A Brief Venture Up North.

These days it's very rare to have a weekend devoid of plans. Last weekend was one of them, which is exactly why I took up the very kind offer from my parents to tour me round a few micropubs they were familiar with in the North East. 

It's only a handful of times each year I get to re-visit 'The Toon' properly but Blaydon is an area I am not overly familiar with.  What I was aware of is it is home to Firebrick Brewery. So on my request our first stop was to give it a visit. I remember Firebrick best for being brewers of one of the best Brown ales on earth, and also for being the new Newcastle Beer Festival Battle of the Beers champions after I had left the North East scene and moved to Harrogate. 

Fifrebrick Brewery, Blaydon

Being unaware initially that Firebrick brewery and taproom are in completely separate locations, we ended up at the brewery shop not a taproom, which is no big deal. Looking at beer is a favourite past time of mine, especially in shops, and the brewery has a pretty cool shop.  

 

Pretty cool shop

Looking forward to trying this one 

We did ask about having a tour round but the shop lady informed us it wasn't the best time but was open to the possibility of that being arranged at a later date. Non the less, after picking up some cans we moved on to the first micropub, also in Blaydon; The Yard.

The Yard is a quirky, underground and dog friendly drinking haven split over multiple small rooms and a garden. According to the Mother; The Yard micropub is conveniently positioned so that on a group day out the males of the group could easily be left here to entertain themselves while the women ventured round the various charity shops of Blaydon.

 

First up from the bar was Tyneside Blonde by Hadrian Border brewery. A 3.9% blonde ale that goes way back. When the local beer scene was younger I remember this beer standing out for it's clean, delicate flavour profile, the one to convert the lager drinker to the delights of 'real ale' (back when people still called it that). My last few encounters with it have left the impression of a slightly more malt forward, rounded blonde ale. Still very much all about subtle fruit and malt, simple but balanced. Did the beer change or is it just me? 

Next up was Firebrick's The Abbot's Best at 4.6%. Deep mahogany in colour and packed with mature fruit, berries and nutty caramelised malt. Loads of character with quite a weighty mouthfeel. Great stuff. After this it was time to venture off to High Spen to Wig's Place. A genuine community boozer that's friendly, well priced, with a comfy lounge bar and loads of local memorabilia. A bit of a drive out from Blaydon but well worth the trip.   

On the taps were offerings from Durham brewery and Spenside Stables brewery. Local to High Spen, Spenside Stables are a relatively new brewery I had never previously encountered.   

First up was Spenside Session at 4%. A light bodied session bitter with grassy citrus fruit and malt. Subtle bready yeast and citrus throughout lead to a moderately dry minerally finish. Initially this beer took me back to my time brewing in the North east, with it's higher mineral content and residual alkalinity water. Pit Pony, also 4%, has a similar theme but is a bit more upfront with the resinous citrus hoppy notes.

Durham Brewery Fresh Coast US IPA was a nice citrus led 4.4% hoppy pale with a rounded but dry finish. Some sulphur notes but my kind of thing non the less. The 4.5% Pit Yakka from Spenside Stables was probably the best beer on offer. A 4.5% Medum bodied well rounded porter featuring sweet coffee, candy, pear and liquorice. 

As the last beer of the session it went down splendidly. This was after all just a casual family afternoon/evening out. With a different crowd in a different era this would be the usual point where everyone would head into town. Here the majority would embrace much more social activity, bright lights and bumpedy-bump music with young people everywhere (I am over 40 now I can talk like that). 

However instead we were retreating back to the pad for sausage beans and chips. Some things never get old.

Beer and cheese (re-visited again).

Beer and cheese at Jorvine, York

 

Beer and cheese is a subject I have frequently blogged about. For a while it became a bit of an obsession, yet like with many things, my relationship with it is one that has evolved with time. You could say this extends into beer and food in general. 

Back in the early days of beer blogging, beer and cheese was a popular sub category subject to discussions surrounding beer at the dinner table. At the time pairing beer with food was becoming so in vogue within the craft beer community that it was on it's way to becoming the next star wars. The growing collective of beer writers, bloggers and online enthusiasts united under the one banner (much like the Rebel Alliance) in the constant push back against the general consensus/Galactic Empire that wine was the only real viable beverage to complement fine dining. 

As immersive as it all was, being a beer-food/beer-cheese enthusiast has never been easy. In my own little sphere of influence I often felt like a kind of a lone obsessive nutter type amongst an apathetic majority. But enthusiasm is rarely seen as a bad thing, and you can't overlook the very credible and influential work of beer writers/bloggers such as Melissa Cole, Mark Dredge and many others. But over time you eventually grow to accept the objective reality that the majority of people in general don't really give a bollocks about food and beverage pairings. 

 

But undoubtedly beer is and always has been a great accompaniment to cheese. As beer writer Garrett Oliver once put; beer and cheese both derive, to some extent from grasses. Both are fermented and aged. Both balance sweetness and acidity with fruitiness and fermentation flavours. 

 Getting a feel for beer and cheese pairing is simply about complementing and contrasting different elements between the two. Take for example a basic cheddar; generally it has elements of sharp fruitiness balanced by firm nutty tones. This marries almost effortlessly with the caramelised malt, grassy-bitter-fruitiness of English hops and fruity fermentation esters of a traditional English pale ale or Bitter.  

The bright citrus flavours and aggressive bitterness of more modern day US inspired pale ales cut right through cheeses with buttery rich textures and citrus notes. Like a bloomy rind goat's cheese.  Equally the tartness and spice of a Belgian or German style wheat beers would pair just as impressively. Citrus notes in harder cheeses can be treated the same way. The subtleties of a real Yorkshire Wensleydale pairing excellently with cask conditioned Daleside Blonde. 

Big aggressively hoppy beers like IPA's love cutting into creamy blues; try a full on IPA like Thornbridge Jaipur or Roosters Baby Faced Assassin with a creamy blue like Shepherds Purse Yorkshire Blue or  Doddington Darling Blue.

 

For cheeses more on the firmer, nuttier textured side turn to the roasted and caramelised malt flavours of darker beers. A class brown ale like Firebrick's Toon Broon with Comte or Doddingtons Original for example. Big cheeses like a Cave aged Gouda are known to be great with malt heavy Bock style lagers or Imperial Stouts. 

Blue cheese is exceptionally versatile with beer especially big abv styles like Imperial Stout, Barley wine or many strong Belgian ales. Daleside Monkey Wrench is exceptional with Harrogate Blue so is (as I am told) the Belgian Flanders Red style ale Duchesse de Bourgogne.

I could branch off into beers with integral sour elements to them but feel I would be over emphasising the point. Exploring different beer-cheese combinations can be endlessly fascinating, the obvious question to address is; what beer do you choose to complement a full cheeseboard, as blogged about here. The 'beer for the cheeseboard' is where my personal take on beer and cheese has really changed. 

To my younger self, the idea of getting tucked into a massive array of several or more cheeses (with crackers, pickles, chutney... sometimes celary or apple) along side the boldest strong ale obtainable at the time (capable of standing up to the biggest cheese on the board), served in a fancy stemmed glass; was like my adult equivalent of watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as a kid. Where (music kicking in) all the Power Ranger giant animal robots morphed together into the Ultrazord, the giant awesome unstoppable mega robot that finishes off the baddies right at the end.

The cheese-mageddon, my previous approach to beer and cheese.

Except when you get older you come to the realisation that the formula isn't like Power Rangers at all. Palate overload aside, it's more similar to when your really hungry in the que at the chippy and end up ordering a large fish and chips. As much as it seemed the most substantial option at the time, the inevitability is just being left bloated. With age and wisdom one realises the additional pickled egg and slice of bread is as far as you need to go, you don't need that 'large' option and feeling like a fat b**tard afterwards.

So in conclusion; Beer and cheese doesn't have to be about more is more. Taking a average strength beer with a modest variety of decent cheeses can be just as magical as going overboard. My personal go-to favourite options for beers that are both regular strength and highly versatile with cheese include; Rudgate Jorvik Blonde, Cullercoats Jack The Devil (or Rocket Brigade), Theakstons Best Bitter, Cairngorm IPA, Sam Smiths India Ale.

 

Another great all rounder for cheese, which is currently found mainly in bottled form, but should be more common in cask in coming years is the 4.5% Daleside Greengrass.

Daleside Greengrass with Cheese

 

Greengrass Old Rogue ale is a fruity, mid golden English pale/golden ale. With aromas of apricot, herbal hops, caramel and pear, the palate opens with fruity almond and light summer fruit. The First Gold hops used bring orange and spice that intermingle, dancing over cascading caramelised grain to leave lingering echoes of gentle fruit and malt in the late bitter-sweet finish. This beer is great with mid strength cheddar and sheep's milk cheeses. 

That is more or less concludes my re-take on beer and cheese. For anyone looking to take more of an interest just remember to follow my advice. But also look out for the Beer and Cheese event coming to the Roosters brewery taproom this November.

 

Autumn brewing. Autumn Leaves, and other stuff.

 

I have came to the conclusion over recent years that Autumn is my personal favourite season. It is short, peculiar and has a unique ambience about it. It does however have downsides; for instance when it's never really dry enough to put the washing out, yet still not cold enough to justify putting the heating on... Trapping one in a kind of wet clothes pincers movement.

The kids are going back to school. Which is a good thing. They are a lot more grown up and clever than they used to be. They also seem to be coming out with more and more Yorkshire words over time. Telling them about how they used to speak where I was brought up seems to create confusion. My youngest's interpretation of phrases like 'wey aye man' and 'gannin yem' is that it must be some kind of underground colloquial gang-slang dialect unknown to the general public. They don't get taught how to sing 'The Blaydon Races' in any schools in these parts.        

At work I have been progressively getting to know the Roosters 30 barrel brew kit and the overall feel of brewing on it. It is the largest of the two brew kits used by Roosters brewery. At first the seemingly complex network of multiple valves, flow meters and electronics seemed intimidating but over time I have come to appreciate the splendid brewing experience it offers.    

New fermentation vessel bought in to expand capacity

Using a lauter tun has it's up's and downs also. It is different to the traditional mash tun wort separation method and up to now I have not only brewed Daleside beers but the majority of the Roosters range. Collectively, between both big and small brew kits seasonal beers, specials and collab brews have seemed to be rolling out almost every week. 

One of the more recent Daleside re-releases currently out in trade this month is Daleside Autumn Leaves. An easy going 3.4% smooth textured session bitter remembered for its nutty malt and mature fruit notes.  As some are aware Autumn Leaves was my first ever beer invention to go commercial back in 2009, as blogged about here. Unfortunately this year, due to Autumn Leaves being brewed on the small kit I personally didn't brew it. But fellow brother priest of the yeast Jamie did a splendid job of bringing it back in all it's glory. 

Autumn Leaves brew day on the 10 barrel brew kit

   At Roosters brewery the hop store is brimming with an arsenal of new world hop varieties from across the globe. In my past life, getting a glimse of such varieties as Citra, Simco and Nelson Sauvin would have required some justification... Or... Stealth tactics (mixed with a bit of nudge-nudge, wink-wink I ain't saying nothing right). 

Yet you need to push the envelope even further to get hold of fresh/wet un-dried hops for a brew day. This autumn sees the release of Roosters Fresh Hop Goldings. An exclusive 4.3% pale ale brewed with fresh un-dried hops brought straight from the farm (meaning yes this does require someone in a van venturing all the way to the southern counties to retrive the hops on the day of brewing).   

   

Wet hop Goldings loaded into the hop back

Wet hop cone close up

Darker beers such as Long Shadow, Throwback vintage stock ale (brewed over oak) and Terry (chocolate orange stout) have been brought into the mix in time with the season change. But you can still get hold of beers from the Lager series, Good As Hell being the most recent, as well as Love All The People (passionfruit pale ale) brewed late summer. 

Passion fruit puree going into Love all the People

But it's always lovely when another Daleside core or seasonal beer pops up on the schedule.  Already knowing whats in them given they have all been brewed to the closest possible specifications to how they were on the old site. The exception being Yorkshire Gold, our only new beer since moving premises. Keep a look out for Winter Jewel later this year also.

But alas autumn is a lovely time to be brewing. Which in turn makes for a great time to be hunting beer also.  Cheers all!

   

Rob's Beer Adventure

 Welcome to Rob's beer adventure, the continuation of Rob's beer quest. 

Four years is a long time to be away from blogging and since the days of Rob's Beer Quest much has changed. The world of beer has moved on. I have moved on, and the blogging world has moved on. So much like how Gandalf the Grey later came back as Gandalf the White; the Rob from Rob's Beer Quest is back as the Rob of Rob's Beer Adventure.  Covering a completely new chapter of life conquests, new beginnings and... Beer.

For starters the new Rob is a happily separated co-parent who lives alone,  has slightly more diverse cooking skills, an allotment and a different perspective on life. I also have a (not so) new girlfriend called Susan who has a similar role in my life to that of beer; in the general sense she makes the world a better place.

Life is very much like beer; it's what you make of it

In even bigger news the workplace of Daleside Brewery, where I previously worked has moved site. The run down ageing former premises of the Daleside Brewery that was have been vacated. The contents sold, scrapped or salvaged after 30 odd years on the same site on the east side of Harrogate. The game-changing takeover was made by our old friends and fellow local independent brewing stalwarts Roosters brewing Co. Making Daleside now a sister brand of Roosters, brewed on the same premises. 

At the time this was revealed by the press a lot of outsiders had questions. One of the main ones being what we the staff made of it all? Brewery buy-outs/takeovers/mergers come in different shapes and sizes and with this one the staff reaction was positive in entirety. Many of us already knew and had even previously worked with each other. Furthermore everyone at Daleside knew the company needed change for a long time. 

The status quo working for Daleside always remained the same. Like one of those zombie action movies where after so much futile struggle, the inevitable end game is running out of ammo before everyone eventually gets eaten by the zombies. Don't get me wrong the brewing business is not easy especially not in recent times, and the former shareholders did well to keep things going as long as they did.  

But doomed to a very uncertain failure. Staff numbers dwindling. Premises, brew kit and equipment all withering with age. Staff... also withering with age. 

This set the scene for the revelations of spring 2024 to unfold almost like the end scene of the film Top Gun Maverick. The Daleside team was basically stranded in the hijacked outdated relic F14 tomcat. Out of ammo and hunted by endless maintenance and repair bills. Then out of seemingly nowhere rescued from the brink. 

Daleside are down wind. With no second driver or front roller shutter door.

The parody version of this scene may be in my own imagination but the relief and commoraderie were almost as real and in a metaphorical sense so was the collateral damage to the runway (after all the amalgamation of two breweries was never going to be that straight forward). 

 

But working at Roosters has been a completely different experience in itself. To quote Daleside's lead dray man/distribution master Col; whilst surrounded by the modern brew kit, packaging equipment, shiny vessels, touch screen technology and the abundance of young people.

"it feels like being a rock star" 

It's not dark and dingy, the ceiling doesn't leak in various places when it rains. There aren't bits of kit that are simply impossible to repair because the parts manufacturer ceased to exist twenty years ago. Entering Rooster's is truly entering the world of modern day craft brewing. 

Now that's what I'm talking about

Nine gallon bundles of beery joy being filled for the customer

The modern world of craft brewing yes. Except, there is one significant point of individuality worth mentioning. Roosters are by many peoples standards a very old brewery, alongside Daleside one of the oldest in the local area. Where Daleside never wavered from it's vision, Rooster's remained determined to be both modern day pioneers and committed to maintaining the foundations to make that a reality.

 

 Yet despite all the modernisation the thing that has became obvious over my time getting to know  Roosters, is that it never detached itself from it's roots. After all, the romance and quaintness of the traditional micro-brewing scene was never a bad thing, or anything that needed to be replaced.  

  

Week Up North

So the other week myself and the family had the most splendid adventure away to the county of our former residence, Northumberland. We ventured the delights of Alnwick, Alnmouth, Seahouses and Holy Island. It seems sort of odd thinking of Northumberland as a holiday destination again. For a long time it was home but before and after that it was a place for holidays. 

 I managed to visit some pubs including the old favourite The John Bull, as well as newer venues like The Ale Gate and The Pig In Muck. It was a great night and it is still obvious the North East beer scene is still formidable although has moved on alittle with new beers and new breweries of the region. A few of these I managed to get hold of from Turnbull's Butchers new farm shop. 

Prior to leaving the North East beer scene the Farmhouse brewery Rigg & Furrow were a fairly new outfit. Agriculture is a saison cross lager hybrid. Both hoppy and dry it balances the line between refreshing yet sophisticated. Moving on Full Circle Brew Co are a new Newcastle based brewery, Looper is a full on Hazy 6.4% IPA featuring opal fruits, tropical and stone fruit. Minimal bitterness, soft mouthfeel, very modern.  

First and Last Damson Porter was recommended. The term juicy comes to mind, like biting into a plumb. Loads of damson flavour and liquorice with a nice balance between richness and drinkability. 

None the less the holiday wasn't entirely about beer. It was great to see the old haunts again plus old friends. Next time I will remember to bring a jumper.