The Colour of Murky

This beer is murky I said to the barman
It's meant to be like that he replied
I ain't drinking that muck I insisted
As the craft beer fad crumbled and died.

— Cooking Lager (@CarpeZytha) November 20, 2017

I've always had my worries about murky beer and even quite hazy beer, though slightly hazy beer doesn't bother me that much.  What has though always concerned me, is that in the case of cask conditioned beer, it, pun intended, muddies the waters. Not so long ago, in the days of certainty, you knew where you stood. If a hand pulled pint had more than a slight haze, back to the bar it went. There was never much by way of argument. We all knew the rules and beer should be clear.  Any haze had your radar twitching and murk would never be tolerated.  Not so much now.

It kind of started for me in 2001 in Portland Oregon at Rock Bottom Brewery where to my horror the cask beer was cloudy and it was meant to be. My good friend Jaime Jurado, now Director of Brewing Operations at ‎Abita Brewing Co. and then Director of Brewing for the company that owned Bridgeport in Portland explained to me that "opalescence" was rapidly being considered a desirable feature in cask beer within the US. In a subsequent private tour of Portland Brewing Co and a tasting, this was confirmed. Deliberate murk has a long history.

Fortunately this tendency lay dormant - more or less for years and when I served beer at the Chicago Real Ale Festival in 2007, I believe what beer that was murky was more by poor handling than deliberate intent.  Arguments about taste abound - see Ed's blog here - and empirical evidence is hard to find - but where there is an absence of "yeast bite" I can live with it - pointless though it is - but my concern about "It's meant to be like that" being used an excuse certainly haven't gone away.  I rather doubt if I'd be given an exchange in many places and frankly, with the norm having been altered and fudged, I could hardly expect it to be.  A quick call to the brewer might well be an anwer, but I'm uncertain if that is the best way round it.

At the recent Rochdale Beer Festival we had about four beers where there was no indication on the cask that the beer should be hazy. So we left them, tasted them when they didn't clear and having found no obvious faults, put it on sale with a warning.

If you can't beat them, join them I suppose, but it doesn't leave me with a comfortable feeling.

Despite Cooking Lager's amusing ditty, I doubt if craft beer will crumble and die due to murkiness. 

London brewers still seem to lead the way in deliberate murkiness. London Murk indeed, though I reckon the influx of American brewers into the UK a few years ago and American influences on brewing here in the aUK had a hand in it, both directly and indirectly.

Even More Murky News

I read in Jeff Bell's blog that Kernel are ceasing to be part of the Bermonsey Beer Mile, as they cannot cope with the hordes that descend on them, though they are continuing to sell their bottles directly from the brewery.  Not surprising as the whole Bermonsey Beer Mile thing has got out of hand.  When we used to go - and it is convenient for us so we went quite often at the beginning - but latterly we missed out Kernel as it was always packed and anyway, their expensive murky bottles and draft don't hugely appeal to me, or indeed, E.  Nor it seems to some of Jeff's commenters, one of whom describes their customers as "imbeciles".

Nowadays we stick to Southwark Brewing at one end and Fourpure at the other. It makes more sense just to enjoy the walk between the two and neither rip you off on price, or sell you beer that looks like electric soup. 

Kernel are seeking another solution for on sales.  Not surprising really as it must be quite lucrative for them and hard cash is always difficult to replace.   Ironically this comes as the Piccadilly Beer Mile in Manchester officially becomes a thing.

More Murky

I was out in Manchester on Saturday night. Unusual for me.  An American mate of mine was in town with his girlfriend, so I made my way across town to the Knott Bar, a place I know, but due to its distance from my bus route, not one I go to very often.

After a few pints, I changed my drink to Magic Rock Rapture. I like their beers but was surprised to find it opaque and muddy, almost like the last pint out of a cask.  A barman who hadn't served me noticed me examining it and said "Is that the Magic Rock?"  I replied in the affirmative. "Yes" he said, "they've stopped fining their beers and we are getting complaints. I'll change it if you like." I liked, adding that it just didn't taste right at all.  Now I don't know whether this change to no longer fining beers is true or not, but I have looked after Magic Rock beers before and they always dropped bright. Has this changed really happened or did I just get a bad pint?  Back to the same old problem. The certainty is being swept away. You just don't know any more. Either way, this murky thing has raised its head yet again.  The only saving grace was the barman handling the situation with skill and changing my pint happily.

That is by no means certain if we see more and more unfined beer served without a warning.

My Yankee chum also ordered a bottle of Rochefort 10.  It was my round and set me back £7!

Back to a Grim and Unwelcome Reality

Readers will probably know I don't like murky beer and since Rob Pickering first coined the term, I've become an avid fan of the descriptor "London Murky", though it equally applies to Manchester - or for that matter, Anywhere Murky.

On my return to London from our Spanish holiday, we were both knackered. Handy for our London flat is our local JDW, the Goodman Fields, so we headed along for a quick meal. Our skinny steaks were delicious - surprisingly so perhaps - and the place was rammed. I remember when it opened and for some years after, it used to be empty, so Timbo saw its potential, now clearly fulfilled. I ordered a pint of By the Horns Stiff Upper Lip, though it isn't a beer I'm at all familiar with. Bloody thing was cloudy.  Now here's the problem. How do I know if it is meant to be cloudy, or if it on the other hand, has been slung together by some numpty who doesn't now how to brew beer. Or, possibly, put on too early by a dopey cellarman before it has dropped bright. I don't and can't know of course is the answer.  Now you may say "What does that matter if it tastes all right?" Well it won't taste all right to me and it is me that is buying it.  It will likely taste of yeast and protein trub, because that's what causes it.  Now of course it is a matter of personal taste whether you like this kind of  flavour, but I don't. I like clear, clean, precise flavours in my beer. To my mind if brewers wish to sell the unsuspecting public beer, they should at least have the decency to warn us and hence the pubs that sell it, that it might be cloudy (hazy in murkyspeak). Then at least you have a choice.

When this first became a "thing" like many I'm sure, I thought to myself, "It won't last", but in fact it has. It has actually become more common, widened and deepened.   It is particularly common in London and not only there. It is slowly undermining public confidence in cask beer.

It is also very, very depressing.

I did get in touch with the brewery who said "It is meant to be fined".   They also said something else but that's for another post.

Does This Look Nice?

Before I go further, I will declare an interest. I like Camden Town Brewery.  I would like them even more if they'd continued to brew excellent cask beers such as Inner City Green, but there you are. You can't have everything.  But I still like them a lot.  I drink their beers in London when I see them.

Yesterday they announced a new beer on Twitter and proudly showed a photo of it.  Given a couple of less than complimentary comments from me and @Robsterowski, they said that it was the photo looked bad, not the beer and replaced it with a better photo.  They seemed further surprised by another couple of tweets saying, again, that the beer still didn't look good. Or in fact, that it looked awful.  They then went off for a beer, no doubt shaking their heads with disbelief at such heretics.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of cloudy, soupy, beer as many of my readers will no doubt know*.  A bit of haze is fine and no, I don't include hefe weizen in this, the clue being in the name. Now some will just say "Fuck off Tandleman, you have form here".  And I do.  It's a fair cop Guv. But I still reckon this colloidal beer doesn't look in the least appealing, no matter how it subsequently tasted.**

If you want a bit of haziness, fine, but frankly, I don't even understand how they get finished (fully fermented and conditioned) beer this cloudy. Or more importantly, why you'd want to.

The beer is a Swedish Pale Ale called God Help Save the Elk. 

* Curmudgeon also talks about soupy beer here.

** I fully accept that your mileage may of course vary.