Since when did tea become the drink of Britain?

Following the conclusion to Oz and Clarks recent series of Drink of Britain, many people that I have spoken to have been much disappointed that apparently (according to Oz and Clark) the drink of Britain is tea. However this makes no sense as tea is not even grown in Britain, and is consumed traditionally in places all over the world (especially Asia), and to be honest is not actually that popular over here. They might as well have said water was the drink of Britain! To be honest I was quite disappointed, and you could tell in the last two serises Oz was going a bit over the top with vinyards (when hundreds of superb breweries had still not been covered, not to mention specialist beer styles such as Barley wine and Imperial Russian stout). But at least the series didn’t scoop to the same lows as Morrissey Fox did.

A valentines day adventure of beer and food.

It was only previous week when I visited my local the John Bull on an icy cold, blustery night to seek out some quality winter beers. For a Saturday night the place seemed unchanged (despite recent economic conditions) with folk of the local community arriving at a steady pace to enjoy the quality pints on offer. I began as usual reviewing the cask ales available, giving particular praise to Hadrian & Borders new Ouseburn Porter, before finishing with a Westmalle Dubbel. It was by this point that the group of middle aged couples who I was sat next to, had assembled to cheese board with several varieties of cheeses. After chatting to the lady next to me (about beer mainly) I was able to get some cheese samples to see if the Westmalle paired well with any of the cheeses. Luckily enough it seemed to match almost all of the cheeses fairly well. The beer seemed to strip the fat from my palate, almost dissolving it to leave the flavors of both beer and cheese to amalgamate together in a harmonious dance between fruity yeasty phenolics and intense mature cheese flavors. This was more than bliss, and considering Westmalle Dubbel is no lightweight beer at 7%abv, it squared up to anything the cheese board could throw at it, even the blue cheese, which I admit wasn’t the best pairing. Is this inspiration to host my own beer and cheese evening I thought? How many people should I invite and who? What beer with what cheese?

The planning of the event is still pending. But it was only the following weekend that my good lady was preparing a three course meal for us both for valentines day, and with this came the idea to match each course with a complementing beer specially selected. To be honest not all the beers used were 100% adequate for the pairing, but I would class it as a good attempt.

The starter.

Sear scallops with king prawns on a bed of salad and a lemon wedge.

The Beer: Celis White, Belgian wheat beer.


To a certain level this pairing was a shot in the dark as I had never tried Celis white but had an idea that seafood and fish paired well with Belgian wheat beer and this was the only example of the style I had available. Overall the match was quite good with the yeast texture picking up on the scallops a little. The intensity of both beer and food was also well balanced however I felt the beers lively citric flavors and racy acidity really longed for something to dance with or lift from the palate. I would recommend this beer to be paired with something a little more lively, Mexican food maybe?

The Main.

Venison Steak and cherry sauce served with potato wedges, broccoli and asparagus.

The Beer: Badger poachers choice.

This was a bottle I had kept for awhile just waiting for that game dish to go with. It even advises on the bottle to serve with game. As some will know this a very rich malt balanced beer, brewed with liquorish and damson to make it truly individual. The flavors of the beer seemed to purposely mimic that of the cherry sauce and the beer harmonized well with the meat whilst leaving a rugged sweetness and warming alcohols in the mouth. A success!

The Dessert.

Chocolate pear and ginger pudding.

The Beer: Baccus Frambozenbier

This was chosen from the supermarket earlier in the day after the realization that I had no beer in the house that would match this dish adequately. The rational of choosing the raspberry variety over the cherry was simple, raspberry is a more intense fruit so would stand up to the ginger. As things turned out, I was right, and the lively fruits and spritzy carbonation of the beer seemed to marry superbly with chocolate and pear whilst the ginger seemed to ride alongside, bringing that extra complexity to the piece. This was defiantly the best pairing of the evening.

Something for after dinner.

Kasteel Triple.

Was by coincidence a beer very suited for valentines day with bold apricot and pear like sweet malty flavors and generous warming alcohols. This one rounded off a perfectly splendid evening of quality food and company (thanks to the lovely Helen my wife to be) with well chosen quality beers. Cheers.

A long brutal winter

As many UK readers will have realized, this winter has been the longest and coldest for a long time with plenty of snowfall, ice, sleet and blizzards. It is such weather that calls for hard core winter warmer beers such as Scotch ales, Barley wines and various Belgian strong ales. By inconvenience most of the harsh weather has been after New Year, and hence after the bulk of my winter beer supplies had been consumed. Non-the less tonight I shall be visiting the might John Bull, the greatest pub in Alnwick to hunt some winter beers. Landlord Gus usually changes his cask beers to suit the occasion, and does so quite frequently unlike many of the other inferior, pub-co owned Alnwick pubs.

Arguably winter brings some of the most exciting and varied seasonal beers. In fact some breweries even release wheat beers as seasonal (a white colored beer to resemble snow perhaps?) something only done for the summer usually. In fact for my wedding in December I will be having a small but good selection of winter beers available, which reminds me I still have a bottle of Rochefort 10 tucked away in my beer stocks.

A beer to be sadly missed this winter, the mighty Old Rasputin Russian imperial stout is a mighty 9% abv winter warmer from North Coast brewery in California.

A post about Scotland.

Traquair House ale: a great Scotch heavy for settling into burns night with its layered malt complexity.

As many of my readers are probably now familiar with my ramblings about the glory of Yorkshire, this time I have decided to cover Scotland, and this is for two reasons;

1: Last weeks episode of Drink of Britain covered both whisky and beer in Scotland. It was good to see the lads from Brew Dog being featured drinking with Oz and James on a park bench. I myself have met both of James Watt and head brewer Martin Dickie (I have his autograph) as well as visit the brewery.

2: Its Burns night. But sadly I will be saving my McEwans Scotch ale and dram of single malt till tomorrow night as I will be getting up incredibly early tomorrow to drive to work.

But anyway, for people who know beer know Scotland is traditionally famous for its heavier, stronger, malt accented ales by comparison to English counterparts. However of recent times the brewers of Scotland have diversified their products and much more can be sought after than the classic 60/, 70/, 80/ etc. In fact the country seems to brew many of the most full flavoured and creative beers the UK has to offer, from the likes of Brew Dog and Williams brother with their ‘new world’ beers approach to Broughton ales and Traquair house with classic masterpieces of the Scotch ale style. So if you go be sure to hunt out some beers, because there’s plenty on offer.

A New year… Of more beer.

The beginning of this month I got round to finally bottling my very own Vintage 2008 ale after just over 4 months of aging. At 11.7% a.b.v (and that’s after the primary fermentation) this is indeed the strongest beer I have home brewed, and a very attenuative yeast strain was used to enhance the potency. The interesting fact with this brew was that it was not originally intended to come out at such a high gravity. Some miss-judgement concerning my mash tun extract efficiency turned a target gravity of 1.092 to the immense 1.112! Anyhow my first tastings were promising, and I shall be conducting vertical tastings on this one for years to come.
Further good news comes in the form of another T.V series, in the form of Oz and Clark Drink of Britain, finally a T.V series covering beer that isn’t pandered with gimmicky disrespectful, beer degrading, immature rubbish like last years Morrisey Fox series. In fact from what I have heard and seen Oz Clark is very much a professional beer taster. OK at times he seems to over emphasise the traditional aspects of British brewing, but lets not forget that these days craft brewing can be as much about innovation as tradition, both here and abroad. None the less I sense the brewing force is strong with this one.
However off the screens not much seems to have changed since 2008 yet. I have tried a few interesting beers from Leeds brewery and despite Christmas and new year have managed not to consume all of my cellared/special occasion beers. Admittedly quite a few will probably be consumed at my wedding in December, where I am planning to home brew my very own wedding ale which will be racked into an actual cask borrowed from my work the Daleside brewery. The downside of this plan maybe that I will have to do my own cellarmanship work before the day, and due to my capacity shall have to do a ‘double brew’. I.e. brew two 5 gallon batched of wedding ale in the same day to fill a 9 gallon cask. Given a few extra demi-johns and a hot liquor tank for my birthday this should not be a problem but will probably still mean a 10-12 hour day of home brewing. Brutal stuff.

Home brew: Back from the days of living and brewing at my parents. Having plenty of free time as a student, a higher turnover was achievable with batches being brewed at a time. Sadly much of it lacked quality.