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Ready to play? What’s the day? It’s bottling day!

Hello, I’m Brian Cant. *Sighs wearily*. Yes, I AM sure it’s spelled with an ‘A’!

This is an admission of being an old fart now I guess, but do you remember Play School? The highlight of every programme – before you were old enough to be sneery about who was hotter, Hamble or Jemima – was when they went through one of the windows to look at the world outside their pastel-toned Neverland. Would it be the square window? The arched window? Or the… the……. The ROUND window! That pause taught Chris Tarrant and Reality TV presenters everything they know. Once safely through the appropriate window we always seemed to end up in a factory. After a while they all blurred into one, but they never failed to fascinate. In the 1970s Britain’s economy was still manufacturing-based, and there was something both soothing and compelling about watching unidentifiable bits of extruded plastic pass along a conveyor belt, through various stamping and shaping and colouring and bending and cutting machines, the duff ones being lifted from the belt by blank-faced yet somehow cool factory workers in white coats and hair nets, until at the end you recognised ranks of shiny, brand new dolls. Or cars. Or ready meals. Everything in creation seemed to come from a production line, and Play School visited every single one of them. The windows seemingly looked in on God’s own workshop.I’m reminded of this every single time I visit a brewery. Because while beer writers and beer lovers may profess a passion for hops, or yearn to see ancient coppers still toiling away or breathe in the fruity aroma of rocky yeast from open square fermenters, as far as the brewers themselves are concerned there is one star attraction and one only: the bottling line.

God moves across the face of the brewery
We often talk about the uneasy and complex relationship between the brewer and his yeast in which the microscopic organism is always the ultimate boss. But the same applies to the bottling line. It’s a cruel mistress that enslaves and fascinates them. They love it and hate it. They want to smash it with hammers on the frequent occasions when something goes wrong, and to become one with the elegant dance of its shiny, sterile perfection when it works properly.The last brewery I visited was Hall & Woodhouse, and despite the extensive tour which included watching the beer being mashed in, the bottling line wasn’t running and they couldn’t apologise profusely enough. To hear them, you’d think they’d got us all the way to Dorset under false pretences. They genuinely thought they’d let us down. This reaction is exactly the same whenever I visit a brewery where the bottling line isn’t running.But be afraid if you visit when it is running. At the main SABMiller brewery in Milwaukee they show you a video of how beer is made, then take you on a tour of the bottling and packaging lines, and the distribution depot. They tell you all about how much beer they ‘truck and train’ across the US, and then it’s on to the tasting room. When I asked if we were going to see the actual beer being brewed on this brewery tour, I was told no, because compared to the bottling and distribution of beer, brewing itself is “pretty boring”.Perhaps in Miller’s case that’s true. But even good breweries worship their bottling lines like Pacific Cargo Cults venerate aeroplanes.

You’re impressed, right? You sure as hell better be, boy. You don’t wanna make me come over there, I’m tellin’ ya.
When I visited Asahi in Tokyo we had to watch the bottling line for half an hour. We were given every single specification. They told us that the man who invented Kaiten sushi – the conveyor belt with dishes that come around to your seat – was inspired by watching this very bottling line. He probably dreamt it up in desperation, a ruse to get out of there. “Yes, it’s lovely, really it is, but I’ve got to dash – I need to, um, that’s it! I need to invent a completely new model for how restaurants work! It’s been lovely though, Bye!”For the rest of us, paying homage to the bottling line is a sort of penitence, a sacrament that must be performed before we can proceed to the heaven of the sample room. So you stand in a strip-lit metal cavern, mute as the shrill chink of glass deafens you, and watch reverentially for about five minutes, pondering. Wow, think about how much beer that is. If you drank two or three bottles every day, how long would it take you to get through that lot? Gosh, they’re a much bigger brewer than you think. And then when you run out of such reflections you turn and indicate that you’re ready to move on, and the brewer looks at you, first hurt, like you’ve said you can’t tell what his five year old son’s drawing is supposed to be of, and then angry, and he grabs you by the hair and slams you against the safety railings and twists your heads to face the conveyor, and growls, “Look at it. I SAID LOOK AT IT. WHAT? YOU’VE ALREADY LOOKED AT IT? WELL LOOK AT IT SOME MORE! AND KEEP LOOKING AT IT UNTIL I TELL YOU THAT YOU’VE LOOKED AT IT ENOUGH!”Two hours later, hungry and scared, you see him finally turn without a word and leave through a door you’d forgotten existed, into a world you never thought you’d see again. And then you’re in the sample room tasting beers and he’s back to his old self, and everyone pretends nothing happened, and you have a great time.
I said look at it.
Bottling lines are expensive pieces of kit and amazing feats of engineering, so many tiny parts all working in concert. Something has to go wrong, and when it does it must be as frustrating as it is when I spend hours working on a document and then the computer crashes and I lose it. And I know that bottling lines can transform the fortunes of a brewery.
But what I could never say to a brewer’s face is that, while we understand that to you your bottling line is unique, and beautiful, and the best one in the whole world, to us it looks like all the other bottling lines, and when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. And remember – a lot of us saw Play School when we were kids too.
And if I’m ever invited to a brewery again after writing this post, I will insist that the entire thing is a joke and in no way reflects my truly feelings, my enduring love and fascination for these wonderful, beguiling pieces of machinery.

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Crackdown on mythical creatures as new Mandatory Code comes into force today

Tinkerbelle: barred from UK pubs under tough government measures coming into force today.

Irresponsible creatures from the world of faerie including pixies, elves and sprites will be barred from pubs under tough new powers introduced from today, announced Home Office Minister Alan Campbell.It is estimated that magical creatures cost the UK taxpayer between £8 and £13 billion a year. The mandatory code introduces five conditions for all alcohol retailers which will ensure consistent good practice and crack down on problem premises where irresponsible drinking by mythical creatures could put individuals at risk and lead to crime and antisocial behaviour. (We said ‘could’, because of course there’s no evidence that it actually does.) The conditions coming into force today are:

  • banning irresponsible creatures such as pixies, elves, sprites, boggarts, kobolds, goblins, orcs and level six halfling thieves
  • banning “dentist’s chairs” where drink is poured directly into the mouths of customers making it impossible for them to control the amount they are drinking – or at least, that’s would would happen if there were any pubs that actually ran them

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said:”Like the dentists’ chair promotion, creatures from the world of faerie may not actually exist outside the feverish imaginations of Daily Mail readers and one tacky bar in Newcastle, but just think what it would be like if they did. A minority of them would continue to take part in irresponsible activities which fuel the excessive drinking that leads to alcohol-related crime and disorder. I mean, centaurs may not really exist, but you can bet that if they did they’d be right bastards, necking blue WKDs for all they’re worth and shitting all over the floor of their local ‘Spoons. So it’s best that we just take the precaution and ban them. Even though they don’t exist. I mean, it’s easier to find a photo of an elf than it is a dentist’s chair promotion, so if we’re banning the dentist’s chair, it’s better to be safe than sorry and go the whole hog, banning everything else that doesn’t actually exist.”The code will see an end to these entirely fictitious creatures and drinks promotions, ensure premises check the ID of those who appear to be underage or have suspiciously pointy ears, helping to make our government look tough by pandering to a neoprohibitionist that inhabits a strange fantasy world with ever fewer links to reality.”

Bilbo Baggins was unavailable for comment.

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Cask Ale? There’s an App for that.

Today sees a big drumroll for Cask Ale Week, which officially launches on Monday.

Two exciting things this morning:
Firstly, The Independent, the official media partner of Cask Ale Week, has published a cask ale supplement. I’ve written the intro and a piece on the history of beer, and there are also pieces by Protzy on the rise of microbreweries, Tim Hampson and Tom Stainer at the Kelham Island Tavern, none other than Al Murray rhapsodising about cask ale and British tradition, and Neil Morrissey on his life in beer. Follow the links by all means, but please do try and buy the paper as well – they need all the sales they can get!
Secondly, Cask Marque and Cyclops today launch Caskfinder, an iPhone app. Now I’ll be honest: when you see Cask Marque’s somewhat dated, cramped website, I didn’t have the highest of hopes for this. But having just downloaded it I’m absolutely blown away by it. I can see it’s going to be indispensable.
First, there’s an encyclopedia of every beer rated using the Cyclops tasting notes – currently just over 1000 – searchable by beer name or brewer, with tasting notes and the opportunity for you to record your own rating of it.
Second, there’s a directory of every one of Cask Marque’s 6000-odd pubs. Let your iPhone know where you are and it flags up the nearest pubs to you – you can also download this onto your car Satnav. Googlemaps gives you the address of the pub, a link to their website if they’ve got one, and details of any beers on tap that have been tested by Cask Marque’s assessors.
Then there’s a directory of brewers – don’t know how many bit I’d guess a couple of hundred. You can see all their beers, back search from here to find the pubs that serve them, link to the brewers’ websites, and find the brewery in a map.
There’s a directory of upcoming beer festivals with full details, locations, maps etc, a featured beer of a week, and and, er, an RSS feed to this blog! Looks like I’d better tone down the profanities from now on.
And it’s absolutely free.
I know there are some people who are sneery about Cask Marque, and critical of Cyclops. Some breweries claim their own quality standards are higher, and people don’t like the format of the Cyclops tasting notes. But in each case, while they may not be perfect, they are rapidly becoming national standards. This app shows the confidence and vision that cask ale as a beer style now has. For pubs and breweries that have not yet signed up, or feel they don’t need it, I’d say it’s worth signing up just be be on this app. The more pubs and beers it includes, the more indispensable it will be.

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Cask ale and lager: friends or foes?

It’s Cask Ale Week next week – and Roger Protz and I will be celebrating by singing the praises of lager. No, it’s not a premature April Fool. I wrote in January that drinking unfiltered, unpasteurized Budvar straight from the conditioning tanks in Ceske Budejovice was one of the most amazing taste experiences of my beery life so far. It was exquisite, a completely different drink, and it underlined to everyone present that great lager is every bit as superb as great ale. Well, next week I get to drink it again, without having to go to the Czech Republic – and you can try it too. On Tuesday night, 30th March, The White Horse at Parson’s Green will be cracking open some of the unpasteurized, unfiltered nectar flown straight in from the brewery, and Protzy and I will be singing its praises and talking more generally about the difference – and similarity – between ale and lager. I’ll be focusing on what I learned at the fascinating Guild of Beer Writers lager seminar at Thornbridge about 18 months ago, questioning our conventional understanding of how you define lager, discussing examples of beers on the borderline. Then, the Protzatolah will share some of his research on the history of lager brewing, challenging conventional wisdom that lager is inherently somehow inferior in quality to ale, and showing that lager brewing actually goes back much further than most of us think. Admission is free but places are limited, so if you’re keen, it’s best to book a place with the White Horse now. Things kick off at 7.30ish. See you there!

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Thunderbird Zero – you’re fired.


Just realised I can’t bring myself to use this picture any more after today.

It might be funny, but I love Thunderbirds. It was my favourite show when I was growing up. You know what? It still is.
International Rescue helped people. They saved lives. Made the world a better place. This man is an disgrace to the uniform. It’s an insult to Scott, Alan, Gordon, Brains and especially Virgil to associate this fucking moron, this retard, with their legacy any longer. (And yes, I know ‘retard’ is politically incorrect. But not as politically incorrect as ‘cunt’, which is the only other word I can think of.)
I hereby proclaim that Alistair Darling is off the SupermarionationTM roll-call forthwith.
I was going to do a post sounding off about the budget in detail, but what’s the point? Everyone else from CAMRA and BBPA to the entire UK beer blogosphere is venting their spleen, and I agree with them, but I’ve nothing additional to say. I have been thinking about where we go from here though. And I plan to write quite a bit about that, real soon.

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Cask ale week – and beer versus wine again

Next week is the second cask ale week. After a cautious, modest success last year, this year’s event should see pubs and brewers promoting cask ale with a little more confidence, and getting great beer a rare outing in mainstream media.

One brewer who already has a radio show lined up has asked me to ask you to help him out. Notwithstanding my poorly written and therefore misunderstood blog about how we shouldn’t be trying to make beer the new wine, the question is this:
What arguments would you use to convince a regular wine drinker that they should be drinking beer instead?
I have my own views on this, but what do you think?
For the record, in my previous blog post I wasn’t suggesting that you shouldn’t attempt to convince wine drinkers to drink beer, just that you shouldn’t do it by trying completely to compete with wine on wine’s terms. Some people seek flavour and they should already be open to try anything flavoursome – beer, wine, whatever – whereas others drink wine not for its flavour but for image reasons, so trying to convince them about beer’s flavour is simply barking up the wrong tree.
But you may disagree.
Either way, if a wine drinker came to you and said, “Why should I drink beer?” What would your reply be?

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Hair of the Dog

Good afternoon, and we’re blogging LIVE from the White Horse in Parson’s Green, where a momentous event is taking place.
Last month, I helped brew a beer up at Kelham Island in Sheffield. It’s a 6% IPA that had a final sparge of hops at the end of the brew. As is always the case, there was the difficult question of what to name the beer. This was resolved when Crown Brewer Stu’s wife, Cat – who works at Kelham Island – contacted the beer widow and suggested the beer be named after out dog, Captain.
And so, a beer was born:
In the photo on the pump clip, the little fella is lying on our rug chewing away at a dried bull’s penis. he loves a bit of dried bull’s penis, does Captain. But he does look like he’s smoking a cigar – entirely befitting of the successful dog about town with a beer named after him.
So, today Captain IPA went on the bar at the White Horse, and Captain wanted to come down and check it out. Here is is on the bar, next to his beer:
He’s not that interested in trying the beer, which is a shame – that hop sparge hasn’t necessarily given it a stronger hop flavour, but it’s given it a much more rounded hop flavour – the usual citrus and resin is fleshed out with a much sweeter, fuller hop character that blends perfectly into the malt. It’s a winner!
Captain has also been sighted at this weekend’s Kelham Island Beer Festival and at various pubs around the country, including some Wetherspoons. There are two nines of it down here at the White Horse – not sure how much of it we’ll get through this afternoon but please do try and check it out! It’ll make Captain’s afternoon.

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Defeating the human survival gene

There’s a restaurant in Old Street, North London, called the Bavarian Beer House. Look, here it is:

If you’ve ever been to one of those sad, half-arsed, desperate-and-yet-at-the-same-time-can’t-quite-be-bothered apologies for an Oktoberfest that British events companies occasionally excrete onto the heads of an unprovoked public, you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no point going to a Bavarian Beer House in North London.
But unlikely as it sounds, in this case you’d be quite wrong. It’s run by Germans, staffed by Germans, has beer imported from Germany, serves truly authentic German cuisine, and the waitresses all look like this:

I first encountered the people there when I met head honcho Sabine von Reth while we were both defending our national honour in Market Kitchen’s Beer World Cup. I then went there for lunch, and we got chatting about beer and food matches, and last Tuesday I went back for a free meal, going through the most popular dishes and recommending which of the various lagers and wheat beers worked best with each one.

If I get around to it I’ll write up those recommendations – and they should be on the menu in the BBH quite soon. It was a very enjoyable evening and I’d heartily recommend a visit to anyone. Good food. Good beer. Great service.
But I wanted to talk about one particular dish. It’s a dish – an ooze, a concoction, a form of matter – that worries me. No, more than that – it scares the holy fucking crap out of me. And that dish is Obatzda.
Here is a picture of Obatzda:

Yes, it looks like cat sick dressed with red onions. It’s the most revolting-looking food I’ve seen since the Heinz sandwich paste my dad used to give me to take to school. There is no reason whatsoever why anyone should feel moved to put this in their mouths. And yet for some reason, Germans do, and the first time I went to the Bavarian Beer House, I did too.
When you put it in your mouth it has the consistency and character of wet concrete. It’s all so badly wrong, and then your tongue takes a tentative look and it’s oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…….. ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yyeeeeeeeeeesssssss……. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………….
Turns out it’s not made of cat sick. It’s made of Emmental cheese mixed up with cream cheese, butter, herbs and onions, served with pretzels.
When you swallow the first mouthful, you feel it coat and line your oesophagus on the way down. A second mouthful, and your heart sits up in your chest like a meerkat sensing a hawk. The third settles in your stomach like wet sand. After the fourth, your heart tries to make a run for it, hammering on your ribcage, pleading tearfully to be let out.
And yet, you just keep going. And going. And going.
I was eating it for, I’d guess, about forty minutes. I had to ask for extra pretzels. I was eating steadily, methodically, workmanlike, and after those forty minutes I had made no impression whatsoever on the bulk of the thing sitting in front of me. But still, I kept going.
This… substance is not right. It’s uncanny. Sinister.
Think about it: humanity has had a long and violent history getting to where we are today. Some of the most celebrated stories we tell each other are about our triumphs over adversity and gritty will to survive. We’re resourceful, ingenious, determined and strong, but most of all we have a survival gene, a sixth sense that alerts us to danger and helps us avoid it.
When I was a teenager I went abseiling down a cliff face. Eight people went before me. I was roped and harnessed up, and I’d seen them roped and harnessed in similar fashion enjoying the descent. And yet I simply could not make my body take that final step off the cliff top. In my brain I knew I’d be safe, but my body simply refused to obey my brain and would not act on the instructions being given to it. Primally, it knew that to step off a sixty foot high cliff would result in certain death, and so it refused to do it. Eventually I think I tricked it by leaning back ever so slowly, until by the time it realised what was happening there was nothing it could do.
So why – if our survival instinct is so strong – would anyone ever have more than one mouthful of Obatzda? In a brief moment of clarity and strength that just happened to coincide with a pretty waitress passing our table, I just managed to blurt out a plea for her to take it away – I think I may have fought her for the plate as she did so. But if that hadn’t happened, I’d still be there now, munching away methodically at this never-ending pile of foul-looking slop, for the rest of my life – which wouldn’t actually be that long.
It doesn’t even taste that nice. I mean it tastes very good, but it’s not the taste that’s making it so addictive. It’s something deeper, something chemical. In the mouth it releases endorphins that instantly make all the pain and anxiety of existence go away. It cradles your head in invisible cheesy hands, strokes your cheek and shushes you, telling you not to worry about the sudden chest pains and pins and needles that seem to have developed in the last few minutes.
If any ingestible, addictive substance should be banned, it’s Obatzda – so potent, it completely overrides the human survival gene.
It goes really well with the Erdinger Hefeweisse, by the way.

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Why Beer Matters – Third place runner up

Please say hello to John Bidwell. Hello John!

John lives in Denver, Colorado – good beer country and home to the Great American Beer Festival. In his entry, he displayed the disciplined passion that characterises the North American craft brew scene. I like this entry a lot because it transported me to the places he was discussing – I could almost taste the CoConut porter. happily, I’ll be able to soon, because brewer Garret Marrero – discussed here – has brewed it at Marston’s for the upcoming Wetherspoons Cask Ale festival.
I was introduced to Garret down at the Rake about a week after I read this, and found myself excitedly telling him every detail about the essay. I hadn’t realised until that point how vividly it had lodged in my mind, and that – along with the fact that this reads like it’s written by an experienced professional journalist – is why this piece made it in to the top three.
Why didn’t it come even higher? Stay tuned for the second place runner up, Shea Luke, in a few days!

LIQUID IDENTITIES: COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION THROUGH BEER by John Bidwell First off, let us state the obvious – beer is just a beverage made of barley, hops, yeast and water. To some it’s a thirst quencher; to others it’s a way to unwind after a long day at work. Sure, each of these uses holds a shred of importance to the individual, but why does beer matter? What has made it so ubiquitous worldwide? Why has beer become celebrated in cultures around the world? Perhaps it’s because beer acts as a window into a community. It allows a town, city, or region to tell a story about who they are in liquid form. This isn’t the case with all beers, but the most unique and imaginative beers begin to reveal their heritage after the first sip. By the turn of the 21st century, the craft brewing scene had exploded; long gone were the days of mass commoditization and conglomeration. Craft beer was now commonplace, but in Santa Cruz, California, Alec Stefanski was doing something most uncommon. “It’s a brown ale brewed with pork!” Alec exclaimed emphatically. He is the founder of Uncommon Brewers, a new brewery that prides itself on doing things a little differently, and he had just gotten his first shipment of pork belly to brew his new bacon nut-brown ale. Santa Cruz is a city known for its independent spirit, alternative living, and its reputation as an international nexus of organic farming. Uncommon’s beers reflect Santa Cruz – they are unique, broad-minded beers flavored with an arsenal of bizarre ingredients including kaffir lime, poppies, anise, and candy cap mushrooms. The brewery is run by an offbeat staff that incorporates these ingredients into their 100% organic beers. Like so many other food and drink based businesses in Santa Cruz, Uncommon Brewers is grounded in the principles of the Slow Food movement, sourcing their ingredients from the farms in the surrounding region. To taste Uncommon is to taste the community of Santa Cruz, and if the essence of the city could be captured, it would be in one of Uncommon’s signature tall boy cans. But Santa Cruz is just one of the cities that can tell a story through its beer. Garrett Marrerro was young and powerful; he was a recent college graduate making big money as an investment consultant. Like so many others, it seemed like Garrett was destined to spend his life working 9-5 for his paycheck. Unlike many others, Garrett took a bold step: he quit his job, moved to Maui, and opened a brewery. Many others have dreamed of leaving their unfulfilling jobs and moving to paradise. With sandy beaches, a tropical climate, and palm trees, Maui is, in effect, heaven on earth to the working stiff. It’s a laid back community that doesn’t take anything too seriously, and Maui Brewing Co. embodies that lifestyle and the Aloha spirit. This isn’t your typical Hawaiian beer that you drink at a ‘luau’ in line for the pineapple-glazed ham behind other tourists while a fire dancer bounces around on stage. Instead, Maui Brewing Co. produces truly local Hawaiian beer by sourcing many ingredients from the islands – CoConut Porter, anyone? Also, it is made by Hawaiians – Garrett prefers to train the local workforce as opposed to bringing in experienced mainland employees. Garrett explains: “It keeps more money on the island instead of sending ninety cents of every dollar to the mainland.” This is what Garrett refers to as ‘Brewing with Aloha’ – buying local first and supporting the community. His philosophy has led to Maui Brewing becoming the best selling locally produced beer on the islands. Garrett, like Alec and so many others, has created a product that goes beyond barley, hops, yeast, and water. He has helped mold a community identity, and has once again shown why beer matters. Beer is a reflection of our communities; it has the capacity to convey societal values and ideas in an accessible and unpretentious manner. Think drinking a beer isn’t like tasting a community? Try one of Alec’s brews, and when you taste the organic ingredients of the Santa Cruz Valley, you’ll quickly reconsider. Open a can of Garrett’s CoCoNut Porter and try not to envision relaxing on Wailea Beach. Beer showcases our community bonds; it promotes our societies’ collective creativity and displays our penchant for and acceptance of new ideas. The art that is created at breweries across the world is every bit as important to their communities’ identities as Mozart was to Salzburg’s or Van Gogh to Amsterdam’s. Yet the art of beer is down-to-earth and genial. A simple trip to the pub can take the consumer from the beaches of Maui to the beer halls of Munich and any number of places in between. Beer matters because it acts as a cultural medium between communities, a common language in which to communicate the following: ‘We crafted this beer for your enjoyment, but also to let you know who we are. We crafted this beer, and it reflects the values, beliefs, and attitudes of our community. We crafted this beer from our land’s ingredients and through our people’s labor – both are contained within every bottle. We crafted this beer for you to know us, so drink up and enjoy. Cheers!’

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