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Blogging and writing Brew Britannia

Reflections on our Northern Tour

Revitalisation beer pump clip.

Last week’s visit to the north of England (Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield) was actually as near as we’re getting to a holiday this year.

We figured that, even if we didn’t get chance to plug Brew Britannia, we’d at least have fun drinking decent beer in great pubs and bars, and seeing the sights. But, as it happened, we were invited to appear and/or speak at a few venues.

psbh

At Port Street Beer House on Sunday afternoon, we were in competition with blazing sunlight which had turned Manchester into a dead ringer for Barcelona. Nonetheless, several people turned up to share a beer with us and buy advance copies of the book.

It was great to meet everyone, but we have to admit that we were especially pleased to make the acquaintance of Len, a reader who usually ‘lurks’, and who settled our nerves with a few kind words in the first few minutes.

We also found ourselves thinking that someone — maybe us — ought to write a proper portrait piece about 6TownsMart, whose commitment to, and first-hand knowledge of, Belgian beer is awe-inspiring. ‘Brewers as rock stars’ is a well-worn angle, but dedicated drinkers deserve some attention too.

At North Bar in Leeds on Monday, we got to try the Kirkstall Brewery beer Revitalisation, thoughtfully developed by Matt Lovatt from some vague thoughts we put in an email. We drank lots of it, and it prompted plenty of conversation among the Leeds crafterati, as well as finding favour with a few of the locals with more conservative tastes. We’ll write more about it in a substantial post about Boddington’s to follow in the next week or so.

We did our best to give a reading, but our puny voices struggled a bit against the non-stop partying which characterises the venue. Someone made us drink tequila, and Ghost Drinker plied us with wonderful, wonderful gueuze. We signed and sold a lot of copies of the book, which saved us lugging any back to Manchester, though the 20 copies of The Grist we acquired were heavier and more awkwardly shaped.

We had two engagements in Sheffield. First, at the Thornbridge-owned Hallamshire House, on Wednesday night. This was the first actual ‘talk’ we gave. Forty or so people, many of them actually there for a German student’s birthday drinks, listened politely as we spoke about the origins of the term ‘craft beer’. Some sidled up with questions, including, to our delight, the German birthday boy, who wanted to know why porter was so hard to find: “Ah,” he said on hearing our off-the-cuff answer. “This is the same as with Dortmund Export.”

We were delighted to meet Jim Harrison, one of the founders of Thornbridge — he is a very charming man — but cringed as we watched he and his wife read what we’d written about them in the book from across the room. They didn’t take offence, but seemed perhaps a little hurt that we’d portrayed them as ‘lordly’: “I came on the bus tonight.”

As the crowd thinned, we were joined by Thornbridge brewers Rob Lovatt and Will Inman, who indulged our naive questions about processes and yeast, and politely disagreed with a couple of our thoughts on Thornbridge’s beer. Very civilised.

The cafe next door to the Hop Hideout.

We finished on a real high note with a ticketed talk at the Hop Hideout on Abbeydale Road in Sheffield. It is a tiny but lovingly-managed specialist beer shop in the corner of a larger unit selling vintage… stuff, so the talk actually took place in the cafe next door. With blinds drawn, it felt like a lock-in or speakeasy, and talking to a crowd who wanted to be there was a real treat.

Over the course of a couple of hours, we tasted:

  • John Smith’s Bitter — a ‘palate cleanser’ and reminder of the ‘bad old days’.
  • Chimay Rouge — the first ‘world beer’ to hit the UK, in 1974.
  • Sierra Nevada Pale Ale — highly influential on the use of hops in British brewing.
  • Marble Dobber — the kind of beer British brewers made once they’d ‘got’ New World hops, and with a tentative connection to Brendan Dobbin.
  • Camden Hells — exemplifying the post-1990s trend for ‘craft lager’, and exploring questions of provenance.
  • Wild Beer Co Ninkasi — exploring the ‘outer limits’ of diversity in British beer, and finishing on a showstopper.

Most people seemed to agree that Chimay was cruelly overlooked these days; that SNPA was still a really good beer; that Dobber was on fantastically good form; and that Ninkasi was extremely complex and interesting. Watching someone smell the Cascade aroma of SNPA for the first time was a treat, too.

We’ll be in London in the week commencing 16 June and will hopefully be able to announce a programme of appearances in the coming days. We’re also at Beer Wolf in Falmouth, Cornwall, on 28 June from 4pm. Come and see us somewhere, at some time!

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Beer history pubs quotes

Manchester Jazz Pubs, 1950s

“When I lived in Manchester in the 1950s, the pubs were  bursting at the seams on Saturday evenings as fans got their weekly ration of jazz… In the Napoleon Inn, you had to ask the landlady to leave off playing the drums for a few minutes so she could go behind the bar and pull you a pint of Chester’s Fighting Mild.”

Harry Giltrap, CAMRA’s PINT magazine, 1982

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pubs real ale

A really soulless pub

Rain Bar is J W Lees flagship Manchester pub. It’s on the canalside in a former umbrella factory, hence the name. (Or is it a reference to Liam Gallagher’s first band?)

You get the impression from online reviews that this is supposed to be a trendy place but it reminded us a bit of a slightly posh Wetherspoon’s. With it’s big glossy printed menus, plasticky polished wood and evident compliance with some kind of corporate service standard manual, it’s a good example of pub with no real character.

It did give us a good opportunity to compare J W Lees Bitter and Best Bitter  The former was was extremely refreshing with a crisp, slightly tart finish; the latter, as you might expect, had more hop character and a bigger, rounder brown malt flavour. Both are good solid brews that we’d happily drink loads of if we lived here.

We’d just drink them somewhere else.

On the subject of character, and while we’re in the area, does anyone know anything about this amazing looking pub building across the road from Rain Bar?


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beer festivals beer reviews czech republic Germany real ale

Beer festivals are growing on us

At a loose end, we decided to pop to Manchester for the weekend, taking in the National Winter Ales Festival, of which Tandleman was one of the organisers.

After startling him with our unannounced arrival (he made a very effective bouncer) we made our way upstairs to the main hall. Our first impressions were of a relatively young crowd with the kind of male-female mix you’d expect in the real world. The atmosphere was like that of a large, busy, if rather brightly lit pub. Or, with people sat on the floor in groups, was it reminiscent of a music festival? We felt very comfortable and soon completely forgot we were in a wedding banquet hall on an industrial estate in a city we hardly knew.

We headed straight for the German rarities. Uerige Sticke Alt, which we’d been wanting to try for a long time, had the trademark Uerige bitterness, although after such anticipation, it was a little disappointing. Schlenkerla Urbock (or did the label say Eichbock?) (6.5%) was clear and syrupy and, frankly, balanced too much towards sweetness for our taste.

A brief detour to Bohemia next with Bernard Kvasnicove took the idea of unfiltered beer to the extreme:  there was a bit of wood in it. It was mellow and, again, sweetish. It wasn’t warm, but it could have got away with being two degrees colder.

Lowenbrau Buttenheim Bock didn’t taste as strong as 6.5%. It was very nicely balanced, clearly a well crafted beer, and far from bland, but we wanted a bit more zing.

We went closer to home for the next round. Broughton 80 Shilling was bland; Acorn Gorlovka Stout astounding. What a contrast. We were sceptical as to how a 5% beer could lay claim to the ‘imperial’ moniker but this beauty did it, through hop bitterness, chocolate intensity and a very heavy, chewy body. It was the stand out beer of the evening.

JW Lees Darkside was really interesting — so fruity and sour that if someone said it had plums or maybe even cherries in, we’d believe them.

Red shield, White Shield’s weaker, blonder, cask-conditioned cousin, could have borne a lote more hop aroma and came off as a bit boring in comparison to, say, Dark Star Hophead or Marble Pint.

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beer reviews pubs real ale

Marble Madness

After reading various people raving about Marble for the last couple of years, a visit to their brewpub was always going to be a top priority for our visit to Manchester.

First up were, pints of, er, Pint and Bitter which we found to be very similar. Both were bitter and grapefruity almost to the point of astringency, but not quite. Differences did emerge after a few more comparative slurps — Bitter was marginally darker in colour and balanced a touch more toward malt than hops. We were very impressed by both.

Lagonda IPA looked similarly yellow at first glance but was sweeter, fuller bodied and noticeably stronger at 5%.

Then something that wasn’t yellow: Stouter Stout, which was profound. Thick, roasty, chocolatey and filling — damn near a perfect specimen.  Trying Chocolate next to it was a little surprising, being silkier but actually less chocolate-like.

We’ve had Ginger before and it was just as good as we remembered. We took the advice of the chaps at Blogobeer and also tried it mixed with Chocolate and it was indeed delicious — not unlike Jamaica Ginger cake. Yum.

The enigmatically named Brew #14 was yet another yellow bitter ale, but this time with a more English hop character, very evident dry-hopping and some pear-drop character.

Dobber, despite being 5.9% and a little heavier and fruitier, was, yes, you’ve guessed it, yellow and hoppy.

As for the pub, it’s a great building and has a real buzz. We ate in the back room and service was a little slow but friendly (had someone failed to turn up for their shift?).

In summary, a good pub, with great beer, but (like Hopback) they could do to make the differences between some of their many yellow beers a little less subtle, or simply ‘consolidate the range’ as a management consultant would say.