A Walk in the Weald

Last Saturday myself plus a few CAMRA colleagues visited a part of the West Kent branch area that we don't normally get out to. We caught the 297 bus out from Tunbridge Wells, alighting in the village of Brenchley. From here it was a short pleasant walk to the tiny hamlet of Castle Hill. On the way we were rewarded with some spectacular views across the Weald towards the Greensand Ridge. Everything looked resplendent in the late September sunshine.

Castle Hill is home to the Castle Inn, a free-house that serves Adnams Bitter and Harveys Best. It is perhaps a slightly up-market village local, but none the worse for that. What's more although it's probably been the best part of 20 years since I last visited the pub, it doesn't seem to have changed much. Our only grumble was the food, as the portion sizes didn't quite match the up-market prices!

Leaving the Castle Inn we walked the short distance to the next village. Horsmonden was once the centre of the Wealden iron-making industry, and this is evident from some names like Furnace Pond and Furnace Lane that can be found in the locality. Horsmonden is centred around an attractive village green. It still boasts several local shops, including a Post Office, and also still has two pubs. (There used to be three, but the Kings Arms closed a few years ago.)

We first visited the Highwayman, a two-bar Shepherd Neame pub. Regular readers of this blog will know that Shep's isn't my favourite beer by a long chalk, but giving credit where it's due the beer in the Highwayman was excellent. Instead of the usual offerings of Master Brew and Spitfire, Canterbury Jack and Kent's Best were the beers on sale. I didn't try the Canterbury Jack, but the Kent's Best certainly opened my eyes to just how good Shepherd Neame can be when looked after properly. The friendly landlord had only been at the pub for three weeks, but he was doing a great job. The Highwayman is certainly a place we will return to.

We thought we'd better check out Horsmonden's other pub. Situated just across the village green from the Highwayman, the Gun & Spitroast is an attractive former coaching inn, famed for its roast beef, pork and venison dishes which are spit-roasted over an open log-fire. As one would expect from a building of this age there is the usual wealth of old beams and low-ceilings and the pub is certainly not lacking in character. What it was lacking though was any drinkable cask beer. There were two pump-clips on display when we entered; one from Vale Brewery, the other for Ringwood Best.
Learning that the Vale was off our branch chairman opted for the Ringwood, only to find on tasting it that it had turned. The barmaid attempted to pull another pint, but the barrel had gone. Alas, the sweet-looking young thing behind the bar didn't know how to change a barrel. It wasn't her fault, but it did strike us as strange that the pub's management should have abandoned her on a Saturday of all days, with no cask beer to serve to the punters. Still it was their loss, and we returned to the Highwayman. After learning of the reason for our prompt return, the landlord very chivalrously nipped over to the Gun & Spitroast and connected up a cask for them. We were quite happy staying where we were though, and sat out on the pub's patio soaking up the beer and the sunshine in equal measures, before catching the bus back to Tunbridge Wells. It had been an interesting day out, and one that had opened a few eyes, including my own!

A Bargain Pub Lunch

Last Thursday I made a short business trip to Bristol. We required an additional analytical balance for our Quality Control Laboratory, so I drove down with a colleague to view a nearly new unit that had been advertised by a well-known vendor of second-hand laboratory equipment. We have bought several items in the past from this company, so know the products they sell are of good quality. It was therefore worth the three hour drive each way to Bristol and back in order to view, and as it turned out, purchase the balance.

Once the business had been concluded we decided that a spot of lunch was in order. There was a large pub just down the road. We had eaten there on a previous occasion and remembered that whilst it was a bit on the basic side, it offered good value for money. This proved to be double the case on this visit, as a sign at the entrance informed us that the pub was offering lunches for just £2.00 a head!

The menu, like the pub, was pretty basic - chips with everything, including the curry! I chose cod, chips and peas, whilst my colleague settled for ham, egg and chips. There was one cask ale on tap; Gem Bitter from Bath Ales. The ale was in good nick and the food was well presented. The portions weren't gargantuan, but for £2.00 a time we weren't complaining. and at these prices it was the best value I've come across in a long time. Not all the tables were full. but a good proportion of them were, with a good mix of people enjoying the excellent value food. My colleague and I were wondering how the pub's management could offer cooked meals for less than the price of most sandwiches? Is this he way forward we wondered? I know of at least one local pub in Tonbridge that does lunchtime meals for £2.99, so perhaps the idea is catching on.

The pub offering the £2.00 meals was the Chequers, in the Kingswood district of Bristol. Check it out if you are ever in the area.

Triumphator Dunkler Doppelbock

Last night I drank the last of the beers that I'd brought back from Munich. I seem to have cracked the art of packing them in my suitcase so that they survive the rigours of being crammed into the baggage hold on the flight home. However, as weight is another consideration apart from the risk of breakages, I usually limit my purchases to around half a dozen bottles.

I'd saved the strongest beer to last. It was Triumphator Dunkler Doppelbock from Loewenbraeu. At 7.6% this beer doesn't take many prisoners. Doppelbocks are dark, strong beers that were originally brewed by monks to see themselves through Lent. Being strong and sustaining, these potent brews are literally "liquid bread". Although Doppelbocks may be available in bottled form all year round, they typically make an appearance on draught for a limited two week period starting around the middle of March. This period is known as the Starkbierzeit (strong beer time), and is celebrated by most of Munich's beer halls. The parties put on by the Paulaner and Loewenbraeu Kellers are said to be particularly noteworthy, and copious amounts of these potent beers are consumed. Despite their strength, they are sold by the litre! Starkbierzeit is sometimes referred to as the "5th Season", and is the time of year just before spring when the indoor beer halls are about to give way to the opening of the city's many beer gardens, and the celebrations move outside until late autumn.

The original and Grand-daddy of the Doppelbocks is Paulaner's Salvator, and in acknowledgement to this fact virtually all other breweries that produce these potent beers add the suffix "ator" to the chosen name of their brew. Thus starting at the beginning of the alphabet, we have Aviator, whilst at the end we have Unimator with just about everything else in between. (Celebrator, Kulminator, Maximator, Operator,Spekulator - to name but a few!)

To return to the beer in question; it was absolutely superb beer that totally belied its big-brewery origins. I have drank Salvator many times now, including on our recent trip, and have been somewhat disappointed, particularly of late, thinking it was missing something. This was not the case with Triumphator; it was an absolutely brilliant beer that knocked spots off its cross-town rival. From first pouring it you could smell the toffee like malt of this rich dark beer, and when first tasted it had the most unbelievable chewy maltiness imaginable, balanced by just the right amount of bitterness. My only regret now is that I did not bring back a suitcase full of this marvellous beer!

New Patio Nears Completion - Home Brewery Draws Nearer

50 slabs laid and only another 10 to go! It's been hard work mixing up the sand and cement by hand and then laying each two foot square slab by hand. Each one, of course has to be checked that it's in-line with its neighbour and is dead level. The real hard work though was digging out the base and then filing it with compacted hardcore (I broke up the old concrete garden path with a sledge hammer, and then pummeled the chunks up into smaller pieces). The whole site had to pegged out and checked with a spirit level, before being covered with a layer of compacted sand.

I bring you this earth-shattering news not so much to bore you with my DIY exploits, but to let you know that the patio will form the base of our new summer-house-cum-brewery. I'll leave it to the spring now before ordering and erecting the latter, but once everything's in place then it will be time to recommence brewing again.

Before we took on our shop I was a keen and accomplished home-brewer. I don't make that last statement to brag, although I was (and still am) proud of the beers I was turning out. All my beers were full-mash recipes that were bittered with whole-leaf hops. I tried all sorts of styles, ranging from authentic IPA's and Porters to Dubbels and Doppelbocks. I even produced the odd Rauchbier using specially imported smoked malt from Bamberg! I usually had a well-hopped 1045 OG pale ale on tap as my everyday drinking beer, complemented by a darker brew during the winter months.

Running an off-licence was a 24/7 activity, but the reason I didn't re-start my brewing activities straight after we sold the business was that in the interim we had our garage demolished and an extension to the house built in its place. The garage doubled up as my brewery, and without it I have been left with nowhere suitable in which to mash and boil my wort. (I have always been barred from using the kitchen for these activities; understandable really as the hour and a half boil fills the room with steam and leaves sticky hop oil resins on the walls and ceilings!)

Anyway, there's still quite a way to go until I stir in my first mash, but I'm feeling now that the project is well on track. I will keep you informed of my progress.

For more information on home brewing follow this link.

Some Different Beers Whilst Abroad

Most beer tourists to Munich will be familiar with the city's "Big Six" breweries: Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbraeu, Loewenbraeu, Paulaner and Spatenbraeu whose products can be found and enjoyed all over the Bavarian capital. Yet with a bit of detective work, and a bit of travelling around, it is possible to track down beers from a number of other Bavarian breweries.

I have already mentioned Forschungsbrauerei and its excellent beers, as well as Erharting, whose beers we enjoyed on a trip out to the Walderpach area of the city, but even when one first arrives in Munich, it is possible to sample beers from a brewery you will not find anywhere else. Airbraeu is situated just off the open concourse which lies between terminals 1 and 2 at Munich's international airport. It is a brew-pub-cum-restaurant-cum-beer-garden, offering house-brewed beers at very competitive prices.

As our flight got in just before 11am we wasted little time after re-claiming our baggage in making for Airbraeu. It took a bit of finding; Franz Josef Strauss International Airport is a big place and we took a number of wrong turns. Eventually we located it and took a seat in the outdoor drinking area before ordering ourselves a half litre each of the unfiltered helles-style beer called FliegerQuell. It was a good way to start the holiday and a good way to combat the sweltering heat which we would have to get used to. The beer was full-bodied and tasty, and at 2.30 Euros for a half litre was extremely good value.

The village of Aying, which is about a 35 minute S-Bahn journey on line S6, is home to another "out of town brewery". Ayingerbraeu, (named after the vilage), brew an astonishingly wide range of beers and it is well worth making the short journey out to the suburbs to enjoy them at Liebhards, which is the brewery tap. We have done this on the last two trips, but our most recent visit was cut short by a thunderstorm which rapidly emptied what had been a pretty-packed beer garden! For those not wanting to make the trip, Ayingerbraeu beers can be enjoyed at the Wirtshaus, right opposite the world-famous Hofbraeuhaus, in the centre of Munich.

Another brewery whose beers can be found in the centre of town is one that needs little introduction to beer tourists. Kloster Andechs, situated on a hill overlooking the shores of Ammersee lake to the south-west of the city, is one of the few remaining monastery breweries in Germany. People literally come here on a beer pilgrimage in order to sample its range of well-regarded beers, and I have made a point of visiting the "Sacred Mountain" on all three visits that I have made to the Bavarian capital. To reach Andechs you need to travel to Herrsching, at the southern terminus of S-Bahn line S5. From here it is either a short bus ride up to the monastery or, for the more active, a pleasant uphill stroll through the woods; a walk that takes about an hour to complete. It is very satisfying to do the walk and you will feel well-rewarded when you reach your destination. (You will certainly appreciate your beer more!). Having a teenage son for company on the last two occasions meant we ended up getting the bus, although we did walk back from the monastery on the previous occasion!

The first time I visited Andechs, having only seen small groups of people on my walk up to the monastery, I was stunned by the sheer numbers packing out the sun-terrace and the Braeustueberl on my arrival. After sampling the brewery's Helles, Dunkel and Doppelbock beers I could understand why Kloster Andechs is so popular. Again if you don't want to make the journey, or if your itinerary doesn't allow enough time, then Andechs beers can be enjoyed in the city centre, at Andechser am Dom in the shadow of Munich's impressive cathedral - the Frauenkirche.

Travelling a bit further afield takes the beer tourist to the picturesque town of Tegernsee, overlooking the Alpine lake of the same name. The town is home to the Herzogliche BrauhausTegernsee , whose prodcts can be enjoyed at the impressive Braeustueberl which adjoins the brewery and overlooks the lake. Independent rail operator, Bayerische Oberland Bahn ("BOB" for short), will transport you all the way to Tegernsee from Munich's central station, or you can do what we did, and transfer on to "BOB" from the S-Bahn at Holzkirchen. (We had stopped off at the latter town to sample the beers of the Holzkirchner Oberbraeu, only to find the brewery tap closed for its Ruhetag, or rest day!). The Braeustueberl itself is a former monastery and royal palace. We visited on what was probably the hotest day of our trip, and were glad to sit in the cool, vaulted beer hall enjoying some of the excellent beers brewed next door.

Another "out of town beer" that we tried tracking down was Kaltenberg. Some of you probably remember the TV ads from the 1980's, promoting the brewery's Diaet Pils. The ads made great play of the fact that the beer was "brewed by a prince". What they didn't mention was that the prince was none other than Crown Prince Luitpold, heir to the Bavarian throne and a direct descendent of the Wittelsbach dynasty that had ruled Bavaria until 1918. Today the prince operates a number of breweries under the Kaltenberg banner, including ironically enough the aforementioned Holzkirchner Oberbraeu!

We wanted to visit the original brewery at Kaltenberg itself, situated in Prince Luitpold's picturesque castle. We consequently travelled out to Geltendorf, at the terminus of S-Bahn Line 8. From here we planned to catch a bus to Kaltenberg but, much to our disappointment discovered that the buses were very infrequent, especially during the schools holidays. We toyed with getting a taxi to the castle, but there still appeared to be no buses back. We gave up and caught the S-Bahn back into Munich. Had I done my homework correctly I would have discovered that Kaltenberg have a brewery at Fuerstenfeldbruck, five stops back up the line on our way back into town!

We finally got the chance to sample Kaltenberg beers on the last day of our trip at a beer garden called Muenchener Haupt'. A short S-Bahn ride to Mittersendling, followed by a short walk, brought us to this large shady beer garden, situated next to an impressive 19th Century mansion. Although it was litres only here, both the Helles and the Dunkel were well worth the wait.

Our journey out to Geltendorf was not a complete disaster though, as approaching Munich we were able to transfer trains and put Plan B into action. We travelled out to the small town of Maisach where we located Maisacherbraeu, whose impressive tower-style brewery dominates the main road out of town. The brewery buildings had the appearance of an English country brewery, although I couldn't quite put my finger on which one! The beer garden was closed until 4pm, but there was a small terrace area at the rear of the Braeustueberl which overlooked the brewery yard. We sat out here sampling several Maisacher beers, including the interesting Raeuber Kneissl a Dunkel that is named after a notorious 19th Century robber.

We managed to track down one more unusual brewery on the last evening of our visit. Unionsbraeu was a fairly substantial Munich brewery that was taken over by Loewenbraeu in 1922. Brewing returned to these impressive buildings in 1991, but on a much smaller scale. Unionsbraeu is situated a short walk from Max-Weber-Platz U-Bahn station. We sat out in the small, but pleasant beer garden at the rear of the pub, enjoying a couple of glasses of the unfiltered Unionsbraeu Helles. It was a fitting place at which to end our sampling of some of Munich's more unusual beers!

Some Decent Beer at Last

The local beer scene finally came good at the weekend. The Humphrey Bean, our local JDW in Tonbridge had a really good beer on from Daniel Thwaites, of Blackburn. Golden Wunder, their 4.6% seasonal beer has been specially brewed as the company's Oktoberfest offering. It was a fine, well-hopped golden ale. I'm not sure what visitors to the main event in Munich would think of the beer, but so far as I was concerned it certainly hit the spot.

Brewing a beer to celebrate the Bavarian capital's legendary festival of imbibing seems a relatively recent phenomenon in Britain, but last October I spent a couple of weeks in the United States, visiting my sister and her family. It seemed that most craft brewers over there had produced an Oktoberfest special; many of them being produced in the traditional Maerzen style. The offering from Great Lakes Brewing Company (based in Cleveland Ohio) was the most widely available Oktoberfest beer, and very good it was too. Several other craft breweries had also produced Pumpkin Ales, especially for Halloween.

I digress. Returning to the subject of good English ale, last night we held our CAMRA committee meeting in the Royal Wells Inn; a comfortable, and well-appointed hotel bar overlooking the common in Tunbridge Wells. The Harvey's Sussex Best was on fine form. My faith in our native beer has at last been restored!

Too much Brown Beer?

Is it me, or is something seriously wrong with English beer? I say that because I don't seem to have had a decent native pint since I returned from Munich two weeks ago. I know I drank a lot of beer out there, but I don't think my palate could have changed that much

Last Saturday's beers in the Golding Hop really weren't up to much, but it was Wednesday's CAMRA social that really did it for me. It was held at the Bullfinch in the Riverhead area of Sevenoaks. The pub has recently been acquired by McMullens of Hertford, and is the company's first, and only, pub in Kent. Three cask ales were on offer, one of which (Cask Ale 3.8%) was definitely passed its best. (we would have noticed this sooner if it hadn't been so chilled). The 4.3% Country Bitter, and the seasonal Googly (also 3.8%), were of acceptable quality, but really didn't do anything for me - Brown Beer at its worst.

On the way back to the station, a couple of us popped into the Halfway House. Ok it's a Greene King pub, but there is nowhere else in the vicinity following the sad, and totally unnecessary demise of the Farmers. We thought the Abbot would be alright but were proved wrong. It wasn't quite bad enough to return, but it had that stale fruitiness that strong beers can develop when they have been kept too long.

CAMRA business took me over to Sevenaoks again yesterday. The beer range in the Sennockian, (the JDW outlet) was decidedly disappointing, and the Bath Ales SPA was cloudy. The Polish relief manager, who knows us, and who should know better, kept insisting that this beer was normally cloudy. I told him it wasn't a wheat beer, and definitely was NOT supposed to be served cloudy, but he wouldn't have it! The Kings Mallard 5.2%? also had a strange taste to it, and by this time I was starting to think I would never get a decent pint of English ale. Most of the Sennockian's clientele seemed to be immoderately-dressed young girls. The manager was kept busy asking them for Proof of Age, but they weren't the type of customers who would be boosting his flagging beer sales!

We adjourned to the nearby Anchor afterwards, where the Harveys proved to be the best pint of the night, and indeed the preceding fortnight. Another time I would have probably been singing its praises, but my palate was definitely jaded following the SPA and Mallard experience.

Northern Blogger, Tandleman , refers to these tasteless and insipid Brown Beers as "Slutch", and I think he is right with this definition. By the way, I am not counting Harveys as Slutch, and neither I think would he. McMullens definitely qualify though, as do Shepherd Neame and Youngs, to name a few.