If you were a beer, what kind of beer would you be?

I have often been fond of personifications. It was only few months back whilst on a trip to Ben Nevis for a mountain climbing weekend with a few others I was discussing how I sometimes secretly had the urge to compare different women to different beers. For example you could take lovely rounded oatmeal stout and compare it to TV comedy actress Dawn French. A generously spiced, rich winter warmer to TV Chef Nigella Lawson, and a can of Stella to Paris Hilton (all fancy on the outside, over pasteurised fizzy pap on the in). We also discussed what world wide brew would most accurately represent each of the characters of the women on the trip. We had a good range from Fullers London Porter to Destutes Mirror Pond Pale ale. Then the suggestion was made that both men and women could be compared to beers and more people were nominated as different beers. For a few we couldn’t decide on anything obvious, which included myself. Though at times I have thought of myself as more of a mild ale, sometimes I recon I could be of of the more eccentric Belgian offerings, a Rochefort 6 perhaps?

But all this comparison work provided some inspiration for my next brew, wedding ale, which was originally design to reflect the character of the bride (my bride at my wedding in December, the lovely Helen). I'm not 100% with it yet but here is the outline so far:

OG: 1051
AG: 1012

International bitterness units: 26

Malts: Pale, Vienna, Crystal, Cara and a touch of pale chocolate.

Hops: Challanger, cascade, Styrian goldings and Willamette.

So basically a rounded amber ale at around 5% abv with a good dose of late hop flavour. This one I'm actually double brewing and transferring into a 9 gallon cask for the wedding, so it should be exiting to get my own homebrew on hand pull for the first time. I have even designed a pump clip so all that’s left to do now is putting it all into practice. Exiting stuff though.

Autumn Leaves… While autumn begins.

There has never been a time when I have thought of autumn as my favorite season. Don’t get me wrong I like it the way I like most seasons for there various benefits. Though I have never been as fond of spring for some reason, but have always loved winter, and summer has its plus points. But this autumn is to be like no other for myself, for a start it will be my last autumn unmarried and secondly it will be my first knowing an actual beer I designed is out in the pub world being enjoyed by anyone who wants a try.


I mentioned in my last post about the beer about it going to London. Well I was wrong, its not just going to London, its going all over the UK via pub companies, there could be a cask in your nearest town centre, there could be a cask at your local, or a mates local, there could even be a cask behind you right now… go ahead look… I dare you….. Look again!! Had you going!


The beer has a definite autumnal character, leafy hop and aged fruit with a nice rounded mouth feel. Strangely enough when I designed this beer I didn’t specifically intend on designing a seasonal beer, and to be honest I never thought the design would be used, and if it was it would for a one off brew, which makes me even more chuffed. It was just the other day another load of my babies left on their journey to the customer, we waved goodbye, a moving moment indeed.

A walk on the spontaneous side

Last weekend me and my lady friend Helen partook in a splendid venture into Brussels, Belgium for a beer hunting holiday. As my first visit to Belgium, I was impressed by the overall diversity and choice of beers available, and the Belgians overall respect for beer in bars, restaurants and elsewhere. Admittedly I have already covered allot of literature on Belgian brewing, and tried many offerings at home, but of particular fascination ifound were the spontaneously fermented Lambic beers, which until recently I had only tried before in commercialized fruit beer form. So much so we decided to visit the Cantillon brewery in Brussels, a tiny little wooden cave like place that actually doubles as a museum. Here we got to see the tools of the Lambic trade, try some samples, and get the head brewers autograph. Following this we used the latest edition of the good beer guide to Belgium, written by Tim Webb to hunt out some spectacular traditional bars filled with elaborate beer ranges. Here allot of new beer hunting territory was covered, but classics such as Duvel and Delirium Tremens were equally welcomed.

Cantillon's mash tun. Old style.

Another interesting aspect of the holiday I found was the pricing of beers, which seemed to ignore the general UK system of higher abv = higher price, and all standard ales ranging between 6-12% abv were of similar price. It was also noted that the most expensive beers on beer lists were usually traditional gueze or lambic brews found most commonly at 5-6% abv. This would probably make little sense to the average Northern boozer but I myself found it quite fitting as these beers prove to be some of the most fascinating of the holiday. At one point I even considered attempting a gueze home brew but until I find some sherry casks (as lambic beers are fermented in wooden barrels) and age some hops till they become incredibly cheesy it wouldn’t be possible. Plus I would have to have the patience to wait 3 years for the Lambic to mature in the barrel, before I could blend it with some young Lambic to create gueze. Alternatively I could blend my younger Lambics with various fruits such as cherries, grapes or raspberries, or even send them off in neat form. So as we have gathered Lambic brewing it pretty unique, and the beers are worlds apart from your average pint of cask bitter.

The famous open ship vessel, used by Lambic brewers to cool the wort overnight whilst exposed to the atmosphere, this allows air born wild yeast to and bacteria to contaminate the brew and initiate fermentation of the brew.

maturation Barrels at Cantillon

Hero's outside the mash tun No 3: The Distribution manager.

After covering draymen and beer writers, I thought that this time it was the distribution managers turn to get a mention. The distribution manager ultimately manages the distribution of all stock that’s not going out via a distributer. As with my previous post of this series, in tribute to the drayman, the distribution manager essentially manages the activity, routs and stock that the brave drayman must deliver. On occasions the distribution manager may him/herself be needed to act as a support drayman when needed. Our very own distribution manager at Daleside, Col, considers himself not only as a manager but as supporting GDB (general dogs body) being able to work in or outside the brewery. Col also knows allot of different pubs, what their like, how to get to them, and who runs them, essential knowledge for the role.



Col hard at work, the expression suggest he's really up for managing some dray runs.

Planning the action.

Col delegates dray runs for the following day with Draymaster Steve.

Col hails from a splendid coastal Northumberland village called Craster, here Col as told us about how, as a boy, he used to have to save little friend Timmy from great white sharks and giant killer jellyfish back in 1975. But this was only one of many adventures of Cols long history of working inside and out of the brewing world. It was in fact a few years back now, after working at Daleside for awhile, Col decided to leave the company and start up with his own venture in brewing. His own brewery, but this would be no ordinary brewing venture, Col had an idea for an innovation that he thought would blow all competition out the water. An idea so clever he would soon become world famous for. The idea, as it happens, was not for any novel advanced wort separation method, marketing ploy or new waste management system, but to man the entire brew house operations, distribution and clerical work at some levels, by badgers.

Badgers.

It was thought at these early stages that by using organized teams or large groups of around 40-50 highly trained badgers per BBS (badger brew squads), that a shift by shift work Rota could be established. Significantly the badgers would not require payment, just feeding, and Col would have so many badgers that if one rang in sick, another could be brought in from a different BBS. In the seat of power Col could simply control movements of beer, brewing activities and cleaning and maintenance operations, all badger executed via a single glass plated office suspended above the brew house. From here he could watch over the badgers at work and communicate to them via various speakerphones, or via a large megaphone that could be heard by the entire brew house (in the case of any badger misbehaving). Badgers mashing in, badgers scrubbing vessels, badgers on forklifts, this was the dream, this was a big dream… Of badgers.

However sadly these plans didn’t quite work out the way Col hoped. Firstly there was already an established brewery under the name he wanted. The badgers were too small to operate forklift trucks or vans so specially designed badger sized vehicles had to be looked into, difficulties arose disciplining the animals, then came the trouble with the RSPCA, but that’s a different story. But one of the most tragic moments of this tail, was when one of Cols favorite badgers, named Geoffrey code B1051 of BBS4 tragically died from falling into the copper during a brew.

R.I.P Geoffrey of badger brew squad 4. All he wanted to do is add some late hops.

Saddened by this, Col decided to spread Geoffrey’s ashes by Craster bay, and was determined to keep brewing. However over some time the badgers started getting increasingly unruly. So uneasy Col became, that he started claiming that the badgers were threatening to not only overthrow his leadership, but mass together into a small army and invade Craster itself. This made Col very worried, so much so that he considered contacting the government but everyone advised not to as he would probably risk being taken away by blokes in white coats. Luckily Cols best mate Lance said he had some gear, and could step in and handle the situation. So he did.

Cruel but necessary, Lance was confident that the 9mm round could halt the charge of a hostile fully grown adult male badger.

So that was the end of Cols brewing ventures, later he thought of trying again, maybe this time with ferrets or perhaps a mixture of small mammals, but his friends put him in place, it wasn’t going to work. Since then Col has found piece in his work, and is even an honorary member of the RSPCA.

But the moral of the story is to always think things through before you do them, just like Col and other distribution managers do today on a daily basis. Making sure the beer is delivered at the right place and time and pre-prepared to be collected when necessary. In a sense the distribution manager is a central hub of operations, always ready to knuckle down no matter how busy it gets. But if you do manage to bump into Col, don’t mention about the badgers, he likes to keep the traumas of the past behind, and so do well all. But as a nice down to earth bloke I’m sure he could tell you all about distribution management, various pubs, or how he has met the band members from various groups such as Slayer in his younger days. Though if you’re looking for him on the weekend I would advise to start by looking in Hales bar in Harrogate, and asking for Carla.

Note that some information on this blog post may be inaccurate, or exaggerated.

Also note that no badgers were killed or harmed during the making of this blog post.

Vintage 2009 ale brewing

Last Saturday I home brewed what I consider to be the most important brew of the year, my annual Vintage ale. Last years vintage (Panda & Frog home brewery 2008 reserve) was designed as an English style barley wine, coming out at a whopping 1.112 original gravity and abv of 12%. It was matured for 4 months before bottling and I consider it one of my finest brews of all time. This year I have gone for a considerably lower 1.087 OG and aim for around 80% attenuation bringing it to around 9%abv using a yeast strain I have only read about but read good things. The strain in question is White labs own California ale strain, and this was chosen to suit the style being brewed, which is and American style barley wine, mid bronze in color from the use of Marris otter pale malt, Munich, Vienna, Cara and cara vienne malts with 75IBU’s coming from decent quantities of Chinook and Centennial hops.

Another interesting thing about these vintage ales, are that for them I only take the first runnings from the mash and thus only brew 10 liters at a time and bottle into tiny 330ml bottles. This time the run off from the copper was tediously slow with the large amount of hop and trub material in such a small volume. I shall let all know how this one goes.



On a different note, a big congratulations to my Local the John Bull in Alnwick for winning the CAMRA North Northumberland pub of the year last weekend. And this weekend I shall be assisting host a BBQ for a few of my mates and family try my new Autumn Leaves beer as from the previous post. It also appears that by a very close victory, you the readers have voted Hopback Summer Lightning as the beer for the summer, a solid choice.