Great radio yesterday on the Food Programme about US beer’s influence on Brit brewing (hear it here). Lots of mentions of hops and barrel ageing (plus gruit, which I found particularly satisfying having recently sat down and broke bread and drank beer with Anika at Gruut), great breweries and the pebble-in-mouth tone of the best beer writer about. I liked the fact that the programme explained things, especially with CBC’s solera system (incidentally the first US brewpub I visited back in 1996). Yet British brewing, I have often felt when we talk about the American influence, cannot afford to sit back and pat itself on the back — hops and more hops yes, but when you go to the US there is more to their beers than just hops and barrel ageing. When I went round Vermont a couple of years ago (read here) I had some of the best Alt I had tasted outside Dusseldorf; a Doppelbock made with yeast brought back from Andechs; a beer that had been aged in wine barrels and a Svetly Lezak that I could have sworn came from a small country brewery in Bohemia rather than a small place called Bristol. Hops are all well and good and I bow to no man in my love of a hoppy beer, but where are the lagers, the Alt, the Kolsch, the tripels, the Schwarz, the Gose, the lambic? Before we start putting the laurels on the head of British beer let’s remember that the US guys have set up bases on Mars while we seem to be still on the Moon (even though we once had pretensions for Mars and still might have in the future).
Oh and before getting too carried away about this past weekend, don’t forget that cider and Alice Temperley got fabulous coverage in the Times on Saturday but on the other hand it is behind a paywall (as is some of my work so I’m not making a big thing out of it).
Good radio, indeed, and well worth iPlayering. In fact, the Food Programme has given beer a lot of good and well researched coverage in recent years.
ReplyDeletethe Alt, the Kolsch, the tripels, the Schwarz, the Gose, the lambic
DeleteNot making any of those things - and leaving them to people who have been doing them for as long as we've been making bitter - is one of the great strengths of the British brewing scene.
(Not a reply to Darren, but I couldn't see any other way to post a comment.)
Phil, I'd find an argument that British brewers should stick to British beer styles easier to support if they actively promoted other British beer styles than bitter and golden ales: porter/stout might appear occasionally, but what about more Burton ales, more dark milds, more brown ales and milk stouts, more sour aged stock ales, more honey beers, more dinner ales and low-gravity table beers? What about reviving herb-flavoured ales, cherry ales, spruce ales, all of which were on sale in London in the 18th century?
DeletePhil — Brewing is a global art form, I’m all for beers that evoke a sense of time and place but I also like brewers who like a challenge and see if they can brew something different.
ReplyDeleteMartyn — totally agree.
There is a brewery in Cardiff making some great German style beers, Helles Lager and Alt Beer. Also an interesting take on Baltic beer, well worth checking them out if you are ever in town.
ReplyDeletepresume that is Zero Degrees, I really like the Bristol one, which is nearest to me
DeleteA troubling number of new brewers seem to think tht the big less on to take from the USA is that keg is king. I went ot a festival of these ales recently and they were all served so cold that you couldn't taste them. When I complained, the landlord said that his regulars liked 'em like that, but if I left them long enough, they'd warm up. Yea, and it'd also go flat...
ReplyDeleteIt was a shame as the real ales in his pub were in really good nick too.
anon — there is some great craft keg out there but I worry abotu some of the smaller guys without the investment spoiling the whole thing — good points made though — and I say this having devlured some Bath Dark Side keg tonight which was scumptious.
ReplyDelete