The session, otherwise known as beer blogging Friday (I know, it’s Saturday, I’m late, deal with it), is a once a month gathering of the beer bloggers of the world to get together and talk about beer. Each month there is a specific topic. This month the session is being hosted by Oliver of literatureandlibation.com. He has asked us to all review a beer without actually reviewing it. I know that sounds like a paradoxically illogical piece of nonsense but hear him out. He explains it better:
I know it sounds like the yeast finally got to my brain, but hear me out: I mean that you can’t write about SRM color, or mouthfeel, or head retention. Absolutely no discussion of malt backbones or hop profiles allowed. Lacing and aroma descriptions are right out. Don’t even think about rating the beer out of ten possible points.
But, to balance that, you can literally do anything else you want. I mean it. Go beernuts. Uncap your muse and let the beer guide your creativity.
I want to see something that lets me know what you thought of the beer (good or bad!) without explicitly telling me. Write a short story that incorporates the name, an essay based on an experience you had drinking it, or a silly set of pastoral sonnets expressing your undying love for a certain beer.
The beer which I want to discuss I have already reviewed before on this blog. It is a beer which is brewed locally to me and was just starting to make some headway in breaking into the local supermarkets. The beer was called Shambles and it was made by Potton Brewery. Notice the last sentence is in the past tense. I recently looked up the brewery website after I saw a ‘reduced to clear’ label on a bottle in Tescos. I have found that the brewery has been taken over and all by a new outfit and is well, except the beer of theirs, for which I can not express my feelings, has been removed from their list of beers.
Now my main ways of expressing myself about beer are either to write about it on this blog or harp on about it to my mates who are probably sick of it all by now. Being creative in a new way is something I have had to think about, hard. Expressing myself through the medium of modern dance is not something I want to do, or indeed any of you want to see. I’m not all that skilled with a paintbrush and a definitely can’t sing. I could think up a song, but I couldn’t play it (owning a ukulele ≠ being a musician).
What I can do is pinch other peoples creativity and so I give you the Shambles 4.3% playlist. I’m sure I won’t be the only one to do something similar. Hopefully the narrative of what I mean will become obvious.
I known I haven’t written much lately, but to be honest I havent had anything to say and, as my mother always told me, “if you can’t say anything useful, then don’t say anything at all”. I really still don’t have anything to say, but I have found this video being banded around the internet. I think its quite amusing so I thought I’d share it. Enjoy.
I have been writing this blog for a few years now, but this year is the first year in which I feel that I have been varied enough in the beers that I have tried to justify writing up the list of my Golden Pints . Sure in past years I have drunk a lot of different beers, but I usually struggle to even think of any foreign beers that I will have tried over the past twelve months. Like many of us beer bloggers I have quote a bad memory. I’m not going to do much of a short list, just the winners. So here are my thoughts on the best beers of 2013…
Best UK Cask Beer
Elland’s 1872 porter – I first tried this in a Wetherspoon’s in Manchester city centre. The weather was cold and I was still a bit hung over from going to the National Winter Ale Festival the night before but never the less it was still a fantastic pint, and it was still a fantastic pint when we had some at the St. Neot’s beer festival later in the year. I wish I could see it on more often in the pubs need me because I need more of it in my life.
Best UK Keg Beer
Hepworth and Co‘s Conqueror – Although not the most mind-blowing beer in the whole world, it is exactly what is needed when you’re in a heavily packed music venue. This is a beer, which along with it’s siblings from the Hepworth Brewery, followed me around Brighton a lot during the Great Escape Festival this year. No doubt we’ll meet again next year as well.
Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer
Brewdog‘s AB:12 – When I first thought about this category I was so ready to shrug my shoulders and just say any old thing that popped into my head. Then I looked back at my untappd account and realised all of the beers which I have had this year that were bloody excellent. I’m also going to give a nod to Orkney’s Dark Island, Tullibardine 1488 whisky beer and The Celt Experience‘s Bleddyn 1075. Brewdog’s AB:12 however was the most different, standout, un-beer-like-beer with such a smooth warming finish, it was more like drinking a port than a beer. Whether that is a good thing or not in a beer is up for debate but for me it was a revelation.
Best collaboration brew
Dogfish Head and Charles Wells DNA – For me it has to be. Not only does it get Charles Wells out of their public image of just doing things like bland old Eagle IPA but it also tastes juicy and refreshing. It’s just fruity enough to be a good drink on a night out, and just relaxingly malty enough that you can curl up with a pint in front of the fire in the cliché old world pub scene. I have drunk this beer in both these cases and can tell you that it works fine in both.
Best Overseas Bottled or Canned Beer
Steven’s Point IPA – This isn’t a strong category for me, I can’t think of many beers which were all that great, but Steven’s Point does stick out as a good one. An honourable mention also: Schlenkerla‘s Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier.
Best Overseas Tap Beer
De Bekeerde Suster‘s De Manke Monnik – A group of us had a pint of this each whole we were at the brewery in Amsterdam. Such a hit with all of us that we are still looking of an effective way to get it imported.
Best Overall Beer
Taking in all of the above beers, as well as all of the other beers which I have drunk in the past twelve months I can’t help but think that all of these beers don’t really reflect what I drink overall. In fact, most of the time I drink standard stuff from the supermarket, because for the day to day beer has to be reasonable value as well as taste good. That is why my over all beer has depth of flavour, a good mouth feel, a sessionable ABV (so I can go to work in the morning), character, visually appealing in the glass and in the can, as well as a reasonable price tag. drum roll please…. Thwaites Champion Dark Mild.
Best Branding, Pumpclip or Label
Lancaster Brewery – I try not to be swayed by such things, but we all know that I am, along with everyone else. I like a brewery which has a theme running through their beer labels. The recent Greene King rebranding of the IPA range certainly gets my approval, but the best branding for me Lancaster Brewery. Their bottles are printed so well, and their pumpclips as well are of high quality, with a classy understated design which doesn’t try and distract or frog-march you to a decision with jokes and wit. It just sits there, on the bar, quietly understated.
Best UK Brewery
Adnams – For me a brewery which, although not getting mention in the above individual beer categories above, consistently produces high quality ales as well as innovative new brews that I know I am going to enjoy. You never hear the conversation; Someone:”Hey Looke, try this beer, it’s the new one from Adnams.” Looke:”Hmmm, I dunno, is it any good?”. Of course it’s going to be good, it’s brewed by Adnams.
Best Overseas Brewery
Brouwerij ‘t IJ – Back on our Amsterdam trip we visited the giant windmill in the middle of Amsterdam that it the brewhouse of this brewery. Not one of their beers was bad. And they were still good when we tried some at the Bedford Beer Festival as well.
Best New Brewery Opening 2013
CAMRA says that 187 new breweries have started in the past 12 months but I have no idea which one’s they are and it I have tried their beers or not.
Pub/Bar of the Year
While some places on my travels do come close, The Albion in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, still is the place to go for a night in the pub. Plenty of real ales to try, some from the local B and T Brewery. It has guest spirits, guest ales and Guest ciders. A great community atmosphere where you are always welcome.
Beer Festival of the Year
St. Alban’s Beer Festival. While most CAMRA beer festivals are fairly similar to one another and St Albans is no exception (you buy a glass, get it filled, drink it, get it refilled, drink it, eat something, refill the glass, drink it while being amused by the entertainment etc.) it does make more of an effort with the entertainment. I feel the food is also slightly better quality than most other festivals that I have been to this year. And of course, any evening that you come home with a pocket full of cheese is a good evening.
Supermarket of the Year
Morrisons – I was all but ready to write Waitrose, like every other blogger for their wide range of generally good beers, then I had a little think. Tesco, they don’t even deserve a link for their poor array in my local branch. Sainsburys? There is always a choice but it is all a bit bland to my mind. Asda isn’t bad, and neither is Waitrose (although it is expensive). The more I think about it the best beers I’ve bought this year and more importantly have found me something new and different to try when I needed it most… Morrisons.
Independent Retailer of the Year
Dart’s Farm, Topsham, Devonshire – The more I think about all of the different shops I’ve been in since January to buy beer, none of them have been helpful, especially the little independents who look at you like your about to rob the place. Whilst not strictly speaking a beer retailer on its own, it does have a HUGE selection of beers within it’s farm shop as well as a selection of wines, spirits and ciders (including a house cider which was being pressed in the next room). On top of all that the staff asked if they could help and were friendly and nice. It makes all the difference, a difference I am willing to pay a little extra for.
Online Retailer of the Year
www.thirstforgreat.com – I have used a few different online suppliers this year for different beer related purchases. They all delivered on time (kudos to the delivery company which delivered by bottle of Gin from Adnams, all of the problems caused were my fault and they were so helpful). Most of the websites were reasonable to use, none really blew my mind in the way of helpful user interfaces. But was stick out for me was the level of packaging and the amazingly quick delivery time, considering they are in Denmark, was thirstforgreat.com, the online seller of all things Carlsberg. My wish for their Mermaid Porter was their command and they carried it out with the most efficient diligence.
Best Beer Book or Magazine
Beer Blast by Philip Van Munching – It may not be a book released this year, but it is one of the best beer related books I have read this year. You can read my full report here.
Feedly – Not strictly a Beer app, but an app I use a lot for the purposes of trawling the internet for Beer news, information and opinion. It is basically a one stop shop for all the blog feeds I follow, presenting them in an manageable way. Since Google Reader went down it has been my salvation.
Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer
I haven’t really had much time for twitter this year, I have a new tablet PC now, which may help with this though.
Best Brewery Website/Social media
Lancaster Brewery – I’d love to say lettherebebeer.com but like everyone else I was disappointed with the end result of the entire thing. Lancaster brewery, while not a social media is a good Brewery website which tells you what you need to know and nothing more. Clean and simple. Also it keeps the corporate imagery, logo’s and fonts running throughout, tying it in with its product nicely.
Biggest Dick in the world of beer
Red Bull – For thinking that it’s OK to bully a small brewery, Redwell, from Norfolk. We all know what happened.
This is a review of the Classic Beer Holster by Great Gadgets. From the off I’m going to be clear that I have received a Beer Holster from Great Gadgets for the purposes of this review. Now, I’m no fool, (I heard that!) and I realise what time of year it is and why I’m being asked to write a free advertisement for them. But when I wrote to them I did promise them, and you dear reader, that it will be an honest review of what I really think.
I know that most of the people that buy one of these are going to give them to their beer loving friends and family. It makes for a great stocking filler. The idea is sound. Why wouldn’t you want one? And in any case, even if you never use it, it’s something to open on christmas day that will make someone smile. That got me thinking, why not use it? Where would it be most useful? Would it really work?
This is one of those products which does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a holster which has been designed for keeping drinks in. According to the blurb on the side of the box it is 100% real leather which is great, I’m just not sure how popular this will be with the animal rights groups. Saying that I have to admit that when I first opened the box it did have the reassuring smell of an shoeshop I used to get my school shoes from in Rushden, exactly what you want from leather products.
The beer holster seems to me to be well made, strong stitching and rivets hold it together in a practical and visually stylish way. I have been using the holster now for four days and it still looks brand new, not even a scuff mark.
My belts
The packaging boasts that it “fits on any belt up to 4 cm wide !”. I have to admit that I was suckered into this one, thinking “hhmm up to 4cm, that’s quite a lot”. Right up to the moment I went to put the holster on. I realised that 4cm isn’t that big for a belt at all, in fact the belt I use most often is 3.9cm. I do have other belts. A quick survey of my belts shows that I have an average belt width of 3.4cm but more crucially than that, none that were 4cm or more. So in truth it will fit nearly all standard belts. TIP: For those who have bought or are planning on buying a beer holster. I have tried the holster with both my smallest and largest belts and can confirm that beer cans stay more secure with a wider belt.
It may surprise you to learn that I don’t take many “selfies”, and being so out of touch with this modern phenomena I found it bloody difficult to take a picture of my own hip!
The main claims which really needs testing is that it will hold “regular beer or soda bottles and cans” and that you can “Draw and retract your beer with one hand”. The first of these is easy enough – yes, it does hold beer bottles and cans. I didn’t try it with a soft drinks can, but it did work with a can of beer. The idea, however, that it is an easy, one handed operation, is only half true. I found that it was perfectly fine with the can of beer, but in the case of a bottle of beer, not quite. I was using a bottle of Banks’s Bitter, a fairly standard sized 500ml uk bottle. It does fit into the holster, but it is a very snug fit, and requires two hands to pull the bottle both in and out. Not the easy one handed operation that a can provides.
I was thinking about practical uses for the Beer Holster. The Amazon website suggests a number of things: many of these suggestions could be summed up as parties of different types. I don’t know about you but I have been to many parties and have always managed to find somewhere to put my drink. Another suggestion is for the DIYer. I can see this. Someone half way up a ladder, painting a ceiling and can of something refreshing by their side.
I had my own thoughts as well, picture the scene: a busy pub, bar or club, there’s no where to sit and you don’t want to have to queue every time you want a drink. Now you can order two drinks, hold one and drink the other. Second situation can be summed up in one word. Glastonbury. The worlds greatest rock festival has always let you take your own drinks, drinks that, obviously, you want to keep in your tent. You don’t want to keep going back and forth across the site every time you want a drink, so why not strap an extra tin to your hip? In fact, why not get a few, I’m sure I could have done with half a dozen of these orbiting my hip when I was last there.
One final thing worth pointing out is that when wearing the Beer Holster you can not sit down. Doing so will result in the beer in your holster being spilled all over your lap. Not a good look at a party.
So, what’s the verdict? Well I wouldn’t buy one for myself unless I had a need and I don’t. My house does have a few flat surfaces that I can rest a drink on. That being said I think it can be a good stocking filler gift at christmas for a DIYer or beer lover, or indeed anyone who does a lot of standing based activities. Does birdwatching have to be done standing? Perhaps ramblers would be interested? If you can think of a way of justifying it for the person you love this christmas, then go for it. It does work and will probably last well because as far as I have seen it is well made, I predict that it has some longevity to it.
The Classic beer holster is available from Amazon for £14.90
Lately I have steered away from writing posts about a single beer because, lets face it, there are so many blogs out there which do that better than I. I did have to mention this one though, simply because it was so expensive (expensive at least by my rather fiscally limited standards).
The Little Mermaid – Copenhagen
A few months ago I saw Roger Protz write this article about Jacobsen (a Carlsberg brand) brewing a one off batch of Mermaid Porter to celebrate the centenary of Carl Jacobsen presenting the city of Copenhagen with a statue of a mermaid. There is a whole history of Carl Jacobsen and Carlsberg and everything which goes with this story, I’m not going into it here. If you want to know more, why not try the internet?
I had mentioned this beer to a few friends while we were all sitting at the club. My mate Darren (who by the way makes excellent cakes for all occasions) was the only one who would stump up the cash to buy a bottle. I say a bottle, buying online, the only way I could find it was on the Carlsberg online shop, where it is sold as a gift pack for €18 containing two bottles, each containing 750 ml of porter. After postage and my bank fee for buying in a foreign currency and all the other charges and crap that comes with buying online it worked out at £19.20 per litre or if you prefer, as I do, £10.89 per pint. At that price I’m hoping it will be exquisite.
For a while the gift box sat in my larder gathering dust while Darren and myself tried to think of a good enough reason to drink it. We can’t just crack it open, it needs to be a special occasion. Well, that was the plan. The other day we surcomed to curiousity.
Bottle #3093
We opened bottle number 3093 with care and poured it out, sharing one bottle. It poured the darkest colour. Saying it was jet black would be silly but it was really dark, just the merest hint of dee deep brown. It was very effervescent, producing a mocha coloured head which disappeared quickly. The whole thing looked like pouring a bottle of cola.
Darren’s Hand
There wasn’t much of an aroma and the taste was at first a bit overdone. To my mind it was perhaps just too bitter and a bit too carbonated. As the drink went down, these things mellowed out a bit and we got used to it.
It had a leathery taste to it, mixed in with a bitter dark chocolate. In the mouth it was very thick and luscious, especially after the carbonation had died down a bit. It’s aftertaste was dry and slightly bland, although there was a lingering spiciness, the sort of aftertaste you would expect from red wine. We got no sense of the oysters or the samphire that were supposedly put into the mix.
The “Salesman shot” of the whole product. From packaging to glass in one image.
If you had given me half a pint of this at a beer festival I would have said “mmm, yes very good” and that would have been it. At a beer festival it would have been shipped with enough other beer to make the postage more economical. I know the reasons why it is so expensive and I know that it is a good beer, but I can’t quite justify it being quite worth that much. It was said in the blurb that this is a beer which was designed to be aged, and that is what we are going to do. We have both agreed to leave it at least a year or two before we try the other bottle and see what differences there are. Hopefully it will mature into a more rounded drink with more pronounced flavours.
As it stands I can’t in all honesty give Jacobsen Mermaid Porter any more than 3 ½ pints. Hopefully the second bottle, given time, will improve with age.
I’ve just finished a book called Beer Blast which is easily summed up by the strapline on the cover: “The inside story of the brewing industry’s bizarre battles for your money”. Written by Philip Van Munching, whose family has been the American importers of Heineken until recently, he is in a great position to write about the beer industry from an internal perspective.
Right off the bat I’m going to say now that this is a book which is quite niche. It’s not be a book that is going to appeal to everyone, that said if you are reading this blog then you probably have more than a passing interest anyway.
Written in roughly chronological order, but more crucially looking at different areas of the beer market one at a time. Van Munching talks about the different (sometimes sublimely ridiculous) means by which the big beer companies in America all competed with each other. During the middle of the book he goes into more detail about the inner workings of Van Munching and Co (his families business), the importers of Heineken and how everything changed when it was taken over by Heineken themselves. Without spoiling it for anyone, this section is hilarious and bitchy and truly spills the beans on some things which perhaps some would have prefered not be published for the whole world to read.
I personally have two problems with this book, and neither of them are the fault of the author. One: it is completely about the American market. Don’t get me wrong but a lot of the brands in question are not brands I am most familiar with. And Two: For me this is all a bit too far in the past. Again, not the fault of the book. When it was published in 1998 I guess everything relevant was included. My problem is that I was nine years old in 1998. In fact for me personally in the whole book there is reference to only one thing which I genuinely remember, which is a Budweiser advert, mentioned right at the end of the book.
There are other books on the market which tell the history of beer in the UK and are much more recent, but none of these take the standpoint and tell the story from a business point of view. The insider knowledge and the business logic which is applied is clever, informative and entertaining, in fact at some points it’s downright hilarious. A few points in the book do get a bit bogged down with numbers, but that is a necessary evil when talking about business and every time it is key to explaining why something happened or the result of (usually) a ridiculous advertising campaign.
One last key point about this book is that Van Munching guides you through the business process which is easy and accessible, he explains why things worked and why they didn’t without being patronising and also without the reader needing their own business degree. You think that when you go to read such a book it’s going to be a bit dry and a bit dull, nothing is further from the truth. I genuinely couldn’t put this book down, which is more than can be said for some other books. If there was a new book which picks up where the old one left off, even if was still exclusively about America, I’d buy it in a heart beat.
I give it four and a half pints out of five.
Beer Blast by Philip Van Munching is still available if you look for it on Amazon via private sellers as well as eBay and I’m sure many, many other good (and bad) online retailers. ISBN-13: 9780812930351.
The city of Bath is an expensive place, when working there it is impossible to find a cheap room to stay in and therefore most tradesmen find refuge in hotels in the suburbs or in nearby towns. For me it was the latter. We were staying in the quiet village of Limpley Stoke at the rather obviously named Limpley Stoke Hotel.
For Some reason there are a lot of jugs hanging from the ceiling in the Avon bar.
Getting to the point: at the bottom of the driveway of the hotel is a small country pub, The Hop Pole Inn. Dating back to the 16th century, this pub has character and charm. All of the features you expect from an old pub, the log fire, the dark wood, the assortment of knick-knacks adorning the walls and ceiling. There was real ale on tap and an atmosphere that was spot on for the type of pub it is.
All of this , however, is about to change because as I write this now, the Hop Pole inn is pouring its final pints. Tonight the barmaid shall call time, for the last time. Yes, this fine example of English country life is to close. And I can not figure out for the life of me why that is! I know that the hotel owns the pub and I can get my head around the idea that the hotel management want to save money.
Trying to take photographs of a pub’s decor and not look like you’re taking a cheeky snap of someone’s wife is tricky. I hope that explains this bad picture.
Nearly all of the hotel guests go down to the pub for a drink and their evening meal rather than eating in the hotel, but surely it would be better to close the hotel kitchen? I was there for five nights and every night there was a large crowd in the bar and in the lounge. The hotel bar only ever had people in it when the pub wasn’t serving food. The reason they weren’t serving food? Because they were closing down at the end of the week and therefore were not ordering any more stock.
Having had a pint of either Bath Ales Gem or Sharp’s Doombar most nights we were a bit shocked that on Friday when we were told that they had only bottled ales left. While we ate our final meal at the pub (steak pie – fantastic) we ordered a few bottles of Doombar (bottled), eventually we were told that we had been given the final two bottles of ale in the pub. From then on it was lager and cider only. I had the last pint of ale that the Hop Pole Inn may ever serve. An honour, but a terribly sad honour.
The Hop Pole Inn is for sale and I truly hope that someone buys it and keeps the tradition alive. This pub is worth it. If I had the money to put where my mouth is, I would.
I have just returned from a work trip out to Germany. In many ways it was exactly like you would expect. To be honest about it everything was well organised, efficient and clean. This applied to everything we came in contact with when we were out there, including the pub.
Zur Gemütlichkeit isn’t really what you’d call a pub. More of a tavern, it’s very German in it’s style (I’m not sure why that surprised me since we drove for seven hours across the continent to get there, it was hardly going to be a facsimile of The Black Friar, was it?). I find it a bit depressing that not two weeks after posting about how crap some places in Britain can be, I find the answer to all the problems and I find it in Deutschland.
I’m just going to bullet point off what I think they got right that so many places in the UK could learn a thing or two from:
The place is clean and tidy. And I really mean it. Spotless. Not a mote of dust anywhere.
The food was actually cooked, not just reheated on site. The meat was of quality and not like in the UK, full of gristle.
If in the UK you do get food which is as good as in Germany, then you have to pay through the nose for it. This was reasonably priced. For two starter salads, two 300g (11 oz) steak and chips and 10 beers: less that €65! And I remind you, these are the sort of quality steaks you’d easily spend £25 each on in the UK for such a good cut.
There is an area for sitting at a bar, an area for eating in a civilised dinner and conversation way and a third area for watching the football that’s away from everyone else, so we don’t have to put up with the commentary when you’re trying to talk.
Children weren’t banned, but they behaved. There was no roudy group of underaged teenagers getting catatonic by the bar.
Because of the above things, the ambience was right. On the Friday night it was busy and even the restaurant part was louder. There was a group of men sitting together with large steins of beer who would occasionally burst into song, but it was OK because it was in a loud place (by loud I mean the combined murmurings of everyone having a conversation). I can’t imagine they’d have done the same thing on a Wednesday when there were very few customers.
The staff go out of their way to help you. Genuinely friendly people.
So to sum up, clean, friendly, good value, well done food and drink. Why is it that to get these things at home it’s all so expensive?
I’d like to start this post off by saying that my fingers smell like plastic and I have no idea why. Whether this is a good omen for writing a quality post or not, I don’t know, but in the interests of full disclosure I thought I’d better put it out there.
Beer and women. That is the session topic for this month. Our host for the month, Nicth of tastingnitch.com, has left the topic pretty open. This is a huge subject and there are so many ways to go with it. Nitch suggests a few different avenues, none of which I feel are quite right for me (I’m definitely not doing a history spot. I’ll leave that to Ron Pattinson. I dropped history as soon as humanly possible at school).
I was flicking through this months copy of CAMRA’s Beer magazine for some inspiration as to where to go with this and came across an entire article about Sara Barton of Brewsters Brewing Company. I was surprised by how few times the piece makes reference to her gender. Apart from the title “FEMALE TRAILBLAZER” the article actually goes on to tell Sara’s story and how she became the fantastic brewer she is. And trust me she is a great brewer I have sampled some of her beers at different beer festivals over the years, I’ve never had one which was even mediocre. Oh! and the article does go on a bit about her involvement in the Project Venus, and how she was one of only three women amongst the hundreds of men when she was working for Courage, and the obvious mention of her winning the brewer of the year award (2012 – 2013) awarded by the British guild of beer writers (making her the first woman to do so). My point is that these all things which are pertinent to the article and they are mentioned because they are interesting things and are important within the story. Had this article been written even five years ago there would have been a tone to the story which reading between the lines read “Hey lads, look at this! There’s a person brewing beer thats not terrible, and he’s a she!” like the most important thing about this beer is the brewer has different genitals. Mind you, I would be interested to hear about a beer being brewed by this bloke…
Another thing I’ve noticed is that less and less women who blog about beer, brew beer or are in some way involved in this little bubble of beer geekery that we find ourselves in seem to feel the need to make such a big deal about their gender. In the past there was clearly a need to make the point that these people were women as well as beer geeks. Some of the twitter handles make my point: @TheBeerWench @beerbabe @bierebelle. @realalegirlShea @BeerBeauty. More women, such as our illustrious host, are just using their name, because there is nothing wrong with that.
Finally I’d just like to say in the six years that I have been going to beer festivals I have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of young women attending. Yes, it’s true. Not just CAMRA propaganda. The first beer festival I went to was Bedford Beer festival, many years before I started any blog, and the only girls that were there were clearly all being dragged along by partners and husbands and friends. Indeed, our group was no different, ladies present because they were basically told that “this is what we ARE doing tonight”. The most recent festival was also Bedford, this year, and I can report that was a marked improvement in the numbers of ladies. I have to be honest, there were still women those who had the look on there face which read “bloody hell, not this shit again. Every bloody year he drags me here”, but there were young groups where everyone was having a good time, and they weren’t all congregating around the one barrel of sweet cider either, they were actually trying the beer and enjoying it!
So there you go, three things about beer and women which I have noticed change in the past few years. I think together they sum up as being a girl is becoming less important and the beer they brew/blog about/drink is. Will this do Nitch?
Edit:
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Hug a beer feminist to hug… err.. Do you think their listed in the yellow pages?
I apologize in advance to the people of Swansea, I’m sure you like living in there and that’s good for you, I on the other hand have quite a different view of your town. Also, for anyone who can’t be bothered to read all this, it can be summarised as Swansea: ugh! The Celt Experience: mmmm!
I’ve just got back from doing a job in Swansea. I didn’t really enjoy it. I’m not talking about the job particularly, that was about the same as ever, it was everything else. The weather wasn’t great, but what should I expect, this is Wales in October. The hotel was mediocre, again, what was I expecting, it’s a Premier Inn, they’re all the same: clean and dull (the only difference between the Premier Inn’s are the welcome from the receptionist at check in and how powerfully the shower delivers water). The city itself is, and I’m not going to beat around the bush here, an eyesore. From every angle you look at the littre flowing in the breeze, the grot and dirt building up in the gutters, the boarded up pubs with the sign “under new management” clearly they didn’t stay managed for long, and the huge office block which towers over the north east of the city where the drivers and vehicles licensing agency looms over everything.
This is the only picture of Swansea I could find that is free to use and illustrates my point. This street still looks a bit well-to-do compared to what I was exposed to.
All of the above things can be said of many of Britain’s large towns, they can be dirty and they are all suffering from High Street decline thanks to the internet age and out of town shopping centres. I can’t really blame a government department responsible for every driver and every vehicle in the land to need a large building either. Swansea, however, is one of those places where you feel you just don’t belong. Being there, you have a great sense of urgency to do what you have to do as fast as you can, then, run for the border and leave the locals to it. The little things like having three upturned trolleys blocking the drop off point in an Asda car park. What’s worse is that returning the following day you find that no one has done anything about it. Surely this falls under the authority of the bloke who pushes the trolleys around the car park? Inside the supermarket they feel the need to attach security tags to the baskets so that they can’t be stolen. Why would anyone want to in the first place?!
The Ultimate Eatery
The thing which really got me about Swansea was the restaurant attached to the hotel (and don’t worry I will be getting to beer in a bit). Only in places like Swansea can you get away with a restaurant like this. Well, I call it a restaurant, what it actually calls itself is “Taybarns – The ultimate eatery“. EATERY! In one word I think they really do some the place up. Let’s just look at the word first of all. Eatery. In a brewery, you brew beer. In a bakery, you bake bread. In a tannery, you tan leather, and in a robbery, you rob someone of their goods and chattels. So it follows then that an eatery is somewhere that you go and eat. You don’t go there for the a good time, or polite conversation, a drink with the lads or a romantic evening with the wife. You don’t go there for the ambiance or the dining experience. You’re just there to eat and eat cheaply too. Most pub restaurants have some background piped music to help people relax and enjoy themselves. Not at Taybarns. Instead you get the soundtrack of a bunch of sixth-formers who have no idea about civility or manners and therefore no consideration for their fellow diners. At most restaurants you are served by a waiter or waitress usually wearing black or some other uniform. Not at Taybarns. Here you serve yourself as often as you want to as much as you want all at low low prices. And the staff? They are just there to take your money as you walk in and then clean up after you. The group of youths mentioned before left utter carnage on their table when they had gone and it is the job of the staff to clear it all before the next group devastate the place again.
On the plus side you do get a fill at dinner. Often you’re out and about and ordered some food at a restaurant and you’re given a plate which wouldn’t feed a mouse. Not so at Taybarns. If after a full roast dinner you still feel hungry, then have another! Also it is cheap. For £7.99 you have the complete run of the place gorging on as much as you like. These are the only plus points about this restaurant. There certainly isn’t anything good to be found in the drinks menu.
After work I want to sit down and eat dinner with a nice pint of beer. That’s nice pint of beer. I’m not expecting there to be a large selection of Belgian specialties or quadruple hopped turbo-charged American pale ales. Just a decent pint of ale. The only thing which even comes close is Tetley’s smooth flow which, as I’m sure you know, is one of the most bland and uninteresting beers in the known universe. I did, on the first night, try a Strongbow, just to go for something with more flavour. It turned out that the flavour in question was somewhere between vinegar and drain cleaner. After that horrific incident, the following night I went back to Tetleys.
I’m not really a big fan of lager, but there was at least a choice in this department, which makes sense given the type of place we are talking about and the oversized clientele that they attract. However, even here they are cheaping out. Stella Artois is 5.2%, but not in Taybarns it’s not. There it’s only 4.5%. I didn’t really inspect any of the other taps. I just ate my food as quickly as possible and went back to the hotel room.
Yes Darren, You can have this for your project
In the hotel room was where the best beer was to be found because we’d been to Asda. The usual supermarket range of Greene King IPA and old Speckled Hen was available as well as some regional varieties. The highlight of which for me was a new The Celt Experience, more specifically, their Bleddyn 1075. This is a beer worth trying. Even warm, and it was very warm having been on a supermarket shelf and then in a warm hotel room, it was fully of juice grapefruit flavours which really popped in the mouth. A smooth thick mouthfeel which, compared to the Tetleys earlier, was just heavenly. My only regret was not buying any of the other beers from the range. If I go to Wales again, someone please, remind me!
Just one more quick bitch about Swansea. After being told by a local that he wants to “get out of this shit-hole”, his words – not mine, we went to Burger King at Swansea motorway services. I know but I just can’t get enough of these classy and sophisticated diners. There were five people in the queue and it took 20 minutes to get served by a man from whom you got the impression that it was against company policy to show and sort of emotion bar contempt. After this, like I said before, we ran for the border.
