Category: Pubs

A Shot at the Bar: Brewhouse and Kitchen, Bristol

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When the brilliant Brewhouse & Kitchen Islington opened near Angel station last year, I was embarrassed to learn that there were already successful branches of the brewpub group in Dorchester, Poole and Portsmouth, of which I was completely unaware. My blinkered capital-view had hidden these excellent brewpubs from me, and it gave me a dose of what I call London Guilt. My partner’s family lives in Bristol, so when the latest branch opened there last month, I was determined to check it out on our next visit.

I couldn’t make the launch event sadly, a disappointment all the more crushing for the fact that the man who was the body of Darth Vader (Bristolian bodybuilder David Prowse) was there at the party. Like the other Brewhouse & Kitchen brewpubs, the brewers here take their cues for beers from the city the pub is in. Naturally, a Sith-influenced Papa Darth oatmeal stout is available (‘on the dark side’ jokes abound), alongside Yankee Cabot (named after the Italian explorer who was a citizen of Bristol and after which many landmarks are named), Deception Rye IPA (named for Derren Brown who studied in Bristol and first performed there) and others. All their own beers are brewed onsite in the very visible and pretty brewkit, and as seen in the picture above a decent array of keg and bottled beers are also available.

The beer that really impressed me both on my first and subsequent visits was the 3.9% Hornigold Blonde Ale, the vibrant pint pictured above. Hornigold was the mentor of Bristol’s more famous pirate son: Blackbeard, and the brewers clearly thought his name would look nice on a golden ale. I’d arrived at the bar early afternoon and fancied something fairly light and easy-going, but was blown away by the peach-and-melon sweetness running through Hornigold, sharpened by a juicy grapefruit finish. It was remarkably similar to a great pint of cask Oakham Citra, but maybe 18 months or more ago when Citra was in its best form. Hornigold was a pint upon which I lavished the highest compliment: the same again, please.

 

Brewhouse & Kitchen Bristol, 31-35 Cotham Hill, Clifton, Bristol BS6 6JY

@BKBristol

A Shot at the Bar: The Bohemia and London Brewing Co

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It’s Wings Wednesday that typically brings me to North Finchley’s The Bohemia pub, the recently refurbished flagship pub from the owners of The Bull in Highgate. The offer of 500g of spicy Buffalo wings (some of the best this side of the Atlantic I’ve been assured) for five pounds is hard to resist. As North London goes, The Bohemia is very north, but more than worth the extra minutes by bus (134, 263, N20, 460, 82) or tube (North Finchley, Woodside Park) when you get there.

The place is wide and deep, lavishly furnished and skilfully halfway between modern and traditional, in proportions more in common with a spacious, town centre pub than anywhere else in London serving La Chouffe and Veltins on tap. Of course, the key difference here is the Bohemia is home to a brewery as well as a well-stocked bar – the London Brewing Co, which also brews at The Bull. Whilst the beers brewed at The Bull are packaged in casks, The Bohemia’s kit generally brews beer for keg.

The brewers have already turned out a wheat beer, stout, rye IPA and session IPA, which are naturally all available at the bar just a few metres away. Currently the most impressive of these are the ‘Stout’, displaying a creamy coffee yet dry, herbal hoppy character I’d most recently enjoyed in O’Hara’s Stout in Dublin, and the ‘Upright’ session IPA, which tasted every bit as good as fresh Founders’ All-Day – orangey, oily, boisterously bitter – but fresher. Brewer Daniel Vane has recently returned to London Brewing Co with plenty of ideas in mind, as recent shots of a brewday for a lychee pale have shown. He’s assured me there’s plenty more in the pipeline, some of which will be available at the forthcoming Northern Line Beer Festival on 22-26 April, which will feature beers from a number of celebrated Northern-Line-based brewers (including the new, Derek Prentice-helmed, Wimbledon Brewery) and will also include beer and book matching from Pete Brown and a beer-paired dinner at The Bull.

What I love most about The Bohemia, even more than the wings (somehow), is that there’s damned good beer there, made just a few steps from the bar. That distance travelled to the pub itself is compressed, folded and shrunk somehow by the difference made by that short distance between the brewhouse and the bar. There’s nothing quite like taking a gulp of daisy-fresh session IPA and being able to see where it was lovingly brought to life.

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A Shot at the Bar: The Duck & Rice, Soho

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A new photo-blog series, taking in the most interesting bars and pubs in London and beyond.

 

Alan Yau (founder of the Wagamama chain and owner of several Michelin Star-awarded restaurants) is one the last people you might expect to get in the pub game. In what is seen as a dramatic departure, the OBE and restaurateur has given equal focus to beer as well as food at his latest venture – a ‘Chinese-influenced gastropub’ in Soho. The area has been worn down by its reputation into a bit of a parody of itself, but in doing so provides a number of unusual and striking venues, of which The Duck & Rice is undoubtedly one. I couldn’t quite place the theme of the decor, but I heard somebody say ‘Park Chinois’. There’s a very Hong-Kong-in-the-Empire kind of aesthetic: lavish colonial decor, striking marble, blues and pearl colours, art deco painted glass, reminiscent of a bar at the edge of the world and full of its riches. It seems decadent, but fairly relaxed.

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The reason I was here of course, was the beer. Pilsner were sponsoring the press launch night, so their beer was flowing freely, but the bar also has an impressive variety of other cask, keg and a (rapidly growing) list of bottled beers from the leading lights of the beer industry. Still, the star on the bar was Tankovna Pilsner Urquell, freshly delivered from Pilsen. The stacked, copper 500 litre tanks greet you like a steampunk bouncer as you enter, and beer was on top-notch form: the almost cask-ale-like mouthfeel, nourishing breadiness and spiky bitterness all present and correct. Whilst upstairs is more restaurant-like, the focus here down in the bar area is just that, the bar, and food is focused on simple Chinese dishes and snacks to match with the beers. Light, crispy batter-coated delights melted sweetly with gulps of Pilsner, like they had known each other for ages. Suddenly, elegant Chinese food and pints of Czech Pilsner felt like the most normal thing in the world, as well as something quite special.

Pilsner

 

The Duck & Rice, 90 Berwick Street, London W1F 0QB.

 

The Southampton Arms (#ShowUsYourLocal)

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As part of the #ShowUsYourLocal campaign started by Jamie Oliver’s Drinks Tube channel, here’s a look at a much-celebrated north London pub with beer in its heart and soul: my local, The Southampton Arms.

 

It might seem strange to some people, in London especially, to think of a pub fifteen-minutes’-walk away as your ‘local’. In London a fifteen-minute walk can take you past a great number of pubs. But really, of course, your local isn’t the nearest pub to where you live, but the nearest pub in which you feel at home. Whether it’s on the way to or back from Gospel Oak Overground or Hampstead Heath, or a wide, looping ‘shortcut’ to Kentish Town just to pay a visit, I often find myself in The Southampton Arms. It is what many London pubs, new or old, aspire to be.

In a way, it’s that walk up from Archway up Cathcart Hill and down Chetwynd Road to Highgate Road that really earns, and demands, that first pint. Oh, and it absolutely must be a pint. On occasion I may throw caution to the wind and dabble in a half from the two keg taps, but The Southampton Arms is a bastion of well-kept cask ale, and you would have to be crazy not to partake in that all-too-rare experience of a cask beer in perfect condition. Will it be Marble Pint, or Dark Star Revelation, or Siren Broken Dream, or something new? It’s that thought at the front of my mind throughout the journey, and as I find myself on the corner of Chetwynd Road and Highgate Road, the pub’s sign of ‘Ale Cider & Meat’ calls out like a mythic beacon.

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The entrance to the pub is the one you would immediately summon in your mind if asked to describe a “pub entrance”. The feel of the floorboards underfoot as you step through the door and hear authentically scratchy records on an LP, or better still, the rumbling tones of an antique piano, transports you not back in time but, somehow, more vividly into the present. This is what great London pubs can be. This is what great London pubs are.

Twelve handpulls of beer and cider stand proud on the bar, whilst several casks of still cider stand beside the till. A hot plate behind glass on the bar displays a huge piece of pork with glistening crackling at most hours. It’s a heart-warmingly simple and down-to-earth experience in a place that is very much the intense, raw essence of pubness. It has a flexibility to it thought – malleable enough to be a boozer for throwing back great pints with mates, or something quieter, slower, friendlier, or something else entirely. Like all great pubs it lives, and becomes what you need it to be.

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Out the back you’ll find a pretty little walled beer garden filled with tables and corners designed for conspiracies and mischief at any hour. In summer, expect it be busy, but always worth fighting for. But beware, a chalkboard outside warns that the beer garden closes at 10pm, and that “the leopard is released at 10.02pm”.

After a near-leopard experience, you might want to strengthen your resolve with a pork bap (with crackling, naturally) for £4, or perhaps a scotch egg, or a sausage roll, or a pork pie perhaps? Wait, how about a pickled egg? Good choice. Perhaps you don’t need persuading. Perhaps you do, because all that stuff is overpriced hipster grub, except, erm, it isn’t, and actually it’s so good you can’t stop eating it. It’s not food to change the world or to sate a family of four, but it’s more than enough to keep you and your drinking partners staunch and hearty for a liquid afternoon or evening. It’s what pub food is for.

Now you’ve got the wind back in your sails, another pint for the road? After all, the buses, whether by design or accident, leave from just outside. It’d be rude not to. No, I insist. My round.

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The Southampton Arms will be featured in Beer & Craft: Britain’s Best Bars and Breweries, coming soon.

 

The Southampton Arms,139 Highgate Road, NW5 1LE

www.thesouthamptonarms.co.uk

@southamptonNW5

The Golden Tiger

u Zlateho Tygra

 

Another pint of Pilsner lands on the table and another mark is made on our card. The server plonks down further pints wherever a glass is in danger of becoming empty, or rather, less than 1/4 full. He then returns to his place at the bar and starts pouring again. Every now and again a tourist will enter and try to order at the bar, only to be told in Czech to ‘sit the f*** down’ (if, indeed, a seat is available). This is more than table service, this is fresh pints on demand before you even ask for them, at Prague’s U Zlatého tygra (The Golden Tiger).

Once more, our mugs of fresh Pilsner clunk together with the satisfyingly hefty sound of marble statues butting heads. Syllabub-like foam packed with fragrant hop oils gives way to the bright, sweet and sharp palate, and conversation fills in the gaps between mouthfuls of beer. The Golden Tiger is pure beer culture, and whilst it is quintessentially Czech, it is a pub that anyone in Northern Europe will find both immediately familiar and refreshingly simple.

As it’s such a singular pub in Prague, it’s fitting that there’s only a single beer available: Pilsner Urquell (40 Czech krone or about £1.15 for 0.5l). In the UK, such an arrangement would typically indicate a heavily branded corporate lounge, the kind typically seen in lager adverts on TV. In reality, The Golden Tiger has more in common with my dad’s village boozer, including its grudging acceptance of non-locals proving they don’t take up too much room. It’s almost exclusively populated by men, sat shoulder to shoulder around long tables on long benches. The walls are decked with Pilsner breweriana and coat hooks at frequent intervals. Vaulted ceilings, stained glass and golden iconography suggest a religious following, but it just feels so pubby. You come in, you take your coat off, you sit, you drink. Eventually, you might leave, but the beer is just so good.

Unlike so many before it, Pilsner Urquell itself has been left largely untouched by the takeover of a multi-national. Here in its homeland, it is enjoyed by the half-litre with a good inch of head, and drank fairly briskly. Czechs believe the beer’s character dies the second its head recedes to expose the beer beneath to light (about twenty minutes), and would rather order another pint than sup the imperfect dregs. That zealous attitude towards beer, appreciating it through drinking it, is truly Czech.

The building the pub is in dates back to the 14th or 15th century, and there is record of it as a beer hall from 1816, thought it is likely to have been in similar use earlier than that, since it gained its distinctive wall relief of a tiger in 1702. It has gained a storied history and a reputation for truly ‘democratic’ drinking (the mayor sits beside a common labourer, who sits beside a famous writer, who is chatting to a visiting Bill Clinton and so on). But unlike many other extremely old pubs I’ve visited, The Golden Tiger feels like a real pub, not just an interactive museum exhibit. I try to judge these historic places in much the same way as a pub built yesterday: not on what it’s supposed to be like, or what its history is, but what it’s like right now, that very moment as a take my seat with a beer.

Pubs after all are buildings that generate atmosphere, whether they intend to or not. Controlling that atmosphere can be difficult and depend on myriad criteria, but that tangible sense of vibe and energy and other such words is what defines the place. The Golden Tiger, with no eclectic beer range or unusual concept relies almost solely on its atmosphere, which is incredible. It actually seems to breathe somehow, with life and noise and beer, and I think that has a lot to do with the rhythm of the place.

As a party arrives and takes seats, the server arrives with a sufficient number of pints of Pilsner and places a piece of card with the equivalent number of marks on it on the table. As more pints arrive, more marks are made on the card. To end the cycle, one must almost physically arrest the bartender in the act, and make it clear that you want your bill settled. Yet most of the time, when the chap returns, looks that say “one more?” are exchanged, answered by the thunk of more mugs of beer. That rhythm of beers hitting the table and the burble of conversation becomes a sort of music, a soundtrack to a flawless scene played over and over for everyone’s enjoyment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a man arrive and hang his shiny, multi-coloured tracksuit jacket on the coat hook. On the hook next to it he hangs a thin, flimsy red-and-white striped plastic bag, universally a symbol of a market purchase. He nods greeting to his friend, then looks over his shoulder as if to check his freshly-bought treasures are still there. I can see them through the thin bag: several vinyls, the one at the front bearing the logo of Def Leppard. This is probably one of the chaps Bill Clinton chatted to. I can just tell. I look back to my beer, and on cue the barman arrives with more mugs of Pilsner.

That moment left a strong imprint on my mind. When I reach the last few gulps of a great pint of Pilsner now, wherever I might be, I wonder if I’ll see a golden tiger at the bottom, a glimpse of a Def Leppard record, and look to see if someone is bringing me a fresh glass.

 

U Zlatého tygra

Husova 17
110 00 Praha 1
Česká republika

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My trip to Prague was sponsored by the generous hospitality of Pilsner Urquell and Mark Dredge, their Beer Correspondent.

Green, Hoppy Shoots

A portion of one wall of Sheffield's Hop Hideout.
A portion of one wall of Sheffield’s Hop Hideout.

Sheffield’s Hop Hideout is probably the smallest beer shop I’ve been in. It’s also one of the loveliest, set in one corner of the ground floor of a building full of independent retailers (the Antiques Quarter). It’s a bit like walking through the house from kids TV favourite Finders Keepers, except if the unseen owners of the house were all into vintage clothes and art prints and beer, and every cupboard didn’t explode its contents into a child’s face. Each room full of quirky goods bleeds into the next, reminding me of another TV show from my youth – The Crystal Maze. I think it’s that word ‘Hideout’ that I really like – it suggests something special, a secret treasure for friends to share.

Hop Hideout is a cracking little shop, packing hundreds of beers from around the world into a space smaller than most people’s box rooms. Whether it’s Belgian or German classics you’re after, or the very latest cans from London or California, owners Jules and Will have it covered. They invited Craig Heap and I to do a beer talk/tasting thing (our first ever) just over a week ago, taking place at the Electric Candlelight Cafe in the room next to the shop. We had a great time doing our talk (a tasting through the history of IPA in six beers, with cheese paired to each), and the event attracted a diverse crowd in terms of people and beer knowledge. There were a few regulars among the attendees, and a friendly, informal vibe that suggested a sense of community that really stuck with me.

The pub next door, The Broadfield, had a great range of keg and cask beers on, and a separate dining area propping up its gastropub image. The pub reopened in its current guise just a couple of years before Hop Hideout did, and the pair have formed the nucleus of a small-but-growing craft beer ‘hub’ in the Abbeydale Road area. The area itself is cheap and cheerful for the most part, reminding me of places in Wakefield and Leeds where I lived whilst I was at university and afterwards. But around Hop Hideout, the green, hoppy shoots of a healthy beer scene seem to already be sprouting.

Nearby, an old cinema’s basement is the location for a new bar, Picture House Social, which has asked Hop Hideout to curate a small, rotating beer list for them.  Staff and customers from ‘The Broady’ pub are regularly found perusing the shelves at Hop Hideout on their breaks or after a drinking session at the pub. It all speaks of a communal closeness, something I really enjoy seeing in modern beer culture. The shop is that special treasure, tucked away, reverently enjoyed by those that know where to find it. Many of the nation’s best-loved beer shops started out in much the same way, so I’ve got high hopes for Hop Hideout.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on the the progress of this little Sheffield craft beer microcosm, and I look forward to seeing how it’s grown the next time I visit.

If you find yourself in Sheffield, the 218 bus from the Howard Hotel bus stop opposite the train station will get you to Hop Hideout in about 15 minutes. Oh, and the pies in The Broady come highly recommended.

London Beer City

London Beer City

 

About damn time.

That seemed to be the overall consensus when London Beer City was announced. At last, some truly city-wide recognition and celebration of just how incredible the London beer scene is right now. That’s the best thing about it too: that immediate sense of right now, the vibrancy and bottle-able excitement.

Craft beer in London is about the pursuit of something special that we can enjoy and share with others. The best bars, pubs and breweries in the capital, the places and people that really embody that idea, are all involved a calendar-busting programme of events taking place across London. I’ve written before about how that pursuit, the seeking, is what motivates me. London Beer City seems packed with opportunities to do just that: seek, find and taste incredible beer in a huge variety of places.

This event, hopefully the first of many annual occurrences, is the culmination of a huge amount of work by 2013’s Beer Writer of the Year Will Hawkes, who has managed to co-ordinate a schedule that captures the very best of what London beer can be, whether it’s historic, traditional, trend-setting or esoteric. “I want London Beer City to be an annual focal point, something Londoners look forward to. A relaxed, fun occasion, with events for all tastes and pockets. I hope London Beer City can show off the best of beer,” says Will, “and also help bring about world peace!”

A noble aim. Of course, corralling a city of seventy breweries (and rising) and dozens of quality venues was no easy task. “There are a few really tough things,” Will explains, “such as: ensuring you have enough events every day (I just about achieved that); getting a good spread of events; making sure everyone understands what the week is about; and collating the information quickly and accurately. Overall, though, it has been quite smooth since so many of London’s breweries, pubs and bars are keen to be involved. The London Brewer’s Alliance has been really helpful.”

So what is Will looking forward most next week? “It’s difficult to say! Siren’s live brew at the Earl of Essex, Pete Brown’s Music and Beer matching at The King’s Arms (it’s also on at the Bull in Highgate), Brodie’s sour tap takeover, anything Camden Town are doing … there’s loads of stuff. I’m hoping to get to two or three things each day and still retain a functioning liver come Sunday evening.”

Most people I know have similar concerns. How can we hope to fit in so many incredible events, especially those of us with day jobs? I think the key to enjoying a week of events like this is to pick a few things to definitely attend, and then just throw yourself into something new and different every day. There’s obviously the Great British Beer Festival and the London Craft Beer Festival to consider, too. New events are being added all the time, so it might pay to have some time free for something unmissable and just-announced.
Many events are free to attend, and ticketed tastings, festivals and dinners offer some irresistible opportunities to meet amazing brewers and try some wonderful beers and food. I’m hoping to see London’s beer community embrace this exciting week of events in the way the city got drunk with excitement and pride during the Olympics. Only this time, in a slightly more literal sense, too. Here are some of my own highlights from the schedule:
  • Porters, Peers and Pilgrims: a London brewery heritage walk – I’m gutted that I won’t be able to make this, but this looks fantastic if you’re interested in learning more about London’s brewing history at street level. Des De Moor is the guide for this tour of historical brewing locations across the City and East End.
  • Beavertown Welcomes Rough Trade – Beavertown’s tap room is fast becoming the city’s best new beer destination/all-day hangout, and this day of music provided by DJs from Rough Trade, beer from Beavertown’s tap room and some bangin’ street food looks like a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.
  • Weird Beard Pop-up bar in Bermondsey – In a move that surely out-crafts even the craftest of crafty craft brewers in Bermondsey, the suspiciously good Weird Beard will be opening a pop-up bar on the Beer Mile for one Saturday only. Because the one thing the Beer Mile needs, is more beer.
  • Tasting Beer with Melissa Cole – You’d have to be crazy to pass on a tutored tasting from a beer expert with Melissa Cole’s knowledge, and this tasting just happens to be in one of the city’s best bars, BrewDog Shepherd’s Bush. What’s not to like?
  • One Hells of A Beaver – A collaboration between Beavertown and Camden Town Brewery is a thing to be celebrated in its own right, but as it’s going to be a mash-up of Camden Hells and Gamma Ray, it might also result in the Beer of The Summer. If that wasn’t ‘craft’ enough for you, on the brewday at Camden there will also be a collab-label art-off between Camden and Beavertown’s creative types.

Some people think that London’s beer scene is already disproportionately over-sized, that the scene is nothing more than one more bubble that pops in the head of a pint of cheap, dirty lager. The fact is, it’s about goddamn time that we have something of this scale. The revolution is over. It’s time to start taking this shit seriously if we want it to last. If you think London’s ‘beer ego’ is already so big it can be seen from space, then I’ve got bad news for you. We’re only just getting started.

Four Nations of Beer: Epilogue

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In June, I decided to write about the beer culture in four countries based on my visits to four very different events. The resulting posts (starring the W-Ales Beer Festival, the Bermondsey Beer Mile, BrewDog’s Punk AGM 2014 and the European Beer Bloggers Conference in Dublin) left me with fascinating glimpses into a period of change in each place. Afterwards, I tried to piece it all together. What did it all mean?

 

I went into Four Nations of Beer willingly blind, and wrote four posts with a theme that should have seemed obvious to me from the outset: transition (note those forward-leaning letters, grasping at the future). Whether it was Wales outgrowing its current phase of ‘craft’ growth, London stepping into a more established period, BrewDog maturing while  struggling to shake off the difficulties of growing so quickly, or the rapid and prosperous blooming of Irish craft beer, I saw cities and beer scenes with beer DNA mutating and evolving into something new, and usually something better.

It’s been an exciting series of experiences. Exciting is a word I use too often – but damn it if there isn’t emotional electricity in the beer scene right now. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing four countries worth of drinking in a month to anyone, though. Returning to the humdrum of an office day job after the euphoria of Dublin left me listless and frustrated, but it’s certainly educated me a great deal.

Reassuringly, I had similar conversations with people in each of these places, about brewing being artistry rather than manufacturing, and the values of honesty and perseverance. In Dublin, I even heard Dean McGuiness mention these words, and others besides, in what he deemed to be a set of values that Irish craft brewers should adhere to. It feels like the nebulous beginnings to a definition for ‘craft beer’, but nothing so modish or self-serving, more of an aspirational charter maybe. It has to be something that is of benefit to people first, industry second, or we will quickly get into a Some Beers Are More Equal Than Others situation.

With all of that hope came more than a little of The Fear, of losing what we love so much, of reach exceeding grasp and of rogue elements bringing the whole house of cards down upon itself. If a rich, diverse and exciting beer scene across the British Isles is worth fighting for, then it’s worth working for too, to build something that will last. That something doesn’t need to be a crowd-funding initiative, a state of the art brewery, a new word for ‘craft’ or a even a successful, long-running beer festival. It could simply be a beer that becomes an idea, a symbol that lasts the test of time.

My month of beer travel ended in the Mad Bishop and Bear in Paddington station. It was there that I bade farewell to Craig Heap, who was present at the beginning and ending chapters of my tour. If there was any noticeable change in me in the intervening month (presumably a paunch, sallow skin and a thousand yard stare), he didn’t mention it. We sat in a corner at a small table by the bar, occasionally interrupted by the cries and shouts of football fans watching the projector screen. We drank pints of cask beer, pale golden ales of bright, zippy flavours that reminded us of our time in Yorkshire as students, where the real ale microbrewery revolution had preceded its craft cousin by several years.

As comforting as this was, after the chocolate porters, DIPAs and varieties of saisons blasting my palate left, right and diagonally over thirty days, the simple charms of a hand-pulled pale ale disarmed me. I’d become accustomed to picking out the effects of barrel ageing, hopping in different stages of brewing, the blending of styles and so on. The once-obvious mineral, chalky note of Portobello Pale was a flavour with no name at first, and I had to confer with Craig to retrieve the word from my brain.

I felt suddenly uncertain, unstuck like Billy Pilgrim, unsure of myself and everything that had happened to me. The British Isles had done their zymurgical utmost to me. I felt spent, yet energised; pummelled internally, yet externally still thirsty for more. Wild-eyed, baffled, each eyeball moving independently of the other, each half of brain ignorant of its neighbour, I felt adrift. I needed an anchor.

It occurred to me then, glancing at the chalkboard that explained when each cask ale had been put on to serve (more of this sort of thing, please), that only one beer could ground me. I needed a hard factory reset to put me back in the time space continuum.

When Craig placed the pint of ESB in front of me, I could already feel it working on my synapses. My retinas adjusted to the burning amber hue, tightly formed bubbles and total clarity. My olfactory receptors began to recalibrate, detecting the characteristic note of ever-so-slight-oxidation (a soft bit of sherry), warm orange marmalade on toast and a summer hedgerow.

There was no messing about – to sip it would be an unforgiveable injustice – this was deadly serious. It was incredibly important to get the beer inside me and knock the dents out from within like a malty hammer, so in it went. A hearty mouthful of it sat there, poking about, shovelling out biscuits, pepper, toffee, orange pith, making itself at home. Craig perhaps noticed my pupils dilate, colour return to my cheeks, a soft glossiness returning to my coat. Revivification.

I gulped more of this full-bodied, jumper-wearing, calloused-knuckled ale, re-acclimatising myself to London, back to Earth, back to reality with it. The Matrix contained in its utterly British DNA re-taught me how to stand up straight, take life on the chin, remember my umbrella, and hold the door open for others. That pint of ESB put my head back on, gave it a good twist, and called me a plonker for wearing those bloody white and blue WordPress sunglasses.

Does all this change, evolution, expansion, reinvention actually mean anything if we can’t build something to stand the test of time like a pint of ESB? Sometimes we need a reality check to give us the perspective we need. We need to be able to hold it in our hands, look forward, backward and know our place in the world from it. The challenge is no longer to brew the beer that can’t be replicated, but to brew the beer of the age, that everyone will wish they had brewed first. A beer that in thirty years’ time, someone can taste, and understand, and through that beer look forward and backward with the clarity that only a glass of beer can bring. So go on then, brewers. Brew it.

#EBBC14 – What Did We Learn?

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No time to read yesterday’s 1800-word long read? Forgotten what it said anyway? Here are some rapid-fire highlights from EBBC14 in Dublin. DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!

 

  • Galway Bay have nailed both the heavily-tapped-slightly-gastro-friendly-local with The Black Sheep and the louder, faster, stood up and stamping bar with Brew Dock. DOUBLE THREAT.

 

  • Beer, and not food production, could be why grain was cultivated and therefore why human civilisation exists. Rofl.

 

  • Ancient mounds thought to be used as food stores in ancient Ireland were more likely to be pits used for the making of beer. Wahey!

 

  • We were told a story about an African tribe still make a beer using a similar method, known as ‘Seven Days’, as it takes seven days to gather the ingredients, seven days to make it, and seven days to recover from the hangover. #lads

 

  • This quote about Irish beer will make you stop what you are doing and wonder aimlessly for a few minutes. So poetry. Much sláinte. Wow.

 

 

  • St James’ Gate had its own worker accommodation, pubs, fire brigade, hospital, ambulance service and railway network. Home is for jerks.

 

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  • Oysters and stout: like drowning a tiny drunken octopus in your throat. Fun!

 

  • Pilsner Urquell’s proper pint mugs – the heavier versions of ones in the UK – make the most satisfying na zdraví clink (or rather clunk) sound in the known universe. It’s like marble gods headbutting.

 

  • Of Foam and Fury was the first commercially available DIPA in the Republic of Ireland, and is at least as good as any in the UK. HOP DIGGITY.

 

  • The reason none of the fantastic beers we tasted in Dublin have made it to the UK is because the Irish are drinking it all. Selfish.

 

  • The people at WordPress made their freebie sunglasses’ lenses to be tinted at ‘hangover-strength’. So, so helpful. Seriously, thank you, WordPress.

 

  • Noticeably absent from the social media talk, Vine might be the best or worst thing to ever happen to beer blogging. In any case, it seems that if you get into a serious Vine collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can:

Of Craft and Craic (Four Nations of Beer – Part 4)

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In a series of four features, I have been examining the beer culture in four countries through the lens of a particular event. This fourth and final part explores the thrilling growth of craft beer in Ireland, observed whilst attending the European Beer Bloggers Conference in Dublin. Here are links to Part 1, featuring the W-Ales Beer Festival; Part 2, on the Bermondsey Beer Mile; and Part 3, about BrewDog’s Punk AGM 2014.

 

Four Nations of Beer has come to an end, and I cannot think of a more climactic and satisfying conclusion than this year’s European Beer Bloggers Conference in Dublin. Over the course of June I visited four very different cities, with diverse beer cultures in different stages of development, but it has been in Ireland where I found the most to learn about and arguably the most to enjoy.

My trip to Dublin had everything – visits to incredible pubs, a glimpse at breweries both tiny and mind-bogglingly large, and glass after glass of excellent beer. Thursday evening’s optional pub crawl, hosted by eminent Irish beer blogger, Beoir chairman and (if we’re being honest) EBBC14 co-organiser Reuben Gray, was as eye-opening as it was thirst-quenching. The wet, mild evening was brightened with glorious beers in a variety of styles, enjoyed in pubs and bars with tangible atmosphere and a crackle of excitement in the air. This was more than just Dublin’s famous craic – this was a city’s beer culture in euphoric transcendence.

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I’m not suggesting that until we got there, Dubliners were just throwing back pints of muck with nary a thought to what good beer was, far from it. In the UK, the growth of microbreweries, self-identified ‘craft beer’ and the evolution of pubs into ‘beer destinations’ all seem to have happened gradually over several decades. In Ireland, it seems to be all happening at once, or at least, in the space of a few years, lending an intensity and purpose to the beer scene that is deeply infectious. I had a broad sense of this happening in Ireland before we arrived, having read blogs from the likes of Reuben and the Beer Nut, but seeing this in the flesh made it not only real, but alive. We were treated to an intensive crash course in everything that those of us on the other side of the Irish Sea had been missing out on. But did Dublin really have so much to offer to the already jaded palates of bloggers from the craft-fatigued UK and beyond? Unquestionably so.

Many of us (myself included) found a new favourite DIPA in Galway Bay’s Of Foam and Fury, a blisteringly bold and bright lupulin monster, its hop character so muscular and accomplished that the ultimate compliment was paid: reverent, whispered comparisons to Pliny the Elder. Drinking it was an experience all the more bittersweet for knowing that those of us not based in Ireland may not taste it again for some time (more on that later). With their growing chain of popular bars and American-influenced craft beers, the brewer of that delectable beer, Galway Bay Brewery, seems set to be the Republic of Ireland’s more subdued answer to something like BrewDog. Note that emphasis, though. Their beers are for the most part US or Irish styles by-the-numbers but done well, and the bars vary from the gastropub-esque Black Sheep to the more vertical-drinking-orientated and lively Brew Dock (which even sounds like… never mind). But there’s a spirit there, an active participation in the changing of the local beer landscape, that reminded me somewhat of BrewDog. Whether Galway Bay grow at anything approaching a similar rate would be interesting to see.

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There are of course many other skilled  brewers among this new, younger breed, brewing beers with distinctive character and, in many cases, a sense of humour that is essential to a profession so challenging and fraught with hardship. We had the opportunity to meet many of these brave people at different showcases of Irish beer at The Church, the venue where much of EBBC was held, and there were some truly exemplary beers on display. Rascals Brewing Co, of Rathcoole in Co Dublin, impressed many of us with both their sweetly subtle and spicily nuanced Wit Woo Belgian-style witbier, and their extremely accomplished Ginger Porter, which showed judicious restraint in its ginger character, using just enough to heighten the sharper and sweeter edges of the beer. There was something very assertive about the beers brought along by Blacks of Kinsale: among them a Kinsale Pale Ale (above) with a light, just-sweet-enough body and bitterness like the fast jabs of a boxer; and a Black IPA that was rich, sexy and seemed to know it. Trouble Brewing brought a lovely Lazy Sunday Saison, which prickled the palate with tropical fruit juice in a crisply spicy body, and Big Bear brown ale, which was like a warming slice of coffee cake served with a hug. N17, started by Ireland’s only [first – see this comment from The Beer Nut] female beer sommelier Sarah Roarty in January this year, got a lot of appreciative nods and respectful noises for its Oatmeal Stout served on cask, a deeply decadent and sumptuously smooth example of the style to rival the best. On the Thursday night pub crawl, N17’s neatly balanced Rye ale was enjoyed at the Norseman pub in Temple Bar, where it was served in the most ‘craft’ of methods: through a Randall packed with American hops.

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Whilst many of these breweries were new, each were producing a range that suggested an eagerness to expand. With so many delicious new Irish beers being enjoyed over the weekend, those of us based in the UK were at a loss to understand why we hadn’t seen any cross the Irish Sea. I asked this at the Irish brewers’ panel Q&A at the conference and was told that, quite simply, they can barely make enough to supply Irish demand, never mind the ravenous craft-thirsty palates of the UK. Reuben pointed out that Carlow, brewers of the Goliath-beating O’Hara’s Stout, used to export the vast majority of their beer to foreign markets, but that now that position is reversed, as the Irish appetite for craft beer has rapidly increased. Hopefully, with the help of organisations like Beoir (Ireland’s beer consumer group) and the Vanguard Beer Collective (which helps small Irish brewers get their beer on sale in more outlets), the growing reputation of Irish craft beer will get UK importers interested, and change the perception of Irish beer being only one brand.

Speaking of which, bloggers attending the conference were invited by Guinness to visit St James’ Gate on the Friday evening for a tour of the new brewhouse and an evening of food and beer. Brewhouse #4, intended to take the place of Brewhouses 2 and 3 in terms of capacity, was a spectacle few of us were expecting. Having been escorted through the city-within-a-city that is St James’ Gate, through tunnels and between titanic vessels and buildings, we eventually found ourselves in a building with a clean, clinical white interior. A door, or rather, part of a wall opened, and we were faced with Brewhouse #4 in all its glory. As guided bloggers stood, mouths agape, in a room about the size of a football pitch (or three), I tried to place some sense of scale on it. The biggest brewery I’ve seen recently is BrewDog’s new site at Ellon, where they recently proudly announced a fifth brewhouse vessel. Here, the coppers and kettles seem to run on and on to the horizon, in a space that looked like the first brewery on the Moon. We were politely asked not to take photos of it, but even those that did failed to capture its panoramic size and scale.

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Being shown something that size made Guinness seem all the more vast, alien and robotic, and they obviously were aware of this. We were then escorted into a large function bar at the Storehouse and treated to pairings of various beers with different foods, each with a local Irish ingredient. Here, the brewers we were introduced to in the gigantic brewhouse mingled freely with bloggers, took questions, and asked us just who we were exactly, to get treated to all this food and drink? “Good question,” many replied. “I just write a blog.” “I’ve written some bits and pieces.” “A couple of books.” “All about beer, yes.” The idea of beer writers, at least, is still something of a foreign (extra) concept to them. Whilst there were FES marinated burgers, oysters, pale ale battered fish and more besides, some of us were taken with things far less obvious. Guinness had recently run a competition among the brewing staff to brew a new beer, and one of the entries, Night Porter, was very impressive indeed – a really chocolaty, crisply bitter porter that made Guinness Extra Stout, Draught and even FES seem rather sluggish by comparison.

Still, while Guinness’ attempts at openness seemed heartfelt, talk of their tap-covering stunts on Arthur’s Day and the like persisted over the course of the weekend. This was a global brand, managed by one of the world’s biggest drinks companies, and whilst the marketing and hospitality we witnessed was of the highest possible standard, ultimately that’s all it was: marketing and hospitality. As for changes in their beer lineup, the Smithwick’s Pale Ale, hopped with Amarillo we are told, was decent enough, but must surely be aimed at knocking off the Galway Hooker taps that have fought tooth-and-nail to be alongside the mainstream draught brands in Irish bars. If the Diageo Empire is trying to strike back, does that then spell doom for the rag-tag rebel alliance of Irish microbrewers? Almost certainly not.

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Breweries the size of Guinness obviously turn as slowly as ocean liners in tar, and if they are only now getting behind the idea of a hoppy pale ale, it will be years before it occurs to them to make saisons or DIPAs, by which time the craft brewers will have mastered barrel-ageing, blending, wild fermentation and so on. Given what they have achieved in the past few years, and in some cases, the past few months, it’s difficult not to be excited. What I expect, and hope, to see is the continuing redefining of Irish beer’s identity, whether that means reinventing traditional beer styles, unearthing and mastering ancient ones, or pioneering something entirely new. The recent crowd-funded brew between Beoir members and Blacks of Kinsale – ‘Beoir #1’, a juicy, buzzing and belligerent DIPA – is an extremely promising example of a beer community growing, and prospering, together. Beoir #1 would have been the first commercially-brewed DIPA in Ireland, were it not for a certain Pliny-esque beer from Galway Bay.

And so, when I returned home to London, I found myself thinking about Of Foam and Fury once more, and what it represents. That artwork, reminiscent of both a stained glass window and the sailor tattoos of twinkly-eyed old barfly, is evocative of the booming waves of these new beers washing clean the Guinness-stained soul of Ireland’s beer culture. With those waves comes a sound: a powerful, resonating note, of voices raised in euphoria in Temple Bar at midnight; of the heavy clunk of mugs full of bright beer in dim light; of victory over the old and the stale; of craft and craic.