Glug-a-Spoon, O Glug-a-Spoon, O grant thy faithful CAMRA's boon!

Religion requires certain rituals and observances from the faithful and CAMRA is no exception. On a recent trip to London I was able to fulfil one of them by calling in at the Royal Oak in Borough for a pint of Harvey's Dark Mild, thus doing my duty in the Beery Month of Obligation and saving mild for another year. 

Mild saved again

The main reason I'd been in London though was to meet up with an old friend in a 'Spoons. I'd made sure I was supplied with a stock of CAMRA Members' Real Ale Cider and Perry Vouchers (or in the vernacular, 'Spoons vouchers) before going. There is some controversy over these, though it's not true that we have to sing to Tim Martin each year to be granted this boon (it is of course to Roger Protz). I've never understood the objection myself. I don't drink in 'Spoons often but if I spend less when I do it's surely a good thing all round? Less money for Wetherspoons, more money for me. 'Spoons prices in central London are more than I was expecting too so the discount was welcome. 

A whole pound I didn't spend

And I have to say as I drank my discounted pint of Jaipur served as god intended, having the one true living beer enter my life, and mouth, I remembered that virtue is its own reward. 

Why should I care if a brewery is independent?

Once again the stench of heresy assaults my nostrils. Our Mother Church has voted at its recent AGM in favour of this motion:

"This Conference agrees that UK beer lovers have been badly let down by the lack of leadership and imagination shown by the multinational brewers and large property firms that, between them, control the UK beer trade. Conference therefore instructs the National Executive to ensure that all relevant CAMRA publications and communications pledge preferential support to beer producers and suppliers that are independent of the influence of the multinational brewers, and to make the case persistently for this stance."

That CAMRA is favouring smaller brewers over large is nothing new, I can remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when Allied Breweries (one of the "Big Six") won the Champion Beer of Britain in 1990. I can't help but think though that the formal adoption of this motion is making the error of modernism, denying objective truth.   

I am a man of simple faith, not a CAMRA theologian, but beer that is pleasing to god is defined by being matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed. Such fripperies as as the share ownership of the company producing it are irrelevant. And have not heathens complaining about listings in the Good Book regularly been told the correct orthodox position that inclusions are based beer quality not other minor matters?

Beer that is pleasing to god. And I didn't need to visit Companies House to determine that. 

Over in barbarian lands the Brewers Association regularly changed their definition of "craft brewery" and now the beer produced doesn't get a look in at all. Just about all that's left is that share ownership is mostly independent. Producing as much beer as the country of Denmark produces annually is fine and I have no idea what benefit being independent brings us. I wouldn't not like to see this road to hell being followed over here. 

I've drunk good and bad cask beer from both independent and multinational breweries. I've also worked at small and large breweries. The multinationals are undoubtedly evil but then again some of the biggest cunts  most awful people I've ever met have been running small breweries. Let us remain true to the core beliefs of our faith and venerate all beer that is pleasing to god. 

Finally: a wilt-tolerant Fuggle

A very interesting article by the hop goddess Klara Hajdu in the CIBD magazine gives an update on the latest research from Wye Hops.

Breeding English hops with stronger, high intensity flavours, is now into the third generation of crosses and Real Ale Hero laureate Eddie Gadd has been carrying out the brewing trials. He's also added another title to his name as Wye Hops experimental brewer which is cool as fuck. 

Eddie and Klara in action

It will be very interesting to see what flavours these new hops bring but even more exciting than that is the news that a hop breeding mission going back at least 70 years has finally reached a successful conclusion: a wilt-tolerant Fuggle has been developed. 

Verticillium wilt is a fungal disease that can devastate hop crops and is difficult to treat. The best solution is to grow resistant hop varieties in affected areas. Sadly as each hop "variety" is really a single female plant propagated from cuttings it's very difficult to breed in desired traits such as disease resistance without breeding out the characteristic flavour. Cascade for example has a lot of Fuggle in its ancestry but gives an entirely different flavour to beer. 

The need for a wilt-tolerant Fuggle is mentioned in a paper back in 1955 and in 2013 I heard the long quest might be only three years away from a successful conclusion. It's taken considerably longer  that that but craft beer geeks everywhere will be delighted to learn that variety 15/10/23 has now completed its trials and it beer made with it no noticeable change of taste was detected compared to true Fuggle. The hop was released in late 2024 as Wye Fuggle. 

The Session: What is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018?

Dates get hazy for me if I go back further than the last weekend. So what exactly has happened since 2018, rather than say 2017 or 1911, isn't immediately obvious. But the stand out thing in the world of good beer for me only happened a year or two ago. Unless it was three, but definitely within the required time frame: I brewed Thomas Hardy Ale. Yes, me. Brewing one of the final five! Do things get better than that? Not that I can think of and I'd be very surprised if any of my fellow sessioners can either. 

Golden Pints 2024

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

 

Best UK Cask Beer:

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

Best UK Keg Beer:

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

Best UK Bottled Beer:

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

Best UK Canned Beer:

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

Best Overseas Draught:

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

Best Overseas Bottled Beer:

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

Best Overseas Canned Beer:

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

Best collaboration brew:

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

Best Overall Beer:

Thustons Horsell Hop.

Best Branding:

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

Best UK Brewery: 

Thurstons.

Best Overseas Brewery: 

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

Best New Brewery Opening 2024

Can't think of one.

Pub/Bar of the Year:

The Crown of course.

Best New Pub/Bar Opening 2024

Can't think of one of these either. 

Beer Festival of the Year:

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

Supermarket of the Year:

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

Independent Retailer of the Year:

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

Online Retailer of the Year:

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


Best Beer Book or Magazine:

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

Best Beer Blog or Website:
 

A Good Beer Blog this year.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer:

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

Thomas Hardy: My Part in his Downfall

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

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

Dull, dull, dull. 

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

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

Derek during mashing in of Thomas Hardy's Ale

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

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

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

The barrel trial

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

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

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

Who is that fat bastard?

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

A visit to Teeling distillery

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

Teeling Distillery was built in 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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