News Bits: Charity brew, Brew Dog Tokyo, Drunken Wizards

Here is some news, instead of writing about all the beer I've been drinking. I haven't tweeted for a few days, but rest assured my liver isn't getting any sort of break.

(We do not, under any circumstances, support Adult Kickball)

First, from Taking the Beard Out of Beer, the lovely Melissa Cole lets us know that a British Brewer has terminal prostate cancer and is using his remaining time to make beer to raise money for the nurses helping him back to health. I'm not sure I'll see this 7% Dark Mild before I leave, but I'll certainly bug my (temporarily) local landlords to get some in.

In related strong beer news, the UK is atwitter with BrewDog's latest concoction: 18.2% Imperial^3 Stout Tokyo*. Radio 4 talked about it on the evening news, and a variety of newspapers (RIP) and blogs want to talk about it too. BrewDog are, without a doubt, the future of British brewing. Interesting beers, revisions and perversions of the classics. They even make some traditional beers with lots more flavor. They've even got a video up about this and most other of their beers. I'm saddened but not surprised to be missing them at GBBF, being as they have the audacity to push the boundaries of UK beer beyond 8,000 varieties of Bitter.

(The above video is for regular Tokyo, the link in the text is for Tokyo*)

The controversy around the beer is that it is so high alcohol that it will cause more drunkenness. It is also 10 quid ($16) for a bottle, which contains six UK alcohol units. Ten pounds will also buy you 700ml of Smirnoff at most UK Sainsbury's and during the summer a bottle of Pimm's. Now, the 330ml of BrewDog is smaller than the 700ml bottles, but for less than the cost of the bottle you can get what we call a 'mickey' in the states, though it is understandably tantamount to calling sprinkles jimmies: terms that could be offensive if they weren't so antiquated and absurd. Mind, I thought the same thing about the last descendants of the teetotalers.



Where were we... oh right, bigots that aren't me. So your 10 pounds will buy you a 330ml bottle of Tokyo, at 18%ABV, a 375ml Mickey of Smirnoff at 40%ABV, or an entire 700ml bottle of Pimm's at 25%. That's 6 units for BrewDog, 15 units of Smirnoff or just under 20 units of Pimm's. Right. So clearly the beer is too strong, except, wait, for the same cost and bottle size you can get way drunker, for cheaper. Now, which will taste better? Expensive beer, NJ's favorite vodka (and finest cultural export), or some Pimm's? Now, I love the Pimm's, but the beer will be better. So for 10 pounds I'll get a great beer experience and still be able to walk home, unlike the young man below. The nanny state argument leaves something to be desired, and I agree that BrewDog won't be killing anyone, and certainly not any faster or cheaper than the spirit companies.



Our last news for the day, The Mad Fermentationist, a hero of mine in the homemade delicacies category, welcomes a new blogger. We can hardly contain our excitement!

Johnny Walker Employees Stand Up

It looks like the employees who are on the chopping block at Johnny Walker are now standing up, thanks to UNITE. The story is here, thanks to The Publican for pointing it out on Twitter. You can read UNITE's position here. James P. Hoffa and the teamsters are behind the union. The Scottish Government is also on their side. You can even find them on Facebook.

We are behind them too. Its a shame when companies leave their homes and roots for profit. We're always told the average drinker can't tell the difference between low-grade liquors and buy based on brand loyalty. Moving your low-grade, homogenized liquor away from its historic roots undermines this very brand loyalty. We wish the Scots well!

(This isn't Rasputin, and he'd give him a run for his money)

Ealing Beer Festival

Last week I went to the Ealing Beer Festival. It was pretty rad. Sure, I have some opinions on CAMRA, but they put on one hell of a festival. We went around 2pm, and it was mercifully slow, thanks in part to on-again, off-again rain showers. The festival had two tents arranged alphabetically. About 1/3rd of the beers were on the first day, so the selection was pretty good.

(It wasn't all dudes, I swear)

I decided to stick to milds and browns, mainly, as I can't find them as reliably in pubs as the bog-standard of bitters. We deposited for the half-pint glasses, and stuck to drinking nips (1/3rd of a UK pint, or roughly 6.6 ounces), for about 90p ($1.45). I started out with a mild as did my colleague. I had Marston Moor Brewing (Now part of Rudgate) Matchlock Mild. The beer presented dark brown, clear and with nearly no carbonation or head. The aroma was fairly strong, dominated by apple esters and some black patent roast notes. On the first taste there is a burst of flavor, especially Goldings hops and some carmel which adds sweetness and some solid chocolate roast. The flavor is still estery. It is medium bodied and sweet in the middle. The finish is pretty dry, with a hard punch of bittering, with added drying from the healthy amount of roast.

(This isn't Black Cat Mild in a Bottle, BJCP fans, this is the real stuff)

My drinking companion had Bazen's Black Pig Mild. This smelled of chocolate roast and had a tobacco note. It was very dark brown, almost opaque, with ruby/garnet highlights. Medium body, medium sweet finish, it was without an ester profile. The flavor was dominated by chocolate roast and had good hopping as well.

(Gravity Fed Casks with Glycol Cooled Jackets)

For our second round, my colleague moved onto Hanby Brewing's Cherry Bomb. It did what the label said, cherry nose and flavor. I had Spectrum Brewing's Trip Hazard. Aptly named for the strength, it was a very strong bitter. The nose was fruitful, with peach and pear notes and low levels of earthy hops. The flavor was sweet almost to the point of cloying, with a medium-full body but a cleansing finish that is medium sweet due to some residual sweetness remaining. This is a clear, copper brew.

(Trip Hazard on left, Cherry Bomb on Right, Lawsuits Forthcoming)

We went for round three with a pair of milds, shown above. I forget what he had, but I had Dark Star Brewing's Over The Moon (foreground). This wasn't as great as I had hoped, though it had a nice level of carbonation, good head stand and was black with ruby highlights again. The aroma was a good mix of apple esters, roast and chocolate with low levels of Fuggles. The flavor was bitter throughout with a very strong dry roast note. There was medium hop flavor and finished somewhat astringent, paired with a medium-light body. So, a bit over-hopped and over dry in my opinion, more like a black bitter than a mild.

(A pair of milds, delicately paired with Pork Scratchings)

And we retired to lunch at this point. The British aren't known for their cooking, historically being chided by the French for having Europe's best ingredients and worst cooks. But they do one thing right- stuff four days worth of inedible left overs into a pie, bake the jesus out of it and produce a hearty, pocketable meal. The wild boar and apple pie was fantastic. So was the steak and ale. What goes with beer? Piles of meat wrapped in butter and flour!

(Not Pictured: Dudes wearing "Sex, Drugs and Pies" shirts)

Back to beers. I followed up the lunch with what was labeled as a 'Victorian Porter,' Acorn Brewing's Old Moor Porter. I'd like to think this meant they made brown malt, didn't use roast and mixed three generations of porter into the barrel, but really think it means they added brewers licorice and gave it a vaguely racist name. A good beer though, and the most useful website of any English brewery I've been to. The boquet is almost coconut with roast, some hops, licorice and coffee. Black roast dominates the flavor, with some caramel notes, raisin like flavors (Crystal II anyone) and some plum esters. The flavor profile is sweet at start, has medium bitterness which adds to a medium-dry finish, with a clean aftertaste.

(At least they don't hang an actual head... anymore)

We had some more beers too (6 rounds, so tried 12 beers and consumed only 2 UK pints each). The twitter has the full notes. The Beartown Brewing's Polar Eclipse was a great example of an oatmeal stout, but I'll end by talking about the Grainstore Brewing Rutland Beast. A good brown ale, listed as 'strong' (5.3% ABV...), which I think is the beer pictured below. It had a malty nose with some coffee notes, no esters and some low earthy hops. The flavor was pretty sweet, with malt and some nice dark fruit esters and some medium low flavor hops (Not fuggles, but not sure what they were). This is a full bodied beer, approaching chewiness. I thought of it as a scaled down barley wine, more than a brown ale. It had a medium finish, which left you knowing you just had some beer, without being thirsty.

(This might be the Rutland Beast, it is certainly no Jersey Devil)

So, after only four hours, trying twelve beers and having pork both fried and in pie form, we took our leave. Had I been closer to Ealing, I'd have liked to go back 4 days later and try these again to see how they aged, as well as some other beers that looked good but weren't on yet. And leaving Ealing, I knew I was safe, because these guys were on patrol!

(Where the badger is the most deadly predator, the Meerkat could should be king)

Brewery Jobs: not all bad news.

Referring back to our earlier posts (here, here and here) on doomsday for liquor professionals... not all of the news is bad. While Johnny Walker consolidates, Brew Dog, also up in Scotland, are expanding. They've bounced their local government out of their offices to open more fementers, to open British hearts and palettes to more interesting and powerful flavors in their beers. [EDIT: THESE GUYS ARE SO BAD ASS THEY MADE A 1858 IPA RECIPE AND SENT THE BEER TO SEA FOR 2 MONTHS TO TRY AND GET IT RIGHT!]

This spirit can only do great things, British beers having gotten less creative as CAMRA has promoted a rather homogenous product. 'As long as its cask,' no breathers of course, (despite studies, by CAMRA, showing no difference) so if you can't sell a firkin (87 pints) in 5 days it'll be ruined. But remember to TOE THE LINE boys, image over substance, (dirty fucking 'Tabs). Grumble, grumble and that's another post.



And despite the cowardly running away of Iron City, breweries that have the stones to be interesting are hiring. Stone's looking for people, as is Dogfish head, both on Twitter no less.


The moral of the story, in a recession, business as usual might not do so well, but adventurous, interesting companies will be well poised to start an expansion. If you can't afford beer every day, that one special beer will be very important, and oh, look who's doing well.

(Above: The Brewers from Dogfish Head)

Cask Ale

I am a huge fan of cask ales. For the uninitated, cask ales undergo a secondary fermentation in the serving vessel (once a proper cask) and upon delivery to the site of dispensing are allowed to settle for a day, opened to the air and consumed within 5 days. Over the five days the beer oxidizes and rots, allowing for wierd complex flavors to develop. It is very much in the vein of some of humanity's finest foods and treats. As a wise man once said, "toeing the line between discoloration and dysentery is where real flavor lies." While he was talking about sourdough it is clear this occurs in beer as well.

So why do I bring this up? For a few reasons. The first is that I became acustomed to these beers while at what I'll call Stuffy University One in the UK. I was bemused at first by the hand pulled pints, but began to really enjoy them, once I got over the beer being stronger and larger than what I was used to drinking in the US. A longing for this kind of beer is why I started brewing, and something I hope to approach some day. There are a number of bars near me serving cask ales, but I'm left unfulfilled, which is what I'm going to go on about below.

A cask ale is not just any ale pulled by hand. Sure, its a great gimmick and a nice way, when done improperly, to sell me 2" of head on a beer. But cask ale is meant to be low carbonation with the addition of some air and life into the beer on the journey. True, in the North of England they use a sparkler and sometimes a swans neck, but never both. It makes a foamy mess. If I wanted a foamy mess I'd order a Schlitz (and the fridge is always well stocked). I want a beer with a little carbonation, that was designed for that and to age (or rot) well in the air. Too often I have what are fine beers on tap rendered lifelike by the gimick of the hand pull. For shame.

I wanted to get that off my chest. The best cask ale isn't even hand pulled, it is tossed out of a keg at around 55F. The next project here is to get some sort of cask system working in the apartment. We'll need to cheat and use some CO2 and possibly a cask breather. It will bring back many memories until I'm drooling into my sofa whilst the cat boxes my drunken ears.