My ticket to the GBBF trade day arrived yesterday. Tuesday isn't an ideal day to get pissed conduct beer research, but with the huge selection on offer I'm sure I'll soon get into my stride.
Is there a beer bloggers meet up arranged? It would be nice to meet some of you.
has inspired me to try brewing a few beers. In fact I haven't got as much inspiration from a book since I read Radical Brewing. For one of the beers I needed a Brettanomyces yeast and thanks to the wonder of the internet I got a culture from a home brew shop. The culture was in liquid medium, which I have to say made me a little wary. With liquid cultures all you get to see is a turbid suspension, but you have no idea which organisms might be in it. Before I used it for brewing I thought it prudent to streak it out on an agar plate so I'd be able to look at the colonies of whatever was in there and see if they were what they were supposed to be. It was a good job too, as when I stuck a loop in the vial I could feel there was something a bit solid in there, most likely a filamentous fungi. I streaked it out and sure enough what mostly grew was mould.
On the plus side there were some yeast colonies in there as well, and thankfully some of them had separated out from the mould (the dots on the right). I picked a couple off and subcultured them onto a fresh plate with gratifying results:
The culture is a bit older than in the first picture so the yeast colonies are larger but I think the difference in pretty clear. I've saved the Brettanomyces on an agar slope as I don't need it just yet but I now feel confident about using it.
We can only assume we've been given a free upgrade to the latest version. I'm a bit wary of contracting the company that manufactures them in case it's all been a terrible mistake and they want them back.
Then in the afternoon a very nice man from Jim's emailed me his brewery's HACCP documents. Having these to work from will save me countless hours of tedium.
Thanks brewing Santa! I'll be sure to leave a pint and a packet of pork scatching out for you on Christmas eve.
No, not that Compton. I mean the village near Guildford. After Saturday turned into a hungover washout the lovely Lisa and I decided we needed to go for a healthy walk on Sunday. We wandered through graveyards, fields and woods and must have gone well over two miles before we came to the first pub, the Withies Inn.
It turned out to be the poshest pub I've ever been in. As it was a nice day most people were outside and waiters wearing waistcoats were scurrying round attending to them. I feared for the health of my wallet when we hit the bar but at £3.10 for a very nice pint of Adnams bitter it could have been worse.
We also headed outside where the unusual umbrellas on some of the tables caught my eye. Looking closer I saw what was strange about them: they were advertising champagne.
This Compton was a bit different from the one NWA were singing about.
On the South bank there was some sort of art thing, looking like what you'd do if you wanted to play with lego but only had bricks.
Normally the only sort of culture I come across is found in a petri dish so I felt quite highbrow and sophisticated for pausing briefly to look at it. Refined intellectual pursuits done with my throat was feeling a little dry so it was time to move on.
The lovely Lisa wanted to get a watch strap in Covent Garden so we went shopping before starting on the pub crawl. We passed the Coal Hole on the way though so were able to have a pre-pub crawl drink. I went for a pint of Timmy Taylor's. I can't get enough of it.
We then had the excitement of the Covent Garden watch shop but we soon reached the proper start: the Old Bank of England. Dan hadn't been here for about ten years, the lovely Lisa and I slightly more recently. As ever I had a pint of Pride so for a bit of variety I took a picture of the ceiling instead of the usual view from the balcony.
We got to a new pub for us next, the Olde Watling. The had a good range of cask beers on including a mild, a lager and a wheat beer. I went for the wheat beer but it wasn't very good. It took me a while to work out if I didn't like it because of the wheat beer flavours, or if it was just off. By the time I'd decided it was off I'd drunk nearly half a pint so thought it was a bit late to take it back. Never mind, there was plenty more beer waiting for me.
Our next pub was my favourite of the trip, the Old Jamaica Wine House. This was a Shepherd Neame pub and they're not brewery I'm that keen on. The pub interior made up for it though being nicely sectioned off into cosy little looks and crannies. I had a pint of Master Brew but after I'd ordered I spied they had something on called 'City Slickers'. The barman was kind enough give me a taster after seeing me eye up the hand pump and it seemed better than the usual offerings of Shep's. Apparently it's brewed specially for only two pubs. I'm not sure if it's brewed on the pilot plant or if it's a re-badging of something else but it was pleasantly pale and hoppy and I wished I'd ordered it.
And as it happened I got to. Leaving the Old Jamaica we bumped into my favourite brother-in-law heading home after a head days work to the lovely meal my sister had cooked him. He didn't have time to join us, but he did recommend we alter our plans to include the Cock and Wookpack. This turned out to be another Shepherd Neame pub. Now normally one Shep's pub on a pub crawl could be considered a misfortune but two is carelessness. In this case though it was welcomed as it was the other pub serving City Slicker so I had a pint.
It was food time next, so despite the warning that it would be full of wankers in suits we went on to The Counting House. Another Fuller's pub, it was time for more Pride and the pie platter. And chips. And nachos. I was stuffed but Dan still managed to minesweep some more nachos that had been abandoned on the table next door. Like in The Old Bank of England we ended up on the balcony, and the view of the bar looked much the same, so I stuck with my policy of taking photos of the ceiling.
Despite eating all the pies, and in Dan's case anything else within a three metre radius, the beer was starting to catch up with us. We managed to waddle on to the Lamb Tavern a Young's pub. It's in the middle of Leadenhall market, which is certainly different.
I had a pint of the ordinary which went down surprisingly well but we'd definitely had enough by then so it was time to go home.
There seemed a lot more walking than normal in this pub crawl and we were knackered by the time we got home. In fact even the power of pork didn't revive us fully the next day and we ended up staying in. I think we may be getting soft and need to do some more training.
Ed's Beer Site can announce a world exclusive on the latest beer from Brewdog called Selling your own granny. Here's the press release: