Strawberry and Pink Peppercorn Stout
This week saw the first in a new range of beers that we’re brewing at our Hall brewery. I decided to take the reins and do something a little different and am looking forward to the other brewers pushing the envelope and getting all innovative over the coming months! It also coincided with Phil Turner from Sheffield’s Exposed magazine’s brew day as he was keen to come and see how it was done and do an article in his magazine about brewing.
Prior to brewing I met up with Phil and tutored him through a beer tasting, discussing various beer styles and flavours and aromas. He mentioned that for their Exposed awards night this year, they were going to have a bit of a High Tea thing going on, so he would love to brew a beer that had some type of link to that classic British culinary experience. Cucumber sandwiches translated into beer was going to be a challenge, as was a nice fluffy sponge cake, but when he mentioned Strawberries and Cream, it got me thinking.
Beer is great by itself but also really fun to drink with food, especially if it comes to doing flavour comparisons or contrasts. One fantastic dish that sprung to mind was Strawberries, Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper. This is a real juxtaposition of flavours. The sweetness of the strawberries explodes when tasted with the rich, vinegary tartness of viscous balsamic vinegar, and the heat and fragrance of the cracked pepper makes this simple dish a stunning one. The other interesting thing about this dish is it can be enjoyed anywhere in a menu. With a little soft goats cheese and some Rocket as a starter or with a scoop of decadent vanilla ice cream as a dessert.
So could this translate into a beer? Pepper in itself is fascinating. The Piper genus where a lot of pepper comes from has a load of different species with a lot of varied culinary uses. Black, white and green pepper are usually from similar trees, but it was the Brazilian (or Peruvian) Pepper that we know as Pink Peppercorns that interested me as a brewing ingredient.
I got a few samples of peppercorns from a spice market and was really impressed by the intensely hot, fragrant Black Tellicherry peppercorn as well as the floral, sweet, almost dried-fruit like pink peppercorn. It was a done deal!
I sorted out a recipe for a 4% stout, nice and creamy with just a hint of that classic Irish dryness. I used a good portion of roasted barley to provide a hint of astringency (and just the tiniest touch of acidity) to emulate that found in balsamic vinegar. Obviously (unless you’re drinking Belgian Geueze, Lambic or Sour Brown/Red ales), too much acidity in a beer can potentially mean infection, but hopefully the hint of this from the malt would help to accentuate the fruit character that would come in later.
I then cracked a small amount of the essential-oil packed Tellicherry black pepper and added it to the mash just prior to sparging, hopefully to give a hint of the wonderful aniseed fragrance that these peppercorns held, to the finished beer.
The beer was lightly hopped with Bramling Cross and Amarillo and then I added a large amount of cracked pink peppercorns. Intensely fragrant, with a touch of parma violet, juniper berries and plump, green sultanas, these were added at the end of the boil and the aroma was fantastic.
Lots of Pink Peppercorns!!!
I’ve just got back to Riverside after tasting the brew (which is to be christened Exposed) and am so pleased. The wonderful aromatic pepper notes waft from the glass and just a hint of their perfume can be found in the creamy, chocolatey brew. Am so looking forward to the next stage and the finished product!
Finally this beer is to be aged on some strawberry pulp, which will hopefully provide just the faintest hint of strawberry and blend in with the fragrant pepper and lovley, slightly dry chocolatey character of the stout.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to leave strict instructions with the guys as I’m off to New Zealand on Sunday for a few weeks and won’t be able to see my baby come to fruition (good pun there, Kelly… good pun). The cool thing is I’m going to be doing another Epic/Thornbridge collaboration with Luke Nicholas from Epic Brewing when I’m back, as well as doing a wee beer tasting with a couple of bottles at the Malthouse in Wellington, so at least I’ll still have some brew-contact!!!
Just hope they save me some of my stout for when I’m back!
Innovation
Some businesses seem to hit the nail on the head when it comes to their mottos or catchphrases. The first brewery I worked for, Tui Brewery in New Zealand, has a fantastic advertising campaign entitled “Yeah Right” which pretty much takes the piss out of anything and everything it can. I would probably be right in saying that this campaign helped to cement Tui’s place as one of the top selling beer brands in the country.
I’m not going to wax lyrical about Tui as a beer though. It’s touted as an East India Pale Ale, which I’m sure it would have resembled way back in 1889 when Henry Wagstaff stopped off at the Mangatainoka River, made a cuppa, thought it was fantastic and set up a brewery there, but it’s definitely moved away from this style of beer. People will probably laugh at me, but I think it’s a pretty good beer. It’s consistency, like any beer from larger brewery groups is second to none, it’s served nice and cold and slakes the thirst as well as any 4% brown draught lager will and I know for a fact that DB Breweries quality control is awesome (yeah, okay maybe I was a brewery microbiologist for them for a while).
As always, I digress. Breweries often come up with great slogans or mottos that help market their products for them. I think that Dogfish Head with their “Off Centered Ales for Off Centered People” is a cracker and completely epitomises Sam Calagione’s fantastic, whacky and wonderful approach to brewing. I guess even Wychwood Brewery’s “What’s the matter Lagerboy” campaign is effective, even if it does create a divide between cask ale and lager and insinuate that you can’t enjoy both.
I don’t quite know how Guinness would get away with “Guinness is good for you” in this day and age, even though recent research has indicated that beer actually is good for you, being full of antioxidants (like the ever-touted “oh-so-great for your heart” red wine). Then there’s the recently discovered research that certain hop compounds (Xanthohumol in particular) have testosterone blocking abilities, thus helping with the prevention of prostate cancer (links in well with the recent Movember event we held at the Coach and Horses, raising over £2,500 for prostate cancer awareness). I should also mention that brewer’s yeast is a great source of B vitamins, lots of riboflavin, thiamin, niacin, pantothenic acid, even folic acid as well as a bunch of trace elements and minerals. Maybe we should be arguing against the fining of beer… de-yeasting it surely makes it less nutritious for us?
But I suppose my favourite motto of all, and I know I sound as cheesy as hell when I say this, our motto. Innovation, Passion, Knowledge. Everything that beer means to me is encompassed by this simple slogan. It probably means bugger all to some of you, others probably think it’s quite pretentious or a bit wanky, but I’m sure there are a few of you out there who read it and understand it. Maybe you’re a brewer, or someone who loves beer, in fact it can apply to anything you do and that’s yet another reason why I think it’s pretty cool.
Thornbridge as a brewery has been built on this creed and I really hope it rings true as we progress as a brewery. I look around me now as I sit at my desk tapping away at the laptop. I see Stefano, arms cleaned like a surgeon, working away fastidiously in our microbiology plating room organising the new yeast propagation that moved into 200 litres of fresh wort today. I see Mauro, a student we have from Sardinia, already initiated into the way we do things and carefully pipetting yeast nutrient media into sterilised glassware. Andrea slaves over a couple of computer consoles, meticulously recording every part of the process, leaping out of his chair as an alarm sounds and he has to go and see to another part of the brewing process, earlier, his nose deep in hops as he weighs them out. Dave and JK on the brewery floor, cleaning and chatting and talking about beers they’ve tried recently while making sure every thing is done perfectly and to the letter. Matt, brewing up at the Hall brewery today but always in contact, telling me about the new technique he is using to extract as many aromatics as possible from the vanilla pods that have been used in today’s brew. Hell, even I still have the intense warm and aniseed-laced character from some Tellicherry Black Peppercorns that I chewed with gusto… all in preparation for a cool new beer we have on the horizon.
That’s what brewing should be about, it should be about excitement and interest and fascination with new ways and ingredients and approaches. We have this here and it’s awesome!
Which brings me into the plan that has been devised for the coming year. I was going to describe it, but might as well just show you the email I sent out instead!
The Concept – Do what we do best. Create innovative, interesting and unusual beers using choice ingredients and a range of different processes.
This element of innovation is essential. It may involve different types of brewing practice, different yeasts, unusual or different beer styles than we have done before, different post-fermentation modifications or bottling techniques etc.
The Approach – One of these beers will be brewed per month at Thornbridge Hall with a different beer to be chosen every month.
The brew-plan is to include all relevant information, be well researched, methodical, analytical and scientific and explain everything from the initial thoughts behind the beer, your inspiration to brew it, why you want to brew it, what ingredients you are going to use, how you will approach the process, any relevant research you have done on the internet or by reading books (correctly referenced) and anything else that you think is important with regards to the novel processes, ingredients and beer style that you are to develop.
The Action - In the plan, you will be expected to outline all raw materials including extracts, IBUs, pitching rates, times and temperatures etc. If you are looking at using other ingredients, a link to these materials would also be of use.
So hopefully this will mean we’ll get some really interesting craft beers coming out in cask (and maybe even in very limited bottlings) with all of us brewers already strapped firmly into our thinking caps! In fact, I’ve edged in to do the first one of these beers next week, so you’ll just have to watch this space to see what it is! The beers will all be brewed at the Hall brewery and this is really a continuation of what we used to do on our one barrel pilot plant with the Alchemy range. Ending up with only a couple of casks that I would put on at the Coach and Horses meant that not many people got to try them though. This should mean a batch size of 30-40 casks, so we’ll be able to get them a little further afield to see what people think.
I can’t wait!!!
New Year, New Beer!
2009 has been an interesting one and a challenging one. Being part of the development, installation and commissioning of a new brewery has been brilliant and I’m sure all of those other brewers that have done the same over the last six months can testify that it’s not easy (I’m talking about you, Dark Star and Marble)!
As of today, we’ve put through 60 brews and we’re all beginning to learn more and more how the brewhouse works, how changes in process are affecting changes in flavour, how we can get our yeast to do what we want it to do. It’s a bit like ice-skating uphill, but hey, we like a challenge.
Lots of beer writers have given their opinions on the best of 2009, but I find it that little bit tougher to do this. For a start, we produce some beers that I think are great and I work and live in a pub that not only does great food and beer, it also had a pretty cool beer festival earlier in the year. I guess you could say my interest is vested and I can’t vote for any of these things. So I’ll keep it short and sweet instead.
Without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite Brewery of the Year has to be Marble in Manchester. I’ve read a few blog comments of late with people moaning that Marble are getting far too much kudos, or that they’ve been doing great beer for years, so why acknowledge them now etc. Whatever!
The Marble team personify the freakin’ awesome new wave of British brewing. You can argue with me that we’re following the Americans, or that the Italians and Australians and Kiwis are also doing great craft beers, but to be honest (and you all know this already), there are probably only a good dozen microbreweries in the country that are pushing the envelope (does the envelope need to be pushed, I hear you cry). Leaping away from the standard 3.5-4.5% cask ale that sells oh-so-well in a pub and tastes nice, but doesn’t flick that ever so important switch. I like this type of beer, but does it make me stand up and go wow? No chance. So instead, I can pop down to the Sheaf View in Heeley and ask for a beer (in the same alcohol range as I mentioned above).
In fact I can ask for a Pint… a Marble Pint (my Cask Beer of the Year). I can taste it and be blown away. I can tell everyone that I know how good it tastes. They can look at my pint of Pint and say it just looks like a standard pale ale. I can give them a good jab in the chops and tell them to stop being so bloody British and try drinking with your nose and mouth instead of your eyes. And I can be amazed and wowed and impressed and know that this country can take a traditional beer style and turn it into something else altogether. The Marble lads love beer. They travel around the globe to beer festivals, to the New World, to the Old World, all to hunt out good beer. And then they make it. That’s why they’re my brewery of the 2009.
Runner up is a bit more difficult. Joint second goes to Dark Star, with Mark Tranter, their head brewer brewing some brilliant beers. You can’t go wrong with Hophead or their American Pale Ale and I’m gutted I didn’t get to try their Saison. The thing I love about Dark Star is that Mark is a purely instinctive brewer. He doesn’t need the flashy Masters degree in brewing or the ten years spent in a macro-brewery learning the technology and science. He just follows his gut and his nose and his palate and does what he does and does if with flair. Leading the way in the revival of cask ale and the plethora of styles that can be brewed? Absolutely!
Also in runner up, which probably is no surprise to you all, is BrewDog. Martin and James are masters at what they do. They have a crack team of staff, a work ethic second to none and the spirit of Scottish invention is as strong in them as it was the guys who invented the telephone, bicycle, television, tyre, raincoat, gas light, steam engine (funny enough, a guy named James Watt…coincidence??), you get my drift. They have shown us that keg and bottle and cask can all showcase great beer and I’m sure this is only the beginning.
My favourite non-UK brewery of the year has to be Odell Brewing. Not only is IPA absolutely exquisite, the St. Lupulin Ale was also my Bottled Beer of the Year. It screams hops, but it also screams control. It has balance and class and style and is incredibly quaffable. At 6.5% it slides down far too easily and with all of those beautiful pine and citrus and floral characters, it amazes me that it only weighs in at 40 bitterness units. It’s also a seasonal beer, so if you do see it this year, buy loads, you won’t be disappointed. Cheers, Doug. You rock!
A close second for Bottled Beer of the Year has to be Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron. An absolutely unique brew, flooding the senses with vanilla and caramel, chocolate and tobacco leaf, raspberry and dark spirits, an unexplainable wood note, all perfumed and smelling of an old hardwood bureau, sun heating it and forcing out those crazy notes of cedar and sandalwood, even some patchouli? It’s 12% and it’s decadent. You’ll open a bottle to share and find yourself hiding in a closet like some weird, beer-geek Gollum, guarding it and obsessing over it. Hunt it out!
Pub of the year is a tough one. I generally just pop downstairs and have a pint at the Coach and Horses. It’s easy and lots of my friends drink there and its minimal effort. I do venture out of course! The Sheffield Tap is great. Has a big range of our beers as well as close to 200 bottled beers and a bunch of cool keg stuff. The Old Poet’s Corner in Ashover is cool, as is the Sheaf View in Heeley. I guess I like pubs that have a large and diverse beer selection and at the same time are comfortable and inviting and a great place to have a chat. Actually, the more that I think about it, I don’t think I can give a pub of the year award! I just didn’t get to enough pubs in 2009…how sad is that!
That’s my relatively succinct summary for 2009. Come on 2010!
Already we’re about to unleash our latest brew into the market. The new site has been dedicated of late to our core beers. The Jaipurs and Kiplings. Wild Swan, Lord Marples. So we thought it would be a good idea to try something different. Not only a different beer, but a different brewing style. At the Hall brewery, we always did something called a single-step infusion mash, where we mix the milled malted grain and water together at a certain temperature, then leave it to sit and allow the enzymes to assist the breakdown of starch into sugars. At Riverside, we do also do a step infusion mash, but increase the temperature over a period of time. This allows the different enzymes to work at their optimum and assist in the breakdown of sugars and other carbohydrates more effectively than at a single temperature.
This time though, we went for a method more commonly used on the Continent. Back in the day, the malts used by brewers in places like Germany were a lot less modified (modified means that the starch wasn’t as readily available to be attacked by enzymes and broken down into sugars) than malts used in the UK. They developed a system where a part of the mash would be taken away, boiled to aid in the release of starch granules, and to raise the temperature, and then added back to the mash. This would increase the overall mash temperature and allow the enzymes present in the non-boiled mash to attack the starch that had been released by boiling. This system, called Decoction mashing takes a lot longer than our standard system, though it is argued that it can produce slightly different characteristics in the finished beer. Some say that it affects head retention, others say it gives the beer a cleaner flavour, some say it adds a hint of caramel character to the beer, some say it aids fermentation. Whatever it does, it’s worked!
The beer we brewed, called Equinox, (thanks to Mark from http://real-ale-reviews.com/ for naming this brew on Twitter) is 5.9% and has been brewed with a large amount of Vienna malt, as well as Maris Otter and Amber malts. Hop wise, we went for Warrior, Chinook, Perle, Ahtanum, Magnum and Centennial, so has a bunch of character and bitterness. In fact, here are my tasting notes for it.
Hints of biscuity malt, bananas, oranges, some berry fruit. Clean and crisp in the mouth with more light malt characters coming through. Subtle dryness blends into a rich, lasting bitterness, balanced well by a hint of caramel sweetness. A citrus peel after-bitterness lingers.
We should have a good 100+ casks floating around, so hopefully you see it in a pub near you! Well, by near you I actually mean within a 50 mile radius of our brewery…
Hogmanale
You know you love it!
Catherine deftly balances a giant pint glass
After a great beer festival earlier in the year at the Coach and Horses in Dronfield, we’ve decided to give it another go, albeit in a very toned down way for New Years Eve.
I’ve been lucky enough to have briefly lived in Scotland, where I began my micro-brewing career at Fyne Ales at the head of Loch Fyne. The beers were fantastic, from their ridiculously drinkable multi-award winning Highlander through to the light, citric twist of Pipers Gold or a relatively new addition to their stable, the awesome Avalanche. They produce, somewhat understated in my opinion, a fantastic range of great, extremely drinkable brews. It was a real shock to the system, having come from a brewery that would brew around 120 000 litres of wort in a day, to land in the middle of a towering glen, using water collected from the local burn and brewing a mere 1640 litres three or four times a week. But under the watchful eye of Malcolm Downie, Fyne brewer if ever there was one, I began to learn the ways of the craft brewery and it was a great opportunity to take what I knew from brewing with the big boys and began the process of sliding it sideways into the exquisite joy that is microbrewing.
While in Scotland I had the chance to try many a fine brew and it has been an annual pilgrimage for myself and Catherine to head up that way to sample a few of the local brews. Whether it be a delicious Black Cuillin up in the Isle of Skye, which now has a couple of breweries, a pint of the good stuff at the Ben Leva Hotel in Drumnadrochit (where I first tasted and fell in love with the joy that is Stornoway black pudding) or sharing a Zephyr with the Brewdog guys up in their brewery in Fraserburgh, it’s always a choice drop. It probably wasn’t until Catherine and I went up to judge in the Beer of Scotland competition last year that we realised how diverse and interesting the craft ale scene is up in the far North. We were hooked! (well, I suppose it could be argued that I already was…)
A little suggestion from Tuggy, the owner of Fyne Ales and a good chat with Malcolm about what beers to get in and the New Years Eve festival was well on it’s way. It’s not going to be a big one like we did in May with marquees and barbecues and bands-a-blaring, but instead we’re aiming for something a little quieter, a bit of live music inside, haggis, neeps and tatties for the hungry amongst us and a great selection of good old hand-crafted ale.
For the thirsty… we have beers from Fyne Ales, Harviestoun, Isle of Skye, Orkney, Highland and of course Thornbridge!
I thought I’d add the tasting notes for the beers here, just in case you’re curious… The festival itself runs throughout the week (or until the beer runs out… maybe it will be New Years Eve?), should be a good’n!
From Fyne Ales…
Avalanche 4.5% Dry and delicious, this straw coloured golden ale has a fragrant lemon foretaste, and a hint of grapefruit in the finish. Refreshing, delicate, beautifully balanced. Winner of the golden ale section at the World Beer Awards 2009 & bronze medallist at the 2009 International Beer Challenge.
Holly Daze 5% An antidote to Christmas. No fancy spices just a really good stronger ale with a crisp hop flavour and plenty of malt. A refreshing beer to clear the palate.
Maverick 4.2% A fine, robust fruity ale with reddish mahogany colour and warm roasted malt flavours. A full ‘mouth’ taste and fruity hop aromas generate a distinctive character to this beer.
From Harviestoun Brewery
Bitter & Twisted 4.2% A sharp, blond beer with a superb, fresh hop profile combining aromatic Hallertau Hersbrucker with spicy Challenger. It is finished by late hopping with Styrian Goldings, which gives sharpness like the twist of a lemon. A truly refreshing & strangely moreish beer.
Mr Snowball 4.5% The colour of dark copper with a nose that is hoppy and spicy, a balanced palate and a long, hoppy finish. There are crystal and chocolate malts in this tawny beer – it’s full bodied with a delightful hop character from Challenger and Styrian Goldings.
From Orkney Brewery
Dragon Head 4% Dragonhead is dark, intense & full flavoured, Orkney’s tribute to the Vikings & their cultural legacy in the area. On the nose, there is a smooth roasted malt aroma giving bitter chocolate, dark roasted coffee, and smokey notes balanced by hints of spicy Goldings hops. On the palate, the dark roasted malts combine to give a rich, rounded palate with chocolate, toast & nut flavours with the Goldings featuring again with a hint of spice.
Northern Light 4% On the nose, this straw-coloured beer offers appealing citrus fruits, apricot & hop-resin aromas. These fruits combine on the palate with a delicate malt character to give a hoppy, zesty approachability.
Dark Island 4.6% Hints of bitter chocolate, figs & toffee feature on the nose of this dark beer. These resolve in to a silky smooth, coffee & chocolate flavours, followed by figs, dates, & dried fruits. The aftertaste has a lingering sense of the fruits & hop bitterness.
Scapa Special 4.2% Golden & sparkling in the glass, with hints of fruit esters and malt, with light hop notes on the nose. Brewed with Maris otter Pale Ale Malt & a blend of four hops from America, Germany, New Zealand & Slovakia. Each one selected for their spiciness and aroma and all giving that certain something to back up the wholesome maltiness provided by the Maris Otter. Champion Beer of Scotland 2008.
Dark Munro 4% Soft chocolate malt ‘coffee’ notes are evident on the nose with the slightest hint of hop. Depending on at what stage you are drinking this beer, fresh the chocolate malt is crisp and may have a hint of phenols when fresh, when well vented or halfway through a cask, the chocolate is soft & velvety with a perfectly balanced hop and a hint of fruity fermentation esters. Becomes dryer and ever so slightly hoppier as it ages. Champion Beer of Scotland 2007.
Red Cuillin 4.2% The Skye Brewery’s much-praised flagship ale. Reddish-hued, slightly malty and nutty in character, smooth to the taste. A multi-award-winning ale, named after the well-known hills of the Isle of Skye.
Black Cuillin 4.5% A distinctive dark ale brewed with roast barley and rolled roast Scottish oatmeal, giving an almost stout-like bitterness, smoothed through the addition of pure Scottish heather honey. It is believed that this is the only ale, as distinct from stout, which uses rolled roast oatmeal.
We’ll also be having a good line-up of our beers, namely Ashford, Pearl, Jaipur, Kipling, Lord Marples, Wild Swan, Brother Rabbit, Merrie, Raven, Saint Petersburg and Seaforth. We also might just have something a little special… Early in 2009 we did a couple of collaboration brews with both Dark Star Brewery and Birrificio Italiano. With Dark Star we brewed a fantastic Old Ale which is still happily maturing away in our stainless maturation vessel. We also brewed a Barley Wine with legendary Italian brewers Birrificio Italiano which is now ageing away quietly in a couple of ex-Burgundy and ex-Bordeaux barrels, previously used by Nyetimber (winners of the IWSC trophy for the best worldwide sparkling wine not once, but thrice!).
I managed to put aside a small pin (4.5 gallon cask) that contains some of the unoaked barley wine and a little of the old ale, so fingers crossed it makes an appearance sometime in the first week of January. Yummy!
The Beer Blogger’s Poem – The Sequel
Just when you thought that you’d had your fill
Of brewing’s William Topaz McGonagall
He comes right along to finish his telling
Of the bloggers poem (with some correct spelling).
Of those he has missed, of those he has kept
The ones that sat at home and wept
For not being waxed all lyrical
By a weird Kiwi brewer from up Thornbridge Hall.
We’ll start quite close, across the way
A Swift One’s blokes will save the day
If to Huddersfield by train you go
The place for a pint you’ll easily know.
There’s good old Phil, his palate keen,
A beer merchant who brews beers clean,
A Saint, a Sinner, new media junkie
And even a beer that’s serious funky!
Back up north, the stouter breeds,
The Good Stuff puts the Leigh in Leeds.
Cannot forget our ladies fair,
Melissa takes the beard from beer
Then there she is, beer writer in stow,
She’s patient, attentive, the Beer Widow.
And of her writing, I can’t be faulting,
The elegant prose of Impy Malting.
My gosh, my rhyming makes me spew,
Unlike the beers of Crown Brewer Stu!
He twitters like mad and brews like crazy,
One thing he’s not is tardy or lazy.
And who can forget he who puts on a show,
I watch them with interest, Zak’s YouTube video.
He teaches, he preaches, tells of flavours weird,
But I can’t help but ogle his fantastic beard!
If there’s one guy who’ll make an ale revelation,
A ninja at writing and beer observation.
It has to be one of those Welsh rugby clones.
If the North West is called out for having no flair,
Then no one has clicked on the link that is here.
Tandleman will push and others will pull,
I wonder if he’s a “My pint’s half full?”
These two will never go out for a coke,
They’re concise, they’re precise, they’re Bailey and Boak.
He counts and he drinks and directs CAMRA well
For London (the Greater), for some t’would be hell!
But passion is evident, without it we’d miss,
The fantastic writings of the Beer Justice.
And heading abroad, again we do go
But not o’er the ditch to County Carlow.
Instead it’s a Bullet that we can all Bite.
In German, Gute Nacht, but for us it’s Good Night!
You’re probably wishing the same of me.
Take something for sleeping, no maybe take three.
And stop with this dreadful and tedious poem.
And get on a boat and head south for home!
In Newcastle they talk about Walking the Dog
I’d rather read Beer Reviews by Andy Mogg.
Or something else interesting, something I’ve seen,
A mag on the interweb, they call it Hopzine.
For lots about brews, this guy shows a care
Jeff Evans, the author with his Inside Beer.
Another whose name is a challenge to match,
It’s meaning cantankerous, or even crosspatch.
The Pub Curmudgeon speaks of pubs, beer and smoking.
And forces debate on the smoke that we’re choking.
But last and not least is the head of the pack,
He blogged and brought controversy onto his back,
But we all forget all the headway he’s made
He’s helped push the beer to the sun from the shade.
And provoked responses, the good and the bad
Epitomal Protzy, the true real ale lad.
At last, as you know all good things must end,
Now head to the fridge and the bottles you tend.
Slump down in the sofa, slump down with relief.
And pray my next poem is absent or brief.
The Beer Bloggers Poem Part One
I think that it’s time, though you may not agree,
Bloggers now blogged with some more poetry.
On many a day and on many a whim,
I find myself reading, the backlighting dim.
The computer screen glowing, whispered tales of yore,
Mostly about brewing, beer, pubs, food and more.
I usually begin with a nod to the man
Who Scoops so Reluctant,who scoops when he can
I follow along with the lads from up high
Who make Penguins nuclear,who make Penguins fly.
Then to the King with his beer-writing Crown,
I chuckle, I’m shocked and impressed by Pete Brown.
For depth and for vision. For passion and edge,
Mouse arrows head southward and click on Mark Dredge.
His Pencil and Spoon are forever enthralling,
Here is a guy who has answered his calling.
And who can forget Dave of the Woolpack,
He cooks and he brews and he’s on the write track.
Jeff Pickthall tells well of pubs, CAMRA and ale,
A great one to read, honest tales without fail.
Stonch is the same from a landlord’s perspective,
We all know this word kind of rhymes with reflective.
If it’s tales of the ale from the lost days of yore
That you wish to know greatly, minutiae pore,
There are two young fellows you cannot pass by,
Martyn Cornell, the Zythophile puts PA in I
Impressive collections,brewing records bygone,
Tip my hat, bow deeply, Barclay Perkins’ Ron.
European contingent for fermented Wort,
How can we forget he who is Knut Albert.
You’re probably starting to get really bored,
Switch off your computer, put on a record.
For I will continue to write couplets for ages,
And annoy all senseless as you scroll down the pages.
I think I’ll continue with more bloggers soon.
But my favourite of this year
Well, it’s Pencil and Spoon
British Guild of Beer Writers Dinner 2009
I don’t know if it’s normal or not for brewers to join the Beer Writer’s Guild, but to be honest, I really enjoy writing about my favourite subject in the world. I began writing when I spent a 3 year stint teaching English in South Korea. Just a monthly article for a local community paper back home highlighting what I was doing over there and how interesting and fascinating the Korean culture and country was. I’ve always enjoyed writing. If I hadn’t followed my other passion, science, at university, I would have definitely studied English.
Before I came to the UK, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a Guild of Beer Writers. I had studied for an Institute and Guild of Brewing (now the Institute of Brewing and Distilling) exam whilst a trainee brewer back in NZ and this was my first encounter with the world of Guilds . The Dungeons and Dragons geek in me always thought it was pretty cool that there were still such things as Guilds in the Old World and I half-imagined dudes in hooded cloaks walking through dusty, pillared halls and discussing the Secrets of the Yeast, shifty eyes looking for random assassins from the rival Wine and Whiskey guilds that were bound to attack and steal secrets aplenty. It’s always good to have an imagination.
So there I was, attending my first ever Guild dinner as a fully fledged member. Simon, Alex and I arrived at the venue and began chatting to the myriad of familiar faces that had already gathered in the reception area. There was a fantastic selection of welcome drinks. Offerings from Brains (SA, SA Gold, Dark and the Rev. James), Caledonian (Deuchars IPA, 80/-, Flying Dutchman, Double Dark), Molson Coors (Blue Moon, Grolsch Weizen, Worthington White Shield, Zatec), Shepherd Neame (Bishops Finger, Spitfire, Whitstable Bay) and Well’s and Young’s (Bombardier, Young’s Special London Ale, Young’s Bitter). But I also noticed that one of my favourite lagers, Budvar had a stand. We made a bee-line for the fridge, sampling a few of the nibbles on the way. Tuna Nicoise tartlets, Maki rolls, Pear and Stilton on crumpets, Lamb kofta… yum! The Budvar lager was a great first beer, quenching the palate perfectly and easily blending into the Budvar Dark that followed, all cappuccino and hints of sweetness.
We caught up with Alastair Hook from Meantime Brewery, who excitedly told us of his new brewery expansion and briefly chatted to Sean Franklin from the esteemed Roosters Brewery and Alastair Gilmour, beer writer extraordinaire, resplendent in his tartan tie.
Eventually we were called into the dining area where we were welcomed by the Guild Chairman, Tim Hampson and introduced to the menu by yet another esteemed beer journalist, Adrian Tierney-Jones and the Hilton London Tower Bridge’s Head Chef, Christian Honor.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but the tables were all named after hops, and we sat at Perle. As I type, we have a fantastic Dry-Hopped Light Ale sitting in one of our conditioning tanks that we thought would be a fantastic tribute to European hops. At 3.3% AbV, it sits at the more challenging end of the spectrum in terms of creating a beer with a lot of flavour. We used Vienna malt as our base malt instead of the usual Maris Otter pale ale and also went for dextrin and caramalt to give a bit of a nutty, biscuit flavour and a little body. Hop-wise, it was all about Saaz, Tettnang and Santiam. “Santiam?” I hear you all cry? Well, its parentage is mostly European (Tettnang and Hallertau Mittelfruh) with a hint of the US, so we thought it was close enough. As well as using first wort hopping (that’s adding the first load of hops into the copper as you begin running off the wort from the mash) we also dry-hopped in the fermenter with the wonderfully fragrant Perle and again in the conditioning tank with Celeia from Slovenia. The Perle from this season is so good, that I thought we should really honour this beer and named it Pearl (we had also previously done a similar ale at 2.7% with the brilliant German noble hop, Saphir… yep, we called that Sapphire). So to cut a long story short, sitting at the Perle table was quite fitting.
The meal began with a Black Shetland mussel and Margate clam chowder with chilli. Creamy and decadent with some delightful edible garnishes, this worked brilliantly with the Meantime Pilsener it was matched with. The Pilsener come across with touches of bready malt and a lovely noble, slightly grassy hop aroma. The bitterness was crisp and clean and a brilliant cleanser after each mouthfeel of silky soup.
Smoked venison with goat’s cheese on a fig and apple juice terrine was next. Cylindrical like some type of meat-lovers Sushi roll, each mouthful was heavenly. The creamy goat’s cheese saturated the tongue with fats and oils and softened the beautiful, thinly sliced venison that surrounded it. Small cubes of beetroot held hands with the venison, that slightly earthy flavour from both combining wonderfully, eagerly balanced by the slightly tart-sweet combination of apple juice and red wine vinegar. But it was the beer that brought it all together. Duchesse De Bourgogne by the Verhaeghe brewery in West Flanders is an exquisite example of the sour red-brown beers that the Belgians do so well. Hints of soft acidity, balsamic-soaked cherries, a background of oak and even a touch of fig that works perfectly with the terrine upon which the venison roll rested. Everyone needs to taste food like this with beer like this. E-v-e-r-y-o-n-e.
Our main was a slow braised rabbit leg in a roasted rabbit saddle on a white bean puree and with good old chunky chips. As great as the chips were, they could have easily been left off as the rabbit was great on its own. Not as gamey as some wild rabbit I have eaten, but wonderfully moist and tender with hints of both chicken and pork in its full flavour. This was matched with Ringwood Old Thumper. This was the first time I had tried this beer and I have to admit, I think I need to try it on cask. There was a touch of ketone, almost acetone-like and the alcoholic character (it weighs in at 5.6%) was quite dominant. There was some dry fruit there which had the potential to work well with the rabbit, but for me the rawness pushed this away from being a great match. I think on paper, this would have been bang on, but it just wasn’t quite right. That and I’m very diplomatic 
The cheese course was next and it was already going to be tough to fit it all in. Luckily, for every course we were sharing four bottles of beer between ten people, which meant we were having just enough of each beer to allow us to have a great beer-food experience without bloating ourselves with excess liquid. A whole baked camembert with soused (pickled) black grapes and nice crisp breadsticks married perfectly with a 2005 Fuller’s Vintage Ale. The beer was full of fig and green sultana with just the tiniest hint of Brettanomyces (which was hotly debated by James McRorie of the Durden Beer Circle who insisted it was a character that came from some old speciality malts). No matter, the match was fantastic, all warm, creamy, luscious cheese and lashings of fruit (yeah, I loved Enid Blyton as a kid). Yet another reason to shake John Keeling from Fullers’ hand every time you see him!
Last but not least, even though my tight-fitting suit pants popped a few stitches in protest, was an incredibly rich chocolate tower with walnuts, Tonka beans and heavenly caramel with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I’d never heard of Tonka beans before (though had played with Tonka trucks as a child… does that count?) and upon researching found that they often have vanilla and almond like aromas. Would love to play around with these in a brew but apparently they have quite a bit of coumarin in them and in large doses this can affect the liver and act as an anti-coagulant. Funnily enough, this compound is also present in the herb Woodruff, which we grow at Thornbridge and has a wonderful almond aroma. Woodruff was traditionally used in brewing and is still added in syrup form to the sour Berliner Weisse beers. The desert was incredible, though I just couldn’t finish it. The beer that was matched with this was Flying Dog’s Gonzo Imperial Porter, an incredible beer. Its nose smacked of lemon-sherbert balls covered in milk chocolate, it was light, yet rich in the mouth and I was really looking forward to tasting it with the dessert. But the dessert was just a bit too chocolaty (if that is possible), a bit too rich and the beer suffered slightly. It didn’t help that I stuffed excessively large helpings into my mouth… maybe if I’d had smaller tastings, it would have allowed the beer to come through a lot better. I would have loved to see this rich treat matched with the intense Harveys Imperial Stout, which isn’t loved by all, but is definitely an intensely flavoured beer that may have matched this lush dessert. It would have also been fitting considering Miles Jenner took out the Guild Brewer of the Year award this year.
Speaking of the awards, was absolutely awesome to see the omni-enthusiastic Mark Dredge from the acclaimed Pencil and Spoon blog pick up the New Media award and Ben McFarland win the Beer and Food Writing Award with his fantastic World’s Best Beers: 1000 Unmissable Brews from Portland to Prague. I think this is one of the best presented beer tomes around and the section from El Bulli is brilliant! Was great to see another new blogger, Dave Bailey, pick up an award for his brilliant Woolpack Dave blog about life brewing and running a pub. A great social commentary on life surrounded by beer and one I can relate to very easily.
Pete Brown picked up the Budvar John White Travel Bursary and the coveted Michael Jackson Gold Tankard Award as Beer Writer of the Year. Completely deserved in my opinion, what with his epic journey and the resultant Hops and Glory (which you should all buy for your beer loving Dad’s this year for Christmas) on the history of India Pale Ale.
It was also great to see Alastair Gilmour and Jeff Evans get awarded. Jeff contributes a plethora of information, both in books and on the internet and I love Alastair’s writing style – it’s very user friendly, factual and a pleasure to read.
All in all, it was a great night and I’d recommend you all start tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard or scribbling frantically on random pieces of A4 paper, join the Guild, don some robes and start whispering to each other while reading ancient leather-bound books about the secrets of fermentology…
Transmogrification
We did our very first official beer launch last night at the White Horse in Parsons Green. The legendary Yorkshire chef, Brian Turner was really keen to work with us and develop a range of beers that work well with food, especially that brilliant British classic, the pie. Brian actually only had his first taste of alcohol at 26 and has been a wonderful supporter of wine and food over his career as a chef. He told us all a story about how his father was a great lover of cask ale. He would go into the pub with the Turner clan, get a pint poured and wait until it was ready, order all of the drinks for the family (whilst drinking his pint) then right at the end order himself another pint… bloody good system I reckon! Brian is on a bit of a journey of discovery with cask ale, hence his keenness to get into the world of beer and food matching.
The pies themselves were awesome! We had two on offer, a succulent Steak and Mushroom and a ridiculously tender Steak and Thornbridge Ale number, perfectly crafted by Dunkleys and a hit with the chefs that turned up. Antonio Carluccio of the legendary Neal Street restaurant and Master of the Fungus was really impressed by the pies and didn’t mind the beer either! I’m also pretty sure Ainsley Harriot walked away with a couple for the trek home as well!
Doing my bit for Movember... can't beat Brian though!
As per usual, it all comes down to ingredients. Although usually frowned upon in these days of nutritive awareness, the pastry for the pies was made with good old lard. Both my and Cat’s grandparents grew up on lard (or dripping) on bread and if you’ve ever tasted it, you’ll know how good it is. In fact, I’ve even read here and there that lard has less cholesterol and saturated fat than butter. Shock, horror! I’m sure the nutritionists of the world will tell you it is all bad, but then again, I’ve been reading a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (which you should all read) and my pessimism with the world of science reporting in the media has grown exponentially!
The beer in question is Brian Turner Amber Ale at 4.2%. This beer has been in a constant state of flux since we first started developing it and has gone through a series of hop and malt combinations until I think we have it just about right. As a brewer, I suppose it’s a good idea to mention how most beers that come out are a work in progress. A beer begins with a concept inspired by a number of things: a beer that we have tasted, a strange beery dream, an ingredient we have found and love, an intuitive flavour experiment or some random combination of the above!
We have released this beer under different guises over the last 6 months and kept tweaking as we’ve gone with the beer being based on good ol’ Maris Otter pale ale malt, a ridiculously generous helping of Vienna malt and the wonderfully nutty and slightly coffee-esque Amber malt. We didn’t want to do a standard pale ale dominated by hop characters. It was more about developing a beer that would work well with a few different types of food, generally nice hearty winter dishes.
I think that can be a bit of a problem with Thornbridge. Some people tend to expect all of our beers to be jam-packed with loads of hop notes, yet sometimes it’s great fun for us to play around with drinkable, balanced beers that highlight both malt and hop characters. That’s what Amber Ale is about. Earlier in the year we visited Charles Faram, our fantastic hop supplier and we nosed a brilliant English hop called Bramling Cross. The best sample of this came from an esteemed hop grower by the name of Tony Redsall (you can listen to him on the BBC here) and we earmarked this as a hop we wanted to use. We made use of it in a beer named Hopton, then a beer for the Wetherspoons Real Ale festival called Pioneer and finally it became part of Brian’s first beer.
The hop itself is wonderfully fragrant. It has hints of citrus, more English than American (even though Bramling Cross is a relatively new English variety, established in the 1920s as a cross with a Manitoban wild hop) as well as berries and generally gives the beer a nice, soft fruity character. Most people speak about Bramling Cross giving a blackcurrant or ribes aroma to beer, though in the last three years, I have yet to pick this up in the samples I have nosed.
So we had a hop to showcase, yet we were also thinking about a food match. Vienna malt helps to give a bit of sweetness and a hint of biscuit to the beer. Couple that with Amber malt (we originally played around with different Crystal malts in the Hopton and Pioneer) and it gives hints of toasted rye and digestive biscuit as well as a wonderful dry character. It is this dryness that I really like. It helps to pick up the bitter finish and cleanse the mouth and it is this that makes it match so well with the pie. The subtle malty characters blend perfectly with the hint of glaze on the pie lid, push through and swirl together with the velvety gravy and then on the swallow, you get a wonderful and simple cleansing of the palate. The beer itself is good as a pint. Every swallow left my mouth tingling with a pleasant bitterness, warming ever so slightly and the dryness made the next sip inviting.
I was happy and so were these guys!
Antonio, Brian and Ainsley... loving the beers!
Merrie, Merrie, not contrary!
Christmas beer o’clock at the new brewery and we’ve decided to bring back a beer we brewed last year called Merrie. Originally this fantastic deep brown ale was flavoured with Liberty, Chinook and Santiam hops and a generous dosing of some Derbyshire Hidcote Lavender grown by one of our Thornbridge gardeners, Liz Bailes. The lavender itself is drenched with its own intensely fragrant essential oils and screams of the lavender body wash you all use in the shower, even though it’s not yours but you like the smell anyway
This year we’ve upped the ante. That and we like experimenting, so we’ve fused this beer with another beer we brewed last year called SuJu. SuJu was a collaboration brew with Birrificio Italiano where we brewed a delicious 6% rustic brown ale and used a massive amount of freshly crushed Juniper berries. The beer ended up showcasing the wonderful, sweet pine, mango sap-like aromas of the Juniper berries as well combining a hint of hop bitterness and the wonderfully rich speciality malt characters that I love in a beer. It was Super Junipero… yeah, hence the name.
Sshhh, brewer at work...
We always learn every time we brew a new beer, so Stef wove his magic on the new plant and came up with a great recipe. A blend of Pale Ale, Smoked, Munich, Vienna, Chocolate and Amber malts similar to that used as the base for the original Merrie and SuJu complemented by the wonderfully lemony Santiam and the distinctly citrus Perle with a good whack of Chinook to complement the resin and pine from the organic Juniper berries. I painstakingly ground up a massive amount of the berries and just to enhance the citrus characters we decided on some freshly ground coriander seeds as well. On grinding, these filled our brewers office with wonderful ginger and lemon aromas. Cheers Julian Graves!
Big berries, little grinder...
With our new hopback doing some great things to the aroma of our beer, this is where we’ve decided to use the lavender this year. Previously this was used earlier in the brewing process as well as at boil end, so we are really keen to check out the results. In a pub. In a pint. And hopefully at Christmas!
A splash o'purple in a sea o'green
J.W. Lees Harvest Ale 2007 and Cheese
I like cheese. I like beer. Beer and cheese go together incredibly well, however it all depends (obviously) on what type of beer you’re drinking and what type of cheese you’re eating. I really enjoy stating the obvious.
As one of those strange, foreign, New Zealand blokes, I absolutely love it that this country offers such a diversity. Not only in beer, but in the amount of both British and European cheeses that you can easily pick up. Even from a supermarket!
As part of my preparation for the British Guild of Beer Writers Barley Wine Seminar this year, I’ve been given the task of matching our Thornbridge Alliance Barley Wine with a cheese. So I thought a bit of practice might help me to make this most interesting of choices. Take one beer, add four cheeses. Masticate, enjoy, type.
The Harvest Ale pours a nice orange-brown and shows really poor head retention, the head disappears in about 20 seconds and I made sure my glass was extra-clean! The first sip floods the mouth with toffee, a little marmite, some deep, rich orange notes, more juice than peel, and a hint of dried fig. It’s smooth on the swallow and the alcohol warms, it doesn’t burn.
Maximum shutter speed just to catch the head!!
First up is a Somerset Brie. Nice and ripe, unctuous and creamy with a little firmness in the rind that lets you feel like you can chew it instead of slurp it. Then there’s that tiny hint of ammonia. I love this in Brie. The riper the better and as I have just realised, this ripeness allows it to hold up well to the complexity of the Harvest Ale. The creaminess fills the mouth and is cleansed out by the alcoholic nature of the beer. I taste the cheese afterwards and get a little lingering fresh fig coming through from the beer this time.
Next up I go foreign with a Chevre Blanc. It’s bright, white rind slightly mushroomy with a more dense thick section of cheese leading into the delicious crumbly, creamy intense white interior. It gives me wonderful notes of fungus and damp forest floor on an Autumn day crossed with a wonderful, light lemon balm twist, bordering on fragrant lemon dishwashing liquid. Upon smelling deeply, there is almost a suggestion of tap water heavily dosed with chlorine. The first sip of beer yields something completely different. For the first time tonight I get a bit of bitterness coming through from the beer. It also highlights a slightly green note in the beer. Something sappy and unripe. I try again. The bitterness is there instantly and then the lemon and earth of the cheese follows. Nowhere near as good as the brie…
A Cropwell Bishop Stilton follows. Off white with the beautiful green-blue lacing we know all too well. I taste a piece and it takes me instantly to my Aunty and Uncle’s farm in Okato in New Zealand. It has a bit of barnyard funk to it. A little silage, a bit of cow-shit, but all fresh and green and digested grass. Not the intense smell I get from some farms in the UK with their barns and animals kept indoors at certain times of the year. I also get a bitterness. Although creamy, this bitterness coats the roof of my mouth and makes me feel like I need to drink something. I do. The beer floods my mouth. Sweetness, malty, salty marmite with some higher alcohol fruitiness coming through. It alleviates the weird bitterness that came from the cheese, but this returns soon after I swallow.
Finally I taste an Applewood Smoked Cheddar. Will the smoke work with the beer? The cheese smells and tastes wonderful. Soft, sweet smoke with some acidity and a great rich creaminess that makes Cheddar such a brilliant cheese. Sometimes I find a lot of yellow fruit characters, particularly pineapple in mature cheddar. Not this one. The smoke is dominant but not overpowering. The sip of beer causes the smoke to disappear. The smoothness hits the acidity and the contrast results in flavour fusion. It even allows a punch of acetaldehyde, that nice green apple flavour to pop out in the beer. Maybe it’s just the name of the cheese though. The Derren Brown effect or something…
Obviously a brewer took this photo. Definitely neither a chef with brilliant plating skills or a photographer of any ability...
My conclusion. I came into this expecting the Stilton to shine through as the winner. It’s often referred to as the ultimate companion to a Barley Wine. I was pleasantly surprised and think either the Brie or the Chevre Blanc walks away the winner. Must do this more often!
