St David’s Day celebrated in beer

As it’s St David’s Day and I’m Welsh I thought I would eat a metaphorical raw leek and throw a casual American-style salute to five current favourite Welsh beers. First up would be Otley O8, a lush bomber of a beer which offers banana and even banoffee notes on the nose, while the character that chimes on the palate is chardonnay-like, fat and plush, though thankfully lacking the soaked oaked character that drenches and drowns the chardonnay of today’s Poundland wine culture. Breakfast grapefruit adds to the zest with a rich, luscious finish that makes me want to join the Men of Harlech in defending Rourke’s Drift. Of course, there’s also Saison Obscura and I really would love to try Odessa, but one mustn’t be greedy. 

Last week I went to a Brains beer and food dinner in London, with a menu devised by Melissa Cole, who also managed to coral three former rugby players (Tom Shanklin, Rob Jones and some English bloke, Jonathan Webb) onto stage for a bit of an after-dinner do. For me the stand-out food and beer match of the evening was Milkwood with a ham hock terrine — the creamy, aromatic beer (which has rye crystal and Golden Naked rolled oats in the mash) wrapped itself around the saltiness of the terrine and acted as a platform levering the flavours to a higher level. However, delicious as it is, my current favourite amongst the Brains oeuvre is their Dark, which always makes me think that Santa’s just fallen down the chimney leaving a cloud of soot everywhere — along with creamy chocolate and coffee beans coated in dustings of milk chocolate; a truly magnificent beer. I do enjoy a few jars of Brains Black as well. Looking forward to see what their micro plant will come up with. 

When I grew up in North Wales, the local beer was Wrexham Lager, which I would have with a dash of lemonade before moving onto Stones Keg (with a dash of lemonade) or even some cocncotion from Ansells (with a dash of lemonade). Now, there seem to be breweries all over the place with four of them within half an hour’s drive of my mum’s place. Purple Moose are resolutely old school, producing a fabulous selection of bitters: strong, golden, best and light.I do like Dark Side of the Moose, but for that favourite beer moment I recall a glass of Glaslyn at the Albion in Conwy (recently reopened with the aid of Conwy, Purple Moose, Great Orme and Nant breweries) — a blast of tropical fruit and resiny hop on the palate underlined by a base of grainy, biscuity malt, while a great bitter finish rolled around the back of the throat, a voice echoing in a cave, where perhaps Arthur and his knights still sleep. 

Great Orme and Conwy make brilliant beers, with Telford Porter and Welsh Black amongst those I would happily spend an evening getting to know, but it’s Mwnci Nell from one of the newer North Walian breweries Bragdy Nant that currently I would place as my rhif pedwar beer. It’s a strong-armed, hefty big hitter of a dark bitter that drinks far too easy for its 5.5% strength (some would call it a porter but I’m not bothered as it is delicious). 

And as I write all this I realise how unfair and childish the whole list thing is, so for the final beer I will just say a couple that I have enjoyed in the last 12 months have been Rhymney Export and Waen Porter House Blue, the latter being a porter/stout hybrid (to my palate but I am not going to split hairs about it) with a slight sweetness at the end thanks to the addition of fresh blueberries, some of which are added to the mash and others at the end of the boil. I thought it fabulous served alongside a chocolate fondant with bucks fizz ice cream, which was part of a beer and food matching dinner Mark Dredge and I did at Kilverts last year. So plenty to think and drink about (and I’ve not started on my favourite Welsh pubs: Bunch of Grapes, City Arms, Penrhyn Arms, Kilverts, Pen-y-Gwryd for starters) — Dydd Dewi Sant hapus i pawb.

The Liverpool Arms Conwy

You know when you’ve ignored a pub for years and then on a whim decide to go in and then you think: what have I been missing? That’s what happened to me recently on a visit to the Liverpool Arms in Conwy. It stands on the quay, several houses down from the Smallest House in Wales, compact, next to the town walls, a fixture of Conwy that I last went in with friends on a summer’s evening some 25 years ago. I’ve just ignored it. And then I was in Conwy on the occasion of the food festival the Conwy Feast (after buying lots of food I made a beeline for the beer tent run by local breweries Purple Moose, Great Orme, Nant and Conwy Brewery, whose California was truly excellent) and I remember that the former Bass head brewer Arthur Seddon told me the Draught Bass in the Arms was pretty good. So I went in. Inside: bare stone, dark black beams, red tiled floor and a small bar in a corner. Two cask beers: Draught Bass and Brains SA. There was a weather beaten sense to the interior and naturally there was plenty of nautical memorabilia. It was dark and comfortable and the sort of place where you could imagine coal fires in the winter when the tourists no longer come. The Draught Bass had a formidable Burton Snatch on the nose and danced its way down my throat. Even though the quay was heaving with people who didn’t seem to have a very good idea of navigation, this felt very much like a locals pub. I felt a sense of settling into the landscape, of slipping into the shadows of pub life, watching people come and go (some woman from Lancashire — or was it Cheshire? — moaning about something or other, a Jackdaw perusing his paper) and enjoying my beer before it was time to go out amongst the people once more. And then later on in the beer tent I meet up with an old mate with whom I used to work on the deckchairs on Llandudno prom — ‘the Liverpool? Great pub, I go there with my dad at least once a week.’ What have I been missing? 

Hit the North (Wales beer scene)

The Conwy Feast. A food festival overlooked by the Edwardian stone scowl of a castle built to subdue the locals; a food festival that recognises the role that beer and local breweries have in this place that washes up against the hard fastnesses of Snowdonia; a food festival that is rather good.

Some recollections. A pasty faced chap in an army surplus, knee-length, well-washed parka with a West Germany flag on the shoulder wandering about holding a gnarled new staff (I later passed him doing something that smacked of new age nonsense and Celtic cobblers); a wispy bearded thirtysomething bloke in medieval robes standing on a corner and holding an owl on his gauntleted hand — as we queued to pass, a Scouse voice suggested that this sage of an ancient craft might have chosen somewhere else to stand, more colourfully that I would have voiced; in the beer tent a ‘Celtic folk’ band sung a song by (or about) Bobby Sands, which seemed a curious throwback to the 1980s when Irish rebel music was all the vogue; meanwhile outside on Conwy quay all sorts of marquees, performers (including a Brazilian, sorry, Liverpudlian, street band in massive white flares and local teenagers trying to pretend they were Britons — or Taffs — getting talent) and food booths vied for the attention of us masses who passed through the narrow streets of Conwy with the pressure hose persistence of piss down the stainless steel, single-sided canyons of your local pub’s jakes.

And in one of the food tents, a stall offering direct beer sales was doing its best for promoting beer as a comedy event. Bottle-conditioned beers (from whence I know not) were labelled Horseshit, Dandelion & Birdshit and Big Cock (amongst other names) — an attitude that would probably be defended as humour but felt totally out of place in an event where food producers were rightly proud of what they did (the crab from here was wonderful). And then I had a reunion with fellow deckchair warrior Tim at the beer tent. Four breweries — Purple Moose, Great Orme, Bragdy Nant, Conwy — had their beers on sale, and their brewers were in attendance, something I found heart-warmingly wonderful, collaboration and collusion.

Look, there’s Gwynne from Conwy, one of the first in the reawakening of North Wales’ beer culture (those that tried and failed before include Cambrian and Ynys Môn). His Autumn Gold (Hydref Aur) was a reddish bittersweet delight, that both soothed and sorted out the palate with its mixture of dark crystal and Chinook. I would also recommend his Telford Porter, named after the chap that built the first Conwy Bridge. Great Orme’s Welsh Black was its usual dependable creamy, mocha coffee self, a delicious drop that is now bottled. It’s only 4% but CAMRA in their wisdom gave it an award in the strong mild category. Another beer from Great Orme, Celtica, was a citrusy heaven.

Amongst its selection of award-winning beers, Purple Moose had Myrtle Stout — a minty, peppery, herbal beer that reminded me of Froach. Where do you get the myrtle I asked brewery founder Lawrence, hoping he would say that he picked it himself  — which he did, though he wouldn’t tell me there (a bit of mystery always gives the beer a story). Then there was the big surprise for myself, who always wonders if small breweries get it right: Bragdy Nant over near Llanrwst, a small market town up the river Conwy. Their Chawden Aur was a robust flinty beer with Cascade all the way through, while Mwnci Nell was a strong-armed, hefty big hitter of a bitter that drank far too easy for its 5.3% strength. All in all this was all good stuff and a demonstration of a healthy beer culture in the part of the world where I started my drinking career (Greenhalls or Ansells bitter top…). And as if to make it absolutely clear how things have changed since those miserable days, a loose remark on my part that the four breweries should make a collaborative brew for next year’s feast met with a positive reaction. Hit the north.