At the recent Beer Bloggers Conference you can see I was very proud of myself for managing a perfect pour of the Unfiltered Unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell straight from the wooden cask

This is an extremely rare opportunity to taste Unfiltered Unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell served straight from a wooden cask which has been delivered to us direct from the Brewery in Pilsen. This beer is not usually available anywhere other than the brewery in the Czech Republic and has rarely been seen in the UK due to the exceptionally high cost of transporting it and its short shelf life. This beer is delicious. I have had the opportunity to drink it on a handful of select industry occasions, including in the brewery itself (you can read how wonderful that experience was in this previous blog). I am very pleased that you will now also  have the opportunity to try this very special beer.

We will be serving a two course meal to accompany this treat.  Tickets are limited and cost £17.50. They are allocated on a first pay first reserved basis.  All monies will need to be collected in advance.

The Menu – 7:30 arrival for 8pm

A glass of our usual draught Pilsner Urquell served on arrival
Homemade Pretzels 

A glass of Unfiltered Unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell
Slow Roast Blythburgh Pork Shoulder with Cinnamon Salt Crackling, Apple Mash, Braised Red Cabbage & a Light Cyder Gravy

or (V) Butternut Squash Risotto with Cinnamon Sweet Potato Crisps & a Beetroot, Carrot & Coriander Salad

East Anglian Cheeseboard with Homemade Pilsner Urquell Chutney
& another glass of the Unfiltered Pilsner Urquell for those who would like one

Simon Clark from Miller Brands who import Pilsner Urquell in to the UK will be here to introduce the beer & to answer any questions you have.

A small amount of the beer MAY be available for others to purchase at the bar once the cheese course has been served, but if you would like to guarantee a taste of this truly unique beer, book for dinner.

A video of the Pilsner Urquell Brewmaster Vaclav Berka opening a wooden cask of Unfiltered Unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell at the recent European Beer Bloggers Conference (courtesy of Swedish Beer Blogger Pilsner.nu

The European Beer Bloggers Conference, which took place in Leeds last weekend, was superbly organised & exceptionally informative. The event was put together by Zephyr Adventures, an American travel company, who run blogging conferences around the world in the Beer, Wine, Food & Fitness industries. Now in its second year, it wouldn’t have been possible without hefty support from many companies: brewing giants, microbreweries and other industry affiliated businesses. My particular thanks go to Pilsner Urquell, one of the major sponsors as they secured my ticket. Look out for the new Master Bartender website, I’ll be writing the blog for them, launching very soon.

I’m sure I’ll use aspects from the seminars as inspiration for here & for the Pilsner Urquell blog, currently whirring the cogs is the Spiegelau seminar on how the shape of the glass can have an effect on the flavour of the beer, the results were truly mind blowing! However, right now I’d like to sum the three days up using the medium of dance… just kidding, actually it’s a poem…

Thursday – The unofficial start, a beer tour of Leeds
A pint of Magic Rock Carnival to start the party
Birra Del Borgo to wash down something hearty
Some local brews in some local boozers
The Kernel Citra with a shot of yeast, at 6.9 percent, a beast
A rare Belgian seemed to be the evenings trend; I cracked mine open to share with friends

Friday – Registration 12:30pm
‘That’s not a conference, it’s a joke’ you say?
You should try the Joker Double IPA, a stunning beer, the best that was here.
Then a Generation from Kent, a St Stefanus from Ghent.
The conference starts, a Profanity Stout’s shared about.
A short while in, the magic begins, I don’t know how, ask Spiegelau.

Friday Night – The sociable part
Dinner is at 7, we open the doors, to tables full of beer from Molson Coors.
The beers were great, unfortunately overshadowing the plate.
After the meal it was the European’s turn to reveal
Another room full of beer they’d smuggled over here
Sour Ales, IPAs, I was all beered out so I called it a day.

Saturday – last day of the conference
A morning start, no beer for me, I’ll wait for a lunchtime pint with my BLT
Now it’s 5pm and people are flagging, last up it’s Live Beer Blogging
Ten beers with five minutes to meet the brewer & write a the snippets
The Thirsty Brewmaster was hosting dinner, everyone knew we were on to a winner
Stunning food and atmosphere, and best of all, unpasteurised yeast beer!

A rare attempt from me at a more creative writing style than usual. Many of the references might only seem relevant to the attendees, but follow the links and you’ll hopefully be able to understand what I’m talking about.

Part of my agenda for going to the conference was to expand my horizons and improve my blogging & writing. I might try something like this again, but then I guess that depends on the feedback I get!

Beer #1 – Marble Brewery/Emilesse Collaboration Earl Grey IPA
Inspired by a De Molen beer, the idea is not to be too bitter, 40 IBU’s, 3kgs of Earl Grey and lots of Citra for Aroma.  This is a brand new beer, they don’t even have labels yet! Amazing piney hop smell, smooth mouthfeel, very drinkable at 6.8%, the tea has a really interesting tanic finish to the beer replacing the hop bitterness.

Beer #2 – Roosters Babyface Assasin Single Hop IPA
Limited Edition especially for us!  100% Citra & Pale Malt, served with a sparkler on handpull as a Yorkshire beer should!  Much softer aroma than the Marble, with a Citra hop upfront and a sweeter middle than I was expecting. At 6.1%  this is very drinkable, more so than any beer of this style & ABV than I would be used to.

Beer #3 –  Great Heck Brewery Stormin Norman American style IPA
A darker colour from the Roasted Barley with Cascade & Columbus for Aroma.  Another strong IPA at 6.5%, exceptionally, mouth puckeringly bitter. This is right up my street, the barley adds a bit of balance to the big bitter finish, but each searingly dry sip leaves you gagging for another.

Beer #4 – Slaters Top Totty 4.0%
Controversially banned from the House of Commons. At 38 IBU’s it’s interesting to note that Slaters consider this a bitter beer, whereas Marble noted that 40 IBU’s was not very bitter! They asked us to comment on the beer and not the label, so I’ll ignore the crappy pump clip with the blonde in a bra and tell you that they use hops from the same farm every year, they add a touch of wheat.  To me it’s not the best example of a hoppy golden session ale, but it’s quite drinkable. 

Beer #5 – Camden Brewery USA Hells 4.6%
Their normal hells with just American hops. Columbus, Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Simcoe.  This pours cloudy (deliberately) 20 IBU’s. This is a high in aroma, soft and low in bitterness. Been too busy crooning over the new branding to write anything about this beer. However, take my word for it, it’s bloody lovely!

Beer #6 – Adnams Ghostship
A favourite of mine anyway. 4.5% a pale ale brewed with 3 malts, rye crystal, pale & caramalts.  Chinook bittering hops, Motueka added next followed by a late Citra addition. Dry hopped with Citra too, four hop additions.  This is exceptionally drinkable, very smooth, well balanced, the toffee malt notes really help make this a more balanced hoppy beer than some of the others we’ve tried.

Beer #7 – Innis & Gunn Scottish Pale Ale 4.1%
Currently only available in Sweden.  The brand was born by accident after Grants whisky approached Caledonian Brewery.  They now oak age all of their beers.  This is aged in Bourbon barrels, this is intended to be more hop lead, more of a summer beer. To me this tastes like pudding, very sweet, very vanilla lead flavours, the dry finish doesn’t have much aroma, mainly just bitterness.  Not usually a fan of Innis & Gunn, and this is sadly no different.

Beer #8 – Leeds Brewery Hellfire 5.2%
This is a bitter beer with Centennial & Willamete.  Armoa is from Centennial, Willamete & First Gold.  This is a filtered, pasteurised bottle beer with added carbonation.  reminiscent of a good premium lager, this is a great beer to enjoy with a BBQ in the summer.  Fantastic branding and general consensus is that this might appeal to late night bars & restaurants, why shouldn’t we be able to get great beer in those establishments.

Beer #9 – Otley Oxymoron 5.5%
This Black IPA is well known to me and has brought back some great memories of my day at Red Fox brewing Foxymoron recently.  After apologising to the brewery for semi stealing their naming ideas, I got back to enjoying one of my favourite styles of beers.  Loads of chocolate malt flavours followed up with big citrus hop aromas. Heaven.

Beer #10 – Brains Dark 4.1%
A dark mild, this is what I started drinking ‘when I were a lad’, not this particular beer, but this style.  Loads of chocolate malt and very soft.  Recently won Worlds Best Dark Mild!  This has Styrian Goldings hops and is perhaps a touch more bitter than the style would usually have.  Very drinkable, and for me a nostalgic style of beer.  I’d prefer to drink this from cask without the carbonation, but as the 10th beer in 50 minutes of the speed drinking/blogging challenge I’m surprised how drinkable this is.

Done.  Thank you, favourite beer?  Oxymoron

More over, failing to do complete this simple task speaks volumes too. Getting served a beer in the wrong glass always gets my goat. I’ve often rambled on to staff, customers, friends, family or poured my views out over Twitter or Facebook.  Serving a lovely pint of Adnams in a Fosters glass or a pint of ale in a Guinness glass to me gives the impression that the establishment doesn’t care, for me it’s all about the little things, simple things like presentation. It’s not only about whether the beer tastes any different, we don’t go to a good restaurant and forgive them what looks like a dogs dinner flung at a plate with a catapult because it’s tasty, we’re paying for the whole experience. When we hold our Beer and Food matching dinners at The Thatchers we are only serving tasters, a pint glass would be overkill, so we serve the beers in goblets or wine glasses, this instantly changes the diners perception, it gives the drink elegance and puts the beers on a level playing field against each other and against wine.

To really show what a glass can do for a beer, it’s worth mentioning the Germans, Belgians and the Dutch for starters. A whole history of glass design to go with each and every beer. I’ll never forget my first Erdinger Weiss in that tall, slender glass with a thick foamy head, aromas of bananas and cloves pouring out of the bulbous top. Then there is Duvel in its own unique goblet, designed to retain the thick head while the devilish crafty beer slips out underneath. Hoegaarden must have spent fortunes stocking students cupboards with those iconic chunky oversized glasses over the years, but have you tried drinking Hoegaarden out of a standard pint glass? It just doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t seem to taste the same. I believe a glass can enrich the experience of drinking a beer. Sometimes it’s because of the shape of the glass and the way it harnesses the aromas as a significant part of our flavour perception is down to smell. Sometimes it’s because the design of the glass retains the head or helps keep the beer carbonated, and sometimes I can’t quite put my finger on it, for no scientific reason at all, it just tastes better at that moment in that glass.

One of my most enjoyable beer moments has to be drinking unfiltered, unpastuerised Pilsner Urquell in the cellars at the brewery in Pilsen. Poured straight from the cask into a stunning Czech crystal stem glass with a tapered top. As you tip the glass to drink, the tapered neck cups your nose accentuating the wonderful aromas of Saaz hops and Pilsner Urquell yeast. It’s a moment I will always remember, would it have been as memorable from a tumbler or a standard beer glass, I really don’t think it would.

I am off to the European Beer Bloggers Conference this week and I’m very grateful to Pilsner Urquell who secured my ticket for me and for asking me to write a new blog for their Master Bartender site (launching fully soon). I’m really looking forward to raising a glass of the unpasteurised Czech beer with the thirsty Brewmaster to celebrate 170 years since Pilsner Urquell was first brewed, naturally we’ll have the correct glassware! However I’m even more excited about the seminar we’ll be having on beer glasses from Spiegelau, the Worlds oldest beer and wine glass manufacturer. Hopefully I’ll gain some insightful knowledge in to the science and the psyche behind beer glasses and the effect they have on our drinking experience. Before you ask, yes, I am happy to admit it, I am a geek. I’ll also get a complimentary ‘connoisseurs choice’ pack of beer glasses to take home, I guess I’ll just have to keep practicing until I find my favourite glass…

Does anybody else feel as strongly as I do about the right glass for each beer? No? Just me?

Bear with me for some maths behind this: The average price of a pint in a pub in the UK has increased from about £2 in 2002 which is a 50% increase. In that same time excise duty on beer has risen from around 28p to 44p, a 57% increase, and VAT on the average pint has risen from 35p to 61p which is a massive 74% increase! This simply means that the average tax paid on a pint in a pub has risen from 63p to £1.05, a whopping 67% increase & this doesn’t include the PAYE on the employees of the breweries, distributors & pubs collected by those right honorable gentlemen, the tax men.

During the last ten years, inflation has only risen by around 30% (£2 in 2002 is worth roughly £2.60 today), meaning our pint has increased by over 40p above inflation, over half of this can be accounted for by the out of proportion tax hikes. Other rising costs to brewers such as grain, hops, power & transport as well as similar rises to pubs including staff & energy costs etc account for the rest of the rise.

If you disagree with my maths or my simplified financial data you could spend two minutes arguing or correcting me by commenting on this blog, or you could put those TWO MINUTES to good use and just sign the petitions below.

Not happy about the price we’re paying for a pint? Not happy that in these times of hardship the sacred institution of the British Pub & your pocket are being penalised? There are two small steps YOU can take to make the Government aware that we, as a nation, are not happy. Two small steps which will take you a matter of minutes. Two small steps which can raise awareness in the Commons and force the Government to discuss these policies.

Signing the ‘Stop the beer duty escalator’ petition could help to slow the rising price of enjoying a pint in a supervised safe environment like a pub vs the below-cost sales of alcohol drunk to excess at home or on the streets.

Signing the ‘Cut VAT to 5% for hospitality industry’ could help reduce the cost of drinking and eating out and slow the closure of pubs, helping to increase jobs in the sector as it has done in other European countries.

There are over 50,000 pubs in the UK and (at the time of writing) only 41,637 signatures on the Duty escalator petition. Pete Brown gave a rallying cry to Publicans to get behind the duty petition in a recent article in the Trade Press. I’d like to invite the pub going great British public to take up the gauntlet too. Surely there is more than 1 of you per pub who would like to pay less for their beer?

Just two minutes?
SIGN UP!

On arrival at the Black Adder Brewery, Head Brewer Steve was all ready to go. The water (or liquor as it is usually referred to in a brewery once treated) was hot and the malt was loaded in to the grist case. Steve’s been brewing with Mauldons since the early days when Peter Mauldon set up the brewery, Peter retired in 2000 and sold to Steve & Alison Sims who still run it today. Peter has now returned to the trade and can regularly be seen propping up bars around East Anglia as a Cask Marque assessor, it’s a tough job…

We were brewing May Bee, their popular 3.9% spring honey ale. Although it has roughly the same amount of honey per pint as the Adnams Diamond Ale, the honey for May Bee is added in towards the end of fermentation and not on the brewday. After the Adnams trip this was probably for the best as I didn’t fancy going to the Brewery Tap covered head to toe in honey! I’m really looking forward to comparing these two honey beers at the festival, and to hearing your views.

For the 20 barrel brew we had around 500kgs of malted barley, a mix of Pale Pearl & Lager malt. Steve had been telling me they were extremely busy at the moment, mainly fulfilling large orders for Mitchells & Butlers (my previous employer). Thankfully for my quest they were able to brew at quite short notice as they have a particularly short fermentation time. Their yeast (a Charles Wells descendant) is quite happy with a slightly higher fermentation temperature than the other breweries I’d visited, and in return only needs around 3 days to the usual 4 or 5.

Mauldons Awards

By the time we had mashed in, the tranquillity of 6am was fast disappearing and the brewery started to come to life. James, the Assistant Brewer, arrived with breakfast, the phone was ringing with orders, deliveries were coming in & going out, casks were being washed & filled and amongst all of the hustle and bustle, a healthy dose of office banter. It was clear that everybody at Mauldons enjoys going to work. They get on well together, work hard, play hard, and the results speak for themselves. A great ethos for any business to have.

http://www.suffolkfreepress.co.uk/news/latest-news/festival-will-be-a-real-one-off-1-3774217

We transferred our wort to the kettle and added 5kgs of Saaz hops for bittering and after an hour on the boil we added 5kgs of Brewers Gold hops for aroma and set about transferring our days labour in to the fermenting vessel. During the brew we had a visit from The Suffolk Free Press- not wanting to miss an opportunity to get my mug in the local paper I donned some wellies, jumped straight into the mash tun and started shovelling…you’ll have to take my word though as they chose to use a picture of me modelling my new Mauldons Brewery fleece instead.

Mauldons were exceptionally kind to me and I left the brewery with a goody bag including bottles of beer, golf balls and a polo shirt to go under my new fleece. They also provided pizza for lunch which we sat and devoured with a few bottles of Mauldons and a rather special bottle of beer a good friend of mine had shipped me from the USA…

All the way from California, Firestone Walkers Reserve Porter. At 5.8% there was plenty of body & lovely sweet dark roasted malt flavours, very reminiscent of some of the London Style porters I’ve had in the past. This particular beer has been barrel aged which lends a pleasant, slightly sour note, this is then finished up with an exceptional searingly dry finish, presumably from the cascade hops. We all thoroughly enjoyed this beer, wonderfully drinkable, thanks Chris!

After we were all cleaned up we set off to the Brewery Tap and sunk a few pints of Silver Adder with the locals, a great finish to a fantastic day.

My five brew days have been an absolute blast. I have certainly learnt a great deal about beers & brewing from passionate and talented individuals-the sort of knowledge that is much harder to get from books. I’ve also concluded that a career is brewing is not on the cards for me. Whilst I’ve enjoyed every minute of these brew days I’m not sure I have the patience, concentration span or the attention to detail needed. I don’t know how to begin thanking the five breweries for the experience I’ve had, they have all been exceptionally generous. Hopefully the proof will be in the drinking and your enjoyment of these five special beers will be a good start.

A bit about hops before we continue: Hops are from the Cannabinaceae family of plants which includes Cannabis. The alpha acids** in hops isomerise through the boiling process into iso-alpha acids which contain bitterness. Hops also have an antibiotic effect on fermenting beer and when brewers noticed that hopped beers were less prone to spoilage than beers produced with other bittering agents such as gruit, hop usage became widespread, albeit briefly banned in Britain by Kings Henry VI & Henry VIII as this ‘unwholesome weed that promoted melancholly’ was feared to act an aphroadisiac that would ‘drive people to sinfull behaviour’***. Hops play another key role in beer as a major contributor to flavour is our sense of smell. Unfortunately the hop aromas, which come from the essential oils in hop glands, are insoluble and volatile and are typically lost during the boiling process, so in order to take advantage of these aromas hops are also added to the end of the boil or even to the fermented beer (dry hopping).

On arrival at the brewery at 7am I was greeted by Head Brewer Peter & his faithful Labrador Albert and we got straight to work (Albert in fact went straight to sleep in the office). Peter explained that we were brewing a new beer, Galena, named in true Crouch Vale style after the hop we would be using. This was to be the first time Crouch have used this hop, it had been some time since the sample had been sent to the brewery and memories of its exact characteristics were a little hazy, the name wasn’t much help either as Galena is actually lead ore so no clues on the smell there then. Convinced that they wouldn’t have ordered it if they didn’t like it and with an alpha acid rating of almost 14%, we were confident they’d be right up our street. We’d have to wait until later to find out exactly what they were like, those vacuum packed foil bags weren’t getting opened until the very last minute, just in case any of that precious aroma escaped!

We mashed in with 100% Pale Malt, 28x25kg sacks to be precise, aiming for a 28 barrel brew (about 8000 pints). Whilst still a micro brewery, Crouch Vale is considerably bigger than Red Fox or Colchester Brewery, but distinctly smaller and less automated than Adnams. After we loaded the sacks of malt into the grist case I could see I was in for a fair bit of manual labour that day. Thankfully James, general Office Jockey and Director of Wit at Crouch Vale, arrived just in time to film me emptying the 700kg of hot wet malt out of the mash tun.

Click to watch Mitch digging out the mash tun at Crouch Vale

We added some Challenger & Pioneer hops into the boil for bittering whilst still keeping the 20kg of Galena hops sealed for optimum freshness. When we finally opened the sacks of hops we were met with wonderful aromas of tropical fruits, tinned peaches, apricots and clementines. Quite different to other high alpha hops such as Nelson Sauvin, Citra or Summit which typically have more lemon or grapefruit citrus aromas. Before we’d even finished brewing I was getting excited about tasting this new beer. We stopped the boil before we added any aroma hops and stirred them in carefully, ensuring they were all wet and hadn’t clumped together. Finally we re-circulated the hot wort from the bottom of the kettle over the top dousing the newly added Galena hops giving plenty of opportunity for those essential oils to seep into our beer.

After transferring Galena to the fermenting vessel it was time for something I always thought would be heaven, a hop shower. Climbing into the kettle armed with a shovel and a hose I dug a foot deep bed of soggy hops out from the bottom before proceeding to spray the kettle to remove the hops which were stuck to the top and sides. Being showered with hops and cold water wasn’t quite what my imagination would have conjured up, but I have to say stuck inside that kettle with all those wonderful aromas was actually rather pleasant.

Following all that hard work it time for a drink, I’d taken a bottle of Stone Brewery Cali-Belgique IPA along with me. A typical highly hopped American IPA with a twist, brewed with a Belgian yeast. It’s a beer I’ve had before and loved, but I was keen to share it with my companions at Crouch Vale. On first impressions Colin, owner of the brewery, remarked that it smelt soapy, not a great start! However after a few sips everybody agreed this was a unique beer which belied the 6.1% alcohol, unusual for an American craft IPA that there was very little hop aroma, almost completely masked by the sweet fruit & spicy Belgian yeast aromas. For me the high bitterness, biscuity malt and yeasty flavours make this one of my personal favourite recent finds.

I have made this blog a personal mission to impart as much information about hops as I can in 1000 words. I have researched thoroughly to ensure I am not giving you duff information, but if you would like to know more about hops or almost any beer related subject, I suggest you purchase my main reference material ‘The Oxford Companion to Beer’ edited by the Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster Garrett Oliver.

References

* Hophead [definition via Wikipedia]
1) Someone who appreciates highly hopped beer.
2) Pejorative slang, an alcoholic whose drink of choice is beer.
3) An early 1900s American slang term for a user of Opium

** Alpha Acids ‘The Oxford Companion to Beer’ page 34
Found in the resin glands of hop flowers and are the source of hop bitterness. They are ‘rated’ by the amount of alpha acid as a percentage of the total weight of the hop

*** Hops ‘The Oxford Companion to Beer’ page 464

The Thatchers Arms has been serving beer since the mid 1800′s when the nearby Chappel Viaduct was built. The first full license was obtained by John Newman in 1863, however at an unknown date he sold the ‘Thatchers Public House’ to a Mr Downes. His wife Anne Downes was a registered brewer at The Thatchers around 1890, but once widowed she sold the pub to Greene King* in 1892, just five years after they had established themselves as a commercial brewer.

Anne Downes (*this is only a representation of Anne Downes)

Tom was keen to involve the brewing history of The Thatchers in the beer so we have named the brew Anne Downes Extra Special Bitter. We were aiming for a traditional Extra Special Bitter style, full and fruity with a lingering hoppy finish. Our beer won’t be quite as strong as those that Anne Downes might have brewed, but the navvies who built the viaduct didn’t have to drive home like you folks…

Toms traditional ethos doesn’t stop there, the beers he aims to brew, the brewing methods and even the yeast he uses are all researched meticulously and hark back in to British brewing history. He has returned to an old style of fermentation for his beers with a ‘double drop’ fermenting vessel and the yeast (purchased from a yeast Bank for no small sum) is an old Hook Norton strain, itself a Whitbread descendant, chosen especially as it should be suited to the unusual fermentation style. A double drop fermenter is a vessel in which the hopped wort (unfermented beer to you and me) and the yeast are placed for 12-18 hours before being literally dropped in to another vessel below where the rest of fermentation is completed before the beer is finished and ready for putting in to cask. This drop airates the beer and helps the yeast get to work whilst leaving the undesirable proteins in the original tank making for a more consistent and trouble free brew.

Colchester Brewery

After arriving at the brewery we got straight to work; pale, crystal, chocolate & black malts along with some torrified wheat were weighed out and put in the 10 barrel mash tun. While we waited for our beer to mash in we got to the hops. Tom had some Bouillion hops put aside for bittering and I got to choose the aroma hops, there was a bag full of Bodacia which I had previously used at Red Fox which got my sense of smell tingling, but the Boullion were so good we chucked a load of them in at the end of the boil too.

I must admit I had a particularly lazy day at Colchester, Tom even insisted on cleaning the mash tun out, usually a right of passage for guest brewers! Toms business partner Roger also treated us to a slap up lunch of bread, cheese, ham & pickles to which I added a bottle of beer from another brewer keen on historical recipes…

The Kernel Breakfast Stout

The Kernel Breakfast Stout 9.3%, an imperial coffee stout which had an almost vinous smell, it was deep dark brown with a tan head. The big bold malt flavours of coffee, chocolate and sweet fruits went beautifully with our cheese & pickled onions. You can try a similar beer, The Kernel Imperial Brown Stout at The Thatchers for yourself, although it’s not for the feint hearted at 9.8%.

*The pub was bought back from Greene King in 1977 and has been free of tie ever since.

Adnams Brewery

Apologies to Adnams as I really have dragged my heels writing this blog, I had a fantastic day; it was a real eye opener and the generous hospitality I received warranted a far swifter write-up of my experience and my gratitude. So here goes, better late than never…

On deciding that I would like to ‘brew’ as many beers as possible for our upcoming Beer Festival I sent a cheeky email to Head Brewer Fergus simply entitled ‘Longshot’. To my surprise Fergus replied very quickly with an invite to ‘help’ them brew their Diamond Jubilee Ale. It was to be an early start and he even managed to wangle me some accommodation for the night prior to our brew which gave Sarah & myself an opportunity to spend a rare evening away from the pub. We had a great evening in the Lord Nelson sampling a full range of Adnams beers and some excellent Fish & Chips finished off with an Adnams First Rate Gin & tonic-definitely worth a visit.

With my alarm going off around the same time as they started cleaning casks and racking in the building next door there was slim chance of attempting a snooze so a few minutes later I was in the Brewery yard meeting one of Fergus’ able assistants, Dan. I could already smell those wonderful sweet malt aromas, the unmistakable comforting smell of a brewery in action-I was gutted, it was7:30amand I’d already missed the start of the brew. After short introductions Dan gave me a quick tour while he explained that they were brewing three times that day, Adnams Broadside was already mashing in which was to be followed by our Jubilee Ale and then a run of Gunhill.

Relieved that I hadn’t missed anything to do with ‘my’ beer, I settled in to my first cup of tea while Dan explained the various computer screens which controlled the brewery.  Unlike smaller breweries they have the luxury of a Lautertun, this splits the job of the mash tun into two, freeing it up for another brew during the lengthy process of extracting the wort from the grain. Dan explained that the Jubilee Ale is an adaptation of the hugely successful Wedding Ale from last year. There is a blend of pale & cara malts, the hops have been substituted for the aptly named Sovereign. They have also managed to source 50% of the honey from Suffolk, the other 50% is Scottish Heather honey which was used last year. We set the computer up to start the brew by requesting the malts, which were crushed and added to the mash tun after the Broadside had been moved along to the Lautertun. While these two brews carried on monitored by the computer and us through the array of touch screens around the brewery, we set off to the lab to check the yeast.

Yeast is incredibly important in brewing and carries a lot of the flavour characteristics of  any breweries beer. Adnams in particular have a distinct ‘house’ flavour which is something they invest a lot of time & effort to protect. The Adnams yeast is actually two different yeast strains combined, with one more dominant than the other and every once in a while the balance has to be restored. This is achieved by propagating the recessive yeast separately and adding a dose to the yeast harvested from brewing as it is pitched into a new brew.  We checked the viability of the yeast under a microscope, checked the quantity of each strain of yeast and once Dan was satisfied, with a few calculations and a few buttons pushed, he set aside around 4 barrels of yeast for the Broadside brew.

In stark contrast to the day spent at Red Fox, there was little manual cleaning to do, every pipe is flushed & each vessel is automatically cleaned as they are emptied. This gave us a chance to pop over to the distillery office and see what they’d been up to.  The new season Limoncello was being bottled and from the cupboard under the sink came two dubious looking vibrant bottles of spirit, one bright green and one bright red.  The first was poured into a glass and water gradually added before it turned cloudy, Absinthe.  The second was also Absinthe coloured with hibiscus- it seemed rude not to have a quick taste before nipping back to the brewery… I seriously hope these make it to

Fermenting Vessels

general release as they really are quite stunning.

Back to the brewery and Broadside was in the kettle, Jubilee had moved to the Lautertun and Gunhill was being mashed in.  We checked a few gravities, put some yeast aside for the Jubliee beer, added hops to the dosing vessel and went to check on the brews already in the fermenting vessels. Whilst we were over there we had a special request to sideline some of the Adnams Broadside being pumped into a tanker to go off for bottling, we filled nine casks which were bound for Hadleys dairy (near The Thatchers) where Jane is making some delicious Broadside Ice Cream!

After the mornings brew of Broadside had been transferred into a fermenter we moved the Jubilee across to the kettle and popped over to the Solebay Inn for lunch while we waited for it to boil (I suspect this was a special treat for me). As the last mouthful of burger and last sip of Mild slipped down we got a call that it was time to put the honey into our brew, all 300kgs of it! There were 6 tubs of lovely runny heather honey which slid in beautifully when held over the steam from the kettle, however there were also around 8-10 tubs of thick, opaque, set Suffolk Wild Flower Honey (which tasted amazing by the way) more reluctant to slide quite so easily into a boiling vessel. Four of us wrestled with the tubs holding them as long as we could over the hot steam of our 100 barrel (28,800 pints) brew. With much effort, and after being covered head to toe in honey, we finally emptied all of the tubs, and while the beer finished the boil and was piped to FV33 I cracked open a bottle of something rather special for us all to share…

Schneider Weisse Nelson, a special 7% edition of the German Weisse beer hopped with Nelson Sauvin.  It poured a wonderful hazy golden hue, the colour and the nose were unmistakably Schneider; cloves, bananas followed in this instance with a gentle hint of citrus from the hops. As you’d expect from the Germans this is a precisely executed beer, beautifully balanced and although not the Nelson hop bomb most of us are used to with other beers, just enough, the perfect amount, to let you know this is different, special. This beer is a real treat and I know I wasn’t alone being disappointed when my glass was empty.

Me and the malt

Owner & Head Brewer Russ also kindly agreed to let me have some input into the beer I wanted to brew with him.  Knowing how good he is at brewing dark beers and how much he loves his hops, a few weeks before I visited I convinced him we’d brew his first Black IPA, admittedly a contradiction in terms, but a great style of beer nonetheless, and the name ‘Foxymoron’ seemed a perfect fit.

Black IPA Malt

Arriving at the brewery just before 8am, we got straight to work.  Russ had put a recipe together and the malt was already to go. Red Fox is only a 5 barrel brewery and we were doing a small 3 barrel run which required just a couple of bags of malt, mainly Pearl with some Wheat, Crystal, Chocolate & Roasted malt. We mashed in and set about the second brew of the day (a cuppa!). Normally a coffee man I was appeased after about an hour when we took the first runnings from the Mash Tun, almost jet black with a strong coffee aroma, it tasted like an espresso with about six sugars in it, a magnificent depth of flavour.

I did actually do some work...

Even with the exceptionally small amount of experience I have in brewing it is clear to me that about 90% of the time is spent cleaning, and as you can’t rush a good brew, there is always plenty of time to get it done. While we slowly transferred the jet black wort to the kettle, Russ and John flew around the brewhouse moving casks, washing casks, checking fermenters and making the tea while I tried not to get in the way…Aiming for a 4.5% beer with a hefty chocolate & roasted malt backbone, not too much bitterness but massive upfront aromas & a fruity flavour we added a mere 300g of Boadicea hops for bittering, we were waiting to add the additional 6kg of Chinook & Magnum aroma hops until near the end of the boil. I love hops, and I’m in my element when presented with bags full of  them, I can’t help rubbing them together, cupping my hands and taking a deep breath inhaling all the aromas from the freshly released oils. The Boadicea had a gentle sweetness and subtle spice with a hint of orange, the Magnum were more potent with a big hit of sweet passionfruit and then the smell of a freshly opened bag of Chinook filled the brewhouse, citrus, cut grass & lemongrass. It was starting to make me salivate, and luckily John came up trumps up just in time with a round of bacon sarnies.

Racking Red Fox Porter

With an hour wait for the boil we set about racking some Red Fox Porter (from which Russ had taken the yeast crop for our Black IPA), by now the sun was over the yardarm so I brought out a little something I’d picked up from the Sudbury Brewery Tap beer festival, co-incidentally some Otley Brewing Company Oxymoron (p.s. Sorry Otley, we genuinely hadn’t heard of this beer before we named ours).

This jet black beer is 5.5% with a caramel head, Otley used a specialist Carafa chocolate malt and no less than five big American hops with Chinook and Columbus at the forefront.  It’s a complex flavour with full-bodied roasted malt and a hint of chocolate, exactly what we were aiming for, a sweet malty start followed a big dry finish from the hops. A lovely beer, and great encouragement to get cracking with ours!

Fermenter Jack

Climbing up the ladder to the top of the kettle I poured the remaining aroma hops in to the boil, gave them a stir with the brewery oar and took a big deep breath as the smell of hops once again filled the brewhouse while we finished the boil and started to put the hot liquor through the hop back. We set about transferring into the newly refurbished fermenter ‘Jack’ and pitched the Porter yeast. A quick clean up around the brewhouse we were all done and back at The Thatchers for a couple of beers by 4pm.

The next time I see this beer it’ll be at the Beer Festival in May, for now I can’t stop thinking about what food I want to match it with… could be spot on with our lamb & chilli burgers or our smoked pigeon breast & black pudding salad, then again with a hint chocolate it might just be perfect with a triple chocolate brownie, the hops contrasting the rich toffee sauce… any other suggestions?