The Beer father

It was my niece Phoebe's christening on Sunday. My sister was a god parent but there was a more important role for me: I am now Phoebe's beer father.

The poor child has been unforunate enough to be born to non-beer drinking parents, so as well as needing people to look after her spiritual needs she needs someone to look after her beeritual needs too. There's an awful lot of beers out there nowadays so having an adult to guide her through the complexities of the beer world and steer her towards the decent stuff should help her mature into a confident and competent beer drinker. And hopefully this will also mean that the curse of humulophobia is not carried on through the family.

Admittedly she's got another four and a half years until she can drink legally but as I take my responsibilities seriously I supplied a polypin of bitter for the christening party. I'd aimed for a drinkable session bitter and it came out pretty much how I'd planned.

I'd could have beefed it up a bit as it was a little thin, but it was on a Sunday afternoon and I wanted something that the assembled masses would be happy to drink.


Phoebe was not happy when she was told she can't have a beer for four and a half years.

The recipe for the beer was:

Pale Malt 8.40 kg
Wheat malt 0.35 kg
Cara malt 0.15 kg
Choc malt 0.15 kg

Boil start: Fuggles 100g
10min from end: Styrian Goldings 40g
Steep: Styrian Goldings 40g
Dry: Styrian Goldings 40g

Yeast: Hopback

This was for nine gallons, the other half I kept for home consumption.
 

The Crown, Horsell

On Saturday me and the lovely Lisa went back to the Crown in Horsell. We enjoyed our last visit so it is slightly embarrassing to look back through the blog and see it was nearly three months ago. We really do need to get out to local pubs more.

The Crown is a friendly pub with a big beer garden for us to sit in. The guest beer was Dorking brewery's excellent DB One, a pale ale similar in taste to Timothy Taylor's Landlord but with a bit more malt. Landlord is a favourite of ours so we had three of these in quick succession before heading home. We then failed to stick to this modest limit by cracking open a bottle of Landlord and testing the latest home brew. One of these day's we'll get the hang of limiting our drinking*.

*This statement may not be factually correct.

The curse of Michael Jackson?

Beer fans may have been as surprised as I was to hear that until last night there was a popular musical entertainer bearing the same name as the late lamented beer hunter. Apparently he was big in the eighties. Rumours that the former Army Chief of General Staff has booked an urgent check up with his doctor have yet to be confirmed.

Desert Island beer #3 - Ringwood XXXX porter

This is the last of my desert island beers with a guaranteed place. A seasonal brew I first came across this when I was young and new to the delights of real ale and this was certainly a delight. Foolishly I was working my way across the hand pumps that night and I only had one pint!

I didn't see it again for many years after that and when I did it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I tried it. Could it really be as good as I remembered? Thankfully, it was, and though I still only see it occasionally it’s never let me down. It’s also available in bottles now, and my own attempt at following a recipe based on it worked out well too. It’s a rich dark beer but without the astringency you get in many stouts so it goes down very nicely, and I hope still will when I'm holding a glass of it whilst lounging under my palm tree.

Chesil pilsner 4.1%

This 'pilsner lager style real ale' was brought up for me from Dorset by my favourite brother in law. I wonder if they have 'white wine style red wine' down there too? I'm going there next month so I'll keep my eyes peeled. As far as lagers go the Chesil was pretty good, a slight taste of honey and not a lot else, but it was refreshing straight from the fridge. I've still got some more of the Dorset brewing company's beers in my cupboard to try and I'm looking forward to them.

Jackie Brown, Brown Ale, Mikkeller, 6% ABV

I'd been looking forward to trying some Mikkeller beers as my fellow internet beer nerds seem keen on their offerings. Sadly this one doesn't work for me. The grist sounds good: pale, munich, cara-pils, cara-crystal, brown and chocolate malt with flaked oats. I'm not generally keen on the oily mouthfeel comes from oats but everything comes together in this beer to give a lovely rich body. The high alpha hops though (nugget, simcoe and centennial) really jar, making a strange beer. Some more restrained hops so I could appreciate the the rich malt in what is, after all, meant to be a brown ale would have been better.

The people have spoken

The poll has closed and surprisingly the majority are in favour of hearing about more my heroic climbing exploits. If I was a betting man I wouldn't have bet much money on that outcome. Still, the people have spoken so further reports will be included. Don't worry thought if you voted against, this is a beer blog and someones else's sports or hobbies are always a bit dull, so I'll be keeping reports to a minimum.