Santa's Progress

Alas the winter season is upon us once again. Here at Daleside we've been brewing our long-running Christmas seasonal Santa's Progress in significant volumes for departure across the nation. Like the name suggests Santa's Progress is brewed with Progress hops-  an English variety that come across like a fuggles but with more roundness. It's a rich, golden, 4.2% ale featuring herbal blackcurrant over fruity malt. It's an old school Christmas seasonal demonstrating beauty in simplicity so to speak, and is a joy to brew.

Multiple stainless steel bundles of joy departing for the customer

I have reviewed and discussed Christmas beers multiple times before on Rob's Beer Quest. There doesn't seem to be any rules on what counts as a Christmas beer. Santa's Progress was the first I had the privilege of brewing at a commercial level. At 4.2% it was quite different from the 7-8% Belgian style spiced seasonals I used to brew on the old home brew kit.

Progress hops

I always found Daleside brewery has a different ambiance in the winter. For a start its a trifle bit cold. But our friends the yeast still ferment away lovingly nurtured by added heating. Then on the upside the cooling works that tad bit quicker.

The yeast head blossoms like a beautiful flower at day one in the fermenter. 

But overall there's been a lot to think about this Christmas. Our January seasonal Key-lime Wheat has been brewed on the trial kit and made a pre-debut at the Disappearing Chin in Harrogate. It's also the time to get out and party hard (or just go out drinking). Then there's all the present to sort then wrap. With the bairns getting older the expectations are higher. They know Santa pays up so the pressure is on... On Santa that is. I'm sure it'll be a blast. But to revive tradition this year I will be hoping to get hold of a mini-cask of sort of the old Santa's Progress to pound pints throughout Christmas day festivities. 

Visit to Alnwick

Christmas lights switch on 

Just the other week we managed to make it back to Alnwick to visit old friends. It wasn't a bad venture with plenty going on at the time. First in line was the Christmas lights switch on where we managed to bump into lots of old parent friends, and recognised lots of old faces. We didn't sit it out for the annual steady arrival of Santa into the market square though.

Alnwick, as always is Alnwick. There's no other way to describe it. It hasn't changed much apart from a big shopping centre development featuring Starbucks on the way in.

Anyhow I brought along some plastic sample bottles of Vermont Black IPA and the January seasonal (brewed on trial brew kit) for our mates Tony and Fiona to try. They went down well. We also visited the John Bull which is now changing hands again as the previous owner Gus is taking it back from Hadrian and Border Brewery. So we popped in to have some Porter from Hadrian and Border and Titanic Plum Porter Grand Reserve at 6.5%. Quite clean, boozy and better than the original, though I was never a fan of the original.

All in all it was great to see everyone and the venture ended at Alnwick working men's club drinking Sam Smith's Sovereign bitter on keg. Sort of like an upgraded Boddingtons though cheap as chips. A splendid weekend.

Meet the brewer; Unicorn Hotel Ripon

HELLO RIPON!!!

The meet the brewer event is something I have been more involved with of recent times. This is where the brewer (and sales person in this case) get to venture out of the confines of the brewery and into the wider world to meet customers. A pleasant alternative to brewing and processing beer behind the scenes.

Sales master Vince working the samples tray.

Ripon is a splendid place situated just down the road from Harrogate. A market town as it were, and The Unicorn is the friendly local Wetherspoons. This would be my third Daleside meet the brewer and last of the 2019 tour.The Christmas lights were up and the stage was set for showcasing core beers Blonde, Bitter, Old Legover, Monkey Wrench and our current seasonal Vermont Black IPA.

For a Wednesday night the place was reasonably busy and on this occasion we faced a diverse range of clientele many of whom were contract workers from far and wide.

Display table

Unlike my previous experiences with meet the brewer the Daleside event is more involved with much more handing out samples and actually engaging customers instead of just hanging out by a big banner looking like the man. The idea is to get around the place and hand out some samples whilst also following some rules. Sales frontman Vince has been a great guide on this, from the organisation to handing out samples to holding back crowd-surfers. I might be a beginner but I've still picked out the common re-occuring features of most meet the brewer events, for example;

- There's always at least one table of lads drinking generic lager who act like they've never tried cask ale before.

- They'll be at least one wine drinker who gives our beer credit.

- Someone will ask Vince what part of Ireland he's from.

- The bar manager is always Vince's best friend... for the duration of the event.

- There's normally one bloke, who's obviously been in since the afternoon who talks at you for prolonged length of time in a partially drunken state.

Overall the night went pretty well with lots of good feedback. Vermont black IPA managed to convert a couple of wine drinkers and lots of discussions were had on coloured malts, hops, exogenous CO2 and football managers. Vince worked the sample tray like a pro as always (this being his 14563rd meet the brewer as sales bloke wing man) and many thanks were given to the bar manager, team and audience for great hospitality.

Local Rivals

Rivalry is a natural occurrence in the brewing industry. Sometimes it's between the upstart and the long-established and sometimes it's a history that goes way back. Like the school playground, the brewing world segregates itself out into different social groups that generally all get along, although occasionally that isn't so.

Here at Daleside we don't really do rivalries so much. Or at least not in the same sense as the ones in the North East brewing scene. That was more equivalent to say The Hunger Games or underground dog fighting by comparison. I am aware the friendly folk of Roosters Brewery have a long history with Daleside that goes way back and we have great respect for them.

Anyhow, I thought it would make a good blog post to taste off these two rival beers from rival brewers. A majority of people in brewing know about the history between the Theakston brothers and thus the long history between Black Sheep and Theakstons, both Masham based. Both big family brewers. But both beers happen to be  bottled, filtered pale ales at 4.5%.

First up, in the red corner we have Theakstons Pale ale using Summit, Cascade and El Dorado hops over a base of lager and Munich malts. Nice classy label. In the blue corner we have Black Sheep Venus and Mars brewed with Pale and Caramalt hopped with First Gold, Summit and Chinook. The Theakstons Pale ale is poured first and this pale golden beer opens with orange and stone fruit at the fore. There is a little sweetness but a dry feel to it, a little bit old school, a tad flinty but overall well composed.

Next up, Black Sheep Venus and Mars pours a shade darker. There is a more upfront citrus aroma and flavour about this beer, but it's not the sort you would get from using a shed load of resinous C hops. It's more perfumed and catty and the beer has that signature Black Sheep rounded fullness to it with stone fruit and some orange notes.

On the whole my impressions are Black Sheep have dressed things up more, the aroma is more obvious and they've put more effort into making things more contemporary. On the other hand Theastons Pale ale is more down to earth. Where it scores in being a tad more complex it loses out in approachability compared to its rival. A close match but for me Theakstons win this one, however the problem here is  neither beer ranks in the top tier stuff that either brewer has done -Imperial Russian Stout, Riggwelter, 54 degrees North, Old Peculiar and XB. But all in all an interesting brew battle.

Incoming new beer: Vermont Black IPA

Introducing the newest addition to the Daleside range, a dark Vermont-style IPA - aptly named Vermont Black IPA.

The original name for this beer was New Zealand Hopped Vermont Session black IPA. But it seemed a bit long winded.

A very much experimental concept that not only goes into territory unknown to Daleside, but territory unknown to nearly everyone else. I am aware Brewdog have done a 7.3%  Vermont Black IPA recently. It's not just a Vermont/NE IPA neither is it just a Black IPA, it's a Vermont Black IPA featuring Nelson Sauvin hops.

The basic concept for this was put together from past experience brewing both styles individually. But all in all this was to be the most abstract, non-traditional beer ever produced in the 27-year history of Daleside Brewery.

The term 'the most' and not 'one of the most' really indicates to how monumentally serious I was about this brew day. I was deadly serious, look this is my serious face.

This could be huge, this could change everything or amount to nothing. Anyone can understand the theory that if one of your mates starts break-dancing at the private function he's going to get more attention. But by comparison if your 85-year-old gran in the zimmer frame started break-dancing at the function that's going to get significantly more attention.
To me it makes more sense than brewing just another pale ale with Citra hops in. So in the words of the wise Lego Batman; "you wanna get nuts? C'mon lets get nuts!".

mashing in

Like Luke Skywalker entering the Death Star in his X wing fighter with R2D2 on the roof, this brew day required a lot of attention. A fiddly sort of brew day involving some moves deviating from standard procedure and some effort required to hit the numbers. Controlling the boil with very few hops in the copper also required attention. If this was made into a film there would be a split screen featuring a group of very stern looking accountants overlooking disapprovingly at various stages.

runoff to copper

Taming the beast in the copper

Looks very dark doesn't it, almost.... almost...
Black!

After fermentation and a number of rounds of dry hopping, the beer was ready to rack to cask and the finished product sampled from hand pull. One day it may become a keg beer who knows, but giving out samples was much easier than trying to explain what a New Zealand hopped Vermont Black session IPA is. Being the abstract concept it was.

Vermont IPA... but darker

On the nose it is gooseberry pine and orange peel. The beer opens smooth on the palate with more gooseberry, lychee orange pith, opal fruit coffee and liquorice. There's a certain peculiarity about it I can identify with. At just over 30 IBU there's obviously more bitterness units than the text book would allow for this style. But I'm chuffed enough with it that I don't care. Chuffed with the beer, chuffed with the new found mastery of the kit. Next I will be hoping to find this one on trade.

The Kaiser Chiefs; a great bunch a lads