Back in 2005, there was something afoot in an abandoned former coach house at Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire. Rather than carriages, beer was starting to leave the premises and head around the country, seeding the recent brewing renaissance currently in full swing. Although the first brewer, Martin Dickie, left two years following the breweries opening to begin the Brewdog project with James Watt, the brewery has gone from strength to strength and reputation-wise sits near if not at the top of the table in terms of the UK’s beer output. Thornbridge branded beers were first brewed in early 2005 after the establishment of a 10-barrel brewery in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall, having an output of some variable batches of Lord Marples (a former owner of Thornbridge Hall) and Jaipur IPA, both of which are definitely more standard at this time. The initial focus of the brewery was on a range of cask beers utilising traditional recipes, but with the fashion of a use of wide range of hops, malts and allowing the brewing team to put their own stamp on the output. After winning a succession of awards (over 350 national and international awards so far) a new, state of the art, brewery and bottling line was opened at a second site in Bakewell in September 2009 (handling up to 30 barrel capacity) to meet with the market and increase the range of beer. James Buchanan from Thornbridge enters the MTB attired in Thornbridge branded clothing and speaks passionately and eloquently about the brewery’s relatively brief history, but one that is littered with accolades, changes in brewers and the upcoming 10th Anniversary of the Brewery which will provide a proliferation of some, hopefully, very special beers to the public. Also alluded to was heartening news that the brewery may be considering a further capacity upgrade by the end of 2014, depending on the relatively buoyant market for the craft and cask staying not only staying afloat, but rising above the current wave. Although a decision has been taken not to pursue canning beers, expansion ahead is always welcome news as an indicator of the industry’s health! * * Thornbridge have published their own blog, which has this article on their thoughts of putting beers into cans: [http://thornbridge.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/to-can-or-not-to-can/] Without further ado, it’s time to let the beer from Bakewell’s finest do the talking…. --------------------------- Bayern Pilsner One of the Thornbridge brewery team pushed for this beer to be made, since Pilsners do take a long while to complete their brewing cycle, it is easy to see why some are reluctant to run with this style. However, the endeavour has provided a very clean Pils style golden lager that is remarkably refreshing and has a very slight hint of sweetness in the finish. Although the head retention is relatively short, this is a very drinkable and light tasting beer that proves that the UK brewing industry (well, Thornbridge at least!) can actually make decent lager when they put their minds to it. At 5%, this is a relatively easy drinking premium lager that does carry a bit of clout if you attempt it in a session. Galaxia A traditional English pale ale style beer, which uses, as the name would suggest Galaxy hops to provide much of the beer’s rich flavour set. Although Thornbridge do not brew the Galaxia on a regular basis, the Australian hops used give a rich mouthfeel to this pale ale with a slightly metallic (but not unpleasant) and dry finish to the flavour. The flavour is itself, as would be expected of new world hopping, of tropical fruits and verdancy, which were surprisingly difficult to pin down exactly beyond what I would describe as white stone fruit. This lies just beyond session strength at 5.2%, making it a bit dangerous to indulge heavily, as the colour, body and aromas would suggest it lies lower. Chiron Chiron (named after a mythical Greek centaur) is an American style pale ale, with a golden hue and at 5% strength. Compared to many other American Pale Ales about these days, this is actually relatively pale with a good level of carbonation, cleanly hopped taste and a decent bit of length afterward. This was made by Thornbridge as a ‘go to’ beer for people in terms of something that is on the edge of sessionable, but has plenty of punchy crisp flavours and resinous body, without being too cloying. Very balanced, relatively easy to get hold of and made using a Californian yeast strain. Beadeca’s Well This smoked porter is pronounced ‘Bee-dekkas’ Well, which apparently comes from the old name for Bakewell, where the brewery is based. Some 5-10% of the malts used in this beer are German smoked malts, giving the beer its trademark peaty depth. Although the head retention was pretty short, the beer is rather complex in aroma and flavour, with a range of coffee and vegetative, leathery aromas and plenty of dry length in the flavour following dried fruit and a touch of chocolate. The difference in aroma and flavour is very marked. Pretty heavily bodied and at 5.3%, its not something to drink a lot of, but gears one up well for a winter’s evening. This would pair excellently with cured red meats and strong cheeses. Jaipur IPA This is Thornbridge’s seminal beer as well as one of their first, and a pretty robust one at 5.9% abv. We were, on this occasion, treated to the duality of cask and keg, which proved a rather enlightening experience in tasting both simultaneously. Cask proved to carry far more in the aroma and have a much silkier mouth feel, but the flavours somehow were more balanced and mouth feel less cloying when given the carbonated keg beer. Those who have tried it will know it’s a citrussy refreshing and strongly hopped beer, but presenting it two ways served to show that it worked in both, with the preference depending entirely on your mood. Peanut Butter Brown Ale The final beer of the night was something a little different from the norm. I dread to think about what the fermenter vessels are like following a brew run of this beer, but not being the most pleasant things to clean following a normal brew of say, a pale ale, imagine cleaning out something awful with a load of peanut butter sludge on the top… Unpleasant (I am guessing!). This ale is actually a deep brown colour and incredibly rich in flavour - the aroma is heavily peanut with a touch of caramel; reminiscent of childhood peanut brittle. There is a touch of cereal in the flavour and plenty of body, the finish has a very thick and slightly sweet edge to it. Surprisingly, when paired with a peanut butter tart for dessert, it did dumb down some of the peanut flavour in the beer. This was yet another entertaining and in parts, enlightening experience with James, with yet another sumptuous meal provided by the Clove Hitch (taking unusual cuts of meat and making excellent dishes to pair with beers is always a winner for me), along with a very pleasing peanut butter tart dessert to pair with the Peanut Butter Brown Ale. As a side note for the Thornbridge Brewery, they have just released another beer in bottles, which is being stocked in some Waitrose branches around the UK. This beer is special in that the brew run is actually part of the first prize for the winning The Great British Home Brew Challenge 2014, Graham Nelson from Holmes Chapel. The Vienna IPA bet over 200 other entries to take the top spot and it should be available at 70 Waitrose outlets at around £2.50 for a 500ml bottle – I am yet to see if the Formby (nearest one in Liverpool) are stocking it. More here on the Vienna IPA here:[ http://siba.co.uk/2014/08/the-great-british-home-brew-challenge-2014-winner-is-announced/] Pedro. X ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thornbridge Brewery Thornbridge Riverside Brewery, Buxton Road, Bakewell, Derbyshire DE45 1GS Web: http://www.thornbridgebrewery.co.uk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thornbridge Tel: 01629 815 999 Twenty Three Club / Clove Hitch 23 Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BQ Web: http://www.theclovehitch.com/# Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwentyThreeClub or https://twitter.com/theclovehitch Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Tel: 0151 709 6574
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Seconds out, the gloves were not necessarily off but, there was a serious amount of beer to drink and judge for the gathering of around twenty people in Liverpool city centre for the second round of the Battle of the Breweries at The Clove Hitch. The selection of the beers was made some weeks before the event with the intention of getting in some serious quality and competition and putting a local brewery head to head with some others from further afield, each had some strong experience and a good reputation behind each of them. The styles of beer were selected to give each brewery a chance to shine within two categories rather than three; since the first round went on for quite a while and fifteen different beers was quite a lot to drench anyone’s palate. Cutting the field down to ten beers made things manageable and a little fairer for the beers on show. The two categories selected were to break things up from the previous event, so firstly a fruit or adjunct beer was chosen to contrast the darker porter or stout ales to follow. There were a few breweries selected based on the beers they had available in the two categories and thankfully most of the initial line up were incredibly helpful and only too willing to get involved. The selection was then trimmed to five based on those able to help and with the help of some distributors and the venue, the beers were gotten hold of. So, the line up of breweries and the beers they supplied were as follows: Ilkley Brewery (Ilkley, Yorkshire) – Siberia (Rhubarb Saison) and The Mayan (Chocolate Chipotle Stout); Partizan Brewing (Bermondsey, London) – Lemon and Thyme Saison and the Five-Grain Porter; Peerless Brewing Company Limited (Birkenhead, Merseyside) – Jinja Ninja (Chilli and Ginger Beer) and Oatmeal Stout; Saltaire Brewery (Saltaire, Yorkshire) – Raspberry Blonde Pale Ale and Triple Chocoholic Stout; and Stringers Brewing Company (Ulverston, Cumbria) – Damson Beer and Dry Stout. The beers were all tasted by attendees in batches of 5 (in each category) before they supplied a rating of 1 to 5 for the respective placing. Each of the numbers in the ratings were added together and then the beer with the lowest score was placed first in the category, then the next lowest in second place and so forth. The brewery rating was then gained by the relative placing of the beers in first to fifth position, adding the numbers together again, with the overall lowest score being the winning brewery in this round. Hopefully that all makes sense, trust me, after a few drinks adding the scores up was rather a demonstration in focus! The winners were then announced at the event and the competition run for some excellent craft beers sourced from Holborn Cask Ales of Ormskirk and George Wrights Beer Emporium, St.Helens; I did promise a shout out to the winners too, so congratulations to: Jackson Edmonds (1st place) Les O’Grady (2nd Place) Sarah Spall (3rd Place) Incidentally, there was actually a tie for third place but Sarah provided the closest guess in the tiebreaker with her guess of 10 Litres per hour, compared to fellow attendees Phil Torpey, Oliver Carey and Steph Van Der Voort. The question was how many litres per hour of beer the Half Moon Brewery in Belgium can pump along its pipeline to the bottling plant, some 2 miles away. Incidentally the answer was 6,000 and Phil did guess 12,000 Litres, meaning Sarah beat him by 10 Litres. Small gains eh? There was a brief interval between the stouts where the venue provided some rather excellent Scouse to compliment the stouts along with some beetroot, radish and red cabbage (very well dodged there guys!). Needless to say, this was as well received as the cheese boards and cured meats that paired with the fruit and adjunct beers. So, which Breweries won then? Continue reading below for full details. Fruit or Adjunct Beer Category 1. Saltaire Brewery – Raspberry Blonde (40 points) 2. lkley Brewery – Siberia (42 Points) 3. Partizan Brewing – Lemon and Thyme Saison (47 Points) 4. Peerless Brewing Company – Jinja Ninja (52 Points) 5. Stringers Brewing Company - Damson Beer (76 points) Stout or Porter Category 1. Ilkey Brewery – The Mayan (32 Points) =2. Saltaire Brewery – Triple Chocoholic (47 Points) =2. Peerless Brewing Company – Oatmeal Stout (47 Points) 4. Stringers Brewing Company – Dry Stout (61 Points) 5. Partizan Brewing Company – Five-grain Porter (67 Points) Overall Brewery Placing 1. Ilkley Brewery (74 points) 2. Saltaire Brewery (87 points) 3. Peerless Brewing Company (97 points) 4. Partizan Brewing (114 points) 5. Stringers Brewing Company (137 points) Following on from the event, there was also a bonus beer session, where Peerless had kindly donated some of their new RIOTS (Russian Imperial Oatmeal Treacle Stout) for everyone to taste, along with another stout (Thick and Twisted) provided by Les O’Grady from the Liverpool Homebrew Club. Both beers were very well received, especially paired with some homemade chocolate brownies! RIOTS should be available now in a good pub near you, bottles are also available at the Peerless premises in Birkenhead and from good bottle shops. Congratulations to all the Breweries for the event and thanks to Luke Raven and Richard at Ilkley Brewery, the John Kyme and Rebecca Stringer at Stringers and Steve Briscoe at Peerless for getting involved and helping out providing generous donations of the beers to keep the ticket costs as low as possible. Many thanks to Shaun from George Wright Brewing Company for jumping in with provision of some beers for the event too and to the guys at Carringtons, Manchester for allowing collections/drops of beers to be held (lifesavers!!). Also special thanks go to Rob Tuffnell and his staff for organising a venue and some rather excellent food for the event and Jon Young and Angela Mulligan for helping to keep the event running smoothly. Finally special thanks to all the people who attended to make the event a success yet again; I really couldn’t have got this event to work without any of the people above and their efforts and generosity.
Stay tuned for the next event folks, I shall be putting feelers out for breweries to get involved and will spread the news on my Twitter feed, Facebook page and via this blog. The aim is for another #BattleoftheBreweries to take place in Spring 2015. Cheers and catch you all soon, Pedro x ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stringers Brewing Company Web: http://www.stringersbeer.co.uk/ Mail: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/stringersbeer Peerless Brewing Company Limited Address: The Brewery, 8 Pool Street, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH41 3NL. Web: http://www.peerlessbrewing.co.uk/ Mail: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeerlessSteve Ilkley Brewery Web: [email protected] Mail: http://www.ilkleybrewery.co.uk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ilkleybrewery Twenty Three Club / Clove Hitch Address: 23 Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BQ Web: http://www.theclovehitch.com/# Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwentyThreeClub or https://twitter.com/theclovehitch Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Tel: 0151 709 6574 George Wright Beer Emporium Address: 54 Cambridge Road, St Helens, Merseyside WA10 4HF. Web: http://www.georgewrightbrewing.co.uk/BreweryShop.html Tel: 01744 737 578 Sometimes you get the impression that 7 days will be plenty of time to spend away at a given destination. I was initially thinking it would probably be more than enough, taking into account a wedding and associated stag-do in the run up. Wrong, quite wrong in fact. Well, okay, perhaps another 2-3 nights there would have meant that our trip enabled us to take in everything we had planned to do whilst over there, but it was rather surprising that without taking a return trip to the Grand Canyon and taking in any of the staggering number of shows on offer at the strip’s remarkable hotels, we still found much to occupy the time. Having spent a little time trying to research bars, restaurants and breweries by downloading mobile phone applications and hours poring over internet comments, blogs and the obligatory tripadvisor reviews, things where still none-to-clear just before take-off from the UK. Thankfully, once we were given a bit of time to orientate ourselves, speak to a few local workers and have a wander, places to get great food and drink came like a deluge. Staying at the Vdara was a massive relief for me, since I am not really much of a gambler and prefer more serene environments to form a base whilst away on holiday. A hotel that was initially built as serviced apartments, it has a ground floor lobby with a market café, a bar and a Starbuck’s coffee shop without a slot machine or gaming table in sight. The location of the hotel benefits from being pretty central on the strip, meaning travel to other hotels is less of a chore than it would be, staying at say the Encore (very north) or Mandalay Bay (very south) – although both are lovely hotels in their own right. Whilst in the taxi en route from the airport, I caught a first glimpse of a local brewery that to date I had never even heard of. Sin City Brewing Company is located a mile out of Las Vegas, but has at least 3 outlets along the strip (in Planet Hollywood, the Venetian and at Harmon Corner) where you can try one (or three) of their five styles of beer. Sin City brew styles such as Irish Stout, English IPA, American Light, German Weisse and Amber Ale. The beers whilst good efforts in each style were not mind blowing, but they were very tasty and refreshing when sampled. The most competent beers were probably the IPA and the Weisse; both of which had good body, balance, aromas and provided a good punch of flavour. Sadly something I couldn’t adjust to was their presentation in plastic cups, which somehow diminishes the presentation of a good beer. Sin City definitely has a strong identity, but whilst many other US craft brewers are pushing new hop combinations and playing with recipes and protocols, they are sticking with a core range and a seasonal beer. They could possibly look to have a bit more courage and push themselves given the brewery is not short on brewing talent. Read more about Sin City Brewery: [http://www.sincitybeer.com/] Although part of a chain or franchise, the Yardhouse was another pin in the map well worth a visit, which on this occasion was sadly quite short due to restaurant reservations. Upon recommendation from Joe, the manager of the Sin City Bar at Harmon Place, we swung by Yardhouse after a trip to the High Roller (a big wheel, which affords a great view of the strip and out of the city over to the Sunrise and Frenchman mountains). The beer menu in Yardhouse was large, to say the least, plus it was helpfully set out by beer style taking in saisons, IPAs, American Pales, fruit beers and so on. The place is actually quite big, although at busy periods you could be restricted to sitting at the bar since demand is pretty high and the food looked rather good. Another excellent characteristic of Yardhouse is that the staff all seem clued up and enthusiastic about recommending styles of beer not only to match with food, but also depending on people’s mood. The fact that Yardhouse is also open nearly until 2am in the morning also means a session could give you a chance to try many, many beers of their alleged 160 stock, including their own house IPA and amber ales. Read more about Yardhouse: [http://www.yardhouse.com/nv/las-vegas-restaurant-town-square/] Right by the Aria and Vdara hotels, there is Todd English’s Pub. Another establishment with a serious approach to tackling the broad number of styles and the rather pronounced craft beer fetish currently in full swing stateside. They have a good number of beers on offer, although sadly paling when compared to The Pub (see next paragraph) and the Yardhouse. One thing that this place had to offer was an attempt on cask beer, which was an unusual sight when considering the number of keg dispensing taps along the bars in Las Vegas. Sadly, the pint we tasted on the visit here was a little warm, a real bugbear of a stereotype we get in Britain for our ‘warm, flat beer’. The temperature of our Abita Rosemary Lemon Wheat was too warm, giving rise to some funkier flavours and a rather unpleasant finish. The rest of the selection, including a large cohort of Ninkasi and Abita (the purple haze was a superb beer), was very good. In keeping with most other places that were concerned about their beers, they had a heavy tilt towards IPA in their selection. Read more about Todd English’s Pub: [http://www.toddenglishpub.com/index.html] ‘The Pub’ is located in an unassuming place and I first came across it when a little worse for wear following an encounter with a midget at a stag-do. Don’t ask and I won’t tell. I was blown away by the sight of the bar; this place had ridiculous number of beers on offer and the sheer number of dispense taps along the bar (in itself, pretty long!) was insane, not least because they were on both sides above fridges and anywhere they could fit them in, read their menu right here: [http://www.montecarlo.com/files/restaurants/the-pub-beer-menu.pdf]. The pricing was about right, in keeping with everywhere else, but paying $9 for a 16oz craft beer can get a little old quite quickly, especially if you fancy a bar-fly session. Worth saving up for and making time for; pay a visit with a full wallet, beer stamina and perhaps try to do it when there’s some sport on since the atmosphere is great here. Read more about The Pub: [http://www.montecarlo.com/restaurants/the-pub.aspx] It would probably take too long to go through all the other smaller facets to the trip, although it is worth mentioning that the wedding we were there for was absolutely superb, gorgeous weather, back of a boat and Elvis in attendance; this was followed by a quick pint in an Irish bar on the banks of Lake Las Vegas. Also during the service, I got to chat with a fellow enthusiast who was running our drinks bar on the boat, a tequila specialist from San Francisco no less (although I got shouted at for conversing too much here, to be fair, there was a rather important wedding on). We ate at some less notable restaurants than those I am going to write about properly when I get a moment (you lucky people – two Michelin starred establishments), but they were no less excellent, for example, it may be worth a quick taxi ride away from the strip to take in Firefly [http://fireflylv.com/], which provided excellent Mexican tapas for the wedding banquet, plus the service was absolutely top notch (not a glass remained empty the whole time, nor the table empty of food). Sadly there was only so much time and notable omissions from my trip were jaunts over to the Hofbrau House, Big Dog Brewery and Ellis Island Casino and Micro-brewery (even more annoying that it was only a $5 taxi ride from our hotel) on Koval Lane, which is notable for the insane amounts of food you get for next to nothing and supposedly some very competent beers. I suppose this is more than enough reason to go back for seconds maybe? Pedro. ------------------------------------------------------------- This is part one of a three part blog on the trip; parts two and three will be published in the near future. I’m getting used to this now, although the temptation to sit back and drink solely to enjoy these beers is something that is rather easy to slip into. Having to spend a few moments, critically picking out the choicest points about some of the beers I have sunk in the last month is a pretty arduous task when… ahh, who am I kidding. It’s not that difficult to be honest and a pleasure to give you lot something different to read; I know what a thirsty lot you can be, especially on a Friday when I usually publish! Apologies for the tardy delivery though… there have been a few things going on over the last few weeks, weddings and some less happy news punctuating the days. Here are a few of the beers that I have sampled over the last month or so, if you’ve tried any already, as with the previous article in this theme, please feel free to share your experiences below the line! On we go…
That’s your lot for this month, a distinctly more summery theme it was too. Hopefully you’ll get out and be able to try some of these, along with the food pairings where I’ve suggested. Happy drinking! Pedro. |
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