Home Brew

An affordable gift this Christmas is the latest book on home brewing that was recently sent to me by the publishers.

Home Brew is a smart hardback book with 208 pages packed with good ideas for making drinks at home. It includes sections on beer, cider and fruit wines and describes recipes, techniques and other essential information to get you started.

This would be a good starter book for anyone who is keen on home produce and would be perfect to use to start making drinks from your allotment harvest or garden seasonal fruits.

I prefer to drink the stuff rather than make it and I prefer my beer to be professionally brewed rather than prepared in a bucket. Hence I have already passed the book onto someone who will make more use of it than me. Someone who is already keen on self-sufficiency, a keen apple juice, cider and beer maker and someone who I know will take advantage of the recipes and instructions for fruit wines or perhaps even mead in the book.

If you have anyone similar in the family, this book would make a good present. £20 cover price but the usual Amazon discount brings it to you for £11.10

Royal Wedding Beer - Paine's Young Rowley 1981

This week's 1981 Royal Wedding beer is Young Rowley brewed by Paine & Co in St Neots, Cambridgeshire.

Another 275ml brown bottle with foil top and crown cap. It is common for beers in this period not to have the ABV on the label.

The beer poured a very dark red colour but was completely flat and had bits floating throughout.

The aroma was stale and not pleasant and , although the taste did have some subtle hints of fruit and sweetness, I decided that a couple of sips was more than sufficient.


This beer was called Young Rowley. I believe that this is a nod to the fact that Charles II was nicknamed "Old Rowley" which was the name of his favourite horse, Prince Charles thus being nicknamed "Young Rowley" by Paine's Brewery.

Some background from A Century of British Brewers published by the Brewery History Society : James Paine acquired the brewery site in St Neots in 1831. The company was renamed Paine & Co in 1896. The business was taken over by a group of travel agents in 1982 and was eventually acquired by Tollemache & Cobbold in 1987 when brewing ceased.

The 1982 Good Beer Guide suggests that 15 of its 23 houses sold real ale plus many free trade outlets.

College Beer Club from Meantime

This week I am going to share some ideas for Christmas presents for the beer drinker. First up is probably the most extravagant gift of the season, an annual membership of the College Beer Club launched in time for Christmas by Meantime of Greenwich.

An annual membership brings two 750ml corked and wired champagne bottles of specially brewed and aged beers couriered each month to your door. The first beer hopefully delivered in time for Christmas will be a 13.5% imperial Russian stout, aged for ten months in whisky casks and described as liquid Christmas pudding. This will be followed by monthly deliveries of wood aged beers, historic beer styles from previous centuries, recreations of lost recipes plus innovative new brews all created by the fair hand of the Meantime brewmeister, Alastair Hook.

I am not going to deny that £350 for twelve deliveries of two bottles is not a large amount of money, each bottle working out at just under £15 a bottle. However, with membership limited to 500 these beers are going to be scarce. Once they're gone, they're gone and compared to some of the special imports from USA and Scandinavia they represent some value.

I have spent my expenses as London Ale Taster on my membership which I think is a rather neat virtuous beer circle.

I am also rationalising spending that much money by comparing it to the investment made last year in Brewdog. Some of us sent Brewdog money last year when they went through a fundraising to grow the business. There was no beer involved, just an investment, a chance to share in the future growth of the company and a feeling of being involved with one of the country's most innovative outfits.

I see much in common with the College Beer Club. A chance to support Meantime's move to modern new brewery in Greenwich, a feeling of kinship and brotherhood, a chance to feel involved. Instead of a share of future growth, there is the chance to try some great beers over the course of a year.

This College Beer Club "investment" is only for one year and I may be proved wrong but I am guessing that it will be more rewarding and more enjoyable than the future of my Brewdog investment.

So there you have it. An extravagant Christmas present for the beer lover in your life though something with instant payback and enjoyment and a gift that will keep giving throughout the coming year. I look forward to seeing some of you at the launch party in January.

Alarming news about Santa

It gives me no pleasure to have to bring this to your attention but I have some alarming news about Santa's business practices over the festive season.

It is alleged, according to my niece's maths homework, that Santa sells on all of the goodies that are left out for him on Christmas Eve.

It would appear that the going rate for mince pies is 20p, the glasses of sherry fetch 40p each and even the carrots have a market value of 5p each. From the income raised, Santa pays out for wrapping paper, gift tags and sellotape. He also has to pay wages to his elves for their efforts.

This information has been leaked by one of the elves who believe that Santa makes enough profit to give his employees a small increase in wages.

Now, that's all well and good in today's financial environment, everyone has to make sure their business affairs are in order but what troubles me the most is that I normally leave Santa something special to warm him up on his long journey.

It might be an aged Fullers Vintage or a Struise Black Damnation; something strong and dark that he won't get in anyone else's house and hopefully something so rare that he will remember me fondly throughout the year and with anticipation when returning to my chimney each year.

Now I am most disappointed to learn that he does not drink the beer but merely flogs it off to the highest bidder.

I know that this has some basis in fact because I saw last year's offering recently in the fridge at the Euston Tap. A 75cl, wired and corked bottle of Gift of the Magi from Lost Abbey Brewery in California. One of the treasures from my beer cupboard, left out for Santa's enjoyment but unceremoniously fenced off to one of London's leading beer bars. The price at the Euston Tap was approaching £30 but one cannot blame the high price on the good people there. They have merely suffered an extra leg in the supply chain and have to price accordingly. Hopefully someone will see the value there over the festive season and thoroughly enjoy what Santa has missed.

This year I am going to open, drink and enjoy a bottle of Cantillon St Lamvinus while wrapping the presents and leave a glass of cheap sherry out for Santa.

Royal Wedding Beer - Adnams Prince's Ale 1981

Cracked open the first of my collection of 1981 Royal Weding ales today, Adnam's Prince's Ale described as a strong ale brewed to celebrate the royal wedding 29 July 1981.

Served in a 275ml brown bottle with foil top. The beer poured completely flat but perfectly clear. It was a beautiful red colour reminiscent of Broadside or Tally Ho. The aroma was encouraging for such an old beer and gave off good fruity esters of fig and raisins with a sherry-like character. The taste was let down a bit by being completely lacking in condition but it was identifiable as a strong beer and was definitely still drinkable. There was of course some stale cardboard oxidisation but on balance this was an enjoyable beer and I finished the whole bottle.


Although they would probably say otherwise due to their modern brewery and green credentials, but Adnams has not changed much in the last thirty years.

The 1981 Good Beer Guide says "all 75 tied houses serve real ale, also widely available in the free trade".

Adnams were and have remained one of the country's best family brewers and I raise a glass to them, their beers, longevity and consistency.

Royal Wedding Beers

The summer of 1981 was a big one for me. I was a 19 year old, fledgling beer drinker having matured from keg beers such as Ben Truman (you couldn't taste the hops) and Watney's Special (an oxymoron if ever there was one) onto Young's and Fuller's, great tasting real ales.

I had also just started my first job as a trainee accountant and I had sixty pounds a week (less tax) burning a hole in my pocket (context : beer was about 40p a pint). That summer also brought us a massive royal event, the wedding of Charles and Diana, a match supposedly made in heaven.

In 1977 a few breweries had made special beers to celebrate the Queen's silver jubilee. They were very popular and remarkably collectible with some rarer bottles changing hands for great sums. By 1981 everyone had climbed aboard and about 150 breweries brought out celebration wedding beers, distributed them in great numbers and though many were collected, they never really had the same scarcity or collectible value and even now only fetch about a pound a bottle.

I succumbed to the very English hobby of collecting and in a four to six week period in the lead up to July 1981 I collected over thirty of the special beers but was nowhere near finding a complete set and, once the wedding had come and gone, I had moved onto QPR programmes and the beers were stuck in a cupboard forever.

Last week we heard the announcement that the offspring of that coupling had announced his own nuptials and to mark that event I have decided to open all of my Royal Wedding beers in the lead up to William and Kate's wedding next April and talk about them each week on this blog.

There is, of course, a great difference between aged beers and old beers and I don't expect many of them (if any) to taste any good. Although some are quite strong, bottle conditioning was rare in those days and they would all have been brewery conditioned and mostly pasteurised. They have all seen enough light over decades to spoil each beer ten times over.

What will hopefully be more interesting though is that each bottle, or more specifically each brewery, will have its own story of the last thirty years.

From those companies that have grown most in that period, Marston's and Greene King, through those that they swallowed up such as Jennings, Ringwood, Belhaven and Morland to some hardy family independents like Hall/Woodhouse, Adnams and Fullers to some that disappeared completely as the industry consolidated such as Bruce's Brewery and Godson's, good London micros of their time.

As the wedding approaches on 29 April I am also hoping to find some new beers brewed for the occasion and this time I will be drinking and enjoying them rather than saving for posterity.

My wife will also be most delighted to get one of her cupboards back after all this time.

World's Best Beers

One of my failings as a beer blogger is that I sometimes enjoy someone else's hospitality and then fail to tell them or tell the wider blog world how much I enjoyed it. It then nags and nags my conscience like a stone in my shoe. I am about to remove one of those stones.

Ages and ages ago I took my fill of beer at the launch of World's Best Beers by Ben McFarland. I then gratefully received a review copy of the book some weeks later. I am embarrassed to say that this was over a year ago.

I haven't been totally remiss though. About three months ago I wrote a long piece praising this book, edited and tweaked the copy, then with a click of the mouse it was gone - into the ether never to reappear. Fat finger syndrome that also is the curse of my Twitter account !

It is my honest opinion that this remains the best book of this style published recently. Although it is another compilation of 1,000 of the world's best beers populated with colour photographs and tasting notes, it is very much more than that.

The opening pages include a comprehensive guide to ingredients including an excellent section on hops (hip hops ?). The next section on beer styles strays away from the boring tried and tested and includes styles such as Vintage Ales, seeking to explain the recent trend in aged and collectible beers.

The beers are the main course and are split by country, from Britain and Ireland, through Europe to America(s), Australasia, Africa and the Middle East.

Breaking up the 1,000 beer tasting notes and descriptions there are other sections telling the stories of breweries such as Fullers, Thornbridge, Cantillon, Mikkeller etc, all written in an entertaining style that makes the book an enjoyable read rather than a reference or coffee table volume.

(Watch out for the story of coffee beans passed through the digestive tract of an Indonesian weasel before being used in the brew of the legendary Beer Geek Breakfast).

Finally it is the final section on Beer and Food that made this a prize winner at last years Guild of Beer Writers awards. The section includes a concise guide to beer and food matching and then goes onto suggest beers that work well with seafood, meat, chicken, cheese, desserts and spicy food and includes guest appearances from Rick Stein and Garrett Oliver, a genius who has achieved most in the realm of beer and food matching.

So there you have it, not a particularly lucid book review but an honest one and at least part of my conscience is satisfied.

It is my honest opinion that this is one of the best, most readable, beer books published in recent years and I give it my hearty recommendation.

Cover price is £25 but you should find it on Amazon for less than £15.

The Passion of Thornbridge

There is a general love-in in blogworld today for Kelly Ryan of Thornbridge Brewery who has made the decision to return down-under to his homeland, New Zealand. The respect that the beer blogging world has for Kelly and his efforts to bring us good tasty beer as well as his clear passion, knowledge and skill is immense and he truly deserves this slap on the back to say farewell.

The inspiration for this post came from Jeff Cioletti, the editor of Beverage World magazine and the full editorial of the July edition can be seen here. I am just going to lift a few passages to illustrate the point that one of the unique selling points of craft and cask ale is its passion.

Jeff writes : "You don't need me to reiterate the obvious: craft beer's volume and dollar gains as the rest of the beer market declines, evolving consumer tastes, affordable luxury, etc. That's not news .......

What I believe is under-reported is the emotional component, the passion.

Craft beers don’t have consumers, they have fans. That’s one of their key distinguishing factors...... And they can be quite the passionate lot.

The passion of its fan-base is one of the visible elements that's been putting wind in craft beer’s sails (and sales), but it's actually rooted in the passion of the people behind the brands, many of whom left other stable careers to do what they truly love. And the fans feed off of that.

In this new era of engagement, consumers are looking for brands that are not only about the finished product, but the types of people behind it. Increasingly they don't want to buy from companies that see the product as just another widget or something that was created to fulfill someone's MBA requirements.

They want to put their hearts and souls behind brands created by individuals who put their own hearts and souls into, whether it's a craft beer, an organic ready-to-drink tea, an artisanal soda with its own unique story or what have you.

Passion begets passion and is the key ingredient in converting consumers to fans."

Kelly, you have played a major part in converting consumers of Thornbridge beers into fans. We have enjoyed your company, your enthusiasm, your knowledge and most of all your beers. We wish you well in the future and very much hope to get to try the juices of your heart, soul and passion in the future. Cheers !

Egham United Services Beer Festival

Just a quick and lazy reminder that this event is on again this week - definitely recommend a visit. In particular I will be seeking out the very last drop of the London Brewers Allaince Collaboration Porter which has hopefully developed nicely over the last month or so.
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Just a reminder that our next Egham Beer Festival will be open all day Thursday 4th thru Sunday 7th November (opens at 11am daily).

As before approx 50 beers with the emphasis on new breweries and new beers. Since the number of handpumps on the club bar were increased from 5 to 8 we’ll now be able to offer 36 beers at any one time!!!

There’ll also be some festival specials such as Ascot Chambord Imperial Stout and a special version of Havant Unwrapped plus 2 new beers from our local hobby brewer Blackaddler.

Some of the new brewers will be on hand for informal ‘meet the brewer’ sessions.

Prices will be keen as always.

For those who like some music with their beer we’ve booked Papa George for Friday evening.

www.eghambeerfestival.co.uk
www.eusc.co.uk
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Brainwave - Beer Tasting

I am more than happy to give a shout-out for anything that is beer related but I am delighted to be able to promote the following event as it also has an angle that can help others.

The children’s charity, Brainwave, is arranging an exclusive beer tasting at the Farmers’ Club on 30 November, where people can find out a little more about the complex world of beer, where the flavours come from and a little on the history of beer.

So not only can you have an entertaining and different evening and help a charity too.

The Farmers’ Club was founded in 1842 and is a private members' club not usually open to the public. The address is 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL; nearest tube: Embankment.

The tasting is being undertaken by Christine Cryne, who chaired CAMRA’s 2010 Champion of Britain and is a member of the British Guild of Beer Writers. (Christine also happens to be the charity's Chief Executive).

Tickets are £28, including a buffet. The doors open from 6pm with an introductory drink with the tasting starting at 6.30pm.

The event is being supported by Greene King and Fuller’s breweries and will feature their beers plus others from small craft breweries from around the country.

Tickets are available from Isobel Kerry: isobelkerry@brainwave.org.uk; 07872 548 450 or download an application form from www.brainwave.org.uk

I guess this is more of a general interest event rather than a tasting for the hard-core beer-geek. If you belong to the latter crowd, why not just bung them the price of a pint here.

Take a look also at this inspiring video at http://uk.youtube.com/BrainwaveCentre