The Next Wetherspoons Festival

Those of you who have received September's issue of What's Brewing, may have been drawn to the advert on page four for the next Wetherspoons International Real Ale Festival. The festival is set to run from October 30th to November 16th and will feature up to 50 ales.

The last festival was a great success and saw punters trek to Spoons pubs in their droves to sample, amongst others, beers brewed on these shores by the brewers from Stone of California, and Yo-Ho of Nagano.

This festival promises beers brewed by guest brewers from Japan, America, Australia and Denmark. I have it on good authority that the Japanese brewer is again Toshi from Yo-Ho, who, I am sure will do us proud again. However in a change of tack the American brewer is said to be Matt from Firestone Walker, and the Danish brewer is Mikkel from Mikkeller. These are two great brewers with very exciting products, which I hope they can replicate in a similar vein to the Stone California Double IPA brewed at Shepherd Neame.

I've yet to ascertain which brewer is coming from Australia, but as soon as I find out, I will of course share it. No doubt all true beer lovers in the land will want to join me in praising Wetherspoons for this continued support for excellent World brewers, whilst at the same time, bringing us a good range of home brewed stuff.

Peterborough Beer Festival 2008

I can get to Peterborough by bus from where I live. That's to say I need to leave my house before 8am to get to the festival before it opens at noon. It's a long journey obviously but armed with a good book and making occassional glances up from the pages to people watch, it goes by quicker than you'd think.

Of course the timings aren't so perfect that you arrive at the festival just before it opens, thus I found myself fifteenth in the queue at 11:20 grateful that the weather was clement enough for the forty minute wait.

The gates opened timeously and a table was grabbed and beer drinking commenced. I've always enjoyed my trips to the festival, and this year was no different, but somehow the beer quality seemed less good this year. It could, of course, have been my fault; I do have a tendency to buy beers from new breweries, and sometimes quality is sadly an issue.

That said, I did have a couple of impressive beers. Son Of Sid Muckcart Mild is a full bodied mild with great smoky and roasty overtones. There is a slight lactic quality to it as well. Better than that though was Ascot Anastasia's Exile Stout. My second beer from this relatively new brewery. This is a superb dry, roasty stout with some excellent bitterness. It's a beer I'd heard good things from, and it didn't disappoint.

I normally drink fairly sensibly at festivals, but something must have gone adrift in my head as two of the three last drinks I had were a brandy cask cider and a mead. I don't like brandy and I don't like honey, so I don't know what was going on here. The mead has one of the nastiest sweet aromas I've ever smelled. Please, please if anyone drinks with me in the future, don't allow me to make stupid mistakes like these again.

In spite of feeling a little let down by the drinks, I shall doubtless return to what is the second largest beer festival in the country. It's a good chance for me to meet up with some drinking buddies; some of whom are recent friends, some I've known for years. If it were further from home though, I would certainly think twice.

LocAle Comes To Northamptonshire

I've previously written about Locale, the scheme which promotes locally brewed real ales getting more exposure in pubs. The scheme is growing throughout the UK, and this week is launched in Northamptonshire.

I'm fully behind this scheme. Even with my ticking head on, I still like to see local brews, and have drank more Great Oakley Wagtail this year than any other beer. Unfortunately I shan't be able to get along to the launch event in Kettering, but may be able to tune into the radio coverage.

Whilst supporting this initiative as I like to see local businesses flourishing, and will support them wherever possible, I don't want to hear the words 'beer miles'. After all, the aforementioned Wagtail is brewed with New Zealand's finest Motueka hops. Hardly a local product!

Struise Black Albert

Struise cannot do much wrong in my opinion. I've enjoyed all the beers I've tried, and awarded Earthmonk my beer of the year last year. I was pleased to see Pannepot, another favourite of mine, on the bottled list at GBBF. Hopefully this is a sign that these exceptional beers are going to be imported more regularly to the UK.

Indeed it's alredy started as BeerMerchants have got some Black Albert on sale. This 13% stout has fantastic tasting notes according to the description if you've clicked the link, and certainly make me excited to try the bottle I traded for at GBBF.

Be warned that supplies are presently pretty small, so get in quick while you can.

Out Of Date Beers

I had a good old sort out of my beers the other night and discovered a fair few which have gone past their best before date. Given the two options of drinking them or tipping them down the sink, I took the first option. I've drank three of them so far and am still alive to tell the tale.

The first beer I had was the 2006 Limited Edition Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer. The first bottle I had of this in late 2005 was very enjoyable with whiskey notes, vanilla and orange marmalade. This bottle had a best before date of November 2007. It definitely had a musky aged feel to it, but still tasted decent enough. The vanilla had disappeared but the whiskey was just as strong, if not stronger. The bitter citrus fruits were there as well. It tasted stronger than 7.2%, and went down very nicely.

Beer number two was a can of Carlsberg Carls Jul badged in this country as Carlsberg Christmas Beer and with a best before date of August 2007. For a canned lager a year or so out of date, this was surprisingly good. It is a malty fruity lager, and was still as fizzy as the first can I had in February 2007. There were no signs of age whatsoever.

Beer number three was Black Sheep Ale with a best before date also of August 2007. I'm not a big fan of Black Sheep beers at all, except perhaps Riggwelter. This tasted just like every other pasteurised Black Sheep bottle I've had - cardboard, caramel and grass - except it tasted slightly old. It was still drinkable, perhaps more so than fresher samples, but I didn't finish the bottle. It's just not my kind of beer!

I've still got ten or so out of date beers to drink. I'll do so, because my stomach wasn't compromised in any way. I urge you all not to be frightened of out of date beer. In some cases you may actually prefer it!

Real Ale Sausages

No sniggering at the back, but I like a nice sausage. I'm also a big fan of beer as you may have concluded by now. It's not uncommon to see beer and real ale sausages, but I suspect the beer used is not often declared.

My village is lucky to have a very good butcher's shop where they make their own sausages. We also have a brewer living in the village (although his brewery is 20 odd miles away). So put them together and you have Pork and Delapre Dark Sausages. This 4.6% old ale brewed by Great Oakley is just the right type of beer to be used in such a product. Nice, malty slightly roasty beers are just perfect to be used in such a way. It's a pretty good beer to drink as well obviously.

Next time then you buy real ale sausages try to ascertain which beer has been used. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the time it's not even a real ale which has been used.

BeerMerchants Brewsletter

The latest newsletter from BeerMerchants is available here. It's heartening to see how well the Scandinavian beers they've recently got in are doing. I am very confident that they will continue to break the mould and import some of the World's greatest beers. Heck I may even have some very interesting news for you quite soon.

Read the newsletter, click on the links and order some beer. Have fun!

Triple fff - Picking Up The Orders

Triple fff brewery are already reaping the rewards of winning Champion Beer Of Britain with Alton's Pride.

Sales are coming in thick and fast with a huge order from Wetherspoons the biggest single transaction.

The brewery seems content they can deal with demand and don't envisage expanding further. The only issue seems to be a lack of casks.

I'm sure they won't forget the two pubs in their own estate though. I certainly hope not anyway. My cousin lives in the same street as one of their two pubs and I'm looking forward to popping in next time I'm down that way.

Not All Freebies Are Good Value

I see Carlsberg and The Sun; two erstwhile World icons if ever there were any, have joined forces to offer a free pint of lager to anyone brandishing a voucher from the paper on August 24th.

I won't be taking them up on the offer, although I'm sure there'll be no tears over that decision. I am reminded though of a time many years ago when I was in a lovely country pub in deepest darkest Northants which had nine ever changing ales on handpump. I was sipping happily on some beer or other when in walked "The Caffreys Girls". This decidedly nasty nitrokeg bitter was just being launched, and the pub, surprisingly, was supporting its launch. The girls were giving away vouchers for free pints of the fizzy stuff. I think by the time I left that evening I had accumulated at least a gallons worth of vouchers. I didn't claim even one free half.

There are some decisions you later regret. I certainly don't regret saving myself a bob or two.

Enjoying The Beer

I went for quality rather than quantity at GBBF this year, mostly sticking to the full third pint of the beers I tried, or a large enough amount out of the bottles we opened. When I wrote my piece the other day, I didn't have my notes with me, and it may have come across that I didn't enjoy the range of beers I had as much as I should have.

However now I sit here with my notes in front of me, I'm reminded that I had a pretty decent number of good beers. On the whole some of the IPAs and APAs from USA underwhelmed me, but they weren't bad by any stretch. What did it for me was the darker beers, and not just the strongest ones either.

Beers I tried which warranted a score of at least 3.6 on the RateBeer scale were:

The Tap Mansfield Sweet Stout
Lost Abbey The Angels Share
Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale
Tommyknocker Maple Nut Brown Ale
Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
Gritty McDuffs Punch You In The IPA
Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
Cape Ann Fishermans IPA
De Molen Amarillo
De Molen Tsarina Ezra Reserva
Mayflower Porter
De Molen Bloed, Sweet & Tranen
Warbird Warhawk Pale Ale
Brooklyn Blast
Cricket Hill Colonel Bildes Altbier
Ducato Verdi Imperial Stout
Marble Janine's One
Smuttynose Wheat Wine

I'm not going to provide tasting notes for all of those as that will be very boring, but reading this list tells me three things.

That's a big list bearing in mind I tried just 52 beers
I didn't score the Italian beers particularly highly.
Taking notes on the beers does allow you to remember the good stuff from the crap. As much as it's nice to tinker about blagging and socializing, it is the beer that we go for.

By Popular Request

As requested and suggested at GBBF, I have turned comment moderation off. Hopefully discussion can occur at a better speed. I'm sure you'll all play nicely.

GBBF 2008 - From My Perspective

The great and the good of the beer world seemed to be at Earls Court this week as The Great British Beer Festival 2008 kicked off. Amazingly my group was at the very front of the queue thanks to Angelo arriving at 9:30. We eagerly watched the clock on the big screen near the door countdown towards 12 noon, and then beyond that advertized opening time. The staff inside didn't look like they were having a last minute brief so the short delay was somewhat confusing.

Nevermind, 12:05 arrived and the doors opened. We piled through the turnstiles and the first face we saw was Roger Protz, on his way out of the hall. Perhaps he'd already had enough beer, but it did seem somewhat strange to pass him going in the opposite direction.

The RateBeer crowd took up residence at two tables near the Biere Sans Frontieres bar. We were all keen to try Lost Abbey The Angel's Share, De Molen Tsarina Esra Reserva, and Dogfish Palo Santo Marron, amongst others. These 10% plus monsters could wait for later in the day for me, although a lot of table started with these beers - it can only be downhill from there!

I therefore spent most of the day on the mid strength American beers interspersing the mad hoppiness with a German or Czech lager or two. It's great to see all those US casks but sometimes the palate needs a change.

As good as the beers were, I spent more time than ever chatting and socializing. As mentioned on their respective blogs, I met The Beer Nut and Tandleman, as well as Stonch, and two members of The Young CAMRA Collectiv, who have yet to file a full report of the festival. I enjoyed the company of my fellow bloggers immensely, all of whom have a delightful enthusiasm for beer and blogging, and, I think our style of blogging comes out in our personality.

So what of the beers? Well for the fourth year on the trot I didn't buy anything English. I did have a large sample of someone else's Marble Janine's One, which was possibly the nicest light beer I had in the two days I was there. It put the APAs and IPAs to shame.

I am, though, a sucker for high gravity extreme beers, and the three I mentioned at the start of the article were all excellent. They're not for the faint hearted, and it would be fair to say the alcohol was a bit hot in the two US beers, but they were all just so sippably gorgeous.

The Angel's Share was the best of the bunch. The bourbon barrel aging was a little obvious but it was good enough for me.

Thanks then, to everyone I spent time with during the two days. Chris, my host overnight, as ever was the top man, but to everyone who made me laugh, paid me a compliment on my writing, or taught me something new; a big Cheers.

Champion Beer Of Britain

Triple fff Altons Pride has today been awarded Champion Beer Of Britain at the 2008 Great British Beer Festival. A fuller report will follow when I return from the festival.

If it's available in your local, go out and drink some tonight, before it's so popular the quality may diminish a little

GBBF Here I Come

I'm on the 9:33 train out of Northampton tomorrow for my two day residence at the BSF bar of GBBF. I shall be drinkng with the pretty large RateBeer contingent but should hopefully meet as many readers and fellow bloggers as possible.

I'll be staying over in London Tuesday night, and falling back through my front door around 23:30 on Wednesday night. I shall hopefully give some sort of report on Thursday.

There is a slight chance though that my home correspondent (aka the wife), may post something on my behalf tomorrow.

Watch this space!

Beer Of The Month - July 2008

July has been the calm before the storm that is GBBF. I had 44 new beers in total, split fairly evenly between cask stuff and bottles.

The choice for cask beer of the month is fairly tricky. The two highest scoring cask ales scored a mere 3.7 out of 5 on the Ratebeer scale. There were a few 3.6s, but that's not worthy of such an award.

Those two beers were Red Squirrel London Porter, and Dark Star Hylder Blond. The Porter was roasty and full of chocolate flavours. It was the third pint I had on a beer and curry night in Northampton. Just beating it though as cask beer of the month was the saaz hopped beer from Dark Star. This is also brewed with freshly picked elderflowers which you really can taste. It was very nice and won my beer of the festival at Merton.

The bottled offerings during the month were on the whole of a better standard. Two beers which were shared at Merton both scored highly. Marble Decadence and BrewDog Tokyo were big Imperial Stouts. The BrewDog was brewed with jasmine, but to me had a lot of lavender notes. Two more dark beers from Britain but less agressive were Leatherbritches Porter and Red Rock Humber Down. The latter a very flavoursome bottle conditioned mild, coming in at just 3.6%. This may well be the best bottled mild I've ever drank. I also enjoyed Hopsinjoor from Het Anker. This consistently good Belgian brewer has recently introduced this blonde beer, which had a lot of similarities to Duvel in my book. That, of course, cannot be a bad thing.

I saved the best beer though until last and had it really to prepare myself for the hop bombs I hope to have at Earls Court. Great Divide Hibernation Ale is the kind of beer I could happily shut myself in a dark room and drink all Winter. Beautifully strong, beautifully hopped, and with a big malty backbone providing a great long finish. It's an absolute corker. My bottle was bought at Utobeer. I don't know if there's any left, but if there is you really should stock up. It's a clear winner of my beer of the month.

Nils Oscar At BeerMerchants

My favourite beer at last year's Great British Beer Festival was Nils Oscar Imperial Stout. It was an excellent stout coming in at a reasonable 7% but tasting much stronger with an excellent roasty body. Sadly there doesn't appear to be any beers from Scandinavia this year, but blog sponsor BeerMerchants have secured six beers from this Swedish brewery for your enjoyment.

Amongst them is the excellent Stout, together with the almost as good Barley Wine an IPA, a smoked porter, and a couple of lagers; one in the dortmunder style and one in the vienna style.

As stated before, BeerMerchants certainly know how to package their beers so you can order these safe in the knowledge that they will arrive snugly and promptly. I'm sure you'll enjoy a little taste of Sweden, especially the Imperial Stout!

How Bonkers Is Prince Charles?

Prince Charles has been photographed dozens of times in various pubs, cack-handedly pulling a half of bitter grinning from big ear to big ear. He's also well known for his love of the environment, organic farming, and promotion of all matters green.

So it seemed a good idea to visit Adnams brewery, to applaud them on their production of the carbon neutral beer East Green.

It's a great shame therefore that he chose to travel the short distance from Sandringham to Southwold by helicopter, landing a mile from the brewery, and travelling that last few minute by a gas guzzling Jaguar car. A major own goal there your Highness!

A Shop With No Beer

If there's one business venture I've read about this year which deserves to succeed, it's the shop Stephen Thompson is opening next month in Leyland, Lancashire.

Stephen is described as a reformed alcoholic and his love of booze saw him at Death's door. Now however he is opening a shop which sells non alcoholic drinks only. But Stephen isn't selling soft drinks, teas and coffees. Instead he's sourced what appears to be a large amount of non-alcoholic beers, wines, spirits and licquors.

These are not my types of tipple, but you've got to admire him, and hope that the risk he is taking by ploughing his life savings into the venture pays dividends. Good luck mate!

Oz And James' Big Beer Adventure

Not since the late Michael Jackson's The Beer Hunter, have we had a decent television series in the UK about beer. Dom Joly tried to feature beer in his Happy Hour series but only ended up with a piece of car crash television as he got drunk and unintentionally insulted Daisy in 't Brugs Beertje.

Now though, something decent might be afoot, as James May and Oz Clarke are currently filming around Britain, visiting pubs and seeking out the perfect pint. At the weekend they visited the famous Stalybridge Buffet Bar, and it looked like a fantastic time was had by all.

Oz is a serious drinks journalist, and James will be trying his damnedest to show him that beer is every bit as good as wine. I think though having read and heard Oz's opinions on the matter, that he is a big beer fan anyway, so the series should be a relatively serious study of our favourite beverage.

The series is due to air in October, and I for one, am looking forward to it.

Greene King Penny Pinching

Talking of Greene King, I see that the Loch Fyne fish restaurants which they own are failing to pay its staff the legitimate national minimum wage. GK obviously feel that the tips its overworked and underpaid waiting staff receive elevate their incomes to respectable levels.

Clearly the multi million pound brewery closing company are struggling if they are counting the pennies to such an extent.

Summer Breeze - A Deception

I picked up a bottle of Summer Breeze at the weekend. To the uninitiated you would think this beer is brewed by a certain George Gale & Co Ltd; that being the company name emblazoned on both the front and back labels.

There is no mention of the actual brewing company Fullers anywhere although the postcode of the West London site can be spotted. A further deception exists on both the beer cap and the small neck label. Both have the old Gales horsehead emblem and the words "Established since 1847" No mention then of "Acquired in 2005".

So why should I care? Well, I'll try not to let it get my blood pressure too high, but obviously Fullers care enough to have made the decision not to print their own name anywhere. I have no real objection to their using the Gales name, especially if the beer existed before the takeover, although I'm not so sure it did. However a brief mention of the actual brewing company should be somewhere on the bottle.

After all even Greene King do that on their fake brewery beers such as Ruddles Rhubarb et al.

The First Decent Victim Of The Smoking Ban?

It's been six years or so since I've drank in Manchester. When I did, I was a pretty desperate ticker so spent most of my time in The Smithfield, The Beer House or The Marble Arch. However on my walks to and fro the pubs from my city centre hotel, I would usually pass The Castle on Oldham Street.

I was aware of it being a drinkers pub with a good range of Robinsons' beers, and a pretty much perennial entrant in the GBG, but as scooping a Robbos beer was not high on my agenda I never went in. That's a real shame, because for one thing it has an interestingly attractive exterior, and, no doubt, is pretty eclectic inside, and for a second thing I'll not get the chance again. The Castle appears to be the first regular Good Beer Guide entry to close and blame it on the smoking ban. Most of us have opined that decent pubs are coping, if not flourishing in the wake of the ban, but here we have something different.

I can see that the lack of a rear smoking area is a real issue for a city centre pub which only has a narrow pavement onto the road at the front. There's obviously nothing the brewery or publican can do about location, and unfortunately The Castle may therefore be the first of a few to meet the same predicament.

The article linked to suggests that today is the final day of its life. If anyone's in Manchester tonight do go in and raise a glass at its passing.

How Important Is Apperance?

I used to think food was all about the taste, and if it looked like a pile of crap on the plate it really didn't matter as it's the experience in the mouth which is all important. I still believe that flavour is more important than the visual aspect of a meal, but I have come round to the idea that an atractive plate of food does help the overall experience.

So what of beer? All the ratings sites out there ask you to score on appearance as well as the more familiar aroma, taste and palate. So how important are looks and how does one decide which beer looks better than another?

I have to admit I'm a sucker for dark beers and if it's got a lovely brown, tan or beige head then my mouth is salivating already. I'm likely to give those beers maximum score. An anaemic pale lager or a disgustingly (and unexpectedly) hazy beer is likely to score minimum marks. However, what about a hefeweizen or a Belgian Wit which is supposed to be cloudy? I have to say it's not as attractive as a stout, and the haziness immediately results in the beer losing marks for me. Similarly lambics are not as pretty as stouts. And as for the vast majority of British cask ales, they are just average looking and get a middle of the road score.

The problem with scoring appearance is that, for me, the best tasting beer in the World cannot score top marks if it's not dark with a good head. I know that food critics would take marks off if a plate of food is not wholly acceptable on the eye, but is it fair that beer raters like myself cannot give the vast majority of beers full marks?

I realise that fundamentally this is a debate for elsewhere, but how important are looks for you?

Merton Summer BF - Top Job

Merton Summer Beer Festival was as good as expected. When the following things are on offer:

Good beer
Good ciders and perries
Good company
Good staff
Teenagers covering Motorhead's The Ace Of Spades
And better weather than expected

then you know you are onto a winner.

I printed the beer list last week, and worked my way through a fair few of them. My favourites were Custom Special Mild, Marble JP Best and best of all Dark Star Hylder Blonde. The Beer Of The Festival as voted for by the customers was the Marble beer, which is a worthy choice and is testament to the good stuff being brewed by Marble at the moment.

Fellow RateBeerians Mes and Angelo brought along a bottle of Marble Decadence and BrewDog Tokyo to share. These were pretty rich and extravagent Imperial Stouts and went down a treat. Big thanks go to them for that.

There really is something to be said for these small intimate festivals as opposed to the massive CAMRA run ones which seem to be growing year on year. As long as the beer list is carefully chosen and the beer condition good then that's enough for me. That's certainly the case at Merton. I'll be back early next year for the 2009 Winter Fest!

GBBF 2008 - The American Beers

Sometimes you get some news which is almost too good to share. I've been keeping my eyes on the list of foreign beers that will be at this year's Great British Beer Festival for a few weeks, and although the list has slowly grown and with that growth become slightly better, nothing has prepared me for the final list which has appeared today.

The cask list has been there a week or so, and is very impressive. I am particularly looking forward to the highly rated The Angel's Share. However, just check out the list of American bottled beers we are promised. There's a couple of breweries there I've not heard of, although I'll be researching them before going to Earls Court. OK, so there are limited quantities of about twenty odd of them, but these are beers which we may never see in this country again, and are not to be missed.

For those of us who are going to be there for the first couple of days, we are really spoilt for choice. Thank you BSF beer purchaser!!

The Independent - A Larger Newspaper

Today's Independent has a pretty decent article on beer, in parts heavily quoting Adrian Tierney-Jones and also Alex Bell, head brewer of O'Hanlons

It's certainly better than most articles on beer in the British press, including the quality papers. It's such a shame than that the writer was allowed some freedom to make up their own stuff and not rely totally on those better qualified to write such pieces.

If you can't be bothered to read the whole article, just scan to the bottom paragraph, and read these fascinating words:

"What determines whether a beer is an ale, a bitter or a larger is down to the amount and type of hops as well as the malted barley, but is primarily due to the strain of yeast." And yes, I've reproduced the wonderous spelling mistake. I'll say no more.

Duvel Triple Hop - Was It Worth It?

Before Christmas I wrote about the expensive Duvel Triple Hop which was available in Sainsbury's stores for a month or two. I stated at the time that the expense had to be risked as experiencing the beer was something which had to be done, and not to buy would be to regret.

Well, last month I tried it, and to be perfectly honest, it wasn't particularly special. To look at, it was very similar to Duvel in that it was golden with that huge rocky white head, but its aroma and taste were different, and not an improvement on its stablemate. To my palate it didn't taste any hoppier; I think the extra alcohol came through but the hops were perhaps unbalanced in their complexity. I didn't get any Amarillo at all, instead feeling the beer was dominated by the European hops. I felt a little ripped off to be honest, not so much by the price, but by the idea of the beer and the hype around its supposed extra hops. I felt the same when I sampled Chouffe Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel last year.

Given a choice over Triple Hop and regular Duvel even at the same price I'd choose the regular. Allowing for the fact I can buy 4 750s for the price of one Triple Hop though, it's a complete no brainer.

Merton Summer BF - Beer List

Back in February I wrote about the excellent Merton Winter Beer Festival. Well this weekend is the Summer version, which has a slightly larger beer range which is produced below.

This is a really friendly festival in the village hall, staffed by enthusiastic helpful staff. The opening times are 6 pm until 11 on Friday and noon until 11 on Saturday. Myself and a number of fellow RateBeerians will be there on Saturday. It promises to be a good day.

Beer List

Bank Top Dark Mild - 4%
Black Hole No Escape - 5.2%
Bowman Maximus - 3.5%
Breconshire Ysbrid y Ddraig - 5.5% (Bowmore Cask aged)
Castle Rock Bumble Bee - 4.5%
Celt Experience Bronze - 4.5%
Custom Special Mild 4.8%
Dark Star Hylder Bonde - 4.2%
Hadrian&Border Newcastle Pioneer - 4.3%
Harwich Town Lighthouse Bitter - 4.8%
Harwich Town Parkeston Porter - 4.5%
Hornbeam Top Hop 4.2%
High House Farm Maften Magic - 4.8%
Leeds Midnight Bell - 4.8%
Leeds Samba - 3.7%
Marble JP Best - 4.3%
Mighty Oak Good Shed Buffer Ale - 4.2%
Newby Wyke White Sea - 5.2%
Oakham Atilla - 7.5%
Old Bear Black Mari’a - 4.2%
Pictish Admiral - 4.2%
Rooster Outlaw Wild Mule- 3.9%
Saltaire Blackberry Cascade - 4.8%
Stonehenge Eye Opener - 4.5%
York Centurions Ghost - 5.4%
York Centennial - 4%
Wylam Angel - 4.3%
White Park First Flight - 3.7%

There will also be what is promised to be an excellent bottled homebrewed American style IPA from RateBeer user Casey (aka Doppelganger), which will probably put all the above beers to shame!!

Bells Brewery's New Shop

Back in September I wrote about visiting the Bells brewery off licence at Ullesthorpe Garden Centre. Well now it's moved, and I'm not really sure why.

They've moved just a few miles away to the sprawling village of Broughton Astley which is still quite near to Junction 20 but not as close as Ullesthorpe. Whereas the previous shop doubled up as a farm shop and mini delicatessen, this one sells booze and homebrew stuff only.

The previous shop would have attracted tons of drop in trade from people visiting the garden centre and had ample parking. This shop is in the middle of a narrow main street with little parking. It really seems to be a strange choice of location. I seriously worry about the viability but hope my worries are unfounded.

As for the beer, I bought a few bottles including Parish Baz's Bonce Blower which should be fun. By the way, the shop is now called Quench which is very modern!!

Northants Brewers At GBBF - Just 2 From 8

CAMRA have announced the British breweries who will be represented at this year's GBBF. It's a pretty long list and includes all the big players.

For some reason though, there's only two breweries from Northants: Great Oakley, and Potbelly. This is a low amount and just represents 25% of our real ale producers. I wonder what the issue is here?

Mikkeller Beers In The UK

Blog sponsors BEERmerchants.com have today announced what is a major coup for a British importer. They have imported a fine selection of beers from Denmark's Mikkeller Brewery. I've eulogised about Mikkeller beers a few times on this blog and awarded one of their beers Beer Of The Month in March.

The case features nine different beers from the brewery awarded sixth in the World in the latest RateBeer Best awards. All of these beers are highly rated and only two (Jackie Brown and Beer Geek Breakfast) have been sold in the UK before. There are hoppy American styled ales, a couple of Belgian styled beers and a 17.5% Imperial Stout included in the box. So a varied selection of styles as well.

Hopefully this isn't a once in a lifetime opportunity to get hold of these beers but I do recommend people get in quickly as advance orders are being taken from today. Oh, and you get one of the splendid Beermerchants glasses too. What a bargain!!

Beer Of The Month - June 2008

June was a pretty quiet month with just 51 new beers rated. Of these, only eight were bottled beers, as drinking at home in the evenings was effected by my youngest daughter screaming long into most nights instead of going to bed early as good girls should (I'll show her this when she's older and blame her for reducing my drinking!).

Two of those bottled beers were rather good, and they were both from Scotland. Inveralmond Lia Fail is not bottle conditioned, yet nor is it pasteurized. It is a nice fruity beer with hints of chocolate and some nice cascade hops in the nose. Better though, and bottled beer of the month was Williams Midnight Sun. This porter was a Tescos Beer Challenge winner, and well worth that award it is too. It has good coffee and oatmeal notes, and then a lovely kick of root ginger. It all moulds together really well. Williams Bros make very good bottled beers, and this is certainly no exception.

My cask drinking this month has mostly been around Northampton, except for a session around Rugby. I enjoyed my first tasting of Harviestoun Bitter And Twisted for many a year. This is one of the beers which I believe started the trend of hoppy goldens in Britain, and has stood the test of time against some of the newcomers. Fernandes Solstice at The Victoria's festival was another light hoppy beer with good grapefruit notes throughout. Beartown Black Bear is a stunningly complex mild with a great mix of roasty flavours and orange citrus notes, making for a really interesting mouthfeel. Better than those three though was Elland Midsummer Nights Porter. Great roasted malts, rich coffee and a long finish are just part of the story of this great beer. It's almost a match for the stronger 1872 Porter from the same brewery. A really great beer, and worthy beer of the month.

Carlsberg Goes Dry

Northampton has a long tradition of beer making and beer drinking. Sadly the location for what was once one of the top ten ale producers in the country, has since been built upon with the massive Carlsberg factory, or megakeggery as I like to describe it. We also have the traditional Frog Island Brewery.

Now of course there are many reasons why I would rather work for Frog Island than Carlsberg; the take home perks must be far better for one thing. Additionally the one rule which Frog Island I'm sure do not share with their huge neighbours is their dry policy. Yes, dear reader, Carlsberg have recently banned all their staff from drinking alcohol during the working day. It's a new initiative, and not having an inside source, I'm not sure of the thinking, but it sure seems folly to disallow their staff from sensible drinking with their lunch. It's certainly affected trade over the road at The Malt Shovel at lunchtime, although they'll survive no doubt.

It always amazes me when an employer brings in new rules which can only lessen the morale of their staff. They'll probably blame it on Health & Safety - that's always a good cop out.

So not only has the volume of good beer being brewed diminished, but now thanks to the bosses, the amount of good beer being drank has reduced. Fools.

The Smoking Ban - One Year On

Today is the one year anniversary of the smoking ban in England and Wales. The ban was the catalyst for my starting this blog, and I wrote a fair bit about it back in the early days. That I am not mentioning it often now is a sign that it has worked, and that the silly little rebels and their silly little campaigns have gone away. I went back to The Malt Shovel today, a year on, and as I supped thought about the ban and what it has meant for me personally.

Pubs are nicer places to be. It is so much more pleasurable being in a pub and knowing that the people who are going to grab that empty table next to you, won't be blowing their smoke in your direction; in your eyes; or over your food.

You can smell things. I like to smell my beer. Although aroma isn't the be all and end all, I do like to have a big sniff. Cigarette smoke used to get in the way.

Your clothes don't stink at the end of the night. Wearing a pair of jeans the next day after going to the pub is a newly found luxury. My wife's happier that her ironing pile is smaller these days.

Your hair doesn't smell. There's few things nastier than going to bed with smelly hair, or worse still with a partner with smelly hair.

There are of course downsides. Outside drinking area are now the smoking zone, so sitting outside with the family isn't as nice as it once was, and those pubs where the smoking zone is right outside the main entrance are a bloody nuisance. I've also heard it said that others smells are now more noticeable such as customers' body odour, but I've not picked up on that (or perhaps it's me who smells?).

All told then it's been a good thing. Pubs have shut, but good pubs have not shut. Inivative landlords who originally struggled have thought about and introduced things to make the customer come back. So many more countries have come on board, of course many preceded us. The Netherlands ban started today. Smoking really is on the wain ,and the ridiculous budget increase on beer should have gone towards a bigger hike in tobacco duty. Maybe next time.

£3.75 A Pint

I did a sponsored walk on Sunday. It was organised by the local Hilton Hotel, and was in aid of a charity set up by my wife's cousin. It's not often I do anything that worthy, and the feeling of doing something good, and being out in the fresh air really was pleasurable.

A lovely buffet and as much tea/coffee/squash you could drink was laid on afterwards. Squash was the perfect drink for me, but my brother-in-law had a pint of Stella. It was the unbelievable price of £3.75 a pint.

It's a crap drink anyway, and to pay that price is beyond belief. However, to make it worse, he had a second. Some people!!

The Victoria Inn Rugby Beer Festival

It's a shame I went to The Victoria Inn Beer Festival two days before Pan-C, it would have been fun to share a few jars. Thursday however was my day of choice, and I had a good but solitary time.

Before the Victoria I nipped in The Merchants Inn whose Beer Festival I've previously written about. I have to say that sadly the choice of beers at the bar was somewhat boring, with offerings from Thwaites and Theakstons amongst the eight real ales on offer. I had a quick half of Warwickshire Best Bitter, which was below average and left. I feel it is good sense for a pub this good to have a good range of beers on when a pub in the same town is having a festival, but obviously others think different.

I nipped into The Rupert Brooke next, to test my confidence in walking out without ordering, but I didn't need to, as cask conditioned Anker Bruin from Belgium was on offer, and very good it was too.

From there I walked to The Vic. Pan-C writes very eloquently about the pub, and I have to say what a great boozer it is. The type of back street local we would all like, and so proud of its beer range with the handpumps standing like brave soldiers plumping out their chests. The back yard is perfect for a small stillage like we had for the festival. I had four beers from out back and three from inside. I was a bit disappointed with Taunton Castle, my first beer from this Somerset brewery but enjoyed all the other beers I tried including the hot, hot, hot Chilli Haze from Atomic. This is no Cave Creek Chili Beer. Instead it's really warming, and inviting, and almost has aphrodisiac qualities. Certainly the best chilli beer I've had.

The Victoria is a top pub which I shall return to. The festival was well organised, and the beers carefully chosen. It was quiet on my visit, but hopefully busy at other times; it certainly deserved to be. I'm sure they will have another festival before the end of the year, but why wait that long before going back?

Another Reason For Dodgy Pubcos To Moan

The water crisis in Northants, as it's now being called, is still with us and may be so for another three weeks. And of course it's yet another thing publicans can blame for falling profits.

So to good weather, bad weather, Alistair Darling, hop shortages, England not qualifying for Euro 2008, the smoking ban etc. we can now add Anglian Water Authority to the list of why pubs are supposedly failing.

When however you look at the reasons given by this lady, you lose all sympathy.

We are told that:

Customers cannot have ice in their drinks. Well poor them! I can't really see many people will stay at home because they can't have ice in their G and T, and can't they buy in their ice anyway?.

Chefs are boiling enormous pots of water just to do the washing up. Well so are we at home. It's a sacrifice - live with it! Again it's not likely to keep the punters away.

Pubs are buying in bottled cola and lemonade. Because the normal stuff are "boxes of syrup which are mixed with the water and then carbonated". Bloody hell, I never knew that! Well I shall avoid soft drinks in the pub in future. Oh wait; I do that already!

Actually I've got no sympathy at all. I wouldn't be suprised if drinkng in town has actually gone up these last couple of days, because the beer and other drinks are so safe. It should be noted that the establishments in The Richardson Group portfolio, and not regular haunts of mine. It's always companies like this that do the complaining. Decent pubs just get on with it, and keep providing an excellent service.

Best Drink More Beer Then!

There's a water scare in Northamptonshire at the moment. Unhealthy levels of cryptosporidium have been found in a local reservoir, and this bug can lead to pretty serious diarrhoea. Both my village and workplace are in affected areas, and we are told we need to boil all our water before drinking it, cleaning our teeth, or even washing our dishes.

In my opinion, that sounds like a whole lot of work. I've got a garage full of beer, and there's plenty of good pubs around, so bugger the water; I'll have another beer.

What Is The Difference Between A Pub And A Shop?

Well obviously you can't buy a new suit in a pub or a pint of beer in the tailors, but essentially a pub surely is a shop.

I don't know about you, but I don't buy something in every shop I go in. I've been known to browse casually and then walk out with no purchases as there's just nothing I want to buy.

Why then do I feel awkward about walking in a pub and walking out again without buying a drink? I've browsed the pumpclips, and seen nothing I fancy (or even like in some circumstances), so left to seek out a hostelry with better options. There really shouldn't be a compulsion to stay and spend, but it is the norm so to do.

I wonder if you are a common pub-browser, or, perhaps more interestingly, if you work in a pub and see someone walk in, look at the beers, and walk out again, what do you make of them?

Good Beer At Glastonbury Shock

I always thought Glastonbury was all mud and plastic glasses full of dodgy lager. I was surprised therefore to read that Woodfordes is supplying 50000 gallons of the good stuff to the music festival.

I like Woodfordes beers, but sadly see them all too rarely in my locality in spite of beers from East Anglia being fairly common around here. The three chosen beers from their regular range are all nice hoppy flavoursome ales, and I'm sure the festival special Mud In Yer Eye will be pretty good also.

It's sensible, though, that they've avoided supplying Headcracker which is an excellent barley wine, but might just be a step too far for the vast majority of the revellers.

That Beer Doesn't Travel Well.

It's a common comment I hear from my occasional beer drinking friends. It's also one which carries no water with me. I've had cask ale from the Scottish islands down here in Northampton and they've been absolutely fine. And of course we get cask beers from Japan and USA at GBBF, and they are more than acceptable.

The truth is that the beers I'm hearing about not travelling are your pretty dodgy national or regional brewers' beers, which are mass produced with basic ingredients and sent to pubs whose landlords aren't really bothered about the quality of their ale.

The fact is that all ale needs a period of rest after their journey to the pub, whether it be from the pub's own backyard microbrewery; a trip of a few metres, or a long journey by wholesaler's lorry down the motorway. It then needs careful handling and conditioning, and should be tasted by the staff before serving, to check it's ready. The 'travel' part of a beer's life really should be irrelevant.

The next time someone tells me beer X doesn't travel well, I shall tell them firmly not to drink crap beer in crap pubs.

Your Beer Is Too Cold

I was in a Wetherspoons on Monday night. The digital display showing how cold the draught lagers were was at 0.8degrees C. That's really not much warmer than ice. Surely lager shouldn't be served that cold?

The Greatest Pub Game In The World

Over the years I've enjoyed the following pub games:

Pool
Bar Billiards
Darts
Northamptonshire Skittles
Cribbage
Whist
Quiz Machines
Arcade Games
Fruit Machines
Poker
Shove Ha'penny

And possibly some others when I've had a pint or two too many. However none of these can match The Greatest Pub Game Of All.

And that is:- balancing beer mats on the pub cat's head! See how many you can do next time you have a feline drinking companion, before it either shakes them off, or alternatively lunges at you with its claws at full extension.

Don't say you've not been warned, but it is great fun.

Fathers Day At The Working Mens Club

Apart from an orgasmic joint of organic beef, my Father's Day treat was a trip to our local Working Men's Club. WMC's are perhaps not the usual haunt of glamourous beer bloggers such as myself, but when your village club is local CAMRA club of the year, and it serves at least five ever changing real ales, it is perhaps different from your run of the mill pigeon and whippet racing drinking establishment.

Added to all this is the fact that the club is extremely family friendly, and what better way of celebrating Father's Day than a couple of pints with your daughters? It's not possible at your best boozers to do that.

It seems to me that clubs could do a lot better with their beer range though, and be far more adventurous like mine is. I'd be interested to know what your local clubs are like; that's if you dare go in them.

Otley O8 - Champion Beer Of Wales

O8 from Otley Brewery has won the Champion Beer Of Wales.It is the second time in three years it has won the award, obviously really appealing to the chosen judges.

I've lamented recently that I've been a bit disappointed with a number of Welsh beers recently. I've found them (especially the pale ones) to be a bit bland and uninteresting, and it is interesting that this beer, at a cool 8% is winning awards.

I've only had the beer bottled, and found it to be a fairly sweet fruity barley wine, but lacking in depth of flavour, and body. I should be interested to try it on cask, and shall seek it out at festivals this summer.

The other beer from Otley that I've had bottle conditioned is the interestingly named O-Garden, a pretty authentic play on the Belgian wit style of beer which it is amusingly named in reference to. I reckon Otley could well be a brewery to keep your eye on.

Hats Off To Hertfordshire

One of the joys of being a beer and stats geek and a premium member of RateBeer is that the package of pretty useless statistics is growing. I say useless because to most people it's just a collection of meaningless numbers only of use to the anoraks. But I'll come out and say that lists and numbes have always fascinated me. I can look at cricket scorecards and averages all day long, and if figures like that are available for beers then whoppee doo!

One of the things we've recently done at RateBeer is broken down all the breweries into their counties, so that your stats package now includes how many beers you've rated from each county. And of course from that you can see which county has the highest average beer rating.

My top county is Hertfordshire with 48 beers rated at an average of 3.42. That's a high score and it's almost totally due to the quality output from both Alehouse, and Buntingford. These are both breweries with a fairly prolific output but who know how to brew great stuff, especially hoppy beers.

Bottom of the pile comes Berkshire, so the less said about them the better, so well done Hertfordshire - there will always be a place in my heart for Herts!

Phipps Beers Recreated

I was very excited to read this article in my local paper today. Phipps Beers really are synonymous with Northampton but ceased being produced long before I had my first taste of beer. So the thought of their ales being recreated is really exciting.

There are a few examples of defunct Phipps Brewery livery around town, I really must get around to photographing them and publishing them at some point, but how good would it be to see the logo resurrected and being seen around our pubs again?

Archers Beers Are All Unique!

Archers Brewery of Swindon were one of those breweries who brought out new beers almost on a weekly basis. I remember having quite a concerted debate about the legitimacy of each of these beers actually being different from all the others, at a RateBeer meeting some time ago.

I was amused therefore to pick up the pictured beermat in a pub yesterday lunchtime. I'm not sure if this is a new beermat as they have decreased their range fairly considerably over the last year or so, but they have obviously got wind of people doubting their recipes, and feel the need to make the statement.

Are they protesting too much?

My Mild May Experiences

So, what were your experiences of mild month? I overheard a publican stating that he sold less mild in May than he does in a normal month. Is that his customers being deliberately awkward, and not drinking mild 'because CAMRA want them to'?

For my part I did make a point of drinking it whenever I saw it, including drinking quite a few at the Northamptonshire BF. The breweries whose milds I tried are:

Hoggleys
Conwy
Great Orme
Blackfriars
Harveys
Dark Star
Alehouse
Saltaire
Naylors
Magpie
Funfair

It's not a massive list and I really should have done better but there was a good variety of milds in there from the light mild of Harveys to the warmed chocolate added to the cask by the Alehouse brewer at the last minute when he visited our festival.

Mild sold well during the festival and was being bought by all sorts if customer. I tried to push it to people who merely asked for a dark beer and it seemed to be appreciated. I don't think mild will die out as a beer style and that's one thing I reckon we've got CAMRA to thank for.

Beer Of The Month - May 2008

I had 59 new beers during May. Most of these were cask ales drank either at The Malt Shovel's Welsh Beer Festival, my trip to Brighton, or the Northamptonshire BF.

The average quality of beers drank during he month was good, but there were few beers which will live long in the memory. I was disappointed with the standard of the Welsh beer. This was no fault of the pub. I found most of the beers to be ordinary or in some cases, a bit wierd. The two stand out beers, though, were Conwy Mulberry Mild, and Jolly Suzanne's Stout.

In Brighton, I mostly drank beers I'd had before including plenty of Dark Star Hophead. The best new beer I had was the excellent Pilgrim Porter, a particularly flavoursome smoky, bready porter. I also enjoyed Rectory IPA a pretty authentic IPA.

I had 21 beers at the Northants Festival between pulling hundreds of pints for other people. Most were good and some very good. I had a few goes at the Festival Special from Great Oakley, which was an excellent fruity beer. Other good beers at the festival were Tring Tea Kettle Stout; Golden Plover and 92 Squadron, both excellent hoppy beers from the superb Buntingford Brewery, and my beer of the festival, Naylors Old Ale. The cask beer of the month by a whisker though was Pilgrim Porter.

I didn't have many bottled beers at all, but of the few I did have, the stand out beer of the month shone like a beacon. Great Divide Hercules Double IPA has been on sale at Utobeer in London and happily for me Angelo from RateBeer picked me up a bottle. I wish I had access to more of this deliciously big and hoppy 9.1% beer from Colorado. I make no excuses for liking big beers. Some say that overhopping masks brewing flaws, but I don't care. I love the big mouthfeel of these extreme beers. This is a worthy winner of overall Beer Of The Month, and would actually win most months.

NorthamptonSHIRE Beer Festival - The Aftermath

I should probably state at the outset that the festival's nomenclature is the full county, not just the town as I've been referring to it all along. Anyway, as a first time beer festival worker, I have to say I really enjoyed myself.

I started on the Tuesday, helping set up the beers on the stillage. This involved putting gauze socks on each barrel and then taking them to the appropriate area of the stillage for placing. This was dirty work, and for a weakling as I am, quite knackering. I returned home after three hours or so knowing I'd worked bloody hard. I was filthy and thirsty, and knew I'd used what muscles I have.

Arriving early afternoon on Wednesday, all the casks were in place, and had their taps and pegs in place. There wasn't really a lot of work to do, but I went round the majority of the 206 beers pouring a small sample to identify which of the colour coded cask end labels: yellow for light beers; pink for mid coloured, and blue for dark beers, we would need. The beers were not yet ready to drink, a lot of them looking really hazy, but they were getting there as the aroma of some of them told me.

We opened at 5pm on Thursday, and I arrived about 1:30. Most things were in place, although the cask end labels had not yet arrived. Four of us erected a large banner between a tree and the lorry which acted as a stage. This was a tough task and one of our group fell unceremoniously from the tree. Fortunately no bones were broken. At 3 ish, the cask end labels arrived, but alas they needed laminating. What a long winded labourious task this was. Three laminating machines were on overdrive for around two hours (except for the fifteen minutes when the one I was using had to be repaired!!!). As all the other staff arrived we set them to sticking the labels on the cask, a task we completed at about 5:01. We almost made it!!

In total the festival was open 28 hours and I worked serving beer for around half of them. It was great fun. All of the guys and gals who worked were fun to work with and we had a laugh. There was loads of staff at all times. I really cannot imagine any punters have any complaints on that score, as every one seemed to be served within seconds of choosing their beer.

The ciders and fruit wines ran out on the Saturday early evening, but at closing time there were still around 80 beers on by my reckoning. There was no trouble (there rarely is at festivals), and of all of the customers I served just three got on my nerves. I had the expected comments and heard some funny remarks from punters which I'll save for another post, but all in all the festival went swimmingly.

It's great testiment to the festival organiser Phil Greenway of Great Oakley Brewery and Paul Barton of The Queen Adelaide who worked like troopers arranging staff and organising the event, just how successfully everything went.

I won't hesitate to volunteer again next year, and to any of you considering volunteering at a CAMRA beer festival - just do it!!