On the origin of evil

It's well known that keg beer is inherently evil, but when exactly does it become evil? This is something that I've been giving much though to, having become part of what I can only describe as the axis of evil myself. 

After the horrors inflicted on my taste buds, and soul, on Saturday I became truly forsaken this week as I found myself kegging beer. "Eloi eloi lama sabachthani" I thought as staff shortages lead to me doing the evil deed. But as I delivered god's love in liquid form over to the forces of darkness, 30 litres at a time, my mind turned to theological matters. Once beer is in a keg its chance to be served as god intended is gone, so surely filling kegs is sinful and though I wasn't drinking the stuff I was indeed sinning. 

The extraneous CO2 used to serve keg beer is often seen as the essence of evil, and for the laity it is an excellent indicator that the beer should be shunned. But the use of the gas is also an excellent indicator that earlier malevolence has been inflicted on the beer in the form of filtration and pasteurisation, reinforcing my view that  the evil starts before the beer is served. Though those of a nervous disposition will be pleased to hear that in this case the beer had suffered neither of those indignities. 

Much talk has been made recently of the brewer's intentions, and though I must admit I've thought it a right load of bollocks, does the evil start as soon as a brewer intends to keg their beer? And surely they would only do such a diabolical thing because there are customers willing to pay for such morally bankrupt products? I forget the details but it was either tennis players too lazy to walk to the pub or troops en route to join a global imperialist slaughter that first led to beer being kegged so either way it was not an auspicious start. Can original sin be traced back to those drinkers?

I am no great theologian but I can see evil at every stage of keg beer production, packaging, and consumption. Which is why, weeping inconsolably as I filled the kegs, I had to accept that I had become part of the axis of evil. Whether I am the biggest sinner I couldn't say, but I really need to stop my pondering and get on with saying a few more decades of Hail Protzes if I'm to save my immortal soul. 

Culture in Hampstead

I do occasionally look at culture outside of Petri dishes. I can remember seeing The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice by the late great Bob Calvert soon after he died. And in the 30 years since then I've seen at least two more plays. There was The Accidental Death of an Anarchist about poor old Pinelli when it was on in Woking, and I got taken to see Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell at some point too. So three plays in 30 years makes it pretty clear that not only am I a regular theatre goer, but another visit was due.

Handily for me another of Bob Calvert's plays was being revived, in the same upstairs room at the pub in Hampstead I'd last seen one. Mirror, Mirror was written in 1979, but set in 2030. It's stood the test of time remarkably well, seemingly spookily like it was written about modern internet culture. He was a bright lad Bob, such a loss.

But what about the pub? A quick look at What Pub showed it's undergone some remarkable changes in the 30 years since I last visited. I remembered it as an ordinary, slightly scruffy boozer but at one point it became a Wetherspoons, before being tarted up and becoming the original home of Camden Town Brewery. This caused me some concern as they don't do beer as god intended, but I was reassured to read that two real ales would be available. Sadly it was not to be.

This is the future that crafties want

Being greeted by the sad sight of two unused hand pumps surrounded by evil keg took me back 30 years too, to the dark days when it was not uncommon to find pubs were keg only establishments. To think that this pub was once a Wetherspoons, where hand pumps would have pride of place and the beer would have been considerably less than £5 a pint showed how things are degenerating.

The Camden Pale served from the devil's drainpipe was, I suppose, some improvement on the keg bitter of 30 years ago but still so, so inferior to cask. I brings me no joy to report that the fools and charlatans that told us craft keg was no threat to cask have been proved wrong. Satan and his servants are attacking cask beer on many fronts and the struggle of the faithful for beer as god intended is as important as ever.

'Spoons vouchers: It's that time of year again

One of the blessings bestowed upon members of the one true catholic and apostolic beer consumers organisation is £20's worth of 'Spoons vouchers each year.

This boon granted to the faithful is not without controversy. Some of this can be dismissed as the bleatings of the petty beergeoisie or scheming of servants of Satan, but I do occasionally ponder if they have a point.  Before once again deciding "no".

Sadly for me the vouchers came out after I'd stopped regularly drinking in a 'Spoons so I've never got the most out of them. I did use to try and remember to take them with me if a trip to a 'Spoons looked likely, and then I'd blow that quarter's £5 in vouchers in an evening by sharing them with my friends. But many went to waste which was deeply unsatisfying. So I now give them to a mate who visits 'Spoons more often than me and can make the most of the discount. I don't think it makes him visit them any more frequently, it just means he spends less money when he goes to them. Which is really why I find those who are so opposed to the vouchers they destroy them so hard to understand.

Now I can understand not liking 'Spoons. They generally have all the atmosphere of a waiting room and must surely damage the trade of other pubs. But even if you can't find a friend that drinks there anyway and so deny Tim Martin some of their money you could always punt them on ebay and spend the cash somewhere you find more deserving.

Gassing quickly in Liverpool

Despite the fact I once lived in Liverpool I don't think I've ever been to a pub there. I was only a baby though so I've got a decent excuse. The other week I returned for BeerX, SIBA's annual get together. For those unfamiliar with the British brewing industry SIBA are a beer wholesaler with a side line as a trade organisation representing the interests of their executive. 

A few enquiries made before my visit showed that Liverpool is a beer oasis and the list of pubs I'd been given to visit looked an impossible task. It looked like it would be fun trying though, so I made a start as soon as I'd arrived. 

First on my list was The Fly in the Loaf, a bizarrely named pub owned by Heron and Brearley, the parent company of Okell's brewery.  

Disappointingly H and B had merged it in with Market Town Taverns, a pub chain in Yorkshire they bought. This meant it served a wide range of guest beers with only one Okell's beer on sale.

Part of the plan of buying MTT was to sell more of Okell's beers, but with the Okell's pubs in England now mainly selling guest beers it looks like they're actually selling less. Management decisions, eh? I did my bit for Manx brewing by having a delicious pint of Okell's bitter and then I was off to find some gents to take photographs in.

The photogenic bogs were in the next pub, and sadly this furtive photo was the best I managed of the legendary gents in the Philharmonic:

Annoyingly someone was dicking around with their phone at another urinal rather than getting on with the business in hand so I couldn't get the bogs in all their glory. Never mind, the rest of the pub was impressive too...

...and I enjoyed the beer from Oakham:

 Next stop was the Roscoe Head:

Where I was delighted to see they had Landlord on:

It was a cracking pub, I could certainly see why it's been in every edition of the Good Book. That they're selling "Save The Rosecoe Head" T-shirts is a very worrying sign though.

Then I was off again, following in the footsteps of the local anarcho-syndicalists on my way to The Dispensary.

Sadly this was a bit of a disappointment after the quality pubs I'd been in that night.

The place was almost empty and the Pale Rider was no Landlord.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. And after this promising start my exploration of Liverpool pubs mostly fizzled out as things got in the way. Certainly the few others I did manage to pop in to aren't really worth writing about. I must write more about the SIBA do though, the AGM was mostly dull but I did find the talk on Health and Safety interesting and it be good to get my notes up.

In search of auto-vacs

It may be considered slightly odd to travel over 400 miles to find beer served with auto-vacs, but I take my Continuing Professional Development seriously. For those not familiar with the devices they suck beer out of the drip tray and recycle it back into your pint.

I have a certain morbid curiosity about them dating from when I briefly worked for a company that owned some pubs with them. God, that was an strange job. But not as strange as some of the people I worked with. The Technical Services Manager was sound as a pound though, and whenever he got the chance he'd remove them. This did once lead to us getting sent an email of complaint from one of the customers. Recycling beer that's run down the glass and fingers of the server may be unhygienic but some of those in thrall to the sparkler actually like the effect in has on the texture of the beer. The sucking round and recycling that is, hopefully the running over the fingers of the server doesn't affect the texture. Though that might depend on what's on their fingers.

After last years Heriot-Watt reunion I found out I'd been drinking in pubs with auto-vacs without even noticing it. It seems I'd been doing too much networking and not enough CPD. So this year I was determined to to seek them out and investigate their effect on beer.

When we got to the Blue Blazer I was ready but they'd actually put a tea towel over the drip tray:

So near but yet so far!

The view in the Bow Bar wasn't as good so I may have had success here but as I'm not certain I don't think I can really tick it off.

Nice clear view in the Guildford Arms though!

Where's that beer going?

So success was definitely achieved! As to the effect on the beer, I did think the it had some of the life knocked out of it. So a bit like sparklers really but with added hygiene issues.

G for Germany

I will be travelling to Germany for a study tour with the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in May. As a life long fan of cold, fizzy, sulphurous and quite possibly diabolically inspired lager I'm particularly looking forward to this one. To help me maximise my Continuing Professional Development whilst I'm out there can anyone more experienced in the ways of Luciferian libations give me recommendations for beers to drink and places to go to in Munich, Regensburg and Bamburg? Though there will no doubt be a packed schedule on the tour there should be some free time for further study in the evenings.

How to make Britain's most popular beer

Industrial lager may be in decline, but a lot of it is still sold. So it was interesting to see Roger Putman give some details in the IBD magazine of how Carling, Britain's best selling draught beer, is made.

The image on the Carling beer mat did get me thinking they're playing to the home crowd but I'll leave that for now

He starts by informing us that raw barley is hammer milled into the grist case with the malt. For those not familiar with hammer milling it means grinding the grains to a powder which helps to get the very high rates of extraction of fermentable materials found in mash filters.

Very high maltose syrup is used in the kettle to give 20% of the grist. For those not familiar with high gravity brewing very high maltose syrup is important because it reduces the amount of esters produced during fermentation, something which high gravity brewing raises.

The beer has a dimethyl sulphide specification of 50ppb, giving it a characteristic taste.

The Original Gravity is 1.068 and the yeast is pitched at 14°C and allowed to free rise to 15°C where it is held until half gravity when it is allowed to free rise up to 20°C. Higher temperatures also increase ester production so the lower initial temperature helps restrict it.

Green beer conditioning is carried out in the Fermenting Vessels until the diacetyl level is in spec. [not stated, but I guess it's something like less than 30ppb]. The beer is then crash cooled into "maturation" tank at -1.5°C to hasten formation of haze forming protein-polyphenol complexes so that only 24 hours storage is necessary before filtration, dilution and carbonation.

It's not in the article but I did hear Carling is fermented to 8% ABV, which would give the base beer a Final Gravity of around 1.007.  We do know for certain though that it's cut to 3.7% ABV at packaging. High Gravity Brewing is really something I should get round to doing a post about, but basically it's making more efficient use of brewing vessels by brewing beer to a higher strength that it's sold at and diluting it with De-Aerated Liquor (water with a very low oxygen content to prevent stale flavours developing) prior to packaging. It's not to be confused with liquoring back which is the process brewers use to hit target Original Gravity in which wort (unfermented beer) is produced slightly stronger than required and then cut (diluted) to the required strength prior to fermentation.

A few more details would be nice, and it might take a few goes to get it right, but if you're interested in making a beer that sells over 3 million hectolitres (528 million pints) a year I think that's a good starting point.