15 Great Men and me

I'm writing this on a train back from London. The bloke in front is listening to repetitive African music, the woman to my left is on her phone shouting at her friend. Nothing she has said so far has been worth saying let alone listening to. If she is reading this over my shoulder ( I’ve just increased the font size so she can) she should also note that she is wearing too much perfume and has lipstick on her teeth and moustache. None of the above-listed petty irritations can burst my bubble this morning. Last night I had another fantastically memorable night, this time at the Houses of Parliament with 15 other All Parliamentary Beer Group brewers of the year.

Walking through the crowds of tourists into the entrance was quite a novelty. I suspect that in my pinstriped suit and gold tie I looked a bit like the MP for Henley on Thames rushing back to vote against a bill to ban badger strangling. Looking around the terrace by the Thames I saw pretty much every brewer who I have ever looked up to during my career. Names like Powell-Evans, Theakston, Drury and Wellington conjure flavours of great ales from the past and present in the mind. At dinner I was sat between Giles Dennis, formally of JW Lees (the man who gave the world JW Lees Vintage Ale) and my local MP the wonderfully down to earth Dan Rogerson. 

The dinner itself was like a beer journey back through time for me. I was delighted that Chalky’s Bite was selected to accompany the starter of gilt head bream. The main was paired with another beer I brewed 12 years ago, McMullen’s Hertford Castle which went brilliantly with the rump of lamb. And the dessert of Pear tartin was served with Fuller’s Golden Pride, a beer which I used to have to round off an evening on ESBs in the Boat at the bottom of Gravel Path in Berkhamsted as a teenager. In fact I think this very beer was in my stomach when I finally decided that life as anything other than a brewer would be an empty affair.

Being the youngest person in the room was intimidating at first (Stefano couldn’t make it) but brewers being brewers I was never short of warm company. At least 5 of the brewers have retired but the next generation continue on the work they began. Nigel Griffiths the MP for Burton on Trent gave a speech about beer in the UK today and concluded that although beer sales were falling the quality of beer today is better than it has ever been. The 15 men in that dining room last night have all been instrumental in making that the case. 

I left at 11 with the party still in full swing in the commons Stranger's Bar and walked alone through the deserted vast stone spaces towards the exit. It was magical, right up to the point where the security guard caught me taking pictures on my phone in a restricted area!

I Hate Colds

I've got a cold. I hate colds.

For someone who spends at least two hours a day tasting and smelling things, the diminution of the ability to taste is the cruellest torture. I could embrace the other symptoms of a cold with gay abandon but an olfactory epithelium covered in mucus makes me want to punch walls until my hands fall off. The virus is thought to have been an important cog in the machinery of evolution. 

Today I think evolution is overrated. I’d rather be an amoeba than a brewer with no sense of smell.   

The Summer's Young and Helpless

August bank holiday unfailingly brings scorching weather to Cornwall. Such was the heat today that the 2 foot-deep lake left by this morning’s torrential rain outside the brewery was a mere 6 inch-deep puddle when I left this evening.  I am starting to think that all the pall-bearers on St Swithin’s reinterment must have been Cornishmen.  My sympathy for the tourists driving around looking for something to do all day is deep and sincere, right up to the point where they decide to spend the afternoon aimlessly wandering around Tesco, getting in my way and running my foot over with their trolleys.

Climatically it’s been a strange year. This has upset the barley plants. This means that malt next year will be more expensive and not as good for making stable beer. This is not good news for maltsters, terrible news for brewers and depressing and expensive news for drinkers.

In the world of the beer enthusiast, white malt is never foremost in the mind. But it is what us brewers rely on to provide sugar for fermentation, body for the beer, foam for head retention and the nourishment to allow our yeast to do its magic. The malt is the foundation of the beer. If it isn't right none of the other aspects of flavour, clarity or stability will be right.

Traditionally wine producers had recourse to have a bad year when nature shafts the crops. These days I can’t see drinkers of big wine brands such as those advertised by showing beautiful people being nice to each other, accepting that their Californian White Zinfandel (blended and bottled in Avonmouth by a team of Eastern Europeans on less than minimum wage) is not going to be quite as sweet this year. Posher wines of course still enjoy a few grand crus.

Brewers are never allowed to have a bad year or a grand cru. I envy the brewers with an ever changing portfolio of beers because these beers taste how they taste and that is how they should taste. When you have regular brands they need to taste the same irrespective of the changes in your ingredients. It is in years of bad crops that the commercial brewer really earns his/her money using experience, understanding and skill to continue to delight the drinker.

On the other hand, hops look promising but until they are in and dried you can’t start counting chickens or any other fowl for that matter. Although saying that, supply of some of the more en vogue varieties may not meet the current insatiable demand.

Finally one of my beers appearing at the Rake this weekend will not taste quite as I had previously indicated. The spontaneously refermented blond came up short of the desired volume so I had to blend it with an unsoured blond. The result I think is just as good and probably slightly more accessible to the sourosceptic.    

Finally, finally to those who gave special birthday presents this Thursday I thank you for freeing me from my prison of lies. A nice final cut.

Le succès à tout prix

Having your beer on the One Show is an honour. Many thanks to Des de Moor for recommending it. Having your beer sampled and described as delicious on TV by the lovely Jane Asher is also a bit of a novelty. It’s just a shame it was the wrong beer. Please accept my apologies for any confusion or distress. Des’ web site clarifies the situation.  Jay Rayner was also a far better ambassador for snobbery than for beer and food. Shame.

Yesterday I tasted my new limited edition beer, Honey Spice IPA. I’m not entirely sure that it is an IPA. I’ve done less than 100 bottles which will sell through our shop. I’ve allowed this one to be a little OTT hop-wise which should please the hardcore and leave those in the hardcore with a point to prove complaining that it’s too accessible. I have also had the chance to make a follow up to Turbo Yeast III Unspeakable Abhorrence from Beyond the Ninth Level of Hades. This time I have made a pale beer with Turbo Yeast and a high alcohol Belgian Ale yeast before warm oxidising and maturing with finely divided oak (toasted saw dust). I’m not a connoisseur of spirits but to me it tastes distilled, matured and expensive. The name? Turbo Yeast IV Descent into the Burning Lake of Eternal Darkness, but you had probably guessed as much. Both of these beers will be appearing with me at some meet the brewers I have lined up for the Autumn in London and potentially the North. If you would like me to appear at your bar, pub, bar mitzvah or WI circle please let me know.   

The keen eyed among you will have noticed that my 12 brew project has slowed somewhat. Owing to the madness of summer and lots of extra curricular activities I have not been able to get away from the brewery. The plan is now to do three brews in a weekend in the autumn and cram the rest into the run up to Christmas. I will get there, even if I have to break into other people’s breweries on New Year’s Eve!

     

Does Size Matter?

I was recently introduced by someone I have a lot of respect for as Stuart Howe, a brewer who used to make great beer at Sharp’s in Cornwall. I asked him what had changed and he said “well, you work for Molson Coors now”. Molson Coors have made a few changes since acquiring Sharp’s but one of them has not been to put up posters saying “Make Shit Beer”. They have also not changed any of the brewing team, raw materials, recipes or anything which has an impact on the flavour of the beer. Nor do they want to and nor shall they on my watch.

I can see to a degree where he was coming from. I have known a few brands which have been commercialised into banality. Chimay beers, in my opinion, are now good when once they were once great. That said historical precedents do not provide a crystal ball into the future.

To dismiss a beer because it is not brewed by a small brewery or because it not felt to be a craft beer is to me as obscene as going into a brewpub and dismissing the opportunity to try sample their wares in favour of a major brand, while defending this choice with “I only drink lager”. Any form of closed mind when it comes to food or drink is objectionable. Is there anyone on the blogosphere who is up for a row and wants to defend dismissing all beers brewed above a small scale? As always my mind is open but my convictions strong.

All organisations that make beer do so to make money, some are more honest about this than others. This is done in the context of the market. If you want to sell beer you need a market for it. In the last 10 years the market for drinks has become much more sophisticated. Beer writers, CAMRA, and bloggers should feel proud that their enthusiasm for and promotion of a great drink has changed what the market is looking for in a beer. Supermarkets and multimedia have also been instrumental. People who run large global brewers are clever. They understand that a sophisticated market where people seek exciting flavour and provenance in a beer isn’t going to fall for mass produced soulless brands, with a nice story and fancy branding. They realise that they need to make sophisticated drinks to sell beer to people with sophisticated palates.

So I am not Stuart Howe who used to make great beer in Cornwall, I am Stuart Howe the brewer who strives to make the best beer possible in Cornwall and will do for a good many years, with the support of Molson Coors.      

This brings me nicely on to a bit of exciting insider information for you on some new bottled beers Sharp’s have on the horizon. A couple of the beers which under the last management I had to brew at the weekend and bottle after work, are making their first appearance at a full commercial scale. Massive Ale and Honey Spice Tripel will finally be brewed at a scale which means everyone who wants the beer will be able to get it. I hope to include an apology on the label to all the people who have asked for Massive and Honey Spice only to be disappointed. Also Sharp’s imperial double IPA and a single hop varietal strong golden ale will become a reality this year. None of this is official yet (and Ms McCready will probably punch me for revealing it) but they are firmly on my brewing programme.

If there are people who will, with closed mind, reject my beers because I work for the UK's biggest brewer I am not overly concerned, bigots like this don’t deserve it anyway!