The second beer of Christmas

Staffordshire Brewery Cheddlelton Christmas Ale

 

Coming in at number two is this deep, ruby-hued, 4.6% festive ale obtained from a farm shop way down south. For some reason the brewery likes to emphasise on the bottle that the beer is triple filtered (as if it's a good thing) yet the product doesn't suffer from it so much. This one opens up malt heavy with sweet toffee apple meeting prickly winter spice and bitter English hops and liquorish. Slightly bittersweet, rich but with an ashy dryness that's almost astringent in the finish. Not a bad seasonal beer at all.

The first beer of Christmas

Robinson's Old Tom

 

Behold the fourth consecutive year of Rob's Beer Quest's annual twelve beers of Christmas. Opening things up we have reliable classic with a cigar (much like the first first beer of Christmas way back in 2010). We've had some memorable entries over the years. You could now call them the thirty six beers of Christmas. But this year I will be trying to avoid last year's approach of 'the twelve supermarket (3 for £5, quid a bottle or any neckable grog I can find) beers of Christmas.  As least to some extent anyway.

You could probably call Old Tom A benchmark UK brewed Old or Stock ale of the modern era. As recently as 2009 the World Beer Awards 2009 gave this beer the prestigious award of 'world's best ale'. I remember participating in the judging from home via beers sent from Beers of the World Magazine. I scored it highly.

When it was announced I remember thinking; World's best ale? Really? Good beer but.... Really? Besides, I honestly don't believe any beer could hold such a status.

Anyway where was I, o yes Old Tom the first beer of Christmas. I would probably recommend this as a go-to winter warmer, dark and strong it's all figs and fruit cake. Mature fruit meets sweet muscovado sugar in the finish with warming alcohols. A beer with plenty of depth and an old-school feel. It becomes obvious why it wins awards, plenty going on and difficult to fault.

Another observation

So after getting back from my holiday it appears that I have missed another good attempt to define craft beer. Ed's Beer Site lays down the straight forward approach for those less familiar with beer on how to pick out what's craft and what's not.

According to Ed, if grapefruit is the flavour the beer is obviously 'craft'. This may cover a lot of territory but there's a lot more to craft beer than this. To fall into the craft beer category the craft brewer must be seen as a craft brewer via some or all of the following means;

• Has opened for business in the last 5 years or so.
• Uses terms such as 'Rebel', 'Craft' or 'Dog' in the brewery name.
• Kegging, and edgy cool looking pump clips
• Has a product range consisting of at least one IPA, one Pale Ale, a Saison with an optional 'craft' lager, Amber or Black IPA.
• Barrel aged and sour beers make you cool, but remember any Belgians outside of Saison's, Sours or IPA hybrids is a no go. Most authentic Belgian ales are malt forward, bold but subtle and nuanced. Malt forward subtle and nuanced = boring old world = Not craft.    
• Try not to employ any old people. Remember young and cool is the image your after.    

OK so once you've followed most if not all of these steps you can state as M.D of 'Rebel Dog Craft brew' that you're the soul point of difference in the UK brewing industry. Second to this your products offer an oasis of hop-driven nectars amongst the ocean of boring brown bitters and insipid mass market lagers. Remember to act relatively oblivious that the marketing and business model has been copied many, many times in the endless cycles of beer fans picking up the mash shovels in a 'we wanna be cool like those guys' kind of champagne.

But don't get me wrong, I have nothing against big hoppy IPAs, Black IPAs, Imperial black rye Saisons or any of the brewers who produce much of the most progressive, interesting and excellent quality beers in the country. Furthermore brewers copying ideas from other brewers is hardly a new thing. Cast your mind back ten to twenty years or so you'll remember the ubiquitous droves of small independent brewers churning out session bitters and blonde ales galore. Back then calling yourself traditional was cool and being adventurous involved brewing something darker and/or stronger than 5%.

I am merely pointing out that many brewers have a tendency to follow each other. Think of it a little like the social groups of the school playground. The geeky kids hang together the same way the sporty kids occupy their own space on the playground. The 'craft' types warm to each other the same way the regional or the 80s/90s micro upstarts warm to each other. Different opinions and different views on what makes great beer. Does forcibly cramming as many ingredients into a batch of beer make it any better? Does it matter if your entire product range is dosed up with crystal malt and English hops? This is entirely subjective.   

UK brewing industry; pick your side

In Alien vs Predator (videogame and the film) you have three sides; Aliens, Predators and Humans. Three races trying to annihilate each other in a battle to the death. In the UK brewing industry you have three sides; Big brewers, craft brewers, real ale brewers. Each side faces a brutal struggle for market dominance in a battle for survival. So which side are you on? Big, craft or real? Let's run through them now:

'Real': Your the traditionalist, your down to earth, you care about the subtle nuances in 'balanced' beers. Cask beer is best and always will be but wait your outdated your yesterdays child you know nothing about progressive brewing and your doomed to fail.

'Craft': You're the non-conformist, leading the revolution. You've got big edgy pump clips that practically glow in the dark and (in your own mind) you're using more new world hops per barrel than anyone else making you a supposed honorary arm of the nation's brewing elite. Sadly anyone can market products like you, and tailor a typical 'craft' product range contract-brewed by whoever. 

Big brewers: Unlike the above two groups, who normally respect each other you are the ruthless market overlords who will stop at nothing to maintain market dominance. You may help out the smaller brewers in some ways but to some of them (now that the government has backed down on that evil duty escalator thingy ma-jig) your the main villain again.

OK, so a lot of the stuff written above is a little exaggerated. The majority of brewers don't fall strictly into a category and amongst most of the industry there's a good coherence and mutual respect. I have always felt this, it is part of what I love about being in this brewing industry. Their are however some very elitist sectors amongst the above three industry segments that arguably let their side down. On a whole I'm against the whole craft vs real vs generic brand thing, they all have a place on the market and there's normally plenty of overlap. A long time back I remember once thinking 'is it wrong to love Tokyo* and Daleside Bitter?' Very different beers both brewed with pride and a belief in the product.

As it happens 'craft beer' (add own definition here) is the vogue and everyone wants a piece of it, including the big guys. With reference to post like this and the responses to this post, it becomes more obvious where the divides in the industry are. It was kind of an inevitability that the micro brewing sector could only go so far before the multi-nationals intervened. So who will win? Will a patented official craft beer definition ever come about? Will progressive brewing ever dominate the world erasing the need for any 'lowest common denominator brands'? Or will we all be drinking something from a part of a multi-nationals portfolio?

CAMRA awards lunch 2013

Probably the poshest scran I have ever paired with Workie Ticket

As you might have guessed this post is related to Workie Ticket's earlier victory win of Gold in category at the GBBF this year. And last Saturday it was it was time for us to receive our award, and hang out with some of the other award-winning folks at the National Brewery Centre in Burton upon Trent.

A beer dinner where an award-winning beer was paired with each course  The above picture, Workie Ticket with Goat's cheese and Red Onion Tart with Rocket & walnut salad served with Balsamic Dressing was one of two appetiser options, the other was served with Fyne Ales Jarl. But overall the feel was for an emphasis on old school beer, and for the most part this was of excellent quality. Elland 1872 Porter is a great beer, a multi dimensional experience that's big and chocolaty one moment then dry and smokey the next with some late bitterness.

We got to listen to Roger Protz do a few talks, all the brewers said their piece and there was even a short cameo from ex-Thornbridge Stefano Cossi. The strange bit was listening to Colin Valentine spark up time to time half expecting him to start ranting about the 'blogeratti' (back in the day it was the hottest topic of the time). Overall it was a great day out. Lots of good food, good beer and good conversation about beer, a splendid day out.