The BeerCast

The beer list for this year’s SRAF is in draft form and still taking shape, but thanks to organiser Owen we managed to secure a sneak peak at what will be on offer in June. At the time of writing this preview, not every producer has confirmed their attendance, but hopefully this time there will be 41 different breweries present at the Corn Exchange – up from 37 last year, and 32 in 2010.

Scottish brewing really is in great shape – whilst the levels may reach critical mass at some point in the future, on this evidence there’s no sign of that happening yet. Another positive is that, for the first time, every brewer who sent beer along in 2011 will be doing so again this year. With five new producers slated to appear as well, it could be a great festival.

For that to happen, the venue will need to have a positive impact. Since the redevelopment of the Assembly Rooms, the SRAF needed a new home. Last year’s site at Adam House was hired through necessity, but proved – despite some hard work – to be wholly unsuitable. Long queues, multiple staircases, and a stifling temperature met with plenty of criticism.

For 2012, the festival has relocated to the Corn Exchange in Slateford – a much larger venue, which should give the organisers plenty of scope to make things work. It may not encourage walk-ins – but most people travel for good beer these days, and with plenty of options to get out to the area, it should be a huge improvement.

Of course, the big draw is the beer. If everything in the provisional list makes it, this time around will see a bumper selection of 184 on offer (up from 148 last time). Around a third of that is new beer, or beer that wasn’t on offer in 2011, as some of the larger producers shuffle their entrants. Top of the class are Highland, who have pencilled in eleven different beers (pretty much everything they make, I think).

Some of the festival’s rarer offerings include two must-try’s from Stuart McLuckie – his Dark Mild and American Style Porter are without doubt on my list. Black Isle Export Scotch makes another appearance, and Tempest will be bringing four beers – including the much-heralded Cresta Black). Lovers of wacky weirdness will, once again, be revelling over Tin Pot. No Marmalade beer this year, but ingredients include raspberry, rhubarb, ginger and five spice.

The new debutants for 2012 are Alechemy, Cromarty, Loch Lomond, Loch Ness, and Spey Valley. I’ve tried most of them – apart from the latter. Ex-Heriot-Watt graduate Stefan Masson has three beers on offer from Speyside (as does his classmate Craig Middleton from Cromarty). Alechemy are the nearest new brewer to Edinburgh, whilst Loch Lomond have four beers confirmed for the festival.

The best thing about beer festivals is taking a punt on the unknown. Broughton Willicade, Deeside Abhainn, Houston Slainte, and Sulwath Cuill Hill fit that particular bill for me. I’ll also be keeping a close eye on Ayr’s Dr Hornbook Blonde Stout, DemonBrew Redline and Barney’s Red Rye (from Edinburgh’s latest brewery – having recently relocated to the Meadows).

There will also be a few special beers on offer for the very keen, so be sure and get over to the Corn Exchange as soon as possible once the festival gets underway in the last week of June. As you can imagine, being our local festival the BeerCast will have it covered from every angle – check back daily for our reports on the beers, follow our live tastings on twitter (@thebeercast), and keep an eye out on Thursday for the Champion Beer of Scotland (CBoS) announcement, as once again we’ll hopefully be on the judging panel.*

The Scottish Real Ale Festival is this year being held at the Corn Exchange, New Market Road, Edinburgh from Thursday 28th June to Saturday 30th June. Opening hours are 12pm-11pm Thursday and Friday, and 12pm-9pm on Saturday.

Entry is £3 for CAMRA members, £5 for non-members, but keep hold of the glass given out and you can get free re-admission over the other days. As this is a preview, breweries and beers submitted may change – visit the official website to keep up with any amendments.

For more on what to expect at this year’s Scottish Real Ale Festival, our reports on the previous SRAF years are here – 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.

*will a mainland brewer take back the Champion Beer of Scotland prize in 2012? Last year, the shock victory for Skye Cuillin Beast meant the last non-island producer to win CBoS was Kelburn Cart Blanche, in 2006…

EDIT 11/05
The full beer list is now up on the official SRAF site – link

That pen is not mine, incidentally

Having never been to the Heriot-Watt Beer Festival before, I was told the sun always arrives for a scheduled appearance (making it the exact opposite of the Highland Show). Sure enough, the weather was glorious in Edinburgh yesterday, just in time for the 27th HWFest. They take their beer seriously out at Riccarton – the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling has sparked (or sparged) the careers of dozens of the UK’s best brewers (and, presumably, distillers). Each spring the Heriot-Watt Brewing Society hosts a charity beer festival, encouraging the students – and guests – to drink decent beer.

If you want an example of the way the beer scene is changing, then you only needed to have stumbled off the 25 bus yesterday afternoon. There must have been over a hundred students sitting (or sprawling) on the grass in the sunshine, enjoying the beer on offer. Every so often, they would go back inside for a refill, like a line of ants heading back to the cool nest. This was great to see, as was the enthusiasm of the volunteers helping out – although most of the punters seemed to know exactly what was on offer, and what they wanted.

In my day, the University I went to had a ‘real ale society’ that met in the ‘alehouse’ bar – i.e. the bar that only postgraduates used. Every Friday night, all of the other students would file past it without looking, on their way to the joys of the main bar downstairs. With hindsight, queuing three-deep for warm pints of McEwans 70/- (albeit at £1.20) wasn’t the way to go – although for all I know the ‘alehouse’ served exactly the same thing. I do remember venturing in there once and drinking Mickey’s lager, so that answers that question.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and the eager students at HW get to pick from a range supplied by forty breweries. Standing in line to have your hand stamped to prove you’re over 18 (a line which featured RateBeer king Craig Garvie – who looks like Frankie Boyle’s older brother) was a surreal experience, and one that also took me back (although at least now the ink from the stamps washes off – don’t try and be clever and get them to stamp your forehead – take it from me).

Once the tokens were acquired – in the shape of a red piece of card with tickable boxes for halves of beer – it was into the bar to see what was on offer. First up, Loch Lomond Kessog (4.5%), which had a fair bit of blackcurrant at first – followed by a vaguely sour aftertaste. Tempest Unforgiven (5.4%) was next, and once again proved another belter from Gavin in his borders dairy. We keep banging on about Tempest, and will carry on until someone listens. Are they the best brewery in Scotland at the moment?

Unforgiven contains Tempest’s signature NZ hop backbone, but true to form also involves a whole lot more – in this case, oak chips and dried juniper berries. How they get such a balance of flavour with ingredients such as that is beyond me, but they do it with everything they produce. Firstly, there was touch of berry fruit, before the smoke arrived – but not to huge Bamburg level, it was pitched just right – before the finish flicked into sloe gin-esque juniper dryness. Great stuff.

After that, it was on to the best beer from one of the best new producers in Britain – Summer Wine Teleporter. Our recent SW BeerCast also featured this one (their ten-malt porter), but I hadn’t had it on cask before. As expected, it was every bit as good as the bottled version. If a beer can be soothing, then this is just that – it’s like drinking alcoholic cocoa. Summer Wine have blazed a hop trail over Yorkshire, but for my money their non-hoppy beers are even better – with Teleporter the absolute pick.

Finally, I ended up with the festival special – Heriot-Watt Demon Dark Ale (6.6%). Produced by members of the HW Brewing Society, it was brewed at the Prestoungrange Gothenburg in conjunction with Dave Whyte of DemonBrew (read about the brew day here). We’ll be featuring Dave next week on the BeerCast (along with other local Edinburgh-area brewers), but it was great that the festival organisers got to head out and make their own beer – and for Dave too, as presumably he got to drink more cups of tea with his feet up.

It was the perfect way to round off the HWFest, dark and highly drinkable. Quite a heavy hit of molasses sweetness was well balanced by a touch of citrus from the Pacific Gem hop. There was chocolate in there as well, and the whole thing finished very nicely. Dave brought three casks of it along, and I’m guessing that it went pretty quickly (although I believe Tempest Citra was the first to go). After that, it was back for the bus and home to scrub off the fact that my right hand was informing the world I am actually over 18.

The 27th Annual Heriot-Watt Beer and Cider Festival continues today (Friday 23rd March) from 12pm to 11pm, at the Heriot-Watt Student’s Union, Riccarton Campus. Check here for more information. Many thanks to Stewart and the team at the Society for the invite.

This week sees the beginning of one of the more keenly anticipated ten-day periods in Edinburgh – the start of the Bow Bar’s annual winter beer festival. From Thursday the 26th the famed Aitken tall founts will be dispensing (via air-pressure) a range of specially invited cask ales, with several kegged beers also appearing. With very probably only a single barrel of each arriving, be sure to keep an eye out for the Bow’s (twitter feed) as new beers come on.

For the uninitiated, the Bow Bar is one of Scotland’s best pubs – a classic, one-room, mirror-lined drinking house. No music or other distractions (unless the rugby’s on), and with literally several hundred whiskies to go for if a nip towards oblivion is required – it’s simply a must-visit if you find yourself in the city. Even if you’re normally a fan of lively pubs with plenty going on, the Bow is all about the drink – and everyone can agree on that, surely?

So what to sample? Looking at the beer list, fans of the hair-curlingly strong stuff (i.e. BeerCasters) will be delighted – in no particular order there should be Highland Old Norway (9.0%), Brodies Superior London Porter (7.3%) and Hoxton IPA (6.6%), Magic Rock Cannonball (7.4%), Fyne Ales Sublime Stout (6.8%), Orkney Skull Splitter (8.5%), Williams Profanity Stout (7.0%) and Thornbridge Yule (7.4%). There’s an afternoon to savour.

Some rare Scottish beers that will certainly be interesting include Stewart Brewing’s Chilli Reekie (6.2%), Broughton Winter Fire (4.2%), and Cairngorm’s German-style rye beer Roggen (4.3%) – all are certainly worth a punt. Cairngorm’s new neighbours Loch Ness Brewing have three ales down on the list, so look out for those. Also it’s heartening to see that Demon Brew at the Prestongrange Gothenburg have resumed production after the tragic death of Roddy Beveridge, with their classic Porter.

From further afield, the new and unusual (which for me is always the best thing about beer festivals) include the Liverpool Craft Beer Co with their 3.8% pale ale Icon, Allendale’s Winter Dunkel (4.6%), and Box Steam’s Funnel Blower Vanilla Porter (4.5%). I’ll also be after Redemption’s kiwi hop-packed Big Chief (5.5%), and the style-bending Ossett Indian Winter Ale (5.0%).

Oh, and Highland brewing’s Bow-exclusive 3.9% citra beer – called simply Citra…

The Bow Bar’s winter festival runs from Thursday 26th January to Sunday 5th February 2012. Check their Twitter feed for up to date information, or their website for directions. We’ll be posting the best of the beers on offer after the festival ends (or maybe during, if there are that many)…

Following the serious business of judging at last week’s SIBA Great Northern Beer Festival, the next visit was all about sampling the many beers on offer. Returning for a second day – the outside of the Mercure Piccadilly now sporting several identifying posters – I brought along my bitter-loving father to give him a taste of what beer festivals are about. Despite being something of the booze-hound, he’d never been to one before, so it was high time that was put right.

As the whole thing was under-written by SIBA, there were several unusually luxurious beer festival touches – such as carpets, and plenty of seating. Even better, a new, fresh glass every time you went up to the bar. I’m sure this must happen at other festivals, but for me it was a revelation – no toilet rinsing trips! Pouring your undrinkably hazy golden ale away next to someone draining theirs in a different manner isn’t exactly fun. With clean glassware, no need!

64 handpulls on the bar – there wasn’t going to be a shortage of things to try – and having travelled down from Scotland into a different region, many of the breweries were unfamiliar to me, or even totally new. Saddleworth’s Greenfield Brewery, for example. Their Pots n Pans golden ale isn’t even on RateBeer – it tasted pretty good, quite lemony and dry. Far too fruity for my Dad, who was busy ploughing through the best bitters – Wincle Sir Philip, and Southport Carousel.

Peerless Skyline and Bushy’s Manx Pride were next for him, as we piled on through the programme at a fearsome pace. Not quite at the pace of Shovel’s old man – who I once witnessed put away four pints of John Smiths within an hour and still look as if he needed more – but impressive nonetheless. I’d moved onto stronger things, like the wonderful RedWillow Ageless (7.2%) and Saltaire Stateside IPA (6.0%).

The festival was in full swing at this point, I’d found another of my beers of the day in the shape of Concertina Bengal Tiger – and my Dad was suspiciously describing a strong IPA I’d just bought as ‘stoat’s wee’ (one of the lesser-known elements of the flavour wheel). We’d even built our own pies, combining a pastry case with a ‘hot slop of your choice’ and mash, studded with pickled onions. Awesome stuff. Particularly when paired with Kirkstall Black Band Porter.

Taking my cue from this – and also from a group of stout-drinking Liverpudlians who’d joined our table – I moved onto the darker beers. Having judged eleven of them the day before, chances are I’d had most of them before, of course. Bollington Oat Mill Stout slightly edged out Bushy’s Oyster Stout in terms of flavour, as it had a few more hops in evidence to balance out the roasty malt. Speaking of balance, my Dad was still on an even, bittery keel, rounding things off with the 3.7% Beartown Best Bitter.

With that, we thought it best to wobble back to the station and face the music when we got home (although I have promised to take my Mum to the next SIBA Gin festival, if such a thing exists). Many thanks to SIBA for hosting the event, CAMRA for providing the staff and sorting out the cellar, and the person who invented the concept of building your own pies. My beer of the festival? RedWillow Ageless. My Dad’s? “They all taste the same.”

Oh – we were also joined at our table by a young couple with a twelve-week old baby, who were directed to the ‘family area’ that they couldn’t find. The festival punters who were sitting at our neighbouring table, then left after a couple of hours – great work for hiding the family area sign, just so that you could get a seat. Morons.

Judging at beer festivals is always a good day out – it’s a chance to meet new people and put your tastebuds to the test. It also makes you seem important,* and you get to eat unlimited amounts of Jacobs crackers. We rank beers all the time – either on our BeerCasts, on RateBeer or wherever – but there’s something about sitting round a cloth-bedecked table with total strangers that makes it all seem far more important. Not that our BeerCasts aren’t important, obviously.

After having judged a few competitions in our native Scotland, I realised I was going to be in my native England during the SIBA Great Northern Beer Festival, held in Manchester in association with the Greater Manchester branch of CAMRA. A quick email to the lovely folks at the vaguely sinister sounding SIBA Secretariat “That golden ale in your hand is quite poisonous enough, Mr Bond”, and it was off to Cottonopolis with freshly printed venue instructions in hand.

The SIBA Northern Regional finals were held before the festival opened in the afternoon (and a review of the beers involved will follow in a couple of days, so check back soon). Both were hosted by the newly re-branded Mercure Picadilly in the centre of the city. Following their recent acquisition of the hotel from Ramada they clearly hadn’t the money for a decent sign, as I walked past it three times before finding my way in.

Once done, the judging started – I was down for the Porters, Strong Milds, Old Ales and Stouts category (PSMOAS). As you can see from the photograph, the classic issue with these beers is quantifying a score for ‘Appearance’ (each of those above is different, by the way). But that aside, the eleven sampled on our table had a number of stand-outs. I love dark beers, and on a rainy late-October morning they were the perfect comforter.

The category complete, and a few new friends made – it was a round off as the competition moved along a level. Milling around for an hour as others drink beer is bad enough, but watching people ostentatiously hold beers up to the light and take extra sniffs (which is what I do, at least) is even worse. Thankfully I had met up with Hardknott supremo Dave Bailey, and fellow blogger Christopher_R (of the Ormskirk_R’s), so the time fairly flew by.

It was then back to judging, and the always unfortunately-named ‘Standard Bitters’ section. As the third tier of the competition, a lot of the poorer-scoring beers had been weeded out, so the six we had to score were all extremely good. As before, a couple were really fantastic – perfect for easy drinking, yet with plenty of hop character about them. It was a tough job though, having kept samples of each I went back a few times to amend some scores.

That done, the highest-scoring beers from the third round went into the final, and the hard work continued for judges luckier than myself. Still, the festival had opened at that point, so having completed our duty it was time to wander over to the 64 handpull-laden bar and get started. After a couple of hours the results were in, and the assembled brewers meandered to the front to discover their collective fate.

The full list of winners is here, but the champion PSMOAS was Ossett Treacle Stout – which although I couldn’t identify during the heat (as all beers were sampled anonymously, of course), I was very pleased to hear – I remember having a tremendous pint in the Red Lion, York. Other worthy winners included RedWillow Wreckless in the Premium Bitters, and Dave Bailey was delighted with a Silver in the Premium Strong Beers for Infra Red.

Then the overall winner was announced. In third place – local heroes Marble with their Marble Bitter (I really need to visit the Marble Arch soon). Second overall, a Blackburn producer – Three B’s Stoker’s Slake. The overall SIBA North Champion turned out to be Hawkshead Windermere Pale – the heat winner from the Standard Bitters category I’d just judged. A great result – proving that ‘Standard’ beers can indeed be special.

Thanks to SIBA for the invitation – we’ll be turning our hand to judging once again in three weeks time, as the SIBA Scotland region bottled beers come round again. Many thanks to the various people we caught up with in Manchester – Tandleman, Christopher_R, Dean from Mr Foley’s, fellow bloggers Leigh and Rob. Check back in a couple of days for our next post – the festival, and the beers we got to sample.

*if only for a few, fleeting moments before resuming the crushing pointless monotony of your regular existence