The BeerCast

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

Sadly, Doctor, I have a previous engagement to attend

We’re still in the midst of our strong beer protest month at the moment – but we’re going to waver very slightly for the next few paragraphs. This week sees the SIBA Great Northern Beer Festival take place in Manchester, and we’ll be there on Thursday and Friday – doing some judging, and drinking some beer. With that in mind, a session-strength preview post is needed to look at some of the good – not to mention new – things on offer.

Being a SIBA festival (run in association with Greater Manchester CAMRA) the majority of beers on offer will be well below the raised duty threshold. Having said that, the comprehensive beer list does include three entries over 7.5% – Cumbrian Croglin Vampire and Hardknott Queboid (both 8.0%), and Stringers Mutiny (9.3%) – we’ve sampled the Hardknott beer before, but will definitely try the other two if they appear during our time there.

We frequently bang on about festivals being a great chance to try something new – and this one does that in spades, being far from our tartan-decked homelands in the frozen north.* Having our hop-honed noses close to the grapevine (hopvine, surely) breweries such as Hawkshead, York, Daleside, Marble, Coniston and Dent have all featured on our BeerCasts at one time or another. But in a festival setting such as this, each will be bringing several of their range to try – e.g. Hawkshead NZPA (6.0%) and Coniston Infinity IPA (6.0%) – two must-try beers.

For me – and it may be the bloggerati gene talking here – it’s always the ultra-rare that jump off the beer list. Things from producers I’ve never heard of. In the same way as visitors from far afield to the Scottish Real Ale Festival head straight for something like Tin Pot Mango Pot (something even I’ve yet to experience), I’ll be after the likes of Hopstar Smokey Joe’s Black Beer (4%) and Milltown Slubber’s Gold (4.2%). Producers who bring only one beer – such as Old Bear Great Bear (3.9%) – are also compulsory in my book.

Other things I’m looking forward to include the beers from RedWillow and Offbeat breweries. The former have been winning rave reviews since ex-homebrewer Toby McKenzie took that brave step into production last year. The chipotle-infused Smokless (5.7%) sounds fantastic, as does his big IPA Ageless (7.2%). Offbeat were also founded in 2010, by Michelle Kelsall – who previously produced the wonderful Windie Goat beers in Ayrshire. Now re-branded in Crewe, hopefully they are just as good.

So plenty of things to look forward to – the festival takes place at the Ramada Picadilly in Manchester. Doors open at 4pm on Thursday the 27th, running until 10:30pm. It then opens 12pm-10:30pm Friday and Saturday. Entry is £3, which includes a £1 deposit on a tasting glass. We’ll be there on Thursday helping out with the SIBA judging, then all day Friday – including a special appearance with my bitter-loving father. Check back for reports on what happened just into the start of November. If you see me, come and say hi. Cheers!

*Even if I was born 35 miles from Manchester. As my dear old Nanna used to say – “Are you a Scotchman yet, Richie?”

SIBA’s GNBF Official website

Blogger, RateBeer legend and all-round philanthropist Craig Garvie recently returned from a short break to London. The above photo is what he picked up. I don’t know what’s in the carrier bag on the top step – maybe a packet of crisps or something…