What is it that I like and love about beer?

Oh, hello old friend

I often ask myself in the manner of an absent-minded professor what is it that I like and love about beer? Given that the question is delivered with the vagueness and insouciance of this absent-minded professor I don’t bother with an answer. However, I’ve just asked myself the question again and the inner voice is more questioning this time, urgent and curious, interrogative and even insistent, the absent-minded professor replaced by someone better attuned to a job of asking questions and wanting answers, an Oxbridge examiner perhaps? 

So the first thing I have to do in order to answer this question is to pour myself a beer, which today is Jaipur, cans of which have been a major sustenance during the past few weeks. I can sense an anticipation in holding the can, an anticipation that is chatting like a canary about the beer to me before I have even pulled the ring-tab. 

The sound of the ring-tab being pulled is next, a psst, the slightest resemble to the sound of calico being torn and if I put my nose close enough to the opened can I can identify the aromatics of ripe apricot skin, ripe mango and a suggestion of pineapple. It is not sweet though, slightly musky, pungent and adult. 

So why does that appeal to me? Perhaps it’s a childhood memory of tinned fruit, whether a single variety such as mandarins or fruit cocktail, both of which I used to insist for pudding instead of the much-disliked rice pudding and anything involving semolina (the latter was common at my primary school, usually served with a skin on top, which used to make me feel sick and I once told my teacher that the doctor had said I could be excused semolina, as well as mashed potato, custard and beetroot). 

As I pour the beer, listening to the light fizz as it bunches in the glass, its snow-white collar of foam pushing upwards, I can sense a slight salivation in my mouth, that anticipation once more, but also perhaps there is a slight expectancy of the beer’s influence on the mood, expectancy of a lift in the mood, which is what a 5.9% beer will probably do. After all, the alcohol in the beer is a drug and drugs enhance our moods. So would I have this anticipation if I was opening a can of Special Brew, which is even stronger? Here, I have to return perhaps about 30 years to the only occasion I drunk Special Brew — all I can remember is a sweet gloopiness (nothing to do with Gwyneth btw) and feeling a bit lost after a couple of large cans. I think it might have been an experiment at the time, which I didn’t repeat.

The expectation of the beer possibly has links to the places where I drink beer, the pubs and the bars, where the prospect of an evening with friends, sociability (remember that?), stories being told, jokes being exchanged (usually in the guise of stories rather than the here’s another one, you’ll like this kind of joke party), people and events remembered, sharpens the thirst. I can still recall the cold crisp edge of the first beer of the night at dimly remembered social gatherings from years ago when the thought of analysing a beer would have provoked a rather bemused look from myself — and as a downside, the bloated belly feeling at the end of the night, six or seven pints in, when your mate would bring back a couple more pints to finish before chucking out time and all I would want to do is go home and go to bed (and especially not go for a curry). 

I still have that expectation whenever I have my first beer in a pub, especially if it’s a favourite or an imperial stout/porter/sahti from a brewery I am fond of. There’s that thrill of discovery as well as the comfort of welcoming back an old friend who you haven’t seen for a long time. So going back to the Jaipur I have poured what do I feel about it now that I am ready to drink it. There’s that gleaming golden familiarity of the beer in the glass, the crispness and lush fruitiness, the bitterness and that feeling of satisfaction that usually elicits an aah, as if your soul was sitting back in a comfortable armchair. There’s a completion about the beer from the nose to the finish, but I’m still trying to understand what it is that draws me to beer in a way that wine, cider and various spirits don’t. As well as the flavour and the mood enhancement (two or three cans later, the world looks a brighter place even though grey clouds slumber like resting sheep over Exeter), there is the cultural association, the pub, the brewery, the people who drink it, the origin story of the beer, the tale told of Michael Jackson easing out a reticent Martin Dickie and Stefano Cossi’s thoughts on the beer when they first brewed it and even the colour of the can, which somehow reminds me of the orange football strip that Cruyff played in.

Having thought this far, I don’t think I can really answer the question I posed at the start — yes, culture, taste and mood enhancement are important, but there is something more that underlines my association with beer. Something metaphysical perhaps, something mystical, something beyond my reasoning, but I am going to keep asking the question and see what answers I come up with.      

Thornbridge’s future in 2006

I never get a press pack through the post anymore, always emails, which I rarely keep, unless I think there is something of value for future work. It didn’t used to be like that — when I started writing about beer towards the end of 1996 (What’s Brewing, a feature on Moor Beer, which of course was under a different owner and based on a farm then), I kept the majority of the press packs that came my way, including ones from brewers no longer in the game (King & Barnes) as well as ones that have changed and kept up with what has been happening in beer. 

Moving stuff around yesterday I came up on a press pack from Thornbridge around about 2006, 18 months or so after they’d started in 2004. I had visited the place sometime in 2005 and wrote something about the Hall (see below), which is where they were then brewing (with a Scottish and an Italian brewer), in my book The Big Book of Beer (bloody awful title). Given their current status (IMO) as the godfathers of the modern Brit beer scene, I find it interesting to see the direction that they seemed to be going in. Yes, there is Jaipur and St Petersburg, Wild Swan and Lord Maples, but then there is the future…which seemed to be beers made with dandelion, strawberry or herbs, all I seem to recall being grown on the estate. I wasn’t that excited to be honest, having given my heart and soul to Jaipur. These beers didn’t seem to happen and Thornbridge took the path that still excites me today, but if there’s one point I want to make here is that whenever one tries to predict the future of beer, it’s never that easy, in fact we could. be talking about various futures rather than just one. 

and here’s the extract from the book

Thornbridge Brewery, Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire
A trip to Thornbridge Brewery, based at Thornbridge Hall in the village of Ashford in the Water, is as much a visit to the land of Homes & Gardens, as it is to see and taste the fruits of John Barleycorn. The Hall boasts sweeping staircases, high-ceilinged rooms, gorgeous views over ornate gardens and windows by William Morris and Edward Byrne-Jones. It also houses a new 10-barrel brewery which has been set up by local businessman Jim Harrison (who owns the house with wife and entrepreneur Emma), along with Dave Wickett, the owner of the Fat Cat pub and its adjoining Kelham Island Brewery in Sheffield. Initially used to brew Kelham Island ales to cope with increased orders after Pale Rider’s championship title at Olympia 2004, the brewery is now producing Thornbridge’s own brews including Craven Silk, an aromatic, rich and fruity session bitter whose palate is enlivened by the addition of elderflower into the mix. The elderflower is part of Jim’s brewing plans as he hopes to use other herbs, flowers and fruits from the estate to create Thornbridge’s special beers. 

My Milk Sour Chocolate Tripe Tripel

Here’s a nice pic of some real hops being sorted

Are home-brewers the real craft brewers? Untrammelled by the need to sell their beers or place them in front of the drinking public, who will then decide whether to buy or not, home brewers can make what they like without fear or favour; their beers also remain close to the original maker, so there is no concern about parties further down the line of distribution making a hash of serving them. True, if they enter competitions, then the beers are judged by their peers, but there is no concern for trends, financial constraints, indifferent bar staff and the fickle nature of beer geekdom. Is this the nature of true craft, of authenticity even, this isolation, this solo path, that the home-brewer, like a wandering monk sworn to discard all earthly pleasures, takes? 

If it is so, then why does a home-brewer then decide to become a commercial brewer, to be sewn into the fabric of the market and drinkers’ trends that some could think are a stifling clamp on creativity (‘what do you mean, my Milk Sour Chocolate Tripe Tripel wasn’t popular? The dog and my mum liked it. Ok, here’s my Sunny Delight, I mean NE IPA. Sigh.’)? What would have happened if Martin Dickie had remained a home brewer after his tenure at Thornbridge or Evin O'Riordain had stayed in the world of cheese and solely shared his beers with his confederates in the London Amateur Brewers? I suppose someone else might have come along, but Martin and Evin entered the market and this someone, who never came along, remained the unknown home brewer who stayed at home, his or her name unsung and invisible on a par with the composers and poets that we never ever heard of because they also remained silent at home.  

Are those who keep journals and diaries, untouched by the whims of editors and the dictates of space, the real authentic writers? Those who make music in their bedrooms, bake their own bread, or even train online to be front room lawyers, the real practitioners of their craft? What is authentic? What is craft? What is it that motivates the home-brewer, the home-baker, the home-writer and the home-lawyer to make the transition from this meditative silence of home to the noise and disruption of the market?

Weekend (no not the Godard film)

Doing my talk on beer and travel, no cabbages were thrown

Weekender, Peakender, disturbing the fusty force that normally descends on a weekend, trains and buses and footslogging brings me in at Thornbridge Hall, come Friday evening. Tents beneath trees, an amiable army bivouacked, the aromatics of Thai, pizza and Mexican food emerging from a trio of food carts, keg taps and pump handles letting loose a torrent of beers: let’s see now, Tilquin gueuze is the perfect late morning beer, to see what it has to say to you; Tzara is the lunchtime beer, a sparkling, light, sunlit riff on a Kolsch, while as the day progresses it’s good to genuflect with Del Borgo’s Genziana; in the meantime tip a nod to the hop bursting happiness of St Erik’s IPA, clasp a glass of the wonderfully assertive Tart and perhaps end the day with a Jaipur X (or two). There were lots more beers of course but I wasn’t making notes. This is more than a festival with beer; it was about people, it was about families enjoying themselves (lots of kids running about, which was great); it is about friends getting together and traversing their lives over some great beers (some good friends of mine were there while new ones were made); it’s also about a celebration of a brewery that I have been visiting and kept in touch with since I organised a British Guild of Beer Writers trip there in 2005 (my note book had the sentence ‘they’ve got an Italian brewer’, which seemed so outrageous then; there was also a brewer from Scotland there, wonder what happened to him?). As the format of the beer festival changes, redefines itself, becomes more inclusive, becomes more open, Peakender is another direction for the beer festival to go. There was music, physical activities, suggestions of walks in the surrounding countryside, some football training for kids, talks (one of which I gave), films and a general sense of happiness and joy. I’ll be back next year (note to self: take an air-bed for the tent rather than a bone-bruising carrier mat). 

Stately brews

This is part of the Boak & Bailey inspired Go Longer idea and was written in 2006

Most shoots offer a variety of alcoholic refreshment — from the finest claret down to a heart-warming slug of port. However, if you’re planning on potting a few high pheasants at the Earl of Halifax’s Garrowby estate, you can expect something rather different — and rather special. What marks out Garrowby is its continuation of a noble tradition that almost died out in the 19^th century: country house brewing. ‘Bugthorpe Brew’ is made just once a year and only 120 gallons of it are brewed. So only the very lucky and selective few — estate workers and lucky shooting parties — ever taste this beer. Word has it that the Earl of Halifax enjoys a drop, but is sensibly cautious of its powers. It’s staggeringly strong — at 6% it’s nigh on twice the strength of your average bitter. 

Once upon a time, when all big houses had proper staff (rather than pushy National Trust matrons badgering you to join), brewing was a natural part of estate life – no different from baking bread and churning butter. Beer was considered so crucial to the well-being of all, that in the golden age of country house building in the 18^th century, owners thought it crucial important to get the brew-house up and running as soon as possible. Some of these brew-houses were pretty fancy too. The brew-house of Kimbolton Castle, built in 1764, was designed to blend in with the house’s Vanbrugh façade.

The 18^th century saw ale become a fashionable tipple at the tables of the well-heeled as French wine was hit by duty and the Portuguese alternative was deemed a bit too rough for refined palates. It was the height of fashion to have your own home-brewed ale, served at table in super-model thin glasses (often beautifully engraved with delicate designs incorporating hops and grains of barley). A footman would hover about the table, with a tray, waiting to replenish your glass. This was the age of ‘beer is best’ with Hogarth’s prints showing the evils of gin versus the health-giving joys of beer.

Below stairs, beer was also King. The word buttery, you might be surprised to learn, has nothing whatsoever to do with butter, and everything to do with beer — it was the place where butts of ale used to be kept. Butler has the same origin – he was the good chap who looked after the beer. Unsurprisingly, butlers developed a reputation for being notorious soaks.

So why was beer so vital to the old estates? The importance and ubiquity of John Barleycorn has its origins in the days before proper sanitation (and mains water). Tea and coffee were still rare so everyone — high and low — drank beer. Because beer is boiled when brewed, it was inordinately safer to drink than water, which might have passed over the odd plague-ridden corpse or bloated sheep upstream. Low gravity (weaker) ales were drunk like water. ‘Small beer’, weakest of all, was supposedly reserved for children and women. This really was of the ‘weak as dishwater’ variety, being the output of the third brew from the same amount of malted barley (imagine a teabag being squeezed out for the third time). There was barely any alcohol left but at least it was clean and free of bacteria and there was no chance of the chambermaids passing out on the beds.

Strong beer, however, was reserved as a favourite tipple for the aristocracy and their royal visitors. And they did like their strong brews. One early writer described a fierce brew rather eloquently as ‘the sort that would make a cat speak’. Good Queen Bess’ favourite tipple was apparently a strong beer, of which she was able to down several noggins before a meeting with her ministers. Before Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, a three-day visit to Shugborough House saw her party polish off 450 gallons of strong beer. The Halifax estate has records of one beery celebration at the family’s old home of Hickleton getting totally out of hand, thanks to a super-strong ale brewed for the 21^st birthday of Lord Irwin. ‘There were bodies laid all over the place,’ wrote the brewer Clarence Hellewell.

However, by the time the 19^th century was halfway through, the practice of big house brewing was dying out as the likes of Whitbread and Bass went national and railways delivered their products around the country.  Attitudes towards alcohol also changed and it was considered bad practice to offer beer to staff as part of their wages.

Fortunately, the last few years have seen a revival of the brewing fortunes of the country house. David Lord, who manages the Halifax estates, explains that beer has been a continuing thread through the history of the family. ‘Beer used to be brewed on a more regular basis at Hickleton,’ he tells me, ‘but the family moved from there in the 1930s. However, the brew-house was retained and used until 1989 when that was sold. The brewing equipment was then brought here to Garrowby.’

‘Bugthorpe’ continues firmly in the old tradition of estate brews.  You won’t be able to get your hands round a pint in the local. ‘The beer is usually served to shooting parties and guests at the house,’ adds Lord.  I downheartedly put my copy of the Good Beer Guide back in my pocket. ‘The retired head forester was the initial head brewer, but he was replaced by a couple of chaps from the estate with help from the Samuel Smith brewery. It is put into cask and quite a talking point for those who try it. The old copper vessels from Hickleton are still in use.’

Other aristocratic ales, however, are less picky about their drinking public.  Some houses which brew their own beer, sell them on the premises; some even deign to flog them to the local pub.  Take the beautiful Cotswold manor house, Stanway, for example. Brewing had ceased in 1913, but local brewer Alex Pennycook persuaded owner Lord Neidpath to resurrect the old brewery. ‘I had been made redundant from a brewery,’ says Pennycook, ‘and I had said I’d never brew again. But an old friend told me about the dormant brew-house and I approached Lord Neidpath about it.’  Pennycook now runs Stanway Brewery from the old brew-house, an historic building built in 1700 and fuelled by log-fires. Lord Neidpath has been so delighted with the success of beers such as Stanney Bitter and Lords-a-Leaping that he has caught the historical bug and is now working on resuscitating the old mill.

Another commercial brewing concern bringing back the old ways can be found at Thornbridge Hall in the Derbyshire village of Ashford in the Water. The Hall is pure House & Garden — all sweeping staircases, high-ceilinged rooms and drop-dead gorgeous views over ornate gardens through windows by William Morris and Edward Byrne-Jones. If you can tear yourself away however, make a beeline for the old stonemason’s. Here the Hall’s owners, Jim and Emma Harrison, have set up a small brewery whose excellent beers are going out to local pubs and winning barrel-loads of awards.

It’s a very modern set-up – all glistening copper and spotless steel. But Thornbridge is harking back to the past with its Imperial Russian Stout, a strong and potent dark stout. Simon Webster, who runs the brewery, says: ‘we are looking back to the sort of beer that might have been drunk in the house’s early days.’ This style of beer was imported regularly to the Baltic, with Catherine the Great reputedly a big fan. ‘It has a connection with onetime owner John Morewood who made his fortune in the 1790s selling linen to Russia,’ continues Webster. Thornbridge also makes use of its extensive gardens for additions to the beers. ‘We use the land for sourcing our raw materials,’ says Webster, ‘with elderflowers from the garden for one of our beers for instance.’

Further north, over the border, Traquair House was one of the forerunners in this modern rebirth of country house brewing. History is at a premium here. The house dates back to the 1100s and Queen Mary of Scots reputedly drank the homebrewed ale during a visit in 1566. Bonnie Prince Charlie also visited and since then the house’s main gates have been clammed shut. Legend has it that they will only be opened in the event of a Stuart on the throne. Catherine Maxwell Stuart (a descendant no less) is the current lady of the house, but it was her father, Laird Peter Maxwell Stuart, back in 1963 who came across what he thought was a pile of old junk.  He looked closer and found it was actually old brewing equipment.

‘Brewing had stopped here in the early 1800s,’ says Maxwell Stuart, ‘because the introduction of duty made it quite unviable to brew. Commercial brewers were also becoming more active. At the time beer from Traquair supplied the estate and it was given to workers as part of their wages. It was a remarkable find, just lying there and forgotten about.’ Her father started brewing rich and dark Scottish-style beers as no recipes from the past survived. Bottles of these beers are now become much sought after by connoisseurs, especially in the US. He died in 1990, but his daughter has continued to manage the house and brewery. Both are a major must-see in this part of the world — don’t forget to try the beers, one of which, not surprisingly, given the allegiances of the family, is called Jacobite Ale.

To get an idea of what brewing was like in the old days you could do worse than visit Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire. This was once the ancestral home of the Lichfields (who still have a sizeable complement of rooms), but it is now leased to the county council by the National Trust. Historical records from 1827 point to a gallon of beer being allowed to each male member of staff per day, while women had to contend with just half a gallon. Now, with the help of local microbrewery Titanic, Shugborough’s airy and cool brew-house is frequently filled with the aromas of malt and hops.  

‘What we try and do here is show exactly how it happened in the past,’ says general manager Richard Kemp. ‘We mill our own flour, do the laundry the old-fashioned way, look after a rare breed of cows who provide milk for cheese and so on. The brew-house is vital to an understanding of how people used to live in a country house.’ At the moment, personnel from Titanic come in and brew a selection of beers, but Kemp has time-travelling plans. ‘We want to brew once a week, producing beers based on recipes from the 1870s, brewed by someone in the costume of the time. We would do small beers that children could try and other brews that could be sold in the café and used for authentic food from the time. We are a living history attraction and something like this and our dairy are multi-sensory, you can smell it, taste and touch it. I see the brewery as more than something just working for profit just as I see a  stately home as a place which is more than just a house.’

So there you have it. Stuck with a pile and looking to raise funds for keeping the gazebo in good shape?  It’s very tempting.  No hordes of day-trippers fondling your ancient drapes; no National Trust tyrants telling you how to trim your topiary.  What better way to pay for new corbels than by setting up a brewery. You never know what’s lying around. Just make sure that what happened at Chatsworth doesn’t happen to you. When the beer was brewed it was piped to grand carved casks in the cellar. However, some enterprising under-gardeners found the pipe, drilled a hole and stuck a plug in it so they could fill their buckets on brewing day. Oh, and by the way, there’s a brewery there now as well…

Rescuing collaboration from its dark history

Negative connotations contain to cling to the word collaboration. In my mind it’s Marshal Pétain, geriatric, stiff, a mask of authority beneath his French army kepi, a symbol of collaborationism with the Nazis. Or it’s the bluff, vulgar features of Vidkun Quisling, the quisling of quislings. And yet the idea of collaboration is so damned magnificent, likeminded people working together, to create music, art, buildings and of course beer. If there’s any one movement of collaboration that’s rescued the word in the last decade in my mind it’s the collaboration that’s existed between brewers. Some might see collaboration as a commercial gimmick (brewers sell beer and the business of beer is selling beer), something irritating between flashy hop-driven big cheeses, the craft beer world looking in the mirror, preening itself like Bowie in his Thin White Duke period and liking what they see. On the other hand, it’s the sign of an alliance (ooh a positive word, an ally) between likeminded (ok occasional big cheeses) souls who are interested in seeing what happens when they brew with someone else. Preamble over, I move onto the collaboration in hand, a bottle of Epic Thornbridge Stout, brewed between the guys at Thornbridge and the Kiwis at Epic (where Thornbridge’s Kelly Ryan went — wouldn’t it be funny if brewing had a final day transfer deadline…). I picked this up at GBBF as I rushed off to get a train, cursing as ever my inclination to never have enough time. And even though I wanted to keep the beer for much longer I gave into temptation and boy was I glad that I bit that apple. In the glass it is as dark as the shade on one of these dismal days we have had this summer. Saturnine even though the espresso tan-coloured head adds a sense of jauntiness to the beer in the glass. The nose was creamy, condensed milkiness, mocha-like and even oily. A swig and the texture was velvety, juxtaposed with a brisk and bitter feel; on the palate, mocha, roast coffee beans, an earthiness and woodiness that reminded me of the effect I used to get from burgundies, slightly farmyard-like even (the way you can smell a farmyard sometimes, not the sharp note of cow crap, but a more pleasing and pungent note, damp leaves maybe, woodsmoke, newly ploughed soil); some butter toffee notes took me back to childhood briefly; stew fruits added a sweetness, while the dry bitter finish was appetising, chewy, grainy and crunchy, bitter notes clanging along (and then there was also a restrained fruitiness, ripe plums perhaps, restrained like a shy child peeping from behind the corner when a ferocious aunt is in the room). Oh and further sips brought forth treacle, leather and a tobacco box ripeness that I remembered from my father’s when I was 11. This was a wonderful beer and a complex matrix of flavours and aromas that were more metaphysical than something you can write down. It was a beer that had a dark taste — and at that moment in my notes I write ‘can dark be tasted?’ Can it?

Thornbridge — variety is the Weiss of life

I first drank Weiss in a bar in Eindhoven in 1986. My mate was working out there then and it was his stag night (cor that was a night and a half) — I also drank Duvel for the first time and the hangover was a ferocious beast locked in a large cage aiming to get out and have a go at the first human it saw. At the time, my mate was putting a slice of lemon on the side of his glass, which I briefly followed as it seemed like the height of beer sophistication (hold on a moment is this sort of gimcrack gimmickery suggested for Blue Moon?). I don’t know which Weiss it was, but I enjoyed it, enjoyed the creamy, banana-like fullness and thus a love affair began. Later on in the 1980s I bought a selection of Weiss on offer in the Independent in conjunction with Michael Jackson’s beer column (to this day still the best ever regular beer reading in the printed press — that would be the first thing I turned to when Saturday came). I drunk Weiss throughout the 1990s and was shown the trick of turning a bottle upside down into your glass without it overflowing by a Peruvian barman in Aachen. I remember about 10 years ago when British breweries were making wheat beers, rather than Weiss, though Pilgrim did a pretty good approximation of one; can’t remember the name though (Springbok perhaps?). I even judged at a wheat beer festival in the White Horse sometime in the early noughties. This incredibly long preamble is not merely about stating how much I like Weiss, but as a way of getting to Thornbridge’s Versa Weisse, a couple of bottles of which appeared in the post this morning as if by magic (thanks guys). If you want to read more about the technical side of things (the yeast is Weihenstephaner WLP 300), then go here, but I’m pretty impressed with what Thornbridge have done — they’ve kept to a low IBU, so no big hoppiness, no passion fruit or lychees or grapefruit, just bananas and bugglegum. It pours golden caramel in colour, has banana, vanilla, bubblegum and some clove on the nose, though not as clove-like as sticking your nose in a jar of cloves. There’s a crisp carbonation in the mouthfeel and it’s superbly appetising (I suggest juicy Old Spot pork sausages); there’s a refreshing bite on the palate, more of that banana custard, a hint of clove-like phenols, some lemon — it’s 5% so you don’t get too much of the alcoholic fatness you might get from 5.5% or thereabouts, yet it’s impeccably refreshing (a cool linen suit in the hot sun), and the dryness in the finish with the reappearance of banana custard makes for a pretty impressive stab at a Bavarian Weiss. Give me this over the thin gruel of Erdinger any day. 

Oh and I got it in bottle but I think it is going out in keg as well and launched tonight at the Sheffield Tap. I think I would go if I was in the vicinity.

Don’t forget the honey (or how nice is my Bracia)

Had Thornbridge’s Bracia at the British Guild of Beer Writers dinner a couple of years ago. I felt it was the best beer on the table, but hadn’t had any since. And now I make its re-acquaintance and I just had to wax lyrical about it. Soothing, smoothing, creamy, rustically roasty, burnt and burnished are the words that flash onto the screen of my mind. And look at it: beneath its crown of espresso white foam, it is the darkest beer I have seen for a long time. It’s a big beer as well, a big slab of a beer. Coffee beans, chocolate, almond paste, alcohol, fiery bitterness with a tongue-tingling bite on the end of the palate; but I also think sambuca, chocolate coated coffee beans, honey — the bitter bite of chestnut honey. The chestnut honey adds a herbal-like sweetness to the beer, a breakfast honey coated toast character. This is a beer that really stands up and declares itself — it is impeccably made, an imperial stout porter style with honey adding a restrained sweetness to things. It’s the beer world’s equivalent of a sauternes albeit with hops and roast barley; it’s a sumptuous coffee cup of a beer, a dessert beer, a beer that I reckon would man up to a creamy, salty, stinky, sloppy blue cheese that oozes across the plate like an oil-spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe, more prosaically, even link arms with a dish of baklava and serenade the palate with a sweet song of reflection; it’s a beer that demands of me study and contemplation for its liqueur-like qualities. Stunning. I think I like it.

Stella Artois this is not

A-ha! Thornbridge’s Italia Pilsner appears in the post — for me one of my favourite brewery’s long awaited cracks at the Pilsner style, something I recall asking Kelly Ryan about before he left for NZ, something I was really looking forward to, Thornbridge’s final frontier, to make a beer with time and cold maturation on its hand. And to make things even more exciting, brewed in cahoots with Birrificio Italiano, who make one of my favourite beers in the world — Tipopils. I’m not going to hang around for this fella so here goes — spritzy and cheeky in the mouth, it’s got a delicate lemoniness, almost reminiscent of lemon sherbert, an Epsom salts freshness, a gentle giant of a carbonation that reminds me of Augustiner with a lingering, long loving kiss of firm bitterness that at the end that needs to be fed by another gasp of beer. Is it to style (I say with next week’s Brewing Industry International Awards in mind, from which I shall be blogging) — who knows, who cares. What I do know though is that it’s a mighty brew, a new age Pilsner that shines with the bitter lemony character of Bavaria while mulling with the body and fatness of Bohemia. I must admit that I adore it. 

Thornbridge — at the beginning

In the spirit of the farewell-to-Kelly mass blog postings I thought I would reprint this — it’s my impressions of Thornbridge when I first went there in 2005; this was used in The Big Book of Beer (CAMRA), as part of a spread of breweries in scenic locations — the brewery was already starting to think beyond a pint of the normal. As for Kelly, he’s one of the good guys, great brewer and — and from my point of view — always ready with an articulate quote (I got a few on Friday for a Pilsner piece I’m currently researching); I remember him doing an excellent talk on continuous fermentation at the Guild’s Lager seminar at Thornbridge a couple of years ago (I suspect his past as a teacher came in handy). Never seen him do the haka though…

Thornbridge Brewery, Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire A trip to Thornbridge Brewery, based at Thornbridge Hall in the village of Ashford in the Water, is as much a visit to the land of Homes & Gardens, as it is to see and taste the fruits of John Barleycorn. The Hall boasts sweeping staircases, high-ceilinged rooms, gorgeous views over ornate gardens and windows by William Morris and Edward Byrne-Jones. It also houses a new 10-barrel brewery which has been set up by local businessman Jim Harrison (who owns the house with wife and entrepreneur Emma), along with Dave Wickett, the owner of the Fat Cat pub and its adjoining Kelham Island Brewery in Sheffield. Initially used to brew Kelham Island ales to cope with increased orders after Pale Rider’s championship title at Olympia 2005, the brewery is now producing Thornbridge’s own brews including Craven Silk, an aromatic, rich and fruity session bitter whose palate is enlivened by the addition of elderflower into the mix. The elderflower is part of Jim’s brewing plans as he hopes to use other herbs, flowers and fruits from the estate to create Thornbridge’s special beers.

The sensuality of stainless steel at Thornbridge

My first visit to Thornbridge’s new brewery came in the middle of a downpour but once safe inside its cavernous depths I was struck by the shock and awe of the gleaming stainless steel from which such beautiful beers as Jaipur and St Petersburg emerge — so I’m just letting the pictures talk for themselves for once.

In which the British Guild of Beer Writers organise a bliss-up in a brewery

Beer seminar? Booze-up more like it, went the refrain when I mentioned down the pub that I was off to Thornbridge for a Barley Wine seminar, which I had organised on behalf of the British Guild of Beerwriters with the brewery. (Now, if I had said a wine discussion would there have been the same response? Probably not, but I’m getting a bit bored with the whole wine vs beer game these days). These seminars have a long (ish) and honourable history within the Guild going back to the early 1990s when ones on old ale, porter and — most memorably — IPA were held at the White Horse in Parsons Green (I reckon that the last one went some way to help foster an interest in IPAs amongst British brewers). So it was entirely fitting that the former landlord of the pub, Mark Dorber, opened up the proceedings yesterday. He was the advance of a thoroughly good line-up — Fuller’s John Keeling, White Shield’s Steve Wellington and Sierra Nevada’s Steve Grossman got their memory sticks out (well Steve used his memory), while shorter performances came from former Guild president and journalist Barrie Pepper, Durham Brewery’s Steve Gibbs, Lovibonds’ Jeff Rosenmeier and Pete Brown (We also had Mark, John and Thornbridge’s Kelly doing a barley wine and cheese tasting). And what happens at a barley wine seminar, you might ask if you’ve not been to one. A beer style or ingredient or phenomenon is discussed, dissected and highlighted (we’ve had yeast, wood-aged beer, lager and the Durden Beer Circle in the last 10 years) and then beer is drank (well the denizens of my local got that one right). Yesterday we had: St Austell’s Smugglers (one version aged in wood, the other not), Sierra Nevada Bigfoot in a whisky cask, plus 2004 and 2007’s versions, a 31 month old pin of Alliance, Moonraker, Golden Pride, Vintage 1999, Lovibonds Wheat Wine, Stingo, Benedictus, Headcracker, Barley Gold, and Harvey’s Elizabethan Ale. A hefty line-up of ales, all tempting the 50+ people present who had to wait until the half time break for a swig (and given some of the pot-valiants there I made sure there were only half pint glasses available).

Barley wine is a subject that deserves to be discussed, it’s not rocket fuel, it’s on a par with wine (though PB made an interesting point about one of the beers there — lovely beer but nut-job name, guess the beer?), while for me one of the great moments of the afternoon was when Steve Wellington, who confessed he’d been thinking about knocking Bass No 1 on the head, exclaimed that he didn’t really know that there was so much interest in the style. ‘Now I will have to go and brew some and it will be ready in a year,’ he said, which is the sort of reaction you need. As the weather gets colder beer drinkers like myself do want stronger beers, beers to sit and contemplate and sip — barley wine might sit on the shelf of shame in many pubs, if at all, (ie Gold Label, too fizzy and syrupy last time I tried), but it’s a beer that deserves to be considered more than just rocket fuel. As Pete Brown said (and I nicked for the title for the seminar): Barley Wine, the beer that thinks it’s a wine.
The smart looking chap in the pic (not the scuff sitting down) is James McCrorie, founder of the Craft Brewing Association (and Guild member); this was taken at the 2007 seminar on wood aged beers, while the one-legged man is chairman Tim Hampson.