Month: July 2018

Highest Scoring Beer: 4.5/5 – BA Saison Brut
Lowest Scoring Beer :2.75/5 – Two Hoots (Holts), Bitter (Holts) and Dinosaurs Will Die

Number of beers( not including unknown homebrew): 61
If excluding ones I drank at home and they were not event or pre-event beers : 58

Number of countries beer originated from: 9

Total number of events attended: 12 (but one was Heineken at which we did not drink, but got some cans in the goody bag which are yet to be drunk)

[Editor: It should be noted that many of the 61 were samples of less than one third of a pint and none were more than half a pint. All of the Homebrew Expo samples were 100-150ml. ]

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Sun 8th July – Homebrew Expo

Lots of homebrew – 4-12% – UK
Special RealAletionship – Brick Field Brewery – Blonde Ale – 4.8% – UK

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Sat 7th July – Temperance Street Party & SQUAWK Open Day

Cthulhu Brew – Beer Nouveau – Imperial Lager – 8.2% – UK
Raspberry Wit – Origami Brewing Company – Fruit Beer – 5.7% -UK
Belgian Witbier – SQUAWK Brewing Company – Witbier – 4.8% – UK
Dhana (Strawberry and Coriander Seed) – SQUAWK Brewing Company – IPA International – 4.6% – UK
Cloaking Device – Brooklyn Brewery – Imperial Porter – 10.5% – USA
Dry Hopped Sour – Blackjack Beers – Sour – 4.3% – UK
Rhubarb & Peppercorn With the Creameries – ???? – Saison/Farmhouse – 5.8% – UK
Thai Wheat – Thirst Class Ale – Pale Wheat Ale American – 5% – UK

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Fri 6th July – Beer Nouveau

Knee Panda – Origami Brewing Company – Pale Ale American – 4% – UK
Don’t Wear Slippers – Beer Nouveau – Export Stout – 8% – UK

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Fri 6th July – Holts Tour

Fool’s Gold – The Bootleg Brewing Co./Joseph Holt Brewery – Blonde Ale – 3.9% – UK
Chorlton Pale Ale – The Bootleg Brewing Co./Joseph Holt Brewery – English Pale Ale – 4% – UK
Diamond – Jospeh Holt Brewery – Lager – 5% – UK
Mild – Jospeh Holt Brewery – English Mild – 3.2% – UK
Two Hoots – Jospeh Holt Brewery – Golden Ale – 4.2% – UK
Bitter – Jospeh Holt Brewery – English Bitter – 4% – UK
Lionbrew – Jospeh Holt Brewery – English Pale Ale – 3.5% – UK
IPA – Jospeh Holt Brewery – English IPA – 3.8% – UK

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Thurs 5th July – day off from events – drank at home

Blood Wolf – Derby Brewing Company – American Red Ale – 4.8% – UK
KS Gose Verde – Keith Sowerby – Sour/Gose – 5% – UK

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Wed 4th July – Evolution of IPA

Guillotine – Marble Beers – International IPA – 7.1% – UK
IPA Citra Enigma – Cloudwater – New England IPA – 6.5% – UK
One Way Ticket to Pluto – Torrside Brewing – West Coast IPA – 6.8% – UK
TEIPA – Beer Nouveau – English IPA – 6.6% – UK
Barclay’s X Wood Cask – Beer Nouveau – 8.4% – UK

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Wed 4th July – Cole & Cole Food & Beer event

Dinosaurs Will Die – Marble Beers – Sour/Gose – 4.1% – UK
Lagonda – Marble Beers – English IPA – 5% – UK

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Tue 3rd July – Yeast Event

BA Saison Brut – Cloudwater – Saison/Farmhouse – 8% – UK
Genesi – Birra dell’Eremo – Biere de Champagne/Biere Brut – 9% – Italy
Orval 2014 – Brasserie d’Orval – Belgian Pale Ale – 6.2% – Belgium
Orval 2018 – Brasserie d’Orval – Belgian Pale Ale – 6.2% – Belgium
Rodenbach Grand Cru – Brouwerji Rodenbach – Sour Flanders Red Ale – 6% – Belgium
Oude Gueuze – Hanssens Artisanaal – Lambic Gueuze – 6% – Belgium
Tzatzki Sour – Mad Hatter Brewing – Sour Ale – 4.3% – UK
Seven – Upright Brewing Company – Saison/Farmhouse – 8% – USA
Saison Dupont – Brasserie Dupont – Saison/Farmhouse – 6.5% – Belgium

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Tue 3rd July – Ply scadanavian takeover

Ben – Brewski – Imperial Stout – 9.5% – Sweden
Stick A Finger In The Soil – Mikkeller – 4.6% – Denmark
GBG Beer Week 2018 (Strawberry Sour) – Dugges Bryggeri – Berliner Weisse – 5% – Sweden

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Mon 2nd July – Furture of Lager

Running With Sceptres – Lost and Grounded Brewers – Lager – 5.2% – UK
Keller Pils – Lost and Grounded Brewers – Kellerbier/Lager – 4.8% – UK
Paulaner Original Munchner Hell – Paulaner Brauerei – Lager – 4.9% – Germany
Bitburger Premium Pils – Bitburger Braugruppe – Pilsner – 4.8% – Germany
Pilsner Urquell – Plzensky Prazdroj – Pilsner – 4.4% – Czech Republic
Hacker-Pschorr Muncher Kellerbier – Kellerbier /Lager – 5.5% – Germany
Paulaner Ur-Dunkel Naturtrub – Lager Dunkel – 5% – Germany
Dream House – Left Handed Giant Brewing – American Pale – 5.9% – UK

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Mon 2nd July – Fairfield Social Club on way to Future of Lager

Pale – Nomadic Beers – English Pale Ale – 3.9% – UK

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Sun 1st July – day off from event – drank at home

Cleric’s Cure – Three Tuns Brewey – English IPA – 5% – UK

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Sat 30th June – Four Kings Open Day

Four Kings IPA – Four Kings Brewery – English IPA – 4% – UK
Easy Dark Mild – Four Kings Brewery – English Mild Ale – 3.9% – UK
Gold – Four Kings Brewery – English Bitter – 4% – UK

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Fri 29th June – Ol Croatian Nova Runda event

ThroaTTwisteR – Nova Runda – Imperial IPA (?) – 9% – Croatia
APA – Nova Runda – American Pale Ale – 5.2% – Croatia
Hill 438 – Nova Runda – American IPA – 6.5% – Croatia
Hladovina – Nova Runda – Session IPA – 4.9% – Croatia
C4 – Nova Runda – American IPA – 6.3% – Croatia
Smiley Smile – Ol Nano Bar and Brewery – 4.4% – UK

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Fri 29th June – Beer Nouveau

Victorian Brown – Beer Nouveau – English Brown Ale – 6.6% – UK
Manchester ExPorter – Beer Nouveau – 6% – UK (this was one of the Clash of Cities beers)

Now this is the main event for us. Manchester, Chorlton and Liverpool home brew groups along with some independents bringing a variety of their creations to Beer Nouveau. Four bars each with membersserving their club’s beers in small samples. The public are welcome and asked to score out of ten the beers they drink. 750+ scores registered for 59 unique beers over six hours. At the same time some of the beers are entered into a more formal competition judged by beer experts (Abbeydale, Rob from Lallemand and Steve). And beyond that Steve will take the recipes, calculate profit margins and combine them with the other scores to figure out which is the best commercial beer and then brew it.

We’ve entered our latest beer, Special RealAletionship (name courtesy of jason on UA) under the new, and ficticous, name ‘Brick Field Brewery’. It’s a Blonde Ale consisting entirely of Maris Otter. Magnum for bittering and a fair amount of Cluster for aroma and flavour. Simple recipe, cheap beer. It faired well in the public vote, above half way; poorly in the professional (10 out of 13) and we’re waiting to see how it does in terms of profit.

Both of us had great fun serving behind the bar but agreed that being able to just hand out whatever is asked for without needing to take payments is definitely the best way to tend bar.

It was a busy event but most punters joined in with gusto. One chap worked his way through the first 17 of the Manchester brews. Fortunately Keith’s were at the end so he didn’t have to suffer any bottle bombs.

Other than a spillage in the cold store and a slightly sick Rob Percival everything seemed to go well. Poor Steve was visibly shattered by the end though. Two solid days of work for him.

We’d been looking forward to this one for ages and we weren’t disappointed. About 20 breweries represented on about 10 stands, street food, craft soft drinks and lots of people having fun.

Mike had a good chat with the Steep couple. We saw them at the Manchester Beer Festival last year and they were a lovely pair who’d started in home brew then used their kit and skills to make soft drinks instead. Mike was immediately taken by the idea because at the time Barrs had just announced that Irn Bru was having sweeteners added. He wants to make his own. After a bit of online research he was left puzzled so this provided a good opportunity to clear up some of the confusion and hear the process from the people who know what they’re talking about.

Pen enjoyed herself with multiple beers and even went down the street to visit Squawk for a while. Not many of the people we’d advertised the event to turned up unfortunately but we met up with Gillian and her friends. It was fun to meet various family members of the home brew group: Craig’s wife and kids; Rich and his family; Arran’s little one and various others.

This morning we had arranged to drop our Homebrew Expo beer at Steve’s (Beer Nouveau). Steve either was not in at the expected time or had to go out – big party to organise. We had to go to Bolton for a few hours and did not want the beer getting hot in the car and jiggled about. Wandered along the arches and found a very nice chap called Paul at Manchester Brewing Company who before we could even ask said he would look after our beer and drop it off at Steve’s later for us.

The final ticketed event of MBW is Holts Brewery tour. Holts don’t normally do tours and it’s fairly obvious why: the brewery is a working brewery in an old, old building and health and safety is a bit, well, abstract. We have hi-vis vests but there are plenty of random hazards.

We’re joined again by Tina who we saw at Heineken, Ol and the Evolution of IPA (and it wouldn’t be the last time). She’s an interesting character with a fairly full on past. We like her.

The head brewer at Holts gives us a complete tour of the place, accompanied by Jane, who we met on Monday at the Lager talk. They’re a medium sized place with a fair bit of history behind them and produce about half a dozen different beers. Jane turns out to be sixth generation Holt and it set to take over the place at some point, after working her way through all the various area of the business.

At the end of the tour we’re let loose with various kegs of beer. Some people drink pints, some take small samples. Holts don’t really care though, it’s a drop in the ocean for them.

Popped to Steve’s after to check on our beer, and indulge in more beer, including some from Origami Breweing – bunch of women run this outfit and we had a really good chat with Erin and Pam. One of them has had bad experiences in the past with Holt’s when working at Bootleg Brewing 🙁 Oh dear, we had hoped that Holt’s were one of the better largeish breweries.

 

Another evening with Rob Percival, this time on the subject of IPAs. Four local breweries have brewed five different beers on the theme of IPA. Steve from Beer Nouveau brewed two historic beers (Barclay’s X and Tetley’s East India Pale Ale, Pete from Torrside brewed a West Coast IPA, Mark from Cloudwater a New England IPA and Joe from Marble Arch a very modern zero residual sugar IPA using enzymes.

The Barclays was a 10% beer with a special historic malt. The T.E.I.P.A was the same malts but a lower ABV and slightly bretted in the way it used to be. The West Coast IPA was a good example of the current style. The NEIPA very low bitterness, with lots of dry hops. The Marble Arch beer used a new technique using enzymes to ferment out all (ALL) the sugars to more than 100% AA and is one of fewer than half a dozen beers done this way. No bitterness either.

With more than 40 people in the upper room of 57 Thomas Street and the outside temperature pushing 27C it wasn’t the most comfortable evening. We spoke at length to guys from the Chorlton home brew group and grilled the available brewers on all aspects of their brewing. Joe from Marble was drunk enough to invite us to visit the brewery, which we will certainly do. Mark from Cloudwater was forthcoming about the science behind much of what they do and Mike learned a great deal about beer.

It was an entertaining evening – Rob was his usual informative self and Steve failed to shed his image of being the loudest person in the room. A bit too hot and cramped to be described as fun though.

The highly recommended Rob Percival from Lallemand took us on a fascinating journey through some excellent examples of sour, lambic and, quite definitely, ‘other’ types of beer made with interesting yeasts.

Starting with sours he introduced us to yeasts which acidify then moved on to wild yeasts and blended beers from a completely different brewing culture (pun intended). He ended the, extended, session by presenting us with beers made with non-beer yeasts and, in particular, a grape beer specially shipped over from Italy. The Italians are combining wine and beer in novel ways and making extensive use of yeast. Cloudwater have a similar type of beer fermented with saison, champagne yeasts and Brett. A very complex brewing process producing an interesting and complex beer.

Rob is a true brewers geek, he works for one of the few yeast companies and seems to be involved in a staggering number of projects and beers. It was obvious that he was only skimming the very top of his barrel of knowledge and could have presented for days on a number of different topics. It was quite the education. Lots of excellent, strong beers were drunk so I hope that a decent amount of knowledge was retained.

It will take a lot to top this.

After a lovely dinner as Samsi we headed to Unit 101 for an evening about Lager. Will Evans from Cave Direct North talked a group of us through the history, the present and his thoughts on the future of Lager.Lagers aren’t something that we knew much about, other than how difficult they are to make and that they’ve got a rather chequered image. Will took us through seven different lagers from Pilsners to modern brews from ???. Will was knowledgeable and informative and we learned just how much variation there could be in lagers. Pen was presently surprised but she’s not converted yet.On our table was Marina from Brasserie de la Senne, who was presenting a Belgian beer tasting on the Tuesday, and we had a interesting conversation about Belgian beers and their production.After the session we spoke to the people sat behind us, one of whom worked for Holts and would be at the tour on Friday. It’s a small world. She took a certain amount of offence at some of the comments made by Will and others about the less-than-righteous business practices of some of the larger breweries. As an ex-brewer for a large lager brewery she believed that they have an undeserved bad reputation and made a positive contribution to the brewing industry. We think that this is a very debatable position.

We had not realised we had a brewery near where we live so popped out to this one as they were having an open day for Manchester Beer Week. It’s on an industrial estate which is not ideal, but after driving around the perimeter once we checked their website for instructions. Turns out we had to ring a buzzer at the main gate and a security man let us through.

The kit at the brewery is much the same as many other small breweries. Five guys set it up, but the name Five Kings was not funny. Not entirely sure we like their idea of Four Kings, but each to his own. They all have other jobs or businesses – marketing, plumbing, electrician and joiner being some of their trades/ skills. They brew very traditional beers every couple of weeks or so in spare time and do sell into some local pubs. They are hoping to open a brewery tap in Glossop as well as having regular open days at the bar they have set up in the brewery. Pen had all three beers that were on – a bitter, a dark mild and an IPA. The mild was the best one, but while decent enough beers not really to her taste. They had a South Afrifcan chap doing food – the burrito Mike had was very tasty.