Beer for monks rather than punks

Was talking to a chap at Devon Earth brewery the other day, a newish small operation based in Paignton, and was rather tickled to hear that he brews beer for monks (not punks). Neither does he brew like a monk, sadly. Instead a barrel of his Devon Earth bitter gets sent to the Benedictine brothers at Buckfastleigh Abbey, which can be found on the southern edge of Dartmoor (I sometimes drop in when I’m passing and pick up bottles of Andech’s superb beers, with the Spezial being a particular favourite; they also sell Chimay). It’s also the home of Buckfast Tonic Wine, known to one and all with a raging thirst and an address that approximates to ‘no fixed abode’ as Buckie. What do the monks prefer as their daily tipple I wonder and is there anywhere else in the UK where a cloistered community gets beer made for them — or are they the only ones (I mean the monks not the Another Girl, Another Planet band)?

The best beer in the world for 15 minutes is…

Here’s an experiment: on the way back to Somerset from a tasting (ooh look there’s Newbury dashing past), I decide I want a drink with my packet of crisps. Arkells 3B, Strongbow, Carlsberg or Guinness? What a choice, and all in cans. I plump for the latter, I haven’t drunk it out of a can for years and recently have been enjoying the odd pint at various rugby clubs as I follow my lad around the schools and clubs of the west country (oh look it’s Wednesday it must be Glastonbury or is it Tavistock?). So there’s a can of Guinness to the right of me, some of it spilt (Hungerford rushes by, an enticing looking Fuller’s pub by the station), but most of it in a plastic glass — such connoisseurship.

Why am I doing this? I think it’s because I spend my time being precious about my beer — had a swift half of Schönramer’s Roggen bier at the White Horse on the way back to Paddington and very good it was; I like their beers a lot, I remember being introduced to their brewmaster Eric Toft at the WH a few years back. Maybe one can be too precious and forget that the majority of beers that people drink are the sort of beers that I dismiss. Budweiser — I like rice with curry not in beer. John Smith – shaving foam. And so on. But, strangely enough, Guinness is still regarded with fondness.

So how does it taste? It’s cold, it’s got some body to it, some roast burnt notes, no creaminess, singed chocolate/overused coffee beans, fast finish, not unpleasant but — and here is a big but — given that I have spent the lunchtime evaluating beers like Brooklyn Chocolate Stout, Wms Bros’ 80/-, Aventinus, Jaipur and Glazen Toren’s magnificent gusher of a Saison, d’Erpe Mere, it has a lot to live up to.On the other hand it’s suiting my mood of the moment and perfectly acceptable. So for the moment it is the best beer in the world (though I might have a cider at the Plough before getting the bus home when I get into Taunton).

The evidence that beer is good for you often comes from the unlikeliest sources

Here we go, beer is good for you: ‘Beer, on the other hand, is a useful laxative for those prone to constipation. It increases the amount of fluid reaching the bowl, while its sugar content prevents water from being absorbed into the colon. Guinness (or stout) has a reputation for promoting milk production in nursing mothers and, until 30 years ago, was routinely prescribed for hospital patients convalescing from an operation.’ This is taken from the health page in a magazine called The Lady, which seems to be like a posh Saga mag (I found it in the loo). No alcohol panic or fear here, not even anything on drinking within your limits and it is even written by a doctor, James Le Fanu. Does Alcohol Concern or the Daily Mail know about this?

Another post about the itch that is beer styles

At the Conwy Feast beer tent on Saturday afternoon, a glass of Great Orme’s delectable Welsh Black, a 4% dark ale that one immediately assumes is a mild. A chat with the brewery’s founder Jonathan Edwards turns assumptions on its head though. A mild I presume, I say in the manner of Stanley greeting Livingstone, no comes the reply, a halfway house between a mild and a dark ale. CAMRA, naturally, accord it the status of a mild when it hands out the awards. We discuss the whole vagaries of the beer style question and eventually decide that it’s a good beer whatever pigeon hole one wants to put it in. It reminds me of Green Jack’s Jack the Ripper, which won Champion Winter Beer a couple of years ago, after triumphing in the barley wine sector, even though the brewery has described it as a tripel — so is a tripel a Belgian barley wine? It wasn’t the last time I looked. I always reckon that Malheur 12 has more in common with Anglo-American barley wines. The question to be asked is — is the whole issue of beer styles just there for the consumer or does it remain a valid way of dividing up the family of beer? I must confess I don’t have the answer, but it’s one of those things that bugs away at me whenever I write about a style.

Pub time

If you’re down in North Devon this weekend then a visit to the Hunters Inn might be a pleasant chore, you can see my review of it in today’s Daily Telegraph. The picture was taken during its recent beer festival where amongst its offerings, including Rudgate Mild, I was surprised and pleased to see Punk IPA. Now I’m off to the Conwy Feast, where there’s a beer tent featuring the likes of Great Orme Brewery and Purple Moose (whose beers always seem to impress).

Do you want to be in my (beer) gang?

Queues form round the corner for a chance to take home cases of Mad Elf Ale from Tröegs in Pennsylvania every year the beer is released; Meantime bottle special brews that seem to be available solely for CAMRA beer club members (unless you go to the brewery); I along with others received a bottle of an Imperial Fraoch (minty, peppery, spearmint, whiskery, spirited and spicy if you must know) that Joe Public can’t buy; on e-bay a bottle of Zephyr is up for $399 — and now you can pay £230 for the chance to belong to a club, or as has been written here, wear the t-shirt. I am talking about the sly sense of exclusiveness that is seeping through the world of craft beer. Do you want to be in my gang? Is it a good thing, has beer lost its democratic edge? Was its democratic edge just another manifestation of mindless rabble-rousing, the guy in the corner, drunk on god knows what, taking potshots at easy targets — drink Bud, Blue Ribbon, Stella, whatever? Is this what the craft brewing revolution has come to, a freemasonry of various lodges looking uneasily at each other, or will love of good beer overcome any drift towards tribalism? The love of elitism. And what of the wider world? Will commentators in the media (whatever branch) be overwhelmed by this sense of singularity in a world which is usually represented in their pages or on the screen by closing pubs, ‘oh look women drink beer’ featurettes, the very odd shrug on the rising star of cask beer and predictable points scored on the horrendous fashion sense of CAMRA members. As beer becomes more exclusive, but more knowing, more distanced from its ur-source of a refreshing but uncomplicated drink, then it becomes more valuable, changes its character, at least in the minds of many of us — however, as this drive to exclusivity continues, I wonder if it might hinder its growth and its clubbiness put off people who like a beer but don’t consider it their life and deliver them into the arms of whatever drink offers them a alternative and less threatening sense of belonging (maybe beers that are the equivalent of those ads for ‘exclusive’ figurines of Native American warriors looking narky or kittens wearing high heels). A two-tier system of beer appreciation waits perhaps?

Gooner murder an ale

I love this: yesterday in the DT, Andrei Arshavin is quoted as saying: ‘I Heard about ales. Ales! A special drink like beer but without gas!’ As an Arsenal fan, I love the fact that the dressing room conversation might be a bit like the chit-chat before a judging for the IBC Awards or similar. Rossicky to Walcott, ‘ Bohemian Pilsners are the best’, Walcott: ‘have you tried London Pride?’ Van Persie: ‘Personally I prefer a Christoffel Blonde’. The ghost of Tony Adams: ‘ anyone fancy an Evian?’