Kent beer festival guide 2016 by Orchard House Media Ltd

CAMRA Kent Beer Festival

@CAMRA_KBF

Welcome to the 42n d Kent Beer fest ival

A very warm welcome to The Kent Beer Festival 2016. The UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second oldest CAMRA beer festival this year is our 42nd year.

We have our usual mix of great ales and cider along with fantastic food and great entertainment. Our feature bar and back by popular demand is â&#x20AC;&#x153;The dark and fruity barâ&#x20AC;?. As the name suggests I have attempted to source a wide variety of dark milds, porters and stouts along with beer with added flavours. This had been done following feedback from previous

years so I hope the range will be just the right mix. If these beers are not to your preference then there are plenty of others to temp you on our Kent bar (only beers sourced from the 32 different Kent breweries) or From the Long bar at the end of the barn. Which has beers from all over the UK. Couple this with our fantastic Kent cider bar and our Foreign beer bar and this will give you an unrivalled choice. Hopefully you will find something new and interesting. I would like to thank all the volunteer staff for their support and assistance with helping me to run this festival, as without them there would be no festival. This goes for the organising committee and the sponsors as well. Finally, a huge thank you to you! Our beer/cider loving festival goers! I hope the 2016 festival meets and exceeds your expectations, and that you will come back again for many years to come. I very much appreciate feedback from customers so please let us know any comments or suggestions you may have, good or bad, via our Facebook page or twitter or e-mail me direct via our website.

Andy Mitchell Festival Organiser Kent Beer Festival 2016 3

FestivEantl

ertainment

Thursday July 21st

9.30pm to 11pm

6.30pm to 8.15pm

The Swinging 60’s

Lost in Music Covers

All the hits from the 60's

party band

Saturday July 23rd 12.30pm - 2pm

Stringendo

String quartet

2pm - 5pm

Juggle It All Children’s Entertainment 2.15pm to 3pm & 3.45pm to 4.30pm Gentleman of Few Folk

9.15-11pm

Maxwell Hammer and Smith Covers Friday July 22nd

KIng Ziggy

Dirty blues

7.15 to 9pm

6.45-8.45pm

Cloud 9 jazz

5 to 7pm

Upbeat jazz classics

Straight Eight

Jazz

Admission Times & prices Thursday 21st July 18.30 - 23.00 £6 (pay on the door or online)

Friday 22nd July 12.00 - 16.00 Free Entry 18.30 - 23.00 £8.00 (advance tickets only) Saturday 23rd July 12.00 - 21.00 £6 (pay on the door)

4 Kent Beer Festival 2016

What is The terms beer, lager, ale and bitter are often confused. To help you understand what they actually mean and how varieties of beer differ from one another, we have described how beer is produced and the ingredients used.

provide both bitterness and flavour. There are dozens of varieties of hops and the way they are used contributes to the beer's flavour.

Water, grain, yeast and hops

These days, beer can refer to any style of ale or lager. In the past, ale meant a brew without hops, and beer one with hops. Now that hops are almost universal, ale generally refers to beer produced by 'top fermentation'. This is fermentation with a yeast that floats on top of the liquid, at temperatures up to 22°C – this creates the rich variety of flavours. After primary fermentation, the ale undergoes a slow secondary fermentation in a cask. As it matures, the beer develops its flavour and a light natural carbonation.

Water is the main component of beer. It naturally contains dissolved salts that can affect a beer’s flavour: Soft London water makes good stouts and the sulphur-rich waters of Burton upon Trent are ideal for bitters. The usual grain for brewing is malted barley. Malting involves allowing the grain to just begin to germinate, starting the process of converting the starch into sugar. The germination is stopped by heat. By changing the temperature and duration of the heat, a maltster can produce light malts, medium-dark malts with caramel flavour, or dark roasted malts. Other grains can be used, such as wheat, oats, rye or rice. Variation in the grains and malts used will alter the colour and flavour of the finished beer.

What is the difference between ale, beer and lager?

Lager is produced by bottom fermentation at lower temperatures (6–14°C). It is then stored for several weeks or months at close to freezing, during which time the lager matures. Most mass-produced UK lagers are matured for very short periods.

What is real ale? Yeast is a single-celled organism that converts sugar to ethanol and carbon dioxide gas. In real ale, this fermentation is the only source of gas in the beer. The strain of yeast used can also influence the beer’s flavour profile, and many breweries will guard their particular strain of yeast carefully. Hops are the flowers of a climbing plant and are used in almost all beers made today. They 6 Kent Beer Festival 2016

Real ale is a beer brewed from traditional ingredients (malted barley, hops, water and yeast), matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide gas. Real ale should be served at cellar temperature (11–14°C), so the flavour of the beer can be best

What is beer? appreciated. You can recognise real ale in a pub as it is usually served using a handpump, although a number of pubs sell the beer straight from the cask using nothing but gravity – as at this festival. Real ale is also known as cask conditioned beer, real cask ale, real beer and naturally conditioned beer. The term real ale and the above definition were coined by CAMRA in the early 1970s.

What is the difference between real ale and keg beer? Keg beer undergoes the same primary fermentation as real ale but after that stage it is filtered and/or pasteurised. No further conditioning takes place. The beer lacks any natural carbonation that would have been produced by the secondary fermentation and so carbon dioxide has to be added artificially. This can lead to an overly gassy product.

What are bitter, mild, stout and porter?

India pale ale (IPA) originally appeared in the early 19th century, and has enjoyed a resurgence in the past few years. First brewed in London and Burton upon Trent for the colonial market, IPAs were strong in alcohol and high in hops. So-called IPAs with strengths of around 3.5% are not true IPAs. Look for juicy malt, citrus fruit and a big spicy, peppery bitter hop character, with strengths of 5% to much more. The recent appearance of ‘Black IPAs’ has confused many, since they are definitely not pale. Porters and stouts are complex in flavour and typically black or dark brown. The darkness comes from the use of dark malts. These full bodied beers generally have a pronounced bitter finish. Historically a stout would have been any stronger beer, but the term evolved to mean a strong porter beer. In modern usage, the two terms are used almost interchangeably, although stouts tend to have a roast character and be less sweet than porters. They are usually 4–8% in strength.

Ale style beers can be broken down further into various styles, although many beers are hard to fit into one of these categories. Milds are not very bitter and may be dark or light. Although generally of a lower strength (less than 4%) they can also be strong. Flavour comes from the malt so there is often a little sweetness. Bitter is the most common beer style. Usually brown, tawny, copper or amber coloured, with medium to strong bitterness. Light to medium malt character may be present. Bitters are normally up to 4% alcohol, whereas best bitters are above 4%. Golden ales are a relative newcomer, having first appeared in the 1980s. These are pale amber, gold, yellow or straw coloured beers with light to strong bitterness and a strong hop character that creates a refreshing taste. The strength is generally less than 5.5%. Kent Beer Festival 2016 7