It’s all about the beer, stupid

Beer festivals and I have grown apart. There has been a parting of the ways. The tyranny of choice is the main reason for this; too much beer, too little time and then some of the beers don’t feel at their best. I used to have a calendar of beer festivals: Exeter Winter Ales, Tuckers Maltings, the Newt Festival near Bridgwater, GbbF, maybe the odd pub one in the summer, Somerset CAMRA at Minehead railway station and then the Pig and Whistle which was always a guilty pleasure, given that its former location at Stratford was for a former North London person like myself the very end of the world (and it was municipal, bleak and full of people, no let’s be honest, mainly men, who peered intently at their beer lists, pens poised, lips licked, samples salivated over and wandered aimlessly about the hall until their bladders forced them to vacate, though I remember one chap in about 2003 whom I passed on the stairs — he was so drunk that the stains on the front of his trousers suggested that he had forgotten to open the zip whilst answering the call of what obviously was a very savage call of nature). But hey, I shouldn’t be judgmental, I was also there, looking at my beer list, looking for interesting beers, letting beer from other parts of the country do what it always has done to me, take me to these places, for a moment, for a few sips, turning back time, taking me to a pub when gastro meant something wrong with your stomach and the old man in the corner could tell you tales of old England and the rolling road the drunkard made. Because I lived for six years in Cambridge and also love Suffolk with its flat fat tire-friendly roads, heavenward pointing churches, with the sea in prospect and for me the prospect of a pint of a beer that I still count as one of my great loves —it’s grown old with me, Adnams Best Bitter — then because of all this East Anglia intrigues me still. But I digress: the whole point of this post was a visit to Tuckers Maltings Beer Festival last Friday, at one of the very few floor maltings left in the UK, a place where beer begins its journey to our glass. The event is organised by the southwest arm of SIBA and — you know — it’s not a bad event. I used to judge but found myself tired and jaded by the time the place opened and rarely able to enjoy the beers. Now, as I sat on a tyre of a trailer (don’t ask) in the sun, with a glass of RCH’s sublime East Street Cream in my hand (it was the beer of the festival) I thought what a wonderful thing a glass of beer is. People were friendly, the sun was shining, the beer was good in my glass — surely at the end of the day that is all we want. There’s a lot of chatter about beer with food, beer for women, beer for youngsters, beer styles, pub closures, pub companies, fat ugly blokes looking like Mr Toad with notebooks in hand (there was one at Tuckers and one of the first aromas I detected at the bar was more halitosis than hallertau but hey), but I remember from this glorious day was that it was all about the beer, an emotion that inspired me to make what seemed (and sometimes still seems) a pretty stupid career decision to move to writing about beer.

Beer blends: recipe for success or alcoholic anarchy

So there we were in the Penrhyn Arms in Penrhynside hoovering up vast quantities of Williams’ Midnight Sun and John the landlord suggested that we try some cider (after all, his pub is one of the best in Wales for the stuff). My friend the Maltworm, who had already been warming the seat since 5pm, was solubly enthusiastic, while the Farmer, who we were trying to persuade to have a beer festival on his grounds, made his excuses and staggered off home to dream of the new German girl who had just started work at his place. Try this, try that, came the command from John, who used to be the gravedigger in town (‘would you like to come to an exhumation,’ was the subject of one phone call recalled the Maltworm, he turned it down), and especially try this: The ‘this’ was Pider, a blend of perry (not pear cider) and cider, which underwhelmed, but made me think about beer blends. Mild and bitter, old and bitter (mother-in-law according to some drink lore), special and ordinary and bitter top, which as I recalled, having cut part of my drinking teeth around this part of North Wales (the other part occurred in the east of England involving drinking lots of Greene King IPA in the company of Tetley Bittermen — the blend there was Burt St Edmunds Ale, I think, and Abbot, one bearded old wag, an rustic anarchist with Kropotkin forever on his lips unimaginatively christened it Braindeath) was some keggish sort of bitter with lemonade sprinkled in it to make it palatable. But I digress: is there any future in beer blends? I once attended a meeting at Wychwood where Manns Brown Ale was seductively introduced to Tia Maria (it was also done over ice). The match with Tia Maria was sweetish and sickly, while the ice just watered down what was already a rather thin beer. I hear of beer cocktails but have yet to try them, though brewers have long blended various brews, especially for pubs who want a beer named after their establishment. It leads me to the question: blends these days for beer, are they frowned upon? Or do they fulfil a need? Anyone fancy a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sharing its sap with, say, Meantime Porter? Jaipur and Hook Norton’s Double Stout? A Thomas Hardy Ale and a Punk IPA? Or is this the road to the bearded old wag’s anarchy?