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beer and food Beer history

Mrs Beeton on Table Beer

HODGE-PODGE

191. INGREDIENTS.–2 lbs. of shin beef, 3 quarts of water, 1 pint of table-beer, 2 onions, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 1 head of celery ; pepper and salt to taste ; thickening of butter and flour.

Mode.–Put the meat, beer, and water in a stewpan ; simmer for a few minutes and skim carefully. Add the vegetables and seasoning ; stew gently, and skim carefully. Add the vegetables and seasoning ; stew gently until the meat is tender. Thicken with the butter and flour, and serve with turnips and carrots, or spinach and celery.

Time.–3 hours, or rather more. Average cost, 3d. per quart.

Seasonable at any time. Sufficient for 12 persons.

TABLE BEER.–This is nothing more than a weak ale, and is not made so much with a view to strength, as to transparency of colour and agreeable bitterness of taste. It is, or ought to be, manufactured by the London professional brewers, from the best pale malt, or amber and malt. Six barrels are usually drawn from one quart of malt, with which are mixed 4 or 5 lbs. of hops. As a beverage, it is agreeable when fresh ; but it is not adapted to keep long.

(From Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, 1861; typos Mrs Beeton’s own.)

Categories
Beer history beer reviews Beer styles bottled beer real ale

Strawberries, cherries and an angels kiss in spring

When Ed from the Old Dairy Brewery noticed us getting excited about the return of Courage Imperial Stout, he dropped us a line asking if we’d be interested in trying his interpretation of the same recipe. The answer, of course, was yes.

That’s how we ended up with a bottle of Tsar Top and (as a bonus) two bottles of AK 1911, brewed to a recipe unearthed by Ron Pattinson.

The AK is an interesting beer in its own right: amber-brown, fairly bitter, and just a touch tart, with something of the rich tea biscuit snap about it. Along with Fuller’s Bengal Lancer, it is one of the most convincing impressions of a cask ale we’ve yet had from a bottle.

But, the main event? Wow. We’re devotees of Harvey’s Imperial Stout and once tried a well aged 1983 bottle of Courage. This beer stands up well to both of them. We wouldn’t hesitate to describe it as flawless — that is to say there were no ifs and buts; no hints of Marmite or margarine; or of anything to make us wrinkle our noses and say: “Good effort, but…”

How did it taste? Well, let’s have a droring first. There are a stock selection of words trotted out for strong stouts and here’s where Tsar Top sits (in our view) in relation to some of those, alongside other similar

A chart comparing flavour profiles of Imperial Stouts.

Note that it’s not as big a beer as the ’83 Courage or Harvey’s IS, but is well balanced, and makes Sam Smith’s interpretation look a bit puny. It is a beer full of berries and cherries, rather than coffee or chocolate. The alcohol (all 10% of it) seems to hover over the surface, tickling the nose without burning. The aftertaste lasts forever, as does the sturdy milky-coffee coloured head. Brettanomyces is used in a secondary fermentation, we are told, though there are no obvious (offputting) ‘barnyard’ aromas as yet. Perhaps another year’s ageing would bring those out?

In short, when Ed brews another batch, we’ll be ordering a case.

Register of members’ interests: we got four packages of free beer last year. One lot was terrible and we wrote directly to the brewery with our opinions. Two other batches were nice enough (some Brewdog Punk IPA and some St Stefanus) but didn’t provoke any thoughts that would warrant a blog post. This is the first one that’s moved us to enthuse.

Categories
Beer history beer in fiction / tv

Work in progress: Pubs on Film

We’ve just started a new page on the blog where we intend to catalogue examples of pubs on film.

If you’ve got any suggestions, let us know in the comments on that page, or on this post, or by email, or carrier pigeon, or whatever.

Categories
Beer history Beer styles london

Horselydown Denied

Anchor Brewery building, Southwark

As Des de Moor points out, beer geeks got very excited last year when news broke that Wells and Young’s were to start brewing Courage Imperial Russian Stout again.

We’re still sulking that the first brew disappeared to the states, except for a few bottles sent to beer writers and industry types.

What we find particularly frustrating, however, is that it’s possible to disembark from a boat on the south bank of the Thames not far from the building which still bears the words ANCHOR BREWHOUSE HORSELYDOWN; to walk past the site of the old Barclay Perkins brewery; and to a Young’s Pub with a view of St Paul’s Cathedral, without finding one drop of IRS.

London is simultaneously spoiled for beer, and oddly neglected — out-of-the-way locations are increasingly stuffed with craft beer bars while more traditional breweries use their flagship locations to sell burgers and Peroni.

If you want to drink a historic interpretation of imperial stout in Southwark, Harvey’s at the Royal Oak is your best bet. Plenty of other British brewers are also selling bottled beers inspired by Courage IRS, including the Old Dairy Brewery whose Tsar Top is based directly on a historic recipe.

Categories
Beer history Blogging and writing opinion

It's not only beer

In this article, amongst many excellent points, Pete Brown suggests that the fuss over the Oxford Companion to Beer highlights a lack of perspective on the part of some beer geeks, bloggers and writers. He says that, sometimes, people’s attitudes make him want to say: “Guys, get a grip – it’s only beer.”

But is it only beer?

We’ve written on a related subject before, pointing out that, as hobbyists, we know it’s just beer, but that taking it seriously is all part of the fun.

Telling real historians and scholars like Martyn Cornell and Ron Pattinson, however, that it’s only beer is like telling an archaeologist that the subject of his study is ‘just a load of muddy rubble’ and that he should stop being so anal about it. Yes, most specialist scholars have lost perspective, and thank God for that.

It’s through the efforts of people who take apparently insignificant things seriously, and spend time doing the kinds of back-breaking research others can’t be bothered with, that we learn more about our world and our history.

Beer is worthy of serious study and we should applaud those who undertake it, however nuts their obsession might sometimes seem to the rest of us.

P.S. We really don’t like wine very much. No pretending here.