Greene King's Heritage Beers

I can't think when I've last put as much effort into finding beer as I did with Greene King's heritage beers. Three bleedin' trips it took me before I found them and even then it was only because I saw on twitter they had been reduced to clear that I wandered away from the beer section and found them in another display.

Still, on the plus side they were reduced to £1.87, which seemed very reasonable, particularly as the strong one is 6.5% ABV. It was in fact the pints bottles that caused my, and Tesco's, difficulties. They're made to a historic bottle design and so of thicker glass. The cardboard trays the bottles come in couldn't cope with the weight so the bottles were insecure. Tesco's response was to try and shift them as quickly as possible by giving them a massive display and a cut price.

Two beers "inspired" by records from the 1800s have been produced in the heritage range, both made using pale malt made from Chevallier barley. Chevallier is a land race barley that once the most popular variety in Britain. The Suffolk Pale Ale at 5% ABV also uses land race hops: Saaz and Strisselspalt. The stronger beer went a little off piste as one of the hops used (Bramling Cross) comes from Wye College breeding programme that started in the 20th century.

I didn't get upset by this though, as unlike some brewers that wander they didn't claim to be following a specific recipe, and I was keen to try beers made with Chevallier. The beers taste great too, the historic inspiration certainly made them crank the hops up from what's normally found in Greene King beers. More beers are planned for the heritage range and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

A visit to Greene King brewery

The Brewery History Society AGM was held at Greene King brewery on the 6th May. It was a fantastic day and included one of the best brewery tours I've ever been on.

Many of my fellow beer nerds have a very dim view of Greene King, and seem to consider them to be if not the Great Satan, at least part of the Axis of Evil. I think it's down to them having an IPA which is not very exciting and 3.6% ABV. Despite them making it for the best part of a century apparently IPAs are inauthentic unless they're at least 6% ABV and taste of grapefruit. Having had such a wonderful time at Greene King I'm completely biased in their favour and as far as I'm concerned they can call any beer whatever they like.

We were hosted by their QA manager Susan Chisholm, who'd dug out some of their archives for us to look at:

The books on display were only about one percent of the records they have, though sadly at the moment they're not very well organised.

The historian Richard Wilson was given honorary life membership at the AGM. I knew he'd written the history of Greene King, so I'd made a point of reading that before the meeting. Rather 
embarrassingly I didn't realise he's also the Wilson half of Gourvish and Wilson, authors of a classic brewing history text I haven't got round to reading yet. He's also written on the history of British lager brewing, which I'm sure if of interest to many, but not me.

Rather foolishly I didn't take a notebook on the tour so there may be fascinating facts I've already forgotten.

The tour starts up on the roof where they have water tanks. They have their own wells but the water is treated with reverse osmosis to strip everything out, before salts are added back to match a particular brewing liquor. Greene King brew beers from the various different breweries they taken over and closed, and they match the liquor and still use the different yeasts from them.

There's a great view from the roof:

And you can see a maltings on the other side of the town:

The brewery dates from the 1930s and is a tower brewery, so as we headed down from the roof the we came to the floor with the four roller mill:

They have pale, amber and crystal malt in silos and the other speciality grains and adjuncts are in sack. The hops are pelletised.

Grist cases are on the floor below:

And the mash tuns are next:

They're copper clad but are relatively modern. When looking to replace their old mash tuns they did look into getting a lauter tun or mash filter but decided that as a traditional ale brewery mash tuns were best. With their microbrewery they have the flexibility to very the brew length from 10 to 1600 barrels.

Sparging

As we were here about the history we had to have a look at the 5X vats, where a 12% ABV beer is stored for two years. There's barely any change in the ABV during ageing so they can't have many bugs growing. Last time I'd look round I'd seen two vats, but I was delighted to find out they actually have four, and have the space to add some more.

Here's the other two: one new, one old.

Here's the new one again:

I think the new one is 150 bbl, and the others 100 bbl. I wonder if I could persuade them to fill one with old style porter?

We got down to the sample room, where of course we had a taste of the 5X. It is wonderful stuff.

And we had a peek at some old bottles from the 1930s. Sadly this beer was around 4% though apparently some bottles are still drinkable.

I also got to try their XX mild at last, which like I've seen others say, I did prefer to the IPA. They brew 60 bbl a week of it. Having various milds in the portfolio from the breweries they've taken over they rationalised it to just one recipe, and had tasting trials to decide on the best one. Despite the name it's sold under it was actually the Hardys and Hansons mild that won.

Susan Chisholm has found in the Green King archives recipes for all the X beers from one through to five.

Here she is getting a certificate from BHS chairman Jeff Sechiari

They have plans to get the archives into order, and I can't help but think that it'll then be time for Ron to have a holiday in Bury St Edmunds.

Ye Olde Ship Inn, Guildford

On Sunday the lovely Lisa and I had a trip to the Surrey Alps. We were following a route in a Surrey Pub Walks book.

Our epic trek was over four miles, which those you familiar with Naismith's rule will realise it took us well over an hour. Oh yes, there were even slight hills and everything.

Fortunately our careful guidebook selection meant we started and ended at Ye Old Ship Inn just outside Guildford. The beers were from Greene King, not something I'd seek out but the Old Spec was pleasant enough (in fact I prefer its new weaker version) and the lovely Lisa had a rugby themed beer from Belhaven which had a good hoppy taste.

It's a pleasant looking pub close to the river and in a nice touch they had free pork scratchings on the bar, I think we might come back to this one.

Research trip to North London

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.

IPA challenge bout six: Meantime IPA Vs Greene King Very Special IPA

It took a long while to organise this bout - how do you find a match for Meantime IPA? Weighting in at an impressive 7.5% ABV this beer is clearly in the cruiserweight category, and coming in a 750ml Champagne bottle has far more stamina than any other cruiserweights I've seen. It would take a brave beer indeed to take on this gladiator from Greenwich.

Fortunately my favourite brother in law found a young hopeful prepared stepped up to the plate. 

Greene King Very Special India Pale Ale.

When they squared up at the weigh in the audience were visibly shocked at what looked a terrible mismatch. But unbeknownst to the crowd the British Board of Beer Control had borrowed something from the rules of professional wrestling in order to ensure a fair fight. Greene King would be fighting as a tag team.

 

The formalities over it's time for the main event. 

The Meantime starts with a flourish as the cork pops but the jab looks weak. A good IPA should have a crisp penetrating jab to the nostrils but all we get is a slight floral smell.Greene King counters powerfully in the brutal, unsophisticated style all fighters from that stable favour: that's right it, smells like every other Green King beer. 

When it come to the taste the slugger from Suffolk stays true to type and tastes like Green King IPA on steroids: plenty of alcohol but also a nice full bodied toffee taste that drinks very nicely. 

Meantime is looking very pale and is thin and lacking in body. It can only offer up a hint of grapefruit which is brushed aside by Greene King and it shows it's very special by throwing a rich rounded and full bodied counter. A slug to the liver causes Meantime to sink to its knees and in the biggest upset since Buster Douglass knocked out Mike Tyson the ref steps in and starts counting. 

Meantime struggles to its feet but the fight's gone out of it and a fresh bottle of Greene King is leaning over the ropes, eager to be tagged in. The once mighty Meantime fades throughout the rest of the round and the bell sounds like an act of mercy. 

A win for Greene King Very Special IPA by 10-8.

Pedirodg

Last night I tried out a drink I've been meaning to have for some time: Pedirodg.

First take a bottle of Marston's Pedigree.



Then take a bottle of Owd Rodger.



Find a big glass and pour them in.



Bingo! The Pedirodg.

This is a combination I heard about when chatting to someone who used to work for Marston's. I'd said that I didn't think British brewers did strong beers too well as they always tended to get syrupy as they got stronger. He said the practice at Marston's was to mix Pedigree and Owd Rodger to make the Pedirodg.

I have to say it was better than either of the beers individually. The Pedigree was pretty bland apart from the sulphurousness of the Burton snatch and the Owd Rodger was too sweet and syrupy. When mixed together they made a strong dark beer of 6.3% ABV that certainly did the trick when drunk in litre at a time.

I wasn't actually as good as similar strength dark beers like Adnam's Broadside or Greene King Strong Suffolk but it was interesting all the same.

Next I need to try the London Pride and Golden Pride mix that I heard about from someone at Fullers ...

Beers in Ripley

Beer in Ripley

On Saturday myself and the lovely Lisa ended up drinking in Ripley as one of our friends had arranged a get together there. Ripley is just off the A3 and back in the day was on the main road from London to Portsmouth.

Because of this old transport connection, and the large number of local alkies, Ripley has maintained an impressively large number of pubs for its size. We started in a lovely looking old pub, the Ship, with a pint of London Pride. Sadly it tasted a bit watery so we weren't overly impressed. The other beers on offer weren't very inspiring either, being Greene King Abbot, Hogsback TEA and the recently revived Courage Best. Quite why the rights to this boring beer have been bought by Wells and Young's is a mystery to me. When I first started going to pubs Courage and Allied pretty much had the local area sewn up so Courage Best was a very common beer. Universally known as Courage Worst it was an insipid weak brown beer lacking in taste. Wells and Young's have managed to capture this lack of character perfectly making a boring beer with a slight sweetness. 

When one of our friends who lives locally said that they had Surrey Hills Shere Drop on in the Half Moon we didn't take much prompting to move on. The Half Moon isn't as nice a looking pub, but there were lots of seats and the beer was far superior. Shere Drop is a pale beer with plenty of citrusy hops so despite the price (£3.20 a pint!) we managed to sink quite a few. With prices this high I can see why pub trade is falling, but sometimes it's worth it.