Author: doctor

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.