The Blackhorse Road beer mile

 As a #PubMan at this time of year I should be whinging about it being amateur season with groups of people paying for drinks individually or ordering Guinness last. But despite my best efforts in the past week to support pubs I've had to do disturbingly little queueing. A beer launch up in Bethnal Green saw a busy table but not a busy pub. My local, in which I drink regularly, was fairly busy but at this time of year it should be like sardines. As for Walthamstow, read on:

Our first stop on the Blackhorse Road beer mile was at a pub and it had beer served as god intended. Which I have to say is an improvement on certain other beer miles I could mention. Sadly, the Tavern on the Hill was practically empty. I mean we were starting early but still. 

Not even the wonderful stained glass windows in the bog could attract many punters:

After that it was on to tap rooms. 

High Hill Tap had found a way to suck out even more of the charm of drinking in a large warehouse whilst sat on picnic tables by adding a giant telly screen. The beer, though served from the devil's drainpipe, was OK though and the staff were nice. 

Lot's of shiny cyclindroconical fermenting vessels but crappy looking brewhouse kit:

Then we went opposite to Wild Card tap room, which had also gone for shiny cyclindroconicals and crappy brewhouse kit:

Again it was only beer served from the devil's drainpipe, and for ye of little faith that think serving beer on keg means higher quality than cask you're sadly mistaken. The pale ale and IPA were both sour and so were taken back. The person behind the bar poured himself a sample to check but after his face turned as sour as the beer we were given a refund. Two infected beers in a tap room was not good so we moved on rather than trying anything else. 

Beerblefish was another kettle of fish, being smaller with less money but better beer. 

They did have beer on handpump, and despite one of the beers being Bretted the other beer hadn't been inadvertently infected so thumbs up for them.

Exale had some bigger and shinier kit...

...and Monkey seemed to have parked his cloud there, though sadly I didn't see him. 

Lots of distilling in the lab too for some strange reason. The beer was all keg.

Proper big budget arrived when we got to Signature brew. I'd heard at an IBD dinner they're putting out 25,000hl a year, though I must admit I can't recall seeing their beers in the wild. 

The room by the bar was fairly busy...

...but the hall by the indoor tanks with a giant telly screen was almost deserted. I guess it's not just me that thinks giant telly screens are a bad idea. Keg only again.

Truman's Social Club was the busiest place.

Though being the biggest it was still half empty. 

The had Laine's cask beer on, don't know what happened to Truman's. Still, even if there had been Truman's on I'd have gone with Laine's as I have a working relationship with them as close as lips and teeth. 

Perfectly decent it was too. 

There were a couple of large disused tanks in the beer hall which I also thought didn't bode well for Trumans brewery but who knows?

We called it a day at that, which left me in the rare position of being able to walk in a straight line after a research trip. 

The Brewers Congress, London 2021 part two

The second session started with Fellow Worker Charlotte Cook talking about The Economies of Modern Hop Usage. 

There is an optimum time for hop harvests. 

Very high levels of dry hopping have diminishing returns. Over 8g/l (80kg/100hl) is the maximum it's worth adding. Higher levels just add more vegetal flavours. 

Two additions are better than one. 

Synergy and hop blending adds more sensory impact. 

Terroir has a big impact on hops so synergistic layering of different dry hops can be used.

Spend dry hops can be reused but there are problems as you don't know what's in them. Hops left over from CO2 extraction can also be used. 

High hopping levels can lead to excess levels of nitrates and other unwanted compounds. 

The next speaker Charlie Johnson of the Ronin Fermentation Project talked about using koji, the Aspergillus oryzae using in sake, in brewing. 

Koji produces citric acid and can give nice esters. He ferments with it at 7°C and ages in barrels for nine months. Koji makes alpha amylase so will super attenuate. There is more on this on Milk The Funk, but one tip I got down was use yellow or black koji not white. 

Then there was someone talking about Yakima Chiefs hop company before The Chemical Sisters, Belinda Jennings and Moyra Williams talked about Hygiene in the brewing environment. Remember cleaning action depends on Style, Control, Damage and Aggression. OK, mechanical action, chemical concentration, time and temperature. 

The afternoon lectures interested me less, and poor old malty got a hammering again, though Twinings did put it back on their tea packets. I wish I'd taken notes on Garrett Oliver's talk though as he was good. 

If you want to see more diversity in the industry your have to actively encourage it. 

The Brewers Congress, London 2021 part one

Having won tickets for to the Brewers Congress I had a fun day out in London. The talks were a mixed bag, but there was some good stuff in there and lots of free beer. 

First up was the rich guy who bought us a bottle of expensive beer to share in Portland, Greg Zeschuk:

Cheers Greg!

I hadn't known who he was before so I was glad to see this mystery solved. He did a talk about his brewery and building a team. Team building is important as you can't do everything yourself! Goals must be defined and everyone in a team has a role to fill. He uses selective hiring where as many people as possible will be involved in hiring and consensus must be reached before anyone is offered a job. He uses 'social engineering' to bring together people he thinks will work well together. Selective firing is also used though; "talented terrors aren't worth it!"

He was followed by another rich guy with a glorious American accent who did a talk about his lovely looking brewery in Norfolk:

Talk of the day for me was from Aaron McClure of Sharp's Brewery, who gave a very interesting presentation despite having what looked like a raging hangover:

Production at Sharp's rose rapidly, though it seems to have peaked in 2017:

They have a policy of putting people first and put time and money into it. 

The goal of making Doom Bar the number one cask ale brand no doubt became easier once they were owned by a large multinational corporation. But they're still only going to manage rapid growth if they have enthusiastic staff so aim to align their goal with how their values, mind set, behaviour and ways of working. 

Lots of brewers burn out and leave the industry so they have a range of support tools available, including doing pad work by the look of it. I suppose that helps get out some of your frustrations.

The support developing their staff, whether that's people keen to work towards a new role or just learn more about the job they currently do.

They engage with their staff, letting as many people as possible have a go on the pilot brewery and even stopping production for a table tennis tournament!

The success can be measured, such as by the high staff retention rate.  

Bi-annual anonymous staff surveys are also carried out.

Then there was a panel discussion on cask beer followed by a short intermission before FW Charlotte Cook was up to talk about hops, more on which will be revealed when I get round to writing it up. 

Breaking the glass ceiling

The price of premium bottled ales doesn't seem to have changed in years. Like some fixed feudal price it's been around £2 a bottle, or £1.50 when you look for special offers or multibuys, for ages. 

I can't see this lasting though. Brewery suppliers are  not bound by such feudal constraints. At the moment all of them seem to be putting their prices up, many by double digit percentages and in the case of CO2 by 300%. There's no way breweries will be able to absorb these costs. Supermarkets have a lot of power when it comes to beating down prices but even they aren't going to be able to make brewers sell beer at below cost. Not in the long term anyway. 

The cost pressures will also apply to craft cans, though at the moment they seem to be going down in price. I'm not much of  a can buyer but if I remember rightly it's not so long ago they were generally £3 a pop for 330ml cans, whereas £2.50 for 440ml seems common now. 

And in more bad news for small brewers about half the craft cans in my local supermarket were made by multinationals.

Horror in Hackney Wick

The Beer Merchants Tap is not the place for me. Having an open plan industrial look and a single hand pump shows it's a craft beer bar and therefore not really designed for a #PubMan like myself. I took it on the chin though. I try not to get upset about such things nowadays. And the Best from Beak Brewery in Lewes was perfectly fine, thought it's no Harvey's. 

Look at the long bar

However, when my friends had arrived and I went to get a round in my carefully controlled calm demeanour was shattered. My mate pointed out to me the horror of what was happening: "they're queueing" he said. I could not believe my ears. "You don't queue in pubs!" I replied. But looking round I saw that what he said was true. People lining up despite the length of the bar. Is this what the world has come to? In the country god chose to bring beer to perfection in people are now abandoning our beer culture and traditions. I know it's a bleedin' bar but pub rules still apply, so it shouldn't be treated like a grocery shop!

The horror, the horror

I did of course join the queue. I'm British after all. But fortunately my mate got served without having to queue so the shame and ignominy was short lived. 

No Gods, No Masters

 

Beer, beer, we want more beer

 I can get a lot of free beer from work. But does this mean I'm not interested in being sent more? Nay, nay and thrice nay! Unlike the petty bourgeois brewers whinging about beer tax being reduced I take the proletarian position that beer should be made freely available to all. Even if I don't drink it myself I can always find a fellow worker grateful for a prefigurative pint!

So when Haacht brewery offered me some beer there could be only one answer. I was slightly concerned when the box arrived though: only four beers. And one of them was a lager. Still, as they had come for free I couldn't grumble too much. 

As it turned out, I actually liked the lager. 

A bit sweet, but still crisp and without any unpleasant vegetable aromas, a surprisingly good start from Haacht. 

The Super 8 IPA was what you'd expect from a Belgian IPA. Let's just say it wouldn't be winning any games of frogger. 

The spicy Super 8 Flandrien was more on the ball, though again I'd have preferred it if they'd cranked it up a bit ...

... which I also thought about the Tongerlo Brown, a pleasant enough dubbel which left me looking for a tripel. 

All of Haacht's offerings went down easily enough but seemed a bit restrained to me. Does this mean I'm turning craftie?