Summer slips slowly away

 

Having struck gold last week at Lidl’s, I was not so lucky a week later at Aldi, the other German cost-cutter. Lidl had certainly turned trumps with their Wiesn-Tragerl 10 bottle, presentation pack, containing beers brewed to celebrate this special time of year in the calendar of beer lovers in both Germany, and increasingly in other parts of the world, as well.

Following on from my success with the Lidl’s packs which, according to seasoned bloggers, Boak & Bailey, was the cause of much excitement – hype, or hysteria amongst beer enthusiasts in Britain, thanks to social media allowing them to share an odd collective moment, I headed down to rivals, Aldi. This followed another couple of social reports I stumbled upon, including one from the Craft Beer Channel, indicating that Aldi were selling Paulaner and Erdinger Oktoberfest beers, along with Spaten Helles for £1.99 a bottle.

I’d missed the boat, or certainly most of it, as on Friday evening although Spaten Helles was still available, the offerings from Paulaner and Erdinger had already sold out. Oktoberfest is certainly proving a real hit, this year, here in the UK, and as if further proof was needed, son Matthew arrived home from Lidl’s laden with a number of typically Bavarian food items, all appropriate for the time of year. Last weekend we enjoyed some pork Schnitzels, and we've also chomped our way through several servings of Bratwurst. We've also got some of those spherical and spongy Bavarian potato dumplings Knödel, which we will have tomorrow served up with some goulash.

Finally, we have several tubs of Obatzda, a kind of soft cheese based on Camembert, but flavoured with various herbs and spices, forming the ideal beer garden snack. Matthew bought a sufficient quantity of this cheese to withstand a siege, but with a reasonably lengthy shelf life I'm sure it will all get eaten. As I say, Lidl’s certainly went to town with this year’s Oktoberfest celebrations.

Now some boring stuff. We had the boiler serviced yesterday, and it's hard to believe that it was a year ago that we had this new, and much more efficient model installed. The only thing that needs doing on that front now is to have the chimney swept, so that we can light the log burner. That won't happen until we return from our cruise at the start of the last week in October. We've also booked our Flu vaccinations for the end of next week. I think this will be the third year I've had this particular jab having never bothered until recently, but when I remember just how ill and debilitating flu can be, it's definitely worth it.

One of the other things I've done recently, is to join a beer club. The club in question is the Braybrooke Lager Club, operated by the Braybrooke Beer Co, a specialist lager brewery situated on Braybrooke Farm, just outside of Market Harborough. Founded in 2017 by three friends with the stated aim of making really good, proper lager. This is achieved through the use of state-of-the-art equipment, great care, and the best ingredients available. The result is a selection of unfiltered, unpasteurised, and naturally carbonated beers that have complexity whilst retaining the refreshing drinkability every great lager should have.

Members of the Braybrooke Lager Club receive a box of 12 bottles delivered free to their door every month. It is a mixed case of the brewery’s core beers (including their famous Keller Lager), specials and collaboration beers plus guest lagers. There are plenty of other brewing companies I could have supported, but I really liked what Braybrooke were doing so was quite happy to subscribe to the club. I should perhaps have read the small print, as the bottles are 330 ml size rather than the 500 ml I was expecting. Small matter said Mrs PBT's, if it's something you’re keen on, and you're going to enjoy the beers, then sometimes it's worth paying a little over the odds for something a bit special.

Moving on, and there’s bad news concerning yet another brewery closure, with the Wychwood Brewery, in Witney, Oxfordshire, the latest casualty. Wychwood’s flagship brand is the well-known Hobgoblin ale, although the brewery also produces beer for other companies. The current output is around 50,000 barrels a year, nearly all of it cask. Wychwood is also the United Kingdom's largest brewer of organic ales. The brewing plant is sited at the old Eagle Maltings which at one time produced malted barley for the nearby Clinches Brewery. Its current owner is the Carlsberg-Marstons Brewing Company, a multi-national giant formed by a joint venture between Carlsberg UK and Marston’s PLC, who are both shareholders.

Unfortunately, since their formation in 2020, CMBC have a track record of closing breweries, despite boasting of 300 years of shared values, history, and heritage in UK brewing. Jennings Brewery, at Cockermouth in the heart of the Lake District, closed last year, and back in June the closure of the Ringwood Brewery, in Hampshire was announced. Now Wychwood too, is due to bite the dust, with closure scheduled for November. The weasel words uttered by the chief executive of CMBC to excuse the closure of Wychwood, have been quite widely, but they are just that, platitudes and pathetic hand-wringing excuses from a company that has little or no interest in brewing ale, traditional, or otherwise.  I shan’t waste ink, or my time, by repeating them all here, although here’s a quick taste. “We can consolidate our brewing network to achieve greater efficiency and productivity supporting outgoing investment in our people and businesses.” The rest of this Orwellian themed double-speak is out there, all over the internet, should you desire to read it.

Moving on to books, and especially ones to read whilst away. "Cask – The real story of Britain’s unique beer culture," has just been published.  Written by respected London Pub Guide author, Des De Moor, Cask is a comprehensive, 334 page book about this country’s unique contribution to the world of beer. Within its pages, Des covers a wide array of beery topics, presented as a series of chapters with subject titles and a narrative about each. Strangely enough, Des turned up at the tour of Hukins Hops, I attended last year. One of the reasons he was there, was to gather further material for the book on Cask he was writing, so it will be interesting to see what he has to say about hops.

Veteran blogger Tandleman, gives a thoughtful, and well-balanced review of the book on his site, so it’s well worth taking a look, here. In the meantime, I have ordered a copy to take away and read on our forthcoming cruise, and I will let you know my thoughts, when I return. With the “C” season rapidly creeping up on us, Des’s book may well be the perfect present for the beer-lover in your life, so look out next month, and see what I have to say.