I do like session beer

In my previous post, and probably some prior to that, I seem to have given the reader the impression that I dislike session beer. This is simply not the case. When I look at my own drinking habits it is clear that the vast majority of my consumption of alcohol, either in pure volume or even if measured in units, turns out to be in the form of pints of session ale. I doubt if this will change.

My apparent attacks are not on drinkers who have a broad minded approach to beer and enjoy session beer as well as occasional other beers. My comments are more aimed at the stuffy attitude of those who create glass ceilings in the beer creativeness stakes. "I can't possibly drink that beer, I don't drink anything over 4%" is striking when they are talking about a 4.2% beer. Just how much effect do they think that 0.2% of ABV is going to make to their drunkenness?

Moreover, what gets me is the fact that otherwise sensible and controlled adults can't work out that they could actually explore beers up to 5% and perhaps higher. After all, drinking 5 pints of 4% is exactly the same as drinking 4 pints of 5% beer. Are these people not able to pace themselves? I would be surprised if many readers of this blog are quite so narrow minded.

I dream of the day that a little bit of glamour is introduced into main stream beer drinking. Currently, exploring beers that don't fit the regular session ale category is seen as something of an obscure pastime and drinking out of anything other than a nonic pint is unmanly. Interestingly, the same people will suddenly, at the end of the night, declare they are full and please could they have some boiled and re-condensed beer. Not that I complain, a shot of scotch puts more money in my till than a pint of beer.

I want to try and work in a piece of news that I think is worthy. My barman Alan drinks at a pub called The Brown Cow. Landlord Phil is a grand chap and well into his ales. Recently he had a beer festival at the pub which appeared to go very well. Alan reported back the various goings on when he came to work. He didn't say much about the beer except for one he was itching to tell me about; Bez Suchého Chmele - Jeden, 4.8%, Brewed by Steel City Brewing. Alan had never heard of them and was very keen to let me know what he thought of the beer. Very nice he declared and certainly the best he had that weekend. For many drinkers 4.8% is not a session beer, I think that is a shame as it sounds like it might just be a cracker.

Meanwhile I am planning the highest ABV beer I've ever done. Over 10% I hope. It should be similar to a barley wine¹, but probably not with traditional British hops. It'll be brewed in the next few days but I expect it will take at least 6 months before it will be ready to drink. I'm hoping there will be a market for the finished product but it concerns me that the pint drinking mentality will stand in it's way.

I'll probably drink 1/3 of a pint of it once in a while, out of a nice stemmed glass if I'm allowed. After about 3 pints of something around 4±1%.

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¹No, a beer that strong is not automatically a barley wine.

Big beer

I need to brew. 500kg or so of malt arrived last week so I've got little excuse. Hopefully I'll get two fermenters full today.

The last few times I brewed I alternated between my regular session beers and some experimental bigger beers. OK, still only in the range 5-7%, not exactly big beers for many, but still just above the normal range you'd expect.

Yesterday I asked Alan, my bar/cellar man, what I needed to brew. After a short discussion it transpired that I need to brew "everything". What, all that big stuff gone? So it would seem. Putting a combination of Cascade and Centennial hops in beer, making it a little stronger, using some more interesting malts and dry hopping seems to be a winner with some. I just need to work out which of my experimental recipes to use.

Then again, Woolpacker 3.8% and Light Cascade 3.4% still win with pure volume of sales, just. Make of that what you will.

We've already sold Ann's 53rd and my 54th birthday Tokyo* and I've only had the stuff a couple of weeks. Perhaps I'd better put some in the safe after all.

Taking things to extremes

I've got a problem. "What, only one?" you ask. Well, good point, I've got plenty and most of them I'm not going to share with the reader. However, there is one that is really bothering me. It is my drink problem. It's not that I can't go a day without a drink, really, I can if I want to, I just don't want to most days. Besides, I run a pub, I don't need to go without, so that's not a problem. It's just that I'm getting to find there are more and more really nice beers to try. The more I try the more exciting ones that I find. You're not really understanding how this is a problem, are you?

It's all my own fault of course. I went to Belgium. After that, very shortly afterwards, I went to Oregon. Despite the belief that many American high streets are full of nothing more than homogeneous outlets, I was lead, kicking and screaming of course, to many quality beer retailing businesses. In these places I consumed a healthy amount of various beers, some more tasty than perhaps I wished, but others quite delicious and, to contribute to the word's overuse, complex. Most, of course, were 6% or 7% or 8% or possibly even more.

My problem, then, is that I find regular session ales a little watery, which is fine if I'm thirsty. When it's hot, as it has been, a nice cool 3.8% golden ale with a nice level of hopping is a joy to consume. I am however finding these beers bland and uninteresting after 2 or 3 pints and a chaser of something more complex floats my boat much higher in the water.

This train of thought is provoked by a post written by our favourite Mr Tandleman. He claims to not like extreme beers. Although I do agree that a feta cask matured beer might just be taking things too far. However, the thought that beer cannot be drunk in half pints, because it is stronger, does confuse me.

In the comments, James from BrewDog unfortunately scores home goals through a gallant attempt to make some very valid points. Driving the ball very firmly into the back of his own net by saying that a pint glass is a "terrible and unflattering way to serve any beer" I do wish he had made the word "any" into "stronger". I'd have agreed with him if he'd done that. Good quality session ale at 3.6% is flattered to hell in a pint pot, especially if it has a pint line on it, with room for a head above that line, of course. A stronger beer at say 7% is much better enjoyed in a smaller stemmed glass, much like a wine glass. In this case the complexities, sorry, using that word again, of the aromas, can fully develop.

The reactions though, in general, confuse me. Why can we not drink a beer in a glass that is not a pint? The comments seemed a little along the lines of too much objection from drinkers stuck in a rut. These seem to me to be discerning beer connoisseurs who have yet to be open minded enough to drink less than a pint in a pub.

There is one view that perhaps answers all of this. Tandleman does not drink at home. He likes to drink in the pub and from the sounds of it does it with respectable regularity. Drinking beer is a social thing. How much, really, do we want to be spending our time considering the complexity of the beer we have in the glass sat on our beer mat? How much time would we prefer to be spending sorting out the worlds many other troubles, with the aid of suitable brain annealing fluid? Of course, this would be with the considerable benefit of our peers thoughtful consideration, just to straighten out the irregularities in our world view, or possibly theirs.

Those of us that want to enjoy a beer for it's complexity can sit in a dark corner, wax lyrical to ourselves, or any other sad beer geeks close by, and leave the proper pint drinking to the big boys. Better still, hide away at home, like the sad people we are, where we are hurting nobody.

I'm lucky, I live in a pub, I can do all of these things. Often I enjoy session beer in it's unflattering pint glass, to the line and served with a sparkler, of course. Sometimes I like something stronger, but then, I am in my own home, really.

Well that should have just about upset everybody. Now, I've got some 6.6% complex beer on the handpulls I think.....oh and some stemmed half pint glasses.

A Zippy Little Number

One of the nice things about having my own brewery is that I can brew what I damn well like. Yes, I do have the problem that people might not like what I brew and I'll end up with 350 litres of product I can't sell. Despite what Ann thinks, I can't drink that much all by myself. I mention a beer here and here and here. It went on the bar for the beer festival and it's called Zippy Red IPA, an oxymoronic beer. It's hoppy but not particularly pale by today's standards. I don't care about the colour because it tastes great.

The second cask is sitting on the stillage waiting to go on once something else runs out. Tonight I braved the midges and sat in my beer garden, looking at the interesting cloud formations, and drank a 6.6% hoppy beer that I'd stolen direct from the cellar. What more could a man ask for?

The beer has a strong citrus nose reminiscent of orange zest. There is not as much orange flavour in the body of the beer as I'd like, but it's still bloody good beer. I'm very proud.

Many thanks to Dave for the recipe and Ted for the introduction to West Coast USA style beers. Ted talks about West Coast IPA in casks here.

Mash(x)ed out

The maximum grain bill to have got into my mash tun previously was 91kg. This was achieved by some Crazy American Brewer back on 28th May 2007. The resultant beer was called Colonial Anniversary(5.6%) due to it being said brewers wedding anniversary, if I remember correctly. He was, in my brewery, 8 time zones away from his wife - that's dedication for you. It was also nearly exactly 12 months since this gentleman stumbled on our humble hostelry. A double anniversary.

Today I got 102.5Kg¹ in my mash tun, I don't think I could go much more without the sparge arm fouling on the mash. This should result in a beer that is over 6% ABV. The 3kg of hops might just be right, I reckon.

I think, at some time in the past, I promised to post my water analysis figures. I've just found them:

Appearance: Clear colourless liquid(!) free from suspended and sedimented solids.

PH Value 5.22

Calcium as Ca 1.6ppm

Magnesium as Mg 2.4ppm

Carbonate as CO₃ 2.4ppm

Sulphate as SO₄ 1.02ppm

Chlorine as Cl 5.4ppm

Nitrate as NO₃ 2.5ppm

Alkilinity as CaCO₃ 4ppm

Total Hardness 14ppm

¹The recipe calls for 245lbs 7oz of grain. I'm actually quite close. Oh, and thanks Roger for helping our again. I seem to remember it was an Oregon inspired beer that we needed you help with last time.

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.

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.

Strength to your elbow

It is nearly 5 years since we bought our very own alcohol retail outlet. It is just about exactly 3 years to the day since we first mashed in at our little brewery. It is also 2 years, and nearly 7 months since the owner of the little "Anglo-American" brewpub I am currently sitting in came to my hostelry and made up his mind to set up brewing "Craft Ale".

I have always found the flavour and enjoyment of stronger ales to be more satisfying. Sure, you can't "neck" them quite so quickly, but watery ale is just not my thing. In the UK, for many years 3.5 - 4.0% seems to be the acceptable strength for "session ale". Any strength above this falls out of the classification of session ale.

During past 5 years the number of times I have had a 4.1% beer on the bar and a customer has said they can't possibly drink anything over 4% staggers me. How can 0.1% ABV make that much difference? There are many 5% beers around that are fantastic examples of ales, but customers very often turn their noses up at them. If the reader is any good at maths, (or just the singular math, as they say here) there will be a realisation that 4 pints of 5% ale is exactly the same as 5 pints of 4% ale.

I'm sitting here in this little pub in the sleepy and snowy town of Oakridge in Oregon drinking, early afternoon, a 6.2% ale called Tanninbomb. A malty, not overhopped ale that has been aged with oak chippings in the cask. It's warming in this unusually cold weather and drunk carefully with responsibility it is causing me no adverse effects.

Equally interesting to me is the fact that I am drinking the pint in the manner that the Brewers Union Local 180 intends, dispensed through a sparkler. The sparkler, of course adding to the enjoyent. Indeed, the widespread disbelief that any citizen of the USA understands the traditions of northern English beer customs can hereby be completely dispelled. Ted really is serving true cask conditioned ale, no artificially introduced gas whatsoever, through handpulls and with a very interesting back bar visible cellar.

There is a tradition of brewing ale in the west coast USA with strengths 6% and up. 8% is not unusual and over 12% being frequently found. When I was in Belgium recently the best ales were in the order of 6-8% and above. Why then are we quite so bothered about ABV in the UK? I believe this is part of a blinkered mindset that is inhibiting the movement of the UK beer industry into much more interesting territory.

A very interesting time is being had here. The beer is great, if just a tad too hoppy even for me on occasions. I can't say that most of the food here is even OK in the bulk. The strong bias of fast food is apparent even in the places that state they are restaurants. Cooked vegetables don't seem to be an option and salad is widespread even in the depths of winter. But, visiting the Trail Head Coffee shop did find me consuming a El Bacondilla de Teodoro, Dedicated to Ted it would have to been rude to not try it, as it's his birthday. Very simply it's flour tortillas with cheese and bacon between, heated on a griddle, served with sour cream and salsa: it was scrummy. The Mexican biased food has always been the best in my 3 trips over here. Needless to say, The Brewers Union has good food with a significant proportion being fully prepared on the property, including the bread. The Etouffee that Nick made was good. Oh, and as Ted points out, Nicks Lasagna was great too.