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
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Cometh the hour, cometh the err… Brewery? Gathering around twenty people to a secret location in Liverpool city centre for some blind tasting of some great bottle beers was some time in the making; thankfully the event came off rather well. The selection of the beers was made, some weeks before the event with the intention of contrasting the styles on show and putting some local breweries head to head with some others from further afield with some fairly weighty reputations behind them. The styles of beer were selected to give each brewery a chance to shine within 3 categories. The first up for tasting was a Pale style beer, be it English, American or Wit style, being lighter on hopping and lighter generally in alcohol compared to the following categories (so as not to cloud the attendee’s palate too much). The second style of beer was the IPA category (for the uninitiated readers, this acronym usually means India Pale Ale or in some cases Imperial Pale Ale, the latter of which is noted for additional alcoholic strength). The final style was that of a stout or porter, with flavours ranging from coffee, toffee malts through to liquorice and some chocolate and vanilla in sweeter styles. To begin with, the event was only meant to cover four breweries, but a last brewery jumped into the fray eager to have their beers tasted blind by the discerning panel. In total, this meant there were fifteen beers to taste, rate and as an added twist, all the attendees were asked to guess which of the five supplied each of the beers. So, the line up of breweries and the beers they supplied (Pale, IPA, Stout respectively) were as follows: Thornbridge (Bakewell, Derbyshire) – Wild Swan, Jaipur IPA and Beadecea’s Well; Mad Hatter Brewery (Toxteth, Liverpool) – Liverpool Wit, Follow the White Rabbit IPA and Fatter Stout; Liverpool Organic Brewery (Kirkdale, Liverpool) – 24 Carat Gold, Shipwreck IPA and Kitty Wilkinson; Meantime Brewery (Greenwich, London) – London Pale, Meantime IPA and London Stout; Melwood Brewery (Knowsley, Merseyside) – Paleface, Equinox and Derby Stout. The beers were all tasted by attendees in batches of 5 (in each category) before they were supplied with 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 overall 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, supplied from Holborn Cask Ales in Ormskirk; I did promise a shout out to the winners, so congratulations to: Andrew Barlow (1st place) Jason Peters (2nd Place) Mark Toney (3rd Place) Les O’Grady (4th Place) Incidentally, Andrew and Jason both guessed 7 breweries correctly and Mark and Les guessed 6, so a tie-breaker was required in the form of guessing the month and year of Germany’s Reinheitgetsbot, which split the winners accordingly. So, which Breweries won then? Continue reading below for full details. Pale Ale Category 1. Mad Hatter Brewery – Liverpool Wit 2. Thornbridge Brewery – Wild Swan 3. Meantime – London Pale Ale 4. Liverpool Organic Brewery – 24-Carat Gold 5. Melwood Brewery – Paleface IPA Category =1. Thornbridge Brewery – Jaipur IPA =1. Liverpool Organic Brewery – Shipwreck IPA 3. Meantime Brewery – Meantime IPA 4. Melwood Brewery – Equinox 5. Mad Hatter Brewery – Follow the White Rabbit IPA Stout or Porter Category 1. Meantime Brewery – London Stout 2. Mad Hatter Brewery – Fatter Stout =3. Liverpool Organic Brewery – Kitty Wilkinson =3. Thornbridge Brewery – Beadecea’s Well 5. Melwood Brewery – Derby Stout Overall Brewery Placing 1. Thornbridge Brewery – 6 points 2. Meantime Brewery – 7 points =3. Liverpool Organic Brewery – 8 points =3. Mad Hatter Brewery – 8 points 5. Melwood Brewery – 14 points Although the scores seem stretched from top to bottom, the voting was quite tight in some places and all the beers received quite positive reviews; the Derby Stout in particular was particularly unlucky, just missing out on a lower score. Anyway, congratulations and thanks to the Breweries for getting involved and helping out with glassware loans and providing a discount on the beers to keep the ticket costs as low as possible, many thanks to John and Julie at Melwood for jumping in with provision of additional beers for the event too. Thanks also go to Gaz and Sue at Mad Hatter for glassware loans, especially to Karen Reilly for organising the venue 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 veritable success; I think I’ll be hiring some elves to help run the event and keep things ticking along without having to run around with trays of beer! 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. Cheers and catch you all soon, Pedro x |
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