India Pale Bock anyone?

Joy of joys: part of the fun is digging out the mash

Why is collaboration with a brewery important to me? Why do I do it? There’s an element of ego — it’s satisfying to see your name linked with a brewery that you admire, a brewery that makes beers that you (and others) enjoy. It’s good fun to hang around a brewery for a day and find out how beer is brewed, rub loads of gorgeous hops such as Chinook, Bullion and Amarillo between your hands and take a Marianas Trench of a sniff and just for a day leave behind the potentially ruinous world of trying to put words together so that they form some sort of sense. I also love beer, love certain beers more than others and when I find a brewery that is willing to riff on a style that I love then I want to join in. There’s a sense of ‘let’s see what happens’ when certain combinations are tried; there is also a sense of experimentation, a sense of creativity. I can’t brew but I can devise a recipe and someone like Jon at Arbor (which is where I was on Friday) is happy to let me loose. That’s it really. Oh and the beer we have made will be called Bock Star and we’re saying that it’s an India Pale Bock and it will be released sometime late in January. That’s it really.

Rye mild west at Arbor Ales

If the song remains the same then you’re listening to the same song all the time, but if the beer remains the same then the beer remains the same. Sameness and variety both have their uses within the frenetic and febrile world of beer — sometimes I would like more of the same but at other times (and I must admit that this happens more and more) I want something different. This is the something that Arbor Ales (along with many others of its ilk) have cottoned onto. On the day that I arrive at the brewery in Bristol, the sun is shining, as if to bless the day’s endeavours. I’m there to brew a beer, once more into the mash tun in the name of creativity (as well as beery ego let’s be honest — Pete Brown has written elsewhere about how brewing a beer with a friendly brewery is akin to a rock journalist getting on stage with their favourite band, and why not?). 

The idea emerged a couple of months ago when I met Arbor’s Jon Comer for several beers at the brewery’s Three Tuns in the Hotwells area of Bristol. And the beer we were brewing? I had long harboured the desire to produce a rye mild, something that would make use of this most excellent grain (I used to enjoy O’Hanlon’s rye beer as well as Rye (I)PAs from Founder’s, Terrapin and Bear Republic). I envisaged a low-gravity beer with plenty of body and just to make it interesting have it dry hopped with Tettnang hops. 

For the record 50% of the base malt was mild malt, 25% rye malt and the rest Munich malt; then we added some crystal rye, oats and caramalt. Tettnang Hersbrucker was chucked in at several stages and I think we boiled for about an hour. The abv will be about 3.7% and Jon’s initial tastings suggest a big malty presence. I tasted the hopped wort after it had been chilled and I hope that the spiciness of the rye will still make itself felt. I’m looking forward to seeing what the dry-hopping will do. It will be available soon so I’d welcome comments on it.

But then is it a mild? If you want to know what I think here is something I wrote for a Beer magazine debate a couple of years ago, which I suspect started my thought process that would lead to Arbor Ales’ Ryeteous Ale, as we have decided to call it.

Are milds really milds these days?

Sitting at a table judging a selection of milds at SIBA’s National Awards earlier this year, one question kept cropping up — ‘is this to style?’ We had creamy milds, slightly hoppy ones, sweetish ones, grainy dry ones and ones with plain chocolate on the palate and nose. One had a hint of white pepper on the nose. Is this so bad?

A recent What’s Brewing correspondent claimed that the current Champion Beer of Britain was not a mild because it was too hoppy. I would disagree. In the shifting ever-restless world of beer styles nothing remains exactly the same and nor should it. And while we should respect that mild has its perimeters, maybe it’s time to recognise that they are seemingly wider than we thought, thus allowing brewers to make their own mark.

If we didn’t favour such a promiscuous attitude towards beer styles then we wouldn’t have the current crop of IPAs (go back 30 years and apart from White Shield anything with the word IPA would have been as weak as, er, a mild). Furthermore, we wouldn’t have, for better or worse, golden ales, double IPAs, chilli stouts and coffee porters.

A style category for mild is imperative (as for dropping the name from the brand that’s a different mash tun of amber malt), but it shouldn’t be based on what it was like in the ‘good old days’. A beer style is there as a starting point for innovation and experimentation — you have to learn what something is before disassembling it. Even Tracey Emin probably got an O-Level in art before she started rearranging beds.

Beers change, beers develop. All beer styles in their way should be moveable feasts (though maybe not as crazily amorphous as saison). And if this broad new meaning of mild brings new drinkers to the category then all the better — now where’s that glass of triple hopped, double fermented, black pepper spiced mild?

Making beer

Lunchtime at Otley Brewery and I would hazard a guess that a similar scene to what is happening here might be seen and heard at hundreds of breweries up and down the land at the same time. The boil rolling to its natural end, an FV being made ready to welcome the new brew — washing, cleaning, waiting, washing, cleaning, waiting, the clanging of metal kegs, a ringing metallic sound as keystones are banged in, radio on (Radio 1 in this instance, what an education for a Radio 3 listener it is), the swish of water from a high-powered hose outside as a cask is dowsed and washed and made ready for its next journey. This is the hour when the labour of the day starts surging to its climax; the time when the 8.30am start spent discussing malt varieties and how they would work together comes to its glorious fruition. And then it’s here, the time, the FV is full, I get off the cask I was sitting on whilst watching the others work and the beer that I have collaborated on with Otley Brewery has gushed its way into the fermenting vessel, while the yeast stands by. Up the step I go, bucket in hand and into the FV goes a stream of liquid, ready to run amok amongst the innocent malt sugars all relaxing after their rigorous 90 minute boil. This all makes me think that although the making of beer on the outside is a mechanised process, what happens in miniature in the boil is where the magic, the transformative process, takes place; it’s almost as if there’s a big bang, the formation of a universe, the creation of planetary systems, all happening in the roiling, angry bull of the boil — and that’s all before fermentation has started, with its own sleight of hand, now you see me now you don’t brand of magic.

And the beer that I hope will emerge in a couple of weeks?

It’s a dark saison, for after all saison is one of those beer styles that are a moveable feast. No names yet, some ideas, but nothing set in stone. We used lager malt for the base with the rest of the grain bill being black malt, Munich malt, caragold and a pinch of crystal (plus of course some wheat for head retention). Hops are Goldings for bittering, while I plumped for Sorachi Ace and Columbus for the late hops; black pepper and Curacao orange were also added. The intention was to make a dark beer that wouldn’t have roasted notes (we drank Steel City’s black IPA Shadowplay at the magnificent Bunch of Grapes on the previous night for inspiration on how to avoid that very thing) and having tasted the wort I think we might have succeeded. Now it’s up to the yeast, a Weisse one, to do its work. I look forward to trying it and will be posting regular updates on the beer’s progress.

This brewing thing is a right lark innit?

Last December I went down to Sharps to help brew (or rather watch it being brewed) Winter Berry. When Stuart Howe first asked me to come up with a receipt for a winter beer, I suggested at least 7% abv, but it was not to be (4.5% was its strength). However, the other day a couple of bottles of a 9.3% version arrived in the post. Hooray! Here’s what I thought: a dark ancient sideboard handed down the centuries sort of colour, the nose reminiscent of those juicy fruit chews we had as kids (black currant flavour perhaps?). Drinks deceptively easy, a voluptuous, rich and secretive body and the sort of beer that will  improve with age I reckon; at the moment it’s sweet shop fruit gums on the palate with a sugary depth but nothing too sweet, there’s a big bitter finish; there are berries in the background on both the palate and finish. For it’s strength it’s remarkably viscous and rich without being too sweet, and it’s incredibly well balanced. This brewing thing is a right lark innit?

Berry interesting

I brewed Winter Berry at Sharp’s a few days ago and a small mini keg of what Stuart Howe and I devised was sent to me the other day. He tells me to see it as a work in progress — the berries have not been added but here goes: on the nose an earthy version of cherry brandy, minus the sweetness. On the palate this earthy cherry brandy character continues, but it is also almost woody. It’s a paradox: sweet but not sweet; woody but not woody; berries appear (the Bramling Cross perhaps) and there is the dryness of grain on the finish; on the palate it also has blackberry without the sourness, a rusticity and a whisper of caramel in the background. The palate is bright and friendly — it’s not meant to be hoppy, with the hops meant to be something in the background, the bass player rather than the lead guitarist. I like it. A stronger version would be even more interesting.
When we tried the wort it was not as sweet as the usual wort you get — my teeth are canaries in the mine for sweetness. Next update will include what it tastes like with the berries added (they’re cosying up to the beer in the maturation tanks as I write).

Sparrow’s fart

Crack of dawn, sparrow’s fart, daylight start — none of these phrases applied on turning up at Sharp’s last week to spend a day brewing with head brewer Stuart Howe. 10am is eminently sensible, ‘unless you want to see the grain being milled,’ Howe had told me a couple of days before. Having seen this noisy process several times at various breweries before I decline, there are limits to beer geekism. The invitation to brew included a chance to develop a recipe for the brewery’s seasonal winter ale— I suggested 7% abv (we ended up with 4.5%, which is another story), hops that were there for spiciness and fruitiness rather than big blasts of resin and citrus (Fuggles, Bramling Cross, Bobek and Galena, which ironically enough gave off great big blowsy pineapple notes in the rub); alongside pale malt, crystal rye came aboard for spice and body, while some chocolate malt and Munich malt (slightly sweet said Stuart, saying that it added sour and raisiny notes) also went into the mash — all to be finished with a yeast that was called Old English Ale (somewhat cheekily I had suggested a saison one). As the name of the beer is Winter Berry, there will also be rosehips, hawthorns and sloe berries added during the maturation, gathered by the green folk at the Eden Project. I’ve brewed before, first at Moor about 10 years ago and more recently on the micro plant at St Austell. On both these occasions I spent the afternoon digging out the mash tun and so expected the same here (isn’t that why writers are asked to brew, so that their lily-white hands of soft living are firmly grasped around a malt shovel). I was wrong (thankfully) as we were working on the main plant and there are men and motors to do that job, which made the whole experience very pleasurable. I added some hops and pitched some yeast but that was the extent of my back-breaking labour.

With Doom Bar, Sharp’s has one of the biggest brands going, though it doesn’t feature on many beerwriters’ desert island lists (I’ll be honest and say I prefer Cornish Coastliner, but then I’m also unmoved by White Shield). None of this bothers Howe, ‘It’s a good beer,’ he asserts. In the last couple of years however he has flexed his brewing muscles with a series of specials that have brought his capabilities to the fore. At lunchtime, I tasted some of them. Honey spice Triple with Brett (9%) was sweet and sour, in possession of grapefruit notes and sharp and refreshing. If I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have guessed this as a British beer. Massive (10%) was four years old and rich and liqueur-like, chocolaty and smooth. Kazakhstan Grand Imperial Porter was at 11% a big blast of flavour with an alcoholic cola-like nose, while the palate was fiery, saddle leather, soot, chocolate and more cola — a battle-cry of flavour. It was magnificent and apparently was sold out by lunchtime at the recent St Austell beer festival. 4 followed, a barley wine that possibly was too light after the Porter, while Stuart saved the 13.4% XV for the finale — a Cornish riff on Belgian strong ale. The nose was pear drops, cloves, hop and bubblegum, while these flavours resonated in the mouth like a big bell after it has tolled in the confines of Notre Dame; the finish was dry, grainy and alcoholic. So what does this all mean? Along with the likes of John Keeling and Roger Ryman, who also produce best selling brands, Howe is not content with going through the mash tun motions — he is restless, exploratory and challenging. In the past I recall brewers of successful brands seemingly almost Robinson Crusoe-like in their avoidance of what was going on in the wider world of brewing — not so these guys and I look forward to trying my Winter Berry and thank Stuart most fervently that he didn’t want me at that sparrow’s fart.