National Honey Show - Beer Category - Call for Entries

The National Honey Show will again be held at St George's College, Weybridge on 27th-29th October. There are over two hundred judging categories in the show from Jars of Honey (2) to Beeswax Candles (3) to Mead (Dry) and Honey Fruit Cake.

For the last two years I have been one of the judges in the Honey Beer category and my reason for this post is to invite more brewers (and now home brewers) to consider entering the competition. Each year the competition has attracted between six and eight entries, so there is an excellent chance of scooping the Leslie Thorne Trophy.

The only criteria for entry to the beer category (class 41) is that the beer shall be commercially available and honey must be an ingredient. The entry is 3 bottles or cans and the fee is £20.

This year there is a new class for home and non-commercial brewers (class 42), Honey beer, any style, 2 bottles, minimum 330ml, not commercially available. Honey must be an ingredient. Entry fee is 50p.

The committee at the National Honey show are all lovely people, as passionate about beekeeping as we are about beer. They would be delighted to increase the number of entries to further justify their inclusion of a (honey) beer category.

My fellow judges, John Porter (left) and Tim Hampson (right) will also be delighted if the number of beers to taste increases !

Melissa Cole is the fourth judge which is rather apt as Mel is the latin word for honey.

For further details, entry forms and details of logistics of entering the competition, please contact John Hendrie, the entries secretary at http://www.honeyshow.co.uk/contact_entries_secretary.shtml

London Ale Taster

And the winner of the City of London Ale Taster competition is .......

Me !

.....fanfare.....appluase.....cheers......general acclaim ......

I pitched my taste buds against five other beer lovers at The Old Spitalfields Market this afternoon and after four flights of four beers trying to identify each beer, followed by a one minute speech I was the overall winner and will now hold the title of City of London Ale Taster for the coming year.

Cheers all - more on this to follow, I dare say.

London Ale Taster

Best news of the week is that I have been fortunate enough to be selected as one of the final six in the London Ale Taster competition which will be held this coming week. Forgive me for posting large chunks of the press release but I am spending every waking moment revising, researching and rehearsing - practice, practice, practice. Not strictly true but the event does look like it might be a lot of fun and it would be great to have some friendly support.

Spitalfields, London, UK- Following last month's call for applicants for the ancient position of London Ale Taster, on Wednesday 9th June, London's historic Old Spitalfields Market will play host to an special beer event which will see six, short-listed candidates battle it out for the coveted role.

The free event, which is open to the public, takes place at 1pm on the 9th June and will see the six contestants challenged with four tough rounds of ale tasting. They'll have to correctly identify unmarked samples of different ales and match them to a list - earning points for each one correctly identified. This will include a round dedicated to Porter, London's famous brew.

In the fifth and final round, the six hopeful candidates will each have to make a one-minute presentation to a panel of judges, again earning points. The panel includes many well-known names from the industry, including: Pete Brown, a leading beer writer and historian; Steve Wellington, master brewer with the famous White Shield micro-brewery; George Philliskirk, representing the Beer Academy andknown to many TV viewers as the 'Beer Doctor' and Malcolm Ball, chief executive of the Wellington Market Company, the company responsible for Old Spitalfields Market and the revival of this historic role.

The candidate with the most points will be crowned as London Ale Taster for 2010 and it is planned that this will become an annual event.

The competition will, notably, be accompanied by a special 'beer market', which is open between 9am and 3pm, and feature some of London's best-known brewers - including some from further a field. These brewers will offer free samples to the public and sell their ales, in what could be described as a 'mini' beer festival.

Brewers that are kindly supporting the day's event include Brodie's Beers (Leyton), Fullers (Chiswick), Meantime (Greenwich), Redemption Brewing Company Tottenham), Sambrook's Brewery (Battersea), Sharps (Rock, Cornwall), The Kernel Brewery (SE1 and the White Shield micro-brewery (Burton). The Beer Academy and Campaign for Real Ales(CAMRA) will also attend the event and promote their respective organisations activities.

The general public are welcome to come along to the free event, watch the battle for the coveted role and try out some of the ales on offer in the special beer market.

The role of Ale Taster (also known as Ale Conner) would have disappeared in the early nineteenth century and their duties would have involved visiting stalls and inns on market days and during the town's fairs to ensure that the ales, beers and other produce on sale were of good quality.

"The new London Ale Taster will have a much more modern-day role." explains Malcolm Ball, chief executive of Wellington Market Company, the company responsible for Old Spitalfields Market.

"The winner for this year's event will be given a weekly beer budget so that they can carry out the role of 'mystery drinker' in the capital's pubs. We'll set them up with a blog (website diary page) so that they can report back to consumers on what they find on their travels.

"We are planning a number of food and drink-related events at our market this year and the successful candidate will hopefully preside over a number of beer-related activities, such as tasting classes, food / beer matching sessions and the launch of a new beer called Old Spitalfields Bitter (OSB) which we hope will be produced with the help of London's brewers.

"I'd like to stress that the London Ale Taster is all about responsible drinking and in no way are we promoting binge drinking - I guess you could sum up the role with the phrase 'quality, not quantity'!"

One of the London Ale Taster judges, Pete Brown, leading beer writer and historian, whose books have charted the history of brewing and drinking, added: "There's an unprecedented level of interest in great beer these days and a lot of that interest is coming from people who love locally sourced, flavourful, crafted food and drink of all types and don't see why beer should be any exception.
"This post should help spread the appreciation of beer even further and help turn more people on to the variety and depth of flavour in great beer - I think everyone is going to be surprised by how knowledgeable and passionate some of the applicants will be!"

The beer market event opens with the normal market stalls at 9am and the competition commences at 1pm. Further information can be found at find out more at the London Ale Taster website www.london-ale-taster.co.uk

Old Spitalfields Market is a short walk from Liverpool Street Station and Aldgate East Tube - please visit www.oldspitalfieldsmarket.com for further information.

International Beer Challenge

It would seem that I am going through a lager stage of beer appreciation. On my holiday the only draught beer on the cruise ship was San Miguel, good for refreshment value but if there is a more highly carbonated beer than this I have yet to come across it. Then last week I had the pleasure of the company of the boys from Namibian Breweries and enjoyed supping the Windhoek Lager.

This week my lager quest is continuing. Yesterday, I was invited to be a judge at the International Beer Challenge, a competition for packaged beer that has been held for many years and is one of the year's most significant competitions. The judging this year was held at the White Horse, Parsons Green, the judges were hauled together by Des Mulcahy, organiser of the fabulous Beer Exposed event held in 2008, and the judges were led by beer writer, Jeff Evans

There were over 400 beers to judge and six tables of six judges. You don't have to be an arithmetic champion to work out that this was going to be a long day.

First up was pale lagers and the second flight was the stronger lagers over 5%. I thought I was being punished for previous indiscretions but given that most of the packaged beer sold in this country is some sort of pilsner derivative, it appeared that most of the tables were on lager and most were now realising it was the International Beer Challenge. Our group was definitely challenged but we awarded some medals to those beers which were clearly better than standard.

Next up was a group of golden ales, where I found my beer of the day, a beer with a dominant hop aroma and bursting with citrus and spicy flavours. An clear gold medal for me and the judges were unanimous. I'll be very interested to learn what this beer was when the results are announced in a week or so.

After lunch we moved onto best bitters, dunkels and other dark beers, and closed the afternoon with Trappist, trippel and Abbey beers which livened up my tired palate no end.

My day was complete when my body finally rejected a mouthful of water which came straight back up and nearly nearly sprayed over fellow judge, Richard from the Rake/Utobeer.

Some went to the bar for a pint, others went of to the Rake for an Italian beer tasting. I went straight home after the most exhausting day for a long while. Who says this is easy ?

It was a fun day and always interesting to drink beer in the company of experts. Although I knew many people in the room, there's always new people to meet who have similar passion for beer as myself - particularly those who are lucky enough to work in the industry rather than us enthusiastic consumers.

If you are interested in the results, you will find them at www.ibc-awards.com in due course.

National Honey Show

or : Honey, I've Drunk the Beers.

Last week I stepped into the Melissa Cole's shoes as a late replacement to help judge the Honey Beer category at The National Honey Show. Melissa had a bit of beer business to attend to in New York, so I volunteered to buzz off down to Weybridge for the morning.

The National Honey Show has been held annually for 78 years and has matured into a competition with over 200 classes of honey, beeswax, photography, confectionery, mead and now for the first time - BEER.

Class 41 - Honey Beer (entry fee £20)
Any style, 3 bottles or cans. The beer should be commercially available and honey must be an ingredient. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals awarded.

There are over 20 beers available commercially that have honey as one of the ingredients and a creditable seven made the effort to join the competition in its first year - though one was sadly held up in the post and did not appear at the judging table.

There were no judging criteria apart from the above so the three judges : myself, Tim Hampson, chair of the British Guild of Beer Writers and John Porter, beer and food expert, lately of the Publican, were able to set the standard.

We started with a blind tasting, scoring on appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste, and overall quality. Then we undressed the beers and gave a score for presentation and further considered the use of honey in the beers given the nature of the event.

After much swilling and slurping, interspersed with a general education on bees, honey and beekeeping from our hosts, we decided that the overall winner should be the Bumble Bee Ale brewed by Freeminer Brewery exclusively for the Co-Op.

A 4.6% golden ale, with a delicate floral aroma, a mix of biscuity malt and balanced sweetness on the palate with the flavour of the Chilean Wild Flower Fairtrade honey not too overpowering giving equal measure to a lemon, spicy hoppiness and a long bitter finish. A crisp, approachable, very moreish beer.

Second was Bracia brewed by Thornbridge, a 9% rich dark beer brewed with Italian chestnut honey and in third place was Lovibonds Wheat Wine another strong beer (7.3%) where the taste of the locally sourced honey was unmistakable.

A thoroughly enjoyable morning, in good company, with some excellent beers and a worthy winner. Cheers to the honey bee.

Honey is becoming popular with brewers as, although it is an expensive ingredient, it does generally result in a crisp, clean, lighter beer than a malt only brew and can if brewed with care give rise to a lovely delicate, honey sweetness that is not too overpowering.

Hopefully the category will now gain some momentum and result in an increased entry for next year. At the National Honey Show there are 15 categories for Mead so there is something for Britain's brewers to aspire to.

SIBA

The winner of the SIBA South East competition was Arundel Brewer, Sussex Mild.

My category was Standard Bitter and Pale Ales up to 4%. A large category with 23 beers to taste. Our winner was Surrey Hills Brewery, Ranmore Ale.

Other winners are :
Mild : Arundel, Sussex Mild
Bitter : Surrey Hills, Ranmore
Best Bitter : Ballrds, Best Bitter
Premium Bitter : Arundel, Stronghold
Strong Bitter : Oakleaf, Gosport Bitter
Strong Ale : Westerham, Audit Ale
Porter, Stout etc : Ballards, Wild Porter
Speciality : Dark Star, Expresso Stout
Bottle : Oakleaf, Hole Hearted


A little more meat to this will follow later once I have fully recovered from tasting over 30 beers !

Hop Farm Beer Festival

I have once again been asked to be a judge at the SIBA South East beer judging. This is being held for the second year next week at :

The Beer Festival is organised by SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers).

30+ breweries in the South East will enter over 120 beers competing in categories to include Best Bitters, Strong Ales, Porters, Old Ales & Stouts, Milds, Speciality Beers and Bottled Beers. The judging panel will comprise SIBA Members, Brewers, CAMRA members and well-known Beer Writers.

The Beer Festival will also include craft brewed, traditionally matured continental style lagers produced by SIBA brewers in the South East as well as a selection of ciders.

SIBA used to host their SE competition at one of the larger local beer festivals; Ealing and previously Reading. Such is the growth of the micro brewing sector and the success of SIBA itself, they have now outgrown even the largest CAMRA festival in SE England and now host their own event.

Although, not a CAMRA beer festival per se, many of the volunteers here are local CAMRA members and last year's event was a great success and an enjoyable day out.

I commend it to your attention !

GBBF (8) American Beers

An early start today, 10am beer tasting and judging of the US cask beers at this year's festival. The winning beer is The Angel's Share from Lost Abbey Brewery in San Marcos, California. A massive 12.5% ABV strong ale matured for 6 months in freshly emptied bourbon barrels. Vanilla, cherry and licorice on the nose, a clean flavour followed by a warming finish with the bourbon characteristics coming through. A perfect start to the day !