It was rather fitting that this Meet the Brewer Event for Tempest Brewing Company took place in The Clove Hitch/23 Club, since it was the first time I was exposed to the beers from Tempest (notably at the same time as trying their Scottish counterparts, Cromarty's beer for the first time too) via a generous helping of Long White Cloud. Fast forward some four years or so and waiting for Clove Hitch to open for the event, Graeme Martin appears weighed down with display stands and boxes of extra bottles for the event; this left me thinking that this MTB was going to go an extra mile, or two. Before the inception of Tempest, a meeting over food and beer between Scottish Chef Gavin and New Zealander Annika in Whistler at the end of the 1990s led to a move over to New Zealand and some experimental garage brewing. This in turn led to a move back to the UK and up to Gavin's native Scotland. Tempest began life as a brewery in Kelso in the Scottish Borders around 30 miles South of Edinburgh, brewing beers for a bar/restaurant that Gavin and Annika decided to take on a few years prior to Tempest's birth in 2010. It was soon found that moving up to a ten barrel plant meant the ability to supply pubs in Edinburgh and soon, extra capacity was needed once again. Following a move to Tweedbank 2015, Tempest now works on a 30HL kit, currently they have 3 full time brewers allowing Graeme to concentrate on other matters for the brewery. All the beer is what is defined as 'Real Ale' or 'Live Beer' and though Tempest started brewing exclusively for Cask dispense, they have a bottling plant and send much of their beer out into the UK in kegs, not favouring one dispense over another. The range of beers that Tempest Brewing produce is quite surprising for some, given that they have a quite muted presence, at least down in Liverpool (and fingers crossed, more of their beers will find their way further South). Having spent a fair bit of time up in Edinburgh over the last few years, I was exposed to some particularly good beers and knew we were in for a treat on this MTB. So what were the beers like? Dawn of Justice This 3.6% session IPA is a golden coloured ale with a soft white head thanks to the cask serve, on the nose it has a lot of citrus including a slightly burnt orange note along with a lot of malt presence, there are fragrant hints of a coriander-herbal nature and some floral honey notes. The body is light and the mouthfeel is slightly residual and very smooth. The finish comes through with the malt bill driving things and hints of light spice and citrus. This is the newest beer that Tempest have brewed on cask and they've plied it with plenty of Centennial and Simcoe hops to try and bring a rounded character to the beer - something which is a massive theme and that Graeme was explicit about for all the beers of the evening; and he wasn't wrong. Balance is key and was noticeably present in all the beers. The Pale Armadillo Another cask dispensed pale ale, this time it carries a bit more of the marmalade character and bitter orange through than its lighter counterpart. The body of the Pale Armadillo has been bolstered too in comparison to the Dawn of Justice. The finish has a touch more sweetness present too, making things very rounded and enjoyable. Harvest IPA/Saison A keg-dispensed hybrid beer hopped up with loads of Victorias Secret (in the dry hop) and weighing in at 6.7%, this saison and IPA hybrid is golden in colour and has only a trace of head. This iteration uses the same kettle hops as other version of the Harvest beers, but the late addition of Victorias Secret changes things via the aroma and dry hopping. It is characteristically fermented very slowly to potentially reduce the esters in the beer and make for a smoother brew, but it remains a pretty complex beer. There is loads of pepper and green fruit on the nose, along with some banana like spice and a slight earthiness, the bitter malts and dry fruity nature of this beer mean it is a very easy drink all the way down the glass and there's a great balance and mellow finish to boot. In the Dark We Live A 7.2% kegged Black IPA which apparently during the brewing process, begins its life as an iteration of Brave New World only to be sparged with the addition of dark malts. A robust malt bill and plenty of hops give rise to a fragrant and robust tasting beer with plenty of complexity in the structure. Aromas of blackcurrant, blackberries, liquorice and cassia bark along with more roasted flavours are followed by flavours which are much the same. The mouthfeel is very juicy, fresh and acidic but has enough body to balance things out; it's a very dry and light beer given the colour. Not that it may be immediately obvious, but the IBU count is higher in this beer than in many of the IPAs that Tempest produce - mainly due to the presence of the darker malts. Marmalade on Rye A 9% Double IPA on keg which has loads of character and fits the bill nicely to be an end-of-the night beer and pairs very well thanks in part to the residual sweetness with a cheeseboard or some desserts. Graeme said that this beer was made with the aim of getting a marmalade on toast kind of flavour and the addition of rye, citrus peel and ginger gives plenty of subtle flavour and aroma to tick the boxes needed. Marmalade on Rye started out life as a one-off collaboration brew with Brewdog in 2012 and as a toasted IPA, it has evolved to something far richer, jammy, balanced and quite decadent. It's a full on experience drinking this beer, but despite that slightly alcohol strong burn you can sometimes feel drinking a DIPA, this remains very rounded and a well structured brew. Red Eye Flight A fully-fledged coffee/mocha porter keg ale weighing in at 7.4%, Red Eye Flight is a staple of Tempest's brewing roster and has been a winner at Scottish Beer Awards of which Tempest can be rightly proud. Brewed using espresso beans from local supplier, Steampunk, this is a remarkably smooth beer, balanced and flavoursome. It is very acidic and fruity on the nose, backed up by a full roasted malt and coffee character giving way to a full body, bitter chocolate and coffee flavour twinned with chestnuts, hazelnuts and toast. Delicious and a great end of night beer to work with heavier puddings, chocolate and darker desserts. The food on the evening was once again provided by Oktopus, who now have their own premises (at time of writing!) on Hardman Street in the old Picket Courtyard (adjacent to the Old Blind School). The food was simple and stunning once again, with maximum emphasis on the flavours and quality of ingredients – something that will no doubt be showcased in the new premises, which will be paired up with Black Lodge beers. I believe, as ever, that is your lot for this installment of the blog. Tempest are available locally infrequently sometimes, but when 23 Club have run out of their keg and cask, there is always Crosby Beer Bottle Shop which carries a significant range of what Tempest produce. Their beers are highly recommended if you have not already given them a shot; in particular Long White Cloud, which is one of the flagship brews and quite possibly a modern pale ale classic. Until next time! Pedro. ------------------------------------------------ Tempest Brewing Company Block 11, Units 1 & 2, Tweedbank Industrial Estate, Galashiels, TD1 3RS. Tel: 01896 759 500 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.tempestbrewco.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TempestBrewCo
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Nearly a year has passed since the last major MTB event at the Clove Hitch/23 Club in Liverpool; a whirlwind of Fourpure's wares in the run up to the Liverpool Craft Beer Expo 2016. This time, it's a relatively unusual choice for some, in Staveley based Hawkshead Brewery. I say unusual, as these Meet the Brewer events are often a 'proving ground' for up and comers; we have had pre-canning and hype Beavertown, early Anspach and Hobday, Brass Castle, Brewfist and the relatively heavyweight Buxton in a change of gear. This time Hawkshead provide a much more established proposition, having been around a while prior to the current purple patch; they have been brewing since setting up in an old barn in 2002, providing many very good quality cask beers up until a shift in gear more recently to join in with the 'craft beer movement'. Hawkshead Brewery have also been involved the last few years with the Rainbow Project, brewing with the highly rated Crooked Stave and they are currently slated for the 2017 and 2018 iterations to be collaborating with Modern Times to generate more Anglo-American delights. During the course of the evening, I did try to tease out where the shift in gear from producing 3-4 solid cask beers to upping the roster to include a lager, then a range of wit beers, sours, pales, IPAs and imperial stouts (particularly the excellent Tiramisu, brewed in collaboration with another highly rated US outfit in Cigar City). Sadly, the 'teasing' didn't seem to lead to any pinpointed moment for Hawkshead on where the influence to experiment came from. The hiring of a brewer from New Zealand coincided with a transition to using some Antipodean techniques and ingredients, but this was dismissed as not the sole catalyst for change by the night's hosts, Mark (brewer) and James (sales, brewing and a little bit of everything). Hawkshead's current sensibilities on dispense are plain to see; they are happy sending beers out in cask, keg, bottle or in can and their only concern seems to be about the quality rather than the method of serving. They have a strong workforce of around 30 people who allegedly happy about their business and all manage to have a turn with the brewing team, regardless of their own personal remit in the business. Regarding the business, the potential elephant in the room was called out very, very quickly on the evening. A potentially sensitive subject was tackled pretty much head on within the first two questions or so; Halewood International have bought a majority share in the business to expand their portfolio and take on their first brewery (having bought out Liverpool Gin last year, already involved with alcopops and some other spirits businesses). A case was well made for the purchase, with founder of Hawkshead Brewery, Alex Brodie unlikely to be able to continue running the business forever, a different solution was needed and looking at the available press releases and listening to what Mark and James said at this MTB it is big positive step to securing the Brewery's future and to also enable further growth. The 20 barrel output brewery had reached a point where they simply couldn't take on new accounts; this enables some further growth and a chance for the Brewery to return to more experimentation with recipes and keep existing customers happy. This all possibly sounds too good to be true, but time will only tell, that and the keen tastebuds of customers who will move on if the quality should ever stray from the benchmark set. Given the brewery doesn't have room or access to a pilot kit, a lot of the brews have to be full invested producing large amounts of a beer which potentially might not shift units is a gamble too far, so the transition into better funding might provide some more experimental brews; Mark said as much when he suggested that a Sorachi Ace brew may be on the way in some fashion this year. We'll come back to the evening round up anyway, there are six of Hawkshead's beers to discuss first... Cumbrian 5-Hop - 5% One of Hawkshead's most ubiquitous ales is the Cumbrian 5-Hop, which is a golden ale, this time served from keg, appearing a golden, lightly hazy beer with a heavy white froth on top. The aroma is massively malt driven with hints of orange and wood. The flavours deliver a metallic cereal tang along with more wood and orange. It's actually very easy to drink and gives a bitter and malty finish. Mark and James agreed that this is one of their 'gateway' beers, in that it is easy enough for lager drinkers to make a transition to ales from this beer. The hop profile changes for this beer depending on what is available and what has produced a good quality harvest in the English hop farms, occasionally there may be 6 different hops present, but on the aroma they do sometimes include US Citra or Amarillo. ITI New Zealand Pale - 3.5% This is the little version of Hawkshead's NZPA (as Iti means 'small' in the Maori language), this delicately pale and thin ale has the simplest malt bill of any of their beers and is hopped using varying amounts of Nelson Sauvin, Pacific Jade, Green Bullet and Motueka. The nose goes from a green plummy note through to some light butterscotch, conveying the same theme into the flavours. The thin but refreshing mouthfeel leads into a rich malty finish which is actually slightly sweet given how light this beer is in every other aspect. NZPA (New Zealand Pale Ale) - 6% This is the bigger brother to the Iti and hopped using the same profile, Hawkshead claim to have made this prior to the fashion of making New Zealand Pales. Its an amped up version of the Iti for sure, deeper in colour, deeper in flavour and finish. The mouthfeel isn't quite comparable, due to the NZPA being on cask and the Iti on keg dispense, but there are good contrasts to be had in tasting. On the night, Mark and James said there may (along the lines of never say never!) be a double version of this on the way at some point, given the line of questioning from the crowd. Session IPA - 4.7% Oddly, for such a simple style and premise and for such well balanced beer, this is the first time I've seen or tried Hawshead's Session IPA. It pours a light gold colour with a thin white head, the carbonation is good and makes the mouthfeel quite spritzy. Aromas of tropical fruit and citrus come through along with some sharper green fruit, including gooseberries and rhubarb. The flavours are pretty much the same, but this is very easy drinking and has a round malty and fruit balanced finish. Probably the beer of the night for me and one to look out for! At the moment, the 'Session IPA' moniker is possibly temporary, but it has a diverse malt bill in the use of caramalt, oats and crystal before the loaded hop profile driven by Centennial, Citra, Simcoe and Mosaic (with much more focus on late hopping) are put into the beer. IPA - 7% A bigger brother to the session IPA, this relatively new Hawkshead brew on keg is full of New Zealand and US grown hops including Centennial, Citra and Simcoe, though the aroma of this is mostly woody, it has a big rich quality which drifts into slightly dank and fruity areas. The roster of hops changes based on what Hawkshead have available and what works with the malt bill. Decent, but not as rounded and accomplished as the session version. Jantar - 4% A really odd way to end an MTB, with something quite light in ABV in relation to, admittedly, pale ales. This Polish style amber ale is very malt driven and similar in many ways to a Best Bitter style beer. The aromas are malt driven, along with some berry fruit, giving way to flavours of blackcurrant and raisins and considering it is only at 4% abv, it punches well above this level in terms of how rich and deep the beer is. Plenty of red fruit and citrus come through on the finish, a very good brew from Hawkshead. The food on the night was supplied by the Black Lodge located (at time of writing) pop-up restaurant Oktopus, which provided some excellent talking points and 3 absolutely delicious courses to match with the beers. The goat's cheese and carrot dish was wonderfully simple and executed well, the mains of Skrei Cod was succulently brilliant and the dessert, a chocolate cake was moist, rich and delicious, although one minor gripe would be that there wasn't a beer that really worked with it; the red ale was close, but no stout or porter which would have been a perfect accompaniment here. On this last point, we do have a bit of a sticking point on the roster of the Hawkshead Beers; considering the pedigree and usual remit on MTB of providing a range of beers that show what a brewery can do, 5 pales and a new recipe amber ale simply doesn't do justice to the brewery. A more diverse roster would have potentially included the Solar Sour, the Great White Wheat Ale, Imperial stout in the Tiramisu, even some Brodie's Prime which is rather different to what was provided. A massive opportunity to really push the boat out was missed here; there may have been issues of availability on certain lines, but it's perhaps something the brewery can bear in mind for their next outings. The evening was still very enjoyable and the two hosts from Hawkshead were a credit to their brewery, best of luck to them whatever the future holds! Cheers, Pedro. ------------------ Hawkshead Brewery Mill Yard, Staveley, Cumbria LA8 9LR Brewery Tel: 01539 822644 The Beer Hall Tel: 01539 825260 Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/hawksheadbrewer Web: http://www.hawksheadbrewery.co.uk/ The tables are lined with schooner goblets (2/3rd of a pint size, for the uninitiated) and cans of Fourpure's Session IPA as people filter into the conservatory at the Clove Hitch, ready to hear what Fourpure Brewery's John and Sophie have to say at the latest Meet the Brewer installment. As the cans are snapped open and poured, John is filling people in on his background and experiences of drinking back home in the United States followed by how he happened upon his opportunity to brew for Fourpure. The commentary ran from him discussing culture-shock of drinking lower abv beers when he moved to the UK from New York, where his drinking experience in the US was centred around much higher percentages north of 6%. Essentially his observations starkly highlighted how political the landscape actually is in the UK, not only based on scales of brewers, but also on the occasionally fractious relationships between traditional cask drinkers and those embracing beers served from kegs. John's move from London saw him working for Meantime Brewery before he met with Dan and Tom Lowe and setting up shop as Fourpure, so named after the four main ingredients used in their beers. Fourepure, as with another Bermondsey outfit covered in the blog around this time last year are surprisingly recent to the brewing scene. Another one of those breweries whose brand seems to have been around a lot longer than it actually has; they are barely 3 years old, having set up in 2013 and began their canning of beers in early 2014, which is very soon in most breweries’ lifespan. The brewery feel this is better for their beers due to protection from light and oxygen, but also a lesser impact on the environment from a sustainability and materials point of view. What about the materials within those materials? Session IPA A 4.2% glugger, pale, refreshingly simple and works excellently from can. The Session IPA uses a four hop combination of mosaic, simcoe, cascade and centennial to give a slightly hazy but pine and tropical fruit laden aromatic beer. There is some florality on the nose, along with a lot of pine and citrussy notes. Against Johns' high abv sensibilities, the percentage was squeezed down but without too much detriment; a solid base for the malts of golden promise, wheat and some caramalt balance things out quite nicely and the level of acidity in this along with a perfect amount of body gives a very rounded and easy drinking pale ale. On a side note with the canning, the labelling is very, very good; information about content etc is an excellent touch. Amber Trail A deep copper to red ale, the Amber Trail is 5.4% in strength and is based on Vienna lager style, with an effervescence and malt profile to provide something with a level of refreshment along with plenty of flavour. The nose is rich and malty, with red berries and a bready yeasty punch at the back along with some caramel around the edges. This beer also uses German tettnanger hops to retain a Germanic presence in the beer, truer to the origins of the style. Southern Latitude An American Pale Ale style 4.7% beer with tonnes of hop character to boot. This is apparently the first ever seasonal beer that Fourpure have brewed and looks golden to straw coloured with loads of aroma thanks to the use of Galaxy, Topaz and Cascade. The nose is full of tropical fruit, jolly rancher sweets, grapefruit, mango and even some blueberry for good measure. The body is mildly chewy and the carbonation is strong to keep things very acidic and fresh, though it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is Winter down under and this is bound to put a summery complexion on things there! Who thought a freebie pile of galaxy hops would lead to something so accomplished? Flat Iron American Red Another 4.7% US inspired ale, this time red in name, red in body and full of woody, sweet cedar and caramel notes on the nose and in the flavour. This beer is named after the red hills over in the US, near Boulder, Colorado. An interesting bit of trivia was posited by John at this point, that if Boulder was upscaled in terms of population/size to that of London, there would be in the region of 1192 breweries located there, such is the passion for brewing there. Impressive. The Flat Iron beer itself (back on topic) uses crystal malt along with a combination of colombus, cascade, equinox and citra hops to give an overtly dry red ale with unripened fruit character, a cap nip/marijuana aroma and hints of green peppercorns and some coffee around the edges. There is a real depth to the freshness of this red ale, thanks in part to the acidity which is not out of balance. Vertical Drop IPA With the appearance of a hazy wheat beer, white and cloudy with a thin white head atop, this ale carries some seriously pungent aromas. At 5.9% it is brewed using fresh orange, coriander seed, US yeast strains, cascade, centennial and citra hops, this is a tribute to what John regards as the style which has driven much of the 'craft beer revolution', especially in the United States. This is a very, very bitter beer with tonnes of flavour in the form of tropical fruit, citrus and pine as would be expected from any punchy IPA, but the acidity giving such a juiciness in the mouthfeel is excellent and gives almost a lingering orange cordial flavour. There is so much going on, but the undercurrent of brioche and spice in this wit/IPA hybrid adds some depth to a very accomplished IPA. Burnt Ends So named after the classic barbecue dish or by-product (depending on your stance), this ale gives everything you would expect from the moniker. Burnt Ends is a 5.8% take on a German rauchbier, which imparts smoke onto the grain during kilning and this translates into a smokey flavour in the beer. Brewed using around 30% smoked malt and 10% roasted rye, with chocolate malt and black malt also making up the grain profile, this gives deep smokey and roasted coffee driven brew. There is also some dark chocolate in the flavours and aromas with some salted caramel and bacon. A very deep beer which would benefit from pairing with some cheeses, cured meat or even chocolate cake rather than being a chug-alone drink. Drhop Kick Dropping back down the strength spectrum to 4.5%, this American Pale Ale is back on track of the usual Fourpure offerings; pine, tropical fruit including mango, lychee and pineapple this is a bit of a hop bomb. The malt profile works excellently, proving a good foil of toasty cereal to the dry controlled finish and five (simcoe, citra, mosaic, cascade and centennial) hop combination. Simple, fruity and very effective. Shapeshifter IPA Another fruit overload and slightly heavier in the kick with a 6.4% strength, the Shapeshifter is an amber coloured IPA which has plenty of aroma in the form of pine, lemons, tropical fruit (almost confected, like jolly ranchers!) and other woody notes. The mouthfeel, balance and finish are all brilliant in this, the acidity brings a juicy freshness to counter the grains and for a first iteration of this brew, they've got it pretty close to the mark of what I think it should be. John admitted to agonising over the recipe for some time, trying to figure out the ideal hop combination for this resinous west coast IPA with a controlled aggression in the finish. Hopped in equal parts with citra and mosaic, this is a great bit of brewing for a first effort on a new recipe. As ever, along with the numerous lovely brews for the event, the Clove Hitch kitchen put on some excellent food – a barbecue on this occasion no less. Superb with the range of beers on offer.
So that’s all for this installment ladies and gents, hope you enjoyed the read and I’ll see you all again next time! Pedro. ------------------- Fourpure Brewing Company22 Bermondsey Trading Estate, Rotherhithe New Road, Bermondsey, London, SE11 3LL Web: http://www.fourpure.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/fourpurebrewing Email: inf[email protected] Twenty Three Club / Clove Hitch23 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] So given the digging around on various social media streams I have been doing, plus piecing together some conversations with the powers that be (or beer, as it were), there is an awful lot going on during the run-up to the Liverpool Craft Beer Expo on the 16th June 2016. This is even before we consider that an hours drive down the M62 motorway, Manchester Beer Week will be in full flow with a rather hectic and exciting line up of their own… but this stuff has seemingly sprung up out of nowhere and may leave many beer aficionados wishing for a second liver and several weeks of sobriety in the aftermath. Regardless of wants and needs, there is a glut of events on in Liverpool in the run up to the Expo weekend (stay tuned to the Liverpool Beer Collective account on Facebook and Twitter also for regular updates and happenings) and I have done my best to cobble these together into one lovely and coherent list for you all… Wednesday 8th June Ladies that Beer Social @ Dead Crafty Beer Company The Ladies that Beer will be attending Dead Crafty and holding their regular social night to meet up with the other members and encourage more ladies to involve themselves in beer and brewing, there will be a few people on hand to answer any questions about getting involved and they will be looking to score highly in the Sphinx Quiz! Friday 10th June Fourpure – Meet the Brewer @ Brewdog, Liverpool Paul from Fourpure is back in Liverpool to host an evening of Fourpure beers paired with some food prepared by the kitchen at Brewdog. Time of the event is yet to be confirmed, but it is a bargain at £20 a ticket and they are running out VERY fast. Sunday 12th June 10 Line Tap Takeover Event @ 23 Club – Featuring Omnipollo This will feature 10 excellent beers from Omnipollo (including Perikles Pils, Chocolate Brown Ice Cream Ale and Leon Belgian Blonde) which will go on the taps as a pre-Expo celebration; advance tasting cards will be available for £20 and these will be around until two days before, on the 10th June. The event will run from 3pm until 10pm. Monday 13th June BEERS WITH THE BREWER @ Dead Crafty Beer Company – Northern Monk Brewing Company Starting a 7pm, there will be a 6 line tap takeover featuring some of the beers from Northern Monk’s stable (including Neapolitan, Eternal and The Forgotten Sin). This will also feature a launch of their new 822 Double IPA and tickets are a very reasonable £5 each – which includes a glass of the Eternal session IPA as I understand it? Wednesday 15th June 8pm QUIZ NIGHT @ Dead Crafty Beer Company - Sphinx Quizzes & Four Pure Colab Quiz Rob from Four Pure is a quiz master, so he will be collaborating with Sphinx regulars Chris, Liam & Stuart to hold a quiz at Dead Crafty’s premises. There will be a Four Pure tap takeover plus Four Pure Jackpot prize, along with spot prizes of merchandise and every team member will get free cans for taking part! As a bonus… American Pizza Slice will be supplying the half time prize as usual. Tickets are £5, which will get you entry into the quiz plus your first drink. Thursday 16th June 7pm BEERS WITH THE BREWER @ Dead Crafty Beer Company – Jopen Brewery Jopen Brewery will be bringing 6 beers over from The Netherlands. It will be an informal affair where you'll be able to chat with the guys over a beer or 6! The beers slated for inclusion are: Adriaan, Gerstebier, Hoppenbier, Imperial Pils, Jacobus and North Sea IPA. Tickets will be sold at Dead Crafty for £15 each. Also, for the Liverpool Craft Beer Expo (16th – 19th June), there has been the announcement (following my last pre-Expo blog) that Hop and Barley will be hosting their own bar at the Expo, plus Northern Monk will be indulging in a spot of tap takeover action. Another point of note is that Wednesday 15th June is also the annual Beer Day Britain [http://www.beerdaybritain.co.uk/], which has been gaining momentum since its inception. As this date comes in line with the pre-Expo run up and also right in the middle of the Manchester Beer Week, there should be a lot going on and a lot of social media traffic generated to keep you abreast of something going on in your area. People are encouraged to raise a glass, take a photo of them with a beer and post the picture on social media at 7pm using the hashtag #CheerstoBeer. I don’t know about you lot, but I am exhausted just thinking about it; still thirsty though too. Pedro. Somehow, Stouty McStoutface was never going to make the grade for naming the collaboration brew between Atom and Black Lodge. For context, the latest Meet the Brewer at the Clove Hitch/23 Club with Atom Beers (for their triumphant second session no less) was preceded by a day brewing in the Baltic Triangle, making an Imperial Russian stout which will be available at the Black Lodge premises in the coming weeks. Allan and Jack offered some prizes to the winning name for the stout halfway through their presentation; I still maintain that Event Horizon would have been the perfect moniker for something strong, dark and epic whilst in keeping with the scientific nomenclature of Atom's stable. Yes, as alluded to, this was the return of Allan and Jack from Kingston-upon-Hull based Atom Beers to Liverpool for an MTB and another great experience thanks to some great beers and excellent food provided by the Clove Hitch staff. The time since the last visit of Atom has thrown some significant obstacles in their way, not least the threat to the very existence of their brewery due to some shake up on the staffing front. Thankfully for us beer drinkers, they've gone from strength to strength and have now got Jack at the forefront of their brewing as their Head Brewer; he even has his own assistant these days. They are still ‘scientzing’ and teaching college students about brewing, looking to work their way into the shake up for the Kingston-Upon-Hull 2017 Capital of Culture event and have found time to increase their export abroad to at least 8 other countries. I was lucky enough to have a quick catch up between their presentation beers with both Allan and Jack, and they had lots of news and many exciting things on the horizon, Jack was up first: We've just done a collaboration brew with Black Lodge in Liverpool before the Meet the Brewer today and this is a recipe I've been holding dear to my heart for a while. It starts with a trip to Three Floyds, one of my favourite breweries in the world. I had a great tour of the facility, including their new distillery and their new oak foeders for souring. They even let me try some of their notorious Dark Lord, a 15% motor oil thick imperial stout with coffee and vanilla. It's ridiculously rare and very sought after, a ticketed release day one of your only hopes. I couldn't help but ask them their technique on brewing the big beers, how do they get the thick body and the almost umami intensity of the malts. Being the awesome guys they are, they were very forthcoming with what they do! As if I need to tell you, but check them out if you're ever in or around Chicago/Indiana. Fast forward a few months, and Atom were invited back to the 23Club for a meet the brewer. We hold the honour of being the first brewery to be brought back twice, you must like my waffling! It seemed only right that we check out the new Black Lodge brewpub in the process, and it was suggested that we should do a collab at the same time. Not one to mince my words, this seemed the perfect time to brew this bombastic beast! We plan on bottling a good proportion of this beauty, and have a release party, alongside a further collaboration brew down there too. How's that for a triple whammy? As for how to do something like this at home... Here's a few hints on how to achieve a crazy gloopy, intense and powerful imperial stout: This recipe calls for two separate mashes. The first contains the bulk of the base malts, pale ale malt being our choice. This is mashed in hot to keep some body and sparged to volume. The wort is then boiled for 3 hours to increase the viscosity or the wort, create tons of melanoidin and a deeper, richer colour. Meanwhile, a second hot mash of speciality malts (roast barley, choc and crystal) with some base malts is on the go. There's also a bit of aging involved; yhe beer needs to be aged on vanilla and coffee beans for as long as you can resist! The first runnings from this are added to the kettle after 3 hours, alongside 100IBUs worth of hops and boiled for a further hour. We chilled and oxygenated heavily to encourage a good fermentation, and pitched a healthy and large amount of 50/50 English ale and West Coast US ale yeasts. The yeast mix will give you some fruity English notes, but also attenuate well to get you the alcohol. Overall, you should have a ridiculously high original gravity, and you'll need it because this should falter at around 1.040-1.060! That's enough sugar left to ferment some pretty strong beers itself. I also caught up with Allan briefly and asked if they had anything big on the boil for going forward, luckily he was in talkative mood and they sounded like they have a bit project on the go: “On the Atom front, expansion is about to occur with a new equipment additions that will allow us to expand capacity by quadruple. We are also going to be looking to launch a new microsite atom.beers which will be focused on special projects, working on that currently, although slow burn. First up is our canning project. To stay true to our ethos of science, education and drinkability, when we seek to release our beers in can, we need to ascertain a way to do it differently. To achieve this we have come up with building a Microsite online – [www.atom.beers] In this part of the project we are going to release six different beers with a standard simple label linking to the Microsite and the recipe for the beer. With the Microsite we can also use it as a tool to create an education link looking at why we want to can, what we need to do to can, how we can and what are the results.” All interesting stuff, so I asked Allan how they were going to achieve this, he responded: “To achieve this, we have a serious video interviews (short less than 2 mins) with the following people; Hop Supplier, Malt Suppler, Science researcher, Canner, Can Manufacturer, Mobile Canner and last but not least, the Brewers themselves. We will then launch the cans via key partners to get them out to as many people as possible. At the moment this will be Honest Brew and probably at least three other outlets. Once that is done, we will also undertake a social media campaign to match and link to the videos. The social media campaign will be pushing for a call to action asking people buying our cans to pick the top three of the six to go into cans permanently and do this by submitting video reviews to go up live on the Microsite. That’s our big project currently, out with that we are currently looking at the feasibility for a crowd funding campaign; to see if it is worth it, is the brand strong enough, do the beers stand up to standard etc?” Exciting stuff, but back to the event; what of the beers they brought with them? Gladly, there was quite a different selection from the previous event they did, though they still broke out some pretty heavy gear right at the end as is seemingly customary... Blonde A nice standard 4% light blonde cask ale, which is reminiscent of a wheat beer on the nose and carrying no shortage of banana, cloves and a slight metallic bitterness in the finish. Slightly grassy, herbal and lightly bittersweet, this kolsch-style brew has undergone some tweaks since its first outing. The Atom blonde is very pleasant to drink. There is some talk of lagering this properly and chill it right down in the brew to try and make something a bit different too, so keep an eye out! IPA A slightly more robust cask beer this time with a 5.6% IPA, which has a massive hit of spruce on the nose from the use of Chinook and Centennial hops, there is also a very peachy character with some dried apricot in the bouquet. The malt profile make for a tidy drink, not too acidic, not too cloying and lightly chewy in the mouthfeel. This amber to dark gold IP makes for a very good ‘house beer’ if you need a go to. Clementine Mission This is a 6% kegged saison, which is a double orange and rye brewed (award winning no less!) beer. Atom have been focussing in tightly on saison style beers recently and added some homemade marmalade into the brew; the nose is very interesting and carries the bitterness of the oranges off very well, with touches of black and white pepper. The mouthfeel is rounded a bit residual and lightly juicy with a bittersweet finish and good effervescence to keep some freshness going through drinking. Critical Temperature This is a quite fresh and acidic coffee porter made using coffee roasted by Atom's local Blending Rooms roastery, weighing in at 6.5% and brewed using the wares and expertise of a local coffee specialist in Hull. The nose is chocolate, coffee, berries, dates and other dried fruit along with a flavour set of lightly metallic malt, more chocolate and dark fruit leading into a very rich but surprisingly light finish with little residue and a good subtle level of earthiness. A clever bit of a brewing and good interesting take on a kegged darker ale. Ocean of Storms Ocean of Storms is a lovely 5% kegged blueberry saison that acts very much as a sorbet of a beer. Allan and Jack admitted they will be playing about further with the recipe in order to obtain the shocking purple colour often associated with blueberries. On this occasion, the aroma is very much driven by a bubblegum note along with a plethora of fruit aromas, lightly herbal touches and spicy pepper, which is very much present in the flavour. A light mouthfeel and a very easy drink, but it will be interesting to see the direction this goes in. Mars The God of War is the big boy on this occasion, weighing in at a hefty 11%, this barley wine is not for the faint hearted. The Ruby coloured body is pretty thick and viscous and carries a lot of pine and cedar wood on the nose from the overt hopping. The use of rye provides a drying quality to temper the honey and sweetness from the use of other malts in generating a large abv. This is the Phobos and Deimos on steroids apparently. Drink with caution, or you might start seeing little green men. So that's your lot once again for another slice of ElectroKemistry, thank you for giving this a read and thank you again to Allan, Jack and all at the Clove Hitch and 23 Club for their work on putting on another great event, particularly to the kitchen for producing some excellent food for pairing with the beers on the night. Take it easy! Pedro. ------------------------------------------------------------ Atom Brewing Company Unit 4, Food & Tech Park, Malmo Road, Sutton Fields Industrial Estate (West), Hull. HU7 0YFWeb: http://www.atombeers.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/atombeers Email: [email protected] Tel: 01482 820 572 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] Mike from Chorlton Brewery has done some travelling in his quest to develop his own brewing repertoire, initially based in London, he moved across to Berlin with the intention of doing some brewing, but the scene proved almost impenetrable. Mike also spent some time in Leipzig, learning about Gose, the salted beer which is another German style only coming into the limelight recently. In a market dominated by Helles, Dunkels and many other traditional lagered and Kolsch beers, his experience in Germany proved to leave little room for anything else. Most pertinently to his current brewing, whilst in Germany he happened across the Berliner Weisse style, although a beer which has been brewed since the 16th Century, it is something which has only really come into the British beer scene relatively recently. Berliner Weisse is a naturally cloudy, sour and often white beer of a relatively low strength at 3% abv. It is a regional variation on many of the white beer styles from Germany, with its origins dating back to at least the 1500s. It can be made from combinations of barley and wheat malt, with the stipulation that the malts are kilned at very low temperatures to minimise colour formation, although I may corrected on this, it must have some wheat content to be considered a true Berliner Weisse (and brewed in the region). The fermentation takes place with a mixture of yeast and lactic acid bacteria, a prerequisite that creates the lactic acid and sour taste, which is the distinguishing feature in Berlin Weisse. By the late 1800s, Berliner Weisse was apparently the most popular alcoholic drink in the German capital, and maybe around fifty (and some texts actually say up to an amazing 700) breweries were producing it, which shows the market was remarkably buoyant for something now regarded as particularly niche. By the late 20th century, there were only two breweries left in Berlin producing the beer, Berliner Kindl and Schultheiss (both now owned by Dr Oetker who make those ‘authentic’ pizzas). The style has been given Protected Geographical Indication within the EU, where it may only be applied to beers brewed in Berlin. In its native environment, Berliner weisse is often seen a drink for females due to its refreshing nature and is frequently served with syrups to flavour the beer, syrups such as woodruff (waldmeister) and raspberry. A bit archaic really, if you ask me. The beers made at Chorlton Brewery are all soured beers, using lactobacillus in the fermentation of the beer. The bacteria come from the husks of the grain used in a similar process used to produce a sourdough starter for baking bread. During the fermentation, in order to produce a favourable environment for the bacteria and keep other bacteria from contaminating the brew, Carbon Dioxide is bubbled into the fermentation vessels, to produce an anaerobic environment. Care has to be taken to avoid the production of butyric acid (or buytrate) which smells of rancid cheese (and is what gives vomit its ever so lovely aroma), though when Brettanomyces gets hold of butryic acid, it produces an ethyl butyrate, which has more of a tropical fruit aroma and flavour. A full article explaining the techniques and wherewithal of making a sour beer will be available to read in the next issue of Hop and Barley magazine, I have been reliably informed, so if you want further reading… go forth and search this out! So what of the range of beers that Mike makes at his premises? We were treated to a few of the range of soured beers... Woodruff Berliner This herbal, cloudy 3.8% Berliner-weisse style beer carries gentle fruity aromas and is very rounded. The body is pretty thick intially, but feels gradually thinner in the mouth with each mouthful and gives way to a lovely palate cleansing quality. Other flavours that come through are of strudel, nutmeg, Christmas pudding, green apples and cinnamon, with a slight medicinal quality and some 'wintergreen' around the edges of the aromas and flavour base. The pH on this beer is around 3.2, which is quite acidic, for those of a non-chemistry background. Amarillo Sour This sour beer is pretty close to fruit juice, massively cloudy and a deep hazy orange colour. The aromas are earthy and citrussy and there is loads of bitter orange on the nose and in the flavour. This doesn't qualify as a Berliner-Weisse style sour, as it doesn't use any wheat, it also has been dry hopped using amarillo (very orangey hops). The malts are all pale, using a combination of golden promise and flaggon, additional hop character comes from the use of glacier hops, bramling cross and a little ahtanum. Overall, this is a jolly rancher of a sour beer with hints of watermelon could easily pass for a breakfast juice. Scarily drinkable. Waimea Sour A mouthwatering 5.3% cloudy golden sour with a white light cobbwebby head. On the nose there's plenty of aromatics in the form of celery and fresh citrus, the body is much more evident this time compared to the previous two beers on the list and the finish is much longer with a slightly savoury edge to it. The hopping is done using New Zealand Waimea, though it carries a little roughness around the edges, the addition of a little amarillo keeps things quite fruity. Victoria Sour A fruit blast in at 5.6%, this Victoria's Secret dry hopped sour also uses glacier in the boil, steeped with bramling cross and ultimately the outcome is tropical - Um Bongo. Lighter in flavour than it is on the nose, there is still an abundance of fruit and a superbly rounded beer with no edges to it at all. The mouthfeel is thick and very juicy, with a lovely acidity to keep things mouthwatering. The flavours of oranges and blackcurrant with touches of vimto. At this point the discussion heads into talk of miracle fruit, which I suggest looking up as it can drastically alter the way taste is perceived thanks to binding of certain compounds from the fruit onto the tastebuds. Calamus Berliner A sour beer which has much more character in common with a cider than any beer, almost coming through with a farmyard scrumpy type body and flavour. Flavoured using sweetflag herbs, this very fruity, light and slightly tangerine flavoured 4% sour uses Brettanomyces and other yeast strains which were obtained from a 1980s bottle of Vilner bottled sour beer. Interesting, but after the Victoria Sour, somewhat off key. Dark Matter The dark sour of the night, Dark Matter is the strongest beer of the night at 6.8% and has quite an intricate set of aromas and flavours. The aromas are coffee, chocolate and touches of sour cola. The light body carries a beige head, which is poorly retained but does give way to lots of dark fruit. The acidity is almost like a sorbet in its cleansing quality and has a touch of malt in the finish and some light roasted coffee. There are a number of other beers in the range produced by Chorlton Brewery, but this is definitely an eye opener into the world of a beer style that has been growing in popularity and in reputation. Other breweries have been dipping into the style, but none have embraced it with quite as much gusto as Chorlton Brewery.
That’s your lot everyone! Thanks for reading and hopefully you’ll get to try some of the Chorlton beers before too long, since they have been on recently at 23 Club/Clove Hitch on keg and in bottle! Pedro. ----------------------------------------------------- Chorlton Brewery North Western Street Manchester Web: http://chorltonbrewingcompany.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChorltonBrew Email: [email protected] Twenty Three Club / Clove Hitch23 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 As disparities between reputation and brewery size go, this one is a pretty stark example. Started only around a year ago in 2014, the reputation for quality of their beers has carried them on a relatively strong wave within the high tide of Bermondsey based breweries. Friends, Jack Hobday and Paul Anspach started brewing following a suggestion from Jack’s lecturer at UCL that they start homebrewing for economic reasons and their brewery is now the first in the UK to be financed through crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Paul, Jack and their accomplices are sat slightly nervously at the end of the room in the Conservatory of the Clove Hitch and seem eager to start, with this MTB taking place the evening before the Liverpool Craft Beer Expo, the audience is palpably ready for their beers. Two kegs of Anspach and Hobday’s beer made the trip north to the Expo in 2014; for 2015 this has grown to a 16 keg haul thanks to some dedicated brewing on their 450 litre (2.5 barrel) kit back at the brewery. The guys estimate that some 90% output of their beers comes in kegged form, as neither of the brewery’s founders claim to have been massively influenced by cask beers during their earlier drinking experiences. Something they have taken on board is the growing trend for a more unique approach to use of yeast in their beers, with having a stock source of yeast held by a business partner in Surrey that they use in most of their beers, they have experimented in many batches by using yeasts that indigenous to their brewery environment. Speaking of their yeast, they do enjoy their bit of writing now and again, with a few interesting blogs of their own [http://anspachandhobday.com/anspach-hobday-blog/], which has a run down of their penchant for and adventures with yeast and also had some of Paul’s thoughts on his own ‘desert island beers’. There is a six beer haul on for the evening and some are eyeing it with trepidation; whilst the beers are no doubt delicious, the abv for the latter four beers is slightly eyebrow raising for what is still a school night session! The Funky Pale This cloudy, straw coloured ale with a lightly frothy head has a huge amount of aroma and deep esters to offer. At 5% it has banana, cloves and deep sweetness on the nose which belies how the beer actually tastes; an incredibly savoury tang and a muting of the fruity aromas leads to a more bread-like and yeasty taste. The acidity is nicely balanced with a borderline tartness and the body is quite chewy but not overly residual, this all pushes towards a dry and pleasingly clean finish that does linger slightly. One of their newer beers, they’ve used a pale ale base and fermented using a yeast strain derived from the clever collection and propagation of bottled residue from sour beers, giving the savoury and reminiscently saison character. Hopping includes citra and mosaic with some dry hopping, occasionally (but sadly not here) using simcoe. The Best Bitter Now this is something… a very clever iteration of a classic style which tastes rejuvenated and eschews quite a lot of the character associated with ‘boring brown beer’. At 4.4% on this keg, the thick ruddy to light brown ale carries a white crisp head and has aromas of carob and chocolate oddly emanating; strangely the first thought in mind was a reminder of the smell of Weetos breakfast cereal! The use of rye gives a dry and slightly earthy flavour to the Best Bitter, finely tuned with the raisins, maltloaf, chocolately notes and overt roasted cereal, also complimenting a crisp and smooth mouthfeel with very little residual character. The dry finish (partly down to the use of rye) comes from the use of some British hops, namely the currently fashionable Admiral and the berry laden Bramling Cross. This is usually available on cask, which would be a slightly different proposition, but one which should not be passed up. Sour Saison A punchy 4.9% rhubarb and gooseberry laden aromatic ale, with a witbier-esque appearance and a thin, lacy white head, this sour also has plenty of aromas of ripened crab apples. A deeply acidic ale with a champagne yeast character, this is acerbically puckering and carries a slightly savoury note in the finish. Very much of a palate-stripper this sour ale has a very light body but seems a little unbalanced with regard the lack of the rest of the structure in standing up to the acidity. This experimental effort from Anspach & Hobday uses very little by way of hops and combines the use of sour Berliner-weisse mashing, repitching of lactobacillus with malts and use of saison yeast. There is plenty of lingering fruit in the finish, but could benefit from a little change in the structure. Double IP Saison A red coloured saison with plenty of hops and a smack in the mouth at 8.9%, the Double IP Saison is incredibly pine-fresh and acidic on the nose, plenty of unripened tropical fruit and there are abundance of other light and fruity esters lingering on the fringes of the core aromas. The flavour is spicy and carries the pine rather well; wood, red berries and other orchard fruit also come through courtesy of the US hops (centennial, chinook, cascade and citra). The body is big, bold and resinous giving a heavy mouthfeel and a slightly cloying nature to go with the delicate funkiness from the yeast strain used; imagine an APA crossed with a saison. This certainly doesn’t taste as the strength would suggest, a proverbial iron hand in a velvet glove - a very good ale with a dry finish that clings to the middle of the tongue. The Black IPA A dark ale with plenty of chocolate, liquorice and freshly dug earth on the nose courtesy of the heady and dark malts used, this black IPA is a little more restrained than the previous beer at 6.7%. A combination of pale and munich malts in the initial mash has the addition of black malts added in the final sparge, allowing a leach of colour and different flavour set into the brew. The use of German pelletised TNT and Galaxy hops allows for a fruitier set of flavours and aromas to be gently emergent above the malt character of this beer, they sometimes look to the addition of nelson sauvin or simcoe to supply more floral, fruit and resinous character. The finish is pleasant and the body is reasonably chewy and slightly residual. The Stout Porter This is the oldest recipe used by Anspach and Hobday, initially brewed on their homebrew kit and is what they call an ‘amplified porter’. A black (although when held up to the light, very dark red) stout with a beige to tan head, the earthiness of this 8.9% ale shines through. Nutty, gentle smokey and peaty, there are a multitude of dark roast flavours present here and the aromas give a portent of all of the above. The body is oily and slick, giving way to a dry roasted cereal finish which lingers in a soft and gentle manner. The use of EKG hops and a simple 4 malt base gives a stout which is around 30-40 IBUs and notably also has some flourishes of coffee and liquorice in aroma and taste. An excellent and nailed down recipe from Anspach and Hobday, which you get the impression is one of their solid and most consistent performers. That’s almost your lot everyone! Thanks for reading and hopefully you’ll get to try some of the Anspach and Hobday beers before too long, since they have been on recently at 23 Club/Clove Hitch and at the Liverpool Craft Beer Expo. Paul, Jack and their gang managed a round of golf after this MTB, although quite how things ended up after their foray to the Expo… fingers crossed they made it back to Bermondsey in one piece! Pedro. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anspach and Hobday 118 Druid Street, Bermondsey, London. SE1 2HH Tel: 0208 617 9510 Web: http://anspachandhobday.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/anspachhobday Email: [email protected] 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 The room appears a bit more Spartan than usual for an MTB night on this occasion in The Clove Hitch, but the change is welcome because as the popularity grew, elbowroom and audibility were the first to suffer. Phil and Aaron from Brass Castle survey the audience before Phil launches into an enthusiastic and certain run-through of how the brewery came to being; from a British Navy helicopter pilot, to an ambassadorial role at the UN and on to a single barrel brew kit. The unabridged version took in a boozy chat with an American colleague at the UN whose enthusiasm for beer and brewing was shared by Phil and before too long, there was an opportunity to have a go at making beer on a kit over in Princeton. Upon returning home, Phil set up the nanobrewery and gradually grew as his beers shifted from doing one brew per week on two vessels (usually the brewing process needs four), eventually up to the current 12 barrel brewery producing mainly cask beers with a few kegged numbers based in Malton, Yorkshire. The brewery has a lot of its own character, with having their own yeast culture kept to make all their beers, save the lager they make. The beers are not fined, making them suitable for vegetarians and vegans, with Phil going into some length during his presentation about the loss of a number of flavour compounds from the brew, in favour of clarity, which in itself can be misleading as to the quality of the beer one drinks. Some of the styles of beer Phil talked about were incredibly informative and well structured, leaving quite a lot of the audience feeling much more learned about the world of beer. You could tell he has had some experience with this presentation lark, oh and the Brass Castle logo that they use – it works upside down. UPSIDE DOWN. Brass Lager A very malty and raisin tanged aroma 5.3% brassy-coloured lager, this lager carries a thin white head and carries the aromas right through into the flavours. A Viennese-style lager which has hints of caramel and very light smoke, Brass Lager is deemed to be the brewery’s ‘cross-over’ beer for those stubbornly against drinking bitter. Brass Lager was pleasant enough, but possibly one of the less impressive on the roster for this event. Mosaic A 4.3% Pale Ale which is named for the distinctive US ’super’ hop variety that it uses for aroma and flavour, Mosaic has a whole host of grass meadow and floral aromas along with a slightly plasticene tinge. Mosaic is golden in colour and a very light head, the flavour carries the floral theme on well into a light maltiness, tropical fruits (including some grapefruit) and slightly acidic-edge, overall it is well balanced. The hopping of this beer is carried out very late in the boil (~5 minutes from the end and no bittering hops) and uses Marris Otter malts. Excellent beer for a hot day, chilled down to be refreshing, flavoursome and not too challenging. Sunshine A Kegged IPA coming in at 5.7%, Sunshine is very ‘farmyardy’ hazy and dark amber ale. The abundance of hops and a balanced malt profile give plenty of red berry fruit up front on the nose and carrying through into the flavour. Being an IPA, there is also some pine and plenty of resinous body to this beer, giving way to a fairly acidic but dry and pretty balanced finish that lingers quite briefly. Sunshine uses a number of US hops such as magnum, citra, simcoe, summit, perhaps some mosaic and cascade too – punching in at 100 IBU, this is quite bitter (go and do an internet search for International Bittering Units – IBUs and you’ll see where on the spectrum this actually is) but a residual sweetness from the malts leaves plenty in the balance. Hazelnut Mild A lighter effort at 4.2% and a traditional UK brewing style, there has been some resurgence of late for mild beers (so called ‘mild’, due to the low hop content and not necessarily due to the alcoholic strength – every day is a learning day!) so this is where this nut brown ale comes in to deliver something a little more wholesome to proceedings. There is a slight savoury character to this mild, with tinges of coffee, thick body and clever use of rye to provide dryness to the beer’s finish. Having had this a week earlier at a beer festival, it benefited hugely from being served in cask through a sparkler to give it some life. Black Forest A 6% game ender here, although not Brass Castle’s most famous brew, Black Forest does exactly what it says with its name and its deep, dark appearance. Chocolate, cherries and a creamy thick body give a German dessert of a beer and if you’re a fan of the flavours, this will not disappoint you. Served on this occasion from keg, it gave a different dimension to the beer, bringing forth a much more ‘grown up’ acidity from the cherries and a interesting mouthfeel without detriment to the smoothness. Brewed using cherry extract and cocoa powder, it seems absurdly simple, but the end product leaves that all forgotten. The finish is balanced but slightly dry and acidic. Great beer. Bad Kitty The last beer of the night was another dark monster by the name of Bad Kitty, so named after an aspect of Naval drinking exploits (so called a pussycat, which was basically a shot of everything from the top shelf, or for those of us without a seafaring nature; a mix from your Mum and Dad’s liquor cabinet). A 5.7% Porter ale, this gives tonnes of chocolate and vanilla on the nose and in flavour, being velvety smooth and a slightly chalky and drying mouthfeel, Bad Kitty was the second beer ever brewed by Brass Castle. Milk Chocolate in a glass stemming from misbehaving cats during the homebrewing days for Phil. Bad Kitty is another great beer. This was another really good outing in the Clove Hitch and although there have been some detractors of late in terms of having to pay for events such as this, it’s not a huge burden to hand over subs for a brilliant 3 course meal with 6+ excellent beers – you’re highly unlikely to get this along with an evenings’ entertainment for free anywhere. Presentations such as this, with knowledgeable speakers and a quality product are worth much more and as such, worthy of our support. In total honesty, this seemed like it was going to be one of the less exciting MTBs of recent times, but in the end, the whole experience proved to be one of the best Clove Hitch have hosted to date thanks to kitchen and especially to Brass Castle. Once again, that is your lot for this MTB… but stay tuned for the next instalment and some more food and drink articles coming up. Hope you enjoyed the read as ever (give us a share or Retweet or whatever eh?) and until next time…. Salud! Pedro. X ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 Brass Castle Brewery 10A Yorkersgate, Malton, YO17 7AB Web: http://brasscastle.co.uk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrassCastleBeer Email: [email protected] Tel: 01653 698 683 Last minute cancellations are a bugger to deal with for anything usually and on this occasion, it leaves Geoff (co-founder) and Dennis (from the brewery team) in the position of having to talk about the steady and solid progress that Buxton have achieved in their time of operation during the boom time of UK ‘craft’ Beer. Initially they seem a little unsure of how to address the event, will tentative and some overly technical chatter before a few beers are sunk and things hit a slightly more relaxed and entertaining pace. Buxton began their journey in 2009 in a garage and have gone on to become one of the most recognisable brands on the scene, with a constantly changing repertoire and an evident penchant for the current barrel aging fashion for some styles of beer. Starting off on second-hand kit with little experience, cuckoo-brewing and then using other bits of equipment to cobble together enough to keep up with production (and annihilating an old Firkin pub kit in the process through 5-6 brews per week), the Buxton boys have plied their trade well and shown endeavour to come this far. The first major expansion for Buxton came in 2013, and the second in February 2014 which was fairly well documented on Twitter, but for those who didn’t see a large number of pictures showing huge kit on the back of flat loader trucks, the kit was still very manual from the 2013 expansion, but production now stands at 3500 litre batch brews (up from the pre-2014 800 Litres). The attitude has always been and still seems to be, to fly by the seat of their pants with recipes and ideas for the beers, including pulling numerous all-nighters and not really bothering too much with test-brews. Buxton’s popularity isn’t quite so burgeoning closer to its home in Derbyshire if Jeff and Dennis are on the money, though they have a steady stream of ale directed around the UK and a large export outlet in Italy and Spain, they do lament things closer to home where many pubs are tied up in Pubcos. For now, the focus remains on developing a barrel-aging programme (which they say is providing an interesting challenge, learning experience and is a naturally progressive step in brewing) and to stay as a smaller brewery to maintain a tight grip on the quality and range of the beers they produce. So what of those beers? -------- Jacob’s Ladder A very sessionable 2.8% beer, dispensed on this occasion from cask, Jacob’s Ladder is a creamy, malty and lightly aromatic golden ale. First made for the Buxton Fringe festival, this beer was renamed using the local Derbyshire landscape and features of the Peak District as inspiration around a year and half ago (at time of writing!) and benefits from the use of 4-5 different malts alongside the use of new world Motueka and Galaxy hops along with some dry-hopping in the cask to bring out some light fruit. The stand out note from drinking this low strength ale is the remarkable amount of body it carries for such a low abv. Moor Top Another golden to straw coloured cask ale, Moor Top stands at 3.6% and is very light, very dry and has a quite astringent finish whilst remaining quite balanced. A touch acidic and quite verdant in aromas, going from nettles with a slight metallic-malt tang in flavour, Moor Top is one of Buxton’s oldest recipes stemming from 2009. Competent, though is a little less satisfying than the Buxton Spa when dispensed in this way. Axe Edge A golden to amber IPA which weighs in at 6.8%, the Axe Edge (again named after features of the Peak District) is very balanced and carries aromas of pine, warm woody notes and some tropical fruit which carry through into the flavour. Widely regarded as Buxton’s flagship beer, the recipe for Axe Edge has changed very slightly down the years of brewing it but it remains distinctly balanced and flavoursome. High Tor A beer reminiscent of a stroll through en English herb-garden and at 6.3% has a slightly acrid and dark malty punch. The hop profile of this India Red Ale is heavy and makes use of significant amounts of centennial. The malt drives this beer and gives flavours of toffee, dark fruit and some soft and resinous mouthfeel moments. The finish is much fruitier than the initial taste, with some hints of liquorice and an overall bitter bite. Axe Rocks A 6.4% Black IPA that came about from a blend of Axe Edge and Black Rocks profiles, the bulk of this beer’s character comes from high hop content and balance of the roasted dark malts and have a very interesting mouth feel. The ‘Black and Tan’ nature of this beer, along with its colour is quite misleading, in a blindfolded test it would be easy to mistake this for a standard IPA in style. The use of US and New Zealand hops provides a lot of fruit and this beer is said to use more extensive varieties of hops than most of the other Buxton beers. Far Skyline A superb sorbet of a beer, this competently delicious Berliner-weiss is a 4.9% hazy blonde number which is very polarising – either you dig sour beers, or you don’t and this is a citric monster with much cloudy lemonade character. The profile in flavour is very reminiscent of a cider and benefits from 3-4 days of souring and use of lactobacillus bacteria in the brew. Dry-hopping of the Far Skyline gives an extra layer of flavour and mouthfeel to this beer, the use of motueka (renowned for its lime flavouring capacity) brings out the best in the very dry, sour and cleansing nature of this Berliner-weisse. Battle Horse A double black IPA and a heady one at 10.5% strength, Battle Horse carries a lot of toasty character but relies on hops to deliver the payload. A thick and resinous mouthfeel doesn’t run too close to being cloying on the palate. Flavours of coffee, dark and roasted fruit come through heavily along with a touch of pine and some white stone fruit and a bit of sweetness. Interesting and works superbly as a sipper. The Living End The Living End is a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout and a strong boy at 10.1%, marginally pipped by Battle Horse, but making up for it with the intense character from 8 different malts. After much practice, this is one of Buxton’s first salvos of barrel-aged ales. Vanilla and silky mouthfeel from the oak of the barrel comes as standard and the process is not yet finished. The brewery is still testing out a variety of barrels, including those from the Aardbeg distillery to give a peat driven iteration to their beers. Back on this version, wood, whisky, chocolate and liquorice all come through along with notes of ash and a soft but oily mouthfeel and an overtly bitter and whisky-alcoholic finish. Sip away in your smoking jacket with this one. Once again, that is your lot for this MTB… but stay tuned for another one very soon! Hope you enjoyed the read as ever and until next time…. Pedro. X ---------------------------------------------- Buxton Brewery Staden Business Park, Staden Lane, Buxton, Derbyshire. SK17 9RZ Web: http://www.buxtonbrewery.co.uk/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuxtonBreweryCompany Twitter: https://twitter.com/buxtonbrewery Tel: 01298 24420 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 Striking pump clip art in the style of street tagging, credible, competent cask and a smattering of classy keg offerings; it must mean Newport’s finest, the Tiny Rebel boys have rolled into town on the back of a tap-takeover at the 23 Club for another Meet the Brewer event. Tiny Rebel are another of the UK’s micro-breweries with a distinctive brand and image in the market place for both Craft Beer and Cask alike; even the Liverpool branch of CAMRA had representation on this occasion. Looking through their portfolio, it is easy to see the penchant for various cask friendly styles that self-professed cask-drinkers Gareth and Bradley would like to imbibe themselves. However, that is not to say how much care they are taking in putting effort to push forward the quality of their kegged beers (point of interest, the one-inch punch – kegged for the evening, was one of the juiciest and refreshing pales I have had for a while). Currently the premises and kit in Tiny Rebel’s arsenal affords them a 12-barrel capacity brew run, but their aspirations are to push up to a 30-barrel brewery, to ultimately increase production whilst maintaining the firm on quality of their beers. In 2014, Gareth and Bradley professed to an output of 1.2 million pints of their beers going to the market place, some going considering they only started producing their beers properly in 2012 (although their first forays began 3 years prior, stemming from their passion for homebrewing). In terms of the transition from homebrewing to having a product ready to be sold in the pubs, Gareth felt that the two years between set up and launch of the brand were crucial and briefly laments the lack of a social life, but not with too much conviction. At the start of the talk, where the Rebel boys start outlining their remit for the brewery and where the origins of their passions lie, Gareth claims to have gotten Bradley into homebrewing whilst the pair where starting off and though there was a massive learning curve with the business, family support has proven both critical and forthcoming. Now the ball is rolling with significant momentum they are looking to make a dent into the market traditionally dominated by Brains, based in Cardiff. Searching for a name for the brewery, the inspiration was drawn from Bradley’s Brother’s company whilst he was working in computer game development, they admitted that the other options weren’t really up to scratch. The eye-catchingly distinctive graffiti style branding is courtesy of an artist originally from Swindon, but initially working in Canada and this is possibly what a lot of people really notice first with Tiny Rebel’s beers. There are plans for a second bar to serve the Tiny Rebel beers; The Urban Taphouse in Cardiff is the brewery’s first premises and has proven very successful. The boys also are looking at releasing a series of single hopped beers working under the nickname of ‘Tiny Batch’ series. So it is clear that there is plenty to look forward to, even for those of us not in South Wales. Speaking technically, the brewery was initially set up for cask, the guys estimated a ratio of 80% to 20% keg, most keg is exported to other markets. Gareth and Bradley stated they do want to bolster the traditional cask market in the UK and keep a backbone of the brewery in UK brewing cultural tradition. With regarding brewing, they like to keep the IBUs under control, as going too heavy isn’t what they want to do with their beers as they feel more doesn’t always translate to a better beer. They tend to use pelleted hops rather than whole cones, feeling that this produces more consistent results in the flavouring, aromas and body of their beers. All Tiny Rebels’ beers are currently fined, something that is becoming less and less popular these days with many brewers, although this provides clarity, there is a trade off to be made. So, how are those rebellious beers? BO’HO Lager A 5% kegged pilsner style lager, golden in colour with thin bubbles and a light head thanks to a ver spritzy level of carbonation. Refreshing, with a crisp malt backbone and very delicate aromas beyond this, although there is also a slight metallic tang in the aftertaste. This was first brewed in 2014 using a specific yeast to give a slight fruity edge to the lager, the obligatory saaz hops and a fortnight period to brew. The beer is also held in conditioning for 5-6 weeks, so it isn’t a quick beer to produce! Billabong Pale Ale A golden cask ale at 4.6% and using Australian Galaxy hops in conjunction with carapils malts and some wheat. Beneath the soft white head, the aromas float out giving a distinctive herbal and slightly coriander laden soapiness along with some soft tropical fruit. A simple and fairly elegant pale ale. One Inch Punch This beer is much fruitier effort than the first two beers, light golden in colour with loads of green fruit, gooseberries, citrus and kiwis along with a touch of mango thanks to a lot of mosaic hops. The addition of crushed oats (crushed at the brewery nonetheless) gives an additional smoothness to the beer. Great stuff. Cwtch With some debate over what ‘Cwtch’ actually translates to (from the apparently incorrect cuddle, to the area of a pub lots will know as a snug), this is a malty red ale using three types of malt and is lightly hopped with citra and columbus, with a bout of dry hopping using citra exclusively. The hops are all non-UK grown in Cwtch, but it doesn’t grab too much fruit character compared to some of the other rebel beers. Loki Black IPA A dark red to brown coloured ale (not quite black) which is hopped using a 70% bulk of British hops, including the newly fashionable Jester. The flavour is a lightly malted hum surrounded by a nutty, caramel cola flavour with only light aromas from the hopping. Coming from cask, this 4.5% beer has a soft rounded body and a pleasant finish. Hadouken! For those people who suffered from ‘Nintendo Thumb’ (or a sore wrist from coin-op arcade machines) back in the early to mid-nineteen nineties, the name of this American style pale ale will hold some relevance. Those who picked up a control pad and were familiar with how to throw a fireball in Street Fighter 2 will drink this and the dramatic punch of a heavily US hopped beer and feel the potency. With a resinous pine-heavy chewy body, a slightly off-sweet finish and coming from one of the Rebel’s early homebrew recipes, Hadouken uses a combination of cascade, chinook and colombus hops. At 7.4% from a keg, it benefits from the freshness afforded by this dispense method. Morning Glory Oatmeal Stout A breakfast stout, which contains lactose and has cocoa nibs introduced to the brew in the bittering phase. The coffee element stands to attention by the use of Nicaraguan coffee beans, without too much exposure via a cold infusion to limit the bitter and often acrid element coffee can introduce to a drink. The use of oats also affords this beer a very smooth mouthfeel and finish, although it does feel a little thin for such a dark ale. As a whole, this is a very flavoursome and sessionable (at 4%) style stout, although there may be a little too much flavour to go a whole session on Morning Glory. Dirty Stop Out (smoked oat stout) The final beer of the night was an oddly subdued effort of a smoked beer, whether this was down to the other beers being a little too fierce to allow the detection of a smoky element. This 5% kegged beer was rather thin on body, plus there was a rather poor head retention. There is plenty of flavour from malts although, the Morning Glory was a much more rounded and flavoursome effort. This event marked a slight change of format from the guys at 23 Club/The Clove Hitch, with a couple more beers and a tapas style delivery of the food. Another fine evening with eloquent speakers and a chance to learn more about another one of the UK’s talented breweries. There is also a follow on from this event, with Tiny Rebel taking over the taps at the Clove Hitch and 23 Club, although they are probably running out… so you’ll need to be quick! Until next time!! Pedro ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tiny Rebel Brewing Company Unit 12A Maesglas Industrial Estate Newport NP20 2NN Tel: 01633 547 378 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.tinyrebel.co.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/tinyrebelbrewco 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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