Gordian Knott

How do we define craft beer? When does a brewery become craft? Can a regional family brewer simply install a smaller brewhouse, use it as a pilot plant and sell the output as craft beer? Or is this just nonsense?

Brains Craft Brewery - it is quite little

One would have to say that these questions are in themselves intractable problems. We don't have a definition for craft beer so how can we say these breweries are not craft breweries? How can we say that the beers they produce are not craft beers?

It was just before Christmas last year, at the Guild of Beer Writers annual awards dinner, where Brains were once again sponsoring the on-line award¹. They had some bottles of collaborations that had been done with various beer writers.  I sort of joked with the Brains people that they should do a collaboration with me.

Now, someone once said "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."². Obviously, having already had dinner, and a few beers, I couldn't claim to be sober. However, my jocular comment was greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm. Looked like I'd have to go through with it.

Subsequently, various Brains people made various attempts to get me to agree a date to go down to Cardiff and play on their "craft brewery" - if nothing else, I think it's a fair enough "thank you" for the sponsorship of the awards. But, me being my usual busy self never found the right date in my diary.

Bill Dobson, left, and me examining his control panel

Eventually, the Head Brewer Bill Dobson emailed me. The idea had been that whatever beer we'd brew it would make its way to GBBF. I liked that idea as I'd never had a beer that I'd been involved with at GBBF³. The only thing was, GBBF was getting close and we hadn't even agreed on a beer style.

So, with a feeling of duty to help out Brains as payback for my shiny BGBW awards tankard, a chance to have beer I'd brewed at GBBF, a chance to see what a family brewer calls a craft brewery, and check to see if I agree that it is. But then being asked by the head brewer, that properly counts you see. It's OK for PR people to ask for their own, and my publicity sake, but this was a real brewer asking. It would have been churlish to refuse.

Where the fermentation takes place

So, we hot-footed down to Cardiff and brewed a West Coast IPA at 6% packed full of Amarillo, Chinook and Simco. More hops than Brains have ever used before, as best we know. A little bit at the top of the boil, quite a bit more at the end of the boil, and a hell of a lot more in tank. One of my aims was to make sure that the beer was fully flavoured enough to be classed as a craft beer, by even the most sceptical of beer geek.

So, we brewed the agreed recipe at Cardiff on a Monday, and the very next day, armed with a bucket of WLP001 yeast that Brains had propagated and cropped, we travelled back up to Cumbria via Charles Faram, as we were also short of some of the hops. We were still having coffee at hop HQ and chatting with Will whilst the team back at base were mashing in.

The Brains version

Back onto the M5, through the great RAC car park at the junction between the M5 and M6, and right on up to Cumbria. We just managed to get to he brewery as Scott was getting the coppers to the boil. Which was good, because he needed some of the hops.

We use whole cone hops in our copper. I've been pondering the use of pellets for some time, but we don't have a whirlpool. Brains Craft Brewery does. Cleaning is so much easier⁴. Many brewers will say that there are big differences between whole-cone and pellets in the way they interact with the wort in the copper. Anyway, Brains normally use pellets, although they can use whole hops if they want to. This beer had so much in the copper the hop slurry was above the take-off point at the end risking clogging the hose. I seem to make a bit of a habit of pushing breweries past their limits when we do collaborations.

Our version

So, this might be an interesting experiment to see what exactly the differences are. Only thing is, Bill tends to put his dry hops in the tank prior to fermentation. I don't really like this idea, partly because I think it's better for the yeast, if cropping and pitching on, not to have all that accumulation of hops. We wanted to crop this particular linage of yeast if all went well⁶.

So, two major differences between the Brains Craft Brewery version of this beer and our own. Everything else, proportions of ingredients etc were all the same, and importantly the same strain and generation of yeast. If you want to try both versions get hold of our bottled version and try it at the Brains bar at GBBF too.

So, back to the original questions. Can Brains little brewery be called a craft brewery? Well, I mentioned to Bill the idea that some in the beer world simply see their brewery as a pilot plant by another name. Bill fairly rebuffs this notion. There is no way he'd be allowed to have a pilot plant, at the total investment cost, without it having a clearly commercial product as an output. There is no doubt in his mind that it was built as a craft brewery, and that is what it is.

I hope my involvement in this collaboration has helped a little more with the idea that Brains Craft Brewery is indeed worth a look. Do I think it's a craft brewery? Yes, I do. It's only 25hl for a start, hardly massive. OK, so it uses some of the built-in utilities available from the big plant it sits right next to, like the spend grains conveyor⁷. But, it's all manual, no automation, and there are plenty of breweries people are happy to call craft that are much bigger, much more automated and much less hands-on than this.

We've just bottled our version of this beer, which is called Gordian Knott. I hope we've done something to cut right through the tangled knotty question of what is craft beer, not by defining it, but by showing how diverse and interesting the craft beer world is. And perhaps showing that defining craft is as difficult as it ever has been.

The solution to the intractable problem of defining craft beer is to admit we don't need to. Cut the definition requirement knot to pieces.

Oh, and you can buy the Hardknott version of Gordian Knott on our web shop. To celebrate our beers being at GBBF, for the week we've incorporated a 25% discount if you use the code "Tonic" - enter code at checkout. The code is automatically set to deactivate by the last day of GBBF, so get those orders in soon.

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¹I was runner up for this award in 2009, and Brians was sponsor back then too, so I have to have a little bit of affection for the brewery.

²The internet tells me it was Ernest Hemingway what said it. Must be true.

³ I even thought I could have made a bit of a fuss about the fact that I had to go to a bigger brewer in Wales, as despite brewing now for over 8 years we've never had a beer ordered by GBBF. Surely they had heard of Hardknott? I could only have to assume that CAMRA just didn't like me. However, this has really been scuppered a bit by us having Cool Fusion at GBBF this year. Damn, there goes a PR idea.

⁴Although to be fair, cleaning is also made easier by having an almost unlimited supply of hot liquor<sup>5

5</sup>Hot liquor is a bit like hot water. In fact it is indistinguishable. Water, you see, always gets called liquor in a brewery. I've never really worked out why.

⁶And it has all gone well. At the time or writing we are on the third generation of that bucket we brought back from Cardiff.

⁷If I were honest, this is what I'm most envious of. Open a tap door next to the mash tun and just rake the spent grains into the hole and forget about them. Steam is good, as is bucket loads of hot liquor for washing down. But I WANT a spent grains conveyor.

Musing the Market

It has been a very busy and varied couple of weeks. Improvements to the brewery progress, we've been getting our beers out to people that we have promised them to and of course the Great British Beer Festival saw a massive and worthwhile distraction.

Yesterday I woke up thinking about the procreation of yeast, which is odd, as primeval physiological instinct of my own procreation used to be my normal morning distraction. I awoke unusually early which was handy as I had a lot to do. The yeast subject was catalysed by the discovery of my American friend's beer presence on Bières Sans Frontières at the festival. The two main thrusts, if you'll pardon further reproductive connection, of my considerations of this were; 1. Why does his beer taste the way it does? 2. How come Ted, who is 8 time zones away and has been brewing less time than me, has his beer at GBBF already? The second question I'll come to further down, but the first was what woke me up and will be the subject of another post, promise.

However, before I could get around to writing this post we had beer to deliver beer and an install to do at a pub. Along with our cask ale beer we are starting to supply various interesting beers to pubs that would like to do something interesting. The Queens at Biggar on Walney Island has been closed for over a year. Two delightfully enthusiastic ladies have bought the place and have set about renovating it with supremely directed madness. Their attempts might or might not be foolhardy but recognising kindred determination we have committed to helping them to achieve their vision. They wanted Timmermans Kriek on draught. We can do that for them. They also wanted Mitchell Krause on draught, so we've been involved with that too. Of course there will be our cask beers available from time to time.

The owners have gone, quite sensibly in my opinion, for multiple suppliers. We will have to sit alongside Bank Top, Veltins, Stoweford Press and Grolsh as well as Hawkshead. To be honest it is the last in that list that I worry about most from a competitive point of view; Hawkshead make damn good beer. Having had my run-ins with Alex Brodie, the owner, I hope we have put this behind us after several pints together resulting in frank discussion and a realisation that perhaps we have quite a lot in common, even if neither of us want to admit it.

It is not the first time Hardknott and Hawkshead beers have sat on the same bar and I hope not the last. Progressive and interesting beers are likely to succeed by learning to get along, and even perhaps helping each other out; I connected the cooling jackets on the Hawkshead pumps on this occasion, there you go Alex, I do hope you approve.

At GBBF most of us beer geeks, bloggers and twitteratti assembled near BSF. Frankly, it's where most of the beer is that we want to seek out. We may well not represent the majority of the beer market and it is important for us to remember that. However, I don't travel 300 miles to try some clone of a "traditional" recipe, frankly, I can get that at home. I go to find like minded people and search for great, progressive beer.

Sid Boggle considers this on his blog. I seem to have been mistakenly included in some of the best brewing talent around, but apart from this point, the piece is interesting and provoking. I'm still trying to understand the beer market and exploring what is said I must consider further. A key issue for me is exactly why people buy beer and what type of beers interest the various types of beer enthusiasts.

Cumbria did achieve one award at GBBF; Beckstones got bronze in the Strong Bitters category. David Taylor is a very diligent brewer and the consistency and cleanliness of his product shows through. In 2008 he also got overall silver in Champion Beer of Britain with Black Gun Dog Freddie. David's brewery is the closest geographically to mine, begging the question of the sense in me thinking I can survive in a declining market with such competition around.

However, despite there being a significant number of breweries in Cumbria, many of whom I think brew technically competent beer, is it only Beckstones¹ that seems to win.

My conclusion, currently, is that the beer market in Cumbria is not particularly progressive. The beers chosen at local level to represent Cumbria don't show off all the best beers, in my humble opinion. The personal preferences of local CAMRA branches have to be an influence.

There must also be an influence as a result of the style of market in The Lakes. Most breweries are pushing the fact that they produce local traditional ale, made with traditional ingredients, you know, British Marris Otter and English hops and made with Lake District water. Beer miles and quaffability being the main selling points; after all, if you are on a walking holiday in The Lakes you want a piece of the locale that will slake your thirst. Interesting flavours cost more and have minimum impact on sales.

The rest of the County, the industrial belt around the outside, is also steeped in tradition. Insular and lacking progressive thinking; the majority of the drinking population secure in it's contentment. Quite unlike the forward thinking alternative beer community I have come to love in Sheffield, London, Leeds and other big cities.

The fact that Cumbria rarely wins much at GBBF, despite having a high number of breweries and beers to choose from, might be partly due to the fact that we need to do better at brewing, but the choices put forward at local level do appear to be mired in local branch politics and the Cumbrian palate having a fondness for all that is bland. I'm not convinced that the best beers are put forward.

After all, despite my aforementioned rivalry with Hawkshead, I feel their absence tells a story; they are probably one of the best breweries in Cumbria right now, but not one of their beers was represented.

Furthermore, the fact that BSF provides such a fantastic array of esoteric beers, very few progressive UK breweries can showcase beer at this, the key beer event of the year in the UK. I can imagine that in years to come there is likely to be an increase of fringe beer events in the capital that will cater more for the beer geek community. I suspect I will see you there and you never know, I might even be prepared to bury hatchets for anyone else who will join this journey.

¹I am pleased Beckstones did well, and the fact the this brewery has already gained two awards in GBBF is good reason to carry on putting David's beers forward. Yes, I also know Coniston has been successful a few years ago and Great Gable did very well with Yewbarrow in the bottle section - I like this beer too.

Great Big Barrel of Fun

GBBF trip post No3

Tuesday morning should have seen a lie-in, but sadly the cleaning staff seem to think that 8am is the time to start. Oh well, nearly caught nude in a hotel again, at least I was by myself and not up to no good¹. However, the rude awakening made me decide to get up, shower and head off for breakfast. I needed to ensure beer soaking carbohydrates after too much protein in the canapés from the day and night before.

I spent most of the morning drinking coffee and reading my newly signed book. I'd been struggling a bit with Pete's historical chapters and was pleased to have got to the start of the real journey, and of course the demise of Barry². I'm eagerly awaiting the Famous World Beer Smuggler, who hasn't yet entered the piece, but he'll be there there soon.

Finally, it was time to approach Earls Court. A queue? For a trade session? Gee, it's going to be full inside then.

I've been to Earls Court before, for trade shows, where no expense is spared on carpet and decor. It was interesting how different the place looked, but then amazing how many people such a great place can swallow and it didn't get too crowded at all. I was pleased to be able to get a nice tasting glass. Session drinking was not the point of this trip; Networking and beer tasting was. A 1/3 stemmed glass was perfect, not quite as good as an over-sized wine glass, but then I'm not the incumbent Beer Writer of the Year. Off I headed for the Bière Sans Frontières bar, only, where is it? If I had a complaint, then the lack of a map would be it. Carpets would be a complete waste of money, but I like maps.

OK, 5 minutes later and bumping into Adrian Tierney-Jones and I found it. It took me a little while longer before I found a beer I wanted, a slow start, but eventually, I found my feet. A little overwhelmed at first at the size of the biggest beer festival in the country, but, gradually I decided it was a good setup. After a couple of hours there I could find what I wanted and understood the really quite logical setup.

I tried a few beers, and I did have a mission to find out a little bit more about wood aged beers, I suspected I would like them despite my friend Jeff Picthall saying they are crap "I can't say I'm a big fan of wood-aged beers". Confirmed, I like them, sorry Jeff. However, perhaps it's time to thank Jeff for suggesting that not going to the GBBF was a non option, thanks Jeff, you were right on that one. Now all I need to do is convince Ann that the trip was all work, work, work.

I don't want to fill this post with details of all the beers I tried. Except to say that again, I was drinking big foreign beers. My little stemmed glass perfect for trying lots of different ones. I tried lambics and cherry lambics and German Pilsners³ and more Belgian influenced American beers. It was fantastic.

I left the British beers alone, well mostly. It's not that I don't like them, it's just I know what they taste like. I don't need to spend money and time on a trip to London to try beers that are a variation on a theme. Beers that taste more or less like the ones I can get at home. There are some British breweries out there doing more innovative things, but knowing who they are and what they are doing wasn't easy for me to find out. For instance, if I'd known about Pride 'n' Joy, the 2.8% beer, I might just have tried it. I did try Fullers Vintage Ale, which I enjoyed and it made me realise, I'm not a ticker, I'm an explorer, thirsty for new ideas. But, you know, I'm open to new ideas, I'd love to hear from breweries that are doing something different, blogging is the new beer media, apparently, perhaps if I'd heard about things before I went I'd have tried it and then blogged. Just an idea for you brewers out there, BrewDog have got the idea.

But best of all, I caught up with many great people. Of course there was Tandleman. Thanks to Jeff Picthall for this picture⁴. There was Barm, Beer Nut, Zak, Mark and Jeffo. There were many other people I met that day and for me, the best thing was the fantastic combined enthusiasm by everybody for beer. That's what we were all there for, the beer.

It's easy for us to slag off various styles of beer because it doesn't fit what we want out of beer. I do it I know. But it's only opinion. We all know what we like. Some like to stick within their comfort zone, perhaps straying a little when adventurous. Others, like me, throw caution to the wind, unable to risk the chance that there is something we are missing out on, because life is too short to be bored. But, if you like beer, I'd suggest whatever type of beer it is you like, you're with freinds at the GBBF.

Of course none of this would happen without CAMRA. 1000 voluntary people, that's what it took to get the thing running. 1% of the CAMRA membership directly involved in the staff, presumably giving up holiday time to do so. This was CAMRA at it's best - Thank You.

Sadly it had to end. My train left Euston at 19:30. I left Earls Court at around 18:30, slightly later than perhaps I should have, but I just kept bumping into people. Across town with 20 minutes to spare, a quick Burger King⁵ burger and a coffee before boarding the train.

Drunk? no, not at all. Giddy with the pleasure of meeting so many wonderful people, some of whom my failing memory is struggling to find names for. But not drunk. 10% beers were typical for me on this day and not once in the 28 hours I spent in London did I feel drunk. It's all about pacing and appropriateness. On the train home I even read some more chapters and slept no more than I normally would have done, entertained by the constant apologies from the shop staff; member of the on board team in the singular, about the late "change of set" causing printer problems, stock shortage, coffee machine cleaning and could passengers please remain in their seats while he sorts it all out. We were sure that with his sweet tone of voice, that if he was being mugged we would still get the same calm apologetic explanation and he'd be sure to inform us just as soon as normal service resumed.

So, what is this about 10%, 12%, 15% or even scary 18.5% beers causing binge drinking? BrewDog are right. It's a cure. But why? And why is this notion being poo-pooed. Because it's to do with drinking culture, that's why. It's to do with taste. It's to do with savouring. It's to do with getting around the fact that a 330ml bottle could be shared, no really, I did this and it worked. I'm not sure how I'm going to make James's assertion sound correct; that 18.5% beer is the solution, not the cause of binge drinking, but I think he's right. It just sounds barmy and to be fair, judging by the choices of beer most people made at GBBF, our culture is just not ready for it yet.

Conversely, on arriving home, I drank a pint of my 4.4% American-inspired-hoppy-slightly-above-session-strength-pale-ish-beer. It tasted remarkably like an American IPA.

Oh, and very well done indeed to my Cumbrian colleagues Giles and Howard for Silver in the bottled beers category. Yewbarrow from their Great Gable brewery is indeed a good beer. I can't comment on any of the other awards as I'm not familiar enough with the beers.

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¹Yes, it did happen once, in my own sodding hotel. Yes, I was with someone on this occasion.

²Well buy the book then and you'll find out who Barry is.

³Which one again Barm? I forgot.

⁴OK, do your Wurst. Actually, notice two interesting beer creatures here. On the left is a confirmed pub supporter who enjoys nothing better than supping a few pints with mates and is unlikely to be caught being pretentious - note the pint glass. The fine specimen on the right is a bit of a beer scene chameleon. In his own home, strangely, he can often be found swilling pints like a good un, however, on this occasion, not wanting to loose face in front of his pretentious beer writing mates, is joining in with fine gusto - note 1/3 pint stemmed glass.

⁵Needs must. But, just like British beer, it's great for the right thing. In a pub, with mates, I'd drink a pint of standard British ale. In a restaurant on a special occasion I might well choose fillet steak or venison or corn fed chicken breast filled with organic goats cheese and wrapped with air dried saddleback ham dressed with a jus of white wine reduction. Today for lunch I had leftovers. Filled a gap and was fit for purpose.

What's a Duck-do?

We often have duck on the menu. Apart from being really tasty and coming from Goosnargh, which must mean it's good. The event of it being cooked is great fun for new members of staff.

"Check on chef, one Fillet, one Duck."

"Ok, Fillet no problem, I've got the duck breast here, I need a Cointreau to go with the fillet and fetch me the Duck-do from the walk-in please"

I normally have to turn away as I'm crap at the poker face malarkey.

"Yes Chef!........... erm, what's a Duck-do?"

At which point there is a chorus from the rest of the brigade "Quack, quack"

Actually, it only ever worked properly once, when Iulian was in charge of cooking one evening and Rasvan, his brother, had just started with us. Lets just say we needed a few moments to regain our composure before we could continue to cook. Iulian is a pretty good wind-up merchant, don't take him on at poker. Luckily, Rasvan also has a sense of humor, you have to have to work with me.

Sorry, but I had to use that joke to introduce this beer. I eventually got to try Kwak last night as we escaped for a few hours. On a Saturday? - yup, incredible. Anyway, I'd heard a bit about this Belgian beer before. Some reports seemed to suggest it was overrated. I had to try it, if for no other reason than it is served in an interesting glass. "Do you want it in the funky glass?" the barman enquired. Part of the reason for ordering the beer, surely.

That crazy glass looks at first sight like it's big enough to take two bottles. Deceptively, it just about manages all of one bottle with it's decent head. Carbonation seems very high, but the beer, whilst not my favourite Belgian beer, is a worthy experience, made all the better for the entertainment of the glass. If you want to know more about the glass there is some information on the Bosteels web site about the "coachman's glass". Personally I just think it's a useful marketing gimmick, but one I like.

I also got a little peckish and spying a stout on the bar decided, unusually for me, to try it with the dark chocolate Bounty that was shouting "Buy Me!" from the back bar. I don't normally like chocolate with beer, but this worked well with the bitter dark chocolate and roasted barley flavours mingling well.

Right, I'm off to the GBBF. I have a strong suspicion that most of the time I'll be around the BSF bar, which apparently is where the real beer writers hang out. Besides, Tandleman is on that bar and it would be nice to get a real chat with him this time.

If you see me there during the Tuesday trade session, do say hello. If you see me there at any other time you've had too much beer and are seeing things; I won't be there unless of course I've had too much beer and I miss the 19:30 back out of Euston for the frozen north. I'm suposed to be back in Cumbria before Tuesday turns into Wednesday, I have a pub to run you know.