Get the Basics Right!

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Well that's another Oldham Beer Festival over and it's time to reflect on a few things beerwise.  Firstly it was a tremendously successful and we expect that the Mayor of Oldham's Charity Appeal, on whose behalf CAMRA run it, will benefit greatly from it.  It was in effect a sellout.

As always in these things I was mainly involved with the beer side, though I didn't manage the bar. I was however intimately involved in set up and given the severe soaking I got from one brewery's cask of beer, secondary fermentation is alive and well.  There are those that reckon most cask beer is inert these days. I'm not so convinced at the micro end that this is true. So many were vigorous - but we don't buy in national brands anyway, as they simply wouldn't sell.  The jury is out on those usual suspects of course, but like many, I "hae ma doots" every time I drink one.

It was also noticeable that the beers that sold out first were mainly local. That may not surprise you that much when we have breweries of the quality of  Pictish and Brewsmith to name but two and as always there are local favourites which fly out. It wouldn't be Oldham Beer Festival without Serious Brewing's Moonlight Stout and true to form, it soon went. If your beer is good, local definitely works, so there is plenty to play for there.

We always aim to have a leavening of beers that we don't see that often in our area and this time, the Beer Orderer went for an East Midlands theme. Now some were good and some, frankly weren't that brilliant, though that could be applied to lots of beers that you stumble across in the pub. Having had a lot of experience of these things, my advice to the small brewer is simple. Get the beers, clean with distinct appropriate flavours and no odd or "challenging tastes" - at least until you have managed the basics and repeatedly reproduced them. If you have the wish to start off with juniper, lime, exotic spices etc, my advice is just don't. The drinking public aren't daft and you will get slow sales and little repeat business. And brew for your customer, not yourself. Just because your muddy mess of odd ingredients appeals to you,think on. It is unlikely to achieve broad appeal.

The beer of the festival, Tryst Chocolate and Coconut Porte might seem to contradict my musings. Not so. Tryst know what they are doing in the first place. Luscious and moreish, it was a worthy winner. 

All the 62 beers were clear and bright or as near as dammit. 

My focus now shifts to Bournemouth and the CAMRA AGM and Members Weekend. This will include three nights in my London gaff, so fingers crossed all round.

Microbrewing Bad Beer?

Boak and Bailey had an interesting thread a week or so ago about breweries that get more than their fair share of plaudits and those that don't and perhaps deserve to.  I did contribute to that but found that two of my key comments have vanished into the ether.  It has a habit of doing that to me has WordPress.  So, I'll continue what I was going to say here instead.

Buried in all the comments and unremarked was this "I am not concerned about brewers receiving too much, deserved, praise or others not gaining recognition. I would like to see a large number of micro brewers driven out of business and writers must tell the truth about the bad brewers and to metaphorically put the boot in. (For Northeners this would be just about any Dave Porter 3 day training course brewers)".  I think the writer of this - someone called Marwood that I don't know - is right about the number of poor microbrewers out there and also right about calling them out, though why he didn't take the opportunity to do so himself is a moot point. What caused me to respond though was the second bit about Dave Porter, which I suspect was not commented on because few understood it.

Dave Porter runs PBC who are the biggest supplier of microbreweries in the UK though they also supply worldwide.  (275 to date overall according to their website). They are based in Bury and Dave Porter, the owner used to run pubs in this area and supply them from his own microbrewery in Lancashire.  He is involved with Outstanding Brewing, is anything but modest,  but as sharp a businessman as you'll come across. He happens to be one of my CAMRA Branch members. He also brews good beer and teaches others how to brew.  What the commentator seems to be saying though is that Dave's plant and training produces bad beers. Now, were that so we wouldn't  be enjoying beers from, among others, Arbor, Bad Seed, First Chop, Ilkley, Kernal, Mallinson, Offbeat, Redchurch, Wilson Potter and Stringers to name but a few. Many of his other breweries aren't known to me, though plenty are. Far from all being in the North, they are nationwide and indeed worldwide. I don't of course know if all the brewers attended his training courses, but I do know the vast majority of his customers have done and acquired sufficient skills to produce excellent beers.  I don't doubt either that some produce a load of old rubbish.  That's the way of the brewing world.

Bad microbreweries exist because they have bad brewers, bad brewing practice and duff palates. Trust me Dave Porter has none of these.

In case you think this is inspired by Dave, it isn't. If he knew he wouldn't care and would probably tell me to eff off.  He has done so plenty times before in beery discourse.

Micro Brewers Kind of Disappoint

When I did my judging last week I was pleased in the first round to be tasting "Bitters and Pale Ales (Up to 4.0% ABV)". I didn't fancy the other cask category of "Strong Ales (Over 5.6% ABV)". My table was hardly expert, with a local wine merchant who spat all his beer into a bucket, a nice, young, cask ale loving lass who'd won her place in a Barrow Evening Mail contest and the boyfriend of one of the SIBA women who were providing general assistance and bringing us the beer. We tasted eleven beers and oddly enough, this motley collection more or less agreed on everything. What do I conclude from that? Well, I suppose, that when beers are good, bad or just indifferent and you are approaching them with an open mind, even if not to your taste, most people will recognise what is good and what is not. When you are doing comparative tastings, it all becomes reasonably obvious, though of course there were differences of opinion.

Were the beers all good? No. Some were poor, most were decent enough, but most were disappointingly and predictably samey. There was two stand outs in our list. Both were golden, complex, well bodied and hoppy. The modern face of bitter beer?  Maybe. Going back to previous posts there was little "innovation". It was a boring old roll call of Fuggles, Goldings, Northdown and Styrians and mostly brown beers.

Now I know micros need to have a "cooking bitter" and that a well made mainstream beer will sell, but I do wonder why, in a competition, they didn't put forward something more characterful? There does seem to be a general reluctance to push the boundaries here.

I also judged strong bottled ales. Not my forte really, but I was lucky enough to sit beside Cask Marque's inspector for East London where my flat is. He was able to confirm that the London malaise of warm beer is being pushed aside and that all over the capital, cellars are being re-equipped with decent refrigeration and that standards generally are rising. That's good news isn't it?

The Hawkshead Brewery is state of the art and the Beer Hall where we did the judging is a lovely modern venue. Hawkshead Organic Stout - drunk for pleasure -was superb. I also met Jeff Pickthall properly and you know, he's a nice fellow.

The Brewster of Huddersfield

After a particularly long National Winter Ales Festival Meeting, the Organiser, my mate Graham and his Deputy, his mate me, tottered into the Marble Arch for something pale and hoppy to wash away the taste of the Draught Bass we'd been forced to drink in the Unicorn. We - all of us - not just Graham and I, had supped them dry of Copper Dragon IPA and Golden Pippin. The new nine of Pippin lasted barely an hour. It left Draught Bass, a beer that so resembled Pedigree that it might have been a tweak of it. We choked one down and had no more.

Back in the Marble, pints of the daftly named "Pint" were procured and a mate of mine grabbed my ear. "Let me introduce you to a couple of people you'll like". The two lasses turned out to be the owners of Mallinson's Huddersfield Brewery and we sat down to find out a little more. The first surprise was that she knew of me; "you wouldn't be Tandleman?" she enquired! It seems Tara (right) and her business partner Elaine (left) are readers and liked what I wrote about their beers when I visited Huddersfield. We had a pleasant half hour with them, listening to their beer philosophy - scrupulous cleanliness and lots of hops might sum it up. They welcome critical feedback and confirmed that I should tell it as I saw it. They regard all feedback as useful.

Graham was interested in just how many breweries are run by women. Tara knows a few and Graham was able to add a couple more. He has a notion of getting a few of them together at National Winter Ales.Not a bad idea if they are all as enthusiastic as these two!


There is a handy list of outlets on the brewery's web site. They are also doing the house beer at the New Oxford in Salford. I'll report on it soon.

Beer Behaving Quite Well Really

Neil Morrisey is a TV star who has a pub and brewery in Yorkshire that will shortly be on our screens, showing how he and his business partner, Richard Fox, who is the "beer expert", went about brewing the "Perfect Ale." I am not sure if the beer below will be it, but it isn't bad at all.

The first effort on sale in bottle is Morrisey Fox Blonde Ale, a 4.2% golden beer. It tells you on the label that it is a "hybrid" beer, "somewhere between a lager and an ale." Well, spot on really, I'd say. The beer opens with a distinct whiff of flowery hops. It is clean and almost dry in palate, with up front bitterness and some herbal notes. Medium bodied with a good malt base, it is astonishly clean throughout, through to a short, clean, dry, hoppy, flowery finish. I could have drunk another couple very happily. This is a well brewed beer and worth a punt. My only criticism is that for me, it was slightly overcarbonated.

Try some. I reckon it is a very decent, well made beer with some character and if these guys are aiming for something that will attract both ale and lager drinkers, then they are not far off the mark.

This beer is also on sale on draught (whether cask or keg, I don't know) in their pub, Ye Olde Punch Bowl, in Marton cum Grafton, North Yorkshire should you fancy a day out.

A New Brewery and Not All Wetherspoons are the Same

It was raining yet again as we arrived in Richmond. We found a parking place on the very precipitous town square and had a wander. The inside market had a tourist map which revealed that the former station, now a tourist complex, had a new micro brewery. "That'll do" we thought. While deciding which way was what, we were accosted by the local nutter, this time the female of the species. She was hard to shake off and though she seemed harmless enough, someone had given her a fat lip. We beat a hasty retreat while she looked around for her next victim.

The Station was at the bottom of the hill in a valley and was a pleasant affair with a cafe and various craft stalls. A delicious smell of baking pervaded. Richmond Brewery was in a unit inside and we had a pleasant chat to the brewer, Andy. A Scot, he had done time with Tennents, Websters, John Smith's, Theakston, Newcastle and other breweries. He did one beer, Richmond Station Ale, which was on sale in the cafe and also in the local JDW, where a Yorkshire Ales Festival was going on. For those who like to know these sort of things, the brewery is a six barrel plant, commissioned on 2 June 2008. Continuing my theme of unhappy endings, the beer, a darkish, malty affair was bit hard to get down. Hopefully it will improve in time. We didn't go back and tell him. Should we have?

Returning up the hugely steep hill, we called in at the JDW, the Ralph Fitz Randal. The festival was in its dog days, but had all beer at £1.59 a pint, available in thirds. We set to. The chatty female manager was brilliant. She told us she had been there only a few weeks but has increased cask ale sales by several hundred percent. Her husband is an enthusiast. It showed. Superb beers from Outlaw, York Brewery, Hambleton, Clarks and Wentworth were supped. The Outlaw Yorkshire Pale Ale was stunningly good, with tropical fruit flavours, but was still pipped by York Pure Gold which was full bodied and grapefruity. I could have drunk a lot of either.

Our hostess happily discussed the usual Wetherspoon's issues with us. She firmly believes that Wetherspoons can be good pubs. She also believes in being "hands on", which she feels not enough JDW managers are. As she put it, "it's all down to the manager. Get a bad manager in any pub and the pub will be no good. Get a good one and the pub will be good." She has a free hand to get what beer she likes, though she must sell Pedigree and Directors. She gets a lot of micro stuff in as they attract interest and they sell well.

If all JDW managers were like her, the company would have a better reputation. She is a good 'un!

Worst Beer of the Year So Far!

Instinctively I dislike writing bad things about micro breweries. I know the care and pride in their products that most of them have. Regrettably some have a blind spot. They have an inability to recognise a bad batch and even a bad recipe, never mind obvious brewing faults. There is frankly too much beer being released from micros that should never be sent to trade.

I have though written about quality issues from small independent breweries and I came across the issue again last night from a (South West) brewery I have had trouble with before. The brewery describes the beer I unwisely purchased as "A golden coloured quenching beer with great hop character. Full fruit in the mouth with good hop balance and a long dry finish." The beer was light brown and smelt of creosote. Never a good sign. It was distinctly woody, phenolic and frankly, an undrinkable mess. Using my best Dom Jolly technique, I complained and had it replaced by the much more mundane, but drinkable Greene King IPA.

For once I am not going to name this brewery or beer, but I will give a clue at the end of this article. The general point is that micros will only ever thrive by producing quality beer that pubs will re-order. No one in their right mind would re-order this stuff.

Clue: The beer tasted woody. The brewery has obviously taken its name too literally in making this beer!