Cool Snake

If you follow me on twitter you might occasionally see me arguing with Tandleman over various issues. In many ways this is a bit bizarre because I have on more than one occasion had a very enjoyable sociable experience drinking with someone with the name Peter Alexander. Recent discussions have been over naming and shaming individual establishments over their beer serve temperature. Although I remain unconvinced about the value of public naming and shaming on twitter, I agree that there are some shocking examples of poor beer dispense.

Beer should be served at the correct temperature. For cask beer this is generally considered as being around 12 degrees centigrade¹. Too cold and flavours can be masked as well as inevitable problems with chill haze. Much worse is the crime of serving beer too warm; the drinking experience is not enjoyable and an otherwise well brewed beer can be ruined as a result.

There is unfortunately a pattern; tied pub estates often have significant care given to the quality of installed equipment. OK, the beer range may not be particularly varied or imaginative, but you can be more certain that the beer is better looked after. There is very good reason for this.

With a tied house the beer sold is entirely supplied through one route to market. It might be a single regional brewer or it may be a PubCo but there is at least a central purchasing route and maximising sales is crucial to the profitability of the owning business. Cellar support is inevitably very good with great care given to maximising the quality of the beer.

By contrast many free houses have poorer investment in cellar equipment and dispense technology. A very noticeable but in my view completely unacceptable omission is, as I think Tandleman put it, "python² cooling to the point of dispense". This should include jacketed handpulls and carefully regulated circulating cooling water from a dedicated cooler, i.e. NOT from the keg cooling circuit.

OK, the investment might well be significant for a free-house without benefit of a large brewery to supply the technical support and equipment investment, but it will reduce wastage in "pulled through" beer and also inevitably increase the quality of the beer therefore improving the customer experience. I suspect the payback time will be very much shorter than most establishments expect.

Moreover, some of my very favourite beer outlets do suffer from beer serve temperature problems. This results in public naming and shaming of the very places I love. So, perhaps these places could help to prevent Tandleman and I from falling out by thinking about investing a little in dispense equipment?

On Beer, Birra, Bier there is an interesting reflective post on my most recent twitter discussion with Tandleman.

Expensive but very good handpulls can be bought here. Pythons and other such wonderful things can be bought here. Personally I find the technicalities of putting these things together very straightforward, but if your practical skills aren't up to it a good cellar technician shouldn't cost too much.

If any cellar technician tries to tell you that it's OK, it's "trad beer" and doesn't need python cooling, look for someone else.

--------------

¹personally I think there is an argument for some very light and hoppy beers being served a little cooler and things like strong stouts and barley wines a little warmer. 12 degrees is a good compromise however and I totally reject the excuse some dinosaur cellar-men use to say cask beer should be warm. Cask Marque is one organisation that has set some parameters and this cannot be a bad thing.

²A python is a thermally lagged bundle of pipes that includes a flow and return cooling circuit. It's really good at keeping beer at the right temperature from the cellar right to your glass. Generally, if beer is too warm, it is highly likely that this technology is not in use, or it's broken.

The taxing duty of adding value

It was the budget on Wednesday. Oh, you know. Beer duty went up by quite a lot. You know that too I guess. You may also know that there is an extra tax on high ABV beers above 7.5%. But, according to you, that's OK because the duty on low ABV beer, below 2.8%, has been halved. Unfortunately, what you haven't realised, is that this will only be useful to brewers who produce over 5000hl per year; People like Molson Coors, InBev, Fullers, Marstons and BrewDog. You see, they will get the same discount on beer duty we do for beers under 2.8%, but as we already get that discount the revenue is not prepared to give us anymore. This is effectively the start of a reversal of progressive beer duty. To pay for this extra perk, which will only be applicable to things like supermarket own brand beers and C2, those of us who make quality beers, some of which are over the 7.5% threshold, will most certainly lose out. No microbrewer who is brewing below 5000hl will benefit. NOT A SINGLE ONE.

Some time ago I wrote that I didn't think beer duty was a significant problem to the pub industry. At the time I was running a pub with high overheads and brewing my own beer. Evaluating things across the board, at that time, my perspective was that beer duty was only a relatively small cost of serving beer in a pub. Indeed, as a proportion of the overall taxation I was paying, beer duty was relatively small. Pubs pay a significant amount of VAT for instance. Staff PAYE and NI contributions is significant. On top of that there are taxes like employers NI contributions, a hidden tax on employing people, and these are shockingly high.

The overall picture of alcohol taxation, as shown in the above chart, is certainly very complex. The vast majority of beer is still taxed lower than wine, whisky, alcopops and the margin between them does not appear to have significantly changed. What has changed is that major brewers have now been given an incentive to make more lower ABV beer and quality high ABV beer is being treated as a high quality, high value commodity, a bit like wine and whisky.

"Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed" - Daniel Defoe, The Political History of the Devil, 1726

I don't like taxation. I do like some of the benefits it brings. I quite like the fact that the NHS saved my life at least once. I like the fact that they fixed my broken leg and both my hernias have been repaired without any need for me to have medical insurance or dip into savings I haven't got.

I like the fact that my children are receiving a good education, the police, ambulances and fire brigade respond quickly when called, and yes, I've had reason to call all of them.

I do worry that we send too many people through higher education only to have to invent bureaucracy so we can find suitable pen pushing jobs that the country really doesn't need. I think more people should be prepared to get their hands dirty, rather than pretending that an economy can somehow exist purely on a population of graduates and no migrant workers. And there, that betrays an opinion in me that feels that although taxation is necessary in a civilised society, I do wonder if generally it is a little high right now, and high because the populous has an unrealistic utopia in mind. I do think the tax burden is too high in this country and on the day there are marchers in London I wonder how those who condemn beer duty can then take part in such marches. I support the government's cost-cutting, it's the only way we will see taxation reduced. The only alternative is to support increases in taxation.

Still, we elected the government, this one and the last, and we must all accept the policies, spending decisions and taxation regimes imposed. I do think that they are influenced by overall public opinion, even if you and I feel that they don't match our ideals, but then they never will, because like all of us, our ideas are quite rightly different. Most of all I am grateful I can help vote out the buggers in charge, many people in the world can't.

It was recently pointed out to me that going to the pub is a luxury, drinking beer is a luxury. I remember my mother telling me so many years ago. VAT and duty are applied to things the government think are luxuries. Duty is applied specifically to things that are bad for us or society. Unfortunately, public opinion would agree that the government is generally right on these points. Most of the public would agree that alcohol is bad for us and moreover bad for society. The fact that you and I don't see it that way is unlikely to change public opinion.

Conversely, VAT is not charged on things that are good for us or are essential for us to live. Bread, potatoes, safety equipment, books, cakes, cheese, meat and vegetables are exempt from VAT. Biscuits, ready meals, fast-food, fizzy drinks, TVs, DVDs, computers, motor cars all attract VAT because you do not need them to live. Fuel for cars, alcohol and tobacco attract extra duty because they are bad for us, society or the environment and arguably if you spend lots on these products you have more money than sense. All of this counteracts the common accusation of purchase taxation and duty being regressive.

There is significantly less money coming from tobacco, and as a result of healthier society more people are living longer, costing social services, hospitals and care homes more. Perhaps this is the real reason alcohol duty is on the increase. I don't really buy the whole "alcohol is costing the NHS millions" argument - we are all getting healthier and living longer, the tax burden of that is immense.

Some years ago a very knowledgeable publican and successful business man pointed out, by way of up-selling I suspect, that buying a slightly more expensive bottle of wine was gaining significantly better quality.

"This basic wine has a lot of duty on it" he explained "This slightly more expensive wine has exactly the same amount of duty on it, the extra all goes into quality"

I suspect this is what James Watt is eluding at in comments to the MA, not too eloquently I'm afraid, in his usual out spoken style. He does it rather better on the BrewDog blog. However, if you consider for a moment that underneath this there is a valid point, quality beer is a quality product. Drinking beer in a pub, bar or restaurant is a luxury. Consider the total percentage tax (VAT plus duty) on a pint in a pub, which is about 32%¹, and compared that to a pint tin in a supermarket where VAT plus duty is 59%².

As the price you pay for your beer goes up a greater proportion of the price goes to the upkeep of the pub, better ingredients in the beer and investment in the brewery. In the supermarket cheap slabs of beer are almost entirely revenue for the tax man. Conversely, higher cost craft³ brewed beer represents significantly better value than macro-brewed beer.

I'm still outraged that beer duty has increased 43% since I started brewing in 2005. I'm extremely outraged by the fact that I will have to pay 50% more duty on my beers above 7.5%, beers that were a significant part of my business plan. I'm also outrages that the low ABV duty relief will do me no go whatsoever, but others are claiming it a success. However, there is an argument that the quality end of the market should be less financially sensitive to the extra tax burden, compared to bigger brewers.

SIBA sent out a circular very shortly after the budget was announced. There is a key issue surrounding the use of progressive beer duty for discounting beer from small producers. PBD is not supposed to allow small producers of beer to undercut the big boys, but there is an element of this going on.

"While no changes were made in the Budget to Small Brewers Relief (Progressive Beer Duty) it is incumbent on all brewers to realize that the relief is intended for investment in jobs and capital in the industry and to relieve the dis-economies of scale of the smaller brewers. Duty increases should be applied in full to prevent any accusations that small brewers are using the relief to discount prices."

That plays to the argument that small brewers should be concentrating on quality and investment, not fighting a pointless battle of price cutting. I know every drinker wants their beer to be reasonably priced, there is nothing wrong with that, but there are sectors of the market where price is driving down quality, and that is not what I want good beer to be about.

I believe that is what BrewDog are also trying to say, even if they are trying to simply get free publicity out of saying it.

Right, best go and adjust my price-list then.

-----

¹Assuming 4% beer sold at £2.70 a pint.

²Assuming 4% beer sold at £1.00 a pint.

³Yes, I know the jury is out on what defines "craft" and I get the issues with this, but for me craft beer is any beer that is brewed with a mind to quality rather than price. It's a sliding scale of course and I do not draw a solid line.

What is a Microbrewery?

Being the one who brews the beer, when sat around in the evening chatting to customers, I often get asked a lot of the same questions. The most common question is about volumes. Queries about how much I brew and how big my brewery is are common. I would get irritated answering the same questions all the time, but it's about beer which is a subject I like to talk about. Elaborating the answer helps to make it more interesting for me, but then that tends to encourage more stupid questions.

I can answer very easily questions about my own brewery. After all, if I don't know the answers then who does? Admittedly, the ever increasing risk of dementia might be an issue. The one question that does crop up time and again is that of the definition of a microbrewery. Just how small does a brewery have to be to be a microbrewery? I often get asked that question and because I'd really like to have the answer I'm going to explore the concept here.

To lay down a bench mark I'm going to start with the sub 60,000hl per year definition of a "small brewery"¹ as determined by HMRC². To put that into context I brew around 60hl per year. I could get up to around 300hl per year if all I did was brew beer, however, I have a pub to run. So the reader can clearly see, even if mathematically dyslexic, that I am nowhere near in danger of having to pay increased beer duty rates.

Just in case numbers do baffle you, I'll give some illustrations. I'd have to increase my brewery size by 200 times to reach the threshold. 5 fermenters of 240hl each should do it. A mash tun of around 5 tonnes grist capacity to feed them. I'd need around 9,000-12,000 firkins if I expected to sell most of it as draft, although bottling would help reduce this number. I don't know if the reader can imagine what all this might look like, but to me it is anything but micro.

I'll have a little stab at my own view of the volumes I think define a micro brewery. Please bear in mind this is only an opinion and I'm sure the reader will have their own view. If we think in orders of magnitude, if I'm saying that a brewery of 2 orders of magnitude bigger than mine is too big to be a microbrewery then something around one order of magnitude, or ten times the size of mine might be.

So, my definition of the maximum size might be a 30hl brew length and around 500kg of grist. You can just about mash that volume by hand, so that, in my view, is a good level to consider. At this size the production, sales and transport activities would justify perhaps 5-8 full time jobs and it's likely to have a sole trader or partnership model of business. A nice family owned company I'd suggest.

There is another level in the beer duty definition. Below 5,000hl per year a brewery gets a full 50% discount on all it's duty. My imaginary brewery above, if it had 3 fermenters, would be unable to brew more than this. This makes me confident about this definition.

The 60,000hl per year brewery by contrast will have mechanised mash rakes I'd guess, will probably fit the limited company model, will employ around 50 people or more and start to feel corporate. At this volume it will probably have sales of up to £10 million per annum. This is starting to sound familiar, but I promised not to mention that particular brewery for a while and a promise is a promise.

Lets take another brewery as an example, the White Shield brewery. At about 10hl brew length it easily fits my size criteria. Owned by Molson Coors however makes it part of a large multinational, but do we care? Of course, the head brewer cares, Steve Wellington cares very much about the beers he makes. When personification of the metalwork occurs, I believe Steve calls the brew house something like "The Old Lady", then you have a real life relationship that breathes character into the beer.

But then perhaps size doesn't really matter at all. If a big brewery can still think like a microbrewery then perhaps that is what really matters. In America they use the term craft brewery and craft beer to describe their quality beer scene. Of course some are very large, like Sierra Nevada for instance, and will be very corporate in their business outlook. But they all produce good beer and there is such a vast difference between that and the output from the vast mash filters of the huge multinationals as to render the definition clear and easy.

In the UK we seem to have a more difficult time defining what we think is good and worthy for the beer connoisseur. Are the outputs from the various Marston's breweries not good craft beers for example? Despite the White Shield brewery being part of a huge multinational it's beer is well revered and rightly so. Robinsons, Fuller's, and Green King have all produced at least something that has impressed me, even if just a little. Perhaps their main outputs are as dull as dishwater, but then perhaps that's what the masses want anyway. The key thing for me is how do we compare these breweries to the likes of Sierra Nevada or Stone for instance who produce some very interesting beers and probably are similar in size to our "regional" brewers.

I am of course asking rhetorical questions, which by their very nature have no clear answer. The reader will have their own views, which of course I'd be happy to know about. Indeed, that is the point of this post, to explore where we think the boundries lie between microbrewing, craft brewing and whatever else we would like to define.

At the end of the day though, does it matter how big the brewery is, so long as the beer is good?

----------

¹Details for this can be found in HMRC Beer Duty Notice. hl=hectalitre or 100 litres or about 176 pints or 0.61 of a brewery barrel.

²Her Majesty's Robbing C***s

Climate Change

It's busy at the pub. Good. But it does mean I have less time to blog. Bad. My little brother sent me a New Scientist article by email, because he thought I might be interested. He was of course right.

It's about hops loosing alpha acids due to climate change. I worry about climate change. I also worry sometimes that we worry too much about climate change. Bad beer might just be a worthy reason to worry.

My brother did seem to think that the degradation of the quality of Saaz hops might in someway account for my reluctance to appreciate lager - I'm not so sure on that one, but it's an interesting thought.

We innovate, the big boys don't

In the Morning Advertiser 23rd July there is a piece by Nigel McNally, the MD of Wells and Young, about how the micro breweries are damaging the regional breweries. It doesn't actually say that, but it's clear from the article that this is where their problem lies. "We invest, the small boys don't" is the title. I don't seem to be able to find it on the Internet. I'm beginning to suspect that Andrew Pring knows just the type of article I'd like to link to and misses it off the web site deliberately.

Cask sales have grown 1.1% in the last quarter with underlying total beer sales dropping 6.3%. Of the cask market the micros are now taking 22% of this. I think that's huge and probably shows that we, the micro breweries, are benefiting from the growth. However, Mr Neilson seems to think that it's due to regionals investing in marketing and crazy things like the new fangled pumps that I reported on previously.

The regionals are also annoyed that SIBA did not back Cask Ale Week. Probably because SIBA knows that cask ale week was really not going to make a huge difference to the drinking habits of the people who choose it's members beers.

The regionals and CAMRA seem to think they are the story. Perhaps they might be part of it but the micros are becoming an ever bigger part to.

Well I'm sorry, but all the evidence I have is that cask brands that become more ubiquitous loose their appeal. Marketing investment tends to turn off the cask market, not the other way round. Worthingtons 1744 by Coors being a case in point. Nigel, tell you what, save your marketing budget and put some money into making interesting beer instead. That's what I do.

The pump clip in the picture is of a new beer of mine. I'm quite pleased with it. It's uses American hops, is dry hopped and uses Belgian yeast. I'm waiting for my beer geek friend to sober up from last night so he can taste it and tell me it's as good as I think it is.

Coming up for Air

I have very little in the way of formal qualifications in brewing. Up until 6 years ago I had very little work experience in the industry. Before that time my job was to count neutrons. Yes, really. That's right, those incredibly small sub-atomic particles that are impossible to see, and actually fairly difficult to detect owing to their lack of any electrostatic charge. You might wonder how I managed to count them. Well I could tell you, but I suspect I'd have to kill you afterwards.

Now neutrons are significantly smaller than yeast cells. Yeast cells can be seen under a microscope and are significantly easier to count. Also, once you counted the yeast cell it is still normally there. Neutrons, on the other hand, refuse to stay where you left them, and in fact, there is some question about their existence anyway. It is something to do with trees falling over in forests when nobody is there. Something to do with blind faith, although to be fair, there is a little more evidence to support the existence of neutrons over that of God.¹

I'm not going to brag about qualifications. I don't believe I need to. What I know is that I have learnt and forgotten more than I have managed to retain as a result of working previously in a highly technical environment. Much of this knowledge is highly transferable and my previous scientific and engineering background has primed me to be able to analyse all manor of diverse technical subjects. I believe brewing can be included as a technical subject and compared to some of the esoteric subjects I have dealt with in the past, something of a doddle.

What I know about brewing is that oxygen is good for getting primary fermentation going. Normally this oxygen is incorporated into the beer as a result of the wort falling through the air into the fermenter after flowing through a heat exchanger, where the previously boiled wort is cooled to pitching temperature. The yeast uses this oxygen as part of it's metabolism during the vigorous primary fermentation and hopefully all this oxygen is consumed, leaving an oxygen free beer. The spoilage bacteria don't stand a chance because the yeast has competed for oxygen and nutrients and by now won with style. It's really a numbers game; billions of yeast cells and only a few hundred other organisms.

The beer is often chilled towards the end of primary fermentation. This enables the CO₂ that is being produced by our friendly yeast cells to be dissolved and retained in the beer; the lower the temperature the more volumes CO₂ that will be retained. At a temperature of 11-12^oC the beer will have a carbonation of around 1.1-1.2 volumes at atmospheric pressure. The beer has to have live yeast in it for this to happen, but providing it is given some time, oxygen is not required for this process to occur. The yeast will settle to the bottom of the vessel, along with any remaining precipitated proteins and other particulates, which might include the vast majority of the unwanted micro-organisms. A small amount, around 5% of the original pitching rate of yeast, is allowed to remain in the beer. Some of this process might or might not be performed in a conditioning tank depending on the brewery.

From this point on, the best brewers will work very, very hard to prevent oxygen coming into contact with the beer. For that matter, eliminating air and therefore spoilage bacteria and wild yeasts is also key. Additionally, if the beer is in contact with oxygen for a significant length of time oxidization of the beer can occur, which most beer connoisseurs consider a bad thing to have happen to your beer. Together, spoilage bacteria and oxygen will react with the beer and create off flavours quickly, adding nothing to the quality of the beer; in any way, shape or form.

Once in cask the remaining yeast will add to the carbonation of the beer. Remaining fermentables allow remaining yeast to progress slow secondary fermentation and a very good cask beer will improve in a sealed cask for weeks, months and sometimes even years. If the beer remains in contact with live yeast it will consume some compounds that result in off flavours.

When it is time to serve the beer it is time to vent the beer. The reason for venting is to release excess CO₂ and so prevents the beer from being too lively on serving. Failure to do this can result in overfobbing and too much head, if head is not your thing. There is no requirement at this point to allow air to come into contact with the beer in the cask other than something has to replace the beer that is removed. There is no purpose served in letting damaging oxygen and microorganisms coming into contact with the beer. The conditioning has already been done. If this venting can be done through a one way valve, such as a race spile, then things are wonderful.

If at this point in time a non-pressurized CO₂ blanket is allowed to rest over the beer, without any air entering, then the beer could actually last for many days or even weeks as this would be no different to it being in a sealed cask. There is no scientific argument that could be applied against this, in my view. Would it still be classed as cask beer? That's for the reader to decide. My view is that cask beer should be matured on live yeast in the vessel from which it is dispensed and have a relatively low carbonation level. That, for me, would be the end of the discussion, but it won't be, and probably shouldn't be.

I like the beer blogging world. I really like all the people who take time to post and comment in this international, largely constructive medium. I do make an effort to understand the things that are being discussed and it can be surprising to find where the best knowledge resides, although the techniques of getting that across might not always be helpful. I care about all who take part and you all mean a lot to me. Sometimes things get out of hand. Discussions develop that become destructive due to entrenched positions where the sides are obviously taking an "I'm not listening" stance. My mother might have said "If you lot don't stop fighting I'll have to bang your heads together"

What is this all about? Check out this post and this post and ensuing comments.

---------

¹Sorry, yes I'm taking the piss out of hardcore physicists a little here, who are similar to hard core beer fanatics and sometimes the same thing. Very few of them, physicists that is, can understand my assertion that nobody has actually proved the existence of the neutron. Beer fanatics probably don't care about neutrons despite the fact that neither them nor the beer would exist without such amazing little things. Rather than proof we just have a model for how sub-atomic particles work and so far nobody has been able to run an experiment that disproves the model. Sometimes the model needs to be adjusted a little as more sophisticated experiments are run. But guys, nobody has ever seen a neutron, we can only observe it's effects.

It's true that the robust model we have of the strange subatomic world is fairly indisputable and better than the "God must exist because you can't prove he doesn't" argument. But most physicists simply have blind faith in what previous physicists have learnt. Sometimes the same can occur in the beer world.

Some days though, I do wonder; is that a yeast cell I can see when looking down the microscope, or am I just plugged into a big matrix so I have no way of knowing what is real and what isn't anyway?

You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

Morpheus

Beer Temperature

It's probably one of the easiest faults to identify in beer; the wrong serve temperature. We all hate beer that is too warm. Some of us also object if the beer is served too cold, although arguably this is less of a problem because one can always wait for it to warm up.

Maintenance of cooling equipment can be a small headache for the publican. Apart from the fact that cooling eats power, and I mean really eats it, there is the problem of making sure it is working and set up right.

An advantage of big breweries is that they will usually help the publican to maintain his equipment. A tied house would expect, as part of the tie agreement, full maintenance and servicing of the cellar equipment¹. If the beer starts coming out of the fonts² warm then a simple call to the brewery or pubco will have it sorted in a jiffy. A free house may be disadvantaged in this respect. If the main supply of beer is through a single or maybe a couple of suppliers then cellar service might be easy to arrange. However, there will be some equipment, as detailed below in the footnote¹ that will require independent contractors. This can end up being costly³.

If there is no major supplier, as in our case, all the maintenance becomes the publicans responsibility. The good news is that it's not that difficult if you're at all handy. Drinks technicians like to let you think it's a black art. It's not. OK, there are some basic mistakes which could end up costly, like continually topping up a glycol system with pure water, but there are some basics that can help.

What can a publican do to make sure his beer is at the right temperature? Perhaps drink it occasionally. Yes, I know it's a tough job, one I dread doing, but it does help you keep your finger on the pulse. If you have a kitchen thermometer⁴ use this to check the dispense temperature of the beer, using a cool glass of course, not one straight out of the glass washer. Checking the levels of coolant in the reservoirs in all remote and under-bar flash coolers, perhaps once a week, is good. Keep ventilation grills clean and free from dust and clear of obstructions. Tell that bar tender to move his fleece away from the cooler grill. Finally, find a cooling technician who you trust and who can respond quickly and learn from him.

¹What do you mean the cellar air cooler is your responsibility? Nope, they want you to buy all the wet product off them they can jolly well make sure the cellar air temperature is right. You wouldn't need an air cooler in the cellar if it wasn't for the wet trade. It should be written into the contract.

²A font is the thing beer comes out of on the bar. Here, we normally don't include handpulls in this rather vulgar nomenclature.

³My cellar air cooler has probably cost me £2,000 to maintain since I came here 5½ years ago. But it's worth it, especially on a hot⁵ day when the cellar is the place to be.

⁴You have got a kitchen thermometer, haven't you? No? How can you possibly comply with HACCP?

⁵Yes Mr Bell, it can get hot, even up here in Cumbria.

Zipping along

Thanks for your patience. I've not posted for a while due to these nice people called customers. We have had quite a few excellent ones recently. My customers clearly come before my blog, mainly because most customers are very happy to exchange the service we provide for their hard earned cash. All the more reasons to give them the time of day.

A down side of having customers is that they tend to drink beer. I have a pile of amassing casks outside that once had beer in them. With a Bank Holiday, again, and half term far too closely followed by a beer festival, I guess I'd better get some beer in them.

Today is brew day.

Some time ago I found a bottle of beer in my cellar, it was really scrummy. I later found out that I had previously met the brewer and he was only too pleased too let me have the recipe. Today I'm going to try and brew a West Coast USA IPA. I might have to tone it down just a touch so as not to cripple the UK pallet with alpha acids or put drinkers off completely with an ABV that "isn't a session beer" strength. But then again.......

Of course, I have the problem of converting some ancient and long ago disused units of measure: The pound and the ounce. Apparently, brewers still use them over there.

Maris Otter

Having a brewery results in me getting some interesting mailshots. Very often it's just junk mail from people trying to sell me some multi-thousand pound piece of equipment that is too big for my brewery, sometimes it's some fancy cask tracking system that I can't afford, and anyway, don't need due to my casks almost never leaving the pub. Sometimes it's useful stuff like invitations to buy a new wort cooler, that I couldn't afford, but boy, I'm glad I used a little more of the overdraft on, 'cause it saves me 2 hours per brew.

Sometimes it's information that is of little use to my regular brewing but of great interest to the beer world in general. Today I received one such communication. It's from some barley merchants and the main people, if I understand their blurb, who maintain and improve the Maris Otter variety of barley. They are Robin Appel LTD and H Bantham LTD.

They have a deep concern over the instability of the price of Maris Otter. The contracts for Maris Otter growing are negotiated ahead of time and with a view to how the price compares to other varieties, ones that are mainly grown on the continent. Farmers plan this compared to other crops they might choose to grow on the basis that they are, as any sensible business does, gaining best return on their assets. The main asset for a farm, is of course, the land.

When the contracts for the 2009 harvest were placed the 2008 harvest had not yet occurred. During August 2008 there was a glut of cheaper brewing grain from the continent that flooded the market causing the Maris Otter farmers to find it difficult to compete on price. Breweries would then substitute other varieties in brews if the light coloured malt in the brew was less critical. The upshot of this is that farmers will choose to plant less Maris Otter for the 2010 harvest and so the variety may become more expensive again, turning it into a niche variety, which perhaps it already is. It has, after all, been described as the "Grand Cru" of malt varieties.

Conversely, if the price goes too high, as often happens due to the time lag associated with such things, there may well be over-planting in future years, causing a further glut. This sort of instability should be of great concern to barley growers, merchants and breeders, maltsters, brewers and beer connoisseur alike.

I relate this to the unfortunate situation we have with hops, which has a cycle that is much longer. From what I've been told, around 7 years from planting before sensible return is achieved. The result is that in the last 2 years, hop prices have increasing from a low, to me, of £5 per Kg up to prices as high as £40 or more per Kg. It got so bad that for a while some varieties became completely unavailable last year. This occurred because, as hop prices became too low, hop growers tore up the hopbines. Hopefully they are replanting them again.

The business man in me says that this is just the way it goes. If brewers can make perfectly acceptable beer by substituting a cheaper variety when it is economically sensible then maybe that's just the laws of the free market. The barley farmers are perhaps no worse off than the apple grower or potato grower or wheat grower or for that matter any food crop that has to compete in what is now, in my view unfortunate, global market.

And there, through my attempt to seem like a hard nosed businessman, I gave away my affection for the traditional. Maris Otter is THE British pale ale malt. Surely we can't let it suffer unduly?

The barley merchants are asking for brewers to give an indication of their commitment so that more sensible forward planning can be achieved. To know this perhaps we need to know how much the beer drinker cares about the variety of malt that goes into the brew. Does, in fact, Maris Otter make the beer better and therefore justify the use of a more expensive malt?

Even as a brewer, all be it small scale, and a beer connoisseur, I'm not sure I know the answer to that question. For now I'll have to accept the dissonance that is created in my mind as my free market principles compete with my sense of the tradition.

Mature beer

Last night I had the pleasure of Jeff Pickthall's company. He brought some rather nice samples from his secret stash of aged beers. We sat in my bar, drank beer that was 2 years or more past it's best before date and behaved like the two beer nerds that we are. We of course also mulled over various issues that surround beer including the tie, cask breathers, fizzy beer, class and beer, the price of beer and even sparklers.

Despite all of that we managed to completely avoid physical violence, even when we talked about sparklers. This is even more strange when you consider we were drinking beers with strengths like 5.5% and more. We all know that strong beers are responsible for alcohol fuelled disorder. Don't we?

Perhaps we didn't fight over these things because Jeff has been in the trade, and like so many others in the trade our disagreements on these matters are small. This seems to be in contrast to those who don't rely on licenced retail of alcohol to earn a living. Perhaps the difference between the likes of us and others in the trade is that Jeff and I don't know when to keep our mouths shut.

Yesterday evening I got a lesson in beer tasting. I know what I like, which is a large range of beer. I also know what I think is bland and unexciting. I have been frustrated by being unable to describe as eloquently as others the flavours I am getting. Last night helped towards filling in that gap.

The beers, for anyone interested, were:

Anchor Brewing Co

Our Special 5.5% 2004

Immediate nose of Christmas pudding

Cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves all there and well balanced

Underlying flavours of port wine and burnt currants

Alaskan Brewing Co

Smoked Porter 6.0% 2003

Best Before Jan 06

Nose of single malt, Islay maybe

Flavours of plums

Slight oxidisation - damp cardboard. This was the first time I positively identified oxidisation.

However for me the oxidisation was inconsequential compared to the lovely full flavour. I might have to find more of this one.

Sierra Nevada

Celebration Ale 6.8%

Best Before Sept 06

Barley Sugar, citrus orange pith, marmalade - surprisingly un-bitter for a west coast USA beer. Jeff suggests that's the aging process.

We did the tasting to this point in order of strength, I personally would have put this first.

Girardin

Gueuze 5% - no date found

Cider, vinegar and lemon flavours.

One of the more tart geuezes that I have tasted.

Finally, with pallets fairly shot, we compared a 12 month Orval with a 6 month old. The year old had nearly no aroma and frankly was poor. The 6 month old was much better. I strongly suspect this is due to batch problems rather than aging as both bottles had best before dates right into 2013.

Of course this morning I felt just a touch rough. It was pleasing to know that Jeff's head was also feeling the effects. We did have several pints of regular ale as well.

Rubbish at any price

I often find myself disagreeing with Roger Protz when he writes, I'm not really sure why but something doesn't seem right when he talks about pubs. He can sure come out with some pearls of wisdom but they are often buried into bigger messages that don't make sense. Although he takes up the cause of the pub I can't help feeling that he is generally out of touch with the real problems facing the thousands of small businesses that form the pub industry. He does try, bless him, and I believe he's a very nice guy.

Last week there was a piece in the Morning Advertiser titled "Careless talk costs pubs" and on the page in the printed version is a big picture of supermarket own brand lager with large star badges proclaiming the 22.5p per can. Although this is a trade paper it does get seen by the man on the street, surely this is the sort of careless talk that does cost pubs. OK, so the picture may not be Rogers fault, I'm guessing he only provided the words.

Why are we, the trade, comparing 2% rubbish lager against the quality service that we provide? We shouldn't. The stuff in the supermarkets is often so rubbish that any price is too much. We need to get out and tell people how wonderful pubs really are. We should be shouting out that people should go to the pub because it's great and a service worth paying for. Lets stop this negative image we are all now projecting.

I firmly believe that we need to point out that pubs charge a little bit more because they are fantastic places to enjoy great products. It's about added value. No self respecting pub would want to sell a lager that is only 2% and tastes like fizzy water. The trade needs to stop talking down the industry and start showing customers how great the trade can be.

It's quiet for us mid week this time of year. We rarely take enough money to cover the overheads, but I'm not complaining. We're getting jobs done that we need to get done, like the new disabled loo and capping the chimneys. More importantly the phone has been red hot this last couple of weeks with people forward booking our rooms for later in the year. I really do think it's going to be the year of the "Staycation" holiday. All we need is a glorious summer.

If people are to stay at home this summer we need to entice them into the pub. If the trade keeps reinforcing the idea that everyone would be better staying in the back garden drinking 2% own brand lager then perhaps that is what they will do.

Pubs are great. Pubs are fantastic. I love going to the pub and always have. I believe many people do love to go to the pub and don't mind paying for quality, comfort and top class service. You can't buy any of that at the supermarket.

Something special

I haven't said much about the economic situation. I'm hoping the exchange rate is going to stop people going abroad, hopefully the summer, for the pubs that are still open, will be quite good. After all, everyone likes a drink with good company and even better on a hot lazy sunny day.

I don't say too much about Wetherspoons either. I do not like the places and will not ever pretend to. I do admire Tim Martin, however. Anybody who can make people part with money for such a low quality product is a wizard. That does mean I should admire McDollop and Bugger King as well. Perhaps, in a way, I do.

As a result of the Credit Crunch^TM our usual man who acquires our continental fizzy stuff has cash flow problems. He's owed a large amount of money by some corporate prats. He owes a lesser amount to James Clay, the company who imports the beers. James Clay is reluctantly putting his account on stop. In normal times the bank would extend my suppliers overdraft and everything would be OK. But despite the government giving money to the banks to stop this happening, they are tightening up on all businesses. Nobody is happy about this, not me, not my man and not James Clay. Perhaps the banks are happy, because they now have taxpayers money and seem to be able to keep hold of it.

Today we had to go to James Clay ourselves, browse through a large warehouse full of beer and choose what we wanted. I was like a kid in a candy store. We came back with rather more than we went for, I just hope we can sell it all. It was worth going though. We got given a much larger than usual quantity of point of sale freebies, you know, branded glasses, bar runners, chalk boards etc.

On the way back we called at a very good pub, chosen by Ann from the good beer guide. We needed lunch so a call at the Fox and Goose was in order. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a good ale pub. I also guessed, fairly quickly that food was not a driver behind this pubs success. 4 hand pulls all with something interesting. Nice beers, nice chap running it and worthy of a visit. But no food for us.

So we ended up stopping at a motorway service station for a crap baguette pizza thing and a coffee. Left on the table was a copy of the Daily Mirror. We wouldn't buy it normally, but it was worth every penny we paid for it. Reading through Ann found an article on Wetherspoons. There he goes again, I thought, the master of PR, Tim Martin. And it just goes to show the target audience he has, Mirror readers.

Eventually, I reluctantly read the article. Through the rather smug comments about how he's still going to do OK, because he's selling crap beer for 99p a pint, he is also pointing out that people want something different in a pub. This is how he is winning. Yes, OK, he's playing dirty by selling volume at knock down prices where other pubs can't, but there is something else there. There is something that has got the run of the mill pubs, well, running. Like no other chain pub they also provide variety. I think there is lots the rest of the pub trade could learn from Tim Martin. He does say "customers are willing to spend a bit extra for something special". It doesn't take that much to be special compared to Wetherspoons.

So now I'm sitting drinking something special, and it's all Tandleman's fault. His blog alerted me to the NWBF, where I tried Budvar Dark. Now I've gone and bought a keg of the stuff. I think it's quite nice and when trade is slow I can still have a dark beer on without the problems of a cask not selling. And I can hold my head high because I'm selling something special.

Taste

A visit to a pub last night resulted in me drinking 3 very nice beers: Timothy Taylor Landlord, Hawkshead Bitter and Yates Bitter. There was also Jennings Cumberland available, another golden brown bitter. I preferred the Yates, personally, because it seemed a little less sweet compared to the other two I tried - it had a hop dryness that I like, although normally, I also find Yates too sweet as well.

This leads me to a couple of observations that I would like to make. Firstly, why did the pub in question have four, albeit very nice and well kept, golden brown beers? There was nothing dark and malty, nothing stronger, no winter warmers. I would have liked to have seen something quite different. The second observation is that after drinking the Hawkshead and the Timmy Taylors I enjoyed the Yates a little more than usual. Was this because the beer has changed or is it to do with the order in which I drank them?

Jeff Pickthall questions his judgment on tasting beers, and here also. This both pleases and disturbs me at the same time. I cannot answer his legitimate question, and often find myself asking the same of myself. I consider Jeff to be more knowledgeable on the subject of beer flavour than myself, so if he feels he can't always trust his own judgment then I have no chance. But Jeff's uncertainty makes me more comfortable with my own doubts.

Ted is also struggling with this question. I know, as we've touched on it several times in conversation. In the link here Ted does talk more about a beer I brewed, so please forgive my gratuitous reference. I know that he questions the apparent widespread scathing about beer quality and taste. Mood and company, which of course are linked, previous consumption either of beverage or food and of course the particular batch of a beer will affect the taster's experience. The pub can also have an effect, such as the length of time the cask has been open or the line cleaning regime in play. Other factors can include the design of the pump clip, correct use of a sparkler or not depending on the consumer's choice and even perhaps the quality of service and ambiance.

It is perhaps unfair then for the large volume of apparent negativity in WEB2.0*. I have seen many comments on the Internet made about pubs and beers where I wondered what planet the appraiser was on. It strikes me that punters make the effort to comment when they have something they are aggrieved about. The bad experiences are the ones that motivates them to hit out some words on the keyboard and click that publish button. We rarely feel motivated to be nice. And here I am being grumpy about it, just the thing Ted is trying to avoid, bringing in negativity, which is exactly what I'm being grumpy about.

But, wait. This is all good. This is freedom of speech at its best. This is a channel of communication that is open to all. If the information isn't to your liking then you can click elsewhere. If you really disagree then you can engage with it and put your point across; although sometimes it can take forethought to avoid appearing to be a pillock or a numpty and quite often both.

So here I can grumble about the fact that there was no winter warmer available last night. I can also explore my own journey thought the mighty world of beer tasting and share my thoughts with the reader. Best of all, this virtual world, one that is free from the publishing constraints of corporation funded advertising, is discussing many great things about the diverse and growing world of interesting beer.

*WEB2.0 is user generated content. You are reading an example of it. http://www.beerintheevening.com , http://www.ratebeer.com are also examples.

I hope this doesn't undermine Ted's own unpublished posts. Go on Ted, be grumpy about people being grumpy, I'm eager to hear your views.

Quality beer?

A CAMRA official, a beer writer and myself were assembled savouring some nice beer. A question arose that is being increasingly asked by many; Does quality beer have to be cask conditioned as specified by CAMRA?

I am going to say outright that I think the answer is no. My beer writing colleague also agreed. The Belgians for instance get along very well having no cask conditioned ales whatsoever. They have bottle conditioned and it's highly likely that some of their draft beers are still live. None of their beer, to my knowledge, would pass the definition of real ale - it is still quality beer and there are even CAMRA books on the subject of Belgian beer.

The west coast of the USA has a large number of craft brewers. The Czech republic is regarded as a quality beer producing nation and Germany can also kick out some interesting stuff. Even in Australia there is a growing interest in craft ale.

Nowhere else in the beer producing world am I aware of such a thing as cask ale - it's unique to the UK beer world.

Ah, but that's the point. Cask conditioned ale is special and should be preserved as a style of beer production, the CAMRA guy proclaims. I can't disagree with that either. But is that a reason to determine keg beers, or filtered bottled beers unworthy of consideration? If a pub does not have the throughput to be able to sell cask conditioned beer then why not recognise that compromise will permit a better range of beers to be available?

But that's the thin end of a very big wedge. I don't agree. Cask ale is cask ale and that is an end to it. If artificial gas is introduced then it ceases to be cask ale. But that does not mean it is not quality beer.

Furthermore, handpulls put some people off drinking the stuff. They don't trust it and will plump for the Guinness or Carling instead. The ability to promote microbrewed ales via more reliable dispense systems might just also be the wedge that gets people to be more adventurous with their beer drinking. Jeff Bells blog sneers at the idea a little when Adnams tried to release such a beer.

The beer drinking market seems clearly split into two. Those that will drink cask ale and those that will not. The not camp are generally filled with lager drinkers. It is possible to get lager drinkers to try real ale and I have been successful. The jump though is far too much for most. A "crossover" light coloured fizzy beer might just bridge the void.

A final point on our British attitude to quality beer is price. In reality most cask ales in this country are actually cheaper in the pubs than keg lagers. In Belgium the quality beers are much more expensive than the mass produced stuff. 330ml is typically €4.00. With the exchange rate being nearly on equality to the pound this is somewhere around £6 a pint.

I would say, that despite everything that has been done since CAMRA started, we are very much behind the Belgians in my view. The main reasons for this is that we are too hung up on price, full pints and cask conditioning.

The beer bottle pictured above is a Belgian lambic beer. Hurrah, I've finally found a non-fruit beer that Ann will drink. I can not get her to drink cask beers. She's tried but the best I can get is "that's OK" as opposed to the normal face of a bulldog licking wee wee off a thistle. This time I lost my glass and had to find a new beer to drink.

Predictablility

In Seaching for good beer and Penrith Beer not so good I complain about the beer choice not being as good as I'd like. What am I complaining about though? The beers were perfectly good beers. Nothing, really, technically wrong with them.

I remember David from Cumbria Legendary Ales first delivering his King Dunmail, which is a classic best bitter. I was disappointed by this particular beer after having had his Dickey Doodle and Wicked Jimmy - which I think are both excellent. I commented to him that I was less than completely excited about this one. He pointed out that the King Dunmail is designed to be a Best Bitter, and as such it is.

Lately I have seen some fuss over Tetleys closing down. Now to me this beer is nothing special. It's not a bad beer but I will not be mourning it's demise. I think it is unfounded to blame the owners of the brand for letting it fail. I believe any advertising in support of an old fashioned brand would have been commercially unwise, throwing good money away.

(Alan says "Tell'em to stop complainin' 'n' drink sumut else")

We have got Keswicks Thirst Fall on the bar just now. I'd class it as a Best Bitter but probably not in the classic sense. It's got some other stuff going on, more adventurous than the regular and predictable stuff out there. Malty and hoppy in equal amounts and a good balance between the two. Most importantly plenty of late drop hops - some aromas to play with your nasal cavity and enhance the whole experience.

I've also got Moth Bag from Bargates on the pulls here. Earlier I had reason to go down to Ravenglass and happened to park outside The Holly House. The Landlord came out to see me as he recognised the car. Well it would have been rude not to go in for one wouldn't it? He had TT Landlord on the bar. both of these beers hit you with some hoppy effects and let you KNOW you are drinking ale.

I met Jeff Picthall yesterday and I'll apologise now for plagiarising his comments. We were discussing some beers that we had tried and he pointed out why some didn't excite me. Tirrel for instance, is a good brewery, I have the beers here on occasions - and provided they haven't fallen out with me for making these comments will do so again. They sell and people seem to like them. I don't choose Tirrel for myself because they all fall into the category of classic.

So the question is why does a micro brewery want to brew something that is just a facsimile of an existing brand? Or alternatively, why do we so mourn the passing of big old unwanted breweries when there are so many micros that can do the same thing?

But equally, if you are in a pub and you pick your mates pint up by mistake, and you can't tell it's a different beer then what's the point of it being different? What's the point of a beer that's OK but no different to Watneys Red Barrel?

With the varieties of hops and malt and yeasts available and the variation to flavours and aromas depending on when you put the hops in the brew, why do so many beers taste the same? When there are so many beers out there to be tried, why do pubs put three beers on in a row that are all the same?

Tandleman gave Meantime Coffee Porter a bit of a slating and I've had something similar myself and not liked it. But at least it's different, if truly awful. It's a bit like modern art that most of us question, but at least modern art pushes the boundaries as does Coffee Porter.

To continue the art metaphor, a painter has a vast palate of colour to choose from and a huge range of media with which to work. If he used green pastel all the time he'd have to be a damn good artist to excite anybody.

(According to Alan, Picasso had a green period - bah, for a Manc he knows far too much)

Ail and humble pie

I was starting to think that my blogs didn't get read much. Last night I posted how I felt about the ales I tried whilst out for the evening and made some less than completely nice comments about Whitehaven brewery's Ennerdale Autumn. Maybe I shouldn't have been quite so rude. Maybe I should save my posts until morning. If I wasn't fit to drive then maybe I'm not fit to be in charge of a blog either.

This morning Shelagh Ferguson's name was on my incoming mail from Blogger about comments to be moderated. "Oh bugger, now I'm in trouble" I thought. But Shelagh's comments were far more restrained than I might have been had anybody said anything bad about my ale. You can see the comments on yesterdays post.

Later in the day I was watching some stuff about an election that has just happened in some far away land. A Rottweiler wearing lipstick was actually being fairly cautious about telling the press that they should not make statements that later turn out to be economic with the truth without being prepared to own up and say they were wrong. I thought she was being too cautious, "go for it" I thought.

My barman, Alan, came to work after being off for a few days. He knows ale well and should be bestowed with an award for the efforts he puts in on his free time to support the pub industry. I respect his jugement on ale, he's normally right about beer (He knows sod all about anything else mind - now I'm going to find out if he reads my blogs) It seems he was drinking Ennerdale Autumn on Sunday, had three pints in fact, and said it was the best that Whitehaven brewery had produced to date.

And then, AND THEN!! Ted puts his 2 penneth in. "acetic?". That would suggest the ale was off. Weeeellll, no. Actually I didn't really mean that. It was just a faint hint I detected while trying to really determine why it didn't work for me.

So what was I thinking of?? I don't know. I suppose I'm trying to take this beer blogging thing seriously. If I'm going to comment on beers then I should say what I really feel about them. That's what I did. I've also complained in the past about people saying nasty things about other peoples' "babies". Microbrewing doesn't make many people a whole lot of money - they do it because they care about what they are doing. If Shelagh is selling all she can brew then she's doing something right.

Having thought all day about it I've decided I'm going to carry on making comments about ales I try. If I don't like them then I'll say so. If somebody thinks I'm wrong, comment on my blog. I'm not going to be accused of not showing the other side of the story. I've made it my policy to only reject comments that are offensive in nature. Don't use bad languge or be personal, (Alan, you can be personal, 'cause I'll get my own back) and they'll get through.

Have I smoothed things over? Or should I stop digging now? Well why don't you, my blog readers, go and search out some Ennerdale Autumn and then tell me I'm talking through the top of my head?

In the search of good beer

My friend at Brewers Union 180 posed an interesting question, "is there such a think as bad beer?". Well for me, it is now the time of year I get out a little more. Tonight was the local branch CAMRA meeting and a chance to test the theory.

Oh, before I forget, it's the Whitehaven beer festival in a couple of weeks. 21-22 November. See West Cumbria Branch and Whitehaven Beer Festival sites. Tony Messado chose most of the beers, so it's worth going because there is bound to be a tick or two you haven't got. I'm also working on a plan to get Jamie Reed there, our M.P. so we can ask him to push for action on the Community Pub Inquiry recommendations as well.

Anyway, where was I .... oh yeh, looking for a nice pint. Tonight we were in the Sunny Hill in Whitehaven. Three pulls - Cumberland Ale, Theakstons Best Bitter and a new Ennerdale Autumn. What I have found is that when I am confronted with less than total exciting beers I fail to be able to describe the flavours with eloquence. But I am able to give enjoyment ratings.

I started with the Ennerdale - after all Shelagh is working hard to get this new brewery out there. I'm afraid that along with the Ennerdale Bitter it's just not quite getting there with me. The Ennerdale Blond is a better beer in my view, a bit more exciting. The Autumn and the Bitter are just more of the same "classic" bitters.

It strikes me that a bad beer is one that makes me wish I was in another pub. Ennerdale Autumn does just that for me. Sorry Shelagh, I would suggest a few more hops in the late drop would be a route forward.

Theakstons best. Well certainly better, cleaner somehow. A bit more zing, like a twist of lemon or lime or something. Third pint and back to the Ennerdale and yes, a hint of something not quite right - acetic I'd swear, rather than citric.

I know Cumberland Ale, I've said before. Tandleman, you might be right, it's just the same as always and better then either of the other two choices. Dry hopping, I must have a go at that.

So we had to end the night with something better. We called in to see my friend Rod at the Gosforth Hall on the way back. As always 3 handpulls running with something that starts at the "OK" end of the scale and then others that are better. Langdale Moonshine - Cumbria Legendary Ales. I've had that at my pub so skip that. (It's nice BTW) one that I forget - that memorable eh, probably his "OK" for the night, and Yates Fever Pitch.

I stopped buying Yates beers for my pub a little while ago, for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with beer quality, silly really. It is probably the beer I choose when not in my pub because ALL of Yates beers are really, really good. Fever Pitch has everything you really want. Good aroma, zingy sherbet mouthfeel flavour and fully satisfying. Yates have never done a dark beer, at least not that I'm aware of. I bet if they did it would be fantastic.

Anyway - don't forget the Whitehaven Beer Festival: 13 Cumbrain Beers are included in the list. 4 of which are new ticks for Tony - so they're bound to be for you too.

Penrith Beer - not so good

Penrith is one of the "Gateways" to the Lake District. There are now over 25 breweries in Cumbria. I always enjoy the chance to explore the various beers that there are around and when invited on a beer research trip to Penrith last night I expected to find something exciting. Unfortunately, from a beer point of view, nothing was further from the truth.

The company was first class. R invited me to join his group of people, and we did feel a little like gate crashers at first. Most of the group wanted to have something to eat in the hotel before the posibilty of exploring the town. We were made to feel welcome very quickly and this overcame the boredom of Thwaites Wainwright, which was the only handpulled ale in the hotel.

After dinner R, M and N were the only ones up for an exploration of the town, slightly disappointing for a group who professed to be interested in pubs. The GBG was consulted and we headed for the Agricultural Hotel. There was the predictable selection of Jennings ales - Bitter, Sneck Lifter and Cumberland Ale. Nothing wrong with the beers, but not exactly a reason to travel from our little pub to Penrith. They had "Wicked Witch" presumably a seasonal for Halloween. This was probably slightly more flavoursome than the Bitter - I took a sip from M's pint of bitter and had to concentrate hard to decide which was 'Witch'. The Wicked Witch had a little spicy hopping but was far from Wicked.

The Landlady and her Daughter were behind the bar which more than made up for the uninteresting beers. R was getting on top form and got good banter going with the ladies.

So, being close to running out of time and also getting slightly full of beer, R being a little wobbly by now, we could only fit one more pub in. We chose the Lowther Arms. The GBG gave it a good write up with up to 8 beers on.

We found there were only 3 pulls running - one with Deuchars IPA and two with Tirrel. Having tried the Duechars before, and being in Cumbria I thought it was only right to drink the Tirrel. Besides, Chris, who brews them is a nice guy and I know the beers well. Unfortunately the Acadamy Ale is so similar to the Wicked Witch and the Jennings Bitter that my excitement about the whole evening was rapidly only being propped up by the company I was keeping.

The Lowther Arms however is a nice pub. A shame it was the Landlord/ladies night off, but hey, I'm sure they deserved it.

So my mistake was not to drink Cumberland Ale, Sneck Lifter or Deuchars IPA, all of which I know well. It was the Thwaites Wainwright that turned out to be the best I tried during the whole evening. Come on Penrith, show a bit of imagination and get some Keswick or Barngates or Cumbria Legendary Ales or even, if you have to, some Hawkshead beers or hey, Hesket Newmarket aren't that far away either!!

Maybe I'm just turning into a beer snob. None of the beers were bad. In fact they are probably all good examples of classic bitter styles. All were well kept and served well. I need better beer choice though to want to travel that far. I did want to impress my companions with the exciting Cumbrian Craft Ale we have in our County - still, we'll get another bite of the cherry in Brussels I hope.

On the way back we had an excellent talk with N about pubs. So much agreement on the state of things made this big competitor turn out to be a really nice guy, hopefully we'll drink beer together again. I must remember though, to try and explain to him the difference between a cheap pub cheeseboard and a quality cheeseboard.

Energy for beer cooling.

I thought that the general pub goer might be interested in knowing how much it costs to keep the beer at the correct temperature.

These figures represent the profit from the first 10 pints of beer sold per day.

The bar staff represent 60 pints per day minimum on a 12 hour opening schedule. General heating and lighting at least another 20 pints per day, insurance at least 10 pints per day. It is estimated that legislation could now be costing the typical pub outlet £30,000 per year. That's 80 pints per day.

Many small community pubs just can't get to these volumes, no where near in fact.

These figures are not all based on precise scientific methods, but the ball park is not far away - the point is many customers just don't think about the costs that the pub has to cover for the environment that is provided.

A pint- the only thing

Well after such interesting thoughts on 2/3 of a pint on Tandlemans blog, I thought I might share my thoughts on The Pint.

I am a chef, as well as a brewer and publican. As a chef I understand the importance of sampling a whole dish as it will be delivered to the customer. You can taste the sauce and a bit of the meat, check the vegetables are correctly salted and cooked just right, but the whole effect is just not apparent until you've tried the whole dish - is it balanced?

A beer is the same. You can have a taster. Maybe even 1/3 pint. But until you have had a full, imperial pint measure, the whole volume as consumed by most beer drinkers, you have not appreciated the full effect of the beer.

Now as a brewer and publican, I have the rather arduous job of performing this task - testing the beers. Every beer I have on my bar is sampled, in the full pint, to the line you understand, head extra. Because real ale can go "off" so quickly, it is important to do this every day. When you have 6 hand pulls running then every one has to be sampled every day in full pint samples.

Boy, its a tough job - but I do it for you, the discerning beer drinker - the problem is, some beers are just tooo good to stop at one pint........

Tonight just 4:

Stout Tenacity - Hardknott
Saazy Lamm - Hardknott
Wicked Jimmey - Cumbrian Legendary Ales
Old Faithful - Tirrel

Wicked Jimmey is my favourite out of these.