops, AH Burgess, p19.

Brewing, Ian S Hornsey, p60

Hops, AH Burgess, p44.

Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Volume 9, pages 545-546. Online here.

Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Volume 62, page 87. Online here.

Hops, AH Burgess, p42

ibid p38

ibid p38-39

ibid p50

Golden Pint Awards 2011

2011-12-31T10:56:00.000Z

I've had to edit the categories slightly as there seems to have been a typo in the original ;-) and I'm not going to go on about the brewery I work at as that would be wrong, wonderful though our beers are.

Best UK Cask Beer: Westerham Audit Ale. I'd been after it for some time and it was very good.
Least Bad UK Keg Beer: Sam Smith's Extra Stout.
Best UK Bottled Beer: Young's Special London Ale.
Least Bad UK Canned Beer: Don't think I've drunk any canned beer this year.
Best Overseas Draught Beer: Haven't drunk any of those either.
Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Orval. Thanks to Stewart Howe's blog I now know it's best drunk fresh, and without the unpleasant pong Orval is even better than it is with the pong.
Best Overall Beer: Westerham Audit Ale.
Best Pumpclip or Label: Black Sheep Imperial Russian Stout.
Best UK Brewery: Dark Star. Consistently good throughout the year.
Best Overseas Brewery: Orval.
Pub/Bar of the Year: The Crown.
Beer Festival of the Year: Woking.
Supermarket of the Year: Booths.
Independent Retailer of the Year: Liquid Pleasure.
Online Retailer of the Year: Don't think I've bought any beer online this year.
Best Beer Book or Magazine: Kentish brewers and the brewers of Kent. I'm in it!
Best Beer Blog or Website: Shut Up About Barclay Perkins. A raging torrent of beer history, and witty too.
Best Beer Twitterer: I still don't really get on with twitter but I bought an album thanks to a tweet from Boak and Bailey so them.
Best Online Brewery presence: Fullers.
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Beer and cheese and onion crisps.
In 2012 I’d Most Like To: finish my researches into the origins of Goldings.
Open Category: Tim O'Rourke deserves an award for The Great Baltic Adventure and the wonders it's done for Imperial Russian Stout.

AK 1911 - one from Ron

2011-12-30T14:00:00.000Z

Back in the Summer I started making plans to brew a beer to an historic recipe featured on Ron Pattinson's blog. Things didn't go entirely to plan but undeterred we persevered and now the beer has been released into the wild.

It's a pale beer with a hint of honey-like sweetness balanced by the spicy bitterness of Goldings hops. Ron can now be happy that AK has been revived, and if you want to try it you can even buy it online.

More on hops...

2011-12-18T13:49:00.001Z

...with a reference this time!

As my previous post on hop history was a severely lacking in references I've gone out and bought a hop book. Sadly the choice of hop books is extremely limited but thanks to a recommendation from Jens Eiken I've bought "Hops" by AH Burgess. The book is getting on for 50 years old and the copy I've got sat for decades on the shelves of Imperial College library, including when I was there, being taken out a total of three times before it was withdrawn.

The book may be old but it's still got a wealth of information. Early on there's a map of hop growing districts with Farnham highlighted, and the first chapter is on the history of hop growing which is just what I need to tidy up my previous post.

The big question of what exactly the prolific varieties grown in the 1900s were is answered. I'd got the wrong end of the stick thinking it was a group of hops, in fact Prolific was the name of a variety introduced in 1852. When I get a moment I'll go back and airbrush out of history my misunderstanding.

As to the date of when hops were first grown commercially in England Burgess is more circumspect than Darby:

"During the fifteenth century, beer, i.e. hopped ale, was still considered in England to be a foreign drink. No doubt, as their value became more widely known, small plots of hops were grown for home brewing, but most of the hops used were imported from the Continent. Their cultivation on a commercial scale was not seriously undertaken until the sixteenth century, about 1524, the enclosure of common lands having made the growing of such a crop more feasible. Hop gardens were first established in Kent, and there is a record of hop gardens in Norfolk in 1533."

There's also plenty more on the origin of English hop varieties, including how there came to be so many varieties of Goldings despite the fact they're grown from cuttings but I'll be coming back to that later.

Research trip to North London

2011-12-11T14:39:00.013Z

We were in North London for more research on Saturday. But first we had to go to Covent Garden to check out a gear shop, and whilst we were there it was a good opportunity to have some refreshment at The Harp.

Despite the fact this is CAMRA pub of the year we've never been before so I was looking forward to this one. The pub's small and it was packed but eventually we manoeuvred ourselves into seats. As you would expect there was a good beer range and I started on Draft No. 5 from Marble Brewery. Like everything else I've had from Marble it tasted like concentrated hop juice, which I'm not totally averse to but I soon turned to the dark side with a Dark Star Original.

Then it was on to Kentish Town. Normally the lovely Lisa is chief pub crawl researcher but I was involved in planning this one. London Heritage Pubs had to be cross referenced with London Pub Walks and the Good Beer Guide. Then there was the checking on beerintheevening.com and using google map to do searches for places to eat. It was lot more work than I thought so I may have to leave it to Lisa in future.

Our first stop was The Southampton Arms, another packed pub with another fine selection of ales. It was definitely dark delights again for us and we had plenty to choose from. Our favourites were Bristol Beer Factories' Milk Stout and Redemption Fellowship Porter.

Next we wandered on to The Bull and Gate. This was a nice looking pub but it was suspiciously empty. The beer had a limited selection and tasted sour so we didn't stay for long.

Then we went for some food at The Guanabana, a Caribbean restaurant that the lovely Lisa's careful cross referencing had found. It didn't have a booze licence so Oreo milkshake was the drink choice for those that chose to drink with their food. I didn't bother with such distractions from shoveling food down my throat. The food was great and hopefully we'll be back before too long.

After that we wandered on for some more refreshment and stopped at The Assembly House. This is a big historic pub that would have been higher on our list had it not been Greene King beers. It was a bit of a barn but I quite liked the pub, and the well kept Old Speckled Hen washed me dinner down well. As it was getting late we headed home after that and didn't even stop for a swifty once we'd got back to Woking.

Getting damp in December

2011-12-08T13:00:00.004Z

Last weekend I was back in Langdale with a mountaineering club. Despite the horrors of the M25 we managed to make it to the Watermill for last orders, and to my delight Stringers beers were on. As I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires I had a pint of No. 2 stout. It was an excellent beer.

Under the paving stones, the beach

Our plan for Friday was to go climbing in Borrowdale. After one look out the window in the morning these plans were quickly downgraded to scrambling in Langdale. Then it started raining so the plans were downgraded again to hill walking in Langdale. At this rate it was looking like all we'd be doing was shopping in Ambleside if we didn't get out soon. So we headed up the blue route and wandered towards Pavey Ark and Sergeant Man. Then we dropped down towards Easedale tarn.

It's grim up north.

By this point daylight was starting to run out and horizontal sleet was being blown into our faces. Defintely time to return. When practicing night navigation I've gone back this way before and if you can't find the path, which is quite tricky once it's dark, it's a right horror. When we were back on the ridge we were too far over for the path and I was starting to despair of finding it. But truding back, with about half an hour of daylight left, we spotted it: a green snake of salvation slithering silently through the bracken to the valley floor.

Thing went a bit more smoothly on Saturday. Past red tarn and the three shires stone to wet side edge and then down to little Langdale. We were able to stop for refreshment at the Three Shires Inn. This pub has a scarily large number of signs ordering you not to do things but once you're inside it's very pleasant. Or it was until some wet cyclists turned up and started drying their sweaty socks on the log burner. Perhaps another sign is needed.

As I'm now an old man I had a pint of Coniston Brewery Old Man ale here. Now it's winter my beer tastes are definitely turning to the dark side. Once it had stopped raining we headed on to the Wainwright's in Chapel Stile.

The excellent Cumbrian Legendary Ales Grasmoor was on so we had to stop for a couple. Then it was back to the hut for dinner and refreshments.

Beer for interest only

2011-11-30T17:34:00.001Z

My favourite sister kindly gave me some interesting beers recently. One of them went part way to answering a question a friend had asked at Woking beer festival: what would a beer made with cannabis taste like?

Cannabis is related to hops, so compared to some of the weird things people have put in beer it kind of makes senses.

The Cannabia beer I was bought is a hemp beer though. I don't know much about hops that sounds suspiciously like the part of the plant they make ropes out of, not the part that gets you stoned. So probably not what my friend was curious about. And as to how it tastes...well, like a sweet lager. One for interest only I'm afraid.

A brief history of cultivated hops in England

2011-11-21T12:27:00.004Z

I heard hop expert Peter Darby give a talk on the history of cultivated hops in England the other day. As he poured out distilled essence of hop history I mopped it up as best I could, furiously scribbling down notes.

I'm no expert botanist or geneticist but to help make sense of it bear in mind that hops have male and female plants, only the cones from the females are used in brewing and each hop ‘varieties’ used in brewing is essentially a single female plant that has been cloned by vegetative reproduction. Males are of importance when making new ‘varieties’ though as sexual reproduction is used to make new plants. I hope this account is of interest:

Surprisingly for something going back that far Peter started with the exact year that hops were first cultivated in England for use in brewing: 1524. He said this was a documented date when Flemish religious refugees started growing hops. I think he even mentioned the heresy they adhered to but I couldn’t make it out. I bet it wasn’t neo-kegism though! The hop they grew was the Flemish Red Bine, but they can’t have done that well as in 1560 they had to call over a consultant, Peter de Wolf from Flanders to tell them how to do it properly.

The hops hybridised with indigenous English hops and by the end of the 1600s there were three types:

 Flemish Red Bine, which was easy to grow and quite disease resistant but coarse and not good for brewing.

 Green Bines, which were better for brewing and

 White Bines which were difficult to grow but the most prized for brewing.

By the early 1700s White Bines predominated and the best were grown in Farnham: Farnham White Bines. Hops were named by their shape, their grower or the place they were grown in. So when Farnham White Bines spread to the Midlands and over to East Kent they became known by different names, such as Canterbury White Bines.

By the end of the 1700s one White Bine was selected out by Mr Golding.

In the 1800s a number of Goldings were grown, for example Bramling, Amos’ Early Bird and Mercer. East Kent Golding is a marketing term as hops grown in East Kent were now considered the best and does not refer to any particular selection of Goldings hops. During the 1800s various clones proliferated. Around 1875 the Fuggle was released, though Percival’s often repeated account of how it originated from a seed found by Richard Fuggle which had been thrown out with some crumbs from a hop picking basket is simply not true. He would either have been three at the time or have emigrated to Canade four years previously!

When we reach the 1900s there are various varieties have been selected:

 Flemish Red Bines, such as Tolhurst and Canterbury Jack (the Shepherd Neame beer of this name does not contain any Canterbury Jack hops)

 Green Bines such as Colgates and Prolific.

 White Bines, including Fuggles and ten types of Goldings. The Mathon Golding is the same plant that had also been known as Farnham White Bines and Cantebury White Bines. These plants will have some differences as the soil they are grown in will alter the character of the hops and epigenetic effects can lead to differences in disease resistance even in genetically identical plants.

In 1906 Wye College in Kent appointed a mycologist, EF Salmon, who had experience in working with powdery mildew, a common hop disease. He started a hop breeding programme. Looking for marketable varieties he noticed that brewers were looking for resin content, as they gave more bitterness and preservative properties but still preferred British flavours. In 1917 he took the unusual step of using wild American hop plants from Oregon in the USA and Manitoba in Canada to make crosses. This greatly increased the genetic diversity. Seedlings from these crosses were planted out in 1919 and one of them became Brewers Gold. This hop had double the alpha acid (potential bitterness) content of the other hops available at the time and is in the pedigree of every high alpha hop in the world today!

Hops evolved in Southern China 6.5 million years ago and the population separated 1.5 million years ago, spreading West and eventually reaching Europe and East over to North America. When these divergent populations were reunited in breeding programmes increases in alpha acid content, mildew resistance, dwarf varieties and new aroma possibilites were opened up.

In 1978 Ray Neve rescued the Wye hop collection from a wilt stricken field and replanted the hops in two separate areas. Peter Darby took over in 1981 and by 2006 the collection had 1500 plants, including 120 named varieties with 70 of these English (including 10 different clones of the Golding variety). Some of these plants had a history going back to 1737. Funding from the government stopped in 2006 and the terms of the lease said the fields had to be returned to arable land: all the hops would be grubbed up unless funding could be found. The National Hop Association decided they couldn't allow this and rapidly raised money.

The hop collection was rationalised: varieties that could be obtained elsewhere, duplicates (plants that had different names but where identical in character and genetics to other varieties) and hops that had been superseded were removed.

This got the collection down to 784 accessions, including the 120 named varieties and 361 males. In 2007 they were planted in a new hop garden and in 2008 the core (including all the English varieties) were also planted in a second site as a precaution against disease.

In 2009 the paperwork was submitted to a body that now goes under the name of Plant Heritage and in 2010 these plants were declared the National Hop Collection, which gives the collection more prestige and should help secure its future.

The plants in the collection are still actively used for crosses and from next year the collection will be open to the public through the Shepherd Neame visitors centre.

Pervious hop selections were made using the judgement of the researchers but using modern scientific techniques the collection is now being analysed more systematically and the brewing characteristics analysed.

Wye hops have recently developed two new varieties: Endeavor which has a Cascade like flavour and Aramis which is grown in France. Some older varieties which were previously rejected are also being looked at again to see if they are suitable for modern tastes.

I think I’ve got the details down correctly, but sadly I have no references, only the notes I scribbled down.

A talk about Australian hops followed, and on leaving we were given a goody bag of small samples of various new, old and Australian hop varieties which I will no doubt return to at some point soon.

The plot thickens in Farnham

2011-11-18T12:45:00.003Z

I was a very interesting meeting put on by Simply Hops last night. Amongst the wealth of information I got from the gathered hop experts was the fact Farnham hops are still grown today as Mathon Goldings. More details when I get a moment.

Woking woking, boing boing!

2011-11-13T22:03:00.002Z

Has there ever been this much excitement in Woking? Probably not since the martians landed. For the second week in a row my beers have been available on draught.

This time it was at Woking beer festival, surely a highlight of anyone's drinking year. Being held in the leisure centre it may lack the atmosphere of Farnham but on the plus side it's in walking distance of my house. Or maybe more accurately walking distance on the way there and staggering distance on the way back.

The festival glasses had gone back to looking decidedly unrighteous but I didn't let that put me off. When you drink in the ways of righteousness like I do it will take more than that to stop you.
As my beers were handily close to the entrance I checked them out early on to make sure they were on top form. Which indeed they were.

Other delights included the mighty Oscar Wilde mild, Bingham's Old Ale, Dorking Winter Ruby and Fuller's Golden Pride. I only had a sip of the last one as at 8.5% ABV it's a bit much to be knocking back.

I met up with loads of people, including bizarrely enough the bloke who'd been our tour guide when we went round Jennings. I had an interesting discussion with him on the merits of sparklers, but I'll say no more on that matter.

It was an excellent night, and I found out the next day that we'd done rather well in the festival competition, so unusually for the day after a beer festival it's been an excellent day too.

Oooo...look at that...

2011-11-12T17:56:00.004Z

Don't mind if I do.

If I'd known it was going to appear in my local Sainsbury's I wouldn't have travelled up to Chiswick to pay £4 a bottle for it.

Real ale renaissance

2011-11-11T13:29:00.000Z

In the latest issue of the IBD magazine I was pleased to see a report from New Zealand stating: "Like all over the world, cask ales are experiencing a renaissance here..."

As many beer bloggers in Britain have succumbed to the neo-kegist heresy it's nice to hear that devotion to beer as god intended is growing across the globe.

I've got the Blue Top blues

2011-11-06T17:59:00.006Z

Living bleeding miles from work as I do I don't often get to drink my beers on draught. So for my official birthday do I arranged for some to be on tap closer to home.

We got down the pub for half seven and started guzzling the Blue Top. At 4.8% ABV it's a bit stronger than stuff I would normally knock back by the bucket load but hey, it's was my birthday (almost). It must have gone down well with my mates too as by a quarter to ten the cask had been emptied and replaced with Gold Top.

The festivities continued until closing time and a good time was had by all. But the next day was not so good. Is it my age or was it just the vast quantities of beer consumed? The power of pork did provide some relief (I'd specially stocked up on black pudding for the fry up) but I was definitely not at my best. I managed to drag myself to the climbing wall in the afternoon, and whilst I'm used to gravity often being unusually strong when I go climbing this time it was a struggle to even leave the ground. It may have to be lettuce and water for me this week.

10th Egham Beer Festival

2011-11-05T16:06:00.000Z

I called in at the Egham Beer Festival last night. As ever they had a very impressive range of new beers and the place was packed.

I was please to my Imperial Russian Stout on one of the hand pumps, and it was on draught at the Euston Tap then too. Looks like we'll have to make more of it...

Can the best pub in Woking get any better?

2011-11-02T21:21:00.001Z

As a matter of fact it can. This weekend the guest beers at The Crown will have been brewed by me. My mate Gordon and I are both hitting 40 this year* so to celebrate we're having a joint birthday do on Saturday, and the landlord's gone out of his way to make sure my beers will be on. So if you want to drink the best beer in Woking this weekend you know where to go.

*He's an old git already while I'm still in the last flush of youth.

Historic Hops

2011-11-01T21:22:00.000Z

Many years ago when I got "Old British Beers And How To Make Them" I was fascinated to see Farnham mentioned in the hops section:

"In 1750 there were six well established varieties: Farnham Pale, Canterbury Brown, Long White, Oval, Long Square Garlic and Flemish. Farnham Pale was regarded as the best quality hop but with the introduction of Golding in 1795 it became just another hop that was eventually superseded by Fuggles"

Farnham's not far from where I live, and has an excellent beer festival and some cracking pubs. Beer nerd that I am I have wondered if the hops are still around anywhere, and much to my delight I now know they are. On the last page of Beer magazine Jody Scheckter of the Laverstoke Park Farm says of their beers: "I also insisted we use heritage hops not in wide commercial use, such as Fuggles, Farnham, White Bine and White Grape".

So the hops still exist, all I need to do now is find some...

First round to us.

2011-10-31T20:14:00.002Z

In our trademark dispute with a French Champagne company we've won the first round, with the judge saying: "the opposition has failed in its entirety". And we got awarded costs.

But sadly this is not yet the end, as they may well appeal, and the dispute now stretches over several brands.

The mysteries of mashing

2011-10-30T16:15:00.001Z

I was at Murphy and Son's, purveyors of fine finings to the brewing industry, the other week. The BFBi had organised a technical trade day and I'm always keen to keep up with my CPD. Sadly, as a Collecting Presents Day it was a bit of a flop as a biro and a bottle opener was about it. But on the plus side some of the talks were quite interesting.

In particular the talk on brewing liquor (water) treatment solved one of the mysteries of mashing that has had me perplexed for some time. Back in the day a certain town became famous for making certain types of beer using their distinctive local waters. Pale Ales made from the gypsum rich water of Burton-upon-Trent, Porters and Stouts from hard London water and pale lagers from the soft water of Pilsen are some well known examples.

Some of this I can understand. The dark grains used in stouts and porters lower the pH of the mash to an optimum level, offsetting the buffering action of the high concentration of carbonate in London water. But pilsners and pale ales? Both are made with very similar types of malt so how can very soft water and hard gypsum rich water both be ideal? The answer it seems is the different mashing techniques used. Though the malt may be similar the barley is different. Superior British barley being low in protein means a straight forward infusion mash can be used, with the malt and the liquor being mashed at around 65°C. Inferior foreign barley being high in protein traditionally had a stepped temperature decoction mash, starting at a low temperature and being raised in stages.

I'd always thought the importance of decoction mashing was the 'protein rest' stage where proteolytic enzymes can work at their optimum temperatures, but it must be important for the breakdown of starch too. Brewing liquor for infusion mashes needs to be high in calcium as the calcium stabilises the α-amylase enzyme required for starch breakdown at high temperatures. With the complex process of temperature rises it seems decoction mashing removes this need and allows our continental cousins to make pale beers with low calcium water.

Brewing politics

2011-10-24T12:45:00.002+01:00

As I mainly consider beer drinking to be a spiritual matter I haven't paid too much attention to the politics in the brewing industry. But I do love a good gossip so I was interested to hear that there are further divisions in the BBPA, this time between the brewers and the pub companies. SIBA seems to be emerging as the new Brewers' Society, with many in the wider industry impressed by the cringe worthy 'Proud of British Beer' video. There's no accounting for some peoples taste.

Glenridding

2011-10-17T18:15:00.003+01:00

For our latest holiday the lovely Lisa and I went to Glenridding, a great place for the hills but sadly not a great place for pubs. Still, one of the local shops has a cracking beer range so we managed to get by.

Being keen mountaineers we had apline starts most days. One the continent this means being worken by someone shouting in German at 3am. As we were in England this would have been a bit excessive, so we adapted the alpine start a little - we had a lie in but made sure we had some muesli before going out.

The weather was a bit hit and miss but we managed to get in some canoeing on Ullswater and got out into the surrounding hills on three days. As the Travellers Rest has rubbish beer the Ramblers Bar was our watering hole of choice. It looks like the function room attached to the hotel so even though it had three beers on and Shakira shaking her hips on the big screen it didn't really do it for me.

More often than not we ended up back at the cottage drinking beers for the excellent bottled range on sale at the minimarket. In fact I fear that middle age has caught up with me, as despite the delights of Shakira on Sunday night I ended up sat on the sofa under a duvet watching Downton Abbey. I really must put more effort into aging disgracefully.

The lovely Lisa striding off on Striding Edge

The Travellers Rest, Glenridding

2011-10-16T12:27:00.002+01:00

Well situated for when you're coming off the hills this pub is sadly one to avoid. They were happy to sell beer that tastes like vinegar and when I asked for it to be changed they came up with the tired old excuses: "It's meant to taste like that" and "Everybody else is drinking it". "Well I'm not" I said, and off I went, taking my thirst, and my money, to the other pubs in the village.

The Kirkstone Pass Inn

2011-10-15T19:28:00.003+01:00

We got to the Kirkstone Pass Inn last Friday. A proper old fashioned pub with local beers on tap, and how's that for a beer garden:

Wild, wild hops

2011-10-06T13:00:00.001+01:00

It has its advantages living in a hop growing area. As well as being able to do the fresh hop beer we've got hold of some hops that a retired farmer has grown from a wild plant he liked the look of.

We must score points for being innovative craft brewers for using a new hop variety. But on the other hand the hops are apparently most like fuggles, a very traditional variety.

Still, as brewing has such a long history it's very hard to do anything that really is innovative. As the fuggle also came from a local wild hop our innovation is merely redoing something that was done long ago. Perhaps it's as the venerable Jorge (or was it Ron Pattinson?) put it: "there is no progress in the history of brewing, merely continuous and sublime recapitulation".

I am now a part of history

2011-10-03T19:21:00.005+01:00

Today I got a book from the Brewery History Society - and I'm in it! Yes, I am now a part of history.

Like all sensible people I don't normally think about Christmas until after November 15th but dare I say it Kentish Brewers and the Brewers of Kent would be an ideal xmas gift for any beer lover.

I will be available to autograph copies, for a modest fee.

Congratulations to The Crown

2011-10-02T20:47:00.000+01:00

I was please to see that The Crown in Horsell has got the recognition it deserves.

Long considered by me and the lovely Lisa to be the best pub in Woking it's now made it into the good beer guide. So well done to everyone at The Crown.

The mysteries of yeast

2011-09-29T22:29:00.000+01:00

Yeast. Ah, if only I could say that word like Graham Stewart does, now there's a man who knows his yeast. But worry not. I won't be going to go on about the mysteries of fermentation. No, the mystery I'm pondering today is yeast ownership.

We recently got some fresh yeast in from Brewlab and it was a slightly odd experience getting it. For home brewers they provide a number of strains, none of which have a brewery name attached, but a region and some details are given. I was surprised to find that when I asked about what yeasts they had for commercial breweries I was simply told to let them know what I'm looking for and they'd provide a strain.

So I did, and sure enough they did too. But no further details at all. This lead to the pondering. Is it possible to own a yeast strain? Surely for any cask conditioned beer it wouldn't be too much trouble to isolate and propagate the yeast if you wanted to? No genetically modified yeasts are used in brewing so I don't think they can be patented. All I can think of is that they're being cagey about breweries names in case they infringe trademarks. Does anyone know how yeast strain ownership works, if there is such a thing?

The Bricklayers Arms Derbyshire beer festival

2011-09-26T21:38:00.002+01:00

On Saturday we were at the Bricklayer's Arms Derbyshire beer festival.

I'd tried to get ahead of the game by looking at the beer list before I got there but there were hardly any breweries I knew on it. The one beer that leapt out at me was called "Over the top", which surely was named after Bob Calvert's most demented moment on vinyl:

If I linked that one in with "White Feather", "Lord Kitchener" and "Assassin" I'd be well on my way. But no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Or the beer in this case. As we'd gone on the third day of the festival half the beers I was after were off, and my Bob based beer bonanza was buggered.

Instead I had to make do with whatever caught my fancy and it was dark beers that were doing it for me. I've noticed that recently some craft brewers have been taking the traditional British mild and making the innovative step of adding more malt. This can lead to milds of a staggering 4.5% ABV or more! Muirhouse Magnum Mild fitted this bill perfectly and was beer of the festival for me.

Foreign muck

2011-09-22T22:00:00.001+01:00

Regular readers of this blog will know that last month we brewed a beer alien to our language, culture, customs and laws. Or lager as it's more commonly known.

It's based on a recipe for what was the original and best pilsner before it got taken over and went rubbish. I've had a few tastes of it as the feckless foreign yeast slowly did its work. But after several weeks in the conditioning tank I felt it was really time to test it properly before letting it out into the world. Trying to get into the spirit of things I filled a cornelius keg in the cold store and added some extraneous CO2.

The beer's really quite pleasant. If drinking cold beer didn't lead to scrofula I could probably have drunk some more. How well it will fare as far as sales go remains to be seen (is there really a market for cask and bottle conditioned lager?)

Getting RATted

2011-09-20T09:55:00.002+01:00

We went on the Real Ale Train on Saturday. We got to sit in an old railway carriage drinking bright beer out of plastic skiffs. Sounds a bit rubbish really doesn't it? But for some reason it was great fun.

I don't know if it's the fact it's a steam train that adds to the fun. Not being the train spotting type I'm not entirely convinced, though it helps with the atmosphere. Having beer from top local breweries helps too, but the beers weren't at their best.

I think it's just getting out and doing something different but still getting to blather on whilst getting bladdered that does it.

Brewers invert sugar No. 1

2011-09-17T13:35:00.001+01:00

I've started getting in the ingredients for the beer recipe from 1911 I'm planning to make.

A 25kg block of No.1 invert sugar has arrived from Ragus, and I can see why it's not found in home brew shops. It really is one solid block that looks like it was poured into the bag in the box then left to set solid. It would be a right pain getting it into home brew sized portions.

It has a white outer crust and a golden, slightly moist inside. I've tested the organoleptic propeties and it's like honey flavoured tablet.

Its figures for those that care about such things are:

Total sugars: 78.5 - 84.5%
Mineral matter: 0.5% max
Organic non-sugar: 1% max
Moisture: 16.7 - 17% max
Refractometer BRIX: 81.4-81.7
pH: 5.0 - 6.0
Colour: 25 - 35 EBC
Brewers extact: 321.5 -326.5 litre degrees per Kg (also given as 72 - 73 Lbs/2cwt for any imperialists out there).

If I remember rightly granulated sugar is 380 LDK and a moisture content close to zero. If you take into account the moisture content of the brewers sugar its extract is very similar, so not a lot of unfermentable material in No. 1 sugar. I wonder how the darker brewers sugars compare? As ever further research is called for.

Er ist tot

2011-09-16T19:11:00.004+01:00

I noticed today that my last remaining hop has been killed. I planted two back in March, to boldly go on a three year mission to get some home grown hops for our beer. But a pair of plonkers have stuffed that ambition after only six months.

The first hop fell to a numptie that managed to strim it clearing a path. That was annoying, but I can understand, accidents happen.

The demise of the second looks like deliberate though - a compost heap has been build where it once grew. In the words of an ex-colleague it buggers belief that a plant, the piece of string it's growing on, and the peg the string is attached to can all be removed accidentally. As soon as I can get a baying mob together I'll be tracking down the perpetrator and explaining to him the error of his ways.

Where once two hop grew up string tied to the guttering now there is only blank wall and weeds.

Brewing history in London

2011-09-13T21:16:00.003+01:00

The IBD put on a talk about brewing history in London at the Sloaney Pony last night. I can't get enough of this sort of thing so no way was I missing it. The talk spanned centuries, though unfortunately an urgent call from work made me miss a few decades. But I was still there for the rise and fall of porter. And who'd have thought that brewers referred to their beer as 'mild' for decades after the public had been calling them 'porter'? It was also good to see Martyn Cornell and his blog get a big plug.

Before and after the talk I manged to fit in a little light networking (three pints) and there was some interesting gossip to be had. I finally found out that the reason Elgood's did a Hawkwind beer was because the boss of a beer distribution company is a massive fan. And it seems Wells and Young's have followed my lead and brewed Courage Imperial Russian Stout. The also have the rights to the brand so this time its return will be official. I'm can't wait to get hold of some.

Green hop beer

2011-09-10T10:38:00.005+01:00

We made a green hop beer yesterday. It was good to go back to the hop farm and see masses of the little beauties being readied for brewing.

We picked up a sackful of not so readied hops, as they were undried, but with the brewery being about 15 minutes away drying wasn't necessary as they didn't need to keep.

It will be interesting to see how the fresh hop beer turns out, and as we used >1kg/hl of hops I'm sure it will be craft beer and therefore AWESOME.

Nationalist nonsense

2011-09-07T13:00:00.003+01:00

Now they have a government majority the Scottish National Party are doing their bit for the English alcohol industry. They're going to bring back plans for minimum alcohol pricing, which must have off licences just south of the border rubbing their hands with glee.

Forbidden fruit

2011-09-06T21:23:00.011+01:00

I don't boycott many breweries. Life's hard enough as it is without putting constraints on your beer supply. But sometimes it has to be done.

There's the unrighteous brewery I used to work for obviously. They're not getting any of my money. Neither are the twats that make a policy of insulting everyone for PR purposes. Their antics have made me go right off them.

I also have a few reciprocal boycotts with friends who've had problems with breweries. Which is only fair really, my friends have been very good at not drinking beers from the tossers I used to work for.

One of these is a North Eastern brewery that does an interesting looking range of bottled beers, but they're not for me. Until the GBBF that is. No, I didn't crack and order a pint when pissed, I won a bottle in the tombola. It would be criminal waste not to drink it, and the boycotted brewery hadn't got any of my money.

So with a clear conscience I cracked open the bottle and ~~guzzled it down~~ carefully evaluated its flavour. And how did the forbidden fruit taste? It was alright.

Back at Shepherd Neame's.

2011-09-03T19:33:00.007+01:00

I was back at Shepherd Neame's brewery last night for a CAMRA award ceremony. As once again I was driving I had limited drinking opportunity, which is a shame as free beer always tastes better and the 9.2% barley wine they'd made on the pilot plant seemed to be very popular.

The main even was held in the new visitor centre/museum where some interesting pictures caught my eye. It seems Shep's once had a particularly strict version of the reinheitsgebot as their advertising slogan.

And at one point were keen to promote the regular drinking of Belgian beer.

1911

2011-08-31T20:32:00.002+01:00

1911 - now there's a year that needs no introduction. Known to all as the year in which Bradford City won the cup, I've been contemplating what beers might have been drunk then since a post by the Pub Curmudgeon. Before the horrors of the first world war you could enjoy "pubs open all day, average strength of beer about 5.5%". It certainly sounds fun.

As I'm sadly a bit of lightweight nowadays I don't suppose I'd last long drinking beer at that strength, but I'd have a damn good effort. And it's worth remembering that Bradford City's historic victory was not the only thing that happened in that year. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to have pint of porter with Peter the painter? Or not visit the Mona Lisa in the Louvre?

Being a brewer it occurred to me that I could travel back in time as far as the beers go if I could get hold of some 1911 recipes that I could make. Durden Park Brewing Circle didn't have any relevant recipes, but Ron had something that I felt myself drawn to. 1909. That's not far off. If I couldn't get back to 1911 then surely I could just go back to 1909 and hang around for a couple of years. I'm sure the beers wouldn't have changed much.

After much pondering I decided I had to go for it and forked out some of my hard earned dosh for the book. Though plagued with typos the book has a wealth of information, and contrary to what I expected from the title, recipes for beers from 1909 to 1916. Including two from 1911. Oh yes, there they were looking up at me from the pages. And one of them, Russell's AK, was of the sort of strength I normally drink at when down the pub. Perhaps I could drink in the delights of 1911 without making an embarrassment of myself?

But then I though maybe there's a better way. As the beer was at a normal strength by modern standards why not let other people enjoy it too? Instead of brewing it for research purposes on the pilot plant I could make it on the main kit at work and send it out as a seasonal. One Sunday night I started looking into sourcing some of the ingredients I don't normally use ...

... and on Monday morning I saw Ron had posted on his blog (a slightly different version of) the recipe I was interested in, with the heart felt plea: "I'm happy to present another AK recipe as part of my campaign to revive the style. If even one of you brews it, my work won't have been in vain."

Well I haven't brewed it yet, and the seasons dictate that the green hop beer will be the non-regular beer next week, but the ingredients have started arriving so the chance to go back in time to 1911 will be coming soon! So don't forget it's the lads from the Valley you want to be cheering in the cup final if you don't want to be on the losing side.

Bank holiday beers

2011-08-30T12:52:00.001+01:00

We were back in the Langdale for the bank holiday weekend. We had our customary stop on the way at the Watermill at Ings for a pint of Collie Wobbles (3.7% ABV) and Booths to stock up on bottles. I was pleased to see that Booths have expanded their range of Fyne Ale's beer to include Jarl (3.8%), a beer I've noticed several of my fellow internet beer nerds praising. It is indeed righteous stuff so I called in again on the way back for another couple of bottles.

Our first day of hill based heroism involved trekking up the blue route to Pavey Ark where we made an ascent of the slightly moist Jack's Rake (grade 1).

The weather was unexpectedly good, who'd have thought we'd be out in T shirts on the August Bank Holiday weekend?

Not wishing to extend our mortgage we avoided the New Dungeon Ghyll for our refreshments and called in the Sticklebarn. Stringers West Coast Pale Ale (4.4%) was on so we went for that first, and then Coniston Brewery's Special Oatmeal Stout (4.5%) to restore our dark/light balance. And then maybe a couple more back in the hut.

The next day we trudged up Bowfell, despite gravity seeming especially strong, which lead us to the Old Dungeon Ghyll on the way back. I had a pint of Yates bitter (3.7%) to start with and then felt strangely drawn to the Old Peculier. At a dangerously strong 5.6% ABV it's not one I go for often, though I seem to remember being fond of it in my youth when it was even stronger. I may well have to drink it more now though as it really hit the spot. The black malty goodness coping well with the infernal sparkler it went down a treat.

It was back to the Sticklebarn in the evening, and the next morning the long drive back home. Beer stocks are looking good, and legs virtuously aching, so it was a good weekend.

A place in The Sun ...

2011-08-21T10:35:00.002+01:00

... and The Daily Telegraph, and the Kentish Express.

Visit to a hop farm

2011-08-20T17:22:00.005+01:00

I visited the hop garden at Northiam Dairy farm on Friday. The guy showing us round said there are only 50 hop farms left in Britain which is a little disturbing. I blame the big brewers wanting higher alpha varieties (so less hops need to be used) and lowering the hop rates in their beers. And of course mainly making lager with foreign hops.

As a traditional brewer (or should that be innovative craft brewer?) I use a lot of English hops. And a lot of foreign hops in that traditional innovative way.

I managed to fulfill a long held ambition of seeing a male hop plant. Hops are dioecious having both male and female plants. In England both sexes are planted so the flowers produced are seeded. The hops are all grown from cuttings though, so why do they plant both sexes? They only plant females on the continent. I'd already heard fertilised flowers are less susceptible to mildew but the hop farmer pointed out that seeded hops also weigh more which means he has a bigger crop to sell.

The male flowers are the small ones in the middle of this picture.

It was interesting to see how the different hop varieties were doing. As each hop variety is essentially a clone of an individual plant the only genetic variation is between varieties. There's no doubt that lack of genetic variation leads to disease susceptibility in a population as one of the varieties he was growing was definitely having a hard time. But on the plus side another was thriving.

The Sovereign hops were looking lush so we're going to make a beer with them using fresh green hops as soon as they're harvested in early September.

What to call it though? Green hops, the Sovereign variety, and as a traditional innovative brewer I'll want the beer to be hop forward so probably an IPA. Green Sovereign IPA anyone? I can't see any problems with that name and it will surely prove popular.

Lager, lager, lager, lager

2011-08-17T22:37:00.002+01:00

We made lager at work today. Though when I say "we" I mean my able assistant made it whilst I did other vital tasks like driving round in circles trying to find where I'm supposed to be delivering beer to.

Now it has to be said that lager is not a drink I'm normally fond of. But in the spirit of rigorous scientific research these things have to be tried. I couldn't quite bring myself to use lager malt so it's extra pale Maris otter, but it's proper lager yeast and a disturbingly large amount of Saaz hops.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out, and who knows, when I try it as god intended, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide, I may even like it.

The Craft Beer Co

2011-08-14T14:07:00.002+01:00

As I'm seldom in the vanguard of the beeretariat it took me until yesterday to get to the Craft Beer Co. But never mind, if I'd wanted to be a vanguard I'd have got a job with Group 4.

We had had some concerns that our trip would have to be canceled, as earlier in the week the place had been closed due to rioting. Now I like a riot as much as the next man, but if bars are forced to close there are clearly anti-social elements at work.

As we trooped up to the pub there were plenty of drinkers standing outside so we thought the place was packed. There was plenty of space inside though, and we managed to get a seat upstairs. In the bar there's an impressive array of 16 hand pumps, but as the first two pints cost £7.10 it's not cheap. This was compounded by the fact the barman short changed me. I know these things can happen but I was especially peeved as he scurried off to bury his head in the glass washer whilst I was still counting. Still, it was a good and refreshing pint. I had Brodies Citra (3.1% ABV), made with extra pale or lager malt and, of course, Citra hops.

I followed this with a Twickenham Hornet (4.4%) which was also very pale and very hoppy. Feeling my light and dark ratio was getting imbalanced I tried finding something dark, but not entirely successfully. Darkstar Carafa Jade (5%) looked like it might be what I was after. Carafa is the name of various types of dark malt and sure enough it had a reddish brown colour, but I've since found out the "Jade" part of the name comes from the high alpha (i.e very bitter) New Zealand hop Pacific Jade, so once again I had a very hoppy beer.

Call me old fashioned but I don't like to drink very hoppy beers all the time. I enjoy malty beers too, and certainly find beers where the malt and hops are balanced much more drinkable over the course of a session. Despite the large number of hand pumps the only malty beer on offer was a mild, and it was a bit late in the day's drinking to switch to mild at this point. The lovely Lisa pointed out that the place is called the Craft Beer Co and "craft beer" seems to mean "made with loads of hops". My mate Dan had a keg stout but it was too cold and fizzy. A case of meet the new keg, the same as the old keg if you ask me.

There were a large number of bottled beers available but they were taking the piss with the prices (up £30 for a bottle of beer!) so I thought bollocks to that.

We were getting peckish at this point. Though innovative uses of pork were promised on the blackboard, with pork pies with black pudding advertised, all they had were scotch eggs. Despite them costing £3.50 we did scoff one each but it was really time to find some proper food. The first suitable place we found was a Fuller's pub called the Melton Mowbray.

To the uninitiated this might conjure images of pork pies but as a devotee I know the gray offerings of Melton Mowbray are not a patch on the pink pork products you get from butchers' shops in Yorkshire. So I had fish and chips. Despite looking like it's build into a shop unit the Melton Mowbray has the feel of a pub, not a bar, about it which is more to my taste. I washed my food down with a pint of ESB (5.5%) and followed that with a bottle of London Porter (5.4%). Contrary to the views of noted beer experts this beer is at its best when found on cask, but the bottle did restore my light/dark balance. And get me pissed, so it was time to go home next.

The next hip hop?

2011-08-11T19:50:00.003+01:00

Reading the latest blurb I've been sent from hop merchants Charles Faram I see there are a number of new British hop varieties in the pipeline. Endeavour has already been used in brewing trials with "very positive" results and a further 21 new hop selections are undergoing trials. This should get the hop heads excited as apparently: "Aroma intensity has been top priority since last September when we discovered that UK-bred hops can be every bit as aromatic as US-grown Cascade or Amarillo...".

Complaining about adverts

2011-08-06T15:44:00.000+01:00

Not so long ago I was perusing the popular and informative Beerleaks website. Along with brief explanations about commonly known brewing facts there was also a helpful page about sending a petition to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Sadly Beerleaks seems to have ~~disappeared up its own arse~~ been discontinued. But fear not, it's easy to complain about adverts and there's no need for a petition.

Back in the mists of time, when I was innocent of the ways of internet beer nerdery, I made a complaint to the ASA. There was a Leffe advert in a magazine with the slogan "crafted in exactly the same way for over 750 years". As this was blatantly bollocks I started mouthing off about the vast number of ways in which beer making has changed but mid-rant I thought why not actually do something about it?

So I found the ASA website and continued my rant online in the complaints form. A few days later I got a letter saying my complaint was being looked into. And a few weeks later I got another letter saying they were still looking into it. Eventually a letter arrived saying that InBev had voluntarily agreed to withdraw the adverts so no further action would be taken. Whilst I had hoped that the outcome would be the Chief Executive of InBev being strung up I had to accept that capital punishment for being wrong about beer was not yet on the statute books. And I was pleased when I next saw the advert with new wording: "Made with 800 years of tradition" if I remember rightly. I'm not sure where the extra fifty years come from, I'm pretty sure the complaints process hadn't taken that long, but it was good to see my rant had forced InBev to change the advert.

2011-08-05T20:32:00.000+01:00

The Great British Beer Festival 2011

2011-08-04T22:33:00.000+01:00

I was at the trade day of the GBBF on Tuesday. I managed to meet up with loads of people: brewers, bloggers, boozers and er... publicans. I couldn't think of a 'b' for that one. Bar managers? That might have worked.

The lovely Lisa was making her hajj, having never been before. She shall now be known as El-Hajj Lisa. Or maybe not. Despite the beer list being available in advance we hadn't worked out a plan of action. There were just so many beers it seemed overwhelming. This lead to us wandering round aimlessly, feeling even more overwhelmed now we could actually see all the beers, stopping to refill our glasses as needed. It's quite knackering doing it this way, and I'm sure we didn't get the best of the beers available, so I really must try harder next time. Having the next day off work to recover wouldn't go amiss either!

I myself had a first as, twenty years on from my first GBBF, one of my own beers was being served. Let's hope this is a regular event.

We missed the announcement of which beer had won the Champion Beer of Britain as it started off with some MP droning on which isn't really my thing, and then the Betty Stoggs marching band started up again which meant we couldn't hear anything except drums anyway. I was pleased when I found out later that Mighty Oak Oscar Wilde Mild had won. This means I'm ahead of the curve as far as beer nerdery goes, because thanks to a recommendation from young Rob I'd sought it out last year and been suitably impressed. So impressed I'd even bought a half this year before it was announced it had won.

What with the 12 noon start and the constant wandering we were flagging by the time the doors were opened to the public at five. We thought that was a good time to call it a day. It wasn't though as were were soon suffering the stifling, crowed commuter train home. We'll just have to stay later next year.

Thanks to all the CAMRA volunteers for giving up their time to make this festival happen.

Strange things happen at beer festivals

Anhydrous brewing

2011-07-28T23:01:00.000+01:00

We brewed without water today. But your friend may say: "Surely that's impossible, isn't water one of the main ingredients of beer?" As it happens your friend would be right.

We didn't brew entirely without water, but we did brew without mains water for most of the day. Having recently moved to brewing five days a week we were not best pleased when a man came round to say our water supply would be cut off today, but at least we had some warning. We were able to fill up the Cold and Hot Liquor Tanks, as well as every other container we could find, before the water was switched off at 9.30 am. And though I did feel a cold sweat coming over me a few times it all worked out OK and we managed to get by until the mains supply returned in the afternoon.

As earlier in the week we'd got by with the electricity cut out to everything except the heating elements and the pumps we seem to be getting quite good at this minimalist brewing malarkey. I hope I don't have to make a habit of it though!

Waiting for sahti

2011-07-24T14:07:00.002+01:00

My latest piece of brewing research had a couple of inspirations. In the always excellent Radical Brewing a traditional ale from Finland called Sahti gets a mention. This is an unboiled ale strained through juniper branches, commonly made made at home using bakers yeast and a proportion of rye malt.

The second inspiration came from closer to home. Not having any juniper branches I went to my local home brew shop to get some juniper berries instead. Quite coincidentally, over a gin and tonic that afternoon, the lovely Lisa piped up that a beer flavoured with juniper could make a refreshing summer drink. It occurred to me that tweaking my sahti would be just the ticket.

As I didn't want to make murky shite that would go off quickly I'd already decided I was going to boil my sahti. To make it refreshingly summery I dropped the gravity down to 1.040 (making it around 4% ABV) and included some Bobek hops, added after the short boil, for a bit of lemon flavour to go with the juniper.

As the hops and berries were steeping in the hot wort an incredibly spicy smell came off, which didn't really come through into the finished beer. Lacking any bittering hops it's light and refreshing with a hint of lemon, but without the astringency I associate with rye beers. My mum was quite taken with it when she visited the brewery but if I was to do it again I'd probably beef it up, maybe try it as a spicy Winter drink rather than a refreshing Summer drink.

Aieee! Blakee Pentax!

2011-07-23T20:34:00.002+01:00

The Surrey Oaks, Newdigate

2011-07-20T20:53:00.000+01:00

We fulfilled a long held ambition to get to the Surrey Oaks on Sunday. It's the winner of many CAMRA pub of the year awards and it didn't disappoint. A suitable old fashioned look, an interesting range of well kept beers and a friendly welcome. We'll definitely be going back to this one.

Brewing GCSE?

2011-07-18T21:31:00.001+01:00

In these dark times when boozers are always being put upon I was pleased to hear some encouraging news last week. A kid we had in for work experience said he'd been taught brewing at school, and they'd even made some beer.

I thought he must have a cool teacher but it turns out it's part of the Biology GCSE curriculum. It sounds like an excellent way to make school more interesting to me, particularly as they got to drink the beer too.

Tonbridge beer festival 2011

2011-07-16T13:47:00.006+01:00

I called in at the SIBA SE beer festival in Tonbridge yesterday. As soon as I arrived I got roped into helping with glass cleaning. And once again I was driving, which limited my alcohol intake to halves of Bingham's Twyford Tipple and Westerham's Audit Ale.

But do you know what? It was one of the most enjoyable beer festivals I've been to in ages.

An old tradition

2011-07-13T22:20:00.000+01:00

It's a tradition, or an old charter, or something that when I come back from holiday something will have gone horribly wrong at the brewery.

The best example of this (if it can be called best) was when a power surge blew up my computer and knocked out all the electricity. This time though, as my phone had remained silent during our trip to the lake district, I was quietly confident. When the lovely Lisa wondered if anything had happened I reassured her it must be fine. How little did I know.

I got my first inkling that something was wrong when I pulled into work and saw we'd acquired a hire van. Our van was parked along side, but I know it's a bit old so I figured it must have broken down. When I saw the back of the van I realised the situation was a bit more serious.

There are two lessons to be learnt here:

One: just because you haven't heard any bad news don't assume all is well

and

Two: if you're in a high van don't drive under low barriers.

Two brewery taps in one day

2011-07-12T21:09:00.000+01:00

Not quite as good as when we did back to back brewery tours in Masham* but we managed to go two brewery taps in one day when on our last research trip.

Hawkshead brewery visitor centre in Stavely was our first port of call.

It's a modern, open plan place with a couple of hefty beer tanks on display. There's a bar and bottle shop with 'beer tapas' available eat with your pint. We didn't stay for long, but I had time for a scotch egg and very good it was too.

As well as their own bottled beers for sale there's a selection of foreign beers too. We stocked up on some of Hawkshead's finest but were slightly annoyed to find them available cheaper in Booths. Why do most breweries charge more for their beers when you buy it direct than what you can get them for in the shops?

We also got to the Drunken Duck, home of Barngates brewery on that day. It's a very posh looking pub which surprised me, as Barngates cartoonish pumpclips have always looked a bit cheap to me. We sat outside as the sun was out and there was a nice view. Can't remember what I had, but it was probably named after one of their dogs. I've found Barngates beers a bit hit and miss in the past, but never been sure if it was due to the pub or the brewery so it was good to see the beer was on form at their brewery tap.

*Theakstons wins hands down.

Mostly drinking in Coniston

2011-07-10T14:09:00.002+01:00

Last week the lovely Lisa and I were mostly drinking in Coniston. Mainly we stuck to the two pubs in the good book, particularly as the dreaded word 'Robinsons' was displayed on the outside of the others.

Our favourite was the Sun Inn, it has a fine range of reasonably priced ales, a beer garden with a great view, and good food. Generally we went with Cumbrian Legendary Ales Loweswater Gold. It's not our favourite of the brewery's beers but still good stuff and in the absence of Langdale and Grasmore we had to make do.

The other tick in Coniston in the Black Bull, home of Coniston Brewery. It's only a short walk from the Sun but is on the main drag so looked busier. They had a good range of beers here which we did our best to work our way through. The cask beers weren't always on top form and the first time we tried Old Man ale it was definitely not right, which was a shame as we climbed the mountain on this trip. We weren't taken with their (proper real?) keg lager either, it had less flavour compared to its bottled form. I suppose it's no real surprise that keg lager isn't up to much. But having said all that the Black Bull is a nice pub and we had more than a few pints in it so it definitely has its good points.

We did also trek a bit further to continue our researches. On a damp day we called in at The Church Inn in Torver, I think we had more Loweswater Gold in here.It's a pub with an excellent old fashioned look that I approve of, complete with a much needed log fire to dry us out.

Kipling Groove

2011-07-09T11:32:00.003+01:00

This is not, as might be expected on a beer blog, a post about having a good time with a plentiful supply of Thornbridge beer. This one is about climbing.

On Saturday I got up Kipling Groove (HVS 5a), a classic route on Gimmer Crag in Langdale that I've been keen to climb for years. It was first climbed by Arthur Dolphin, who called the route Kipling as it was "ruddy 'ard"! I wouldn't disagree, as the top pitch was strenuous and sustained.

Traditionally a celebratory beer should have been had at the ODG but it was getting late when I got down from the crag and I wanted my dinner. Rest assured though, a pint or three did find its way down my neck that night.

Drinking in historic Wapping

2011-06-29T22:53:00.003+01:00

As Saturday was declared the lovely Lisa's unbirthday it was time for another research trip. Armed with a small pamphlet detailing some local history we set off for Wapping.

When I hear Wapping mentioned the history I normally think of is the printers' strike, but I didn't think that was much use when plotting a pub crawl. Fortunately for us the pamphlet told tales of pirates, press gangs and more importantly pubs.

Our first port of call was the Town of Ramsgate. Apparently this pub was previously called the Red Cow after a particular red-headed bar maid! We sat out the back by the river drinking a refreshing pint of Wye Valley HPA (4% ABV) as the sun came out. A good way to start the day.

Next stop was the The Captain Kidd pub, named after the pirate who was hanged nearby. It's a Sam Smith's pub so I passed on the single cask beer and went for a wheat beer. Sitting by the river drinking beer has a lot to recommend it but having more than one pint of keg beer on a pub crawl would be carelessness so it was soon time to move on again.

We headed sarf of the river over tower bridge, which has a great view of an old Courage brewery (now flats).

The Dean Swift was our destination. A much more modern affair, it looked like one of these new fangled craft beer bars to me. Otley Columbo was on one of the hand pumps, surely the beer to raise a glass to Peter Falk with? Though having said that it wasn't entirely to my taste, some of these American hops are a bit harsh.

It was time for food next and the lovely Lisa wanted to get to her favourite pub, the Blackfriars. "As you wish" I said and we hot footed it down there. Prices were much more reasonable here than in the previous pubs, which was nice. Pie and mash soon had us ready for some more cold beer action so we washed our dinner down with pints of Tribute. And quite possibly some other beers too but the unbirthday celebrating was getting the better of us by then.

Thürstein pilsner

2011-06-21T21:09:00.002+01:00

On our last trip to the Lakes the lovely Lisa and I managed to track down Thürstein pilsner.

With a name like that, complete with a heavy metal umlaut, we had to give it a go, despite the natural aversion to lager we share with all discerning drinkers.

The beer's described as a "pilsner style top fermented lager" which got me thinking. Nowadays the beer kingdom is generally divided into the phyla of ale and lager depending on whether it is made with top/warm fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or bottom/cold fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus) respectively. This difference contributes greatly to ales having their delicious fruity flavour and lagers having their boring bland lack of flavour.

But the classification wasn't always this way, as originally ale was the term for unhopped fermented grain drinks, beer was hopped fermented grain drinks and lager didn't get a look in.

As I've said before I'm not entirely happy with how beers are currently classified, but I'm no Linnaeus so I haven't come up with my own grand scheme yet. However, I'm not convinced the best way to classify beers is solely by the yeast species they're fermented with and it seems the Coniston Brewing Company agree with me. There are ale yeasts out there that give a 'neutral' flavour (i.e. they contribute nothing to it) and a number of breweries make 'lagers' with them. As the main flavour I get from lager tends to be the sulphury/vegetable flavour of DMS ( Dimethyl Sulphide - which ultimately comes from the very lightly kilned malt used to make most lagers), I think the malt makes a large contribution to whether I would recognise something as a lager or not.

Fortunately Thürstein pilsner doesn't taste of vegetables, it's a refreshing, easy drinking beer flavoured with posh German hops. I'll leave it to the style police to decide whether it's a pilsner or not.

Time for a rant

2011-06-18T15:02:00.001+01:00

After noted beer historian Pete Brown was on Radio 4 talking about Russian Imperial Stout anti-alcohol stuff soon followed.

Dr Aric Sigman was calling for a total ban on alcohol to children under 15, as it meant they were less like likely to binge drink in future life. He backed this up by saying this was based on a survey not published in a medical journal. I can't see how not being published in a medical journal is supposed to make something more authoritative, but I couldn't be bothered to look into his figures. When not writing books on beer history Pete Brown has done an excellent job of demolishing dubious anti-alcohol arguments and to be honest, I don't care anyway. As binge drinking for an adult male is defined as having three to four pints in a session it doesn't sound excessive to me, it sounds normal.

So that makes me a binge drinker. And do you know what? I really enjoy it. I've had some of my best times when out boozing. As far as I'm concerned it would be good for future generations to have the same enjoyment drinking as I have had.

It may not be good for your health. It may have an element of risk. But so bloody what. Life has a 100% mortality rate. No matter what you do you'll still die, so you might as well enjoy yourself before you pop your clogs. So tonight I'm going down the pub for a session.

Independent Family Brewer

2011-06-18T10:11:00.000+01:00

Some of my family visited the brewery in the week. Though on the face of it this seemed an excellent opportunity to continue my niece's indoctrination it didn't really go to plan and Phoebe looked decidedly unimpressed.

Imperial Russian Stout on the radio

2011-06-17T12:32:00.000+01:00

Beer historian Pete Brown and Master Brewer Tim O'Rourke were on the radio this morning talking about Imperial Russian Stout.

I was slightly surprised to hear Pete Brown described as a beer historian, and even more surprised that The Great Baltic Adventure was being billed as a trade mission, but it's all good fun.

You can listen to it here.

My own version of Tim O'Rourkes stout recipe will be making its public debut at the SIBA SE beer competition in Tonbridge in mid July.

Beer Sommeliers on the radio

2011-06-07T21:30:00.003+01:00

There was an item on The Beer Academy and beer sommeliers on the radio today. Julian Herrington, Simon Jackson and noted beer expert Melissa Cole were all on it, and in a change from beer blogs both 'craft beer' and CAMRA are talked about positively.

It can found here (chapter two)

Drinking down in Devon

2011-06-07T21:01:00.000+01:00

We went to Devon for a beer festival at the weekend. The Kingfisher in Colyton was having its first beer festival with 12 ales on. Not something I'd normally travel miles for, but The Kingfisher is the local of the lovely Lisa's older sister and it's nice to visit.

As the weather was hot the beers stillaged in the bar were a tad warm, despite their cooling jackets. Fortunately there were four more on hand pump drawn form the cellar and the Sharp's Atlantic IPA was on fine form. The bitterness and sweetness were nicely balanced and the hop flavour really came through. I had a few of these.

We had a great night in a great pub and hopefully we'll be back again soon.

The Session #52: Beer Collectables and Breweriana

2011-06-03T22:00:00.002+01:00

"The Session" is one of the many things in the beer blogging world that I didn't understand. A spate of blogs on the same subject would appear on the same day but it seemed to me to be missing the point. Surely beer blogging is all about putting down your own self indulgent ramblings? And isn't a session something that takes place in the pub?

Then one was announced that got me pondering so I've decided to join in.

"Beer Collectables and Breweriana" is the theme. Nope, don't have any of that I thought. Various bits from beer festival tombolas, things from the goodies bag given out at the Fuller's Fine Ale club do I suppose, but nothing that really counts as collectable or breweriana.

Then I remember I do have something. The one glass in my cupboard I never use: a glass I inherited from my late father. It's from Covent Garden beer festival in 1975, CAMRA's first national beer festival.

I am a second generation beer bore, which I suspect makes me a bit of a rarity amongst beer bloggers.

Some people think there is a beer revolution taking place in Britain now, which seems to be a small number of elitists dedicated to making strong hoppy beer available to snobs.

But back when I were a lad my dad was fighting a real beer revolution - a mass movement of people dedicated to making decent beer available to the masses.

Revolution? I'll drink to that!

This month's session is hosted by All Over Beer.

Meet the me

2011-06-01T13:00:00.001+01:00

I'm going to another 'Meet the brewer' evening tomorrow (2.6.11), only this time I'm the brewer.

I'll be at the Anchor in Sevenoaks for 8pm. If you can't get enough of my online ramblings here's your chance to hear me ramble on in person.

Unmistakable English character

2011-05-31T19:37:00.003+01:00

I've repeated my Brettanomyces experiment with Golden Pride and I actually had a bit of scientific rigour this time.

I measured the gravity and pH of the test sample and a control, as well as carrying out a triangle test. My able assistant Will was able to spot the odd one out in the triangle test without any difficulty, though on reflection maybe I should have gone for two out of five just to make it a bit more statistically significant.

The gravity of the control was 1.019 and the test sample only one degree lower at 1.018. I suppose that as in the previous experiment the bottle hadn't been a terrible gusher I shouldn't have been surprised that not much further fermentation had taken place, but considering how drier the test sample tasted I still was.

The pH caused further surprise for me being the same for both sample as the fairly high pH of 4.22 meaning low levels of acidity. The only other figures I have from a beer with Brettanomyces as a bottling yeast are from Ron's blog. Translating the acidity percentage for Colne Spring Ale using my handy ready reckoner we get figures ranging from 4.08 to 3.88. Not as high as the Golden Pride but still low to average levels of acidity.

I suspect the sour character of old aged beers came more from bacteria than from Brett. I've got a new yeast book recently, which actually includes three whole pages on brewing with Brett so I'll report back soon it I can shed more light on my findings.

The Counter-Reformation has begun!

2011-05-30T10:16:00.001+01:00

As a devoted member of the one true catholic and apostolic beer consumers organisation I was delighted to see that part of a speech by His Holiness the CAMRA chairman has been put online. It's a shame the sound's so poor and we only get a selected excerpt, but surely no discerning drinker could fail to agree with the sentiment?

It can't be denied that the blogosphere is riddled with neo-kegist heretics. Those that drink in the way's of righteousness will have been as horrified as me to see many bloggers extolling the 'virtues' of keg beer recently. And as Rob points out CAMRA come in for a lot of stick online, even to the extent that brewers and bar managers will insult their customers if they're CAMRA members.

It's about time the faithful fought back and I'm glad to see the chairman leading the way.

The Eagle Ale House beer festival

2011-05-26T13:05:00.000+01:00

I called in at the Eagle Ale House yesterday to drop off some beers for their bank holiday beer festival.

Sadly I won't be going as we're off to the lakes, but if you're around it's well worth a visit.

Schrödinger's beer

2011-05-23T21:50:00.001+01:00

One of the beers I picked up on Saturday was Sharp's Monsieur Rock.

This beer was brewed back in October when Sharp's were still a craft brewery. Since then they've been taken over by the Molson Coors industrial mega brewery. As Sharp's stopped being a craft brewery the moment the money changed hand I wondered what effect it had on the beer?

Like Schrödinger's cat it seem to be in a superposition of states: both craft beer and industrial beer. I was able to observe the beer in the bottle all I wanted but this did nothing to collapse the wave function. So I opened it.

Instantly the beer became one state, but which one? It was very pale, with a delicate hop aroma and an interesting flavour. The pale colour and the saaz hops were saying premium lager but there wasn't any of that unpleasant vegetable taste so it was quite like a golden ale too.

I'd happily drink it again, but I'm not sure I'd buy it again, so I wasn't sure whether this meant it was craft or industrial. Then I remembered that it was an interesting beer, and as this seems to be one of the most important characteristics of a craft beer it could only be in that state. Awesome.

Drink of Fulham

2011-05-22T17:36:00.007+01:00

I was back in Fulham yesterday and managed to fit in a long overdue trip to the Drink shop.

A bloke from Otley brewery was doing a tasting by the entrance so we paused briefly to sample his wares. The lovely Lisa was taken with the O-garden so a bottle of that was added to the shopping list.

Inside there's an excellent range of beers from Britain and the world. I stocked up on a few I'd been after for some time but avoided some that were too damn expensive, but I can feel a rant coming on so more on that later...

Not the bore worms

2011-05-20T20:43:00.003+01:00

The hops looked like they could do with a bit of feeding up so I've given them some worm juice from our can-o-worms.

I'm sure they'll soon be shooting up the string.

Courage Imperial Russian Stout

2011-05-17T21:28:00.000+01:00

Having read about the Great Baltic Adventure I got in touch with the bloke behind it to see about the possibility of supplying a beer.

Sadly it was not to be as, not unreasonably, he was after some money towards his costs and the boss wasn't keen as we didn't have any. But on the plus side I was emailed some instructions for how Courage Imperial Russian Stout was made.

It's fascinating stuff looking at an old brewing record, quarters of malt and lbs of alpha, black malt added to the copper and best of all, handwritten on the last page "when primary ferm ends add Brettanomyces".

When I read about Colne Spring Ale I was more excited than you would believe to see that a British brewer had used Brettanomyces up until 1970. Now seeing that a beer I had actually drunk in the 90s had had Brett in it I was overjoyed. This means that I am part of a continuous tradition of drinking British beers made with Brett.

As I had a culture of Brettanomyces claussenii to hand I had to give making it a go on the nano-brewery pilot plant at work. I followed the instructions as best I could, even adding malt to the copper, and giving the Brett a good while to do its work. I was very pleased with the result so I'm going to make this one again, on the main brewing kit this time.

Aciiid!

2011-05-14T17:42:00.003+01:00

If you thought my account of the trade day at BRI was dull you ain't seen nothing yet.

One of the lecturers happened to mention that acetic acid is normally found in beer at a level of 130mg/l. This lead to some hasty calculations shifting decimal places on my part, and as soon as I got home a consultation of my acidity to pH ready reckoner.

130mg/l = 0.13% which give us a pH of 3.82

This fits in well with my previous calculations and gives further confirmation I've got my figures right.

BFBi/BRI technical trade day

2011-05-14T17:37:00.000+01:00

I was back at Brewing Research International on Thursday for another technical trade day.

A lot of the focus was on flavour, which included very interesting practical sessions, and much to my surprise my nose was on top form. It seems I know my diacetyl from my DMS, and my isoamyl acetate for that matter. Now those who know what I'm talking about may think it's a bit bleedin' obvious but it's alway nice to get it right when you're put on the spot.

Other highlights included another fascinating fact about beer acidity and learning that our bottle labels aren't legally compliant.

Bonus points for guessing the brew length of the pilot plant in the photo.

Koch's postulates in your pint

2011-05-08T17:00:00.002+01:00

During my continuing research into brewing with Brettanomyces I found a very interesting paper from 1904. No prizes for guessing the person that put it online.

In the paper Claussen describes how he has isolated the yeast responsible for the "remarkably fine flavour" of English stock beers, and goes on to say how it can easily be proved:

"If we add to pasteurised beer a slight portion of a Brettanomyces culture in wort (say a few drops to a bottle of the beer), and if we then leave the beer to stand in well-corked bottles at a temperature of 75 -80 degrees F during 10 -14 days, a slight deposit will be observable and at the same time the beer will assume an unmistakable English character, both in regard to its content of carbonic acid gas and to its taste and flavour"

Now are you thinking what I'm thinking? Because to me it looks very much like he's applying Koch's postulates to beer. Koch's Postulates are a wonderful bit of science, and as Claussen said in this case very easy to apply.

So I found some bottles of strong pasteurised beers. The first beer I chose was Fuller's Golden Pride as I've drunk a fair bit of it in my time. Back in the days when Safeways was around for some reason it was cheaper than London Pride so how could I resist? In fact it was entrapment if you ask me.

I also got some Robinson's Old Tom as I've heard it's to a very old recipe so might well have had the benefit of Brettanomyces back in the day.

Next I took a liquid culture of Brettanomyces claussenii and inoculated 1 ml of it into the bottles. I'd popped the tops off and let them stand for a few hour to de-gas a bit first as I didn't want them to be over carbonated. Once inoculated I re-capped them and put them in the airing cupboard for a fortnight.

When I came to open the bottles it was with some trepidation. Would I have terrible gushers? Or would I have a damp squib with no noticeable difference? As it happens the carbonation level was fine and there was a detectable difference in the taste. This is no time for sound bites but I felt the hand of history upon my tongue.

The Golden Pride had dried out and lost a lot of the excessive sweetness. There was a slight unusual taste (or should that be unmistakable English character?) that must have come from the yeast. None of that horse blanket malarkey mind, but definitely something a bit different, and the beer was dangerously drinkable. The difference was less apparent in the Old Tom, but again it was drier and with that slight unusual taste.

If I was half the scientist Robert Koch was I'd have had a control sample, and taken some measurement such as pH and gravity, as well as writing proper tasting notes. So I'm trying to remedy my short comings by repeating the experiment with more rigour. Further results to follow.

One wheel on my wagon

2011-05-05T20:15:00.005+01:00

This week I had not one but two wheels fall off my bleedin' underback. As we use it as a cleaning tank as well this was a right pain in the arse.

Fortunately my capable assistant Will's uncle George was back from his secret mission to Pakistan so could come round and weld the the wheels back on.

The Rake Cumbrian beer festival

2011-05-03T21:52:00.000+01:00

The lovely Lisa spotted that one of her favourite beers, Cumbrian Legendary Ales Grasmoor, was going to be on at the Rake so a research trip was in order.

We sat outside where a range of beers were on stillage. The Grasmoor was a bit flat, but the Loweswater Gold worked a treat quenching my thirst. We were a bit stumped for what to try next as the beers tended towards the strong side. There was only one thing for it - we switched to drinking halves.

We were disappointed that Thurstein pilsner wasn't on, as it's practically named after Lisa. So American Invasion (5% ABV) and Hawkshead Citrillo (5% ABV) were next for us, both of which were at the beer that tastes like grapefruit juice end of things. More hoppy ones were up next, a couple from Stringers: Victoria IPA (5.5%) and Hop Priest (6.5%). We preferred the Victoria as the taste was a bit crisper.

After that we abandoned any attempts at pacing ourselves and I had a Mutiny double stout (9.3%) and Lisa had Infra Red (6.2%). The syrupy delights of the stout did it for me and the lovely Lisa enjoyed the way Infra Red gets better with each sip.

We're a bit undecided on the Rake. There was a good beer range if you like stronger beers but I prefer to sit somewhere relaxing where I can settle in for an evening drinking beers of more modest strength.

It was time for some food after that so we went to the Southwark tavern for a unique food experience. Well, I hope it was unique as the food was dire so I don't want to do it again.

The Evening Star, Brighton

2011-05-01T10:57:00.001+01:00

I got down to Brighton yesterday. It was a lovely sunny day, but the highlight was getting out of the sun and into a pub. I've long been a fan of the Dark Star brewery so a trip to the Evening Star was long overdue.

As well as Dark Star beers on draught there were guest cask beers and a wide range of bottled beers for those foolish enough to drink them. I stuck to the hand pumps of course, supping American Pale Ale (4.7% ABV), Crouch Vale Brewers Gold (4% ABV) and Thornbridge/Odell Colorado Red at the dangerously strong 5.9% ABV. I should have stuck to the weaker stuff though as I liked the Brewers Gold best.

It's a great pub and very handy for the station so further beer research in Brighton is definitely called for.

Beer festival at The Crown

2011-04-30T09:09:00.005+01:00

After a hard day slaving over a hot mash tun (actually I wasn't brewing but slaving over a hot labelling machine doesn't sound as good) I made it to the beer festival at the Crown last night.

There were a dozen beers on. Best of the festival for us was Dark Horse Maypole, a balanced but refreshing beer, with Dark Star American Pale Ale, an unbalanced but refreshing beer coming second.

I'm off to Brighton today so am looking forward to more delights from Dark Star.

Bah! Humbug!

2011-04-29T19:56:00.000+01:00

Did I get to go to a street party? Did I get to drink an appropriate beer?

Did I bollocks. I had to go to work.

Vote for Your Top CAMRA Campaigners

2011-04-28T19:45:00.002+01:00

On CAMRA's website there's a chance to vote for your top 40 campaigners.

I've met a couple of the people listed so they're getting a vote. But I can't vote for the man I'm sure all beer bloggers want to vote for, the defender of the faith, because I don't know his real name. So if you'd let me know who you are Tandleman you've got my vote.

Egham beer festival Spring 2011

2011-04-25T22:42:00.003+01:00

I call in for a swift half at the latest Egham beer festival on Friday. Despite it being just after 11 am the place was starting to fill up with eager drinkers. Egham beer festival has established itself as a real tickers festival, with the organisers going to great lengths to get new beers.

This is fine by me as it gives us a chance to brew something different, and it's fine with the punters as it gives them new beers to tick. This is the only beer festival where I've seen people putting beers into plastic bottles to drink later, which is taking the whole beer nerd thing a bit too far for my taste.

But then again, who am I to pass judgement on other peoples hobbies? I was about to drive hundreds of miles so I could risk my life climbing rocky outcrops.

Ale Top Trumps

2011-04-18T19:56:00.000+01:00

During last night's festivities I picked up a packet of Ale Trumps.

There are cards for 34 beers, rated on age of brewery, barrels produced, refreshment, colour, ABV and rarity.

I'm not quite sure who they're aimed at but being easily amused I couldn't resist.

Acidity to pH ready reckoner

2011-04-17T17:00:00.007+01:00

Confused by seeing acidity expressed as a percentage on Ron's blog? Not up to doing the necessary calculations yourself? Then use this ready reckoner:

Acidity	pH
0.01	4.38
0.02	4.23
0.03	4.14
0.04	4.08
0.05	4.03
0.06	3.99
0.07	3.96
0.08	3.93
0.09	3.90
0.1	3.88
0.11	3.86
0.12	3.84
0.13	3.82
0.14	3.81
0.15	3.79
0.16	3.78
0.17	3.76
0.18	3.75
0.19	3.74
0.2	3.73
0.21	3.72
0.22	3.71
0.23	3.70
0.24	3.69
0.25	3.68
0.26	3.67
0.27	3.66
0.28	3.65
0.29	3.65
0.3	3.64
0.31	3.63
0.32	3.63
0.33	3.62
0.34	3.61
0.35	3.61
0.36	3.60
0.37	3.59
0.38	3.59
0.39	3.58
0.4	3.58
0.41	3.57
0.42	3.57
0.43	3.56
0.44	3.56
0.45	3.55
0.46	3.55
0.47	3.54
0.48	3.54
0.49	3.53
0.5	3.53
0.51	3.52
0.52	3.52
0.53	3.52
0.54	3.51
0.55	3.51
0.56	3.50
0.57	3.50
0.58	3.50
0.59	3.49
0.6	3.49
0.61	3.49
0.62	3.48
0.63	3.48
0.64	3.48
0.65	3.47
0.66	3.47
0.67	3.47
0.68	3.46
0.69	3.46
0.7	3.46
0.71	3.45
0.72	3.45
0.73	3.45
0.74	3.44
0.75	3.44
0.76	3.44
0.77	3.44
0.78	3.43
0.79	3.43
0.8	3.43
0.81	3.42
0.82	3.42
0.83	3.42
0.84	3.42
0.85	3.41
0.86	3.41
0.87	3.41
0.88	3.41
0.89	3.40
0.9	3.40
0.91	3.40
0.92	3.40
0.93	3.39
0.94	3.39
0.95	3.39
0.96	3.39
0.97	3.39
0.98	3.38
0.99	3.38
1	3.38
1.01	3.38
1.02	3.37
1.03	3.37
1.04	3.37
1.05	3.37
1.06	3.37
1.07	3.36
1.08	3.36
1.09	3.36
1.1	3.36
1.11	3.36
1.12	3.35
1.13	3.35
1.14	3.35
1.15	3.35
1.16	3.35
1.17	3.34
1.18	3.34
1.19	3.34
1.2	3.34
1.21	3.34
1.22	3.34
1.23	3.33
1.24	3.33
1.25	3.33
1.26	3.33
1.27	3.33
1.28	3.32
1.29	3.32
1.3	3.32
1.31	3.32
1.32	3.32
1.33	3.32
1.34	3.31
1.35	3.31
1.36	3.31
1.37	3.31
1.38	3.31
1.39	3.31
1.4	3.31
1.41	3.30
1.42	3.30
1.43	3.30
1.44	3.30
1.45	3.30
1.46	3.30
1.47	3.29
1.48	3.29
1.49	3.29
1.5	3.29

Farnham beer exhibition 2011

2011-04-17T09:44:00.002+01:00

I was at the excellent Farnham beer exhibition last night. All the beers were on top form, and the beer of the night for me was Exmoor Gold. Now where's my fried pork products...

Signs of life

2011-04-15T20:59:00.004+01:00

Either the hop plants have started growing or there are now some very pampered weeds at the back of the brewery.

Calculating the pH of old beers

2011-04-11T22:41:00.014+01:00

Looking at the figures for historical beers that sometimes appear in some of my favourite blogs I've found it frustrating that acidity is given as a decimal figure, not as the pH that I'm familiar with. The pH scale was developed in 1909 by Sørensen at the Carlsberg brewery laboratory, so was first used in research on beer, but compared to how long beer has been around it is still relatively recent which I guess is why it's not used.

As the beer historian bloggers aren't scientists they've been unable to help me to convert acidity to pH. But as I am a scientist I thought I'd give it a go at working it out myself. It's been a while since I've done calculations like this but it's good to try knocking the rust off my drink addled brain every now and then.

If calculations about acidity in historic beer don't interest you look away now.

From a recent post at Ron's Shut up about Barclay Perkins we get an analysis of Dreher's Vienna lager that lists acetic acid as 0.12.

This I take to be a percentage volume, so I'll divide it by 100 to get the concentration [0.0012].

The disassociation constant (Ka) of acetic acid is 1.75 x 10e-5 and its chemical formula is CH3COOH.

As acetic acid is a weak acid I'm using the simplified formula:

Ka = [H+][CH3COO-]/[CH3COOH]

(so to put in the figures we have gives us)

1.75 x 10e-5 = [H+][CH3COO-]/0.0012

(multiply this by 0.0012 to get)

2.1 x 10e-8 = [H+][CH3COO-]

(as [H+]= [CH3COO-] we have)

2.1 x 10e-8 = [H+] squared

(take the square root)

1.45 x 10e-4 = [H+]

(as pH = -log[H+] )

(find the log)

(take away the minus sign)

Which gives us the pH as 3.83

When we made lager during my studies at Heriot-Watt the final pH was 3.84 so this looks like a good figure for a lager pH to me.

For comparison Murphy and Son give an acceptable pH range for cask conditioned ales of 3.7 to 4.1 and a pH of 3.3 for lambic beer is given here.

Looking at some of Ron's other figures we can see acidities for a range of barley wines. Applying the same formula to the most acidic (1870 Bass barley wine at 0.23 acid) we get a pH of 3.69 and for the least acidic (various at 0.04 acid) we get pH 4.07, so I'm feeling fairly confident in my workings and my assumptions that brewing chemists' acidity scale was based on acetic acid and expressed as a percentage. Though if anyone knows better or spots an error I've made I'm all ears!

Edited to add:

More info here:

This free acid is represented in the tables as acetic acid; but there is reason to believe that only a part of it is acetic acid, and that beer probably contains lactic acid and some substance analogous to glucic acid, which, according to Graham, Hofmann, and Redwood, appears to be produced in the fermentation of beer-worts, as practised in this country.

Beer bloggers conference agenda announced

2011-04-08T08:14:00.005+01:00

The ad-hoc grassroots organising committee has fulfilled its mandate and produced an agenda for the European beer bloggers conference:

"Conference to be held May 20-22 in London.

•Our talks and speakers range from "History of Brewing in London with Peter Haydon from Meantime Brewing" to "Shaking up the Brewing Scene with Martin Dickie from BrewDog" to "Do’s and Don’ts of Beer Blogging with Pete Brown, Mark Fletcher, & Melissa Cole".

•We have beer-oriented educational sessions including "Identifying Flavours and Off Flavours in Beer with FlavorActiV", "Beer and Food Pairing with The Beer Academy", and "The Effect of Ingredients on Beer Flavour with Fuller’s".

•You will experience beer tasting sessions including Live Beer Blogging and the Night of Many Beers. You'll have the opportunity to taste beers from upwards of 20 UK and international breweries over the weekend including Budvar, Adnam's, Shepherd Neame, BrewDog, Wells and Young's, Abbey St. Martin, Pilsner Urquell, Camden Town, Williams Brothers, Rogue Brewery, and many more.

•Two beer-pairing dinners are included. For blog posts summarizing the content and beers of the conference, please see:

http://beerbloggersconference.org/2011/03/european-beer-bloggers-conference-schedule-announced/

http://beerbloggersconference.org/2011/04/the-beers-in-london/ "

In the main the talks and the breweries don't really excite me so I've decided it's not for me.

Inspired by Colne Spring Ale

2011-04-06T12:30:00.002+01:00

Benskin's Colne Spring Ale was one of the beers that really caught my eye in Martyn Cornell's beer history book Amber, Gold and Black. A barley wine that was inoculated with a Brettanomyces yeast, I was amazed to see that Colne Spring Ale was produced up until at least 1970. As a beer nerd finding this out caused me more excitement than you would believe, as I'd always thought Brett in British beers had died out around the time of the first world war.

Originally isolated by Niels Claussen in 1904, the name Brettanomyces (British fungus) was chosen as it was responsible "that peculiar and remarkably fine flavour" found in English stock ales. Nowadays it's most often associated with Belgian lambic beers hence the decidedly unbritish species names like B. bruxellensis and B. lambicus.

I resolved to bring Brettanomyces back to Britain and brew a beer inspired by Colne Spring Ale. I was able to get hold of a culture of Brettanomyces claussenii which was originally isolated from an English stock ale in 1910. Over on Ron's blog there are a few bits of information on Colnes Spring Ale which I used to help me design a beer.

I was a bit worried about using the Brett though so I tried to find out more about it. Much to my disappointment I found there's surprisingly little information out there. The best source I could find came from a bloke who went to Heriot-Watt the year after me. He did a project brewing Brett only beers and reported his results in a useful powerpoint presentation and a detailed blog.

I decided to add the Brettanomcyes to my beer after the primary fermentation was finished, and I then let the Brett fermentation continue until it seemed to have ended a month later. After that I bottled the beer with a small amount of priming sugar and after another month it was lightly carbonated.

The taste was quite unusual. There's obvious alcohol, and some sweetness is still there but somehow it seems dry too, almost sherry like but with a hint of that 'funky' Brett flavour.

I've since found there are actually some tasting notes for the original on Rate Beer describing a taste like port so it seems my beer isn't a million miles away from what I was aiming for.

More exciting beer brewed with Brettanomyces blogging to follow...

CAMRA fit for purpose review now online

2011-04-04T11:13:00.001+01:00

If you're a CAMRA member you can download it here.