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beer reviews bottled beer Somerset

100 Words: Checking in On Butcombe

Arriving in Somerset we’re greeted at the door with bottles of Butcombe bitter and their IPA.

Maybe it’s the exhausting journey, maybe the occasion, but both taste great — pure beeriness and sweet Christmas tangerines respectively.

Butcombe bottles in a recycling bin.

There’s more bottled Butcombe with a barbecue, alongside local scrumpy. ‘Cider then beer, you feel queer,’ says Bailey’s Dad. ‘Beer then cider… Makes a good rider!’

The Bath Arms, Cheddar.

Finally, lunch at the manorial inter-war Bath Arms in Cheddar with cool, perfectly styled pints of Butcombe Gold — a straightforward, satisfying amber-coloured ale but without the standard Bitter’s whiff of well-worn hand-knitted jumpers.

Soothing, dependable, decent. Good old Butcombe.

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opinion

100 Words: The Global Republic of Craftonia

The citizens of Craftonia, from Singapore to Stockholm, stand together in uniform opposition to homogeneity.

It is a land where the light comes from filament bulbs.

Edison Bulbs at the HubBox, Truro.

Where beer taps are on the back wall, brick is bare and wood is stripped.

Keg taps.

Craftonian cuisine is ‘dirty’, but not really, and it is usually a burger.

Bundobust window, Leeds.

There are no plain walls there: every surface has a caricature of a barman, a beer list, or a brief manifesto.

Beer list at the Beer Cellars, Exeter.

All the beers are IPAs, except the ones that are sour.

BrewDog IPAs c.2009 (old labels).

There are many breweries in Craftonia but most of them are Stone, BrewDog and Mikkeller.

We wrote this last autumn but decided against posting it, though we did include a version of it in our email newsletter (sign up here). We were moved to revive it by this post from Tandleman.

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Uncategorized

100 Words: Describing Brettanomyces

The sacred texts told us Brettanomyces had a ‘horse blanket’ or ‘barnyard’ aroma. It is, they said, ‘sweaty’, ‘leathery’, ‘mousy’.

But none of that worked for us and we couldn’t spot Brett unless we’d been cued to expect it.

We know what the experts are getting at with the animal comparisons — earthy, musky, funky, right? — but it’s like trying to describe the colour red by saying ‘Purplish, but also orangey.’ Brett is Brett, and nothing else.

We eventually cracked it by drinking a lot of Orval, and ‘Orval-like’ is the most useful descriptor for Brett character we’ve yet discovered.

Any other suggestions?

Main image from the BBC website.

Categories
Generalisations about beer culture

100 Words: Using Powers for Good

By Bailey

Last weekend, I visited a few pubs with a mate. Normally laid back, there is, it transpires, one thing that raises his blood pressure:

‘I can’t stand American hops — why does everything have to taste of bloody grapefruit!?’

So, in the next place, when I ordered Dark Star Hophead and he said, ‘Same,’ I held up a hand with a heroic flourish.

‘No! You probably want this one.’ That being a best bitter with English hops.

It seemed counter-intuitive — Hophead is a classic! — but he loved his caramel-sweet malt bomb, and I felt, smugly, that I’d done the noble thing.

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Generalisations about beer culture pubs Uncategorized

100 Words: Not The Same Again

Mr Turner is right‘The biggest influence in whether someone has a second pint is the quality of their first.’ 

Sometimes, you mean to have one beer and end up having four because you don’t know when you’ll next taste something so perfect.

More often, though, you have one and, though there’s nothing wrong with it, not that you could complain about, not that you can put your finger on, that awkward first date is as far as it ever goes.

Not ordering a second pint is just about the most passive protest a customer can make.