Food & Drink

Jekyll & Hive in Tavistock!

Jekyll & Hive, a new craft honey beer is the result of a community initiative between Tavistock Beekeepers (a branch of the DBKA) and Stannary Brewing Company. Stannary is an award-winning brewery in Pixon Lane, Tavistock, which recently celebrated its sixth birthday. Chris John, one of the three owners, was approached by the Tavistock Beekeepers chair, Susanne Allen, with a proposal to produce a honey beer together. Chris was immediately enthusiastic and within a few minutes was buzzing with potential recipes. The Tavistock beekeepers’ bees forage as far south as Plymouth, to the edge of Okehampton in the north, over the Cornish border in the west and on Dartmoor itself, so the honey collected gives a wonderful mix of flavours. Chris decided to make a farmhouse honey grisette, which finds an echo in the history of Tavistock. Tavistock is a stannary town because of its historical connections to the tin mining industry. Grisette beer was originally made as a thirst-quenching drink for miners after a hard day’s work in France and Belgium, two or three hundred years ago. Different flavourings were often added to the beer, including honey. So this history ties together beautifully to make a wonderful and appropriate choice for a Tavistock beer and honey collaboration. The brew was made relatively quickly, taking just over three weeks from ‘striking the mash’ to canning this light coloured craft beer with 4.8% ABV. About half of the beer was put into bourbon oak barrels to age for a year. There is also a plan to make a dark beer at around 11% ABV this coming autumn/winter with honey from the beekeepers. A competition to name the new beer saw David Painter of Mary Tavy, winning with ‘Jekyll & Hive’, and Tavistock Beekeepers acting secretary, Louise Ketteridge, worked with Stannary on the label design. Finally, Stannary invited Tavistock Beekeepers to a private launch in August. Beside the brewing unit is a cosy bar and an outside covered space. Cornish Maid’s Kitchen food van supplied plenty of sustenance too, so there were many happy beekeepers that night. At the public launch a few days later, this delicious beer was very well received from the keg and quickly sold out! Tavistock Beekeepers have rallied around to gather another 22lbs of honey and Chris has started a second brew of Jekyll & Hive. It will be ready by the time you read this, so do go down to Stannary Brewing Company and try it. This is the beginning of a great collaboration between two local Tavistock groups that hopefully will continue well into the future.

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Eastern European wines

Are Eastern European wines good? How can Europe’s poorest nation (Moldova) produce stunning wines? How do you pronounce the grape variety Smerderevaka? (no idea).

It may be the new boy on the bloc (sorry!) but Eastern Europe is probably the birth-place of wine. Wine was made in Georgia 8,000 years ago - it’s probably past its best now - but countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and Macedonia all have admirable winemaking histories. Look up ‘Moldova wine tunnels’ next time you’re surfing the net - seriously! Communism didn’t do these wine-loving nations any favours. Standards fell quickly, and traditional grape varieties were dug up and replaced with international varieties. The collapse of the Soviet Union reversed the situation - Eastern Europe was back. Labour and production costs are low. To start with ‘value’ meant OK house wine, but unhindered

by politics, standards have risen sharply, resulting in some terrific wines.

The labels can be intimidating - if it seems like a foreign language, it probably is! Fortunately, most countries include eyebrow-raising English translations from a certain well-known app. Some grape varieties don’t exactly roll off the tongue - Feteasca Regala, Rkatsiteli, Plavac, Malvazija Istarska - you get the idea. And for anyone thinking ‘I’ve heard of Malvasia’, Malvazija Istarka is no relation at all - ha! But wine should be a bit mysterious so why not the label? I find a Cyrillic label exciting (I’ve had a sheltered life). Anyway, I’ve tried a variety in restaurants as well as at work, and I’m a fan; I love the engaging mixture of familiar and exotic.

Where should you start? Well, Georgia may be the cradle of wine so let’s start with its most famous grape, Saperavi. As well as being easy to pronounce it produces deep red wines well suited to ageing and has the distinction of being one of the world’s few Teinturier grapes. What? You don’t know what that is? How lucky I’m here. Teinturier means the flesh, as well as the skin, is red. Surrounding countries also grow Saperavi and the best I’ve tried personally was from Moldova. White lovers may be tempted by orange wine - a style of natural wine where white grapes are left to ferment in contact with their skins like red wine, often in a traditional earthenware ‘Qvevri’, which is a giant amphora without handles often sunk into the earth. ‘Proper’ orange wine is a bit of a shock. Savoury and powerful, it should accompany food. Many customers buy a bottle, but few buy a second. Luckily ‘westernised’ orange wines are available; Romania’s biggest exporter, Cramele Recas, makes a delicious, light version like a Pinot Grigio with candied fruit notes. Call in soon to say hello and we can practice saying ‘Gaumarjos’ (‘Cheers’ in Georgian).

Dave Anning

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