Allgates Quaker House - A Proper Stout

Tuesday was an exciting day for me. Not just because of the monthly CAMRA Branch Meeting which I chair (and that's quite exciting)  but because the stout I brewed jointly with Allgates Brewery and two fellow bloggers, was to make its bar appearance. 

Allgates is a fantastic brewery with well made beers that have that elusive drinkability.  Now you can wax lyrical all you like about wine barrel aged imperial double saisons and their ilk, but the essence of good drinking is a decent (cask conditioned) pint of good honest beer.  Substance over style if you like. (And even if you don't like.) In fact here's a point of view. There's a big difference between really good drinking and what the beer geeks might term "awesomeness" in beer.  One is a social lubricant that makes the world go round just that little bit better and brightens your life accordingly, as an accompaniment to it.  The other is perhaps a tad more introspective and exclusive. All too often it comes across as a one dimensional, fleeting paean that worships the product (often for its bragging rights) more than the moment, the company or the occasion.

Right. That's off my chest, so back to our Quaker House.  Like all Allgates beers, it was named after a defunct coal mine from the area around Wigan, which used to yield many millions of tons of the black stuff.  Appropriate then on two levels at least.   Having agreed we'd produce a stout, it was my hope to persuade my fellow brewers that it had to be a real stout of premium drinking strength and most importantly, it had to be as black as the ace of spades and not a pale, see through porterish excuse of a beer. In my view, if you can see through the bloody thing, it isn't a proper stout. Fortunately that idea was readily agreed and there is no doubt that this is a proper stout. Jet black, with a gorgeous off-white, creamy head, it looked like Guinness used to look before they fucked it up completely many moons ago.  The oats gave it a tremendously smooth mouthfeel with roast and chocolate malt and decent hopping from the Warrior and Galena hops came through nicely.  It is a deep and satisfying beer which drinks easily and belies its 4.9% alcohol.  The finish is long and roasty with lingering hops. It coated my palate wonderfully.  The beer is pretty damn good. If I had my time again, I'd have perhaps have suggested a few more resinous hops in the finish, but I remind myself it is a collaboration and that we have produced a beautiful, easy drinking stout which has enough complexity to make it a cut above the ordinary.  Gratifyingly many of our members supped it with pleasure.

It was also a great pleasure to me that it was hosted by the Baum, CAMRA's National Pub of the Year, so no doubts about quality of keeping and dispense. Served with perfect conditioning, at around 12°C and sparkled as God intended, I was a happy man.

Thanks again to David and Jonathan at Allgates. Princes among men.

Tyson and Jim (my fellow collaborators) will have their barrel on soon. Jim's is on Friday at the Joshua Brooks in Manchester I believe. Tyson TBA.

My chosen charity (it was kindly donated by Allgates) is the Salvation Army in Rochdale to help with their work with the homeless.

Stout Fellows

Like all non brewers that have been in and around beer for a long time, I have visited countless breweries and had the process explained to me a thousand times.  I often feel when in a new brewery (to me), that apart from the history and background, I could fairly easily conduct the tour myself.  But I've never been involved in a brew from beginning to end, though I've seen more or less every bit of it in segmented form.

Thus I leapt at the chance to do an end to end brew with Allgates of Wigan and the additional chance to input to a recipe that we'd brew.  The "we" in this case was fellow bloggers Tyson the Beer Hound and Jim from Beers of Manchester, along with brewer Jonathan Provost and co-owner, David Mayhall.  We assembled at the brewery last Saturday in glorious sunshine, with a pre-agreement that we'd brew an oatmeal stout of around 4.8% and it would have some hops in. Lots of hops.  We started with a brew of course - tea - and without much further ado, yours truly was dumping sack after sack of malt into the hopper.  We'd agreed on the grist which was 175kg of Maris Otter Pale Malt, 10kgs each of roasted barley and chocolate malt, 25kgs of malted oats and 8kgs of torrified wheat to help with head retention.  I was glad that my plea to replace the intended crystal malt (boo) with roasted barley had been accepted. I wanted this beer to be pretty damn dark and no stout is a true stout without a good glug of roasted barley in my opinion at least.

Now Jim, swot that he is, has detailed what we did in his blog, so I won't repeat it.  You can also read Tyson's account here. It was hard work interspersed for us at least, with glasses of excellent Allgates beer, a picnic lunch and of course, as always when with beery types, the most friendly and cheery of conversation as anecdotes were swapped, theories expounded and tales told.  Much shovelling of spent grains, carting of heavy sacks and general cleaning up ensued and all too soon we were adding the yeast and the brew was in FV1 and beginning its transformation into what we hope will be a fantastic stout.  Bittered with Warrior and Galena hops and with aroma coming from Amarillo and Ahtanum and finally a good sized dash of  Nelson Sauvin we have high hopes of an excellent hop profile. We are aiming at 55 IBU.

David surprised us all by a very kind offer of a nine of the finished beer for each of us, to be sold at the pub of our choice for a charitable donation by the pub.  That is tremendously generous of him and once again re-inforces that those in the brewing industry are princes amongst men. When I have sorted out destination and charity, I'll announce here where it will be sold and when as no doubt the others will too.  The name of the beer has now been agreed and in accordance with Allgates practice will be named after a defunct colliery in the area, so a big "hello" to Quaker House Oatmeal Stout.

Saturday really was a fantastic day out, with great people.  Thanks to owner David and Head Brewer Jonathan  for their hospitality, expertise and friendship.  We really couldn't have done it without you.

We were also meant to be joined by Jay Krause of Quantum, but regrettably he was unwell.  Hope you are better now Jay. Phtos show my fellow bloggers Tyson and Jim and of course the stout, straight out of the copper.  Looks great already!