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BEER ¦ inside
contents Regulars
HAPPY 40T CAMRHA 197 1
-2011 see ww w.camr a.org.u for ann k iversar 05 Welcome y news th rougho As CAMRA turns 40, make sure you ut the yea don’t miss out on the celebrations r 37 Pub tour
Peak practice – beer lovers recreate pub crawl perfection in the Peak District
40 Food
There’s more than just common ingredients binding together real bread and real beer
49 Bottled beer
Des de Moor uncovers beers that are more than just cask ale in a bottle
51 Your shout
How to shortcut our Sheffield pub tour
53 Roger Protz
British beer inspires Belgian brewing brothers-in-law to create Naked Ladies
58 Home brew
It might still be chilly out, but now is the time to brew your cooling beers for summer
61 Get quizzic-ale
BEER’s quiz is back to tease your brain
65 Forum
CAMRA’s online forum asks if cider gets a fair deal at beer festivals
66 Last orders
Flint built into the bar won over Time Team archaeologist Phil Harding
Features 06 What s on
Grab the diary and start planning your year of beer and cider trips, treats and events
It was called Turbo Yeast Abomination from Hell; it took me 20 minutes to make. It was interesting, but disgusting
page 14
28 Rock steady
When Dire Straits’ John Illsley bought his local, he faced one of his toughest audiences
34 Northern lights
It’s taken some hard knocks, but there is still plenty for the beer lover in Manchester
44 London porter
BEER makes a real Pig’s Ear of its latest tasting of Champion Beer of Britain porters
14 Strong stuff
54 Score values?
16 WISPA it
57 Malt extract
22 When in Rome
62 Yorkshire s finest
Graham Holter investigates beers that can match spirits for alcoholic strength Tetley’s may have moved on, but there’s still some great beer coming from Yorkshire Zak Avery enjoys the results of the explosion in craft brewing that has swept through Italy
Should CAMRA’s National Beer Scoring Scheme decide Good Beer Guide entries? Sharp’s head brewer, Stuart Howe, extracts the facts and the goodness from malted barley New CAMRA guide digs deeper than ever before into a region’s historic pub interiors SPRING 2011 BEER 03
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SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL HERO Visit our website to find out more and to nominate your local hero.
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BEER ¦ from the editor
welcome
As we celebrate the 40th year of CAMRA, our new recruitment
We re Twitter ‒ now on follow searchin g for WB us by andBEER Find out about oth CAMRA T er and Face witter feeds book gro up www.ca mra.org.u s at k
promotion Campaign of Two Halves highlights what makes us so unique among membership and campaigning organisations. By its nature, the beer and pub industry is a hospitable one, so campaigning to protect and preserve what is best about British real ale and the places we drink it is always going to be a pretty enjoyable activity. And while most of us don’t need much excuse to head for the pub, in CAMRA there is an even better reason to get down to your local, meet up Susanna Forbes With a background in science and drinks journalism, Susanna got a commercial grounding with the with like-minded friends and have a good time. Oddbins chain. Now she spends much of her time on the Pop along to a beer festival for a similar social road, researching material for her www.drinkbritain.com experience and to see the hugely diverse variety website for those who want to explore all things bibulous. of people who share your interest. There’s no Stuart Howe As head brewer at fast-growing Sharp s denying the media’s oft-repeated stereotypes do brewery in Cornwall, it is amazing that Stuart has time to feature in BEER. For the last issue, he was in Belgium exist, but it might surprise you just how hard you visiting the classic Orval brewery, and this time he have to look for them sometimes. explains just what malted barley does for beer. Even better, get actively involved in the Phil Harding When not spending his time down a hole Campaign. Actually being part of a CAMRA or playing the 12-bar blues on his guitar, Time Team s branch, or volunteering for a festival just gets you most recognisable regular can be found in the best pub in Christendom . Phil s passion for ale and artefacts often even more involved in the sociability that lies cross over, as we find out in Last orders. at the heart of what we are all about. John Illsley As a founder member of Dire Straits, bass For 40 years, CAMRA has been campaigning guitarist John sold more than 120 million records. The for real ale and real pubs, and for the same four group disbanded in 1995, but John is still making music decades, it’s been bringing people together for and recording. However, now he is also selling pints of real ale from his East End Arms pub in Lymington, Hampshire. the simplest of pleasures – a good pint and good Zak Avery Zak not only writes about beer, but also sells it company. Make sure you’re part of this year’s as well, working at BeerRitz. Considering writing is not his anniversary celebrations!
GUEST CONTRIBUTORS
Tom Stainer BSME Editor of the Year
real job, he does pretty well, winning numerous awards from the British Guild of Beer Writers. His website, www.thebeerboy.co.uk, gets more popular by the day.
BEER Editor: Tom Stainer (tom.stainer@camra.org.uk) Sub-editor: Kim Adams Published by: CAMRA Ltd Produced on behalf of CAMRA by: Think, The Pall Mall Deposit, 124-128 Barlby Road, London W10 6BL Tel: 020 8962 3020 Group art director: Jes Stanfield Advertising: Tom Fountain (tom.fountain@thinkpublishing.co.uk) Managing director: Polly Arnold
Printed by: Southernprint Ltd, 17-21 Factory Road, Upton Industrial Estate, Poole, Dorset BH16 5SN. BEER is printed on Tauro offset which is PEFC accredited, meaning it comes from wellmanaged and sustainable forests. It is whitened using a Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) process and produced at a mill that is certified to the ISO14001 environmental management standard.
BEER is the quarterly magazine of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). CAMRA campaigns for real ale, real pubs and consumer rights. It is an independent, voluntary organisation with more than 110,000 members and has been described as the most successful consumer group in Europe. BEER magazine is sent free to CAMRA members every three months, and our campaigning newspaper, What s Brewing, is posted to members, free of charge, every month. To join CAMRA, help preserve Britain s brewing and pub industry, get BEER and What s Brewing free ‒ and a host of other membership benefits ‒ visit www.camra.org.uk CAMRA is a company limited by guarantee, run at a national level by an elected unpaid board of directors (the National Executive) and at regional level by its Regional Directors, both backed by a full-time professional staff. CAMRA promotes good-quality real ale and pubs, as well as acting as the consumer s champion in relation to the UK and European beer and drinks industry. It aims to: 1. Protect and improve consumer rights 2. Promote quality, choice and value for money 3. Support the public house as a focus of community life 4. Campaign for greater appreciation of traditional beers, ciders and perries and the public house as part of our national heritage and culture 5. Seek improvements in all licensed premises and throughout the brewing industry. BEER magazine will only carry editorial and advertising which helps promote these aims and we only accept advertisement for bottle- or cask-conditioned products. Average net circulation for the period Jan-Dec 2009: 76,965
Campaign For Real Ale Limited 230 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts AL1 4LW Tel: 01727 867201 Fax: 01727 867670
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I’m only here for the beer >
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feature ¦ WHAT’S ON
Just as pubs and inns remain the centre of many communities, so cider-makers and breweries have long been magnets for fun lovers ‒ and not just for liquid refreshment. Susanna Forbes checks out the action
KEY FACTS Beer Brewing has drawn people together from the start, so whether it s the culture on offer, the setting for a wedding or the environmental initiatives being pioneered, there s a raft of reasons to head down to your local brewhouse. Cider With cider being much more of a seasonal affair than beer, many of the activities related to making it and perry are focused around harvest and blossomtime. Nevertheless, the rituals and romance surrounding orchards add a little spice to the mix and trigger a fair few events of their own. Pubs From storytelling to sculpture, the variety of activities on offer in Britain s pubs has never been broader. And, with community pubs taking off and the interest in local fare growing ever stronger, you need never go thirsty when doing your weekly shop. ● Before setting out, it is wise to check the website or call ahead to confirm times and whether tickets need purchasing or events need booking. Further information on activities and events at cider producers and breweries can be found at www.drinkbritain.com, along with details on opening hours, locations and prices.
Museum
Literature
Fishing
Beer
Festival
Education
Shop
Cider
Food
Walk
Music
Pub
Farm
Wedding
Accom.
Key
CIDER WITH MUSIC BROOME FARM CIDER FESTIVAL Starting with a ceilidh and continuing with bands throughout the weekend, the Broome Farm Cider Festival in September is an ideal way to mix the fruits of the orchard with music. Begun eight years ago by Ross-onWye Cider & Perry Company founder Mike Johnson, the festival attracts visitors from far and wide, with the majority taking advantage of goodvalue camping in the farm s orchards. Saturday is cider-makers day, with apple pressing, plus producers from the surrounding counties will join colleagues from Wales to offer their ciders. Don t miss out: the 499 tickets sell quickly. ● www.rosscider.com
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DO THE SHOPPING JOLLY FARMERS DELI PUB
Jon and Paula Briscoe’s enthusiasm for the Jolly Farmers’ local suppliers – 95 per cent is sourced from Surrey and East Sussex – goes beyond the norm. Not content with trumpeting them on their website, they sell produce in their sizeable deli/farm shop at the front of the pub. There’s fresh fruit and veg, artisan breads, smoked meats and fish, cheese, home-made cakes, pickles and chutneys, plus – of course – a good bottled selection from the pub’s beer list. Located between Reigate and Dorking, and open throughout the day, the plan is to open a similar shop at the Briscoes’ other pub, the Fox Revived, in Norwood Hill, Horley. ● www.thejollyfarmersreigate.co.uk
TRAVEL THROUGH TIME NATIONAL BREWERY CENTRE
Did you know that, back in 1876, the Bass Pale Ale Red Triangle was the first trademark to be registered in Britain? Or that, in its heyday, Bass had 16 miles of railway within its Burton-on-Trent site? These are two of the gems to be found in the Bass Museum at the National Brewery Centre, now home to the William Worthington brewery, the new incarnation Take a look of what was the White Shield brewery. at the centre s Travel from the birth of brewing in Burton, unrivalled historic with its Benedictine monks, up to the present day, collection of brewing where former brewer of the year Steve Wellington industry vehicles, from is currently creating new ales alongside faithful horse-drawn drays to the ever-popular interpretations of past Bass favourites. 1920s Daimler Visit at weekends if you want to see the Robey bottle car steam engine in action and take a look at the centre’s unrivalled historic collection of brewing industry vehicles, from brightly coloured horse-drawn drays to the ever-popular 1920s Daimler bottle car. Even the shire horses have returned. Finish with a sample or two of Steve’s brews either in the museum’s Edwardian Bar or across the cobbles in the Brewery Tap.
ART OF CREATION BIG APPLE ASSOCIATION S HARVEST TIME FESTIVAL For anyone interested in what goes into good cider, the Big Apple Association s Harvest Time festival is pure heaven. Generally run over the second weekend in October throughout the Marcle Ridge parishes, many award-winning producers open their doors ‒ and casks ‒ to visitors. There are apple-pressing demos from the likes of the Little Cider Press Company, orchard walks, talks, bike rides and single varietal tastings to choose from. Local pubs and restaurants serve dishes created with apples, pears, perry and cider. ● www.bigapple.org.uk
● www.nationalbrewerycentre.co.uk SPRING 2011 BEER 07
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WHAT’S ON ¦ feature
TELLING TALL TALES WATERMILL INN If you like a good yarn, make a date with the Watermill Inn, in scenic Ings, a few miles from Windermere. Britain s first Storytelling Laureate, Taffy Thomas, sets up residence the first Tuesday of every month in the lounge bar from 7.30pm onwards. Winner of CAMRA s Cumbria Pub of the Year award on more than one occasion, the Watermill has hosted Taffy s tall tales for more than a decade. Currently artistic director of Tales in Trust, the Northern Centre for Storytelling in Grasmere, Taffy attracts storytellers from the locality and around the world to share his stage. Grab your pint of Collie Wobbles (3.7 per cent ABV) ‒ created through the bar s glass wall in landlord Brian Coulthwaite s microbrewery ‒ and try to work out whether Taffy is telling porkies. ● www.watermillinn.co.uk
BACK TO SCHOOL OLD BREWERY
The five-hour course includes a brewery tour and lunch, with dishes such as Meantime Pale Ale braised beef or ploughman s with beer chutney
Fancy broadening your horizons on matters beerrelated? Meantime brewery has teamed up with Greenwich Community College to run beer appreciation masterclasses at Meantime’s micro, the Old Brewery, amid the splendour of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Catering for all levels of knowledge, your tutors – entertaining beer historian Peter Haydon and affable brewer Rod Jones – cover the current brewing scene while also providing the historical context. Held once or twice a month, the five-hour course includes a tour of the brewery and lunch, with classic Old Brewery dishes such as Meantime Pale Ale braised Galloway beef with mashed potato or ploughman’s with beer chutney and Greenwich loaf, matched with a variety of beers and ales. ● www.oldbrewerygreenwich.com; www.meantimebrewing.com
(check under the Corporate/Training tab for dates)
BRING THE FAMILY
NEIL MCALLISTER/ALAMY
WESTONS
As well as a tour that covers both artisanal and modern ways of making cider, for six years Westons has been catering for all ages during the summer by opening its rare breeds farm. This year will be no different, with pigs, goats and shire horses on hand. Based in the cider heartland of Much Marcle in Herts, Westons also boasts a new heritage centre and, if you build up a thirst, there are tastings, a café and the Scrumpy House bistro.
SET IN STONE SQUARE AND COMPASS For all secret fossil hunters and budding stonemasons, the Square and Compass pub on the Purbeck peninsula in Jurassic coast country is the place for you. Located in the secluded village of Worth Matravers, there s been a pub on the site for more than 230 years. It boasts a fossil museum, put together by the current landlord, Charlie Newman, in honour of his late father, Ray. There s also a two-week stone-carving festival open to all. Local stonemasons chip away in a marquee behind the pub, with visitors welcome to take a look and have a go themselves. There s live music every evening throughout the festival, and the fortnight ends with the Square Fair. ● www.squareandcompasspub.co.uk
● www.westons-cider.co.uk SPRING 2011 BEER 09
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feature ¦ WHAT’S ON
MARRY AMONG THE MASH TUNS SHEPHERD NEAME Shepherd Neame is the only British brewery licensed to perform weddings in its brewhouse, offering happy couples a choice between this and its 15thcentury, beamed function room. It is also the only producer still using wooden mash tuns, and these are the favoured backdrop for the ceremony itself. Due to brewing commitments, brewhouse weddings have to be on a Saturday, with couples taking over both visitor centre and brewery for the day. Guests might kick off with a pint of Spitfire (4.2 per cent) in the cosy, panelled bar before the ceremony. Afterwards, the newlyweds choose where they would like their photos taken, whether in the brewhouse itself or perhaps sitting in a vintage dray in the Vaults, the converted old wine and spirits store housing the brewery s collection of historic delivery vehicles. With Shepherd Neame s beer on tap during dinner, guests have their own going-away present: a bottle of their own wedding ale, complete with bespoke label to mark the occasion. ● www.shepherd-neame.co.uk
SUSTAINABILITY IN ACTION PURITY BREWING
As well as a tasty range of beers, Purity has gone one step further in practising what it preaches about supporting the environment. In addition to donating spent grain and hops to local farmers and installing heatexchange technology, founders Paul Halsey and Jim Minkin were the first in the UK to build a wetland and pond system able to naturally cleanse the brewery’s waste water so that it can be safely returned into the local waterways and create a wildlife habitat. Take a walk behind the brewery to see this nine-stage journey, through ditches, ponds, a reedbed and a weir, harnessing the filtering properties of reeds, feeding willow and alder trees along the way, while green algae and other aquatic plants oxidise the water before joining the river a quarter-of-a-mile away. ● www.puritybrewing.com
POETRY AMONG THE TREES ONCE UPON A TREE Once Upon a Tree sources its award-winning fruit from Norman and Ann Stanier s magical Dragon Orchard in Putley, near Ledbury. To make the most of the atmospheric setting, Once Upon a Tree s cider-maker, Simon Day, hit upon the idea of poetry walks. Until now, these have been available on either a self-guided or a pre-booked group basis, with Norman leading them through his family s orchards, taking visitors through the growing season and sharing poems from Charles Bennett s Orchard Days collection. To coincide with the Herefordshire Year of the Orchard, Once Upon a Tree is running the guided tours for individuals on various dates throughout the year, along with other activities including Blossomtime celebrations in May. Check the website for dates. ● www.onceuponatree.co.uk
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TOAST THE TREES
GEOFF LANGAN
WEST CROFT CIDER
Derived from the old Anglo-Saxon was hal meaning ‘be healthy’, wassailing is an ancient fertility ritual with strong resonance among cider and perry producers. Designed to ward off the evil spirits of midwinter and to wake up the trees for the season ahead, it often takes place around Twelfth Night. John Harris at West Croft Cider, near Brent Knoll, Somerset, opts for a slightly later date – the third Saturday in January – but then, his event has grown somewhat over the years. Hundreds of people, young and old, gather at his cider house for mulled wine and pasties before processing out to the orchards for the candle-lit ceremony. Cider-soaked toast is placed in the chosen tree and everyone Designed to joins in the wassail songs, ward off the evil encouraging the tree to spirits of midwinter “bring forth apples – hats and to wake up the trees for the season full, caps full, bushels full ahead, it often takes and sacks full!” After this, place around it’s back to the farm for a Twelfth Night pig roast, belly dancers and bands. With all proceeds going to CLIC Sargent, tickets go on sale in December. Check it out in 2012. ● 01278 760762
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WHAT’S ON ¦ feature
GONE FISHIN’ ASPINALL ARMS The Aspinall Arms location right on the River Ribble in rural Lancashire makes it ideal for a spot of fishing. Day and night tickets are available exclusively from the pub for this 1.5-mile stretch of the river. Here, the Calder and Hodder rivers meet the Ribble, providing good conditions to catch salmon and sea trout. The extensive beer garden gives those not armed with a fishing rod and net a chance to simply enjoy the idyllic setting. There s bed and breakfast available at the pub and check out the Tolkien memorabilia dotted around the building. With its wooded groves and gurgling waterways, the valley provided author JRR Tolkien with inspiration for many of his Middle Earth locations. In celebration of this connection, the pub organises an annual Middle Earth Beer Festival. Check the website for dates and types of fishing on offer. Thanks to sugarvine.com for this tip-off. ● www.aspinallarms.co.uk
READ ALL ABOUT IT BANGERS, BEER ’N’ BANDS THREE MARINERS This year will see the fourth mOare Music Festival take over the gardens of the Three Mariners pub in Oare near Faversham, Kent, for the second weekend of September. Known for the Three Mariners home cooking, licensee Claire Houlihan also puts on an extensive barbecue, local cheese and wine stall and an extra beer tent during the event. Donning the organiser s hat, Claire s partner, former lead singer and guitarist with the Average White Band Hamish Stuart, has swiftly earned the festival a good reputation with his impressive roster of guests. Acts in 2010 included Paul Young s Los Pacaminos and Mike Scott from the Waterboys, plus Chris Gifford from Squeeze and Madness frontman, TV presenter and local lad Suggs. ● www.thethreemarinersoare.co.uk; www.moaremusic.co.uk
WORDS AND WELSH ALE
Fledgling brewer and publican Ed Davies had the brainwave of combining the country’s only completely Welsh beer fest with literature – well, he does live in the home of book festivals, Hay-on-Wye. But, as you’d expect, it’s not just dry readings in regimented lecture theatres. Rather, it’s the meeting of minds between leading brewers and beer writers. Last year, Association of Welsh Independent Brewers chairman and Breconshire brewery head brewer ‘Buster’ Grant kicked off the weekend with a beer walk around the festival’s CAMRA award-winners. Pete Brown talked about his books alongside a tasting of the styles he was writing about. Throw in a sell-out beer- and food-matching dinner led by Melissa Cole, music each evening and family events on Sunday, you can see why the Hay Ale & Literature Festival is already setting its dates for this year. ● www.kilverts.co.uk
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feature ¦ BREWING
give me strength
In the first of a four-part series looking at extreme brewing, Graham Holter considers the case
cent non-bottle-conditioned brew, sold an alcoholic strength that matched the at £500 a go inside the skins of dead beer’s big hop content and full body. brewing industry. On almost a monthly animals – has again raised the bar. “Ethanol has an influence on basis, somebody claims to have made the Does any of this matter to ale lovers? perception of sweetness, bitterness, body world’s strongest beer, only to be trumped Not especially, though higher-strength and viscosity, and interacts flavour-wise a few weeks later by a rival with even imperial stouts and barley wines have with other minor flavour compounds,” more extreme ideas. long commanded the attention Stefano adds. “It also has a Time was when every beer aficionado of beer drinkers looking for warming character that, if knew that the most alcoholic beer on What makes a warming, heady draught excessive, and not balanced the planet was made by Samuel Adams a beer special is to nurse on a cold evening. by other components of in Boston, and called Utopias. Weighing the ingredients, the Such beers can be stronger the beers, becomes harsh in at 24 per cent ABV and presented process, not just the than the dreaded Special in a miniature copper, it was (and is) ABV. I do not think the and hot. It’s all to do with Brew or Skol Super lagers, balance in a beer. Every marketed more as a liqueur than a beer, ABV is a component but their fan bases are component should be well and, despite being banned from sale in that guides choice different. It’s not quite true dosed and come together a host of American states, it has earned that much to say there’s any movement with the rest of the beer.” some sort of respect from connoisseurs. among British ale brewers towards Is there any reason to stop at Alcohol levels in the annual brew of higher alcoholic strengths, but producers 10 per cent? “The challenge is to achieve Utopias peaked at 27 per cent in last such as Thornbridge in the Peak District the completion of fermentation and keep year’s production, but this looks tame are prepared to turn the dial up to the yeast active until it has completed its indeed compared to what followed in 10 per cent on occasion, for purely job. Ten per cent is achievable by most Europe. BrewDog, the Scottish brewer, artistic reasons. yeasts with a bit of looking after and which generally attracts adjectives encouragement. It is also important to such as ‘maverick’, ‘irreverent’ and manage the fermentation in such a way ‘mischievous’, had already raised Brewer Stefano Cossi says the that the yeast does not produce excessive eyebrows with its Tokyo beer, an 18.2 per company’s flagship beer is Jaipur IPA higher alcohols and esters, which would cent stout packaged in 33cl bottles before at 5.9 per cent. “We went up to 11 per make it harsh and solventy. I think 10 it launched the non-bottle-conditioned cent for our Alliance [aged in Madeira per cent is high enough and do not see us Tactical Nuclear Penguin in November barrels], which was the strongest beer we doing anything stronger any time soon.” 2009. At 32 per cent, it was proclaimed ever produced. I believe that a successful the strongest beer ever brewed. brewer must be capable to brew a range Schorschbräu, a German brewer that of beers across the spectrum of flavours, Stuart Howe, brewer at Sharp s prides itself on producing lagers colours, styles and ABVs, and in Cornwall, has briefly and fairly at improbable alcoholic educate consumers and get reluctantly, joined the arms race. “I Called Turbo strengths, hit back with a them excited and talking made a 23 per cent brew that couldn’t Yeast Abomination 40 per cent version of its about them. The ethanol really be called beer because it was made from Hell, it took me Schorschbock. BrewDog content is an instrument from glucose and hops, and called Turbo 20 minutes to make. cranked the alcohol levels to deliver flavour as is Yeast Abomination from Hell,” he says. It was interesting, up another percentage bitterness and sweetness, “It took me 20 minutes to make. It was but ultimately point with Sink the not an end in itself.” interesting, but ultimately disgusting.” disgusting Bismarck and the world Halcyon, the company’s He regards the higher-strength beers record was back in Scottish IPA, comes in at 7.7 per as “a brilliant marketing tool”, but can’t hands. The Germans have since cent. This was no accident of summon much admiration for the craft hit an eye-watering 43 per cent, but the brewing process, Stefano explains: behind them. “There is a misconception BrewDog’s End of History – a 55 per “The intention was always to arrive at among some that super-strong, super-dark, There s an arms race going on in the
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for alcohol levels that go off the dial STRONG STUFF: FIVE MORE BRITISH ALES WITH HIGH ABVS Fuller s Vintage Ale (8.5 per cent ABV): made to a different recipe each year, this bottle-conditioned beer always earns rave reviews for its complexity and balance. Harveys Elizabethan Ale (8.1 per cent): originally brewed for the 1953 coronation, this golden barley wine matches the strength of Tudor beers. The Sussex brewer also has a large following for its Christmas Ale (8.1 per cent) and Imperial Russian Stout (9 per cent). Durham brewery Bede s Chalice (9 per cent): the North East s answer to a Belgian Tripel, available in bottle-conditioned form. Robinson s Old Tom (8.5 per cent): perhaps the most famous strong ale, boosted by a string of major awards. Wensleydale brewery Beaters Winter Ale (8 per cent): an old ale, with a sweetness balanced by an underlying bitter flavour.
MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY
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super-bitter or super-hoppy beers are harder to make than balanced brews. The converse is actually true,” Stuart says. “What makes a beer special is the ingredients, the process, not just the ABV. I do not think the ABV is a component that guides the choice that much, even though traditionally the high-ABV beers were offered on special occasions so they are seen as ‘special’. But high-ABV beers are rarely just that and they get barrel-aged, have additional ingredients, use a particular process, etc, so the connotation is not just the ABV.” He adds: “There is no accomplishment in making a beer stronger. Alcoholics who make 20 per cent, fruit-flavoured, home brew out of sugar, activated highalcohol yeast are not better than brewers who make superbly constructed session bitters. Also, I don’t know of many Michelin-starred chefs who earned their stars by making the world’s biggest pizza.” SPRING 2011 BEER 15
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interview | WHARFEBANK
Yorkshire ales the
Tetley’s may have moved on, but that doesn’t mean brewing has stopped or pride in the region’s beer has disappeared, as Tom Goodhand discovered on the banks of the Wharfe Photographs Charlie Best
WharfeBank brewery may just be the
closest thing to a government-approved beer that we’re likely to find in this country. Its golden ale – Slingers Gold (3.9 per cent ABV) – will soon be available in the House of Commons bar (thanks in no small part to the brewery’s local MP and pub campaigner, Greg Mulholland), and when co-founders Martin Kellaway and Nigel Jowett were searching for funds to set up their project, they received significant support from Yorkshire Forward, the region’s government-funded Regional Development Agency, under its Rural Enterprise Investment Programme. “During the downturn, I think Yorkshire Forward was looking for people who were willing to invest and put their own money forward, and believe in what they’re doing,” explains Martin, WharfeBank’s MD. “I think the management team that we’ve put together and our level of
expertise in sales, marketing, brewing and production impressed them. I also think that Tetley’s movement out of the region had an impact. I think, basically, that it liked the overall project and passion, and the fact we were bringing employment and a quality brand that was localised. Plus, the small independent brewery organisations are prospering.” Yorkshire Forward assistant director of environment Andy Tordoff said: “We chose to support WharfeBank brewery because of the company’s potential, highlighted by its professional business planning and brewing industry experience incorporated in its management team. In turn, this has had a positive impact on the surrounding community as it has created employment in the rural area.” RIGHT: WharfeBank’s MD, Martin Kellaway, has worked in the brewing industry for more than 18 years
We met Martin at the brewery in Poolin-Wharfedale, some 20 minutes north of Leeds and just south of popular market town Otley, on a stereotypical Yorkshire day – cold, grey and windy. The brewery has been properly up and running only since April last year, having previously been housed in a small Leeds brewpub called the Fox & Newt, where the first brews were trialled by a rigorous series of tastings with customers. Since moving out and setting up home in
an old paper mill on banks of the titular River Wharfe, the brewery has established itself well in Yorkshire, sending out some 150 casks a week across the region, and further afield. “The reason we came here to Pool is because we like the location,” says Martin, “being in the middle of Leeds, Harrogate and Ilkley. “All the kit here isn’t Rolls-Royce, but it’s certainly BMW. There’s a lot cheaper kit on the market, but we went for
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There is real Yorkshire heritage here. We ve tried to emphasise the Yorkshire side of what we did. We are Yorkshire, and we re proud of it. We re very proud to be Leeds, and proud of where we are
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WHARFEBANK | interview what we thought would do the job for us over the longer term, because we want to be here building brands.” Martin certainly knows the beer, brewing and pub industry well. “I’ve had 18 or 19 years of beer experience,” he says, “doing it for other people, living out of a suitcase for three or four nights a week, travelling the length and breadth of the country. I was sales director at Caledonian, national accounts director at Fuller’s brewery and I did my training with the Bass group, so I’ve been with three very good operators. I wanted to be at home a little more often – because I have a family life – but also wanted to keep doing it, and I thought I could do it for myself and wanted to head up what’s happening.” Taking large steps early on seems to have
come pretty naturally to the WharfeBank brewery. Before it even set up in its current home, Leeds CAMRA had already proclaimed WharfeBank’s red CamFell Flame (4.4 per cent) its beer of the 2010 festival, at a point when Martin and head brewer Ian Smith hadn’t even settled on a final recipe. “I was very surprised by the award,” says Martin. “It was probably a year earlier than we would have wanted it. We won the award with a trial beer, which obviously encouraged us to keep with that one, which we have. It was 18 March, and we didn’t open here till the end of April, so we probably missed a bit of an opportunity. We can brew up to 80 casks a brew here, whereas at the Fox & Newt, we were full steam ahead, but could produce only 16 casks. We sold half of them in our pub, so we had only eight to sell in the marketplace.” It’s very much a Yorkshire brewery, with Ian having previously been head brewer at the once-proud and mighty Tetley’s. Don’t let Ian’s local brewing background fool you though –
ABOVE: In for the long term – WharfeBank brewery refused to cut corners with its brewing kit specification, which it describes as not Rolls-Royce, but definitely BMW
WharfeBank is set up to brew more than just traditional Yorkshire bitters. “Ian’s a brewing consultant by trade,” explains Martin, “but spends most of his time here because he absolutely adores what we’re doing. Basically, he’s come out of Tetley’s where he was a little bit frustrated – he was brewing to recipes and using a lot of computerised machinery where you just push a button. “For the brewer to stay in Yorkshire, when Tetley’s isn’t, is a great thing. He’s got a lot of expertise; he is a master brewer – the highest accolade of brewing
that you can achieve. Basically, he asks me what style of beers I want; I give him a brief; he goes away to work on recipes; and then comes back with suggestions, some of which obviously haven’t been right – but that’s the nature of the game. Basically, we’re trying to create a bit of a ‘wow factor’ with every beer we brew. “There is real Yorkshire brewing heritage here. We’ve tried a little to emphasise the Yorkshire side of what we did. We want to be seen as modern and vibrant and bring new styles of beers to the marketplace, but we don’t want
“Ian’s a consultant, but spends most of his time here because he adores what we’re doing. He’s come out of Tetley’s where he was a little frustrated – he was brewing using a lot of machinery where you just push a button” SPRING 2011 BEER 19
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WHARFEBANK | interview to alienate ourselves from Yorkshire – we are Yorkshire, and we’re proud of it. We’re very proud to be Leeds, and proud of where we are. I want us to be seen as new, vibrant, having fun, brewing with real passion and pride.” The brewery’s three core beers, the
aforementioned Slingers Gold and CamFell Flame, plus Tether Blond (4.1 per cent) are brewed by Ian alongside recent Heriot-Watt graduate Dhiraj Pujari, and show an understanding of Yorkshire’s brewing tradition, with an eye on the rise of the American craft-beer revolution and a healthy passion for the strong, citrus and fruity hops associated with that style of brewing. A lot of the popular C-hops go into the Tether Blond and Slingers Gold brews, as well as the newer Simcoe from California. Indeed, their love of hops has resulted in a new regular beer, a 5.1 per cent ABV Indian Pale Ale called WISPA (WharfeBank India Strong Pale Ale) – they’re clearly aware of what direction tastes are heading in. “We personally select the hops, having gone away, trialled, looked at other people’s beers, and made sure we got what we want,” says Martin. “We use mostly Simcoe, Chinook and Celia now – it’s personal preference for myself and Ian. We both like American-hopped beers. If we could do them locally as well as that, we’d get them locally, but unfortunately, you can’t.” Ian and Martin have certainly cottoned on to something with their brewing style, with several major pub and bar chains in the area regularly taking their beers, and bars that don’t sell cask ale asking if they can get the ales bottled instead – something they’re going to have to wait until late 2011 for. Is Martin confident that the nation’s MPs in the House of Commons bar will like what WharfeBank is doing?
ClOCkwise frOm TOp lefT: Not a chocolate bar, but a cracking IPA; the brewery is kept busy by strong local demand; US hops – a key to the beer range; production is up in the new premises
“Yes, I am. Greg Mulholland wouldn’t lose face by taking a beer from his constituency that they’d reject, so he’s confident that he’s taken a good beer to his colleagues,” says Martin. The MP has, naturally for such a strong supporter of the pub and brewing industry, been pleased by the appearance of a brewery within his ward, and he was invited to officially open the brewery. “I was absolutely delighted to open the WharfeBank brewery,” he said. “This is great news for beer lovers, but also for the area. I am very excited
to have an excellent new brewery in the constituency, brewing a range of great beer, and really pleased to see it is now being served in a number of local pubs.” Of course, selling your beer in a handful of
local pubs is not enough to sustain an ambitious business like Martin’s, but if the honourable members of the House of Commons take to these well-hopped ales, then perhaps their constituents will, too. If it’s good enough for your MP, then it’s good enough for you, right?
‘The brewery’s three core beers show an understanding of Yorkshire’s brewing tradition, with an eye on the rise of the American craft-beer revolution and a healthy passion for the strong, citrus hops of that style’ SPRING 2011 BEER 21
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ALE, CAESAR? It's not all Peroni for beer lovers in Italy as there has been a craft-brewing explosion over the past five years, as Zak Avery discovered
If I’d come to you five years ago and told you
there was a burgeoning craft beer scene in Italy, encompassing almost every style of beer (real ales, lagers, Belgian-style strong ales and sour beers, international-style IPAs), you’d undoubtedly have told me to stop making it up. You’d have been right to do that – five years ago, there were only about 40 craft breweries in the whole of Italy. But today, if I tell you the same, and you tell me once again to sling my hook, I have hard evidence on my side. In five years, the number of craft breweries has multiplied tenfold, and there are now close to 400. If you couple this statistic to the
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TRAVEL | feature
left: Bar Open
Baladin with its great wall of beer, dozens of special brews and food, including homemade ketchup
Above And RIght:
PhOtOGRaPhy: FRaNcO ORIGlIa/Getty
Bir e Fud is the place to go for a beer and wood-fired pizza
fact that consumption of industrial beer (ie massproduced commercial lager) has decreased by 15 per cent in that time, then clearly, something big is going on in Italy. With this thought in mind, I set off for a two-night break in Rome, with the intention of trying to visit as many of the new generation of great beer bars as I decently could manage in 48 hours. There was just one thing that got in the way of this seemingly simple mission: Rome itself. If you’ve never been to Rome, it’s hard to convey
the deeply distracting nature of the city. You’ll be there as a beer tourist, with a guidebook full of
Post-it notes sticking out of it, maybe a notebook, definitely a camera, and you set off on a mission to find a far-flung bar (say, Pizzarium, north-west of the Vatican). Even if you have a map and you navigate well, your attention will be grabbed by the juxtaposition of an imposing Mediterranean city with bits of its archaeological heritage poking out of the ground at regular intervals. It’s as though the modern city has been thrown over ancient Rome like a blanket, and everywhere you look, the old version has worn a hole and is poking through. But that’s not the only culture shock you’ll have to get used to. While the big national brands of SPRING 2011 BEER 23
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feature | TRAVEL commercial beers are ever-present, look a bit harder and you’ll find the new generation of Italian brewers making world-class beer. And these beers aren’t all filtered and bottled – there is a huge interest in bottle-conditioning and even cask ales. You’d think the fact that Italian for handpull – pompa – is also slang for fellatio might have hampered the take-up of real ale. Talking to bar staff, it’s clear it causes a few giggles, but walking into Brasserie 4:20 and seeing a row of 10 handpulls, showcasing beers from the likes of Thornbridge, Moor Brewing and Dark Star (among others) is both cheering and disorienting. It’s clear that the Romans have the real ale bug big time. Of course, it would be absurd to go to Rome and
drink only British beer. If you want a crash course in what is happening on the brewing scene in Italy, your first stop needs to be Bar Open Baladin. It’s tucked away in a backstreet, and you can easily walk past it without realising what a temple lies behind the shuttered doors. Behind the bar (adorned with three-dozen taps and a few handpumps) is a huge statement of intent, a wall showcasing all that is good about bottled Italian craft beer. As this bar is a collaboration between the breweries Baladin and Birra del Borgo, it doesn’t come as much surprise to find their beer well-represented on the bar and the bottle list, but there are other rarities to be had. At the time of my visit, Cantillon St Lamvinus (5 per cent ABV) and Panil Barriquée Sour (8 per cent) were just the thing to quench the thirst and put an edge on the appetite. And it’s worth sharpening the appetite for the food – fresh specials of the day, plus their own burgers made with a variety of beef that was described as “very special”. It certainly tasted special, enhanced by the addition of homemade ketchup. There’s something reassuring about a place that makes its own ketchup – you get the sense that they are taking the details seriously. Left out of the door of Open Baladin and a short walk to the Ponte Sisto bridge takes you across the Tiber into the atmospheric Trastevere neighbourhood. While Trastevere is mostly postcardperfect, with winding cobbled streets perfect for getting lost in, there are a couple of significant beer destinations just over the river. The first, Bir & Fud (beer and food) is one of the best places to get a
‘If you want a crash course in what is happening, your first stop needs to be Bar Open Baladin. It‘s tucked away in a backstreet, and you can easily walk past it without realising what a temple lies behind the shuttered doors‘
wood-fired pizza, along with a great selection of craft beers. All the food sampled that evening (and as guests of Birra del Borgo brewery owner Leonardo di Vincenzo, we did some fair old sampling) was topnotch, just the sort of unfussy and moderately hearty food that goes perfectly with great beer. The beer list is good, too, with a great range of filtered-draught and bottle-conditioned options available. Should all this fine food and filtered beer leave
you in the mood for something a bit more real, then you have the shortest distance imaginable to travel. Directly across the road from Bir & Fud is
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CloCkwise from far left:
Plenty of choice in Bir & Fud; irreverent and windowless Ma Che Siete boasts an incredible range of beers (right); no fewer than three dozen taps, plus a few handpumps adorn the Bir e Fud bar
the unprepossessing Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa’, (What are you Doing Here?), a splendidly irreverent greeting for a splendidly unlikely bar. Although it’s tiny, with just the bar area and a small windowless room at the back, it has an incredible range of beers from all over the world. There is a definite emphasis on Italian beers, but there is still a great selection overall, plus three handpumps dispensing beers to an interested and knowledgeable crowd of drinkers. There’s a real no-frills feel to Ma Che Siete, as evidenced by the fact that once the bar is full, people call their orders in from the street and take them outside in (sadly ubiquitous) plastic pint pots.
‘Housed in a railway arch off the busy road is a bar so incongruously cool that it seems as though you’ve not just walked into a bar, but stumbled onto a filmset depicting how all bars will be in the future’ To get a feel for Trastevere, it’s entirely possible to wander from Ma Che Siete to another iconic beer destination, Brasserie 4:20, although it is a long walk. It’s almost worth doing, as you get to pass through one of the old gates in the ancient walls, but the sudden switch from cobbled neighbourhood to wide main road lined with garages and furniture sellers is the wrong sort of culture shock. But it’s worth the SPRING 2011 BEER 25
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TRAVEL | feature
journey, as housed in a railway arch off the busy road is a bar so incongruously cool that it seems as though you’ve not just walked into a bar, but stumbled onto a filmset depicting how all bars will be in the future. The keg beers are dispensed from overhead taps, there is a library fridge of vintage 3 Fonteinen lambic, and there is a row of 10 shiny steel handpumps on the bar. Whether you’re a die-hard cask man, or an international beer ticker, there is something for everyone. The list of breweries is top class; Thornbridge, Dark Star, Moor Brewing, Pizza Port, Smuttynose, Mikkeller, Nøgne Ø, and many more. Given that the devil is in the detail, I was surprised not to see Lucifer himself sipping a Toccalmatto Café Racer (4.2 per cent) coffee stout at the bar. The four bars that I feature here are really just
the tip of the iceberg, but they represent the four different faces of beer appreciation currently available in Rome. Bar Open Baladin is a shrine to the fastest-growing craft beer scene in the world right now, Italy itself. Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa’ is a no-nonsense bar that simply believes good beer is the right of anyone who wants it. Bir & Fud is a beer lover’s dream pizza restaurant, and Brasserie 4:20 is a temple to the most iconic and exciting beers available, served in cool surroundings with high-end food alongside. There are many others that feature a great selection of beers, bottled, cask or otherwise, but these four each deserve an evening to themselves to fully appreciate how the beer culture has sprung up in the most unlikely ancient city in Europe. So the next time someone decides to quote a Monty Python film at you and ask, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”, you can reply, “Built an international beer scene to rival the best in the world.” That should give them something to ponder.
all: Is this the
future for bars? Improbably cool Brasserie 4:20 has a filmset feel with beer served from overhead taps and 10 handpumps, plus bottles
furTher InformaTIon
Plan your Roman beer holiday from home Bar Open Baladin 6, Via Degli Spiecchi, Campo dei Fiori, Rome www.openbaladin.com Bir & Fud 23, Via Benedetta, Trastevere, Rome birefud.blogspot.com Brasserie 4:20 82, Via Portuense, Trastevere, Rome www.brasserie420.com (not currently maintained) Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa’ 25, Via Benedetta, Trastevere, Rome www.football-pub.com/en SPRING 2011 BEER 27
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ROCK STEADY When Dire Straits bass guitarist John Illsley bought his local, he took on one of his toughest audiences ever. Helen Fretter visited him at the East End Arms, outside Lymington, to find out how he has built a new fan base
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CELEBRITY ¦ feature
I first thought ‘God, do you really want the sleepy New Forest learnt that their to own a pub?’, then I thought, actually, local was to be bought by a member of why not?” a legendary rock band, they could be While the 1990s saw an explosion in forgiven their caution. A quiet pint is gastropubs, it’s fair to say nobody could not the signature tipple of rock gods accuse John of excessively gentrifying more normally associated with hard his new purchase. The saloon, with its liquor and champagne than real ales. tiny bar, still features mismatched pews, However, the patrons of the East End unidentifiable agricultural implements Arms need not have worried. The rusting gently on the ceiling, music legend in question was and bizarre pieces of pub Southampton no transatlantic stranger memorabilia, including a buying the pub on a mysterious log adorned Hythe whim, but John Illsley, New Forest with names, perched National Park Portsmouth on a cluttered bass guitarist for Dire East End Arms l e n Straits during the mantelpiece over t S o Lymington e 1980s and early 1990s, the working fires. Cowes T h now a resident of East “When I bought I sle of Wight End – a small hamlet it, I was sent a letter in Hampshire – and a signed by a few of the familiar face at the pub guys that come into the that bears its name. pub, saying we don’t care The East End Arms is about as far as what you do with the lounge bar, you can get from the world of showbiz, but will you please just leave our bar situated as it is in the New Forest alone; don’t touch anything. At that National Park, a part of the world so particular point we had holes in the rural that my approach to the pub is ceiling, we had the most disgusting thwarted first by a herd of cows in the chairs, and I put a letter up in the back lane, and then by a half-dozen bushyof the bar, saying ‘Rest assured, I will tailed donkeys obstinately grazing the not touch anything, even the holes in verges, while the ponies the area is so the ceiling!’ Obviously we have given famed for dot the common land nearby. it a coat of paint since, but you’ve got So, how did a man who toured the to be very, very careful.” world to entertain legions of fans become attached to this particular corner of southern England? “It was pure coincidence,” says John, now 61. “I happened to be staying with friends, and they said there was a house for sale along the beach, I went to have a look and just fell in love with it. That was 20-odd years ago, in 1988.” The East End Arms featured large in John’s new life in Hampshire from the outset. “Because this is the closest pub to the house, we used to have meetings with the builders and the architects here. And so I got to know the landlord quite well and he announced one day that Whitbread, which owned the place, had to get rid of it. My ears pricked up and
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLIE BEST; MAP ILLUSTRATION: JOHN PLUMER
When the regulars of a country pub in
However, this is also a pub with a strong foodie element, and the next-door lounge has been reinvented as a simple, but welcoming restaurant space, with scrubbed pine tables and black and white photographs of the music world’s great and good displayed alongside sketches and prints by John himself. Outside there is a beer garden, and upstairs, the latest addition – a handful of en suite rooms for anyone who fancies making a holiday out of their trip to the New Forest and, no doubt, for those who find themselves succumbing to the pub’s liquid refreshments, too. One of the reasons why I bought it
was because no one had changed the fundamental feel of the place; it’s still the same as it was in 1830,” says John. “So you’ve got this basic public bar where people can come in with their muddy boots and their dogs – which is what they do – and it’s a great meeting place. It serves two purposes: people come here to drink, obviously, and socialise, but it’s also a focal point for the local community and I see that as a really, really important aspect of it. On the other side we’ve got what is now the restaurant, and that’s doing extremely well. We’ve got a very good chef at the moment, and there seems to be a nice balance between the two.”
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CELEBRITY | feature
which to me is just a classic beer. It’s not too strong, about 3.8 per cent ABV, and we get through 650 pints of that a week. And then they do a Fortyniner, which is 4.9 per cent ABV, obviously, and those two are the sort of mainstays of the pub. And then, in the winter, we have one guest beer, and in the summer, we usually have two.” The pub’s current manager is Sarah-Jane Old, whom John defers to on the everyday running of the pub – although he will admit to voicing opinions on what music “They’re very should be played and loyal. Sarah really provides an iPod of “I worked that out, and it was eight pints relates to them, and background tracks. “They’re probably a day, basically. They that’s critical. If you bored to death of it, came in at lunchtime get the wrong person but I don’t want any and they drank four behind the bar, it can bloody hip-hop in pints of mild – which is not very strong. And destroy trade in the here!” he jokes. John also leaves choosing then they’d come in at shortest time” the guest beers to Sarah – 6.30, sit down in the same although regulars will put in place and have another four their own requests. Last year, there was pints, and then they’d go home. They’ve a call for an Old Thumper Day devoted earned those seats, and we’ve kept the to Ringwood’s 5.6 per cent beer, which mild on just for them – although now proved popular. other people are drinking it, too!” “There’s quite a serious beer-drinking Besides the mild, the East End Arms stocks ales from local Hampshire brewery crowd around here, and the thing about beer drinkers is that when they find a Ringwood, with a range of guest beers. good pub, they stay with it, basically,” “The biggest seller is the Ringwood Best,
It’s not just the public bar décor which has stood the test of time; many of the patrons are exceptionally loyal. “I came in for a pint with a friend once, when I first bought the pub, and sat in that table in the window at about 12 o’clock. And the manager at the time said, ‘John, I’m sorry, you can’t sit there.’ I said, ‘OK, why not?’ And he replied, ‘Because in about five minutes, Reg and Les are going to come in and there’s them two’s seats. They sit there every day, and between the two of them, they get through a barrel of mild a week.’”
comments John. “They’re very loyal. Sarah, the manager, really relates to them, and that’s absolutely critical. If you get the wrong person behind the bar, it can destroy trade in the shortest possible time; it’s quite extraordinary.” It’s not just the staff that John finds
can change the atmosphere of his pub – what goes in the glasses can make a massive difference, too. He was once quoted as saying he didn’t want lager drinkers in his pub, which seemed to ruffle a few feathers, but John explains his reasoning: “We obviously sell quite a lot of lager as well, but there was a time, just after I bought it, when we were serving two or three quite strong lagers here and we were getting real problems. “It’s just not the kind of pub where you want 20 18-year-olds getting very drunk and then wondering how they’re going to get home. We’re in the New Forest and it’s quite an isolated sort of place. So, for a while, it was a little sensitive. The manager who was here at the time said it was a real problem, and I simply said, we’ll take the lagers off, just have one basic bog-standard lager on, and they just drifted away.” The bar mainstays from Ringwood are usually brewed just a few miles away, and the restaurant also specialises in
SPRING 2011 BEER 31
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04/01/2011 16:17
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06/01/2011 13:03
CELEBRITY | feature
local produce. “Most of what we serve in the restaurant is as local as we can get it. We’re very fortunate in that we’ve got a fantastic fishmonger who’s about three or four miles away, and we’ve also got a local fisherman who catches lobsters and crabs out of the Solent,” explains John. However, the guest beers give drinkers a chance to taste ales from a wider area. “They come from all over,” he says. “It’s all beautifully stored and we’ve got a special rack where we put the barrels on. I think Sarah likes to keep the variety up and keep people’s interest.” Besides variety, what else does John
think is key to his pub’s success? “The crucial element is consistency. You’ve got to keep the beer well, you’ve got to know how to clean those pipes, make sure you’re not ever serving a bad pint – because these guys will tell you straight! And if word gets around that you’re selling a bad pint, you’re in trouble.” John applies the same principles to his pub ownership that he did to his time with global supergroup Dire Straits. The band founded by Mark Knopfler, David Knopfler, Pick Withers and John was famed for its music, not for the typical rock star excesses. Conceding that he would only tuck a supply of wine into the bottom of the tour bus, John explains:
“I know this sounds terribly boring, but injecting life into these places, because we were quite strict in our band with if you don’t, then people will drift off drinking and drugs. Mark and I had a somewhere else.” pretty firm policy about all that kind of Is John – famed for Dire Straits hits stuff. If you’re playing five, sometimes such as ‘Money for Nothing’ and ‘Sultans six, nights a week, you cannot afford of Swing’ and still recording as a solo to misbehave, because if you’re on the artist – never tempted to take to the road for a year and a half, which we were microphone during one of the pub’s sometimes, after about three or four live music nights? “I haven’t, actually! I months you’d be in a pickle. So we had suppose I ought to. They keep on saying, quite a disciplined outlook and, as ‘Come on, John!’, but for some reason, a consequence of it, the tours we did I’m slightly nervous of it. I’ve got a new were always very consistent and good record out in May, so I’m about to quality, and I think the band do a few dates in England and “Crucial got known for that.” Europe for that, which I’m But, of course, the looking forward to – it is consistency. other important makes a record come You’ve got to keep ingredient to both alive when you start the beer well, make sure playing it in front of a great gig and great you’re not ever serving people. Here it would pub is atmosphere. “On Friday night, just have to be me a bad pint – because there’s a real meeting and somebody else. these guys will tell of people. It spills There’s a girl called you straight!” out onto the front and Polly Wood who did a into the garden and is a lot of backing vocals, which real big institution here,” says John. has given the new record a lovely “But, funnily enough, my favourite is quality, and she plays acoustic guitar, Christmas morning; there’s probably so… I might suggest it! ‘Come down and a couple of hundred people here. We play in the pub!’ That’d be good fun.” serve snacks and have a big Christmas East End Arms, Lymington, Hampshire draw. We also celebrate Burns Night SO41 5SY. Tel: 01590 626223. John and we occasionally have a musical duo Illsley’s new album Streets of Heaven playing in the bar. You’ve got to keep is out now (Creek Records). SPRING 2011 BEER 33
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regional report ¦ MANCHESTER
Northern nights
of
Despite the depressing demise of a once-great beer, Manchester still boasts more than its share In the north of Manchester s city centre,
between Strangeways Prison and the MEN Arena, there’s a dispiriting sight. Land that was once home to the world-famous Boddingtons brewery is now just a scruffy car park. The presence of the old brewery chimney – a cenotaph for the industrially fallen – is the only indicator that here, on this very spot, one of Britain’s great beers was once proudly produced. Boddingtons closed in 2005, the victim of consolidation in the brewing industry. Its future looked shaky from the moment the Boddingtons company sold the brewery to Whitbread in 1989 and retired to running pubs and nursing homes. Investment in the straw-coloured bitter continued awhile – remember the commercials starring Melanie Sykes? – but, as the beer became a national brand, its fascination for discerning drinkers dwindled, perhaps – as many will tell you – aided by a loss of character in the beer itself. Then Whitbread fell into the hands
of Interbrew, later to become InBev, whose real interest in the UK lay in its value as a market for Stella Artois. They took the axe to the brewery, and moved production of the so-called ‘Cream of Manchester’ elsewhere. The Strangeways complex was soon razed to the ground. This is a rather depressing way
to open a review of the Manchester brewing scene, but it serves as a dour, if handy, contrast to the very bright things that are going on in Manchester today. While Boddingtons has gone, other historic breweries happily survive. More than in any other UK city, traditional family brewers are alive and well here, with no fewer than four established in the 19th century still doing business.
Jeff Evans is the author of CAMRA s Good Bottled Beer Guide, now in its seventh edition, and has written widely on beer and brewing
Read more of Jeff s work at www.insidebeer.com
Hydes, for example, in the Moss Side district, has benefited from the closure of Boddingtons, picking up what remains of the cask production of the Boddingtons brand. Added to its own selection of ales, including the fruity Jekyll’s Gold (4.3 per cent ABV), and the trade from 70 traditional pubs, it ensures the business is in good order, nearly 150 years after it was founded. To the north of the city centre, in the suburb of Middleton, stands JW Lees, a company set up in 1828. Its beers can be found in 180 pubs in the North West and even in north Wales, with the Rain Bar, a converted umbrella factory in Manchester city centre, one of the most prominent. Among Lees’ notable products is the internationally renowned Harvest Ale (11.5 per cent), a bottled barley wine produced annually and vintage-dated. Joining Hydes and Lees as a Manchester survivor is Joseph Holt, established in 1849 and long known for its excellent-value beer,
34 BEER SPRING 2011
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o
of family and new brewers, as Jeff Evans reports with the tasty Mild (3.2 per cent) and the notably bitter Bitter (4 per cent) retailing at bargain prices in the company’s pubs. The largest of the great survivors, however, is Robinson’s, inhabiting an imposing brewhouse in Stockport, just south of the city centre, and shipping beer to an estate of around 400. The highlight of the range is the complex and dark Old Tom (8.5 per cent), commonly found in stubby bottles featuring the brewery cat on the label. But brewing in Greater Manchester
PHOTOLIBRARY; ALAMY
e
doesn’t just revolve around businesses that grew up during the Industrial Revolution. The area is also home to no fewer than 19 breweries whose histories stretch back no further than 30 years. Among the numerous microbrewers that have made their mark are Boggart Hole Clough (named after a local park and now housed on the site of the old Wilson’s brewery that closed in 1986) and Bank Top (located in a former tennis pavilion in Bolton). There are also Millstone near Oldham (in a former
Investment in the straw-coloured bitter continued, but as the beer became a national brand, its fascination for discerning drinkers dwindled
cotton mill) and Shaws in Dukinfield (in the former stables of an earlier Shaws brewery that closed in the 1940s), as well as the modestly named Outstanding brewery in Bury, fronted by brewery consultant Dave Porter. It produces a wide range of Outstanding beers, many available in bottle-conditioned form. Possibly the most celebrated of the new brewers, however, is Marble. Mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Thornbridge and BrewDog among the cognoscenti, Marble’s home is the historic Marble Arch Inn, an eccentric old building not far from the compressed rubble of the Boddingtons site. The pub is long and narrow, tiled from girdered ceiling to mosaic floor,
with a slope of a foot or more down from the front door to the bar. That could be because the bar is weighed down by so many beer engines. Eleven cask ales are on offer, most generated by its own little brewhouse. To keep up with demand, Marble has also now acquired a second brewery, around the corner in former railway arches, and its beers – from the pale Manchester Bitter (4.2 per cent) to the dark Chocolate (5.5 per cent) – are increasingly to be found further afield. There are plenty of other success stories with which to conclude this snapshot of Manchester brewing, including that of Oak brewery that was founded in 1982 and, on the back of increased success, transferred to Manchester nine years later. It took up residence in a disused Victorian brewhouse and adopted its name. As Phoenix, it is still going strong, turning out beers such as Wobbly Bob (6 per cent). In a convenient way, Phoenix provides a metaphor for the resilience of the Manchester breweries. They can knock them down, but they keep rising from the ashes. SPRING 2011 BEER 35
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PEAK DISTRICT ¦ pub tour
PEAK TRAVEL In search of previous pub tour perfection, Will Larter and 15 friends roamed the Peak District in epic, chauffeur-driven style sampling the region s finest The ideal country pub tour would involve
being driven around a selection of excellent real ale houses by an obliging non-drinking car owner. And this is just what a few of us did a couple of years ago, starting in Sheffield and taking in a circuit of the Peak District, including the then-home of the Leatherbritches brewery at Fenny Bentley, the incomparable and unique Yew Tree at
Cauldon, the delightful and quirky Travellers Rest just outside Flash, the highest village in the country, and the excellent Red Lion at Litton. This summer, in an attempt to recreate this pub-tour perfection, and bearing in mind that obliging non-drinking car owners are not to be imposed upon too frequently, we set out on a similar circuit, but this time by minibus. Although
minibus hire is more expensive than buying your friendly driver’s petrol and soft drinks, it’s easily affordable if a full bus load can be arranged – in this instance, 16 of us. Postcodes are included in the description to help those who want to MAIN: Peak practice ‒ stunning views, like this one from the Roaches, line the route INSET: Unique Yew Tree at Cauldon
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Castleton
Whaley Bridge
Bakewell
Travellers Rest Do ve
D
Blue Mugge
ea k
Leek:
Matlock
P
Leek
Tittesworth Reservoir
is tr ic t
Flash
Red Lion
Longshaw Derwent
Tideswell Litton
SHEFFIELD
Whim Grouse
N a t i o n a l
Chapel-enle-Frith Barrel Inn Bretton
Buxton
Next stop was the aforementioned
Ladybower Reservoir
P e a k
P a r k
H i g h
Den Engel, Leatherbritches Carsington Wilkes Head, Fenny brewery Water Bentley Red Lion, Cauldon Bird in the Hand Ashbourne Yew Tree Green Man & Black’s Head
Although minibus hire is more expensive than buying your driver s petrol and soft drinks, it s affordable if a full bus can be arranged. Postcodes are included in the description to help recreate the route using satnav or Google Maps recreate the route using satnav or Google Maps. First stop on leaving Sheffield was Ashbourne, about an hour’s drive, the home since 2008 of the Leatherbritches brewery. The GREEN MAN & BLACK S HEAD (DE6 1GH) is the oddly named venue, clearly an amalgamation of two neighbouring hostelries. Paul, our driver, had to drop us off in the market place just around the corner, as the pub is on Ashbourne’s tricky one-way system. We invaded the Boswell Lounge, the smaller of the two bars, which went from empty to full in the blink of an eye. A stunning selection of ales included several Leatherbritches brews, of which Scoundrel at 4.1 per cent ABV proved popular, plus a number of other local ales, including Blue Monkey Amarillo (3.9 per cent) and Peakstones Rock Nemesis (3.8 per cent). We could happily have stayed here all day, but that would have been a waste of the minibus and, besides, we had other treats in store.
YEW TREE INN (ST10 3EJ), a few miles to
the west along the A52 and A523, in the unpromising environs of a cement works. Check out the Good Beer Guide (GBG) entry or, better still, get yourself out to Cauldon before it disappears (not that there should be any danger of that in this case, but see below). Beers included wellkept Burton Bridge Bitter (4.2 per cent) and Rudgate Ruby Mild (4.4 per cent) – lager and cider being available only from supermarket bottles. It being lunchtime, some pub crawlers were in danger of overindulging in pork pies and freshly made sandwiches. As well as its living-museum character, this pub is also a welcoming local, and the landlord even came to wave as we drove from the car park. We had to drag ourselves away from the
Yew Tree before closing time to be sure of reaching the next pub before last orders. The BLUE MUGGE (ST13 6LJ) is on a ST13 5HJ) on the market square. At Den Victorian housing-cum-industrial estate Engel, there are real ales on handpump, on the fringes of Leek. On my first visit but the Belgian-style café bar also boasts here, I circled the area several times on many foreign beers on fonts, and is a my bike before finding the pub, because popular venue for local drinkers and it just doesn’t look like one at all. It’s just shoppers. The Wilkes Head features a street-corner house, with a Tardis-like Whim brewery product as well as guest central bar and innumerable pictures of ales, of which Peakstones Rock Queen Victoria. Bass was the beer CAMRA is a Black Hole at 4.8 per cent of choice here before the campaign of two went down well. afternoon hiatus at three halves and isn t just about Next stop was the o’clock. We then walked campaigning ‒ CAMRA members enjoy the social side of their local the quarter of a mile TRAVELLERS REST into Leek town centre, branches as well... as Will s pub tour (SK17 0SN) at Flash demonstrates. Check out the What s while Paul took his Bar on the A53, the On section, and your local branch statutory break. main road from Leek to newsletter and website for full Leek is well provided Buxton. This is a superb details of CAMRA social events in your area with good real ale outlets. location, high up in the and get involved The proposed venues were Staffordshire moors at about 1,500 feet above sea level, and DEN ENGEL (Stanley Street almost as sought after as the Yew ST13 5HG) and WILKES HEAD Tree for its idiosyncrasy and charm. (St Edward Street ST13 5DS), but we Unfortunately, the previous landlord also sampled the RED LION (a Hydes pub, had retired and the new owners had ST13 5HH) and the BIRD IN HAND chosen to replace his assorted bric-à-brac (Marston’s Bitter – 3.8 per cent, and with tasteless plastic tat, with grossly Wychwood Hobgoblin – 4.5 per cent,
38 BEER SPRING 2011
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PEAK DISTRICT ¦ pub tour
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:
Blue Mugge, Leek; Wilkes Head, Leek; Barrel Inn, Bretton; Green Man & Black s Head, Ashbourne
uncomfortable chairs and horrible mirrors in a sort of Lord-of-the-Rings-meetsDungeons-and-Dragons theme. The beers, previously from Whim (10 miles away), had been replaced by Fuller’s (200 miles distant). A disappointing experience.
ALAMY; MAP ILLUSTRATION: JOHN PLUMER
Fortunately, the next stop was the ever-reliable RED LION INN (SK17 8QU)
at Litton, which, although always crowded to the point of overflowing, manages to provide an excellent pub experience, with real ales and food served speedily and efficiently in a friendly atmosphere. Local beers are always available here, including Barnsley Bitter and Copper Dragon Golden Pippin (not so local really, coming from Skipton, but next door compared to Fuller’s). The sun was going down as we approached the BARREL INN (S32 5QD) in Bretton, atop an escarpment overlooking the ‘plague village’ of Eyam in the valley below. This is a food-oriented pub, especially in the evenings, but there
are benches outside for the view, and a covered yard, if chilly. Greene King beers were available, including Abbot (5 per cent) and Olde Trip (4.3 per cent). Final stop of the day, in gathering darkness on the way back to Sheffield, was the GROUSE INN (S11 7TZ), on the A625 at Longshaw. This was another busy food pub, but there is a back bar (not open for service, but we made use of the seating) and a conservatory with grapevines. Beers were fairly standard offerings, including Banks’s and Tetley’s. We returned home to Sheffield, determined to ‘do it again soon’.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE PART? BEER s Pub Tour is written by you! If you ve been on a memorable real ale trail, tell us about it. We re also after My Local submissions ‒ celebrate your local pub by telling us what makes it so special. For both Pub Tour and My Local features, we ll need 1,000 words and a selection of high-resolution digital pictures, sent to tom.stainer@camra.org.uk
FURTHER READING
Make your next pub tour just as adventurous as Will s with CAMRA s Pub Walks guides. These practical, pocket-sized traveller s guides to some of the best pubs and finest walking in the most beautiful areas of the country are written by experienced walker and beer lover Bob Steel. Peak District Pub Walks is already available from the CAMRA bookshop at www.camra.org.uk, and look out for Bob s latest, Lake District Pub Walks, which will be available soon. The latest in the series features 30 tours, as well as useful information about local transport and accommodation. Each route has been selected for its inspiring landscape, historic interest and its beer ‒ with the walks taking you on a tour of the best real ale pubs the area has to offer.
SPRING 2011 BEER 39
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food ¦ REAL BREAD
TASTE TEST BREAD
THOROUGH BREAD There s more to the bond between bread and beer than just common ingredients You must have noticed that
the sublime aromas of beer brewing and bread baking are uncannily alike. Hardly surprising when three of the key ingredients – grain, yeast and water – are the same. As is the alchemy unleashed during fermentation. In the same way, members of the Campaign for Real Ale and the Real Bread Campaign are fellow travellers. Many, indeed, sit at the same pub table enjoying a pint and a ploughman’s with hearty bread made by a real baker. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that Andrew Whitley, co-founder of Real Bread, was a home-brewer and one of CAMRA’s earliest members. “To some extent, it was CAMRA’s stance on what was being done to beer in the name of price and convenience that set me
knowing what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. In 1976, he founded the Village Bakery in Cumbria, which became one of the country’s best-known organic bakeries and got real bread into supermarkets. His acclaimed book Bread Matters, ‘a critique of industrial bread-making’, blasts factoryproduced ‘keg’ bread mixing inferior ingredients with additives, preservatives and flavourings in a high-speed process he saw as harmful to health and the antithesis of the sort of lusty loaf that is the staff of life. Like beer in pre-CAMRA days, it reached the point, he says, where little real bread remained and the nation ate stodgy sliced white made by a process he describes as “the replacement of time by chemicals and intense energy,
Susan Nowak writes CAMRA s Good Pub Food and has made many TV and radio appearances talking about cooking and eating with beer
a kind of broth of flour, water, synthetic additives and emulsifiers all whizzed up together”. Like real ale, real bread can’t be rushed; his campaign specifies at least four hours’ fermentation. “We now know fermentation is very important to the structure of the dough in making nutrients for the human body,” he adds. CAMRA s success made him
dream of a bread campaign. In 2008, he got the opportunity under the umbrella of Sustain – the alliance for better food and farming – with dough (sorry) from the Lottery’s Local Food scheme. Real Bread now has more than 400 members – around a third of them commercial bakers and millers. Perhaps one day they’ll achieve CAMRA’s 100,000. “I see a convergence of the two campaigns,” says Andrew. “The pub and the bakery are part of the social glue that holds communities together. To bring the two under one roof – a microbrewery as well
as a bakery – would be a great format. We’d be saying: ‘Look, we’re doing something quite similar here, so enjoy them both together.’ The miracle of fermentation creates something enjoyable using organisms we don’t totally control. “The baker’s skill is in trapping the carbon dioxide
His book blasts keg bread mixing inferior ingredients with additives, preservatives and flavourings in a high-speed process he saw as harmful to health and the antithesis of the loaf that is the staff of life produced by the yeast in the dough, to make the bread rise. The brewer wants the yeast to convert the sugar mainly into alcohol, with a little bit of fizz from the carbon dioxide.” CAMRA is also a member of Sustain, represented by research and information manager Iain Loe, who chairs Real Bread’s working party.
40 BEER SPRING 2011
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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:
Perfect partners ‒ beer and bread; Guy Sheppard collecting barm at Exe Valley brewery; real deal ‒ Jules Smith (left) and Ken Horne with their loaves; kneads must...
FRAN NOWAK
Monks came up with the expression liquid bread for beer. In Mesopotamia, bread was soaked in water until it fermented and the liquid used to make beer. In Finland, they still use baker s yeast to make a farm beer called Sahti “The two industries are somewhat similar. Two or three major bakeries have 80-90 per cent of the bread market, then some medium-sized ones have been going for quite a while, and then there are lots of small ones who have come in recently,” he says. With Iain’s support, the campaign supplied real bread as palate-cleansers for judges at this year’s Champion Beer of Britain competition. He points out historic connections between bread and beer: “The Trappist monks came up with the expression ‘liquid bread’ for beer. “Long ago, in Mesopotamia, bread was soaked in water until it fermented and the liquid was used to make beer. In Finland, they still use baker’s yeast to make a farmhouse beer called Sahti,” says Iain. Conversely, brewer’s yeast was once used to make bread before baker’s yeast was developed – and the custom has been triumphantly revived by two bakers near Exeter. Pin
Pastry partners Ken Horne and home-brewer Jules Smith, members of both the real bread and real ale campaigns, use frothing barm from Exe Valley brewery in their loaves. They add warm water to the
barm, then feed a little of it with equal quantities of water and flour to form a bread starter known as a poolish. Starters for their different breads – from plain white to mixed grain, rye and ciabatta – are left to ferment overnight. “Production takes at least 16 hours from starter to coming out of the oven,” says Ken. Their special brewer’s loaf is absolute manna from heaven: truly a marriage between brewing and baking. “We take barley and mash it as you would making beer, and then drain off the wort,” explains Jules. Steeped hops are also involved in these loaves, which have all the mouthfeel, chewy malt and hint of bitterness of beer. “What we plan to do is experiment with beer styles to
make different loaves, so you could match beers to breads,” says Ken. Expansion plans include introducing their range of beer breads to pubs. At the 20-barrel Exe Valley brewery, 13 miles away in Silverton, owner/brewer Guy Sheppard is happy to accept a weekly loaf as payment. “I just give them barm from whatever we’re brewing,” says Guy. I think eating sourdough bread is as close as it gets to biting into beer. In pubs, I hate getting a beautiful, home-made soup with a pap-filled roll with rock-hard crust. So endorse Andrew Whitley’s plea to publicans: “Get real – don’t think you’ve completed the job just by selling real ale. Find a real-bread baker to give your pub something really unique.” ● For more information, visit www.realbreadcampaign.org and www.breadmatters.com. Pin Pastry is hoping to have its first website online soon.
Bread recipe
I have been experimenting with beer bread in my breadmaker and, after trial and error, getting fantastic results. Here is my method: › My local yacht club gives me the thick ullage left in the bottom of the cask in a bottle (mostly Doom Bar, which works really well). After a day or so, I pour off most of the beer that has risen to the top. › Give the bottle a good shake so it froths, leave it somewhere warm for about 30 minutes, then shake. Use the thick, yeasty liquid to replace the amount of water specified in your breadmaker s recipe. › Shake the bottle again and add the extra froth before your dry ingredients. I like to use organic wheat flour ‒ equal quantities of strong white, wholemeal and mixed. Though you can try rye flour or other sorts. › I still add the dried yeast specified in the recipe. But, though the yeast in the ullage must be mostly spent, I get a much better risen loaf than if I just use water ‒ and the flavour/aroma is superb. SPRING 2011 BEER 41
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04/01/2011 10:22
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TASTE TEST PORTER
PIGGING OUT ON PORTER Where better to shelter during one of the coldest weeks in recent memory, than the Pig s Ear Beer and Cider Festival, in Hackney, London? Our volunteer tasters warded off the cold by sampling their way through the excellent porters, which had made it through to the final table at the Champion Beer of Britain tasting session hosted by the festival The Pig s Ear Beer Festival is held in Hackney every year at the end of November/start of December. Check out What s Brewing for the 2011 dates and venue details, or visit www.pigsear.org.uk later this year for information. Thanks to organiser Derek Jones and all the Pig s Ear volunteers for helping BEER with this tasting.
FULLER’S LONDON PORTER According to Fuller’s, it is widely regarded as the ‘world’s finest porter’ and is regularly voted number one by beer fans across the world. It’s a rich, dark and complex 5.4 per cent ABV porter made with brown, crystal and chocolate malts, balanced by Fuggles hops. But will it hit the spot for our panel? COMMENTS
PILGRIM PORTER At 4.1 per cent, this is a richly coloured porter, which is sweetish when young, but develops a deeper body after it’s conditioned in a cellar. Will it make progress here? COMMENTS
› Slightly hoppy on the nose › Tastes very much like a mild › Slightly orangey, medicinal aroma › Refreshing with a slightly fizzy aftertaste
Named after a 19thcentury shipwreck near Littlehampton, from which several hundred intact bottles of porter were recovered in 1983. First produced in 2007, Bottle Wreck Porter (4.7 per cent) is a traditional brew with chocolate, coffee and rich malt flavours. Does it warm our panel’s cockles? COMMENTS
› Subtle aroma, but that s not a bad thing › Chocolately, almost thick taste › Light, slightly bitter aftertaste
› Dark, dark, ruby hue › Not overpowering smell, but makes you want to drink › Good taste for a dark beer ‒ coffee and chocolate and smooth, not rough › Smooth, but strong
APPEARANCE 8/10 AROMA 7/10 TASTE 14.5/20 TOTAL 29.5/40 ANOTHER? FIVE SAID YES, ONE POSSIBLY, ONE NO
HAMMERPOT BOTTLE WRECK PORTER
APPEARANCE 7/10 AROMA 6/10 TASTE 14/20 TOTAL 27/40 ANOTHER? SIX SAID YES, JUST ONE WOULDN’T
APPEARANCE 7/10 AROMA 6/10 TASTE 12/20 TOTAL 25/40 ANOTHER? DIVISIVE, FOUR SAID NO, THREE YES
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TASTING | beer
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TASTING | beer
RESULTS It’s a photo finish, but White Horse’s Dark Horse Porter wins by a nose from Fuller’s London Porter. All our tasters praised the high quality of the stouts and porters on offer, but said dividing a fine field had been a difficult – if enjoyable – task.
GADDS’ DOGBOLTER Eddie Gadd was inspired while working for the Firkin brewpub chain, and this is a recreation of the 1979 David Bruce recipe. Roast barley and crystal malt combine to give a ruby colour, plus sweet mocha and toast flavour. Oats in the mash and late Fuggles hops give balance to this 5.6 per cent dark porter. Does the panel think this dog hunts? COMMENTS
› Very pleasant tasting with a bitter aftertaste › Creamy head with an earthy brown appearance. Aroma smells ‘warm’, if that is possible! › Biscuit aftertaste with bittersweet notes
APPEARANCE 7.5/10 AROMA 5.5/10 TASTE 13/20 TOTAL 26/40 ANOTHER? ANOTHER DIVISION, FOUR NO, THREE YES
VALE BLACK BEAUTY PORTER
WHITE HORSE BLACK HORSE PORTER
Award-winning and wholesome, Vale’s Black Beauty weighs in at 4.3 per cent. Does the panel approve of its heavy malt flavour giving way to a ‘wonderful hop character’?
This porter usually joins the White Horse stable as a seasonal in August/October – but here’s hoping they may be persuaded to make it available for longer. It’s a fullbodied 5 per cent beer, with a balance of roasted grain and fruity, smooth aftertaste, with a hint of Kentish hop bitterness. What does the panel make of this gift horse?
COMMENTS
› Jet-black with a white head. Striking › Too malty on the nose for me, but a smooth and rounded flavour when you taste
APPEARANCE 6/10 AROMA 5/10 TASTE 14/20 TOTAL 25/40 ANOTHER? ANOTHER DIVISION, FOUR NO, THREE YES
COMMENTS
› Nice and dark to look at › Is that slight butterscotch on the nose? › Slight coffee, roast aroma › The coffee continues when you taste – slightly diluted, but nice
APPEARANCE 7.5/10 AROMA 7.5/10 TASTE 15/20 TOTAL 30/40 ANOTHER? FIVE TO ONE IN FAVOUR OF ANOTHER, ONE POSSIBLE
THE PANEL › Lucy Scotcher Creative director, Leyton, London › Felix Ormerod Postal worker, E5, London › Nick Feldman Designer E10, London › Geraldine Parker Librarian, E14, London › Robin Walters Police officer, St Neots, Cambs › Mike Oliver Barristers’ chambers administrator, N1, London › John Snuggs Retired journalist, W8, London
Tastings in BEER are intended as informative entertainment only. They are not intended to be an official judging process representative of the Campaign for Real Ale as a whole and results of tastings in BEER should not be considered to be equivalent to a CAMRA award. Tastings are carried out by a small panel of selected volunteers, or invited participants. The beers tasted are chosen by the BEER editorial team using a range of criteria which includes availability and suitability for a particular tasting.
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TASTING ¦ bottled beer
TASTE TEST BOTTLED BEER
GENIUS IN A BOTTLE Des de Moor samples beers that are
more than just cask ale in a bottle
PHOTOGRAPHS: PSC PHOTOGRAPHY
The good real ale in a bottle
just keeps on coming, and this column can barely keep pace! And, pleasingly, many of the new bottlers aren’t just bottling cask, but aim to tempt a discerning audience with something really special. An excellent example is the Hardknott brewery, deep in the Lake District. Its bottled range includes a tasty 6.5 per cent ABV ‘oxymoronic ruby red IPA’ and a complex 8 per cent barrel-aged Imperial Stout. But my pick of a very strong bunch is Hardknott Granite (10.4 per cent), a dry-hopped, dark ruby barley wine with a rich caramel malt palate set off by chewy hops, spice and an odd, but pleasing, whiff of Stilton cheese. A vinous, sherryish finish yields chewy roast and
slightly burnt tones, plum jam and tobacco. Brewer Dave Bailey is also one of Britain’s most perceptive beer bloggers, and demonstrably practises what he preaches. The flair and imagination in these beers definitely marks him out as a brewer to watch. Also exercising his imagination is John Bates at Ole Slewfoot brewery near Norwich, named after a bear in a Johnny Horton song. His range of corked and wired 375ml bottles includes Red Wing (5.1 per cent), an attempt at a Flemish red ale with a whiff of roses on the woody aroma. It’s lightly sour – I suspect the addition of Brettanomyces yeast – with
Brewer Dave Bailey is one of Britain s most perceptive beer bloggers, and practises what he preaches
fruity malt, chocolate and an authentic tang of iron. While not a clone of any Belgian original, it’s true to style and very drinkable in its own right. Green Jack in Lowestoft is
unafraid to put strong stuff on the bar – and it’s now putting some of it in handsome swing-top 750ml bottles, including Green Jack Ripper (8.5 per cent), its awardwinning barley wine-cumabbey tripel. This blond beer has a citric, peaches-and-cream aroma, with mineral notes and a grainy, herby palate with a note of apricot jam. Rooty hops finally emerge on a spicy dry finish to give a bitter kick that’s pronounced, but not excessive. I admire Edinburgh micro Stewart for reflecting
Des de Moor is one of the country s leading writers on bottled beer, and is a contributor to 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die
Read more of Des de Moor s reviews at www.desdemoor.co.uk
Scotland’s distinct brewing tradition in its beers, unlike some of its peers. Among the new bottle-conditioned range is the very Scottish St Giles (5 per cent), named after the landmark Presbyterian High Kirk on the capital’s Royal Mile. It’s a cherry red beer with a ripe cinder, toffee and malt aroma and a maltyfruity palate. Burnt cake and a hint of hops dry the soothing caramel-tinged finish – ideal for relaxing with after a bracing winter stroll in Holyrood Park. Blythe Ridware Pale
(4.3 per cent), hand-bottled in rural Staffordshire, is a pale and delicate yellow colour with a fruity, lemon and honey aroma. A crisp, dry, lightly bitter palate has floral and mineral hints, and the tasty finish develops earthy pepper flavours over firm and fruity malt. This balanced and very refreshing beer is one of the best I’ve tried of the new breed of bitterish golden ales. SPRING 2011 BEER 49
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The White Horse & Mill Green Brewery A traditional Suffolk pub with a ‘SIBA Gold Award’ winning brewery on site - Mill Green Brewery. On a minor road in very rural Suffolk with many footpaths into the countryside and South Suffolk cycle route nearby, we offer: ■ Holiday Cottages (Green Tourism Bronze Award) available to let ■ Campsite (with solar powered shower) ■ Four seasonal Beer Festivals per year: Dates are for 2011 ■ Winter Ale Fest (Strong & Old Ales) 18th - 27th February ■ Dark Ale Days (Milds, Porters & Stouts) 29th April - 2nd May ■ Eddyfest Music & Beer Fest (Summer Ales) 26th - 29th August ■ Autumn Cider Fest (Cider & Seasonal Ales) 22nd - 31st October Visit us at any time of the year we usually have 8 - 10 Cask Conditioned beers (5 or 6 beers from Mill Green Brewery next door) and local Organic Cider on all of the time, including the increasingly popular Castlings Heath ‘Apple Pie’. The White Horse: ‘Greenest pub, club or hotel’ in Suffolk Mill Green Brewery: ‘Greenest business building’ and ‘Greenest small business’ in Suffolk Coming soon… A new brew using entirely our own ingredients and renewable energy! White Horse Inn Edwardstone, Mill Green, Edwardstone, Sudbury Suffolk, CO10 5PX Amy & Gav tel 01787 21121 | web www.edwardstonewhitehorse.co.uk
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YOUR OPINION ¦ letters
YOUR Our Steel Life tour of Members Weekend host city Sheffield inspired several readers to offer quicker ways to enjoy the city s pubs, plus a few alternatives, while for others a real ale tent was music to their ears I am writing to express my disappointment with the Sheffield pub tour (BEER, Winter). It is astonishing that your authors seem to have spent an entire weekend in Sheffield without venturing more than a few hundred yards out of the city centre. I was particularly amused by their journey by tram on day two, alighting at Shalesmoor and walking “15 or so minutes” to the Harlequin. The Harlequin, on Nursery Street, is actually closer to their starting point at Castle Square than it is to the Shalesmoor tram stop! While I applaud their use of Sheffield’s tram system, this journey was totally unnecessary and – more to the point – as the article is set up as a sort of guide for future visitors, you are likely to be causing more unnecessary journeys around the time of next year’s AGM. Then on day three, they’re back at the Harlequin again (and the Fat Cat and the Kelham Island Tavern). Now I know they’re entitled to their favourites, but when they’re writing a guide to the best pubs in Sheffield and the third day sees them back at pubs they’ve already described, it gives the impression there are no more pubs worth a visit. What about the Wellington, which, as previously noted, is right next door to Shalesmoor tram stop? If they were determined to use the tram, why not take it out towards Hillsborough and visit the New Barrack Tavern and the Hillsborough Hotel? What about taking the bus to the
Carlton in Attercliffe, the Castle Inn at Bradway or the Sheaf View and the White Lion in Heeley? Or a further walk around the city centre to the University Arms, the Red Deer, the Red Lion, the Rutland or the Sheffield Tap (platform 1b on the station), to name but five? Sheffield has other pubs that are well worth a visit. Please let your readers know they are there to be enjoyed. Will Larter, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
With reference to Nigel Coward’s letter (BEER, Winter) regarding the mix-up between Stingo and Spingo, having sampled some of the latter, I can understand that a few too many might lead to a misplaced pee! Richard Sweet, Stroud, Gloucs
Two great weekends became even better with the inclusion of Hobgoblin to the Download line-up and Hektors Scarecrow to Reading s. I think everyone would agree the Scarecrow went down better than Guns N Roses!
I was amused to read (BEER, Winter) that Mike and Dave used the Supertram to travel from the Bankers Draft to Kelham Island. Had they turned left out of the Draft, they would have found that Kelham Island is a mere 10-minutes’ walk away, rather less time than it takes for the tram to perform a massive U-turn and deposit you approximately the same distance from the Fat Cat that you were. We in Sheffield look forward to welcoming CAMRA members to our city in April – a year when we also hope to host the Green Party and the CTC/ Cyclenation cycling conferences – and hope you will take the time to walk and enjoy the sights we can offer, as well as our magnificent pubs.
People often write to complain, but I want to raise a glass to the organisers of the 2010 Download Festival and to the Festival Republic for the Reading Festival. The only downside to these huge rock festivals is days of being forced to drink corporate lager, but with inclusion at both of an ale bar, two great weekends became even better with the inclusion of Hobgoblin to the Download line-up and Hektors Scarecrow to Reading’s. In fact, I think everyone would agree the Scarecrow went down far better than Guns N’ Roses!
Simon Geller, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Steve Dunn, Bristol
write now
Write to BEER, CAMRA HQ, 230 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL1 4LW or email tom.stainer@camra.org.uk or continue the debate at forum.camra.org SPRING 2011 BEER 51
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ROGER PROTZ | column
BELGIUM BOUND Inspired by British cask ale, two brothersin-law are adding even more variety to the eclectic mix of Belgian beers
If you like Belgian beer – and if you
don’t, report to the headmaster with your hands out – there’s a new delight in that country of unending bibulous pleasure. The microbrewery Alvinne offers delicious and fascinating beers and also has a shop packed with bottles from Belgium, the rest of Europe and such far-flung parts as Argentina. The Picobrouwerij Alvinne is in Heule, a suburb of Kortrijk, which is a major town on a main railway line from Brussels. From Kortrijk, you’ll need a cab. But this is Belgium and you can always hire a bike, though I wouldn’t recommend cycling after a tasting at Alvinne. As well as brewing and selling beer, Davy Spiessens and Glenn Castelein hold tastings in an area alongside their bar on the first floor. Davy and Glenn are brothers-in-law who started out as home-brewers. They began to brew commercially in 2004 and may have to move to new premises to keep up with demand. Their inspiration is British cask beer, though most of their production is bottle-conditioned, with draught confined to a few specialist bars and beer festivals. They are currently making 500 hectolitres a year. The first beer I tasted was the 3.8 per cent ABV Freaky, which is decidedly low
strength by Belgian standards. It has three malts and five hops, including East Kent Goldings and four American varieties. It has a peppery hop aroma balanced by biscuity malt and tart fruit and hop resins in the mouth and finish. To stress the British connection, Naked Ladies (4.4 per cent) is brewed in association with Twickenham Fine Ales in London and has a massive spicy hop character with tart fruit and rich malt. My eye was caught by a line of wooden casks along one wall. Davy and Glenn are following another British trend of ageing beer in wood. They have burgundy wine barriques, Normandy Calvados barrels and whisky casks from Glenrothes in Scotland, with some Kentucky bourbon barrels on order. A couple of casks carry the name Podge: these are in honour of Chris ‘Podge’ Pollard, who organises highly-regarded Belgian beer tours. The beers are matured for between
four and 10 months. Podge’s beer – an imperial stout – is in Calvados barrels: it has a burnt fruit, roasted grain and liquorice character, with a hint of apple. The main beers at Alvinne are labelled Morpheus and use a yeast culture of the
Roger Protz is one of the world’s leading beer writers, travelling the globe searching out new brews, and edits CAMRA’s bestselling Good Beer Guide
Read more of Roger’s writing at www.beer-pages.com
‘My eye was caught by a line of wooden casks along one wall. Davy and Glenn are following another British trend of ageing beer in wood‘ same name. The culture comes from France where it’s used to make sour dough bread. Morpheus Extra RA (7.1 per cent) has a malty/biscuity nose balanced by tart fruit and spicy hops. The full palate has rich malt, tart hops and a wine gum fruitiness, followed by a dry and hoppy finish. Morpheus Wild (5.9 per cent) is an Oud Bruin (Old Brown) style, complex, with a sour nose balanced by aniseed, burnt fruit and hop resins. Malt, hops and tart fruit fill the mouth, while the finish is dry, fruity and bitter, with a note of sourness. A portion of Wild is aged in oak casks that were originally used for sweet dessert wine in France. The result has vanilla, grapes, wood and even rhubarb on nose and palate. On the ground floor, the brewing kit will be familiar to British visitors, based on mash tun, coppers and conditioning tanks. One floor down in the cellar, plastic tanks hold beer and cherries for Davy and Glenn’s kriek – cherry beer. Alvinne is an Aladdin’s cave for beer lovers. Book the Eurostar now. l Picobrouwerij Alvinne, Mellestraat 138, 8501 Heule; check www.alvinne.be for shop openings and tastings (€5). SPRING 2011 BEER 53
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SCORE VALUES SHOULD CAMRA’S NATIONAL BEER SCORING SCHEME BE USED TO DECIDE WHICH PUBS MAKE IT INTO THE GOOD BEER GUIDE?
54 BEER SPRING 2011
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BEER SCORING | head-to-head It is CAMRA policy
for all branches to use National Beer Scoring Scheme (NBSS) scores to assist in selecting pubs for the Good Beer Guide yes (GBG), but that doesn’t explain why. The GBG is our showcase – it demonstrates that we believe great real ale is worth campaigning for. It also plays a vital part in supporting the pubs, because if you want to drink cask ale, then the pub is the obvious option. You don’t need training to score real ale – you drink a beer, then decide which of the NBSS descriptions best describes it. If you can’t decide between two, then you use a half-mark. The key to scoring is to use the descriptions. A 2 isn’t a bad beer – it is just ordinary and not going to inspire you to stay for another. The GBG sets its standards higher.
To begin, we should
look at what the GBG is – a pub guide. If you want a stand-alone good beer guide, pick up 1001 Beers. This is a guide to 1,001 NO beers the author recommends. The GBG recommends pubs primarily on them serving good ale. The reason beer scoring shouldn’t be taken into account? Lies, lies and damn statistics. At the extreme end, a member lives next door to his favourite pub, which sells four ales. In winter, the bar starts to see beers returned as there isn’t the demand for so much beer. Yet the local, who drinks only Ale X, scores it daily and highly. At the other end of town is a pub that serves three beers, dropping to one in winter. Never a poor pint, and is rated highly by the local CAMRA branch on one of its monthly tours. A couple of members rate it on NBSS; most mean to, but don’t. When
Whether you like a beer style or not isn’t the issue. Most of us will score a beer on the basis of how we like it. That doesn’t make a difference to the big picture. For everyone who doesn’t like a particular type of beer, there will be someone who does. The thing balances out. On the other hand, I’d guess serving only carrot and custard ale might not be a good idea if a pub aims to be in the GBG! To ensure that the pubs in our GBG are
selling consistently good beer and not just the popular guests, we need to note quality throughout the year. In order to do that, we need every member to score their beer when they go to a pub. It is a simple formula: more scores mean more data, which means that you get a more accurate picture of beer quality in a pub. When members see their branch using beer scores as part of the guide selection process, they feel more inclined to submit them, which of course means they are
reviewing scores, there’s going to be heavy weighting on the one pub. By not rating the beers, but discussing pubs throughout the year, those selling good beer stand more of a chance of having their names repeated, whereas an annual get-together to decide the entry-winners may have to rely on the beer-scoring scheme to jog memories. The other issue is personality. This
obviously comes through a lot more in a meeting, than compared with a number on a piece of paper. One member rates a beer 5, whereas to another, it would be a 3. The numbers are skewed anyway, with 2 being average. What makes that beer worth a 5? Was it the first after a day of
‘How does a branch use the statistics? The average? As Des McHale pointed out, the average human has one breast and one testicle. When considering which to include, each pub’s merits should be discussed’
‘you don’t need training to score real ale – you drink a beer, then decide which of the NBss descriptions best describes it. If you can’t decide between two, then you use a half-mark’ more likely to become active and play a greater role in branch activities. In short, every pub in the GBG should sell great beer all the time. The views of more than 100,000 people is the key to that consistency and NBSS is the tool to make that job as easy as possible. If you drink real ale in a pub, and have ever thought why is, or indeed why isn’t, this pub in the GBG, then by scoring it you can make a difference. On the other hand, if you have anything to do with selecting pubs for the GBG, you have a duty to listen to what 120,000 fellow members are saying about them. So, have you scored today? Brett Laniosh Brett Laniosh is on CAMRA’s National Executive and organises the NBSS.
digging in the garden, low ABV, light and delicately hopped, making it refreshing and quaffable? Was it the warming porter on a nippy night walking home? Or was it rated a 3 because your friends told you it was excellent, but you found it average? That 3 should reflect the care of the landlord, not the brewer. Things like this should be discussed, lest they be lost amid the statistics. How does a branch use the statistics? The average? Is that the mean? As Des MacHale pointed out, the average human has one breast and one testicle. When considering which to include, each pub’s merits should be discussed. A discussion will always be beneficial, as statistics can be made to say anything. And now that another guide has lost its credibility, due to deciding to charge for entry, the GBG has even more responsibility to be accurate. ed Davies Ed Davies runs the Kilverts, Hay-on-Wye, with his parents (www.kilverts.co.uk). For details of how the NBss works, log in at www.beerscoring.org.uk SPRING 2011 BEER 55
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06/01/2011 15:27
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www.design-my-own.co.uk 056_BEER_Spring11.indd 8
06/01/2011 17:20
STUART HOWE | science
SEEDS OF LOVE
sharp’s irrepressible head brewer, Stuart Howe, extracts the facts from the malt Malt used in brewing is, of course, the seeds from barley
Carolyn Walker/Food and drink Photos ltd
(Hordeum distichon), which have been malted. So that Mr SM Artarse of Surbiton doesn’t write in and mention oats, wheat, rye etc, I hasten to add that most cereals can be, and are, malted. What is malting? The sugar required to produce alcohol, and the nutrients to nourish the yeast as it performs its miracle, are in fact the building blocks of a new barley plant. They are locked away inside the grain like gold ore in bedrock. To allow the brewer to access this gold, the maltster kids the grain into thinking that it’s in a fertile field in springtime. In response to being steeped in water and aerated, the embryo of the barley seed decides that it wants to grow and sends a chemical message to the most important layer known to brewers – the aleurone layer. In response to this message, the aleurone layer sends a team of enzymes into the grain’s food stores, making the grain starch and hence sugar available. The enzymes act like tiny miners, breaking away the bedrock (proteins and gums), which locks in the starch. Enzymes have very clever-sounding names that describe their function and end in ‘ase’. If you want to impress people at parties, you could learn some of their names. Personally, I like to use beta-limit dextrinase, which attacks dextrins. Maybe that’s why I don’t get invited to parties. Enzymes that convert starch into sugar are also released. These will be used in the mash by the brewer. The changes in the grain that mark its conversion from
seed to ingredient are known as modification. A well-modified grain is easily crushed and has lots of freely available starch and enzymes, along with low levels of mash tun-blocking sludge (gums). British barley is good and British maltsters are clever, so British brewers are lucky and expect well-modified malt. Foreign malts tend to be less well modified (notice how I didn’t get drawn into saying foreign maltsters are useless). The poor foreign brewers have had to develop more elaborate systems of wort production to finish
the job started in the maltings. There are various tests carried out on malt to determine the degree of modification, and brewers will define a specification for their malt based on these for the maltster to aim for. Only big brewers check that what the maltster has sent is to spec. Smaller brewers have to take them on trust. If the germination process is allowed to continue, you end up
with a barley plant. Barley plants don’t make very good beer. The maltster therefore needs to stop germination. This is achieved by drying the grain in a kiln. This must be rapid but gentle drying in order not to destroy the enzymes. Kilning is the first stage of beer flavour and colour production. Sugar and amino acids freed up during germination react when heated to form flavour-active and coloured compounds associated with malty, sweet, biscuity and nutty flavours. The chemist’s/brewer’s name for these reactions is non-enzymic browning or the Maillard reaction, and not caramelisation as is sometimes written. It is also important to note that the Maillard reaction has nothing to do with ducks. The degree of modification, the kiln temperature and the moisture level in the grain all affect the degree of colour and flavour produced in the malt. In crystal malt, modification is allowed to progress much further, freeing up more sugar and amino acids, and then kilning is carried out at a high temperature with high moisture levels to maximise non-enzymic browning. In Pilsner, malt temperature and moisture levels are tightly restricted to avoid colour and flavour formation. The variety of barley and the technology (floor vs modern) used to produce malt are often a source of disagreement between brewers. Everyone has their opinion on which is best. I’m not going to write mine here for others to tut at, but, like every other brewer, I am convinced that I am right!
‘The sugar required to produce alcohol, and the nutrients to nourish the yeast as it performs its miracle, are in fact the building blocks of a new barley plant. They are locked away inside the grain like gold ore in bedrock’ sPrinG 2011 BEER 57
57 Science K.indd 53
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liquid gold
Don t let a slab of industrial fizz be your only option for a cooling beer this summer, by brewing a golden ale or lager now to enjoy as the temperatures rise Spring is your last chance to make beer
to drink in the summer, and you need to give some thought to what you are going to make. Beers that are perfectly suited for the (hopefully) long, hot months of summer are light and fragrant golden ales and cool, crisp, refreshing lagers. Both styles are light, easy-supping, dry and thirst-quenching. They are sometimes closely related, with brewers producing cask-conditioned golden beers that are hard to tell apart from quality lagers. Most true cool-fermented lagers are rarely available in an unfiltered, unpressurised form acceptable to CAMRA. One of the advantages of home-brewing is that you can make real lager – not something that’s been killed and fizzed. There can be a lack of clarity about the definition of lager. Terms such as bottomand top-fermenting are often used, which are not always helpful as modern breweries use closed cylindro-conical fermenters in which the yeast settles at the bottom, even for ales. The main brewing process that leads to the lean and dry beers we call lager involves the use of low-fermenting temperatures. While the distinction between ale and lager yeasts is mainly technical, and they can be pushed to ferment at a wide range of temperatures, it is better to use the latter when fermenting at low temperatures as the former tend not
Blinded by science? In the first of a regular series, Steve sets out to simplify some of the equipment, tricks and techniques you'll need to become a master home-brewer
to respond well to cold. A rough rule of thumb for fermenting and mashing at lower temperatures is slower and stronger, giving thinner, drier beers. Higher temperature brewing is faster and weaker, giving the beer sweeter, fuller flavours. So the key for making a lager is to ferment at low temperatures and to store at temperatures around 10˚C lower for at least a month. The cool storage is an essential part of making lager, and is what gives it its
Most true cool-fermented lagers are rarely available in an unfiltered, unpressurised form acceptable to CAMRA. One of the advantages of home-brewing is that you can make real lager name – lager is the German for ‘store’. Brewing lager is best achieved during the winter months, though it is possible to make a small supply by using the fridge when the weather is warmer. A five-litre plastic demijohn will just fit into most domestic fridges if you remove shelves. Make up a wort from your own or one of the recipes (right), and start fermentation at room temperature (20-25˚C) for about five to eight hours, then place in the fridge set at around 12˚C. If you wish to remove any butterscotch flavours, then when
HYDROMETER A hydrometer measures the gravity or density of sugar in a wort (the unfermented beer). Put simply, it measures the amount of sugar in the liquid that has the potential to be fermented into alcohol, the original gravity
fermentation is complete (three to four weeks), keep at room temperature for one to three days (a diacetyl rest), then replace in the fridge at 0-3˚C (lowest setting) for about a month. During winter, the outside temperature is 2-4˚C, so after fermenting at around 13˚C in a cool room, you can store outside for about a month. Bottle with a teaspoon of sugar per 500ml, and allow to prime at room temperature for a day, then put back outside or in the fridge for a week. Golden ales are close to lager in some respects – they tend to be pale, dry and aimed at easy drinking. The hops may be lager ones such as Saaz or Hallertau, or the brewer may aim for a little more zing, and use citric versions such as Cascade. Sometimes, wheat is used to add a refreshing tartness, and this may be accented further with the use of lactic acid, coriander, orange peel or lemon grass. The malts used are pale malts, often lager versions, which give a paler colour than pale ale malt. A simple golden ale can be made from a lager kit fermented at a temperature higher than that used for lager, but not quite as high as normally used for ale – say, between 10˚C and 18˚C. When fermenting at lower temperatures, and wishing to produce a cleaner-tasting beer, it is safer to use a lager yeast, even when aiming to make a golden ale.
(OG). And it measures the amount of sugar left at the end of fermentation ‒ the final gravity (FG). By taking a measurement at the start and end of fermentation, you can work out the strength of your beer. The calculation is OG minus FG
multiplied by 131 (OG ‒ FG x 131). For example, an OG of 1.050 minus an FG of 1.010 = 0.040 x 131 = 5.24 per cent ABV. An OG of 1.050 would normally produce a beer of around 5 per cent. If the FG is high, say 1.019, then the beer would be weaker than
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STEVE PEREIRA | home brew cool stuff: five to chill out with this summer Young’s Harvest Pilsner Lager (Kit) Young’s economy range of kits produce acceptable, no-nonsense beers that are easy and cheap to make, and this is no exception. You can brew this at standard ale temperatures and, when served cool, it makes a fairly decent golden beer. Lager yeasts will quite happily ferment at higher (ale) temperatures. BrewFerm Pils (Kit) This BrewFerm kit is best when fermented and lagered at low (lager) temperatures. At low temperatures, it will produce a fuller-bodied and more satisfying beer than the Young’s, though is a little less forgiving of poor handling and temperature fluctuations. Global Lager (five-litre extract) Make up a yeast starter with a lager strain such as BrewFerm’s or Young’s. Steep 20g crystal malt in a grain bag in two litres of water at 65˚C for 15 mins; remove bag, add 250g Medium DME, 500g Light DME and 12g Hallertau hops in bag. Boil for 50 mins, add 5g Hallertau hops in bag, and boil for 10 mins. Remove hop bags and make up to five litres or a hydrometer reading of around 1.050 with cold water. Ferment the wort as above for a very drinkable real lager. Blonde Lady (five-litre partial mash) Make a yeast starter with a lager strain. Mash 200g of Pilsner malt in 0.8 litres of 67˚C water for an hour. Sparge with 1.2 litres of 77˚C water. Remove grain bag, add 400g Light DME, 150g Wheat DME and 5g Saaz hops in bag, boil for 50 mins, add 2g Liberty hops, boil for 10 mins. Make up to 1.050 OG or about five litres with cold water. This can be fermented at either lager or ale temperature. You can double the ingredients and split into two, one fermented cool and the other warm.
normal (4.06 per cent) and quite sweet and full-bodied. A low FG, say 1.005, would indicate a strong brew (5.89 per cent) that would be quite dry. Hydrometer readings during fermentation will show if the beer is still
fermenting, and is the best guide to when the FG has been reached and fermentation can be stopped. The hydrometer is also used after the wort has been boiled to work out how much water to add. If the recipe calls for
an OG of 1.050, you keep adding water (or extract if the reading is too low) until you get this reading. British hydrometers are calibrated to read when the wort is at 20˚C, so adjustments need to be made for when the wort is hotter (or colder).
Golden Gate Bridge (five-litre partial) Make up an ale yeast starter. Mash 200g of Maris Otter malt in 0.8 litres of 67˚C water for an hour. Sparge with 1.2 litres of 77˚C water. Remove grain bag, add 400g Light DME, and 150g Wheat DME, boil for 30 mins, add 8g of Amarillo hops in bag, boil for 20 minutes, add 2g Amarillo and 2g lemongrass, boil for 10 mins. Make up to OG of 1.050 or about five litres with cold water. Warm ferment (16-23˚C) for about seven days. SPRING 2011 BEER 59
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PUB QUIZ ¦ competition
Drinking cask ale and reading BEER means you already have great taste, but is it matched by your general knowledge? 1 What s the connection between Chalgrove Field, Stratton, Lansdowne and Winceby? A
2
England Rugby Union captain in 1996? A
Girl, I ll show you a real good time/Come on with me and leave your troubles behind. The song? A
9 After the marriage of Louis VII of
France was annulled in 1152 which other king did his ex-wife marry? A
3 Where in the British Isles would you find sheadings? A
10 Which gulf lies between
the Chinese island of Hainan and Vietnam? A
4 Who commanded the winning
11 The Ferrara family was famous for
side at the Battle of Cannae?
the manufacture of what?
A
A
5 For which crime was Robert
12 If farmworkers were carrying
Hubert erroneously hanged?
out sartage what would they be doing?
A
Compiled by James Daly. The quizmaster s decision on correct answers is final when choosing the prize winner
8 Who replaced Will Carling as
A
6 What is a Sephen? A
13 What would you do with a pitahaya?
7 Which country s sovereign was
A
known as Negus? A
Winter answers
1〉 Daktari 2〉 Eucalyptus 3〉 On Swiss lakes ‒ it s a wave 4〉 David Steel 5〉 Shepherd Neame 6〉 Shadows 7〉 All died in aviation accidents 8〉 Birth control clinic 9〉 1877 10〉 Killing me softly with his song 11〉 Sikhism 12〉 Victoria Cross 13〉 99 minutes 14〉 Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty 15〉 Bromine 16〉 Prime Minister David Cameron 17〉 Shadow puppet shows 18〉 Michael Owen 19〉 Lysozyme 20〉 Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, His Dark Materials
Winter winners Neil Rimell, Nottingham
61 Quiz K.indd 1
14 Who presented the series In Suspicious Circumstances? A
15 Where is the Everards brewery to be found? A
16 What is the common name for nestitherapy? A
17 What was the surname of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop? A
18 Under what name did
Lazlo Loewenstein achieve fame in films? A
19 What is an orarion? A
20 In which newspaper did Teddy Tail appear? A
LE-CONDITIONED WIN! A CASE OF BOTT FULLERS BEERS, FROM
The first four correct entries to be drawn will each win a BottleConditioned Mixed Case (12 x 500ml bottles), courtesy of Fullers. Each case contains four bottles of Past Masters, Bengal Lancer and 1845. (If you aren t lucky enough to win, then visit the online shop at www. fullers.co.uk to buy this and other cases of Fuller s speciality beers.) Send entries to Quizzic-ale, BEER, CAMRA, 230 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL1 4LW, by 28 February.
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SPRING 2011 BEER 61
06/01/2011 15:35
REGIONAL GUIDE | heritage
YORKSHIRE’S BEST CAMRA’s latest guide to historic pub interiors celebrates Yorkshire and Humber and calls for better protection following the most extensive consultation yet, as Dave Gamston explains Photographs Mick Slaughter
Yorkshire’s Real Heritage Pubs is not
only the product of years of research by CAMRA volunteers, but its compilation also follows a careful consultation during 2008-9 that was unprecedented in its scope and ambition. All the main players in Yorkshire’s pub industry and the statutory and other bodies who might influence changes to Yorkshire’s pubs were invited to share their opinions and knowledge with a view to producing a listing that would have widespread support. The invitation went to the principal pub companies and other owners, all the planning authorities, local civic and amenity societies, and to a variety of other professionals and representative organisations with an interest in the historic built environment or the pub industry. As a result, the new guide provides what is as close as can be to a widely agreed listing of the most important historic pubs in England’s biggest region.
The guide also examines the historical
forces that shaped Yorkshire’s pubs, including the architects and companies who built them, as well as looking at the development of CAMRA’s own campaigning for heritage pubs and their surviving interiors, which had its earliest roots in Yorkshire in the 1970s.
The region’s very size and diversity, with its striking contrasts of remote rural and dense urban geography, makes for a rich tapestry of historic pub types and Yorkshire’s Real Heritage Pubs is able to feature some of the finest in Britain from what is a wide spectrum. At the vernacular end of the spectrum
are some country classics whose survival is thanks to their many years in private family ownership: places such as the gas-lit White Horse Inn, Beverley, still known as Nellie’s after its one-time (and last) owner/landlady; the marvellous moorland time warp of the Birch Hall Inn at Beck Hole; or the Falcon Inn at Arncliffe, a lovely unaffected pub/ hotel that is now a true rarity in the Dales. The ancient snug at the Olde White Beare, Norwood Green, is a remarkable relic, too. In the Eagle at Skerne, moreover, Yorkshire has an outstanding example of a simple rural alehouse without any form of counter service, one of only 10 such pubs now remaining in the whole of the UK. Sadly, this amazing survival has been kept shut and neglected since 2004 and the guide laments it as a ‘wasting national asset’, which cries out for a sympathetic purchaser and some proper loving care.
Yorkshire never produced Victorian and Edwardian drinking palaces on quite the scale of some other UK cities (the Adelphi, Leeds, being the closest approximation here), but the region has no shortage of magnificent pubs from that golden age of pub building, and establishments such as the Garden Gate, Leeds, and the Cock & Bottle, Bradford, are among the finest in the land. The former is a treasure house of Edwardian decorative design and boasts a superb original ceramic bar-counter, one of only 10 now left in Britain – a distinction it shares with three other Yorkshire pubs: Whitelocks (1895), also in Leeds, and two in Hull – the Polar Bear (1895) and the White Hart (1904). Other must-visit pubs from the golden era are the Cardigan Arms (1896), Leeds, and Ye Olde White Harte (1881), Hull, while the little Blue Bell (1903), York, unpretentious but perfectly preserved, is an unmissable two-roomed gem. The Edwardian period also produced the splendid tiled interior of the First Class Refreshment Room (1904) at
Sheffield Station, whose restoration and reopening as the Sheffield Tap means that Yorkshire now has two of Britain’s last surviving historic railway buffets – the other one being the Refreshment Rooms at Bridlington Station (1925), remarkable for its completely unaltered layout. A third of the guide’s entries are, in fact, from the interwar period and they include some truly outstanding survivors: the Three Horse Shoes (1929), Boroughbridge, and the Berkeley (1940),
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Yorkshire s Real Heritage Pubs finds much to celebrate and enjoy, but without losing sight of some stark truths. In a harsh economic climate, some of its entries are closed and may never reopen, while only half have the protection of statutory listing
Clockwise from top left: Garden Gate, Leeds; White Horse Inn, Beverley; Olde White Beare, Norwood Green; Eagle, Skerne; Blue Bell, York; White Hart, Hull
Scunthorpe – two of the country’s best-preserved road houses; the Coach & Horses, Barnburgh, built in 1937 and hardly altered since; and the Three Pigeons (1932), Halifax, with its rare art deco internal styling and octagonal central hall (a superb little version of the stand-up drinking lobby that was so distinctive a feature of pub planning in these parts of northern England). An intact lobby can also be found at the Swan Inn (1936),York, only a short walk away from another unaltered little interwar classic, the Golden Ball (1929). Yorkshire s Real Heritage Pubs therefore
finds much to celebrate and enjoy, but without losing sight of some stark truths. In a harsh economic climate, some of its entries are closed and may never reopen, while only half have the protection of statutory listing. One chapter (‘The Dark Side’) ponders the continuing threats to an ever-dwindling heritage and the fact that, in just one decade of the present century, Yorkshire has already lost 20 more pub interiors that would have been surefire entries in the guide.
CAMRA S Yorkshire s Real Heritage Pubs ‒ Pub Interiors of Special Historic Interest in Yorkshire and Humber Edited by Dave Gamston, it features more than 120 pubs and provides clear location maps and informative introductory articles. More than 90 illustrated pages, with full-colour photographs. Available from CAMRA at £4.99 (£3.99 members). SPRING 2011 BEER 63
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of Two Halves
A Campaign
Fai r on deal tax beer now !
Save Britain’s Pubs!
Join CAMRA Today Complete the Direct Debit form below and you will receive 15 months membership for the price of 12 and a fantastic discount on your membership subscription. Alternatively you can send a cheque payable to CAMRA Ltd with your completed form, visit www.camra.org.uk/joinus or call 01727 867201. All forms should be addressed to Membership Department, CAMRA, 230 Hatfield Road, St Albans, AL1 4LW. Your Details Title
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YOUR OPINION ¦ forums
CIDER & PERRY: TROUBLE BREWING
CAMRA s forum asks if cider gets a fair deal at beer festivals, or do branches just pay lip service? Brewmaster says:
I am concerned that some CAMRA branches are not doing their best to promote cider and perry, and nothing is being done to persuade them to mend their ways. In late autumn last year, I attended a couple of CAMRA beer festivals… each was advertised as a beer festival and not a beer and cider event, but they did have some ciders and perries available. Unfortunately, the branches concerned appeared to be paying only lip service to the idea of promoting these traditional drinks. There was, in each case, a fine range of ales of different styles from various areas, but naturally including local ones. The organisers had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble and spent a long time poring over the Good Beer Guide in order to select the beer list. The ciders and perries were another story. In both cases, about six or seven ciders and a couple of perries were tacked onto the end
The organisers had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble and spent a long time poring over the Good Beer Guide in order to select the beer list. The ciders and perries were another story
of the beers. Someone in the branch had obviously been given the short straw of ordering them, and had disposed of the job by simply ringing a wholesaler and asking them to send something. As a result, there was a limited choice of what you might call the usual suspects, nearly always from the West Country, where the majority of wholesalers are based. CAMRA branches should treat the ordering of ciders and perries in exactly the same way as they do beers, with priority being given
to local producers. As cider and perry are now being produced in nearly every county of England and Wales, we need the equivalent of LocAle.
Munrobasher says:
I’ll put our hand up as guilty of paying only lip service to this part of the campaign. Sure, our main beer festival at Macclesfield has many excellent ciders and perries, but beyond that, our area is pretty much a cider desert, unlike real ale, where Cheshire scores very highly.
I don t think CAMRA can be criticised for failing in the cider and perry category. After all, it was founded to campaign for real ale by a group who objected to the state of beer So this kind of reflects with the active members who say we need to devote our limited resources elsewhere. It is kind of chicken and egg, I suppose.
Moonraker says:
I don’t think CAMRA can really be criticised for failing in the cider and perry category. After all, the organisation was founded to campaign for real ale by a small group who objected to the state of beer while drinking Watney’s Red Barrel (I think I’ve got the legend correct!). Real ale is our raison d’être, everything else must be a ‘see also’, surely. Supporting real cider and perry is obviously a worthwhile and admirable cause, but I am of the firm opinion that our eyes must concentrate on draught cask-conditioned beer.
There are now more than 1,200 registered members of the CAMRA forums. Registration at forum.camra.org allows you to read and post in the members -only sections of the forum.
● Follow CAMRA via Twitter, at @WBandBEER or @CAMRA_Official ● Visit www.camra.org.uk to find out about our Facebook groups SPRING 2011 BEER 65
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last orders ¦ PUB CHAT
A REAL DISCOVERY Time Team s Phil Harding reveals why he loves his local ‒ Hop Back s Wyndham Arms ‒ and what he d say to prehistoric man My father was a Somerset man; apple juice was his poison, and my
mother never touched the stuff, religion put paid to anything like that. My youth was spent in the Vale of Pewsey, which, certainly back then, was not known for its variety – you could drink anything, as long as it was Wadworth’s. Beer in pubs was rank around the time when CAMRA was really kicking off; it was all keg, Watneys and Whitbread. If you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, you need to find your feet – you need to find a pub. When I moved to Salisbury, that was the first thing I did. I went into a pub, ordered a pint, and I noticed that built into the bar were lots of pieces of flint. In that moment, I knew we had a connection. That first pub was the Wyndham Arms, the birthplace and home of the great Hop Back brewery, and it has been my local to this very day. I got involved with the Hop Back brewery because I’m a raging capitalist, of course. I do chuckle when I get the letter about my divvy. As long as I know my involvement is keeping the pub going, money doesn’t matter. I like to think the part of Wyndham that I own is the doorknob, because that’s what you’ll always need to get in. The brewery also named a beer after me – Flint-Knapper, of course – but it doesn’t make it any more. I talk about the Wyndham Arms not because it’s unique, but because it’s the epitome of what a good English pub should be. There are lots out there; I’m just lucky to have it on my doorstep. A pub is defined by its ambience: a brewery should recognise the balance between good landlords and staff who know how to look after the beer, and attracting a good clientele. Throughout history, people have gone to the pub to let off steam, to
meet up and to talk. People often comment on the fact we frequently end up in the pub on the show, they say: “You have a bloody good time on that Time Team!” I think people connect to that; it shows we are just ordinary people, doing what people do at the end of a hard day’s graft. One of the best moments was when we uncovered a brewery on Holy Island. It would have been built after Henry VIII’s closure of the Holy Island priory during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s. I was lucky enough to take part in the craft of the cooper, building a barrel, and the gentleman I worked with gave me an apprentice’s tankard, which now sits on my mantelpiece. If I could go for a pint with anyone from history, it wouldn’t be a king or a politician – it would be a prehistoric flint-knapper. We’d go out in the morning, bust up a few rocks, and spend the afternoon in the pub. Then I’d ask him: “’Ow on earth did you make that axe?”
When I moved to Salisbury, that was the first thing I did. I went into a pub, ordered a pint, and I noticed that built into the bar were lots of pieces of flint. In that moment, I knew we had a connection
Illustration Noma Bar
Phil Harding owns shares in Hop Back brewery, which began in the basement of the Wyndham Arms. He has been a professional archaeologist since 1971 66 BEER SPRING 2011
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