I’m delighted to be doing one of the keynote speeches at the inaugural Beer Cities’ Forum, as well as chairing a British Guild of Beer Writers session with Roger Protz, Adrian Tierney-Jones, Frances Brace & Susanna Forbes in the afternoon. It’s the first of its kind and a great chance for people to learn about and discuss the very best beer cities and beer weeks in Britain.
Tag: Beer Festivals
January Video Blog – It’s Festival Time!
Went to the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester last week, and had a rather marvellous time.
The result is a video with me and Peter Amor – he gets to talk to people and I get to drink a lot of beer. I almost manage to hold it together to the end…
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You wait ages for locally based beer phenomena and then two come along at once
I’m starting to think there might be something in this beer lark.
Just a week after the Jolly Butchers reinvents itself as one of London’s top five beer pubs, The Alma on Newington Green is having a bank holiday weekend real ale festival.
The Alma is a pretty pub in a great location, on the border between N1 and N16. Bobby Gillespie out of Primal Scream lives just around the corner, and he blew his entire wad of Indie Rock credibility a few years ago when he complained to the council about the noise from the pub.
It’s a gastropub – one of the best in the area – really nice food, freshly prepared, nice wine list, lovely staff, great atmosphere. But up to now the beer selection has been nothing to write home about.
This weekend landlady Kirsty Valentine changes all that with a festival celebrating the extraordinary renaissance of London brewing in recent years. There’s a full list of about twelve ales, all from Sambrooks, Brodie’s, Twickenham and Redemption, none of which existed six years ago (Twickenham is the oldest, having opened in September 2004).
And the nice thing about the mix, given that they’re drawn from four local breweries, is that there’s a really interesting array of beer styles in there – a few golden ales, a few session beers, and some stronger, darker stuff.
Some of the brewers will be turning up at various points throughout the weekend, and I’m going down there tomorrow (Saturday) hopefully to meet the nice man from Tottenham’s Redemption Brewery.
It’s three quid a pint (10% off for CAMRA members, not that they deserve it – sorry, Tandy etc – I’m grouchy about appalling behaviour by some stereotypes who were at the National Brewery Centre launch last night) and there’s a live band on Sunday. It kicks off Saturday at noon and runs until chucking out time on Bank Holiday Monday.
See you there!
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Raise a glass to St David’s Day
Why do we think it’s still acceptable to take the piss out of the Welsh in a way that’s no longer acceptable with any other nation?
OK, I’ll admit they talk a bit funny, and maybe we don’t have the same sense of them being a nation that we do with the Scots and Irish, who both fought more robustly to avoid being absorbed by England than their south-westerly Celtic cousins. ‘England and Wales’ is still often said on one breath even in this devolutionary age where Scotland has regained a considerable measure of national pride and identity.
But I love Wales. I mean, just look at it:
The fact that The Beer Widow is a closet Taff has a lot to do with that (you’d never guess to hear her talk, unless you make her really mad and really drunk at the same time) but I hope to divide my time between South Wales and London to an increasing extent. It’s stunning scenery in the valleys, the kind you drink in. The pubs around Abergavenny are some of the best I’ve ever been to, delivering the quality you’d expect from a gastropub with none of the pretension. And the Abergavenny Food Festival is one of the culinary highlights of my year.
I did two talks/tutored tastings at last year’s festival. I got a kick out of the fact that they both sold out a month or so in advance, when tickets for other events were still available on the day. OK, so one of those was an audience with Michael Winner so it’s not fair to compare, but still.
One of my events was a tasting of locally brewed beers. Four years ago, when I was commissioned by the Mail on Sunday to do a piece on micros across Britain, I had trouble finding many breweries in Wales to talk about. I had Breconshire Brewery, and that was pretty much it. There’s no such problem now.
As with any region of the country, when I was selecting beers for the tasting I found several that were so bad I had to pour down the sink, but the good ones were sublime.
Otley is one of the most exciting breweries in the country. Founder and brewer Nick Otley shares the vision of peers like Dark Star and Thornbridge, always asking ‘What If…’, always giving trad beer styles a new and unique twist, and his branding is arguably the best in small-scale British brewing:
At the tasting we had O-Garden – yes, a Belgian-style wheat beer – and Columb-O, a 4% golden ale for which Nick bought up the entire UK supply of Columbus hops to create one of those peachy, zingy beers that makes you a bit giddy when you first taste it. At the end of the tasting we had to clear out so the next talk could set up, and we were dawdling, going “Hang on, I think there’s just a bit more left in the pin,” desperate not to leave any behind.
Otley also runs a mail order business supplying other Welsh beers, and he very kindly gave me a few other beers for the event.
Purple Moose is probably the most celebrated Welsh brewery right now, at least in terms of awards. I found their beers to be expertly made, nothing wrong with them at all, but I should have tasted them before the Otley beers. Nice pale ales, crisp and flavoursome, and maybe it was unfair of me to expect more than that, but with the hype and the funky name and branding, I kind of did.
Kingstone is a farmhouse brewery in Tintern who’d caught my attention the year before with 1503 – an ale based on a recipe from that year. Unfortunately I’ve had one or two dodgy bottles recently from shops, but on the day it didn’t disappoint – dark and carmelly, with that lovely sweet spot where hops and malt meet and synthesise in a rich fruitiness. (Kingstone also helped out the following day after Fedex played a game of football with the Jaipur intended for my IPA tasting, donating the festival stock of their IPA). They’ve got a fantastic and intriguing bottled range, nothing too wacky but very solid.
Breconshire kind of dominates the Welsh brewing scene now. Head Brewer Buster Grant is a striking figure, tall with a Victorian-size beard and often sporting a kilt. His beers are subtle – they make you work a bit before revealing their strengths, but it’s well worth the effort. He takes classic styles and tweaks them a little – a best bitter that’s paler than a golden ale (Cribyn, 4.5%), an old ale that has sherry notes and ages nicely despite being only 5% (Rambler’s Ruin), and a stunning stout made with peated malt that delivers the flavour profile of a whisky aged beer without pinning you to the ground and punching you repeatedly in the face with it (Night Beacon, 4.5%). These are beers that knock politely and ask if they can come in, before revealing themselves to be more than you first took them for.
My one big regret at the Festival was that I didn’t feature anything from the Tudor Brewery. This is a new operation in the heart of Abergavenny, a brew pub in the Kings Arms, a delightful, ancient pub with rooms and food that punches above its weight. When the brewery opened I tried to like the beers. I tried so hard. But they simply weren’t very good, so I didn’t put them into the tasting. And then, afterwards, I found out they had a new brewer who’d had a bit of help and completely turned them around. If you see Skirrid, Sugarloaf and Blorenge – named after the mountains that overlook Abergavenny – please give them a go. They’re well worth it, especially the slightly spiced toffee warmth of the Sugarloaf.
Apart from it being St David’s Day, and the fact that it’s easy to overlook Welsh beers, and that have been meaning to write about Abergavenny for months, the other reason for posting this today is that there’s a Welsh Beer Festival on down at the Rake this week. We went down yesterday, attending a tasting of Breconshire beers by Buster – including the excellent Rambler’s Ruin and Night Beacon.
Then we shared a couple of pints with Nick Otley, who talked us through O Rosie (blonde ale brewed with rosemary ) and Motley Brew, the full-on IPA brewed with Glyn from the Rake. It’s a beer that stops you in your tracks and makes you see the wisdom of ordering halves. It’s pretty much Glyn’s favourite beer. I mean, it would be, but after doing it as a one off, there is now talk of it being made a permanent Otley beer and rightly so.
If you’re anywhere near London the Welshfest worth checking out – the decking area is full of racked beers, I reckon there’s over 20 on in total.
So, Wales then. The country is about the same size as Belgium. And while chances of it competing with the continental surrealists in beer terms remain remote, in beer – as in so much else these days – when you start to scratch the surface, it has a burgeoning beer culture all of its own – a distinctively Welsh beer culture.
Lots occurin’.
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Priorities
On Saturday night me and Mrs PBBB and our Welsh rellies went to Alexandra Palace for the fireworks.
We’d seen an ad for a German Bierfest in the building itself, and decided to check that out for a couple of hours beforehand.
We were promised authentic German beer, authentic German sausages, and authentic German music. I still have flashbacks to my time at Oktoberfest five years ago, like a Vietnam vet, only in a good way. While there, I realised that it wasn’t a celebration of beer per se, but a celebration of communion and friendship that had beer at its heart. For three days we were up on our seats forming conga lines and toasting people we had only just met, and the oompah bands – never something I had previously listened to voluntarily – drove the atmosphere and buzz in each tent as adeptly as any superstar DJ.
It didn’t take long to realise that Ally Pally wasn’t going to be quite the same.
At least the beer was Paulaner. And I wouldn’t have minded the £4 a pint price tag if it hadn’t been served in the cheapest possible plastic glasses, with no sign of the characteristic thick, foaming head it should be served with. (If you didn’t want decent beer, you could have had Fosters for £3.60). Attractive bar staff served us at our tables, which was good. But the flimsy glasses and their lack of experience meant the only way for them to carry the beer was in cardboard carriers of four pints each. As they walked they tended to swing these, leaving trails of spilt beer in their wake.
The tables and benches were incredibly flimsy and clearly would not have supported anything other than sitting politely.
The ‘authentic German food throughout the venue’ turned out to be one stall selling Bratwurst and sauerkraut for £6 a pop – or piddling Herta Frankfurters at £3 a go. The other alternatives were overpriced and frankly inedible looking authentic Bavarian pizza, or the authentically Bavarian Fine Burger Co.
The oompah band played none of the big hits from Munich, the tunes that really get the crowd going. They came from Ipswich, and alternated with an authentic Bavarian Irish folk band.
The whole thing was a bit mystifying – why go on about how authentic it’s going to be and then not even try?
And why can’t the English organise something like Oktoberfest? I caught myself at one point thinking, “Ah, but there’s thousands of people here. You could never have proper glassware, proper service, proper food, proper chairs and tables at an event this size. You just wouldn’t be able to police it properly and guarantee people’s safety”. And then I remembered that Oktoberfest does exactly that – this gathering was small compared to any one of the giant tents in Munich, which managed to serve more people better food at better table in proper glasses.
I was feeling decidedly grumpy, pissing off the others with my inability to just accept it for what it was.
And then, we went outside and the sky lit up, and for half an hour cynical middle-aged beer writers and small children alike went “ooh”, and “aaah”.
And I realised that sometimes – just occasionally – the best thing you can do is shrug and say, “So what? It’s only beer.”
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Festivals and that
My latest pieces in the Publican:
I’ve been inspired by all the different kinds of festivals I’ve been privileged to appear at this summer, and it made me think about how pubs might benefit from the psychology they create. I wrote about it here.
If you read this blog much you’ll have read about the Cask Report already. But if you’d like to read me writing about the same points using slightly different words, you can do so here, and see a nice chart I’m quite proud of.
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Lovely Pub Hosts Festival of Lovely Beer This Weekend
The White Horse in Parson’s Green has long been famous as THE Mecca for the luvvies of the beer world, if that’s not too bizarre a concept (the idea of there being luvvies of the beer world, rather than them having a Mecca).
There was a general feeling when landlord Mark Dorber left after 25 years that it wasn’t going to be as good as it used to be. And while Mark is an irreplaceable character (currently to be found being highly and very entertainingly opinionated at his new gaff in Walberswick), current manager Dan Fox, ably assisted by Ben Lockwood (a man whose unimpeachable and unquestionable passion for Barnsley FC mirrors my own) have ensured a seamless continuation of high standards for which they deserve recognition and acclaim.
A perfect example of this is this weekend, the White Horse’s 26th Old Ales Festival. From beer o’clock on Friday 28th November to I-should-remember-I-need-to-be-at-work-tomorrow on Sunday 30th, the pub will be showcasing at least fifty examples of historic styles like barley wine, old ale, mild, porter, stout and strong ale. It’s cold. It’s raining. It’s the credit crunch. You don’t need any more reasons than that. But there are many more – including exclusive CASK beers from Meantime, and rare beers from North America.
See you there.
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Beer Exposed – a little after the event
Lots of these posts should have been up here a few weeks ago – anyway…
I posted (late) that I was doing Beer Exposed, a new event in London that took place during the last weekend in September.
I was interested when the organisers approached me because after my first visit to the Great American Beer Festival in 2005, I got very jealous of what they had and felt that it was infinitely superior to the Great British Beer Festival – why did beer festivals have to be restricted to real ale? If you allowed big brewers in didn’t that give more money to make the whole event a little more polished? Wasn’t it a good idea to have small tasting glasses so people could sample more beers? And would it be possible to pay an entry fee and then let people just try the beer without having to pay any more?
My outspoken piece in the trade press led to a very entertaining war of words and quite public feud with Roger Protz, who saw himself as CAMRA’s appointed guard dog. This feud ended when I wrote a piece on the Great Yorkshire Beer and Food Show a year later, during which I realised there was room for more than one kind of beer festival: let CAMRA preach to the converted, there was clearly a market for it, and there was room for a different kind of beer festival alongside the GBBF rather than us always putting pressure in CAMRA to wake up and smell the 21st century.
Well, Beer Exposed turned out to be almost exactly the kind of event I was imagining. It was a big risk, run as it was for the first time by a couple of guys who were not known to the beer industry. Many of the big names in brewing stayed away. The numbers of attendees were not as high as the organisers had hoped and they almost certainly lost money. But this was year one, and the feedback from those who attended suggests next year can only be bigger and better.
There were real ale brewers, extreme beers, US beers and lagers from all across the world. Stalls were staffed by the brewers themselves rather than CAMRA volunters. Without the need to take cash, the brewers were free to talk to drinkers about their beers, and many brewers I spoke to said this was the highlight of the event – being able to meet the punter and discuss the beers they love creating.
The people who attended the festival were, in the main, not beer afficionados but people who were curious about beer, knew very little and wanted to learn more – about a 50-50 split between men and women. The walks I did around the floor were well-attended by people who wanted to learn about different varieties of hops! It was proof that there is a big audience out there who want to embrace more interesting beer – and are prepared to pay £17 entrance fee to do so.
With the addition of slops bins, glass washing stations and a bit more food, this could be the perfect beer festival.
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American Beers at the White Horse
Looks like I picked the wrong weekend to visit my folks back in Yorkshire…
From Friday 4th (US Independence Day) to Sunday 6th, the celebrated White Horse in Parson’s Green is hosting its first American Beer Festival. We don’t get enough American micros in the UK and this is a great opportunity to try old favourites, some of the growing number of British beers inspired by the American way with the hop, and a few beers that haven’t left the US before now, including a few in cask.
I’m celebrating my 40th birthday there the following Saturday, so if there are any REALLY nice beers, if you could only have one of them and not tell anyone else about them, so there’s plenty left, it would be really appreciated.
They’ve got American bands on and even line dancig at some point, but don;t let that put you off. The full range of beers is as follows:
*Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA (in cask and keg)
*Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale (in cask)
Sierra Nevada Porter (in cask)
Sierra Nevada IPA (in cask)
*Sierra Nevada ESP (in cask)
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Brown Ale
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
Sierra Nevada Blonde
Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager
Flying Dog Gonzo
Flying Dog Doggie Pale Ale
Flying Dog Old Scratch
Anchor Liberty
Anchor Steam
Crouch Vale Amarillo
Durham White Amarillo
Saltaire Cascade Pale Ale
Roosters Yankee
Roosters Outlaw Amarillo
Roosters Cream
Roosters Special
Acorn Sunstorm
Acorn Cascade IPA
Oakleaf Whole Hearted
Archers IPA
Bowman Quiver
Dark Star American Pale Ale
Ascot Posh Pooch
Ascot Alligator Ale
Ascot Wheatsheaf
Thornbridge Jaywick
Thornbridge Jaipur
Thornbridge Ashford
Abbeydale Brimstone
Kelham island Pale Rider
Goose Eye Chinook
Oakham JHB
* Denotes beers that are leaving the US for the first time
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