West Cumbria Beer Festival - beer list

CAMRA WEST CUMBRIA BEER FESTIVAL 21-22 NOVEMBER 2008


Amber, Derbyshire Gold 3.7
Gold coloured ale with a very dry bitterness.

Beckstones, Millom Reverend Rob ** 4.6
Golden malty hoppy beer with a resinous grapefruit flavour

Bitter End, Cockermouth Barley wine ** 6.2
Pale amber coloured strong ale; extremely resiny top notes.
One for the real hop heads

Beckstones, Millom Leat 3.6
Refrehing golden bitter with tangy fruit and a rising hop finish. CTN

Black Country, W Midlands Fireside 5.0
Golden sweet malty bitter

Boggar, Manchester Black Christmas 3.9
Deep mohogany quaffable beer with some subtle chocolate notes

Boggart, Manchester Big Ginger 6.0
Sweet golden beer with a subtle ginger , lingering flavouir

Brewdog, Frazerburgh Coffee Stout (1/3 pt) 9.0
Potent tasting stout - with a double expresso!

Crown, Sheffield Count Basie 4.6
Complex straw coloured ale; honey sweetness ; bitter finish

Empire , Huddersfield Four Corner 4.2
Straw coloured bitter beer

Foxfield, Prince of Wales Harry's Encounter 4.0
Straw coloured dry bitter

Foxfield, Prince of Wales Sonic Boom (1/3 pt) 10.0
Big bodied Russian imperial stout. Sweet with a discernable alcohol note.
Not for the faint-hearted

Fugelestou, Lincolnshire Brew 500 5.0
Copper coloured; malt sweet beer; moderate hopping; smokey notes

Great Gable, Wasdale Hd Western Valleys Ale 5.1
Copper coloured maly sweet ale with sulphur in the nose

Great Gable, Wasdale Hd Golden Gill 5.2
Golden ale with a slight sulphurous nose with balanced bitter

Hardknott, Boot Saazys wiesse ** 4.3
Straw coloured wheat beer; light; drinks like a session beer;
full of citrus notes.

Hornbeam, Manchester Evil Monkey ** 4.5
Golden, malty, well balanced bitter;very drinkable for its strength

Jennings Cumberland Ale 4.0
A llight creamy hoppy beer with a dry aftertaste. CTN

Jennings Snecklifter 5,1
A strong, dark brown ale with a complex balance of fruit malt and roast
flavours, through to the finish.CTN

Keswick Thirst Rescue 3.7
Golden , fruity, quaffable bitter

Leadmill, Derbyshire Road Runner 4.8
Slightly sulphurous, golden coloured bitter

Loweswater, Kirkstile Loweswater Pale Ale ** 3.5
Aromatic nose; straw coloured; lasting bitter finish

Loweswater, Kirkstile Grasmoor 4.3
Dark mild; roasted malty taste and finish

Moorhouse, Burnley Pride Of Pendle 4.0
Well balanced amber best bitter; fresh initial hoppiness;mellow
malt-driven body. CTN

Northern, Northwich Nitty gritty 4.0
Malty, golden, biter sweet ale; caramel in the nose

Prospect, Wigan Clementine ** 5.0
Complex wheat beer with a taste of orange and mulled spice

Robinsons, Stockport. Double Hop 5.0
Pale brown bitter; malt & fruit nose;hoppy, malt fruit taste;hoppy bitter finish. CTN.

Strands, Nether Wasdale Errmmm 3.8
Gold in colour with berry fruits in the nose; sweetish with a bitter finish

Stringers Best Bitter ** 4.2
Hoppy well balanced golden coloured best bitter

Stringers Dry Stout ** 4.5
Luscious dry stout full of smokey bitter chocolate flavour

Tigertops, Wakefield Blanche de Newlands ** 4.5
A good representation of a Belgian wheat beer. Better than Hoegaarden.
Intensely complex beer with notes of coriander, cloves and banana

Whitehaven, Croasdale Blonde 3.8
Sweet, fruity session beer

Yates, Westnewton Fever Pitch 3.9
Skilful use of lager malt & hops results in a pale beer with light bitterness;
melon fruit and clean refreshing finish. CTN

Yates, Westnewton I P A 4.9
Complex honeyed lager style ale, packed with tropical fruit. CTN

Yorkshire Dales, Leyburn Brussels Stout 4.0
Dark malty ale, some sulphur notes in the nose

Yorkshire Dales, Leyburn Usha Gap 5.0
Very bitter golden ale in the style of an IPA

Ciders, Perries, and Fruit wines

Ben Crossman's, medium Somerset cider 6.5

Burrow Hill, medium/dry Somerset cider 6.0

Henry's, sweet Somerset cider 6.0

Solway Cider, Medium Cumbria cider 6.0

Thatchers- Heritage Somerset cider 4.9

Newton-Pyder,medium Herefordshire Perry 6.2

Strawberry Fruit Wine Herefordshire

Various Fruit Wines Yorkshire

CTN indicates CAMRA tasting notes supplied by a trained CAMRA tasting panel and printed in GBG09.Other tasting notes were by the West Cumbria branch tasting paned Thursday 20 November 2008


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NB. All the beers will be tasted on Friday, a selection blind tasted (!) by a panel of experienced tasters on Saturday, and one declared ‘CAMRA Beer of the Festival’.


West Cumbria CAMRA thank the following for their sponsorship of the Beer, Festival glasses, T shirts, and CD music:

The Candlestick, Whitehaven Bitter End Brewery Jennings Brewery Great Gable Brewery Hardknott Brewery Keswick Brewery Loweswater Brewery Strands Brewery Whitehaven Brewery Yates Brewery Fellside Records Blackbeck Brewery

Thanks to Ron for forwarding this to me - Nether the Woolpack Inn nor West Cumbria CAMRA accept any liability for errors or omissions - we tried our best!!

Get your MP involved

It's hit the press today following the CAMRA press release I talked about yesterday. I think that it's a good job done by CAMRA in highlighting some of the issues brought out by the Community Pub Inquiry report.

It was the opening of the Whitehaven beer festival today. We managed to get Jamie Reed MP along so we could talk to him about the issues of pubs closing. He seemed really interested.

He was also due to join the beer tasting panel, but I had to leave early as I have a pub to run so I didn't find out what happened there.

If we are to halt the closure of pubs we have to engage the popular opinion on the issue and get the public to realise that pubs are the solution to providing a safe and controlled environment where quality drinks can be enjoyed. Unfortunately the popular opinion is focused on binge drinking and the so called increase in drink related harm. Without getting the public on side we have an uphill struggle in getting sympathetic politicians to do too much. Getting your MP involved cannot be a bad thing though. Once the effects of the descriptions below have worn off I will give a longer report on the meeting.

Although my main reason for visiting was the arranged meeting with Jamie while there I had some Brewdog Coffee Stout 9.0% which was very, well, coffee tasting. I like coffee and I felt this worked. Also had some Foxfield Sonic Boom 10% which was sweet, rich and had a flavour reminiscent of port wine. It is after all at the strength of barley wine. Boggert Big Ginger 6.0% had a nice ginger nose but lacked a ginger bite that I would have preferred. I sneaked a taster of Tigertops Blanche de Newlands 4.5% which I liked better than some of Barry's other beers and actually is better than my own Wheat Beer, Saazy's Wiesse 4.3% which I also sneaked a taster of.

Maybe the volunteers on the bar just directed me to nice beers, but the ones I tried I really enjoyed.

8/10 for CAMRA

Mike Benner, the chief executive of CAMRA has written to the Chancellor asking him to consider some important points. There is a press realise on the CAMRA site. This is also reported by The Morning Advertiser.

This clearly comes in the wake of the excellent Community Pub Inquiry report. Although this report is grand it will not work to simply give politicians recommendations. They will only act if they think it improves their vote. So we need to show the government that we care about the findings. We need to gain the support of the popular opinion.

CAMRA is doing the right thing in starting to publicise the issues contained within the report. My only complaint is that it's not enough yet and it's happening too slowly. However, it's the right move.

Looking at the responses to the Morning Advertiser article is interesting though. The ferocity of the attacks on CAMRA and the tied system are alarming. From the CAMRA perspective I rather think that this is a little like a pupil who has done his best piece of work to date, only to be told off by teacher for a few spelling mistakes.

It does also show just how hated the tied system is, mainly by licensees, but still, CAMRA perhaps does need to think about this.

Whitehaven beerfest 08 the start

Sorry, no beer list yet....

But we've got a bar!!

....and a bit more on the Beer Tie

I was going to say something thoughtful about Ted's post yesterday on The Round. But at least mentioning it here gives Ted a link for now. Have a look at it. It's interesting, but I'm afraid it's one of those cultural things that is fading here as well. I'll say more later.

More urgently Jeff Pickthall reminds me again that I don't like the tied house. I've tried to give a balanced and factual account, but I still don't like it. Jeff clearly is in no doubt but despite me wanting to vote "both" on his little amusing poll, I have thoughts about the wider picture.

The problem is, if we suddenly banished the tie what would happen? I guess I don't really know and neither does anybody else. But be sure that the pubco's make their money out of selling beverages to tied pubs. If they all of a sudden stop being able to make money this way my guess is that rents would go up. In any event the economics of the model would change. It might mean that pubcos sell off some estate. It might mean some lessees find the rent too high. Maybe it's the right thing, but there would be an upset to the industry as big as the smoking ban was.

I think the smoking ban was done incorrectly. I am in support of it now but I think it was too much of a shock to the industry and a half way house should first have been employed. If we ban the tie overnight then we would undoubtedly rock the pub boat so much that innocent pubs would fail. I am in suport of a change but if it happens it needs to be done carefully.

But really, what's the problem? Well I don't like the tie because it creates the sort of pub that I don't like. So I go to a pub that isn't tied. This is almost entirely true whenever I am aware there is a choice. It's true that in some areas there is no choice and sometimes the pubcos eliminate the choice in a particular geography. I would hate to run a tied house, so I don't and I knew I wouldn't when I started in the industry.

The punters who use tied houses generally like them. Those that don't like them choose a free house (although there are some "free houses" that are not, but that's perhaps a different story) I am very happy to hear from anybody who thinks that an area is devoid of sufficient choice, this would help me to sure up my need to hate the tied system.

Where there really is a problem is the case of licensees that find themselves running a tied house. Yes they signed a contract. Yes they really, really should have read the small print. I really do not think that most licensees go into the industry fully understanding the implications of the tie. I know far more people who believe they want to run a pub than are actually doing it. I also know quite a lot of people who have given it a go and failed, or at least got out as soon as they could.

I believe that the tied, leased pub works because many people go into it being promised the world by the pubco, and because they are so struck with the idea that they would like to run a pub they would agree to anything. I believe this is being exploited by the pubcos, perhaps not cynically or even deliberately, but everybody considering taking a pubco lease needs careful, unbiased advise.

I know how easy it is to get behind on suppliers payments. There are all sorts of reasons for it. In the free trade it is not uncommon to be put on "stop" by a supplier. It's a kind of telling off. But normally you just go to another supplier and order off them for a while whilst you get the original supplier in credit again and go back to normal. It's a nuisance and it's supposed to be because suppliers need to be paid and "stopping" the account normally works.

There is also the situation where the pubco fails to deliver. It does happen. We've been let down by suppliers more times than I care to remember. We just do what we have to, buy from where we need. It helps keep suppliers on their toes to stop buying of one that is failing to deliver. The tied lessee has not got that advantage. The pubco can still put them on stop, a little unfair I'd say.

With the tied lease the lessee has not got that valuable strategical tool. A few hundred pounds owing to the pubco can prevent trading for a weekend. What would you do? I'd go to the cash and carry for sure. If the wrong item was put on the waggon I'm sure I'd get it anywhere I could to keep my customers happy.

I'm afraid the tied lease will continue to work so long as people think it's good to get into the pub industry that way. If I were to advise anybody I would say don't take on a tied lease unless you were sure and even then be sure that the property was right. But most of all, screw the pubco for the best deal you can get, including an element of freedom, if they don't play ball, walk away because running a pub is your life and your life is worth more than that.

Greetings and a strange idea from Cumbria....

I have this idea.

I have a brewery and a quiet remote Inn in a beautiful part of the Lake District. We have comfortable rooms and serve nice food. We often have a good selection of Cumbrian ales on the bar. I like talking about ale and brewing.

I normally brew mid week. Weekends are taken up trying to keep customers happy. I sometimes have rooms empty mid week, which is why I brew then. I do wonder if there are any beer fanatics who might like to stay mid week and try their hand at brewing?

I did help to get Ted on the road with his project I believe he might be doing alright, so I guess I've got a little bit of a track record. I do suspect that Ted would have done just fine without me, but hey, I'm taking some credit anyhow.

So the deal would be along the lines of: Stay for a couple of nights. During the day help with some brewing, cask cleaning and ask me questions about how it all works, in the evening you buy food and beer off me.

It wouldn't be a high tech course, not all about brewing science, because I don't know much about it. It would just give the discerning beer drinker an idea of how beer is made in a microbrewery or the home brewer a chance to try his hand on bigger plant, or maybe give somebody who thought they might like to venture into brewing a taster of the work involved.

This would be most likely to happen in February or March 2009 on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. If anybody wanted to bring a beer widow/widower with them then that's fine, if there was enough interest we'd organise a day trip or something.

I'm treating this as kind of market research. If I get no response then I'll forget the idea, if I get enough response I'll develop it further and start setting dates.

Leave a comment or mail me: dave at woolpack dot co dot uk

Learning to taste

I really do know that I'm going to have to be better at tasting beer. I need to say more than I enjoy an ale I'm tasting or I don't. I'm hoping, in time, to work my way through most of the Cumbrian Ales out there. It'll take some time and with the number of brewerys springing up I doubt I'll ever catch up.

But as I know quite a few of the brewers, and they are mostly nice people, so I need to be more descriptive about the beers and just because I don't like a beer does not mean that it's a bad beer.

Tonight it's the turn of Tirrils Red Barn Ale. Now part of this brewery's spiel talks about traditional British ales made with UK varieties of whole hops. I've come to a conclusion that I prefer ales made with hops that include some continental or American hops. Cascade is my favourite but I also like Willamette. Most importantly I like beers with lots of hops. Dark, light or whatever, hoppy is best, for me.

Red Barn ale is at a disadvantage with me from square one because it is a low hopped beer. But we need to be an intelligent taster. We need to try and ignore that fact that it would not be my forst choice.

So firstly the nose, it seems to have an aroma dominated by malts. It reminds me of malted milk biscuits, to the extent that I get an aroma reminiscent of sour milk. But that's bad, is it?

I'm drinking my second pint as I type this post. It grows as you drink. The flavour is perhaps not as full as I'd like. Not enough bittering and again a malty feel with a sweet and sour sensation dominating the rest. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that any beer that has not got sufficent bitter flavour will score less highly with me because the sour sensation that takes over reminds me of acetic, which of course suggets an off flavour. But if it were acitic I would KNOW by the end of the second pint (which is were I am now) and it's not.

So, in conclusion, it's a low hopped, slighly malty beer. Exactly how it's designed and tastes better after 2 pints than at first tasting. Some would say this is better than a wow factor first off, but leaving you hopped out and declining a second.

I think then, I need a third pint - just to make sure you understand.