BEER BUZZ tours & clubs

Beer Club Dates and Styles

2012-01-14T11:59:00.001Z

Pivni – York

Monday 16 January 2012 –Lager

Monday 13 February 2012 –Pale Ale / Bitter

Monday 19 March 2012 –Wheat Beer

Monday 16 April 2012 –Kölsch & Alt

Monday 14 May 2012 –Mild

Monday 18 June 2012 –Golden Ale

Mr Foley's – Leeds

Tuesday 17 January 2012 – Lager

Wednesday 15 February 2012 – Pale Ale /Bitter

Tuesday 20 March 2012 – Wheat Beer

Tuesday 17 April 2012 – Kölsch& Alt

Tuesday 15 May 2012 – Mild

Tuesday 19 June 2012 – Golden Ale

Post Office Vaults – Birmingham

Wednesday 18 January 2012 – Lager

Thursday 16 February 2012 – Pale Ale/ Bitter

Wednesday 21 March 2012 – Wheat Beer

Wednesday 18 April 2012 – Kölsch& Alt

Wednesday 16 May – Mild

Wednesday 20 June – Golden Ale

Porterhouse – London

Tuesday 24 January 2012 – Lager

Tuesday 21 February 2012 – Pale Ale /Bitter

Tuesday 27 March 2012 – Wheat Beer

Tuesday 24 April 2012 – Kölsch& Alt

Tuesday 22 May 2012 – Mild

Tuesday 26 June 2012 –Golden Ale

Hooper's Bar – London

Wednesday 25 January 2012 – Lager

Wednesday 22 February 2012 – Pale Ale/ Bitter

Wednesday 28 March 2012 – Wheat Beer

Wednesday 25 April 2012 – Kölsch& Alt

Wednesday 23 May 2012 – Mild

Wednesday 27 June 2012 –Golden Ale

Garden Gate – London

Thursday 26 January 2012 – Lager

Thursday 23 February 2012 – Pale Ale/ Bitter

Thursday 29 March 2012 – Wheat Beer

Thursday 26 April 2012 – Kölsch& Alt

Thursday 24 May 2012 – Mild

Thursday 28 June 2012 –Golden Ale

Salzburg Beer

2012-01-09T23:43:00.001Z

As with much of Europe (and indeed the world) their has been a rapid increase in the number of new breweries producing great craft beers in Austria. In the small region of Salzburgerland their are now at least 20 brewers. The variety of beers available make Salzburg one of the best European destinations for the beer tourist.
These are the top five, all reachable using public transport:

Stiegl - The largest privately owned brewery in Austria, won't appeal to the craft beer purist but there's no escaping Stiegl beers in Salzburg. You can also visit Stiegl's Brauwelt (Brew World) to learn all about the brewing process, history of the brewery and of course to taste the beers. If you only drink one Stiegl beer whilst you're in Salzburg, go to the Stiegl Keller (beer garten) half way up the hill to the Salzburg Fortress. - Stiegl
Gusswerk - An innovative and organic modern microbrewery founded in 2007 on the site of a closed foundry which has been rejuvenated as a modern business park. Here you can experience rarities such as champagne beer and Steinbier. - Brauhaus Gusswerk
Raggei - A multi-award winning microbrewery in a picturesque alpine village just outside Salzburg. This family friendly pub-restaurant was founded in 1999 and serves traditional Austrian beers and food in the atmosphere of a log cabin.- Raggei-Brau
Die Weisse - It's hard to believe that this very modern looking pub, beer garden and late night music/dance club celebrated its 110th anniversary in 2011. As you might guess from the name, the attached brewery produces wheat beers in the bavarian style. A great place to end your long day in Salzburg. - Die Weisse
Augustiner - Not the well known Munich brewery but a small brewery, beer hall and beer garden in an Augustine Monastery in the Salzburg suburb of Muelln. One of the best beer experiences in the world. At just before 3pm, join the queue waiting for the prompt opening of the pub; pay for your beer at the cash desk; chose a stein; rinse it in the fountain; and pass it to a server for filling direct from the wooden barrel. But wait, that's not all, take your beer upstairs to the beer hall and choose your food from the arcade of small shops that run around it! - Augustiner

These five destinations are chosen to show you the variety of beery experiences available in and around Salzburg and this is by no means an exhaustive list. Have fun and please remember, most of the beer is about 5% abv so drink responsibly.

New for 2012

2012-01-09T22:23:00.000Z

Some exciting developments to look forward to in 2012 with BEER BUZZ:

Coming to a craft beer pub near you - beer tasting with BEER BUZZ clubs click here
A new program of beer tours with BEER BUZZ tours click here
City beer guide publications from BEER BUZZ guides

Bamberg Tour October 2010 Slideshow

2010-11-04T01:47:00.000Z

Bamberg Tour October 2010 Slideshow: "TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Bamberg Tour October 2010 Slideshow ★ to Stansted, Bamberg and Forchheim by Beer Buzz Tours. Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor"

Beer Buzz

2010-04-15T17:52:00.001+01:00

See the Beer Buzz Blog for more on Franconia

in reference to: Franconian Beer Message Board (view on Google Sidewiki)

La goule - Bière Ambrée

2009-03-02T21:55:00.003Z

Brewed by Brasserie Artisanale Océane, this is a French amber beer, top fermented, 6% abv. It's also bottle conditioned, unfiltered and unpasteurised.

On opening, the bottle foams over the top slightly. The beer pours rich amber, slightly hazy with a thin but persistent white head and a strong effervescence of extremely tiny bubbles. The aroma is reminiscent of wheat malt and sour fruit with a hint of tomato.

The taste is clean, refreshing and moreish. It's light bodied and slightly sharp but not overtly sour. The finish is dry, fruity and slightly hoppy with citrus, grassy flavours.

Not a bad effort and dangerously drinkable, imagine a summer's afternoon dozing in the shade by a French lake.

I'm not sure that this will ever be a personal favourite, I'm not a fan of the style, but it's a well crafted beer, full of flavour and pleasing to gulp.

Long Gap Between Posts

2008-11-03T20:42:00.002Z

Sorry I've not posted for a while but things got a bit mad with work for a while. The upshot of which is that two thirds of the people in my factory were made redundant including me. I started a new job today. However, it means being away from home during the week and away from my family. On the plus side more time to blog then and catch up on all the stored material in my notebooks.

Positive beer experiences in the last few days included the Californian Pale Ale at Wetherspoon's and a bottle of Orval. I knew there was a reason I liked beer.

Negative experiences, an empty brewpub on a Sunday evening, explained by appalling off beer and a bottle of Shepherd Neame Spitfire.

SARL Bières de Ré

2008-07-07T19:41:00.031+01:00

Bières de Ré is a small craft brewery on the idyllic Ile de Ré, just off the coast of Charente Maritime in France. The island is covered in picturesque villages of white painted houses and is surrounded by unspoilt fine sandy beaches. The rest of the island is made up of forest, heath, sand dunes and, oh yes, a great little brewery.

The brewery is housed in an industrial unit on a small estate just outside the charming village of Sainte Marie de Ré. I visited the brewery on a warm sunny day in June this year and was shown around by Arnaud Roy, owner and brewer.

The brewery is small, modern and immaculately clean, almost to the detriment of any character but this is a working modern brewery not an old German pub so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much. To summarise the brewing process runs something like this (my ability to listen to French and write notes in English being tested to its limits).

Mashing takes place over a two hour period commencing at 40°C and terminating at 80°C. With the malt coming from French, Belgian and German suppliers.

The wort is then tranferred to a second vessel and kept warm while the spent grains are removed from the first vessel. Then the wort returns for the addition of hops and boiling (the one vessel acting as both Mash Tun and Brewing Kettle). There is just one addition of hops, at the beginning of the boil. The wort is boiled for one hour before the temperature is reduced to 20°C for fermentation.

Primary fermentation takes place in open fermenting vessels and lasts for about one week. The beer is then bottled with new wort on the brewery's own bottling line and undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle.

The bottles are conditioned at the brewery for three weeks at 20°C after which it is available for sale, from the brewery, other local outlets or from the brewery's website.

http://bieresderefr/

The following is a brief history of the brewery translated from the website.

The brewery "Blanche de Ré" was born at the beginning of 1996. Following brewing tests by a master brewer bottled "Blanche de Ré" beer went on sale in June 1996.

Further innovation led to the development of two more beere in 1998 and 1999, "la Déferlante" and "l'Ecume de Ré", all to the same purity procedure in line with the Bavarian purity law of 1516.

The brewery was bought by a young couple (Anne Laure et Arnaud Roy) in 2005 who created, a few months later, to celebrate the occasion and the 10th anniversary of the brewery, the fourth beer "la Blanche Amb'Ré".

In March 2006 a new 10hl brewhouse was brought into service in order to pursue the new owners objectives of quality and tradition.

So that just about covers the brewery. I expect I should say something about the beers, yes? OK here goes. BDR produce just four beers: la Blanche de Ré; l'Ecume de Ré (foam); la Blanche Amb'Ré and la Déferlante (breaker).

la Blanche de Ré (5%)

This bière blanche (white beer) pours a lightly cloudy gold colour with a coarse but persistent head and is strongly effervescent. I left a large amount of yeast debris behind in the bottle.

The aroma is of a type that I am beginning to associate with French craft beers, some sweet maltiness, wheat malt and grassy hops. As well as a hint of prianiki (Russian spiced honey cakes) yeastiness and vinuous fruit.

The taste is light and clean with malt and wheat malt apparent, there's a hint of sweetness and an astringent slightly citrus finish.

Very refreshing, you could drink a lot of this chilled on a hot day!

la Déferlante (8%)

This beer (breaker) named after the surf famous all along the Atlantic coast of France, pours a luxurious rich, hazy gold. Highly effervescent with a dense head that begins to form shortly after pouring finishes!

The aroma is of sweet malt, dried dates, buttered blanched cabbage with some grassy hops.

The taste is well balanced with neither sweetness nor acidity quite winning the battle. Vinuous fruitiness betrays the alcohol and there is a very full bodied mouthfeel with clementines and blackened bread crust bitterness in the finish.

The bottle notes suggest "unctious with a pronounced character" and "aromas of cereals, fruits and vegetables". I'm not going to disagree with any of that.

l'Ecume de Ré (5%)

The next beer (foam) again has a surf theme and it pours a dark red/brown almost black, opaque, effervescent, with a coarse but persistent head.

The aroma is fruity and grassy with well cooked but cooled brown bread.

The mouthfeel is very full and malty, typically French with a graininess and a little roast flavour. Some alcohol is apparent although this is not an especially strong beer. As the bottle notes suggest, there is a definite but subtle coffee note to the taste with a less pronounced spiciness.

la Blanche Amb'Ré (5.8%)

This beer, punning the style Ambrée (Amber) and the name of its island home is the newest beer in the range. A thin coarse head sits atop a hazy amber beer of fierce effervescence and a thick sludge again remains in the 33cl bottle. The head is persistent and becoming thicker.

The aroma is sweet and malty with vinuous fruit, citrus and brown bread.

The taste is more light bodied than I expected, malty and sweet yes but with a pronounced citrus edge, especially in the finish. As I drink more the finish is becoming more bitter. As with all these beers the flavour is brought to your tongue amidst a champagne like mousse of bubbles giving them a very definite brewery character, as does the wheat beer style common to all the beers of BDR.

The bottle notes suggest "honey and caramel".

Summary

These beers are not in a style that I would normally choose, not a bad thing as I surprised myself by enjoying them all. They are skillfully made wheat beers of imposing character, all are bottle conditioned and all share the same ingredients list of: water; barley malt; wheat malt; yeast and hops.

My thanks go to M. Roy for the informative tour and the beer samples to review, I hope I've done them justice.

Back From France with Beer

2008-06-26T21:43:00.005+01:00

Just a quick post to say I'm back from France with loads of beer and lots of Breweries to tell you about.

Brasserie de Bercloux (17770 Bercloux)

Stout (5%)
Spéciale (8%)
Cognac (7%)
Ambrée (7%)
Blanche (5.5%)
Blonde (5.5%)

Brasserie de La Rainette (16380 Chazelles)

Bitter Ale (5.5%)
Blanche (5.5%)
Ambrée (7%)
Noire (5.5%)
Noël (7%)

Brasserie des Gabariers (16100 Cognac)

XO (5.9%)
Blonde (4.5%)
Au Pineau (4.5%)
Fée d'Hiver (7%)

SARL Bières de Ré (17740 Ste Marie de Ré)

Blanche de Ré (5%)
L'Ecume de Ré (5%)
La Déferlante (8%)
La Blanche Amb'Ré (5.8%)

SARL Bières des Naufrageurs (17190 St Georges d'Oleron)

Blonde Spéciale (7%)
Brune (6%)
Gingembre (6%)
Napoléron (7.5%)
Blonde (5%)
Noire (7%)
Blanche (5%)
Ambrée (6%)
Cardamome (6%)
Blanche à la Fleur de Sel (5%)
Rousse (6%)

la Brasserie Artisanale Ocèane (16170 Vaux-Rouillac)

La Goule "Bio" (6%)
La Goule Bière OR (6%)
La Goule Bière Ambrée (6%)
La Goule au Bois-Bandé (6%)
La Goule Black Prince (6%)

I also picked up the following bottles during my stay

Ch'Ti Ambrée (5.9%)
Ch'Ti Blonde (6.4%)
3 Monts (8.5%)
La Choulette Ambrée (8%)
L'Eurélienne Blonde (6.5%)
L'Eurélienne Rousse (7%)
Vivat Triple (8.3%)
Lancelot (6%)
Piste Noire Ambrée (5.9%)
Jenlain Ambrée (7.5%)

That's quite a few beers mostly strong so bear with me this may take a while as I'd like to try the beers before posting the reports on the brewery visits!

The Session

2008-06-06T06:00:00.001+01:00

The Session is a concept created by Appellation Beer.

http://appellationbeer.com/blog/

It is a monthly event for the beer blogging community to post on a common subject on the same day (the first Friday of the month).
Each month a different blogger hosts "The Session" and chooses the subject. For June the subject is "beer festivals". and The Session is hosted by Geistbear.

Much has been written about beer festivals and the question of beer festival or pub, which is better? Has been done to death.

So I'm going to talk about the beer festival in isolation and look at some of the beer festivals I've attended, both at home and abroad. I'll try to answer the questions:

What makes a good festival?

What is the best type of location?

Should there be music?

Should there be food?

How big should it be?

St Ives, Cambridgeshire

An annual CAMRA beer festival in the middle of September usually selling about 55 draught real ales as well as cider, perry and foreign bottled beer. I used to live in St Ives and worked at this CAMRA festival for a few years. It's great to get involved and so I have a special fondness for this festival. I'd have to say that the location, within a modern sports complex was not the best and that the food was a bit basic. It was a one room festival so there was nowhere to escape the music, I think that a musical element should be present but I would like the option of escaping at times. The size was about right in terms of size of venue, number of beers and number of people.

Annafest, Forchheim, Franconia, Germany

Annafest is held in july each year, in theory as a festival in honour of St Anna, however, the dominant feature of the festival is the beer. 26 bierkeller on one hill open there doors and sell specially brewed festbier in volumes of one litre (mass) only. The location is unbeatable, there is a variety of music but you can always move on. A good variety of food is on offer and it is plenty big enough. However, I have one big criticism, I would prefer the option to buy smaller quantities and the prices are far too high.

Cambridge

An annual CAMRA beer festival in June usually selling about 150 draught real ales. The location is within marquees on a park near the centre of Cambridge, I can't remember much about the music but it is possible to escape from it, food was average to reasonable and although the number of beers sounds impressive the number actually for sale at any one time was only about 50%

Thetford Forest

A festival I came across by accident in a small tent at High Lodge in Thetford forest. great location, no music, no food although there is a cafe nearby and only a dozen or so beers. I liked it a lot.

Bedford

Another CaMRA festival similar to the St Ives festival in most respects but in a slightly more pleasant hall.

Peterborough

CAMRA's second festival after the GBBF in terms of size and number of visitors. Over 300 beer and 40,000 visitors. Held in three large marquees by the river Nene in the centre of Peterborough. Good live music in the centre marquee only, reasonable food selection and just about enough beer. Held during the week leading up to the August Bank Holiday. A magnificent effort regularly let down by the weather.

German Beer Festival in London

Held recently at the Zeitgeist pub in London over three days, unfortunately I chose to attend on the third day but all the beer had been sold by the second night. I hear it went really well and judging by the speed of beer consumption I suppose it did!

Pub Beer Festival in Pucklechurch Somerset

Some friends used to live in this quant village and invited us each year for their local pub's beer festival. Held in a marquee adjacent to the pub with a barbeque, excellent live music and a selection of 20+ local beers. Always felt more like a big party than a beer festival and I think that's a good thing.

Pub Beer Festival Rose & Crown, March

My local has started holding two beer festivals per year in a small marquee in the beer garden, a small range of local beers is the only attraction. I'm not complaining, that's all I need.

Summary

The term beer festival seems to cover a wide range of types of event and all the factors that I've been considering vary enormously from one to another.

Overall the outdoor festivals do it for me and of this type I suppose a German bierkeller environment is about as good as it gets.

Music is generally a good thing as long as it's live and that the festival is big enough to give you somewhere to escape to if necessary for conversation and /or quiet contemplation of your beer.

Food if done at all should be good value but of a reasonable standard. Also the greater the range on offer the better.

I think the size is possibly the least important facto although the largest of festivals can become very impersonal.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, I intend to visit more beer festivals of as many different types as possible. It seems to me that the overall quality and value of what's on offer is far more important than any individual factor.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

2008-06-05T08:01:00.002+01:00

I've seen this beer for sale in Tesco dozens of times but it's strong and in a small bottle so I've always passed it by. Yesterday it was reduced to £1.18 (all the beers were reduced) so I bought a bottle took it home and drank it immediately.

A Christmas beer on a warm late spring evening, hmmm?

Anyway I was initially impressed by the aroma which strongly reminded me of hot cross buns. Then there's the taste which is fruity for about a nanosecond before the hops come in like tsunami, dark bitter marmalade and burnt toast explode in your mouth.

Glad I wasn't going to have another beer after this, I'd never have tasted it!

Breweries of Poitou-Charente (France)

2008-06-04T15:56:00.003+01:00

The following map shows the locations of the breweries I intend to visit during my forthcoming trip to France. Click on the tags to view the brewery details. (map deleted).

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (23)

2008-06-03T20:40:00.005+01:00

Yes back to Franconia and the third brewery of my walk on Saturday 28th. If you recall I was following a walk written by the late great John White and I had just left Geisfeld after sampling the beery delights of the Krug and Griess breweries.

My next stop was to be Rossdorf am Forst. After leaving Geisfeld I passed by Griess's Keller which unfortunately was closed. The sky looked very black and I suspected that I might get drenched before I reached Brauerei Sauer in Rossdorf. I was right, a very heavy shower soaked me in a matter of minutes so I found myself arriving at Sauer in need of a beer to cheer me up.

I found a table and ordered a Lagerbier.

The Lagerbier has a dense head that dissipates quickly to reveal a pale beer. The aroma is balanced and the taste is more malty than the Geisfeld beers. Not much in the finish, some malt and a little hop.

The food looked very good at Sauer, I settled for a salad as I still had the walk back to Strullendorf to contend with, maybe I'd get a pizza later in Bamberg and maybe meet up with Jim for a few more beers.

Details of this walk can be found on John White's website, I highly recommend it.

Cains Dark Mild

2008-06-03T19:52:00.003+01:00

I usually drink a beer in the evening. During the week I want a beer that's good quality, reliable, cheap and not too strong.

Easy then there must be loads of beers like that!

No actually there are very few. A range of only three, in fact, that I buy on a regular basis. Banks Original, Thwaites Dark Mild and Cains Dark Mild. Of these three the Banksbeer is a little thin and the Thwaites a little one dimensional. So that just leaves the Cains Dark Mild, an excellent beer but I'd like a few more as good for variety.

Oh yes, and they all come in cans.

More Lists

2008-06-02T21:08:00.003+01:00

Reading Ron's Blog about list got me thinking along the same lines. Since I read a similar thing in Steve Thomas's Good Beer Guide to Germany I've been meaning to compile my own. So for what it's worth here is my opinion on what constitutes excellence in the beer world. If you don't agree with me I don't care these are purely my own favourites as of today, tomorrow you may get a different answer.

Destination

1. Bamberg

A town that has everything. A great buzz to the place, it's pubs and it's beers. All this and it stands on its own as a tourist destination without all the beer.

2. Düsseldorf

What can I say. The four Alt brewpubs of the old town make for one of the best Friday nights imaginable, if you can get a seat that is.

3. York

A bewildering array of great pubs, beers and people. My brother lived in York for years and never tired of it, and why should he. we'll be back there to celebrate his 40th in July.

4. Kreuzberg, Hallerndorf, Franken, Germany

Four great Bierkeller on a wooded hill surrounded by villages with their own breweries, how could you go wrong?

5. Prague

I shouldn't include Prague, but I did inspite of myself, should have picked somewhere clever and unusual like Antwerp (Belgium) or Sedan (France).

Brewery

1. Mahrs, Bamberg

Could almost go in any category and has a good argument for most, there are better beers but there's only one Mahr's.

2. Adnams, Southwold, England

A traditional family run brewery in a small Suffolk seaside town that somehow never left the 1950's. Adnams do just about everything right, except axing Extra!

3. Timothy Taylor, Keighley, Yorkshire

A great range of beers from the best brewer in Yorkshire, how could anyone leave it out.

4. Göller, Zeil am Main, Franken, Germany

Again a great range of beers in some of my favourite styles. It's a winning formula that keeps me buying more

5. Tinkoff, St Petersburg, Russia

The Russians beating the German's at their own game. If only every modern German brewpub was this good. Clinically excellent beers served in a location that even persuades me that modern can be great.

Pubs (As They Are Today)

This was a hard one, some great pubs didn't get included, but these are the five that did.

1. The Chequers, Little Gransden, Cambridgeshire

Small unspoilt village boozer, in the same family for generations and selling Adnams Bitter in perfect condition.

2. Krug, Geisfeld, Franken, Germany

Spookily similar to The Chequers only in a different country. The buildings and the look are completely different but the people and the atmosphere are exactly the same.

3. Zum Schlüssel, Düsseldorf

From one extreme to the other, Schlüssel is a huge multiroomed brewpub, again with one dominant product for sale, Alt. The one pub in Düsseldorf that I've visited twice in one night. Once the Alt is flowing it's difficult to find a reason to leave.

4. Mahr's, Bamberg

The Schwemme in Mahrs is another one of those "public bar" kind of places where the beer and conversation flows and you rarely leave before closing time.

5. The Ferry, Cawood, Yorkshire

My favourite place to drink Taylor's Landlord, always in great condition, in a riverside pub with centuries of history, did I save the best 'til last? Even I can't answer that one.

Pubs (As They Once Were)

1. The Garibaldi, St Albans (1986)

Great Fullers ESB in this great pub of the time. It was a bit of a drain on student funds but we always had a great night, thanks Tim.

2. The New Inn, Appletreewick, Yorkshire (until 2007)

Daleside beers, great lunches and my first experience of a real foreign beer list, thanks John.

3. The Falcon, Arncliffe, Yorkshire (1983)

Great memories of late nights drinking Younger's No. 3 then the long walk back to the campsite. The landlord, who's name I forget was always most helpful in checking that we were "all right for beers" no matter what time it was!

4. The Red Lion, Histon, Cambridgeshire (about 1985)

Always an interesting range of beers including Adnams, in great condition, the landlord and landlady were from New Zealand unfortunately I can't remember their names.

5. The Rose & Crown, March, Cambridgeshire (until 2006)

Doug's beer quality, cellar management and dedication to providing an ever changing range of interesting beers, is something I expect I'll never have the pleasure of enjoying again.

The common theme here seems to be: great landlords make great pubs. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the people factor is so important.

Beer

As for the beers, I think I'll just give you the list without further comment. Again it's hard to decide what to include and what to leave out.

1. Timothy Taylor's Landlord

2. Hummel Kellerbier

3. Spezial Lagerbier

4. Orval, Belgium

5. Adnams Bitter

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (22)

2008-05-30T22:28:00.008+01:00

My next stop in Geisfeld was Brauerei Griess, the pub has a large room all in pale pine with similar chunky furniture and a Weyermann's poster in the corner. I ordered a Kellerbier and sat at a table on the far side of the room to enjoy it.

This Kellerbier has a dense but dissipating head through which floral hoppy aromas can be detected. Some pale malt aromas are starting to come through but it's very cold and there's no sign of a "fass" so it's not gravity dispense. The barman disappeared to get it so combined with the temperature that suggests "direct from the lagering tank." The beer is hoppy and bitter to taste with a pronounced bitter finish. It's a much paler beer than the Krug beer. I'm starting to taste malt towards the bottom of the Seidla but I've nearly finished it and it's still much too cold.

The barman is a funny guy who speaks good English, good enough for his humuor to work! He's very interested in the brewery's entry in Steve Thomas's Good Beer Guide to Germany.

So once again a tiny village close to Bamberg manages to support two great breweries, my personal favourite was Krug but I could easily have spent a lot more time in both of them. However, time is short and there are more breweries to check out so I set off for Rossdorf am Forst. It had been raining as I walked into Griess which was not a problem as the distance between Krug and Griess is not more than a few hundred metres. now the rain had stopped but I was to get seriously soaked walking between Geisfeld and Rossdorf.

Maisel Closed!

2008-05-30T10:26:00.002+01:00

I just heard a rumour that the Maisel brewery in Bamberg has closed down! I'll ask the original claimed source of the rumour and post more news as soon as I hear something.

Brewer Says "Try Legal Weed"

2008-05-29T08:28:00.001+01:00

Now we all know that despite the stereotypes Americans can take a joke, the US Federal government, however, is another thing entirely. It seems like Vaune Dillmann, owner of Mt. Shasta Brewing Co., Weed, California, is having problems with idiotic bureaucracy. The following is an article from the LA Times.

Try Legal Weed

Globalisation

2008-05-29T08:15:00.002+01:00

The following is a link to a Bloomberg article exploring the possibility of further global consolidation, including recent rumours concerning InBev and Anheuser-Busch.

Potential Brewing Industry Takeovers

One cheap, crap lager for all?

More Eastern European Beers

2008-05-28T21:26:00.006+01:00

You will probably have noticed the number of small shops that have opened in recent years to sell Eastern European food and drinks. Following on from my recent investigation into the quality of the offerings from the big 4 supermarkets I decided to try a few of the beers on offer in my local shop.

I found the following:

Kalnapilis Grand 5.3% (Lithuania)

Dębowe Mocne 7.0% (Poland)

Zubr Premium 5.1% (Czech Republic)

Utenos 5.0% (Lithuania)

Not much of interest in any of them, the only points to note are that the Dębowe Mocne was woeful for it's strength and that the Utenos, despite not including wheat in its ingredients, definitely tastes like a wheat beer; really odd!

Zywiec 5.6% (Poland)

2008-05-25T20:11:00.003+01:00

We had some visitors yesterday, and a barbeque. So to finish off the Eastern European beer fiasco I decided to try another bottle of Zywiec. As I suspected it's easily the best of the Eastern European beers from the big four supermarkets. It's just got much much more flavour than any of the others, it's miles ahead of the second placed Pilsner Urquell. A common failing of these beer is the aroma but Zywiec has masses of wonderful malty and hoppy aromas, with no metallic smells, no sign of hop extract or over pasteurisation. Intensity of aroma is followed by a similar intensity of taste, subtle sweetness, biscuity malt fragrant hops and an excellent clean bitter finish. It's all there, it's all correct and you could drink it all night, well done Zywiec.

The amazing thing to me is the gulf between this beer and the rest, it doesn't just win, it blows the rest away!

Sunday Bloody Sunday (Gutted)

2008-05-25T19:53:00.002+01:00

I've spent most of this afternoon watching Leeds United lose the division one play off final, at Wembly, to Doncaster bloody Rovers! Now there's a town that could be improved by the judicious use of a nuclear weapon!

The pub I chose to watch this debacle in was an Elgood's one, good choice you might think? Wrong, you see Elgood's make some great beers: Black Dog; Cambridge Bitter; Golden Newt; etc. However, they are notoriously hard to find in good condition locally. The pub in question, the Red Lion in March, had no cask beer available at all. I drank Warsteiner, honestly it was the best option!

On the plus side we get to play against Peterborough United next year, their manager is Darren Ferguson, son of Alex, I can hardly wait!

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (21)

2008-05-22T20:39:00.005+01:00

On Saturday 28 July I decided to try out John Whites circular walk, starting and ending in Strullendorf. John had intended to be in Franconia at this time and I had arranged to meet him, unfortunately John had passed away a few weeks earlier. The walk takes in Geisfeld and Rossdorf am Forst along the way and so the prospect of three more breweries awaited me in these two villages.

The first brewery of the day was Brauerei Krug in Geisfeld, the buildings are very picturesque being of timber and golden stone. I entered the small stone floored bar and ordered my first beer of the day.

The beer has a dense head that dissipates quickly, the aroma is roasty and malty but the taste is hoppy and bitter with a very bitter finish. This is a good walking beer for knocking back a couple of seidla when you are thirsty. The colour of the beer looks quite dark in the seidla and after drinking about half of it, thereby taking the edge off my thirst, some roasted malt flavours are coming through. These flavours are not immediately obvious through the initially hoppy and bitter components. The aroma at this point is still strongly malty, fabulous beer! As i get to the bottom of the seidla I can see that it's an amber beer, still tastes marvellous, very bitter but with enough malt and colour, I think I'll have another.

The little front bar is very atmospheric with a schwemme style serving window, just one table for sitting and a small one for standing customer. There were three locals, all different ages talking at the stammtisch.

More locals began to join the group at the stammtisch, all drinking the beer (there's only one beer produced). This place was definitely well worth the walk.

In the "schwemme" there is a curtain that can be pulled across to shield the stammtisch from the door in winter, I suppose the room is so small that the heat would be easily lost without some kind of protection.

The reverse side of the stammtisch sign says "Lünghund"?

The barmaid, who looks a lot like Phoebe from friends, says that the beer is served by gravity not from the "beer tank". I also got talking to a Technician/Electrician from who works at Weyermann. He talked about Weyermann customers who include Guiness and Griess (Geisfeld's other brewery) but not normally Krug, except for "special" beers.

France, Destination for the Beer Tourist?

2008-05-22T11:34:00.003+01:00

As part of my ongoing process of researching destinations for Beer Buzz Tours, I'll soon be off to France. Fair enough you might say, that will be the Ardennes or Alsace. No I'm going to Charente and the area around the town of Cognac!

There appear to be ten breweries within a fairly small area plus the added attractions of cognac and pineau.

Pilsner Urquell, 4.4% (Czech Republic)

2008-05-20T19:09:00.003+01:00

Beer Buzz's tour of Eastern Europe is now approaching it's finale, only two beers to go. It's possible that the last two beers could be the best and if so this whole exercise will have proved little. You see I suspected that Urquell and Zywiec would be the best two pale lagers commonly available in the big 4 supermarkets and after trying the rest I still believe that will be the case so today we'll look at Urquell leaving just Zywiec for the final tasting.

Pilsner Urquell pours a deep, bright, dark gold with a coarse off-white head that dissipates quite quickly. The aroma is typically hoppy with grass, herbs and a minerally metallic edge, there is also malt in giving a sweet biscuity aroma remeniscent of malted milk. The taste is very full bodied for it's strength with plenty of bitterness backed up by a subtely sweet maltiness. The finish is dry, bitter and hoppy with an intensity and length not seen in any of the beers tested thus far. It's also notably less effervescent than many of the others and it has a moreish taste that encourages another gulp. The only criticisms would be that for all it's intensity of flavour it's not overly complex and that the aromatic hop flavours appear somewhat deadened in the aroma.

Of course it's number one so far, but then you're not surprised by that are you?

Zeitgeist German Beer Festival 15-17 May

2008-05-19T17:08:00.002+01:00

I can't resist a chance to drink good German beer, so when Stonch advertised a German Beer Festival to be held at Zeitgeist (London's best German pub) I had to be there. Conveniently the National Express coach to London Victoria stops within 5 minutes walk of my home and Zeitgeist is less than 30 minutes walk from Victoria Coach Station, brilliant!

I caught the coach at half past eight on Saturday morning and reached Zeitgeist at about 1pm, a long journey but the advertised beer list was fabulous so I didn't mind. Straight into the pub then as I'd have to leave just after 4pm to catch the return coach.

Disaster!

All the beer had sold out on Friday night!

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (20)

2008-05-15T20:12:00.009+01:00

Friday 27th July (cont.)

Reluctantly I left Hummel and wandered up the road and around the corner. Low and behold, another brewery, Wagner. Wagner must be a common name to the north of Bamberg as there are several Wagner breweries within a few Kilometres. The Wagner brewery in Kemmern is particularly good but more of that another time, this is Merkendorf. I found a table with a good view of the room and bar, took a seat and ordered the "U" Lagerbier.

This beer has a variable density head and a malty aroma with some hops coming through. The head is dissipating quickly to reveal an amber/dark beer, sweet and malty with a good bitter finish. This is some village!

Again brewery employees are working in the yard and people are collecting fassbier. There are definite sounds of brewery equipment/machinery in use so they are definitely brewing here.

I noticed on the beer menu a Richard Wagner Dunkel at €1.70, a beer not mentioned in my Good Beer Guide Germany. Also the guide says that the owner is Richard Wagner, supported by the letters RW on the Seidla but the beer mats have the letters FW.

Congratulations

2008-05-15T11:14:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to Zenit St Petersburg on their UEFA Cup win.

News

2008-05-15T10:28:00.002+01:00

This, from the Times Online amused me:

"A father who tried to buy six beers from a branch of Tesco was told that he could not be served because he had his teenage daughter with him."

See the full article below:

Times Article

Since the beer in question was Bud I agree with the comment suggesting that Tesco refuse to sell Bud to anyone.

Weirdness!

2008-05-15T10:13:00.004+01:00

I notice that neither Zythophile nor Taking the Beard out of Beer have posted since they were judges at the Sainsbury's beer competition a month ago! What happenned to them? Did they upset someone with their scores?

Baltika No.3 Classic 5.1% (Russia)

2008-05-13T20:52:00.005+01:00

Since I first travelled to St Petersburg nearly ten years ago I've had a love/hate relationship with this beer, strangely it's in Roger Protz's 300 Beers to Try Before You Die? However, I've never actually thought to review it, until now. Well here goes.

This beer pours a pale gold/straw colour with a dense(ish) head which is dissipating slowly. The aroma is all grassy hops and bread dough. There's sweetness in the taste, a little citrus from the hops and an immediately apparent bitter finish that lingers at the side of the mouth. It's a little dusty and there's evidence of the heavy hand of pasteurisation. Despite the size of the brewery and the time spent possessed by S&N/Carlberg it's a lot better than all reason would predict.

This is still a fairly reasonable beer. OK there's much better in St Petersburg (Nevskoye, Stepin Razin, Tinkoff, Carl & Friedrich) but it's not the worst beer in this test by any stretch of the imagination and will probably figure quite high up the final list.

Here is the current list of Baltika products:

Baltika Non-alcoholic
Baltika N0.2 Lager 4.7% (contains rice & "hop products"!)
Baltika No.3 Classic Beer 4.8% on website (5.1% on my bottle)
Baltika No.4 Dark Lager 5.6% (contains rye malt & maltose syrup)
Baltika No.5 Golden Lager 5.3% (contains maltose syrup)
Baltika No.6 Porter 7% (contains maltose syrup)
Baltika No.7 Export Lager 5.4%
Balkita No.8 Wheat Ale 5%
Baltika No.9 Extra Lager 8% (contains maltose syrup and "hop products"!)
Baltika Cooler 4.7% (contains maltose syrup & maize)

A little different to a few years ago. I remember numbers up to 12? I wonder if the number of additives is increasing over time? There is certainly a range of ingredients used (3, 5 & 8 do not contain anything dubious). Can we see the slow but inevitable hand of the west (S&N/Carlsberg) at work here?

Švyturys Ekstra 5.2% (Lithuania)

2008-05-12T22:16:00.005+01:00

I bet you thought I'd forgotten about the Eastern European beers taste testing, didn't you? No such luck I'm afraid, I've finally gotten around to pulling another one out of the collection and cracking the top!

"Švyturys is the oldest brewery in Lithuania, which traces its history back to 1784. For over two centuries it has been recognised by beer lovers for the quality and taste of its traditional award winning Lithuanian beer..... contains rice."

Oops, rice? So much for the brewery's opinion of their own beer, here are my observations.

This beer pours a pale gold to straw colour, is bright with a coarse head that dissipates quickly. The aroma is hoppy with grassy citrus hops at first then sweet and bready malt together with a vinous fruitiness. The taste is at first sweet and malty with a citrus edge in the finish. The finish is initially shor but builds in citrus hops and sweetness. With further tasting I am starting to pick up a bittersweet taste, toasted teacakes where the rasins have been soaked in sherry and tinned grapefruit in syrup!

I've had this beer before but I don't remember it being as sweet or citrus as this? It's a noble attempt and it certainly stands out from the other Eastern European beers tasted so far. However, I'm not sure if it quite works for me. There's an odd aroma that I can't quite put a name to. I didn't want to like this beer after reading that it contains rice on the back of the bottle. Rice is usually used to save ingredient cost in beer such as in Budweiser (not the Czech one). However, in this case the beer is complex and I can't help but like it, it has character. It punches above it's weight in that it tastes like a stronger beer than it is but it's a little sickly for my taste. I'm confused but it's got to go in at number one so far!

One cautionary note, does the sherry taste point towards oxidation and is that what I'm detecting in the aroma? It's faint but there's something there.

Depressing isn't it?

2008-05-12T11:42:00.000+01:00

"Work is the curse of the drinking class."-Oscar Wilde

Monday is the day when this is most true.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (19)

2008-05-11T21:07:00.007+01:00

Friday 27 July 2007

The aim of today's trip was to reaquaint myself with Hummel Kellerbier, the highlight of my first trip to Bamberg and the first beer I drank on that trip. Of course there will be a few other beers along the way!

The first stop of the day was Göller in Drosendorf, I believe they are related to the Göller brewery in Ziel am Main. The brewery and pub are opposite the bus stop, so I crossed the road and went inside. The pub has a renovated in the 70's feel to it but it's the beer I'm here for so I'll forgive that. I sat down, checked the menu and ordered a Lagerbier.

The Lagerbier has a dense head that dissipates quickly. There is a faint aroma of floral hops and a little (very little) malt. The taste is balanced with a hoppy mildly bitter finish. The finish is very brief and the taste ertainly doesn't linger in the mouth. as is often the case bitterness becomes more pronounced as you drink more as does a sweetness, it's a little gassy as well but since it's not on gravity dispense, that's not surprising.

More from my notes at the time:

The pub has been well renovated in an unfortunate decade but it looks well done and expensive, everything has a solid feel. The eating area looks newer and a bit like a modern hotel restaurant!

After one beer I caught the next bus from the same bus stop, opposite the pub, and continued on to Merkendorf where I quickly located the Hummel brewery. Around the back of the pub, in the brewery yard, was a covered seating area with typical long tables and benches, painted orange. I chose a place for the best views around the yard and ordered a Kellerbier!

Now just to put this situation into perspective, I just ordered a beer that became one of my all time favouites the previous year, on the basis of one tasting at Cafe Abseits in Bamberg. And here I was ordering it at the brewery, whilst sitting actually in the brewery yard. Am I alone in marveling at this kind of situation?

I mention the above to put the following into perspective, when I switch to orange text it's from my actual notes written at the time. I think I may have become a little carried away.

The Kellerbier has a dense head that typically dissipates quickly. the aroma is predominently of malt with some hoppy flavours coming through. Taste, wow, it has everything loads of peppery hops, plenty of malt to back it up and the finish is strongly bitter, stop on! This is the difference between proper darker malt and Weyermann's Sinamar, you can taste the complex malty flavours and that great bitter kick to back it up. Marvellous! Oh yes, it's a pale amber colour. Sitting in the brewery yard, stacks of crates in the far corner, it's a perfect setting. As if the beer wasn't proof enough, although I can't see or smell brewing, there are brewery workers (at least 3) walking around and in and out of brewery doors, in a meaningful manner.

See what I mean? I have no idea if Hummel use Sinamar or not, I just got carried away!

My next beer was the Raucherla, a Rauch bier (smoke beer).

The Raucherla is a bright dark amber/light brown beer with a dense quickly dissapateing head and looks highly carbonated. The aroma is the usual very smokey kind of thing. The taste is very smokey with roasted malt flavours as well, bitterness comes through but little discernable hop character, although the bitterness in the finish intensifies to indicate that the hops are most certainly present. The beer doesn't taste as gassy as it appears, another fabulous, stunning beer.

People are buying beer from the brewery, several since I've been here, bottles and plastic kegs. Actually I can count 5 or 6 workers not counting the pub staff. There's also a fork lift truck loading crates onto a pallet.

Amazingly the village of merkendorf has another brewery but more on that later!

The Greatest Beer in the World?

2008-05-10T10:11:00.003+01:00

Reading Ron's post of yesterday got me reminiscing about distant drinking memories. My long standing favourite beer has been put into doubt in the last few years, especially since I've started visiting Franconia. Hummel Kellerbier for example is a match for any beer, well almost.

The Ferry Inn is in the village of Cawood, North Yorkshire and has long been a pub of choice, whenever I am back in Yorkshire. According to its website:

"The Ferry Inn itself is an early 16th Century building, sitting on the banks of the river Ouse, and adjacent to historic Cawood bridge (c.1878). A river crossing has been situated here for many hundreds of years. The building has been variously a farmhouse, coaching inn and cottages, and is now a large public house with many original features and a large riverside terrace and beer garden, with outside seating for in excess of 200 people."

http://theferryinn.com/

I remember knocking back a few beers with my father in the Ferry some years back and declaring that my pint was in fact total perfection. "You know what, that's absolutely perfect," I said. My father agreed. A week or two later whilst chatting with my father on the phone he said that he had been in the Ferry again, and that the beer was in fact even better. Better than perfection? Which marvellous beer can this have been?

Timothy Taylor's Landlord.

Ron's post:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008/05/mild-memories.html

New Beers in Tesco

2008-05-09T10:27:00.002+01:00

I've noticed a few new beers in Tesco in the last couple of weeks. Obviously I was keen to see the arrival of Adnams East Green but I also picked up a couple of bottles of Bernard Dark in Porthmadog and it seems Tesco in Huntingdon is also selling the Bernard Dark, as well as some other new beers including one from Oakham. With Herold Dark also in Huntingdon Tesco that's a good choice of excellent Czech beer!

Thwaites Double Century 5.2% (bottled)

2008-05-09T10:06:00.002+01:00

First beer since last weekend! I'd picked up this bottle some time ago in, eh, Morrisons I think, together with some other beers. It's hopped three times with first Fuggles, then challenger and finally with Bramling Cross, sounds promising.

A predominently malty beer with vinuos fruity alcohol and a bitter orange finish.

A very drinkable beer and a pleasant change from my usual preference in style.

It was produced to celebrate Thwaites 200th anniversary in 2007, so hopefully this beer will help ensure another 200 years of successful brewing.

Portmeirion (2)

2008-05-08T21:06:00.006+01:00

I was reading my post below and I realised, looking through my notes, that I had missed something out. OK I missed loads of stuff out but time for writing is short so you only get an overview most of the time. I could for example have talked about the pub in Rhyd Ddu, which is a great old pub that looks straight at Snowdon. Anyway back to the point. I said we didn't visit a pub on Thursday when we went to Barmouth but we did.

On the way back to Portmeirion from Barmouth we stopped at the Tŷ Mawr Hotel in Llanbedr. Typical of the area the pub is built from Welsh slate and is set back from the road along a tarmac drive that curves around a large lawn and beer garden protected from the road by a tall hedge. The hotel entrance is in the middle of the building with the bar entrance through a separate door to the right. This is a modern room with floor to ceiling windows all along the front, modern chunky wooden furniture, slate floor and a bar in the far right corner.

There was nobody sat at the indoor tables, only a few regulars sat at the bar. I ordered Hancocks HB and Brains SA and joined my wife and daughter at one of the picnic tables in the garden. Despite the excellent weather the only other customers in the beer garden were a couple of workers enjoying an afterwork beer.

The Hancocks HB has an excellent malty aroma (like walking past a brewery). The taste is malty, fruity with some hops and a short fruity, hoppy finish. The length and bitterness of the finish do build, however, as I drink more.

The Brains SA has a similar aroma but drier. The taste is drier, more hoppy but still has plenty of fruit and malt, the finish is longer and more bitter.

Overall the Brains was better than the Hancocks which was unfortunate as that was my wife's beer. She also thought that she could detect a nonspecific off taste in the Hancocks, like soap? It's always good to have a second opinion but I thought that it was OK, though neither beer was in perfect condition.

Portmeirion and Purple Moose

2008-05-06T15:11:00.009+01:00

Hi I'm back!

A week in North Wales may not be everyone’s idea of beer heaven and indeed the options are somewhat limited; and well spread. However, there is good beer to be had, most notably from the Purple Moose brewery in Porthmadog. I'd arranged a tour of the brewery for Tuesday so more of that later.

As part of a regular reunion we had decided to go on a family holiday to the Portmeirion Hotel for a week. There were sixteen of us in total with mixed agendas for the week but having a good time and sharing a few beers were included in most peoples plans. The Portmeirion Hotel has many claims to fame but perhaps the most notable was to be the setting for the 1960’s series “The Prisoner”.

Saturday

We set out from home at about 9:30 in the morning and planned a lunch stop in Welshpool at the Talbot. Warm baguettes with hot fillings were washed down with Marathon Ale (6%) from the Six Bells Brewery of Bishop's Castle in Shropshire.

http://bishops-castle.co.uk/sixbells/brewery/

A dark amber beer with a citrus/hoppy aroma, a balanced taste, fruity with a bitter finish.

Sunday

For our first full day in wales we'd planned a day trip to Ewe-phoria for sheep, border collies and puppies. Right that's my daughter happy for the day, now where's Daddy's treat, ah yes, lunch at the Bryntirion Arms in Llandderfel where a Sunday lunch of Welsh Black Beef and Welsh Lamb were washed down with Purple Moose Snowdonia (3.6%).

A golden ale with a sulphurous and citrus hoppy aroma, hoppy taste and bitter finish, marvellous!

Monday

Today we set off to explore Anglesey, Katya's treat today was the Sea Zoo which went down well, as did the playground outside. She seemed to be communicating with the Welsh school kids, in which language I'm not sure. We had sandwivhes for lunch and then walked them off in the forest at Newborough. On the way back to Portmeirion we stopped off at the Gardd Fon in Felinheli which although in my aged 2006 Good Beer Guide seems to have fallen into the hands of Robinsons and also suffered from poor beer quality. We tried Old Stockport (3.5%) and Double Hop (5.0%)

The Old Stockport is a pleasing amber colour with a good malty aroma, the taste is fruity with a short hoppy finish. However, the beer is oxidised with traces of vinegar in the taste.

The Double Hop is a golden ale with a balanced aroma and a hoppy taste, finally there is a bitter/hoppy finish, again oxidised.

Tuesday

The Purple Moose brewery has been a favourite of mine since shortly after it opened in 2005. Owner Lawrence Washington set up a 10 barrel brewery acquired from the well regarded Harviestoun brewery in Scotland. Apparently Harviestoun were having to brew twice a day to keep up with demand so they had to expand.

The brewery is now housed in a former sawmill in Porthmadog not far from the harbour and the Ffestiniog Railway. I rang the bell to attract attention and after being served by Lawrence I was soon loading two cases of bottled beer into the boot of the car.

Next came the serious business, the tour! My guide was to be Ian, who is the other brewer in addition to Lawrence. Purple Moose are currently brewing 4 times per week but expect to brew five or six times per week later in the year, that would be the capacity at present due to limitations in fermenting and conditioning tank capacities.

Each brew requires about 260/270kg of malt that is supplied pre-milled by Fawcett’s of Castleford. The grist bill is made up of 8/9 bags of pale malt but none of the beers contain pale malt alone. Snowdonia (3.6%), Madogs (3.7%) and Glaslyn (4.2%) also contain both crystal and torrified wheat. Two crystal malts, 140 and 340, are used. Dark Side of the Moose (4.6%) has no torrified wheat but does contain roasted barley with a colour of 1000.

They use local mains water which is filtered and treated to give the required composition. Ian also explained the hygiene regime at length, which he said helped to ensure that Purple Moose beers were of better quality than their local competitors.

The liquour is introduced to the malt in the mash tun at 65ºC. The temperature in the hot liquour tank is adjusted dependent upon the temperature of the mash tun and the temperature of the malt. This is then left for 1 hour and 15 mins before being transferred into the copper. The remaining mash is then sparged with more liquour from the liquour tank at a temperature of 77ºC to produce a sparging temperature of 75ºC. It takes one and a half to two hours to pump the wort to the kettle and then 10 mins to bring it to the boil.

The hops are provided by Charles Faram and include:

Pioneer
Goldings
Hallertau
Cluster
Savinjski Goldings
Lubelski
Bobek
Northdown
Cascade
Williamette
Bramling Cross

Ian pointed out that recent bad harvests have resulted in a 400% increase in hop costs together with increases in malt prices, however, they have not as yet needed to pass any price rises on to customers.

The boil is 1 hour and 15 mins with three hop additions at the beginning of the boil, after 30 mins and again 5 mins from the end. The unfermented beer is then pumped into a fermenting vessel. Each fermenting vessel can hold about 1.7 brews and there are 4 fermenting vessels. The kettle is then hop sparged, the og in the fermenter is checked and water added, if necessary, to achieve the correct og. Fresh yeast is pitched and fermentation lasts approx 3 days. The beer is then cooled and left for one week after which it is pumped to the conditioning tanks for a couple of days at 12ºC before it is ready for racking.

Bottling used to be done in house but now it’s contracted so unfortunately it’s not now bottle conditioned. Ian says that bottling had become too time consuming due to the level of demand.

The brewery employs 5 people, Lawrence the owner, Ian who is the other brewer plus 3 others involved in deliveries and admin.

Wednesday

A trip on the Llanberis lakeside railway was followed by lunch in Beddgelert and then Conwy Ales Castle Bitter (3.8%) and Mulberry Dark (3.8%) at the Cwellyn Arms in Rhyd Ddu.

The Castle Bitter is a hazy pale amber/copper beer with a sweet malty aroma a balanced taste with caramel and butter and bitter hops with a bitter finish. A reasonable beer but nothing special.

The Mulberry Dark was a dark almost black beer with a roasted malt aroma, a taste with roasted malt and yeasty fruit and little finish other than more roasted malt, not bad but a little one dimensional.

Thursday

A day trip to Barmouth included sandcastle building but no beer, boo!

Friday

Lunch at the Castle restaurant at Portmeirion included Moules Mariniere and a whole crab washed down with Dark Side of the Moose and an excellent bottle of Muscadet Sur Lie.

Saturday

The journey home involved no beer.

Over the week I also came across the following bottled beers which helped the lack of draught beer for the evenings.

Tomos Watkins – Cwrw Hâf – 4.2% - Summer Ale – Malted barley & wheat, Golding, Cascade & Fuggles
Tomos Watkins – Cwrw Braf – 4.2% - “That’s Lovely” – Goldings
Tomos Watkins – OSB – 4.5% - Sophisticated
Tomos Watkins – Cwrw Gaeaf – 4.7% - Malted barley & wheat + crystal & dark chocolate malts, Fuggles & goldings
Crow Valley – Bitter – 4.2% - Bottle Conditioned
Rhymney – Hobby Horse – 3.8% - Originally brewed in 1879 – Malted Barley & Wheat.
Rhymney – Export Ale – 5.0% - Six malts
Rhymney – Bitter – 4.5% - Four Warminster malts, Goldings & First Gold hops
Bernard – Dark – 5.1% - Unpasteurised – Moravian barley malt from Bernard’s maltings

Next year we're thinking about preordering some draught beer from Purple Moose.

The Session

2008-05-02T09:28:00.001+01:00

The Session is a concept created by Appellation Beer.

http://appellationbeer.com/blog/

It is a monthly event for the beer blogging community to post on a common subject on the same day (the first Friday of the month).

Each month a different blogger hosts "The Session" and chooses the subject. For May the subject is "the moment when you saw the light". and The Session is hosted by Boak & Bailey.

http://boakandbailey.com/

That's the preliminaries out of the way and so to the point. I'd like to say that I had a "Road to Damascus" moment and that one beer converted me, however, that's just not the case. In my case it's more a series of events or even periods of my life that worked together to get me to where I am now.

During my teenage years I lived in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire and so grew up drinking cask beer from the three breweries (John Smiths, Samuel Smiths and Bass). Additionally as a family we spent a lot of time in the Yorkshire Dales walking and drinking beer. Common beers at that time, in the dales, were Theakstons and Marstons. By the time I left home for college at the age of 18 I was already beginning to appreciate the beers of Timothy Taylor's and Adnam's, favourites to this day.

I have to say though, I just went to the pub and drank the beers I liked, I would look for pubs that had cask beer and I knew what I liked. I didn't, as a rule, seek out new beers or beer styles, I drank "bitter". Am I still a bitter drinker today? Yes I am. Is that the end of the story? No it's not.

About ten years after I left college, I was living in St Ives in Cambridgeshire, my regular haunt was the Royal Oak where a range of up to ten cask ales were sold about half of them being regular beers and the rest from a range of guest beers. Favourites of mine at the time were Hopback Summer Lightning, Ind Coope Burton Ale and Brakspears Special. This may sound like I was becoming enlightened but in truth I wasn't as I avoided things like Bateman's seasonal beers. My logic was that I didn't want to find I liked a beer that I couldn't get regularly!

Whilst in the Royal Oak one evening I was an advert for the St Ives Beer Festival and my first visit saw me joining CAMRA. My reasoning was fairly mercenary as I worked out that with the discount for joining at the festival and free entry it would just about pay for itself within the week. My local branch organised a post festival social for new members that I attended, I bought a Good Beer Guide and became a regular volunteer at future festivals until I moved away from the town.

If one moment defines my conversion to an appreciation of great beer then it must be my discovery of the Rose & Crown in March, Cambridgeshire and it's then landlord Doug. Never before had I lived within walking distance of a pub where every beer was in perfect condition every time. A continually changing range of six (later seven) beers and a total of nearly 2000 different beers sold. Initially I was not happy, the only constant beer was "Number 1" (Woodfordes Wherry) a great beer but I'd become used to a bigger range, the other beers were all obscure or seasonal.

The reason I called Wherry "Number 1" is that the system used to order beer was by pump number, a good simple system when the beers keep changing, I used to like "Number 2" or maybe "Number 4" as Doug seemed to match styles to numbers ("Number 6" was usually a mild).

I eventually overcame my reservations about the seasonals when I realised that, since every beer was so good it didn't matter if I liked a beer but never saw it again, there would always be plenty more good beer to come. The final tradegy, of course, was Doug's retirement.

About this time I was also introduced to German beer by Tom Perera. After a couple of excellent tours in Northern Germany with Tom, I head off on my own to Bamberg, Prague, etc. So now all good beer if fair game not just real ale!

Holidays!

2008-04-25T07:35:00.002+01:00

After a couple of weeks of intensive posting there's going to be a bit of a gap for a week as I'm going on a family holiday to Portmeirion in North Wales. It won't be a total loss though since I've organised a tour of the Purple Moose Brewery in Porthmadoc.

I've written a posting for "The Session" for next Friday my challenge now is to find a way to post it! I'll be enjoying an excellent lunch on Friday in the castle restaurant at Portmeirion so it's probably going to be a day for loads of shellfish and muscadet.

The Purple Moose tour will be on Tuesday (probably) I'll try to ask a lot of questions, make a lot of notes and take a lot of photos.

The Colour of Beer and Other Stuff

2008-04-24T22:22:00.002+01:00

I drank two bottled beers this evening, actually I shared them with Sveta. Schlossbrauerei Eggenberg Mac Queen's Nessie (which claims to be some kind of whisky malt red beer) and Wychwood Wytchcraft (a blonde beer).

Now I have a tendency to call too many beers "amber" and some of them are probably too light in colour to justify this description but come on guys! The Wychwood beer was darker than the Eggenberg and they were both definitely deep gold!

I've enjoyed blogging and reading blogs this week, more than ever before. Especially Tandleman's post on Scoopers. I met Gary Hoyles, and some other Scoopers whose names I can't recall, at the Ely Beer Festival earlier this year and despite exhibiting all the symptoms they seemed normal enough to me. Maybe I should be worried?

As a result I've made a start on scooping beer blogs and adding them to the links in this blogs sidebar. I suggest that this is potentially a good idea for all beer bloggers as the more links you can get, to and from websites with a similar theme, the easier it is for search engines to find you.

I'm going to end now as I want to see if Ron has posted anymore about his recent trip to Bavaria and the Czech Republic, as I seem to be developing a bit of an obsession with this part of the world, oops!

Adnams East Green (2)

2008-04-24T08:23:00.003+01:00

I tasted another bottle of East Green last night and liked it a little better than the first one, my wife also liked it. So it grews on you. I also realised that there was some additional info in the box. My wife had unpacked them while I was at work and I didn't look. Included in the info was a hand written note from Andy Wood which says that after the Tesco launch the beer will be sold to other retailers and to pubs. I'll have to ask him if that's in bottled or cask form to pubs but I would have thought it would be cask.

Adnams East Green 4.3%

2008-04-22T21:55:00.004+01:00

I received my promised sample of East Green from Andy Wood at Adnams today, the company is marketing the beer as an environmentally friendly carbon neutral beer and it will go on sale in Tesco from next Monday.

East Green pours dark gold in colour and bright with a short lived effervescent head. The aroma is predominently grassy, herbal hops, with citrus, malt and the typical Adnams iodine in the background.

The iodine sometimes sulphurous smell is usually stronger in Adnams beers especially when served from the cask on draught, it's the smell of he sea and makes a well kept pint of Adnams instantly recognisable from it's aroma. A few years ago, when I went on a tour of the brewery, we were at the top of the brewery in the hop store. We were told that the hops were kept away from everything else in the brewery as they can absorb aromas from their surroundings. I noticed that seaside iodine smell coming in through an open window, is that where the aroma comes from?

Back to the tasting.

The taste is well balanced, with a light to medium body. Simila flavours are present to the aroma with some biscuity, slightly sweet malt and citrus to peppery herbs. Lemony hops dominate the short finish.

Overall an acceptable beer, well balanced and with a nicely crafted flavour profile. Not the best beer in the Adnams range but then the competition is strong. It's a light, quaffable, easy drinking beer that should go down well if we ever get a summer!

I'd be interested to try a cask version as I suspect that unpasteurised greater complexity would be revealled. It tastes as though all the flavours and aromas have become dumbed down by the filtering and pasteurising prior to bottling.

Adnams strength is with cask beer and I wonder if in cask form this could be another winner?

Sorry on pictures, blogger won't upload them at the moment, I'll edit the post to include them when the problem has been fixed.

Adnams to Introduce New Beer

2008-04-21T17:14:00.002+01:00

The following is a press release that I have just received from Andy Wood, Managing Director of Adnams announcing their new carbon neutral beer "East Green". This beer will be available from Tesco from next week. I will be carrying out a tasting later this week and will give you my first impressions as soon as possible.

"Adnams, the leading environmental brewer, has launched East Green, the UK’s first carbon neutral beer. Produced in its eco-efficient brewery in Southwold, Adnams’ innovative new brew is to be distributed exclusively by Tesco nationwide from 28 April 2008.
East Green is brewed in Adnams’ groundbreaking new brewery, which has an Energy Recovery System that recycles 100% of the steam created during the brewing process and uses it to heat 90% of the following brew. The beer is made with high-yielding barley, grown in East Anglia, which subsequently greatly minimises CO2 emissions from transportation. Boadicea Hops are also used - they are naturally aphid-resistant, cutting the use of pesticides significantly. To ensure their carbon emissions were as low as possible, Adnams worked with The University of East Anglia’s carbon reduction CRed team, throughout the project.
Dr Simon Gerrard, manager of UEA’s CRed programme, said: "CRed's independent expertise has enabled Adnams to understand the complex nature and range of carbon emissions arising from the production and distribution of East Green beer. The carbon lifecycle assessment from farm to bottle helps Adnams target key elements in the process and reduce the emissions of the overall product. As consumers become more carbon literate, so the requirement for authoritative and independent information becomes more important."
Andy Wood, Adnams’ Managing Director, commented, “Adnams has always passionately believed in ‘doing things right’ and East Green is the latest example of our efforts to reduce our environmental impact in everything we do. Every stage in the development of East Green, from the growing of the hops to the packaging, has been designed to minimise our carbon emissions as far as possible. The remaining carbon, which equates to less than 1p per bottle, has been offset with Climate Care.”
Andy continues, “We’ve reduced the carbon, but we certainly haven’t compromised on the flavour. Light golden in colour with subtle citrus and grassy hop aromas, East Green is a beer with all the quality and taste that Adnams is famous for.”
Adnams prides itself on continually being at the cutting edge of environmental business practice and was the first brewer in the UK to create the lightweight 500ml glass bottle. Like all other Adnams beers, East Green will be packaged in the lightweight bottle, which has reduced Adnams CO2 emissions by over 415 tonnes a year.
Adnams’ dedication to the environment is exemplified by the many environmental awards they have received. In November 2007 they won the National Business Award for Corporate Social Responsibility and other recent awards include The Carbon Trust Innovator of the Year 2007 and The GoodCorporation Ethical Business Award in June 2007.
-Ends-
For more information please contact:
Emma Hibbert, Corporate Affairs Manager, Adnams Plc on 01502 727 256, or Victoria Usher and Jennifer Sheldon at Westgate on 01732 779 087."

As I have always enjoyed Adnam's beers I wish this new venture every success.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (18)

2008-04-20T22:04:00.003+01:00

So, at Kaiserdom the Röckleins Kellerbier was an interesting experience but not good enough to order another. Therefore, since I wasn't interested in any of the other beers on offer, it was time to head back towards the centre of Bamberg. Eventually I found myself heading up Stephensberg. Stephensberg is the hill on which the best beer gardens (kellers) of Bamberg are to be found including Spezi-Keller and Mahr's Keller, however, I was in search of Wilde Rose Keller, a little bit further up the hill. Finally, at the very top of the hill, I found the entrance to the Keller and entered to find a large outside area of tables under with buildings on to sides.

Armed with Kellerbier and a plate of cold meats, I sat down at a table and took in the scene.

The Kellerbier has a coarse head which dissapated quickly to reveal an amber beer with a balanced if faint aroma, a balanced taste and a pronounced hoppy, bitter finish, excellent!

Apparently the Kellerbier is brewed by Maisel to the original Wilde Rose recipe, it's certainly both different and better than Maisel's own label Kellerbier.

Zagorka Special 5.0% (Bulgaria)

2008-04-20T21:52:00.002+01:00

Pale gold/straw coloured effervescent beer that forms a head easily but doesn't keep it for long, head behaves worryingly like coca-cola. Typical cheap pils aroma of grassy metallic minerally hops (I'm getting used to that smell with these Eastern European beers) with little malt in the aroma. The taste is hoppy, body light with some malt sweetness in the finish, as well as a short bitterness.

Highly quaffable but little to excit, just above Karpackie, maybe. Oh why did I decide to do these comparison tastings these beers are mostly poor and very similar.

Cisarsky Pivovar Rakovnik Bakalar 5.0% (Czech)

2008-04-19T20:25:00.002+01:00

This Czech Brewery from Rakovnik was founded in 1454 and claims awards from 1891 to present. It contains both barley and wheat malt as well as Zatec hops.

The beer pours a dark gold with few bubbles rising, it is bright but some difficulty was experienced creating a head which is dissapating quickly. The aroma is predominently hoppy, grassy and metallic (again not promising). Tastewise it's well balanced with plenty of sweet biscuity malt and peppery hops. The finish is hoppy and bitter, not bad!

So do we have a new leader, I think we do, though not great it's beaten the competition thus far.

Purchased from Morrisons, Gravesend.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (17)

2008-04-18T20:48:00.006+01:00

From Bischberg, since it was a nice day, and it was a while before the next bus, I decided to walk back towards Bamberg, via Gaustadt and the Kaiserdom Brewery. Kaiserdom is probably the least well regarded of the Bamberg breweries. It is the largest brewery of Bamberg and produces the least characterful beers of the town. Also since it is the furthest from the town centre is often overlooked by visitors.

I was early when I reached the brewery pub/hotel, it was due to open at 5pm so to kill some time I walked past and found a cafe on the opposite side of the road where I sat and had a coffee. I arrived just before 5pm and took a seat in the deserted beer garden. A few minutes later a waiter came and took my order for a Röckleins Kellerbier. Röckleins was a now closed brewery and its keller was on the Kaulberg hill near to Greifenklau. Kaiserdom used to brew the Kellerbier for the Röckleins Keller after the brewery closed and still brew it now even though the keller is now offices.

The Kellerbier has a mixed dense/coarse head which dissapates slowly above an amber slightly hazy beer. The aroma is malty, like walking past a brewery when the brewing process is underway. The taste is balanced but there is little finish. I'll taste some more but first impressions are disappointing after a promising start with the appearance and aroma. Smelling it again I get some chemically hop extract flavours coming through as well as a slightly soapy aroma. Bitterness increases with each mouthful so that's an improvement but more and more there's something odd about the smell, it's developing a sour smell like the krausen pils at Friedel's Keller but it's not coming out in the taste (yet) and it's wrong for this type of beer (infection)? Also do I detect some wheat in the aroma/taste? Claims to be "U" on the glass but it's fairly gassy. I didn't see how it was dispensed as I'm sitting in the biergarten. It's an interesting beer but the flavour is a bit lacking and there's not enough body to it (ingredients)?

The waiter brought out a book for me to look at whilst I was sitting there - Select 100 breweries in Bamberg and it's District.

Vale Brewery Co.

2008-04-18T14:43:00.004+01:00

After a crappy day yesterday I was left with no alternative, I had to go to the Rose and Crown, beer was required, lots of beer! Lucky I did, two beers from the Vale Brewery Co. were on together with Woodfordes Wherry and Young's Bitter. "Vale Brewery, who are they?" I thought to myself and immediately ordered a pint of the Best Bitter. An amber beer with a slightly odd aroma was followed by a very acceptable taste with bitter hops dominating but with plenty of malty body for a 3.7% beer. The finish was predictably bitter, all in all a very drinkable beer in great condition. The second beer was VPA (Vale Pale Ale) golden in colour, lighter in body despite its 4.2% with a much more citrus hop character (cascade)? So both beers are recommended, if you see them, try them.

The brewery is in Buckinghamshire and their website says:

"Based in the heart of Buckinghamshire, Vale Brewery crafts award winning Ales the traditional way, using only the finest quality malted barley and whole cone hops."

http://www.valebrewery.co.uk/

I've also not tried the Young's bitter since the move to Bedford so I decided to try a pint of that as well. One mouth full was enough to make me wish I hadn't bothered, after the Vale beers the Young's had a bland mass produced taste, nothing actually wrong with it but nothing exciting.

Wetherspoon's Beer Festival

2008-04-17T07:58:00.002+01:00

Wetherspoon's festival certainly got a lot of press across the blogs. Was it all worth it? I know some bloggers boycott Wetherspoon's completely! So overall was the festival a positive event for the world of quality beer or not?

For myself I didn't visit a Wetherspoon's pub during the festival so I can't have been that bothered about the whole thing, was I wrong not to make the effort? I didn't avoid it on purpose but I don't live in a town with a Wetherspoon's pub and the opportunity never came up.

My nearest Wetherspoon's is the College Arms in Peterborough which I have visited a number of times in the past, the beer quality has always been reasonable, if not exceptional, and the level of service is usually acceptable. The pub can often get very busy due to it's location on Broadway in the centre of Peterborough but I have never had to wait too long to be served.

I don't want to reopen the whole Wetherspoon's debate as I think that's been done but what about the festival, did you go? Was the beer range interesting and more importantly did it further the cause of bringing quality beer to the masses?

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (16)

2008-04-16T21:34:00.005+01:00

So back to Franconia.

Thursday 26 July 2007 (Post 16 - Day 10)

Thursday 26th was just a short trip out to Bischberg and Brewery Zur Sonne (est. 1587) to meet up with Jim and Jez. We arrived at 12.15 hrs and had lunch at the brewery. I washed it down with Sonne Urtyp Hell.

Bright golden Hell with a coarse quickly dissapating head. Appears very gassy. Balanced to hoppy aroma and similar taste. Good amount of bitterness in the finish.

Jim & Jez caught the bus back to Bamberg and I set off in search of the Sonne Keller (Schumann's Keller) where at 14:45 hrs I ordered another Urtyp Hell.

At the keller the beer has a dense persistent head and is less gassy since it's served by gravity.

Budvar 5.0% (Czech)

2008-04-15T22:16:00.004+01:00

A rich gold, bright beer with a quickly dissapating head. Aroma is balanced with biscuity malt and grassy hops (hop smell not all that promising). Taste is hoppy with some malt and a touch of honeyed sweetness in the background. Finish is bitter with a touch of orangey marmalade?

Best so far but not as good as it should be. I followed it with a bottle of the dark Budvar and that was much better but a bottle of dark Herold after that was the best of the lot.

So the order so far reads:

1. Budvar
2. Karpackie
3. Lech
4. Okocim
5. Kamenitza

Still to be assessed:

Baltika 3
Zywiec
Bakalar
Svyturys Ekstra
Zagorka
Urquell

Any more nominations?

Lech 5.2% (Poland)

2008-04-15T22:10:00.003+01:00

Lightish gold, bright beer with a white head which dissapates quickly. Aroma - little, minerally metallic, slightly unpleasant, some friutiness (green apple) and evian? Taste - well balanced with herbal hop flavours developing into moderste bitterness of medium length.

Strange today this is not so bad, I've tried it before and preferred the Kamenitza, now I prefer this! Is it me or do these cheaper beer from Eastern Europe vary, varaible ingredients, inconsistent QC?

No off flavours and better than the Okocim but still behind the Karpackie.

The Great Eastern European Supermarket Beer Taste Test.

2008-04-10T20:51:00.002+01:00

Catchy title ye?

Round 3

Okocim 5.5%, Poland

A pale gold/straw coloured bright beer, much paler than the previous two beers, with a quickly dissapating white head. There is very little aroma but what there is smells grassy and metallic/minerally with almost no malt aroma. A full bodied mouth feel and a taste that has a good balance between malt and the same increasingly bitter hops. Some sweetness develops in the finish and the bitterness fades quickly. No off flavours but a rather strange taste profile (cheap ingredients)? Not enough strength of flavour at this strength, if you had on in a bar you'd be looking to see what else they had when you returned to the bar.

So this one probably fits neatly into second place so far, what am I doing? Can I try one of the good ones next?

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (15)

2008-04-09T21:11:00.004+01:00

Our next stop on Wednesday 25 July was Friedel Keller. We arrived at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and I ordered a Krausen-Pils from the long counter.

The Friedel's Krausen-Pils is very sour, bitter and soapy. It is amber in colour (dark for a pils). A complex very well crafted beer.

After the Kellers we got back on the 265 bus which takes a circular route back to Eggolsheim via Hallerndorf and Schlammersdorf. The day was still young so we got off the bus in Schlammersdorf outside Brauerei Witzgall.

Witzgall is a very small village brewey and pub. It has a narrow yard round the back that is unbelievably picturesque (even for Franconia). But what about the beers well:

The first beer is a Vollbier and it has a floral hoppy aroma, like a typical pils. The taste mirrors the aroma and the finish is bitter. It's a golden, bright beer with a quickly dispersing head.

The second beer is a Lagerbier and it has a more malty aroma than the Vollbier. The taste is malty, hoppy and full bodied. There is little sign of bitterness although the beer has plenty of floral, herbal hoppy taste. The head is persistent and the beer is a fairly cloudy golden colour.

After Witzgall we walked back to Eggolsheim, and caught the train back to Bamberg. Of course Nick used his bike all day unlike the rest of us who used the combination of train, bus and walking. Either way it's great to explore the Franconian countryside in the cetain knowledge that you are never far from another brewery and a new beer experience!

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (14)

2008-04-02T20:54:00.005+01:00

So here we are at post 14 from last year's big trip to Franconia and we've reached day 9 (Wednesday 25 July).

I had organised to meet up with Nick, Jez and Jim at the Kreuzberg, so it was another chance to try out the kellers that I had visited on the previous Friday. I caught the train to Eggolsheim and the bus to Stiebarlimbach where I met up with the others. We walked up to Rittmayer Keller and made our selections, for the others this was to be the Rauchbier, but since I'd tried it on the Friday I had the Landbier instead (€1.70).

The Landbier has a persistent dense head. Hoppy bitter taste and finish. Hoppy aroma, when you finally get to smell it through the thick head. A faint bubblegum taste seems to come and go?

Jim, Nick & Jez at Rittmayer Keller

Kamenitza 4.4% (Bulgaria)

2008-04-02T20:39:00.004+01:00

So my second offering from Eastern Europe is Kamenitza from Plovdiv in Bulgaria. Until recently I was only aware of wines from this part of Bulgaria.

You will notice that neither Karpackie nor Kamenitza were on my original list, so the list is getting longer. Like Karpackie, Kamenitza lists only water, malt and hops as ingredients so a promising start.

The beer pours a bright, rich golden colour with much more head than the last beer but it dissipates quickly. The aroma is strongly hoppy but has something else in there that I can't identify but it's chemically, plasticy. The taste is effervescent with traces of sweet malt followed by lots of hops and a strongly bitter finish. Not enough maltiness in the taste really and it's not clean tasting like the Karpackie, it's more strongly carbonated and tastes like it's probably received rougher treatment in the hands of pasteurisation. I also suspect that the word "hops" in the ingredients list may include hop extract, hop oil or something like that.

So Karpackie still leads the way after two tastings, I said it wouldn't be last!

Karpackie Pils 4.0% (Poland)

2008-04-01T22:03:00.003+01:00

First in the Eastern Europe tastings.

I bought a 4 pack of cans from Tesco for £3.09 so had no great expectations.

The beer pours a bright golden colour with a coarse white head which dissipates quickly. Faint aroma but what aroma there is shows a good balance of biscuity malt and floral hops. The taste is light, sweetish but clean and not unpleasant NO SIGN OF HOP EXTRACT OFF FLAVOURS. Little finish but hoppy bitterness builds after a couple of cans.

An inoffensive beer with a surprising absence of off flavours for a cheap lager, ingredients list reads: Water, Malted Barley, Hops. Just shows what you can do if you just use natural, if cheap, ingredients with no additives even if you don't really try too hard.

This beer won't win this survey, but it won't come last either.

Eastern European Beers

2008-03-31T21:33:00.007+01:00

Over the next few weeks I intend to carry out an experiment. I have bought and drunk a number of Eastern European beers recently and I have some opinions about which ones are best. But what I really want to know is which is the best alternative to crap lager from amongst the supermarket regulars. I may well extend this list but I think that the main contenders are:

Pilsner Urquell
Budweiser Budvar
Herold
Zywiec
Baltika 3

At this stage I am deliberately excluding German beers, maybe I should include East German beers, Wernsgruner? What do you think? Which beers would you include?

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (13)

2008-03-31T21:21:00.003+01:00

Tuesday 24 July was another one pub, one great beer experience, Dörfleins, Eichhorn Brauerei is a short bus ride north of Bamberg and here I was introduced to their kellerbier.

Balanced aroma, hoppy, malty taste, bitter finish. Marvellous!!

So near to Bamberg another great brewery pub, I stayed for hours drinking the kellerbier and chatting with the locals.

This was part of the next great shock for me about Bamberg. The first is the town itself and it's breweries, the second is the number of other great breweries literally within a radius of a few kilometres!

Coors Vi...(Bass Museum)

2008-03-26T21:05:00.004Z

No, I'm sorry, I can't call it the Coors Visitor Centre.

Are Coors mad? I've been reading a bit about them on their website(s) and others, see the link below:

http://www.goldenpioneermuseum.com/documents/coorsthetale.htm

They talk about tradition, etc. and a load of other corporate crap that they obviously don't believe in.

The Golden Pioneer Museum is in Golden Colorado, home to Coors, maybe we should suggest that they close that down? There are a number of other museums in the town of Golden are they all worthless to the Coors family and employees?

Why don't these people understand? When they buy another company they buy not only brands but heritage as well. And that this demands respect from the new owners not "oh that's a bit expensive, let's shut it down."

I could go on but I'm furious already!

Pivo Cafe Bar, York

2008-03-25T21:08:00.003Z

So, I finally got back to York for a pint of Bernard dark. This time the beer was excellent but not so good that I didn't want a pint of the unfiltered lager.

I sought these beers out after reading about them on Ron Pattinson's European beer guide, Ron scores the dark lager 82 (world class - you must try it) and the unfiltered 78 (excellent - worth hunting for). For me I'd probably reverse the scores but that probably says more about our respective preferences for beer styles than the actual beers themselves.

Go and try them for yourselves, Pivo Cafe Bar is in Patrick Pool, York and has a great little bar downstairs with an interesting array of beers, if I remember correctly there was a choice of 3 cask beers including Black Sheep Bitter which was in excellent condition, as well as the three Czech Bernard beers and from Belgium Affligem Blond on draught.

The bottled beer range includes Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen, the Pannini's were very good and I will most definitely be back.

So that was Saturday, on Sunday we went for a walk in the snow around Tadcaster and found ourselves passing the Jackdaw, a pub out of the town centre, next to a row of shops on the edge of a dismal 1960's housing estate. I believe the pub hails from this time (1968)? The Jackdaw is a two room pub which has remained unaltered since it was built and is actually quite a pleasant place to be. It was always the last refuge in Tadcaster for John Smith's Magnet, an excellent beer that is becoming harder and harder to find. However, the Jackdaw sells it no more, instead we were rewarded with a choice of Cameron's Strongarm or Moorhouse's Pride of Pendle. The Moorhouse's beer was our unanimous selection.

Good Friday saw us in the Dales and after a walk to blow away the cobwebs and stimulate our thirsts we headed for the village of Appletreewick and the Craven Arms where we ate excellent sandwiches for lunch washed down with several pints of Taylor's Golden Best, wow what a beer and only 3.5%.

Corruption in the Eighteenth Century

2008-03-18T20:38:00.002Z

Expenses statement from an election agent in the 1760's:

"To 20 strong men to be at Sir Robert's Meeting and making a noise ... to taking 12 voters away, cost of ale, and not bringing them back in time to vote £8-13-4 ... for secret encouragement of rioters, disbursed £40."

King, F.A., Beer has a History (Hutchinson 1947).

Made me laugh.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (12)

2008-03-17T21:27:00.004Z

On Monday 23 July I caught the train from Bamberg to Forchheim for the Annafest!

The Annafest is a beer festival held to celebrate the festival of St Anna. Great idea, celebrate a saints day with litre mugs of strong beer brewed specially for the occasion!

Anything strike you as odd about this? Oh well, that's Franconia for you.

The festival is held on a wooded hill close to Forchheim where there are more than 20 beer gartens (bierkeller) many of which are open all year round and all of which are open for the Annafest. The kellers sell specially brewed Festbier for the occasion, different from the brewers normal beer and also different from previous Festbiers, so they are new beers every year.

At the festival I met up with Jez (Tom Woods Brewery) and Nick (an American resident ofFranconia and regular contributor to Fred Waltman's Franconia Beer Guide). They had beaten me to it and were already enjoying a beer at the Winterbauer Keller. The beer in question was the St Georgen Festbier, from Buttenheim.

Complex malty aroma, balanced taste, bitter finish.

At the next keller we tried the Greif (Forchheim) Festbier.

Malty, nutty aroma. Nutty balanced to hoppy taste. Malty, hoppy finish, little bitterness. More bitterness after a few mouth fulls.

Eichhorn (Forchheim) Festbier.

Aroma is very sweet, taste is quite balanced and quite dry, medium bitter finish.

Neder (Forchheim) Festbier.

Aroma hoppy, sulphur, complex. Taste is beautifully balanced, hoppy finish but not as hoppy as the St Georgen Festbier.

Krug Bräu (Breitenlasau) Festbier.

Mostly hoppy aroma, well balanced taste, on the malty side, lightly hoppy finish.

Hebandez (Forchheim) Festbier.

Malty aroma, taste balanced, hoppy finish, some bitterness.

Löwenbräu (Buttenheim) Festbier

Aroma balanced. Hoppy, malty, bitter beer. Finish bitter. Very good beer.

So that's one week down and one to go! The next day was to turn out to be another of those memorable beer days but more of that later.

The Pub vs Beer Question Again!

2008-03-16T21:53:00.002Z

After having whittled on as below on Paul Garrard's Blog, I thought I'd share the following:

I've given this question a lot of thought recently after a question on Stonch's blog (what comes first the beer or the pub)?

At first I thought the answer was definitely the beer, after all that's what we all keep talking about, right?

However, I started to think about places where there's a good choice of good pubs and then analysed my actions. In March (the town not the month) the number of good pubs is small. The best one (Rose and Crown) used to be where I always drank. However, after a change of landlord it's not quite as good as it used to be. The beer is still in great condition and there's a good range that is constantly changing. Now most of the people I used to chat with have changed allegiance to another pub (GK beers only)! So after one or two beers in the Rose and Crown I move on to the Stars.

In Bamberg, Germany, choice of great pubs with great beers is never a problem yet still I don't always drink in the best pubs for beer, Faessla for example doesn't make the best beer in Bamberg but it's a great pub!

Confused? I am.

It seems that a certain level of beer is necessary (although I'm not convinced that GK IPA makes the grade).

Review of Ely Beer Festival

2008-03-15T07:37:00.002Z

The 6th Elysian Beer Festival Friday 29th February & Saturday 1st March 2008

I caught the train to Ely on Saturday morning, the trains were running late and I thought I might have to wait another hour when a train turned up unannounced. OK I was on my way! At Ely station the festival had a free minibus to transfer festival goers to the venue (Larkfields Resource Centre). As is often the case you don't go to beer festivals for the atmospheric building as this was some kind of community centre, it felt like being in a school hall.

The selection on offer included 45 real ales as well as local cider & perry. I had printed a copy of the beer list from the website:

http://www.elycamra.org.uk/bf%202008.htm

So I had shortlisted the beers that I wanted to try, I always try to do this rather than be bewildered by the selecton on the day.

First up was Cambridge Moonshine CB1 Best Bitter (4.4% in the programme but I think it said three point something on the cask).

The beer is amber in colour and slightly hazy, the aroma is strong with a good balance of sweet malt and fragrant hops. The taste is dry, balanced and full bodied with a similarly balanced finish. The beer is yeasty and so unsurprisingly fruitiness increases with each mouth full, there's a slightly harsh bitterness as well. It taste like homebrew to me and that's not necessarily a criticism of homebrew but there's a taste I associate with small batch homebrew that I'm not sure I can describe, this beer certainly doesn't grow on you.

Next was Devil's Dyke Session Bitter (4.2%).

There's less head on this one suggesting insufficient condition or lack of body, the colour is brown and again slightly hazy. The aroma is less pronounced than the CB1 but is predominently malty, very biscuity/caramel, like malted milk biscuits. The taste is flat with building bitterness, so the profile is suited to my taste. Both of these beers taste like they have a fairly low level of attenuation?

So now I have had two beers and both have shown similar signs of haziness and lack of condition. Is it the beers or not enough time at the festival between delivery and being served? I decided to try a beer I know to answer the question and my choice was Elgood's Golden Newt (4.3%).

Again slightly hazy, the beer is dark gold/pale amber in colour with a thin coarse head. The aroma is like orange marmalade (not the dark kind). Some jammy, sugary, candy sweetness as well in the aroma. The taste, again little condition, well balanced in terms of fruitiness and body. Bitterness dominates initially, then fades, then comes back in the finish. Seriously good beer!

So that answers the question!

I also tried:

Blackfriars Yarmouth Bitter (3.8%)

Fenland Hereward Wake (4.2%) Festival Special

Blackfriars Mild (3.4%)

Buntingford Pargetter's Mild (3.7%)

Fox Grizzley (4.8%)

Milton Minotaur (3.3%)

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (11)

2008-03-12T19:20:00.010Z

The sixth day of my two weeks in Franconia was Sunday 22 July. I decided to head out from Camping Insel and walk to some breweries, pubs and kellers to the south of Bamberg. After a walk through the forest I arrived in the village of Höfen where I unexpectedly found myself at the Gästhaus Melber where they sell the beers from the Hartmann brewery of Würgau. I ordered a beer from the outside window and took a seat in the beer garden.

The beer is pale in colour with a dense head that dissipates quickly. The aroma is well balanced with malt and hops. The taste is full bodied and malty but has little bitterness. Actually this beer gets better the more you drink, more hoppiness comes out in the finish after a few more mouth fulls. However, it does have a cloying sweetness that needs roast malt flavour to balance it out. The overall effect is not good, I'm not going to have another, I think I'll move on and find something better.

Another walk through the forest over another hill took me to the hamlet of Untergreuth and the Büttner brewery. This brewery and farm is only open at the weekends as the picture below shows.

So the brewery is open only on Friday evenings and from 2pm on Saturday and Sunday. I took a seat in the courtyard (farmyard) and ordered a Vollbier Hell.

The Vollbier has a dense persistant head. The aroma is floral and hoppy, a second sniff reveals malt which seems to grow in intensity. The taste is balanced with a bitter finish.

A walk across the fields and mostly downhill brings the village of Reundorf into sight.

I found the Müller brewery but there was no sign of life so I went in search of the bierkeller which was some distance out of the village, over the railway line and on the edge of the forest to the south of the village (Schmausenkeller).

I ordered a Kellerbier from the keller entrance and found a table.

The Kellerbier has a dense head tha is dissipating quickly. The beer is full flavoured, malty/hoppy with a bitter finish, not bad at all. This one is not so much of a grower and is beginning to taste a bit too sweet by the end of the seidla.

A walk along beside the railway line took me to the village of Pettstadt. To the north of the village I found another keller (Schrauderkeller) selling the "U" Lagerbier (Kellerbier) from Löwenbräu of Buttenheim, a great way to end the day.

Save the Brewery Tap!

2008-03-11T08:27:00.003Z

For some time now the Brewery Tap in Peterborough (Oakham Ales) has been under threat as is is next to a modern shopping centre (Queensgate) that the local council with to expand.

This is a fantastic brewpub and is one of my favourite places for a beer in Peterborough. Check out the link below:

http://www.oakhamales.com/btwelcome.asp?id=0

Oakham Ales are running a campaign to save the pub and recently submitted a petition with 14,500 names to Peterborough City Council.

A final decision will be made by the end of the month so please use the following link to lodge your complaint as I hope you all agree with me that the town needs unique characterful features such as the Brewery Tap more than it needs more soulless national chain shops!

http://www.peterborough.gov.uk/page-12361

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (10)

2008-03-10T20:39:00.006Z

On Saturday 21st July I had big plans as usual, after all there are more than 300 breweries in Franconia and I only had 2 weeks!

The idea was to catch the train from Bamberg to Buttenheim, visit St Georgen and Löwenbräu, then to walk to Gunzendorf for the Gunzendorfer brewery. I had planned to compare the kellerbiers of the two Buttenheim breweries and then try the Gunzendorfer beers that had been recommended to me at Mühlenbräu, especially as they brew a Rauchbier!

Well the day started well and I caught the train to Buttenheim and was in Löwenbräu by 14:30 hrs where I ordered the "U" Lagerbier.

The beer has a faintly hoppy, tobacco aroma. The head is a mixture of coarse and dense bubbles but is not thick, it's mostly bier in the excellent Löwenbräu Seidla which is the first I've been served with a lid. The taste is fabulous, malt, hops and tonnes of bitterness, it looks to be quite a dark colour but it's difficult to tell when it's in a Seidla.

That was the end of my notes for that Saturday and I went no further than the Löwenbräu brewery tap. Why was that? I hear you say, what disaster befell you in Buttenheim to curtail the days beery excursion? Well it's like this, do you remember a recent post when I spoke very highly of a pint of Adnams? Sometimes you just find a place and a beer that you can't leave so I had another, then another, then....

...sometime later I caught the train back to Bamberg!

In the above picture we see how Löwenbräu define for us the term "brewery tap", yes the tap on the wall that looks like a water tap is where the beer comes out! Also we can see an immersion heater in the Mass (1 Litre mug) at the back used to warm the beer for those of a slightly more delicate constitution who can't drink cold beer. No I'm not joking they really do this!

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (9)

2008-03-03T21:33:00.007Z

After walking through the forest to the top of the Kreuzberg hill the next keller I came to was Rittmayer (since 1422) and I asked for the Rauchbier.

The Rauchbier has a dense head, smokey aroma and a smokey, sweet taste. Almost like smokey Kvas.

The next keller (right next door) was Lieberth (since 1463) and I arrived there at 18:15 hrs and ordered a Lagerbier.

The aroma is complex with malt and hops well balanced, the taste is full bodied and malty with hops building to a dry hoppy finish. looks like the sun is coming out again at last.

I arrived at Friedel's Keller at 19:15 hrs (it was right next door to Lieberth's)! Here it was starting to get busy so I ordered a Dunkles Zwickelbier and took a seat to sample the beer and take in the surroundings.

The beer has a malty aroma and a bitter sweet taste with some toasty "burnt" flavour. It's a very dark dunkles and the finish is malty, caramel and roasty.

I met Roland Kalb from Faessla in Bamberg here, out for the evening with his family.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (8)

2008-02-25T20:12:00.004Z

On Friday 20 July 2007 I took the RB train from Bamberg south towards Nürnberg and got off at Eggolsheim. From outside the station I caught bus 265 to Stiebarlimbach. The bus stop was conveniently opposite Roppelt's brewery.

The brewery tap was closed so I followed the signs for the keller at the foot of the Kreuzberg hill. I arrived at Roppelt's keller at 14:30 hrs and tried the Kellerbier.

The Kellerbier is served in a Krug or Seidla, the head dissipates quickly, the aroma is balanced, the taste is hoppy and bitter with a very bitter finish. However, the aroma is very faint, the beer could be a touch more malty and it's a bit gassy, so near and yet so far, still very nice though and easy to drink.

From Roppelt's Keller I planned to walk back to Eggolsheim, luckily there would be plenty more beer to try along the way. So I started by walking up the Kreuzberg in search of the other three beer kellers at the top!

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (7)

2008-02-18T21:35:00.004Z

Thursday 19 July was only my third day in Franconia and my first beer of the day was not until 12:30 hours in Fässla. I had the Lagerbier.

The Lagerbier is a brightish pale amber with a large head of medium to coarse density, which is dissipating. The aroma is well balanced with malt and hops, the taste is hoppy with a very bitter finish.

Next stop was Spezial where I met Nick B. We had the lagerbier (Rauchbier), which was as previously tasted. The morning had been hot but now it was clouding over. Nick says that the forecast said maybe rain later.

The Spezial Lagerbier is one of my two favourite beer in Bamberg, if not number one. But, if I have to be picky, and obviously I do, then it's a touch on the gassy side.

Soon we moved on to the Maisel Keller (16:00 hrs) and sat outside drinking the Kellerbier.

Hoppy aroma, nice balanced taste, little bitterness in the finish.

I also noted sulphur in the aroma? This always brings Adnams to my mind although little else in this beer was similar.

Beer at Home or in the Pub?

2008-02-18T21:23:00.004Z

I know this subject was talked about extensively on Stonch's blog recently but it's caused me to give the question some serious consideration.

These days I drink far more beer at home than I do beer in the pub. But I like to drink beer in the pub much more than I like to drink at home. Of course the answer is simple enough, before I had a family I could go to the pub pretty much whenever I wanted. Now, however, I work long hours and have limited time to spend with my family so I choose my trips to the pub carefully as these visits are competing with family time. Also I try to find ways of combining pub visits with family outings. This is not always possible as young children are often not welcome in the pubs I normally choose to visit.

These days I seem to want more and more time in Germany, I suppose the cultural attitude to beer and family life is attractive as I can much better accommodate both at the same time!

Beer of the Week

2008-02-18T21:11:00.003Z

The brewery has the following to say about the beer:

"Herold Bohemian Black Lager

OVERVIEW

This is the beer that puts Herold on the map. Don't be afraid of the dark!" (Do you think they stole this from somewhere?)

"13% - Bohemian Black Lager

ABV: 5.3%

OG: 13.2 o

Hop varieties: Saaz hops from Zatec and Bor

Tasting notes: Dark brown to black. Good malt character and some vanilla creaminess. Dense creamy head. Oily richness. Flavors reminiscent of bitter chocolate. Long, cedary, dry, smoky finish. Have this one with a good cigar.

Brewing notes: Classic lager of Schwarzbier style, brewed from 4 malts and lagered for up to 10 weeks.

Food pairings: Excellent complement to a fine steak dinner, great with wild game, marinated meats like brisket in dark sauces (Austrian Tafelspitz or German Sauerbraten), or together with a rich chocolate dessert and with a after dinner cigar. Excellent without any of these too..."

Herold is a small privately owned brewery from Breznice in the Czech Republic. The brewery started up in the 15th century in the local castle.

"HEROLD BŘEZNICE CASTLE BREWERY."

For a small czech brewery the beers are surprisingly easy to get hold of in the UK. Are they really still independent. The beer still tastes good but you never know...

Great Beer Moments

2008-02-11T20:55:00.000Z

I was in the Oliver Cromwell in St Ives Cambridgeshire today. A quiet pub on a back street near the river. And you know how just occasionally you have a beer that reminds you what it's all about? Well I ordered a pint of Adnams Bitter, nothing out of the ordinary about that, it's not hard to find in East Anglia, but outside of Southwold and a few other pubs it's rarely in really perfect condition. Well, this pint of Adnams was! From the first slphuruous whiff to the last mouthful it was a truly magnificent pint of ale. A moment to remember!

Recent Beers

2008-02-11T20:19:00.000Z

Here are some more photos of empty bottles. It won't surprise you to learn that most of them were very nice but I won't bore you with a description of each one. The only comments I will make concern the first two.

Firstly, Harpoon Brewery (Boston, USA) Unfiltered Raspberry Hefeweizen, 4.7%

I don't drink many American beers and many more like this will keep me drinking European beers and avoiding american beers! It was thin, watery any the raspberry flavouring tasted far too artificial (like raspberry ripple ice cream)! Next time I feel like a raspberry beer I'll buy a decent Belgian lambic.

And the Boheme 1795, also 4.7%

I've written about this beer before, I think, so I won't go into detail but it impresses me more and more all every time I drink it. I've had quite a few bottles now as I normally buy a pack/box of bottles. This time 8 x 500ml bottles for £4.50! Other than a slight taste of overpastuerisation it's an unbeatable beer for the money. I buy it when we have visitors as it easily beats the normal crap lager people expect and always impresses the uneducated beer drinkers.

This Week...

2008-02-09T18:21:00.000Z

...Has been a good week on the beer front. I received two books in the post that I had bought from play.com with a voucher I got from my brother for my birthday (thanks Graham!). The books are:

Beer Lovers Companion by Josh Leventhal, 1999, Könemann, ISBN 3-8290-3500-4

An Inebriated History of Britain by Peter Haydon, 2001, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0-7509-4256-8

However, I won't be reading them until I've finished:

Prost! Tha Story of German Beer by Horst D Dornbusch, 1997, Brewers Publications, ISBN 0-9373-8155-1

Then today it was family shopping in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England. That's not the good bit, that was visiting Beers of Europe on the way home, hence the sudden increase in the list of beers inthe upcoming reviews section on the left. My wife said don't be long and don't spend more than £20. I managed to acheive both (or so I thought) total spend £19.13 time in shop 35 minutes (apparently that's a long time).

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (6)

2008-02-05T19:29:00.002Z

From Mühlendorf I caught the bus back to Bamberg and got off on the Kaulberg hill at Laurenziplatz for a visit to brewery Greifenklau, one of my Bamberg favourites. I ordered the Lagerbier.

The Lagerbier has a persistent dense head, a balanced hoppy malty aroma, a bittersweet taste and a bitter finish, marvellous! The biergarten is heaving, waitresses rushing around efficiently keeping everyone happy. Think I might go to Schlenkerla next....

In the end I walked back to the campsite rather than going to Schlenkerla and so ended my second day in Franconia.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (5)

2008-02-04T20:34:00.002Z

The walk from Debring to Mühlendorf was mainly on or near the road and passes through the village of Stegaurach, I didn't stop for a beer here but I did notice that the Hotel Krug has Keesmann Herren Pils for €1.70. By 15:20 hrs I was in Mühlendorf, I passed by "Zur Linde" which sold beers from Mahrs and then arrived at the brewery Mühlenbräu Merklein. I entered the pub on the front of the brewery, which was deserted, and ordered the Dunkel:

The Dunkel has a coarse head which disappears quickly, the beer is dark brown and bright with little outward sign of carbonation. It is chilled and has mainly sweet roasted aromas. The taste is roasty, dry and bitter (twiglets). The beer is a grower, the more I drink the better it gets, probably somewher between a 3 and a 4 out of 5.

No one else was in the pub still, maybe they went to the keller, then a German man comes in giving me a chance to practice my German as he spoke absolutely no English. My German is not great but we make ourselves understood, beer is usually a great aid to international communication.

After finishing my beer I decide to head for the keller and try another of the Mühlenbräu beers there.

It's 16:20 hrs, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, the keller should be open, but it's not! Don't expect Northern German punctuality in Franconia, this is virtually a different country. So I sit and wait.

It's 16:35 hrs and the keller is opening and I order a beer, there's only the one on offer at the keller.

The beer "Hell" is very hoppy, mildly bitter, balanced with malt and has a hoppy finish, little head in the Seidla.

Sorry my notes are a bit brief on this one but I was getting into conversations in mixed English and German with the locals, needless to say great place, great beer, great people, what more could you want?

Beer Buzz Tours Website Update

2008-01-29T22:04:00.000Z

I've now modified the website (click on the bee) the email link works and I've started my first itinerary (I know there's not much there yet). More detail and dates coming soon.

Beer of the week

2008-01-28T21:11:00.000Z

Brakspear's Triple, 7.2% (bottle conditioned)

Hey look the picture uploading in working again.

Brakspear's have been brewed in Oxfordshire since 1779 it says on the label. However, the Brakspear Brewery in Henley on Thames closed in 2002. As the owners cashed in and the site was redeveloped. The Refresh UK Brewery took over brewing Brakspear beers and enlarged its site in Witney, where the Wychwood brands were already brewed, to incorporate a new Brakspear Brewhouse, much of the original equipment was used including the original fermenting vessels used for Brakspear's famous 'Double Drop' system. The videos on the Wychwood website are quite good and suggest that Brakspear's began brewing in Witney in 1779 before moving to Henley sometime later.

My bottle was numbered "A147709" and also stated: "Thamks to the two fermentations in the Brakspear 'Double Drop' system and another in bottle, this highly aromatic and satisfying strong beer delivers it's rich flavour with subtlety and balance"

also from the bottle: "Quality Brewing Tradition Since 1779" (?)

The label goes on: "Crystal, Black & Maris Otter Pale malts provide the backbone of this outstanding rich beer. Hops are added three times to provide a good balance between bitterness and fragrance. Then bottle conditioning allows the flavours to develop further complexity as it matures. To determine when this bottle was filled you can look up its number at http://www.brakspear-beers.co.uk/" (I couldn't be bothered, can you tell I've had a bad day).

Lastly: "Silver medal B.I.I.A. awards 2005"

The following was the complete class result from the competition held in Munich:

Class 2 : Ale : All 7% ABV and Above, Up to 11.5% ABV
GOLD
Banks’s Barley Gold
Wolverhampton & Dudley Brands
Wolverhampton, UK
SILVER
Brakspear Triple
Refresh UK
Witney, UK
BRONZE
Lucifer
Liefman’s Brewery
Dentergem, Belgium

Complete results info can be found at: http://www.brewingawards.com/

So finally to the beer.

This beer pours a dark amber with little or no head, it pours clear (I left a small amount in the bottle to be sure). The aroma is fruity, marmalade and roasted malt (also honey?). The taste is dominated by fruit and bitter hops with further bitterness from roasted (black) malt flavours. The finish is short fruity and bitter. Bitterness builds on your palate as you drink more, definitely strong aroma of bitter oranges combined with the black malt to give an aroma reminiscent of Olde English Marmalade (the dark stuff). I've made it at home and when the peel starts to catch and burn on the bottom of the pan it's finished and gives this kind of flavour.

It's a bit strong for my taste and bitingly bitter, could do with a touch more of something and or a touch less something else? It's also very dry even with all the fruity flavours (from the yeast and the alcohol I suppose) 'd like to know the o.g./f.g. as I suspect it's got quite a high level of attenuation. Also it's a bit samey it smells, tastes and finishes the same. I like a beer with a little more in the way of surprises than this, am I saying it lacks complexity, maybe not, just not enough brewer's craft.

Foodwise it was not a good match for a green vegetable soup or gammon with potato salad. However, it went very well with cream filled mini chocolate eclairs.

Did you miss me?

2008-01-28T20:47:00.000Z

It's been more than a week! I know doesn't time fly. Well I haven't posted for a week because I've been distracted by work (a necessary evil that keeps me in beer) and by writing the beer buzz tours website and creating the bee logo. Someone suggested (the IT geek at work) that I should use html code to write my website so I did. Of course that meant learning how to do it, getting it wrong, learning some more, etc.

You can look at the site (link via the bee) but it's not finished yet and I can't get any info out of the form (something to do with .asp files). More will follow soon.

When I started this blog I wasn't sure I would have enough to write about so I started with the beer reviews, I will continue but more as fillers as I seem to be thinking of more and more stuff to write. I thought the opposite would happen.

Now I have lots of ideas but not enough time. Here are some beers you missed over the last week.

Bateman's Combined Harvest
Wernesgrüner Pils
Tyskie Gronie
Herold Black Lager
Bateman's Victory Ale
And another Polish one that my wife has already put the bottle from in the garage, began with "Z"

ABV

2008-01-20T12:32:00.000Z

Today I thought I'd share some thoughts I have on ABV. I suppose it all started with the question of why English "Lager Louts" get so drunk in Europe drinking standard European 5% abv. crap lager? Of course it's stronger than the English crap at about 4% abv by 25% but is that the end of the story? I believe not.

Do you remember shandy bass? Is it still available? What does it say on the cans? I remember reading on the can years and years ago the words "not more than 2% abv." I don't know what the law says about what constututes an alcoholic drink legally (I read a definition on a website that stated more than 0.5% abv) but my argument concerns the rate at which the body can deal with alcohol and the time taken to drink your pint.

Now I'm going to make a big assumption and I suspect my whole argument fails if it's wrong.

"If you drink one pint every 30 minutes and the abv is 2% you will never get drunk!"

As a consequence of this I subtract 2% from the abv of a beer when I am comparing strengths. Therefore, 4% becomes 2% and 5% becomes 3%. Do you see where this is going? Now the 5% euro lager is 50% stronger than the 4% UK lager!

From my own standpoint I am actually less interested in the "lager lout" than in my own avoidance of becoming drunk. I like my beer (really!) and would like to appreciate fully the taste of every beer I drink but excessive alcohol gets in the way of this. OK if you go to a one beer pub and drink the same beer each time then it doesn't matter, but if the pub has say 6 different interesting beers and you want to try them all you are faced with a problem.

We all know the answers I suppose:

Option 1 - Drink half pints.

Advantage - more beers tasted before the alcohol dulls your tastebuds.

Disadvantage - not enough volume of each to form a good opinion of the beer.

Option 2 - Start with the lowest abv and work up.

Advantage - greater number of beers tasted before the total volume of alcohol overwhelms your tastebuds.

Disadvantage - one of the higher alcohol beers was the one you really wanted to try, it was really popular with everyone else in the pub and it's sold out before you get one!

Option 3 - Drink more slowly.

Advantage - give your body more time to deal with the alcohol.

Disadvantage - again all the good beer will be gone and you'll be left with a line of warm pints if your drinking in rounds with your mates.

I'm not sure how coherent this argument is and I suspect I'm starting to waffle on a bit so I'll stop now.

Beer of the Week

2008-01-19T10:55:00.000Z

Bolten's Ur-Alt is produced by Privatbrauerei Bolten from Korschenbroich in Germany. Further details can be found (in German only) on their excellent website:

http://www.bolten-brauerei.de/

Bolten claim to be the oldest Altbier brewery in the world brewing since 1266 although the Bolten family took over the brewery in 1764 and the Altbier style originated in the 1890's.

Altbier

Alt (meaning "old" in German) is the name given to a small number of surviving beers produced mainly in and around the Northern German city of Düsseldorf. This style of beer is top or warm fermented and so is an ale, however, it is an ale which after primary fermentation undergoes a slow secondary cold fermentation (cold-conditioned) for a period of up to a few weeks.

This is Germany's closest beer style to an English bitter, however, it has a smooth, mellow and less fruity character of it own which is a result of the cold-conditioning (lagering). These beers have a good balance between malt and hops and make great session beers.

Bolten's Ur-Alt is an unfiltered, bottle-conditioned version of the normal Bolten's Alt and it is sold in distinctive swing top bottles with an attractive label depicting an etching of the characterful brewery.

Acknowledgement

2008-01-19T10:01:00.000Z

Last night I had my first surprising experience with the power of blogging. After publishing the last post I checked through the earlier posts on the off chance that a new comment had appeared. To my surprise I found a comment posted on 10 January attached to my post of 28 December listing the highlights of the beers I'd had over the Christmas holidays. In the post I'd said that the Barnard Dark in the Pivo Cafe Bar in York was off. No problem my beer was replaced with an excellent Bernard Unfiltered Light. The comment from 10 January is from Jamie of the Pivo Cafe Bar apologising for the problem and offering a replacement Bernard Dark next time I am in York.

Thank you for that Jamie, I will do my best to take you up on this generous offer as soon as I can get back up to York. Hopefully one weekend sometime soon.

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (4)

2008-01-18T21:51:00.000Z

Wednesday 18th July 2007 started with rain in the morning. At 08:45 hrs I was in the campsite reception to get bread rolls and coffee for breakfast.

The plan for the day was to walk South West of the campsite, through the forest to the village of Debring and the Müller brewery and then to walk via Stegaurach to Mühlendorf and to end up at the Mühlenbräu Merklein brewery.
jj

I arrived in Debring and quickly found the centre of the village where a main road runs roughly north/south. I turned south on this road and quickly found the Müller brewery on the right hand side just before the end of the village.

By 12:15 hrs I was in the bar perusing the menu of beers on offer. These were:

Pilsner (draught) €1.80

Dunkles Vollbier (draught) €1.80

"Micherla" Naturtrüb (bottled) €1.80

Weissbier (bottled) €2.00

Damn good prices for a half litre of beer and still so close to Bamberg!

I decided to try the Dunkles (shock horror) and my thoughts at the time were as follows:

Darkish brown bright beer with a dense head. Hops and a little malt in the aroma with a hoppy bitter taste and finish - very refreshing (first beer of the day after a long walk). Malt comes through in the background. I like this, definitely my kind of beer.

I ordered bratwürste, sauerkraut and bread for €3.00 which filled a hole and then moved on to the pils:

The pils is golden, bright, with a dense head that dissipates quickly. Again the aroma is predoninently hoppy and the taste is balanced with hops and malt. The finish is bitter and hoppy. Finally the hoppy, bitter aftertaste lingers in the mouth for quite a while. GASSY!!!

Bamberg & Franconia July 07 (3)

2008-01-17T21:28:00.000Z

Now where were we, oh yes, Griesgarten, the Krug Dunkel.

Again fine head being replaced by coarse head as a lot of bubbles rise. The beer is Dark Amber (Dunkel) bright. The aroma is hoppy, herbal & tobacco? The taste is the same as the aroma, some malt comes through as well, finish is malty, sweet, leaves little aftertaste, not good "length" (oops did I sneak a wine term in there)?

Next stop was Spezial at 20:15 hrs where I selected the Lagerbier (Rauchbier) or Smoke beer. I'll assume everyone who comes here knows what that is? If not let me know and I'll explain. Anyway I'm sure what your really saying is "Come on what was it like?" well then I'll tell you, this is what I wrote:

Lagerbier, chilled, amber, loose non-persistent head. Aroma hoppy, herbal. Taste malty at first then hops take over. Lightly bitter, balanced finish and aftertaste. Wow what a beer. Smoke in the background grows in intensity with each mouth full. Yes it's still a close call between this and Mahr's "U" for best beer in Bamberg.

Interesting reading this again it's almost like the smokey flavour in the Spezial beer is perceived very differently from the Heller Shlenkerla Rauchbier, that intensly smokey beer of which we shall learn more of later is very smokey from the start but you stop noticing it so much after a while whereas in the Spezial beer the smokey flavour builds with each gulp. Yes it's less intense and doesn't hit you in the face but I much prefer it and I suspect that it's much more true to the historical taste of how (all) beer used to be when all malt was dried over wood fires?

Anyway after that I headed back to the campsite or was that after a few more Spezial Lagerbiers? And so my first day in Franconia ended.

Bamberg & Franconia July 2007 (2)

2008-01-16T22:02:00.000Z

Of course the campsite bar was all very nice but the afternoon was getting on so I decided to head for the town centre. First stop the Tapas Bar and it's bier garten for great views of the cathedral. I arrived at 17:15 hrs and decided to try the Reckendorfer Kellerbier.

About the Kellerbier I wrote the following:

Slight haze, amber beer. Fine head being replaced by course head due to over carbonation, very malty aroma, taste predominently malty, mild hoppiness, litle discernable bitterness, little aftertaste. Actually it's not over carbonated it just looks like it's going to be. Taste of butterscotch (not fully/correctly fermented???). I'm too much of a hophead for this beer, must remind myself not to buy it again. Of course, that said, it doesn't mean I want only pale beers piled high with cascade & chinook hops so common in England at the moment under the new heading "Golden Ales".

Also available on draught at the Tapas bar were:

Recken Pils

Monsambacher Lager

jjjj

I decided to move on and my next stop was the Pelikan where I arrived at 18:10 hrs and ordered the Huppendorfer bier.

jjhh

This beer is a dark amber in colour, bright, with a very dense head and little sign of carbonation. The aroma, wow! Hoppy, fruity, some similarity to the aroma of "Alt" (Diebels?) also twiglets (!?!?). The taste is well balanced, hoppy, not bitter, also caramel. Again little aftertaste, mostly sweet but more hop character than the Reckendorfer bier and colour darker. All round a much better, more balanced beer. Ye see I'm not totally against malty beers. A little more colour and a little more hop and all is well. This beer is properly fermented and complex.

jjjj

Next stop was Griesgarten at 18:52 hrs for Krug Dunkel in the bier garten. It was a lot more busy here than in the Pelikan, probably because it's closer to the town.

Beer of the Week

2008-01-13T17:31:00.000Z

Welcome to a new feature. In addition to daily (ish) beer reviews I am adding a beer of the week feature. Using the poll at the top left I would like you, my meagre readership to vote for the beer that you would to see become beer of the week. The beer of the week post will be in more detail than the normal beer review and will possibly include information about the brewery, it's history and something about it's location, as well as anything else I can think of that seems appropriate.

So go ahead get voting!

Bamberg and Franconia July 2007 (1)

2008-01-11T21:34:00.000Z

Tuesday 17 July 2007

I caught the 0810 Air Berlin flight from Stansted and arrived in Nürnburg at 1022. Outside the airport, after buying a ticket from the machine, I took the U-bahn to Nürnburg Hbhf where I got another ticket and boarded the train for Bamberg leaving Nürnburg at 1145 and arriving in Bamberg at 1225.

From Bamberg ZOB i took Bus 18 to Camping Insel where I put up my tent and then settled down on the terrace of the campsite bar for my first beer of the trip, half a litre of Mahr's "U" at €2.20. At the time I wrote the following about the beer:

"Clean-dry, refreshing; amber nearly bright. Dense thick head, malty aroma. Taste starts malty finishes dry, bitter, hoppy. Balanced to bitter aftertaste. Yum-yum"

On the menu at the campsite bar they had:

On Draught

Klosterbräu Pils
Shlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen
Mahrs "U"
Mahrs Hefeweizen

Bottled

Maisel Weisse
Keesmann Herrenpils

My second beer was the Klosterbräu Gold Pils:

This was chilled, golden in colour with a medium density head which dissipated quickly. The aroma was herby hops, pungent with a balanced malty bitter taste not overtly bitter but very hoppy (grassy). Hoppy, herbal, mildly bitter finish with a bitter aftertaste.

Needless to say the "U" was MILES better.

The temperature was 32°C but pleasant in the dappled shade of the terrace surrounded by mature trees; a group of elderly Germans were chatting at the next table and a large dragonfly flew across the table heading for the river Regnitz. Are you getting the picture?

http://www.campinginsel.de/

Beers of the Week so far

2008-01-11T21:17:00.000Z

Bateman's XXXB, 4.8% (bottled)

Always one of my regular favourites this amber ale is darkish for a pale ale with a good malty aroma, taste that favours malt only slightly over hops with more malt giving way to hop bitterness in the finish. (4.0)

http://www.bateman.co.uk/

Shepherd Neame 1698/1998, 6.5% (bottle conditioned)

A very malty and fruity aroma from this amber ale. The mouthfeel is very full bodied with fruity yeast, toffee malt and tart hops all well balanced and in generous quantities the finish is strongly bitter like burnt marmalade. Dangerously drinkable for it's strength. Brilliant beer from a brilliant brewer (4.3)

http://www.shepherdneame.co.uk/

Bateman's Hop Bine Bitter, 4.2% (bottled)

A pale amber organic beer with a hoppy aroma and a hoppy and fruity taste supported by biscuity malt the finish is hoppy, bitter and spicy. (3.8)

http://www.bateman.co.uk/

Some More Beers

2008-01-07T22:18:00.000Z

I've been a bit remiss in posting my beers of the day recently, blame post Christmas apathy or something I don't know. Anyway here by way of a catch up are six beers five of which were drunk recently by me, the sixth we'll come to later.

Elgood's Cambridge Bitter, 3.8% (bottled)

This beer is dark amber in colour with a balanced flavour and a tart bitter finish, to my mind a magnificent example of a traditional English Bitter (uses Fuggles and Challenger hops). (4.3)

http://www.elgoods-brewery.co.uk/

Wychwood Hobgoblin, 5.2% (bottled)

As it says on the label, a ruby beer with noticeable alcohol in the aroma (what's the term, vinous)? The taste is full of dark roasted malt flavours but with plenty of spicy hops as well, the alcohol is much less noticeable in the taste. The finish is bitter and malty, good stuff. (3.8)

http://www.wychwood.co.uk/

Meantime Winter Time, 5.4% (bottle conditioned)

Another ruby beer but darker than the Hobgoblin. Less alcohol in the aroma than Hobgoblin with more roasted and smokey aromas. The taste is bitter from roasted malt almost chocolatey and again smokey (smoked malt)? Finished roasty, some complex flavours from this competent brewery, another good one but I don't know if it's just me but a use the description of the brewery as I do because although I like all their beers and recognise that they are well made they are all a bit soulless to me? (3.3)

http://www.meantimebrewing.com/

Pivovar Herold Svetly Breznicky Lezak, 5.1% (bottled)

Now I love Franconia for it's Kellerbier amongst other things but for "pils" the czechs have got it sorted. This is another great lager, dark gold in colour with a malty aroma which leads to a beautifully balanced taste and a hoppy bitter finish, just to my taste. (4.1)

http://www.heroldbeer.com/

Brakspear EPA, 4.2% (bottled)

Another great English beer style superbly executed by another of my favouite brewers (OK so the beers are not the same as in the old Henley days but they're still excellent). Pale amber in colour with a malty aroma, bitter taste and finish. (3.9)

http://www.brakspear-beers.co.uk/

Happy New Year

2008-01-05T15:40:00.000Z

So, here we are in another year and what is in store from Beer Buzz for 2008?

I have promised several people that I'll start writing up my notes from my 2 weeks in Franconia last summer.

More beer reviews of course.

Beer pub and brewery news.

And of course I'm only too happy to take suggestions from you the reader, so come on tell me what you want to see and I'll do my best to include it.

I have a few plans for holidays this year, they're all family holidays so far but hopefully I can get back to Bamberg, Germany as well sometime this year. So far it's:

Portmerion, North Wales

Beer highlight - Purple Moose

Ronce-les-bains, Charente Maritime, France

Beer highlight - ?

Nerja, Costa del Sol, Spain

Beer highlight - ?

Any help with these greatly appreciated. Any suggestions for micros in that part of France or decent bars in Nerja (German?)?

Rose & Crown, March, Cambridgeshire

2007-12-29T12:19:00.000Z

My Local!

Although I haven't managed to go there very much recently, so much so that everyone asked me where I'd been as they hadn't seen me for ages!

New Year's resolution, go to the pub more often.

Anyway these were the beers from yesterday:

Fenland Smokestack Lightning, 4.2%

Dark almost black beer. Fruity aroma. Dry chocolate, coffee taste and finish. (3.8)

http://www.elybeer.co.uk/

Tydd Steam Yooligan, 4.7%

Dark red with a creamy head. Hoppy citrus aroma. Big citrus (cascade?) hop flavours. Dry bitter finish. (2.9) I've marked this low because to my mind there's a wierd mismatch between the name and appearance (Christmas beer) and the taste (Summer beer) is that fair?

B & T Dragon Slayer, 4.5%

Golden ale. Dry malty aroma (very faint). Balanced dry taste which became more malty and sweeter after a few mouth fulls. Bitter finish. (3.2)

http://www.banksandtaylor.com/

Also available were:

Milestones Loxley Ale, 4.2%

B & T SOS, 5.0%

Woodforde's Wherry, 3.8%

Beers at Christmas

2007-12-28T18:35:00.001Z

Adnam's Bitter, 3.7% (cask) The Star, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield

Fabulous amber beer, sulphurous and hoppy aroma, beautifully balanced taste and bitter finish. (4.2)

http://www.adnams.co.uk/

Tetley's Dark Mild (draught) The Star, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield

Good example of a rare style, black beer very dry with lots of roasted flavours, nicely balanced. (3.4)

http://www.carlsberg.co.uk/

Bernard Unfiltered (draught) Pivo Cafe Bar, York

Golden, slightly hazy beer, floral hoppy nose, very cold and very fizzy but great hoppy taste and very bitter finish. Overall very good (4.1)

Bernard Dark (draught) Pivo Cafe Bar, York

I went to York specifically for this beer, spent ages looking for the pub, paid £3 for a pint and had to return it as it was badly off (something like lambic only nasty instead of pleasant, the more technically knowledgeable of you can probably tell me what had happened)? (0.3)

http://www.bernard.cz/text_page.php?lang=en&cnt_page=165

City of Cambridge Brewery Co. Ltd, 4.5% (bottled)

2007-12-23T17:37:00.000Z

This beer is bottle conditioned and even with a careful pour and leaving some in the bottle resulted in a cloudy pint, no matter. The beer is a pale amber in colour with an astringent and hoppy aroma (yeast again) also sulphurous. The taste is predominently hoppy and bitter with citrus tastes strongly evident. The finish is bitter and citrus again, nice but could do with more malt character. (3.8)

http://www.cambridge-brewery.co.uk/

Gutmann Dunkles Hefeweizen, 5.2% bottled)

2007-12-23T17:17:00.000Z

And today's winner is:

A dark wheat beer from Titting in Franconia, Germany. This beer is dark amber in colour and slightly cloudy from the yeast (good not mud) with a citrus hoppy aroma. The taste is astringent, citrus, slight banana flavour and loads of spice. Also some darked malt flavours are evident. The finish is balanced with dark malt and spicy citrus hop. (3.5)

http://www.brauerei-gutmann.de/hp1/Home.htm

Badger Harvester's Ale, 2.5% (bottled)

2007-12-21T22:23:00.001Z

I was going to say "back to the serious business" but at 2.5% I'm now sure I can. On the bottle it says that this style of beer was to provide refreshment to farm labourers without getting them pissed (OK it doesn't say that exactly but that's what they mean).

There's a load more taste profile stuff on the bottle including a description using the cyclops system but it's wrong so I won't bother you with what it says. The truth is as follows:

Pale amber in colour this beer has a hoppy, citrus aroma. The taste is sweet, malty (low attenuation in line with the low alcohol level) like malted milk biscuits only more creamy. There is reasonable bitterness in the finish but the sweetness is so pronounced that you don't notice it straight away but it builds as you drink more. Overall it's not bad. (3.1)

Of course the evening was helped by following it with half a bottle of excellent Spanish red wine and a couple of good Russian vodkas!

As for the poll, no beer has scored more than one vote and I voted for the Badger beer!

I'll extend the poll and change the list for tomorrow so come on guys beat my one vote!

http://www.hall-woodhouse.co.uk/

Becks Alcohol Free

2007-12-21T22:23:00.000Z

Yuk, Christmas lunch at Frankie and Benny's then back to work. Marginally better than Coke is the best I can say.