The BeerCast

Back for more at the GBBF, after yesterday with a better idea of what to expect and what to go for. One major change was the number of people, apparently 19,000 visitors in a single day - far, far more busy than the previous day. Great news for CAMRA, less good for us thirsty punters, but the queues weren’t really that bad. Joining me for this session was Mark, BeerCast deputy for the day and committed hater of anything with a bitter aftertaste. Anyway, on with the sampling…

1. Pictish Brewer’s Gold (3.8%) Lancashire

As yesterday the first beer to start with should be something lightly hoppy to get the palate adjusted - perfect time to try Rochdale brewery Pictish’s Brewer’s Gold - a classic British summer ale, with slight nuances of hops, malt, and bitterness. So it proved, it was fantastically well-balanced with that fruity hoppiness up front and a delicate backbone of malt. I could have drunk this all night, to be honest.

2. Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest (6.7%) California

As with the previous day the number of American cask ales on offer was pretty disappointing (but to be expected given the logistics, I guess) - but seeing one I’d been waiting to try for a while, I went straight for it. Chico’s Sierra Nevada have been featured several times on the BeerCast, but not the newest addition to their seasonal harvest range - Southern Hemisphere Harvest. Made with Pacific Hallertau, Motueka and Southern Cross hops all sourced from New Zealand, this is a fresh hop ale for the spring (as hops are normally harvested in Autumn). But the Southern Hemisphere has just been through Autumn, so the hops are at their freshest. You pick this up in the flavour, after a mild hop start they increase wonderfully in the aftertaste. The beer is a lovely dark caramel colour, and it doesn’t really taste 6.7%, so this great beer could sneak up on you.

3. Welton’s Pride ‘n’ Joy (2.8%) West Sussex

The next beer was slightly different - but it had also intrigued me in the pre-festival beer list. Welton’s Pride ‘n’ Joy is deliberately brewed at only 2.8% but according to the brewer is ‘consistently thought to be 4.0%abv in tastings’. It’s a great idea, but on tasting I’m not sure if they have pulled it off, as it tasted very weak and insipid, with no aftertaste at all. However, this could have been down to the Sierra Nevada previously, but I’m not sure if it could have been mistaken for 4% as there was no taste upfront or afterwards. It was refreshing though, and would be nice outside during summer.

4. Jersey Mary Ann Christmas Ale (4.8%) Channel Islands

As I keep banging on, beer festivals are about trying new things - although it can backfire as Mark discovered trying a beer he judged to have an aroma like “a stagnant canal”. That wasn’t a Jersey beer though, but as I’d never sampled anything from the Channel Islands before I decided to go for their Christmas beer. Somewhat incongruous for a rainy August night, but the promised ‘Christmas pudding taste’ sounded interesting. Apparently it features currants, spices, raisins, orange zest and sultanas - which maybe explains the mixed tastes going on. It tasted a bit confused, slightly roasty, a bit malty, some fruityness - but sadly I couldn’t detect any of the special added ingredients. It was nice though, just not very Christmassy.

5. Backyard Brewhouse Nipin (4.6%) Staffordshire

Walsall’s Backyard Brewhouse had only one beer at the festival - Nipin, their flagship 4.6% American-style Pale Ale. That description sold me on the spot, even without the suggested crisp citrus tastes. Mark had already tried arguably the greatest American Pale Ale in the world - Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (his first time ever, too), so I was keen to have a go at a British attempt. It was slightly hazy and very dry, with a nice hoppy zing coming through. Not much citrus though, but it was a very good beer indeed.

6. Lancaster Black (4.6%) Lancashire

Always finish on at least one stout, so the final beer I tried was Lancaster Black, from the brewery named after it’s home city on the River Lune. Like Backyard, this was the only one of their beers on offer at the GBBF, with a coffee smell and soft dark chocolate taste. This was pretty much exactly what I picked up, it fell firmly towards the chocolate end of the spectrum on the palate. Smooth and very well executed, an extremely drinkable stout - definitely one for the coming Autumn months.

That was it, the end to the BeerCast’s first GBBF adventure. Beer of the second day was Pictish Brewer’s Gold, with a very tough choice between it and yesterday’s Marble Lagonda IPA. I think on balance the IPA would come out on top, however. The CAMRA tasters voted for their beer of the festival on Wednesday, picking Yorkshire brewery Rudgate’s Ruby Mild as the 2009 Champion Beer of Britain. Congratulations to them, and to CAMRA for the success of the festival - and we hope to pay another visit next year.

The GBBF is Britain’s largest beer festival, and as soon as you step through into the main hall at Earl’s Court you can see why. As mentioned in our previews last week, it’s the sheer scale that makes this a step up from any other festival – hundreds of beers, dozens of bars, thousands of silly hats. It’s very tough to know where to start – so as with other beer festivals a random pick is always good, something to drink while concentrating on the epic programme to pick what to have next.

1. Funfair Dive Bomber (4.6%) Derbyshire

Always a good idea to start with a golden ale, to appreciate the delicate hop aromas and flavours before the stronger things take over. Dive Bomber is certainly golden and subtle – maybe too subtle for me, there’s not much zing there. It’s certainly refreshing for a hot day, which it was outside. A light one to start with.

2. Cains IPA (3.5%) Merseyside

Liverpool’s Cains Brewery were one of the many larger producers who had their own bar at the festival. I’m a fan of their other beers, but had not tried their IPA until I wandered past and decided to give it a go. For a start, it’s copper-coloured, and is very creamy. Very little – if any – hops come through at all. It tastes like a canned bitter rather than an IPA.

3. Salopian Shropshire Gold (3.8%) Shropshire

Salopian are a Shropshire brewery that are new to me, so I decided to go for another light golden ale when I passed the ‘Mid-West England’ bar. The printed tasting notes describe an ’unusual blend of body and dryness’ - and they are right. There was a very dry spicy elderflower taste to it, with a subtle but noticeable finish of ginger. Very nice, and very refreshing.

4. Cricket Hill Colonel Blides ESB (5.5%) New Jersey

After the excitement of writing the International beer list preview, the American bar was something of a disappointment. Only half a dozen beers on tap, with a big queue for a fridge of bottles. Not to worry, I went for one of the kegged ales in the form of an ESB from the Cricket Hill Brewery in Fairfield, New Jersey. It was totally flat, but tasted good – plenty of malt and a little hop to back it up, nothing really overpowering (to be expected at a restrained 5.5%), although having said that the mild flavours didn’t give away much alcohol. Could be dangerous on a session, this one.

5. Marble Lagonda IPA (5.0%) Manchester

Time for another IPA – and I managed to find one I had been looking for since the beer list was published on CAMRA’s website. Manchester’s Marble Brewery put a quadruple addition of hops into Lagonda IPA, and you can certainly tell. Dark, strong golden colours and a similarly strong taste, almost hints of Camembert cheeseyness at the end. Very good indeed, the hops really sing from this.

6. St Austell Black Prince (4.0%) Cornwall

To finish, a darker offering – Cornwall’s St Austell brewery put out some great beers indeed, so an unknown dark mahogany bitter sounded good. It was really well balanced, as you’d expect from St Austell, some molasses sweetness and roasty malt. It was pretty hoppy, too – and I was searching for ages what the aftertaste reminded me of, until I came up with it – sugared tea.

On that note, maybe it was time to finish. Beer of the day – Marble’s Lagonda IPA. T-Shirt of the day - Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder. We’ll be back at Earl’s Court for more GBBF fun tomorrow. Tune into our Twitter feed (@thebeercast) for live updates, and check back here later for a report.

Sierra Nevada will have a wide range of their beers available

Following on from last week’s preview of the domestic ales on offer at the upcoming Great British Beer Festival, the Global beer list has also been released by CAMRA. This provides another few hundred choice brews to tempt a thirsty punter, keen to sample things from far and wide. For example, there are beers from Sri Lanka - Ceylon Breweries Lion Stout (8%), Jamaica – Desnoes & Geddes Dragon Stout (7.5%), and Spain – Los Aguillones Pura Pale (5%). The last of these is an English-style pale ale brewed near Barcelona, and certainly sounds worth checking out, as do the two other strong stouts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there are more ‘English-style’ ales on offer besides the Pura Pale – many from over the Atlantic. Moat Mountain’s Moat Brown Ale (5.4%) is a British-style Brown Ale with caramel maltiness that makes it sound almost Scottish. Salem Beer Works Bay State ESB (5.5%) was brewed with British yeast and Burtonised water, and Gardner Ale House’s Facelift IPA (6.3%) stems from a traditional English recipe, using native UK hops. East Kent Goldings are a prime ingredient in Gritty McDuff’s Best Bitter (4.9%), which sounds a must-try for a bitter-loving Northerner like myself.

There are many American ales on offer – which for me means zappy hop-filled IPA’s, and quiveringly strong unusual beers. IPA’s are well represented - for example Ballast Point Big Eye IPA (7%) from San Diego, Amherst Seeing Double IPA (6.6%), and Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA (7.4%) all sound really tempting. As does Lagunitas IPA (5.7%), from the Californian town of the same name, as it apparently contains 43 different hops and “65 various malts”. Stronger offerings can be found from Dogfish Head – their Palo Santo Marron is a 12% brown ale aged with Paraguayan wood and organic sugar. Allagash’s Interlude is a 10.5% saison fermented with Brettanomyces yeast, and Victory V-Twelve (12%) is an amber ale with hints of pear and apricot in the flavour.

There are many European beers available too, such as a healthy selection from the rapidly increasing Italian real ale market. 32 Via Dei Birrai Oppale (5.5%) is a cloudy IPA with a dry bitter finish of chives, Grado Plato’s Strada San Felice is an 8% chestnut beer, and Ducato Verdi (8.2%) is an imperial porter spiced with red chilli. Also sure to be on many people’s wishlists is Torrechiara Divina (5.5%), Italy’s first, and so far only, spontaneously fermenting Belgian-style lambic. They aren’t shy about trying unusual combinations, it seems – another example being the wonderfully named Revelation Cat Woodwork Series Reference (11%), which combines New Zealand hops, Munich malts, and champagne yeast.

As with the British beers though, given a limited time (and capacity) it’ll be the unusual or rarer beers that might be worth seeking out – assuming they remain long enough for you to find them. Budweiser Budvar Krouzkovany Lezak (5%) sees a rare appearance of the yeast lager from the Czech giants, which is almost never seen outside of fifty select Budvar outlets in their home country. Widmer Brothers Drifter Pale Ale (5.7%) is brewed with a newly released variety of hop – Summit – apparently known for it’s intense citrusy aroma and flavour, which is probably why it would appeal to the American craft beer industry. And us BeerCasters too, of course – check back during the first week of August to catch our reports, or follow us on Twitter for live updates.

Our live Twitter Updates will return at the GBBF

Our recent trip to the Scottish Real Ale Festival produced a lot of new and interesting surprises – even though it was our third consecutive year there – underlining why we love going to those kind of events. However, as much as we like experimenting with the output of Scottish brewers, there’s a much, much, larger gathering taking place down south at the start of next month. The Great British Beer Festival is being held at London’s Earls Court from the 4th to the 8th of August – and the BeerCast will be there.

We’re certainly looking forward to it - over 450 real ales, ciders and beers from around the world will be untapped for our pleasure, which is an astonishing number. The domestic beer list was recently put online, giving the prospective attendees a chance to mentally construct a battle plan. And a plan is certainly needed, as there are 26 bars to navigate – a step up from the two at the Scottish festival. That’s only domestic ales too, GBBF has dedicated areas for sampling European and global beers that rarely make it to our shores. The Belgian list alone could take you a couple of days to get through – look out for our global GBBF preview next week.

It’s nice to see plenty of beers on offer that we’ve sampled and scored here on the BeerCast. Examples include Wickwar Cotswold Way (4.2%), Harvey’s Tom Paine (5.5%), and York’s Centurion Ghost Ale (5.4%). The hefty Exmoor Beast (6.6%) scored 73% in our SouthWest special, which also featured Hogsback TEA (4.2%) and St Austell Tribute (4.2%) – the latter still in our top four highest-scoring beers of 2009, and so in line for our Beer of the Year show in December. Our reigning BOTY will also be there – Hopback Summer Lightning (5%), along with their Entire Stout (4.5%), which we have also featured. A personal favourite of mine will be there too - Cain’s Fine Raisin Beer (5%) divided opinions when we tried it, and it will be interesting to try on cask rather than bottled.

Of course it’s sampling new beers that becomes the real joy of attending beer festivals, and with the beer list running into the hundreds there are plenty of things we’ve never heard of that will be out there. Names like Townes Pynot Porter (4.5%), Langton Inclined Plane Bitter (4.2%) and Jarrow Rivet Catcher (4%) really stand out. We have tasting notes, but nothing more to go on. Concertina Bengal Tiger (4.5%) is an aromatic amber ale, Spectrum Black Buffle (4.5%) is a Norfolk stout named after the brewer’s cat, and Butts Barbus Barbus (4.6%) could be just about anything. Cwrw Eryri (3.6%) is a golden bitter from the Purple Moose Brewery in Gwynedd - the name translates as Snowdonia Ale, for the non-Welsh speakers. There are some beers that tell you exactly what to expect however – such as Green Jack Orange Wheat (4.2%) from Suffolk, or the lengthily-titled North Cotswold Vanilla Bumble Beer (4.5%) and Little Valley Organic Fair-Trade Ginger Pale Ale (4%).

The choice is bewildering. I’m a fully paid-up IPA fan, so should I go for Marble Lagonda IPA (5%) from Manchester, with it’s quadruple addition of hops – or Red Squirrel’s White Mountain American IPA (5.4%) with five specialist malts? What about Grain Tamarind IPA (5.5%) from Norfolk? Or Durham Magnificat (6.5%)? What about all of them? I may even finally get to sample Falkirk’s Tryst Brewery Raj IPA (5.5%), which was the potential highlight of the Scottish festival, but was never delivered. Golden Ales are present in abundance too – Conwy’s Clogwyn Gold (3.6%), Cheddar Pot Holer (4.3%) and Funfair Dive Bomber (4.6%) all sound tempting, not to mention Lancashire producer Pictish’s Brewer’s Gold (3.8%). Multi award-winning Purity will be there too, with Pure Gold (3.8%).

There are beers hailing from points far from our Scottish base, such as Wooden Hand Black Pearl Stout (4.5%) from Cornwall. Okells Red (4.7%) comes from the Isle of Man, Hilden Scullion’s Irish (4.6%) from County Down, and there are even beers from Guernsey – Randall’s Patois Amber Ale (4.5%) is brewed about as far away from Edinburgh as you can get. There are several unusual beers that I’ll be seeking out, like Welton’s Pride ‘n’ Joy, which is a full bodied beer deliberately brewed to 2.8% to avoid the pitfalls of alcohol. Dunham Massey’s Chocolate Cherry Mild (3.8%) and Bartram’s Cherry Stout (4.8%) have their extra ingredient revealed upfront, but there are secretive tipples such as Abbeydale’s Matins (3.6%) from South Yorkshire, which uses muesli in the brewing process. Maybe that’s one to start with just after breakfast - it’s going to be a long haul.

The Great British Beer Festival opens on Tuesday the 4th of August at 5pm, running to 10.30pm. It then opens 12-10.30pm Wednesday to Friday the 7th, before finishing off on Saturday 8th 11am-7pm. Tickets are available online or at the door, at between £6 and £10.

GBBF Official Website
Domestic Beer List

Grooben checking the beer list

Another day, another day at the beer festival. We returned to the Assembly Rooms for a second helping of the best of Scotland’s real ale, eager to see what else we could discover. The beers were pretty much the same as the day before, so we fired straight into the list sampling ones that had caught our eye from the Friday. The first beer I went for was the weakest in the entire festival - the traditional Scottish mild, Belhaven 60/- (2.9%). Brewed to a very old recipe, it was characteristically light and roasty. Milds always taste to me like watered-down porters, and this one was no exception. But as a delicate starter beer, it was a nice subtle start to the proceedings.

Next up it was the newest beer from Edinburgh’s other producer, Stewart’s Edinburgh Marathon Ale (4.2%). This family-run brewery from Loanhead make some great beers such as Pentland IPA and Edinburgh Gold, both of which were also at the festival - but Marathon was one I’d yet to sample. It was a very drinkable malty session bitter in the - dare I say it - ‘Northern style’. There was a touch of sweetness to it as well, which came through in the aftertaste. After that, I went for one I was looking forward to from the preview list - Plockton’s Starboard IPA (5.1%). One of Scotland’s smallest breweries, they are attached to the Plockton Inn in the Ross-shire village of the same name, and started up in 2007. Starboard is a strong hoppy IPA with a fantastic dry bitterness. It was pretty cloudy stuff, but that didn’t affect the taste at all - it was superb.

Beer four was one that was also highly rated - it had just been awarded the Champion Beer of Scotland for 2009, decided on the previous day. Sinclair Orkney’s Raven Ale (3.8%) won the top prize, becoming the third consecutive champion beer from that group of northern islands (following 2008’s Scapa Special and 2007’s Dark Munro, both from the Orkney Brewery). Their neighbours Sinclair Orkney did very well indeed this year, picking up second overall as well with Red MacGregor (third placed was Caledonian XPA). Raven had a sweet smell and taste, which was predominantly fruity with a growing biscuit aftertaste. It was nice, and certainly improved as you drank it, but for me there were better beers on show this year.

For example, Fyne Ales Vital Spark (4.4%) is a dark ruby ale with so much fruit in the malt it almost tastes of blackcurrants. The hops come and go, and the richness of flavour give it a great lasting finish. It’s fantastically drinkable, and a prime example of a session beer that isn’t pale and slightly hoppy. However, we learned at the festival about the sad death of Fyne Ale’s co-owner Jonny Delap. It was only a couple of months ago that we met him on a trip to Cairndow in Argyll to pick up some beers for a long weekend - he was such a friendly man and will be sadly missed.

The last beer I tried in the festival was Hillside/Deeside’s Broichan (5.2%). After thinking very highly of their Nechtan yesterday, the Broichan was just as interesting, although very different. A strong Scottish ale, this was fruity but not like Vital Spark - more pruney than blackcurrant. There was a smokiness to it as well - the tasting notes suggested it would be a “perfect beer for fireside drinking with cheese and oatcakes”. I don’t think you can argue with that, it was even pretty good when drunk around a rickety table on a Friday afternoon.

So that was it, another Scottish Real Ale Festival over. We managed to get through a huge amount of differing ales, with various degrees of success. The overall winners might have been Raven Ale, Red MacGregor and Caledonian XPA - but for us the standouts were Windie Goat’s Gutter Slab, Hillside/Deeside’s Nechtan, and Plockton’s Starboard IPA. We’ll hit the festivals again at August’s Great British Beer Festival in London. See you there…