Prohibition can be a Good Idea!

Before prohibition of alcohol sales began in the United States, there was various pro and anti campaigns. This poster was from just before it all started. It comes from 1919.

I suppose it really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words!

What are they up to then?

The Publican, a licensed trade newspaper is running a rather odd reader's poll on its website. It asks the perplexingly strange question "Do over-50s cause problems in your pub?" I can't find anything on their somewhat confusing site to explain what this is all about. What on earth can these creepy old geezers be up to? Whatever it is, although most publicans seem to have no problems with them, an astonishing 26.9% do. What on earth are they (we) doing?

Speaking as a 50 plus person who drinks with a lot of 50 plus persons, I am perplexed. We drink reasonably quietly, spend plenty, behave ourselves and then go home. Any theories?

Day Out in West Lancs

Despite being more or less completely shattered after my German excursion, I attended a CAMRA West Lancs trip organised by my fellow blogger Tyson, who has covered most of what I would say about it in his beer blog. Croston, picturesque though it is, promised much and delivered very little. I sympathised with Tyson over this - no matter how carefully you recce these places - and I know he did - Sod's Law will dictate that you gaze longingly at the pump clip collection behind the bar, while looking forlornly at what is offered that day. Unlike Tyson, I did go to Cain's Black Horse, largely as I kind of promised Southport Drinker I would and we had been warned that the beer in the other pubs was rather mainstream. Also I like Cains. The Black Horse was gloomy and not particularly welcoming. It had only keg Cain's Mild, but the bitter was pretty good. I didn't try the Indian Pale Ale, so in short, not a lot to say about it. Sorry SD!

I was given a salutary reminder though. We went to the deserted Lord Nelson where E and I struck up a conversation with the sole barside person there apart from us. We supped modest Jennings Cumberland while we had a long and very jolly chat with him about beer, pubs in the area and life in general. We also learned from our local friend, that the aforementioned Black Horse was on its last weekend of trading, before a complete refurbishment by Cains. It needs it! The barmaid chipped in with anecdotes and I was reminded though I shouldn't need to be, of that inescapable truth, that pubs are much more than just beer. It turned out to be a very cheerful half hour, with that most old fashioned, but never out of style thing, good company and conversation.

Tyson has the rest spot on. I'll elaborate on two points though. The beer of the day for me was York Decade. I've written about it before, but really, it is just superb. Seek it out. The surprise of the day was how good Tetley Mild (the pale one not the dark one) was and the luscious, tart and quenching Tetley Bitter, which took me back to my early drinking days in Liverpool. Both cracking beers, well brewed and presented, so credit where credit is due.

My bottom picture shows Tony Allen of Phoenix Brewery, Heywood, who in addition to being an outstanding brewer, is one of our members. In the 20 odd years I have known him, I don't ever think I have seen him order a pint of anything - he prefers to order halves. He did on Saturday. The beer? York Decade!

Goslar

Goslar is an unspoiled, mediaeval town around an hour by train south east of Hannover. It was spared the bombing during the war, largely because it had no military or industrial significance and strangely, because of a large military hospital there. You may well think it odd that private citizens were not spared aerial death, while wounded enemy combatants were. War is a strange thing indeed.

It has to be said that Goslar is painfully attractive. We walked through every inch of it we could find and every new corner brought us new highs of architectural and scenic delight. But this is a beer blog and man cannot exist by scenery alone. Our mission was to sample Gose beer, a supposed sour and original beer style. We decided just to take that as it came, but the signs weren't good. Brauerei Goslar it seemed would be opening or rather, re-opening in the Markt, but not yet. (See picture). So we just went with the flow. First stop was the Paulaner Wirtschaft which was in a delightful half timbered building. (pictured) Inside a little piece of the Freistaat had been transported there. We sat and enjoyed both pale and dark wheat beers while chatting to the attractive Polish barmaid. Unusually she spoke no English, so for once, my painful German went largely uninterrupted. This pleased me no end, as usually a smart arsed kid will switch to perfect English which he/she was taught as a foetus! We also tried the Kaltenberg outlet, deep underground where a distinct smell of horse poo, no doubt from the horse drawn carriages above, accompanied Spezial, Dunkel and Weizenbier. Both the smell and the pictures of the wall reminded me of Neuschwanstein, where I visited the Kaltenberg brewery tap a few years ago. The helpful waiter assured us we could visit the Worthmühle which Gazza indicates is a restaurant only. I am not sure about later in the evening, but certainly at five o'clock, when it opens, we were made welcome for a drink. Our man from Kaltenberg also told us the only brewery in Goslar will be Brauhaus Goslar, which will reopen in the main square soon. It's beers are being brewed in Braunschweig currently. Braueri Einbecker doesn't brew in Goslar at all he says and certainly, though we found a sign for it, that was all.

At Worthmühle Gose beer, a Goslar specialty was our mission, but sadly the only Gose beer, Brauhaus Goslar Gose Hell was muddy, mildly carbonated, light brown and not sour at all but fairly sweet. Not worth the experience really. Disappointing in some ways. We also tried Hotel Gosequell, around this time, which although it showed signs of being open, wasn't according to the girl sat inside doing nothing. Sadly there was no Irish offer of "have a drink while you're waiting."

Our final call was driven by the fact we just missed our train and there wasn't another for an hour and 20 minutes. All drinking establishments around the station seemed to be selling InBev beers, but we took the plunge, picking the most pubby looking one. The reward was as superb schwarz bier, pictured from the Herzog Brauerei in Braunschweig. Now this is InBev owned, but they obviously haven't got round to ruining the beer yet. This was toasty, roasty, malty, bitter delight with a wonderful coal dust finish. It was a good end to an interesting day in a stunningly lovely town and we didn't miss our next train!

My thanks to Gazza for the Goslar gen. Hopefully this is an update for it. He also tells me that Herzog is no longer InBev owned having gone private. Hooray!

Hannover

I know a long tale about this pub and that one can be less than exciting, so I will just give a quick whizz round our three day long visit. My research for this trip largely consisted on printing off Ron Pattinson's guide and doing the same with Gazza Prescott's more narrative piece. Thanks Boys! I have to say I found Hannover to have at first inspection at least, rather an oddly obscure transport system compared to most German cities. The Hauptbanhof seemed determined to keep the whereabouts of the U-Bahn station a secret, but after traipsing round it a few times and following signs which lead nowhere, we found it only by asking at the information desk. Should you go there it is at the very furthest point from the main entrance and deeply underground. Well some of it is - the remainder is a street tram system which is also designated U-Bahn and is firmly in fresh air!

Our first stop was the Herrenhauser Brewery Tap. The brewery itself is quite modern. the brewery tap is most certainly not. Determinedly old fashioned (picture left) with just a pils on draught, it was an interesting place with settles, lino and scrubbed deal tables. There were photos of old Hannover on the wall, including one marked "Adolf Hitler Platz". You could shoot a cold war film in here quite happily without getting extra props in. The beer was decent, though I didn't find it as good as Gazza did.

Hannover was badly bombed during the war as it was a centre for oil refining and chemical industries, so much of it was rebuilt functionally rather than with a view to aesthetics, though there is a reconstructed Alt Stadt which houses many decent pubs. Unlike Hamburg which seemed to have a dearth of pubs, we found Hannover to have one on every corner, usually filled with cheerful and chatty types. It is somewhat dominated by the InBev owned Gilde which brews a tasteless industrial lager, but good beer can still be had if you just follow the simple rule of ignoring Gilde signs. Thus we enjoyed very good, bitter and clean pils from Haerke and from Einbecker, the latter being a favourite, with its full malty body and uncompromising bitterness. The other noticeable thing about Hannover is the sheer amount of Bavarian beer available. There were outlets for Lowenbrau and Paulaner and of course Franzikaner Wiessbier in every Gilde pub. Now I have to say I'm keen on Paulaner beer and at least there the anti smoking laws were firmly enforced, which wasn't the case everywhere. The city's only brewpub, Ernst August didn't live up to the write ups I'd seen elsewhere. The only beer, a pils either filtered or unfiltered was so-so. The menu mentioned a Saison" beer, but my request for this was met with disbelief from the young waitress. She could have looked more surprised at my request if she'd tried. A single "nein" lead us to assume it didn't exist. Yet another expensively kitted out German brewpub that just wastes opportunity.

We also spent some time in some of the street corner boozers near our hotel which ranged from bizarre to sinister. Characters abounded. Late at night we were the only customers in one bar other than an invisible geezer behind a pillar whose "moll" could be seen, chainsmoking, but he was hidden. I knew enough German to know he was asking the barman what we were doing there and when the barman replied we were OK and then gave us a free drink, we knew it was time to leave. In another, the elderly barmaid shrieked at her customers in Greek, while a permanently baffled old guy walked round, beaming, shaking hands with everyone and saying "Alles Klar". Us two, full of beer and korn schnapps, played the juke box and then joined in the singing which this prompted! In another bar we were entertained by a guy who had Adolf Hitler speaking at a rally as the ringtone on his phone. When I asked if it was not illegal, he gave a Nazi salute and said "no, but this is!" to hoots of laughter from his mates. This, in my experience, is unusual.

So I liked Hannover a lot. It was friendly, fun, full of good pubs and good characters and the kebabs were up to snuff. We left it with considerable reluctance.

Note I have used the German spelling of "Hannover", rather than the English "Hanover".

Hame!

I'm back and knackered. More soon.

Top Ten American Craft Brewers

Just thought this might interest the American beer fans amongst you. The top Yankee 10, based on beer sales volumes (2007) are:

1 Boston Beer Co.
2 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
3 New Belgium Brewing Co. Inc.
4 Spoetzl Brewery
5 Pyramid Breweries Inc.
6 Matt Brewing Co.
7 Deschutes Brewery, Inc.
8 Boulevard Brewing Co.
9 Full Sail Brewing Co.
10 Harpoon Brewery

Now of course most of these aren't small by UK standards as a craft brewery in the US is defined as producing less than 2 million US barrels. At 1.45 million UK barrels, that's quite big! We don't see enough of some of these breweries over here and as they are so big, how about it boys? While the breweries maybe get more interesting below the top ten, there is still some good stuff to go at and its all in these dinky little bottles too!

The top ten overall is interesting too:

1 Anheuser- Busch Inc.
2 Miller Brewing Co.
3 Coors Brewing Co.
4 Pabst Brewing Co.
5 Boston Beer Co.
6 D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc.
7 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
8 New Belgium Brewing Co. Inc.
9 High Falls Brewing Co.
10 Spoetzl Brewery

The big boys still lead of course, but the American Beer Market is getting quite diverse, at least for those who wish to seek something different, which regrettably, most don't.

Germany Calling

I'm off to Hanover tomorrow with my mate Graham. Hopefully going to have a side trip to Goslar too. So behave yourselves while I'm away. Back on Friday.

Going from Bad to Worse!

After eighteen years at the top, it seems that Carlsberg has overtaken Stella as Britain's best selling lager. It isn't by much, but it shows the Stella brand to be sliding even further. Stella's sales were down 3% while Carlsberg rose by 11%. Price it seems is part of the issue. Stella is reassuringly expensive at around £1.06 a pint in the off trade, while Carlsberg can be had for a mere 85p.

Of course these are different beasts, having only their awfulness in common, but it is still a significant blow to the ailing brand.

Who cares? Not me, but I bring this to you as a public service!

Hop Sharing in Boston

Most of us in the beer game know that there is a hop shortage. Many beers may either not be brewed to their original recipe, or indeed may not be brewed at all. Fingers are crossed that the 2008 hop harvest will be a good one.

I was therefore very heartened indeed to see that Boston Brewing Company (of Sam Adams fame) is to share some of its hop cache with fellow craft brewers. 10,000 pounds each of German Tettnang and of East Kent Goldings will be made available to fellow craft brewers who have a shortage. Amazingly these will be sold at "cost". Boston Beer Company will make nothing from the deal and in addition will rely on the honesty of those applying actually needing the hops, rather than just buying them cheaply to sell on. As the web site says, "Order them because you need these hops to make your beer. We’re not asking questions, so let your conscience be your guide." In a Q&A spot on their web site they add:

Q. What will prevent the brewers who buy these hops from reselling them at a much higher price? A. Nothing other than doing what is right. We believe craft brewers will help one another. We’ve asked brewers to order only what they need and to let their consciences be their guide.

Needless to say this offer was oversubscribed and a draw was held to determine the "winners". 61 breweries will now get Tettnang and 46 will get EKGs which gives you an idea of how bad the shortage is. I'll leave it there. In these cynical times this really is a good news story!

City of Culture, but What About the Beer?

Liverpool is European City of Culture 2008, not that you'd know it merely from stepping off the train at Lime Street Station. There is nothing at all as far as I could see to celebrate or announce that fact. Not like the Scousers to hide any light under a bushel, never mind such a big one.

We were meeting my mate Neville in the Ship and Mitre, a well known Liverpool Free House, but Graham suggested a sharpener in Doctor Duncan's first. This excellent Cains tied house had quite a range on. I had a half each of the Dark Mild and the Creamy Stout. The mild was stunning - smooth, malty, roasty and very moreish. The stout surprised me. I remembered it as being much sweeter, but this sample was bitter and roasty, though lacking the hop resin finish I like in a stout. Bit more EKGs please Cains. This was a great start. Graham had the IPA which is merely a best bitter of no real distinction. Unfortunately the Fine Raisin beer wasn't on, so I couldn't give my views on that!

The Ship and Mitre is a classic ex Bents house, but seems to me to lack the TLC it needs. The charming bar staff more than made up for that though, with wit and offers of tasters. Now I have to honest here. I have never found the beer in here to be at the peak of cask conditioning. It always seems a few notches off and so it was yesterday. Each beer selected seemed just a tad off what it could be. We drank beers from Skipton, Blakemore and Weetwood and all were around OK, but no more.

Leaving Neville to his do for a couple of hours, we skipped off. There are basically two boozing areas in Liverpool, the Centre and around the cathedrals. We were in the centre so we had to go to the Lion. This ex-Walker house has been messed about a fair bit since I lived in Scousley, but offers eight cask ales. Alas these are somewhat pedestrian. On offer were two from Bank's, Lees, (hooray) Black Sheep, Deuchars, Jennings and St Austell. The only unusual beer was Aspinall's (Gambrinus) Deliverance which had a nasty chemical edge and a good dose of acetone. Next the White Star. I remember drinking in here when the choice was Brew 10, Worthington and Bass, all on cask. The Bass was still there but the other three beers were from Bowland. We had tasters of all three and settled on Pale Crusader, which though poor, was the best of a bad lot. We looked in a couple of other pubs we knew from the past, but none appealed on beer grounds, though we did have excellent Okells Bitter in the pub behind Rigby's, which is being renovated. The bar in here couldn't have been more than eight feet long but had five staff working like Trojans behind it. Please note Tim Martin. The Wrekin (JDW) which we also had a couple of halves in (a very good Harviestoun Old Engine Oil and an utterly sweet and disgusting Young's Bitter) had two lack lustre staff for a bar three times as long.

We went back to the "do" for a couple then caught our train back to Manchester. We nipped into the Bull's Head which is an excellent pub. There two very decent pints of Rooster's YPA finished us off more than somewhat, though the £2.70 a pint price had a sobering effect! So Liverpool? Could do better, but of course we did miss some great pubs out. Next time the other drinking half of the city.

The pictures show Cain's Mild and Creamy Stout, the charming barmaid at the Ship and Mitre and my mate Graham outside the Main Bridewell, where he was once locked up! Click on the picture to see it in all its glory!

More Irish Stout

Yesterday's lunch break saw another new beer for me. Plain Stout from Messrs Maguire in Dublin was dry, slightly sour, with some good roast malt body, but it lacked a good shot of bittering hops to make it a classic stout. Still, decent enough though.

Oldham Beer Festival is now more or less ready. Yesterday I vented and tapped around 75 casks. There are some great beers there and the hall was 12 degrees when I left last night. Not bad. Given the limits I operate within, the beer will be as good as it can be. This isn't ideal cask conditioning and my cellar practices have to be modified, but the beer will be cool and in good condition, at least to start with. That's that's the truth of beer festivals. Beer on gravity inevitably declines quicker than cellar kept beer as its temperature cannot be controlled. High temperatures are the enemy of cask beer. Beer festivals with their conflicting demands of coolness required for beer and warmth for the customer are particularly affected by this simple fact. Frankly those that think beer is best served by gravity are deluded. Nonetheless get there and try some, though I won't be today. I'm off to Liverpool to an old mate's retiral "do".

The photo shows my fellow cellarman Bob behind the stillage with our technical kit on the right

Goblin Gobbled!

No this isn't another post by Tyson, but I note that Marston's have just bought Refresh UK, parent company of Hobgoblin brewer Wychwood, for a sum reckoned not to be unadjacent to £11million. Wychwood also brew Brakspear and Mann's beers.

Now I don't care for their beers one little bit, but plenty of others do. Following on from Marston's acquisition of both Jennings and Ringwood, it leaves the enlarged group with five breweries. Although Marston's have promised that brewing will continue at Wychwood which produces an impressive 50,000 barrels a year, can we really expect all five breweries to stay open? I'd say not and if I was sitting in Ringwood or even Wolverhampton, I'd be very afraid.

Is this good for British Brewing? The answer is an emphatic "No!"

Marston's operate breweries in Wolverhampton, Burton, Ringwood and Cockermouth before today's takeover.

Alive Alive Oh!

Last night was loading the van for the Oldham Beer Festival and unloading the van. Twice. We have a lot of kit and a lot of it is heavy and last night we had lamentably few volunteers. It is now all in the large goods lift at the venue and will have to be unloaded and made into a beer festival today. Something to look forward to. Yes for the festival, no for the unloading.

Afterwards we staggered into Oldham's Premier Free House, the Ashton Arms. On the bar was one of my favourites, Skipton's delicious Golden Pippin, but as I was only having one, I eschewed it, on recommendation, for a pint of College Green Brewing's Molly's Chocolate Stout. This Belfast brew was a smooth, sweetish stout, with a milk chocolate hit and some dark malt flavours. Served cool and with a rich head it did the trick. I headed off satisfied, but who knows how I'll feel after today's hard work? By the way I do know the beer is not named after the song, but the premises where it is brewed!

Oldham Beer Festival is at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Oldham this Friday and Saturday. Details from the link above.

Poker to save Pubs?

A new craze is sweeping pubs in Scotland and could soon be exported to England. According to my dear friends at Scotland on Sunday, since the relaxation of the laws on gambling in pubs, poker playing is helping to fill empty boozers midweek. Pub Poker League was introduced to the UK as an investment opportunity on BBC2's Dragon's Den. Aided by changes in the Gaming Act 2005, which allowed gambling in bars, it has become a big hit.

The rules are strict: no one is allowed to gamble more than £5 a game and no bar is allowed to have more than £100 total winnings available on a single night.

So while it might not be as attractive as cask ale in brothels, it may well come to a pub near you, so better sharpen up your knowledge of Texas Holdem and the like!

Read all about it here.