Getting in the Christmas Spirit

 We don’t do Christmas Ales properly in this country. I was prompted to write this post, after reading similar sentiments on the “One More Won’t Kill You – Beer Blog”. It really is the case that with one or two notable exceptions, we just can’t turn out anything decent for the festive season.

I have posted on this subject on at least two previous occasions, and I have to say that over the years my feelings on this matter haven’t improved; in fact if anything they’ve got worse! I haven’t seen this year’s selection from JDW yet, and have been unable to find it online either, but normally it acts as a good yardstick to the type of Christmas Ales the breweries are putting out.

More often than not many Christmas Ales turn out to be bog standard, uninspiring, malt-led, brownish bitters in the 4.0 – 5.0% strength bracket, with a daft Christmas sounding name. Name wise, there have been some awful puns in previous years, check out the Pump Clip Parade website for details of some of the worse ones, but I can also recall some pale beers in the past, masquerading under the Christmas banner.

So what do I look for in a Christmas beer? Well, a decent strength to start with; ideally something around 6.0% and certainly nothing below 5.0%! I also like my Christmas ale to be dark in colour (preferably darker than ruby), full-bodied and well-hopped. Other countries manage to deliver on this front, in particular Belgium with many breweries putting out seasonal stunners, whilst over in Bavaria many brewers produce strong, seasonal Weihnachtsbier, named after "Weihnachten" the German word for Christmas. These normally run in at anywhere between 6 and 8% abv, not quite as strong as the Belgian offerings, many of which get into double figures, but they are all good, full-bodied beers designed to keep out the cold.

Perhaps that’s the problem here in the UK, as we don’t get really cold winters, or if we do then the cold snap normally doesn’t last that long. Consequently, few beers come near the sorts of strengths common on the Continent, although Harvey’s Christmas Ale hits the spot for me at 7.5%. (It used to be 8.1%, but the brewery reduced its strength to bring it in just under the, high strength bracket, recently introduced as a knee-jerk reaction in response to super-strength lagers such as Carlsberg Special Brew, or Tennents Super.)

Harvey’s Christmas Ale was on sale at the Windmill last Sunday, and I enjoyed a glass of it at the end of my Christmas meal. It’s a perfectly balanced strong dark bitter-sweet ale, satisfying and warming, but obviously a beer to be treated with respect but, as I alluded to earlier, it’s rare to find a beer this strong in Britain, especially on draught.

I will of course be keeping an eye out to see what Wetherspoons come up with, but I’m not going to hold my breath. So far as my own selection of beers for Christmas is concerned, at the moment I haven’t actually got anything with the word “Christmas” in the name, but I have got quite a few strong bottles tucked away. Most are Belgian, including a whole case of St Bernardus Abt 12 (10%), but I’ve also got one or two surprises from the UK, including a bottle of Sharps Quadrapel (10%), left over from last Christmas and the Ampleforth Abbey Dubbel I mentioned in a previous post.

There is still time of course, for me to acquire the odd bottle or three of genuine Christmas ales, so if anyone would care to recommend some of the more readily available brands, then please let me know.

Countdown to Christmas

It’s been a weekend of unrepentant gluttony and over-indulgence, with two Christmas meals to get stuck into, but fortunately with a day off in between them both. Friday evening saw my wife and I attending my company’s Christmas party, whilst today (Sunday) it was West Kent CAMRA’s Christmas meal. The events were quite contrasting, but both were equally enjoyable in their own way.

Friday’s party was held at the Little Brown Jug, the local pub in the village where my firm is based. The Jug is a Greene King pub, leased out to a local chain called Whiting & Hammond, who run around half a dozen pubs in West Kent and East Sussex. It has a good reputation for food, even though the beer offerings are of less appeal to the typical beer enthusiast. In complete contrast, today’s meal was held at what has become one of the best pubs in the area, serving a wide range of locally brewed ales, in tastefully renovated surroundings, along with an equally good range of home-cooked food.

Around 50 of us attended Friday’s event, but the Jug is a pub which has been greatly extended over the years, and thus had no trouble in accommodating not just our group, but several others as well. The food, the service and the presentation were faultless, and even the beer, in the form of Larkins Traditional, was ok, but half-way through the meal I switched to wine anyway, so the limited beer selection did not pose a problem. Food wise I went for a non-traditional option in the form of fish stew and lobster bisque, which was excellent. (One can definitely have too much turkey at Christmas!). The wine, in the form of a full-bodied Spanish red, was also very good; too good in fact as my aching head testified the following morning!

Sunday’s meal took place at the Windmill, at Sevenoaks Weald, and was a complete contrast with six cask ales on offer. Four of them were local, plus two from further a field, and all were very reasonably priced. With the exception of the Larkins Traditional, which was replaced later on, I worked my way up through the gravities, starting with Dark Star Darkness and ending up on the superb 7.5% Christmas Ale from Harvey’s. In between I had Fife & Drum, a 3.8% golden ale from Musket Brewery, one of Kent’s newest micros, Trade Winds from Cairngorm Brewery and East Street Cream from RCH.

   

Food wise I again went for the non-traditional option, this time choosing the tasty and well-presented pork saltimbocca with potato rosti and creamed spinach. There were 16 of us in total, a number which filled the dining area at the far end of the pub virtually to capacity. All in all it was an excellent do; in fact one of the most enjoyable and best attended Christmas meals the branch has hosted over the years.

So after an indulgent weekend it’s back to work until Christmas Eve when the festivities, this time, kick off at home. My thanks go out to the management and staff at both the Little Brown Jug and the Windmill for looking after us so well over the last couple of days.

A Day at the Wells

The drinking scene in West Kent really seems to be looking up, and nowhere is this more the case than in Tunbridge Wells. Drinkers in the town are now almost spoilt for choice, with the recent opening of Fuggles Beer Café being the icing on the cake. I was in the town last Sunday, getting some of my Christmas shopping done, but also taking the time to check out a couple of the best local drinking establishments.

 

 First on the list was the Beer Seller; a recently opened speciality beer shop, situated on Mount Ephraim, a few doors away from the ever popular Sankey’s. A work colleague had recommended this place to me, and whilst the shop was a bit spartan inside, I was not disappointed by what I found. The Beer Seller does exactly what the name above the door says: it sells beer and nothing else. Bottled beers, rather than draught, with the majority coming from Belgium. There are also quite a few home-grown examples, alongside a few from North America and Germany. I treated myself to a small selection towards my Christmas stockpile - Rochefort 6, De Koninck and Silly Saison, all from Belgium, plus English speciality, Ampleforth Abbey Beer, a 7.0% Dubbel style beer from Little Valley Brewery of West Yorkshire, and made a promise to return, before heading down the hill back towards the town centre.

Fuggles was my next port of call as after buying some beer in bottles, I wanted some to drink there and then. The place was pleasantly busy without being totally crowded out. Alex the manager recognised me from my previous visit and, as on that occasion,, there were four cask ales on tap, plus ten keg ones. I opted for a tasting bat (three thirds of a pint) of the cask beers to start with, my selections being Burning Sky - Plateau, Harbour - Amber and Redwillow - Heartless Chocolate Stout. All three were good but I have to say the 3.5%  Plateau was outstanding. This is understandable as Burning Sky has been set up by former Dark Star brewer, Mark Tranter.

Afterwards I moved onto the Beavertown - Gamma Ray APA, a beer that I had seen on sale in bottled form, at the Beer Seller, a short while before. It was a tasty and well-hopped beer, not quite as good as the Plateau, but still eminently drinkable. I was surprised to see it looking quite cloudy, in the glass, thereby shattering my delusions that all keg beers are filtered! Before I left, Alex offered me a taste of the Alpha State Orange Zest IPA, a stunning, zesty IPA, brewed with Belgian yeast, which imparts a distinct taste to the beer.

Regrettably, or perhaps sensibly, I had to leave. There was only an hour remaining before the shops shut for the day, so I took my leave of Alex and Fuggles and headed for the shops. Purchases complete for the day I made my way back down towards the station, before calling in on the way to Tunbridge Wells’s premier alehouse, the Bedford. There were around 10 cask ales on tap, and like at Fuggles I decided to go for a tasting bat. The ones I chose were Isfield - Bitter, Langham - American Pale Ale and Late Knights - Old Red Eyes. All were good, but the one that really stood out was the Langham APA.

I met four friends in the pub; not all at once, but enough to extend my stay quite a bit longer than I intended. I had a couple more halves, but I can’t remember what they were. All in all it was a fruitful visit to Tunbridge Wells, both on the shopping and the beer sampling front. It’s just a shame there is nothing quite like these places in Tonbridge.

Iconic Brand to Ironic Bland

What does it take for a beer to change from being an “iconic brand” to an “ironic bland”? The transformation of a once great beer, full of flavour, character and highly sought after, into a pale shadow of its former self. A pastiche if you like?

The answer, in a lot of cases, seems to be an increase in the popularity, and availability of the beer. When this occurs there is often a temptation, on the part of the brand owners, to cut corners’ to rush things in order to keep up with demand. In addition there is often a temptation to “cash in” on the success of the brand, so much so that in many instances it is a case of “killing the goose that laid the golden egg”. However, despite numerous examples of this in the past, no lessons ever appear to be drawn.

This “selling of one’s soul”, does not appear to happen in other industries. Take fashion for instance. There is no evidence of iconic brands such as Versace, Gucci, Armani etc becoming devalued. If there was, then this would surely spell the end of these famous fashion houses, and yet in the world of brewing there are countless beers that were also regarded as  iconic brands, some even attracting cult followings which bordered on messianic. Many have disappeared completely, or are mere shadows of what they once were, so is this the ultimate price of success?

 Draught Bass is probably the beer which has suffered most in this respect. Once the yardstick against which other beers were measured, this iconic and world famous Burton Pale Ale, has suffered the indignation of no longer being brewed in the traditional Burton Union Sets. The brewery where it was once brewed has long been demolished. Its parent company is no longer involved in brewing, and the brand’s new owners have contracted out the production of this once great beer to a rival company!

Ruddles County, is another beer which has probably suffered an even worse fate than that of Draught Bass. Reduced in strength over the years, and shunted around a succession of different breweries as the brand changed hands between various national, and even international conglomerates, this beer is nothing like the rich, full-bodied, generously hopped ale I remember drinking back in the late 1970’s – early 1980’s.  A beer that was eagerly sought after by CAMRA devotees during the early days of the campaign, and one of the favourites of the “real ale revolution”, is now just another bland and emasculated Greene King brand. The Suffolk brewers have reduced the strength of the beer to just 4.3%, and changed the recipe in the process. Why then pretend that this is the same legendary beer that once came out of Rutland?

A similar iconic brand, of which I have personal experience, is Boddingtons Bitter. Back in 1973, upon hearing I’d been offered a place at Salford University, a school friend who knew a lot more about beer than I did at the time, told me to look out for Boddingtons. Once there, the beer took a bit of tracking down. The student union bar was jointly tied to Allied Breweries and Scottish & Newcastle, and most of the pubs surrounding the university sold only big brewery products, or were tied to Greenall Whitley (grotty Greenalls!) whose beers were, if anything, even worse!

My first experience of Boddingtons then came several weeks into my first term at Salford. A short distance to the south-west of the campus was a high-rise estate. There were several newly-built characterless pubs serving the estate, one of which belonged to Boddingtons. One night, mindful of what my school friend might say on my return to Kent, I decided to grab the bull by the horns and call in at this pub in order to sample some Boddingtons myself.

At first it seemed most of the customers were drinking lager so pale was the colour of the beer, but after ordering a pint of bitter, dispensed via a metered-electric pump, complete with bar-mounted glass cylinder, I realised this was the real thing. I had never seen a straw-coloured bitter before; nor had I tasted one that was so intensely bitter. However, I found it very much to my taste and over the next few months and years of my stay in Salford, made a point of seeking out Boddingtons pubs wherever possible.

The growing popularity of Boddingtons bitter during this time, led to expansion of the company’s Strangeways Brewery, and the expansion of the brand into the local free trade. For the time being at least, Boddingtons bitter remained a brand confined to Greater Manchester and the north-west, but things were to change quite dramatically over the coming decades. Before these changes took place though, rumblings of disquiet began to circulate amongst Boddingtons drinkers that the beer was losing some of its character. It was becoming less hoppy, and increasingly blander. Certainly when it was compared with Manchester rivals Joseph Holt & Co, whose beer was correctly described at the time as “uncompromisingly bitter”, Boddingtons increasingly failed to deliver.

This “dumbing down” of an iconic drink was happening as my time in Greater Manchester was coming to an end, and I was heading back south; initially to London and then shortly after back to Kent. It didn’t go un-noticed with me that Boddingtons had started to cut back on their range of beers, dropping one of the two milds they produced, along with their seasonal Strong Ale. The company also went on a mini-takeover spree, buying out, and later closing nearby neighbours Oldham Ales, followed by Liverpool’s most famous brewery – Higsons. Then in 1989 Boddingtons did the unthinkable by deciding to exit from brewing altogether and become purely a pub-owning company.

The Strangeways Brewery was bought by Whitbread, along with the brands, and Whitbread wasted no time into turning Boddingtons bitter into a national brand. Marketed as the “Cream of Manchester”, Boddingtons bitter spread like a plague across the land, but by now the brand had become so de-based that for me, and I’m sure many other beer lovers, it became a beer to avoid rather than embrace. Whitbread even went so far as to launch a “smooth-flow” version which must have been even worse, although I wasn’t foolhardy enough to try it!

So a once extremely good, iconic local beer became just another lacklustre national brand. I have already mentioned Draught Bass and Ruddles County as examples of the dumbing down, and indeed out and out bastardisation of a couple of once iconic beers, but this process continues un-abated within the brewing industry.

Seasoned observers will point to another iconic beer which appears to be suffering the same fate. Timothy Taylor’s Landlord was the stuff of legends. This classic Yorkshire brew started life as a bottled pale ale, and at one time was only available in draught (cask) form at one pub; the Hare & Hounds at Lane Ends, high in the hills over-looking the Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge. I know this because back when I was a student, a group of us hired a mini-bus for the express purpose of visiting this pub, just so we could sample draught Landlord. The unspoilt pub, the scenery and the excellent beer were well worth the long drive over the Pennines from Salford and not long after, waking up to the fact they had a sure-fire winner on their hands, Taylor’s began increasing the availability of Landlord.

I can’t remember when exactly it started appearing in the free trade in this part of the country, but it must have been a couple of decades at least after my visit to the Hare & Hounds. The beer was a regular guest, and a favourite with customers, at our off-licence, between 2001 and 2006, and I always remember how lively this beer was when tapped and spiled. In recent years though, Landlord has definitely lost a lot of its complexity. It is still a very good beer, but I do feel the rush to make it much more widely available has resulted in a distinct loss of character, and that yet another iconic beer is heading in the same direction as some of the others I have mentioned.

Perhaps the journey from iconic brand to ironic bland is an inevitable one, and perhaps also the analogy with the fashion industry was not quite so far off the mark as I first thought. Leaving aside issues of cheapening the brand for one moment, the world of fashion has to be the ultimate example of style triumphing over substance. Isn’t this the same as what’s been happening in the world of beer?

A Few Days In Prague

Earlier this week my family and I returned from a four day mini-break in Prague. This was my wife Eileen’s first visit to the Czech capital, son Matthew’s second and my fourth, so it proved to be an interesting combination of expectations and experiences. Being a family holiday, beer hunting wasn’t exactly on top of the agenda, but even so there was still a reasonable amount of beer drinking involved. The prime reason for our visit was to experience some of Prague’s Christmas Markets, which commence trading at the beginning of December, and we were not disappointed with what we found and enjoyed. On top of that I can safely say all three of us thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Czech capital, and will undoubtedly be returning again in the not too distant future.

Rather than writing a blow-by-blow account of the beers we enjoyed, and the pubs and bars where we drank them, instead I want to relate my impressions of the general drinking scene in Prague, along with how I see the market developing out there. The thing that sticks out above all others in the Bohemian capital is the widespread availability of unfiltered beer (Nefiltrované pivo). Even the big boys are in on this now, and we found unfiltered Staropramen 12˚ on sale in the restaurant attached to our hotel, and unfiltered Gambrinus 11˚ at the Hard Rock Café (Eileen's choice for lunch, and treat! ) just along from Prague’s Old Town Square.

The top Nefiltrované pivo, so far as I was concerned, was Unetické pivo 12˚, from Únětický Pivovar, a recently revived brewery in the village of Unetice which is almost a suburb of Prague. The original brewery ceased brewing in 1949, but re-started again in 2011 in the old premises, but using  new brewing kit. This wonderfully tasty and bitter, pale lager was on sale at Na Slamiku, a real, traditional Czech local, situated right opposite our hotel, and the pub itself combined, with the Unetické pivo 12˚, turned out to be the perfect combination and the find of the trip.

We ate and drank at Na Slamiku on two of the four evenings we were in Prague, finding the atmosphere of this unspoilt local pub reminded us of what pubs were like back in the UK during their 1970's heyday. The freshly cooked, value for money food served was the perfect match for the excellent beer, and with indoor smoking permitted, as in many Czech pubs, Eileen was a very happy bunny. What amazed us was the way the pub was run by just three people; a husband and wife,  plus a cook. On our first visit on Friday night, the place was heaving, and we were lucky to get a seat. During this time, the husband and wife team were kept very busy transporting plates weighed down with good wholesome dishes, and foaming mugs of beer, to the various tables. This they did with a  cheery smile for us, and some friendly banter for the locals.

I said earlier that beer hunting was not the main objective of the holiday, and it wasn't,  but  nevertheless I was determined to try and track down some, what for me, are some of the best  "mainstream" beers the Czech Republic's has to offer. Bernard of Humpolec, in eastern Bohemia, brew some fantastic beers, full of character, with a rich maltiness, balanced by a good hop bitterness.

We had spent the morning of our last full day in Prague at the colourful Christmas Market, in the city's Old Town Square. After a surfeit of hot honey wine, roast chestnuts, fried potatoes with bacon and a sweet, sugared-pastry dish cooked on large wooden rollers, I decided a beer was definitely in order. We had walked down towards the Charles Bridge in order for Eileen to buy a hat she had spotted in a shop a couple of day's previously, so after her purchase was complete a quick glance at Ewan Rail's CAMRA Good Beer Guide to Prague showed that Café Duende was close by, and what's more it was described as one of the best places in Prague to enjoy Bernard beers on draught.

Imagine my disappointment then on arriving, finding the place only half-lit and being told it wouldn't be opening until 4pm. The CAMRA  Guide had indicated otherwise, but as this was published back in 2007 it is now obviously becoming out of date. How about a new edition, CAMRA? As compensation, I brought a few bottles of Bernard beer, back with me - Svetly Lezak (pale), Jantarovy Lezak (amber) and Cerny Lezak (dark). Like their draught counterparts, they are unpasteurised, and I will enjoy drinking them over the fast approaching festive season.

I did promise not to relate a blow-by-blow account of our drinking, but no trip to Prague, and therefore no description of a visit, would be complete without a mention of U Fleku - reputed to be the oldest brew-pub in the world, and the Czech capital's most famous drinking establishment. We visited U Fleku on our second day in Prague, but it had not been our original choice of somewhere to eat. The beer hall at U Medviku (at the Little Bears), was packed out when we arrived, and there was no room to squeeze even the three of us in. The Little Bears ended up as Matthew's favourite Prague pub on our last visit, and I must admit the standard of food and drink there was really high.

Disappointed, we made our way through the maze of side streets to U Fleku, where despite its obvious popularity, there was space for us inside the first beer hall on the left. Despite its reputation as a "tourist trap", I have to report the service and the food were very good, whilst the rich, black, house-brewed lager was excellent.  When I first tried this beer, back in 1984, on my very first visit to Prague, I wasn't that keen on it, but I put that down to my taste-buds not being sufficiently matured at the time. When Matthew and I visited last year, I noticed  a slight lactic taste lurking in the background which, whilst not unpleasant, should probably not have been there, but may have been down to the house yeast. This time around, the lactic character had disappeared; the result an excellent full-bodied and very malty dark lager which was worth every Kc paid.

So there we have it, whilst U Fleku carries on in its timeless, traditional fashion, the beer scene in the rest of Prague is evolving fast. On our visit last year I sampled a well-hoped, 6.3% IPA at the Klasterni Brewery attached to the Strahov Monastery, and I also brought a bottle of the excellent 8.0% Pardubicky Porter back with me (I brought two bottles this time!). What with this, and the increasing availability of both unfiltered and unpasteurised beer (tankovna), the Czech capital remains an exciting place for the beer hunter.

Fuggles Beer Café

Fuggles, a famous variety of hops used in the brewing of traditional English ales, and named after Richard Fuggle of Brenchley, who introduced the hop back in 1875 after finding it growing wild in a hop garden in nearby Horsmonden. The village of Brenchley is roughly eight miles from where I live, but travel in a different direction and one reached the famous Spa town of Royal Tunbridge Wells. Here there is another Fuggles, in the form of Fuggles Beer Café, the latest addition to the Tunbridge Wells drinking scene. Fuggles has been open just over a week now, but when a group from West Kent CAMRA called in last Wednesday; it was only its sixth evening of opening. This is what we found:

Fuggles Beer Café occupies a former retail outlet towards the top end of Tunbridge Wells, just along from the town’s main Post Office and shopping centre. A page on Facebook had allowed local beer-loving enthusiasts to monitor the progress, over a period of several months, as the shop was converted from its previous use into a modern and functional looking bar. Despite having quite a narrow frontage, the bar space at Fuggles extends back a long way, in fact right to the rear of the premises, where there are some comfortable looking sofas for patrons to relax on. The functional feel is enhanced by the exposed duct work, and other utility services suspended below the ceiling. The serving area is approximately one third of the way down, on the right hand side. The bar counter is adorned by the usual hand pulls, whilst behind the bar there are ten anonymous-looking keg taps set, American-style, into the tiled rear wall. A large chalkboard behind the bar gives full details of all the draught beers on sale, both cask and keg.

There were four cask and ten keg beers on sale last Wednesday. The place was buzzing when I arrived, with a good mix of customers. After my spectacles had de-misted, I managed to locate my friends towards the rear of the bar, seated at a table. Some were already getting stuck into the three glass “tasting bats” that the pub offers. I opted for a refreshing pint of Otley 01 Gold to begin with, before moving on to the “craft keg” stuff. The “bats” fall into two different price bands, depending on the strength of the beer. For beers up to 5.0%, three third pint glasses will set you back £4.50; whilst above this level they work out at £5.50. Seeing as some for the craft beers were 9.0% abv, this was quite a good deal.

I went for three beers in the lower range to begin with, namely Kirkstall  Framboise, a refreshing 3.6% Raspberry beer, Wild Beer Scarlet Fever, a tasty 4.8% amber ale and Titanic Stout 4.5%, a beer I am familiar with in both cask and bottled form. All were good in their own right, with the Titanic exceptionally smooth and chocolate like, suggesting it was  dispensed by nitrogen-mixed gas. Later I moved on to the higher end of the spectrum, a choice which included two beers at 9%. One was Houblon Chouffe, a Belgian-style IPA, whilst the second was another Wild Beer Co brew called Ninkasi, a fruity Saison-style beer. In between I enjoyed a slightly weaker IPA; Devil's Rest IPA, from Burning Sky, which weighed in at just 7.0%!

It is early days yet, but it was good to see this exciting new venue so busy. Fuggles might seem a bit new at the moment, with a noticeably strong smell of paint last week, but to be fair the owners have been working around the clock to get the place ready on time. The management will soon be offering food,  in the form of locally sourced pies, sausage rolls and scotch eggs. With an eclectic range of interesting beers, and a good café-style atmosphere, Fuggles is a welcome addition to the increasingly diverse drinking scene in Tunbridge Wells. It will be interesting to see how it develops further over the coming months.

Larkins Porter at Last!

Last Friday I managed to sample, for the first time this year, one of my favourite, seasonal “winter” beers. At 5.2% abv, dark and full-bodied with lashings of scrumptious chocolate from the chocolate malt used in the grist, Larkins Porter is a beer whose appearance each November is eagerly awaited by its devotees. Every year, Larkins brewer and company owner Bob Dockerty, produces just two brews of this superb beer; one in mid-September, and the other towards the end of November, (round about now). Following brewing and primary fermentation, each brew is allowed to mature, in cask, for a minimum period of six weeks before it is released to trade. (During exceptionally cold and prolonged winters, I have known Bob to brew a third batch of Porter in January, but this is by far and away the exception).

Bob has been brewing Larkins beers for the best part of thirty years. The brewery is housed in a converted cow-shed at the family farm, on the edge of Chiddingstone, in a splendidly rural setting over-looking the valley of the River Eden. Three different strength bitters are produced: Traditional at 3.4%; Chiddingstone at 4.0% and Best at 4.4%. All are quite similar in character, and it is difficult to tell the last two apart. Traditional is the best seller by far, outselling the other two beers by a factor of 150%. This is hardly surprising given the rural location of the majority of Larkins outlets. Although just 3.4% in strength, “Trad”, as the beer is normally referred to, packs in a lot of taste for its low gravity, and is a fine session beer, and the ideal lunchtime pint. Being relatively low in alcohol, drinkers in local pubs can enjoy a couple of pints of Trad safe in the knowledge they will not be over the drink-drive limit for the journey home.

Porter, on the other hand, is a totally different beast. At more than one and a half times the strength of the Trad it is definitely a “one pint” beer for anyone contemplating getting behind the wheel.  Consequently very few pubs stock it, particularly those located in rural areas, and as for outlets in the towns, I know of only one pub that stocks the beer, and even then it is only on an intermittent basis.

Fortunately the Castle Inn, at Chiddingstone is one pub where a pint of Porter, during the winter months, is practically guaranteed. Situated just a few hundred yards along the road from the brewery, the Castle Inn is an impossibly attractive pub in an equally impossibly attractive village. The pub, the local tearooms plus the village shop and post office are all owned by the National Trust, who bought them in 1939, along with other nearby houses in Chiddingstone, as an almost perfect example of a Tudor one-street village. The Trust leases out these properties as businesses to suitable tenants, and after many years under one such leaseholder, the Castle changed hands a few years ago, and seems to be doing equally well under its new management.

Chiddingstone takes its name from the large sandstone outcrop in the village known as the 'Chiding Stone'. It’s also only 10 minutes drive from my workplace, and so a lunchtime visit is eminently practical. It was a grey, chilly late-November day when I arrived in Chiddingstone, and after parking the car just up the road, I made my way to the Castle. The building dates back to 1420, but it didn’t become an inn until three centuries later. Like many of the buildings in the village, it’s constructed in typical Kentish style, with half-timbered sides, gables and a red, tile-hung frontage and roof.

What I like about the place is the appearance that time has stood still. I say “appearance”, because in spite of its olde worlde feel, the Castle is bang up to date in many respects, not least of which is the high standard of food and drink which it offers. A free Wi-Fi connection is also available - other pubs please take note! Going back to the time-warp theme for a moment though, the Castle is that rarity these days in so much as it still has two separate, but linked bars.

I usually head for the public, as not only is this bar unspoilt; it is also where the village characters congregate. Bob Dockerty numbers amongst the locals here, but not normally until the day’s work at the brewery is finished. Other characters include farm workers, gamekeepers, foresters and other assorted “country folk”, but on Friday I had the bar to myself. I could hear a few diners along the passageway, in the saloon bar, but with no-one to talk to in the public I had to alert the bar staff to my presence by an effected cough and noisily moving one of the bar stools!

I had, of course, noted the Larkins Porter pump clip upon entering, so as soon as mine host appeared behind the bar I ordered a pint. It wasn’t cheap at £4.20 a pint, but then we are talking National Trust prices, plus all the atmosphere and ambience of an unspoilt 18^th Century inn. In addition, the beers in the Castle are priced according to their strength, so that a pint of Trad for example, may be some 50-60p cheaper.

I am pleased to report though, that the Porter was worth every penny, being smooth, chocolaty and malty, balanced by just the right degree of bitterness. As I said earlier, Larkins Porter is definitely a “one pint” beer for anyone getting behind the wheel. On top of that I had a busy afternoon’s work ahead of me, so with the taste and memory of this excellent beer still fresh in my head, I bade farewell to the Castle and returned to work. Fear not though, I will be back before the porter season is out!