Shep's Heritage Beers at Lidl

Discount supermarket, Lidl, have once again come up trumps in the bargain beer stakes. This time it’s two beers from the Shepherd Neame Heritage Range; namely India Pale Ale 6.1% and Double Stout 5.2%. The beers are on sale at just £1.49 each; a saving of 50-60p compared to other supermarkets which stock them.

Not my favourite brewery, of course, but the higher gravities of these two beers, compared to the normal stuff churned out by Sheps, means there’s a lot less chance of the brewery’s rather voracious, house yeast ruining them. (Most Shepherd Neame beers suffer from being too attenuated – fermented right out, leaving virtually no residual sugars, and therefore no body in the finished beer. The result; a thin, very dry and harsh-tasting beer).

I picked up an eight-bottle case of the stout this morning, and am tempted to do the same with a case of the India Pale Ale, before stocks run out. I do sometimes wonder about Sheps and their relationship with Lidl, as the latter often have “one-off” special brews from Sheps on sale by the pallet load. In the main these are beers in the 3.8% bracket, and despite retailing at just 99p a bottle, are not normally worth buying, for reasons stated above.

The two “heritage beers” though are in a different league; reputedly being based on old 19^th Century recipes that were recently discovered in the brewery archives. I’m not quite sure how they ended up being discounted in Lidl though, unless the beers have not been selling as well as Shep’s hoped, and they needed to sell them off cheap in order to shift them.

The latter scenario is unlikely though, as the stout at least has plenty of shelf life, with an expiry showing of October 2015. Whatever the reason, if you fancy picking up these beers at a reduced price, then get down to your nearest Lidl.

The illustrations above are pump-clips for the draught versions of these two beers, which are brewed to a lower gravity than their bottled counterparts.

Single-Hop Beers

In a recent post I praised the virtues of “Green-hopped” beer, describing this relatively new phenomenon as one of the most exciting developments of recent years in brewing. Unfortunately green-hopping has been paralleled by a less welcome development, and one which to me seems more of a gimmick than anything else.

I am talking about “single-varietal” hop beers, i.e. beers that are bittered with just one variety of hops, rather than the more usual practice of balancing the flavours by using several. I was reminded of this yesterday, whilst browsing the bottled beers on sale in M&S. To my amazement there were five different single variety hop beers on the shelves; each beer being brewed using a different hop variety and by a different brewer.

The hops used are Sovereign, Citra, Brewers Gold (Hallertau), Cascade and Mosaic. The last named hop is a relative newcomer on the scene, following on from Citra and Cascade, which are citrus-flavoured varieties from North America. The brewers concerned are Elgoods, Oakham, Crouch Vale, Castle Rock and Adnams.

Part of the M&S range of single-hop beers

I remember M & S running a promotion on the first four of these beers some 18 months or so ago. My wife bought me a few to try, and with the exception of the Citra beer, I was singularly unimpressed. I would describe them as “one-dimensional”, which is hardly surprising. The established brewing practice has been, for many decades, to brew using a combination of hops; adding some for bitterness and some for aroma. There will also be several additions throughout the boil, with bittering hops added to the copper at the beginning, and aroma hops towards the end.

Single varietal hop beers fly in the face of decades of brewing wisdom, so bearing in mind that the varieties used will either be strong on bitterness or strong on aroma, is it any wonder the resultant beers lack complexity and appear very “one-dimensional”.

I am surprised that these five beers still form part of the M&S range. One of our larger local brewers, Westerham, had a rolling programme a few years ago of brewing a different single varietal hop beer every month. I have to say I was not overly impressed with the ones I tried, and the fact they have all been quietly dropped from the range suggests the drinking public thought the same way about them.

We only have to look to the wine industry in order to see similar parallels. A decade or so ago Chardonnay was all the range, with the chattering classes raving over wines produced from this particular grape variety. Several years later, attention shifted to Pinot Grigio. As I’m no longer involved in the of-licence trade, and I probably drink as much wine in a year than your average Frenchman drinks in a week, I have no idea as to which grape variety is the current “flavour of the month”.

What I do know is that whilst very good wines can be produced from a single grape variety (white Burgundies spring to mind here), such wines are usually at the top end of the market, where a whole host of other factors, such as climate, soil etc (the famous “terroir”), come into play. When bog standard plonk is produced from just one grape variety, the results are often less impressive, although much less so than with single varietal hop beers.

The question to ask then is “What future, if any, for single varietal hop beers?” Are they just a fad, or are they an important tool when it comes to educating the beer drinking public about the different varieties of hops that are now available, and the effects they have on both aroma and flavour?

Getting the Juices Flowing

“A Moveable Feast” is the title of a series of observations and impressions written by Ernest Hemingway. Published in 1960, the writings look back at Hemingway’s time in Paris, during the years 1921-1926, when he was a young and virtually unknown writer, living in a cold and draughty top-floor garret with his wife and young son.

Hemingway of course, was not the only literary figure living in Paris at this time; he shared the city with such luminaries as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Wyndham Lewis and Gertrude Stein. “A Moveable Feast” is a fascinating glimpse into a long vanished world; a world of boozy and leisurely lunches and long café nights, of hanging around in bookstores to escape the cold and windswept streets outside and of writing long into the night. “Une Génération Perdue” – "a lost generation", was how this group of writers and artists were often referred to, and it is perhaps no surprise to learn that drink, and often rather a lot of drink, played a significant part in the lives of Hemingway and many of his contemporaries.

It might seem shocking to admit, but like the "lost generation", I find my creative juices are at their most abundant after I have had a drink or two. No more than a couple of glasses of beer, otherwise I start losing focus on what I am trying to say, but I sometimes wonder as to why this might be? Is it because, in moderation, alcohol loosens up people’s inhibitions, or are there other reason? Perhaps the drink just helps people relax more, so their minds are not cluttered up with everyday thoughts. Does it allow them to focus on what they really want to say, rather than having to worry about that un-finished work project, the bills that need  paying or that squeaky garden gate that needs oiling?

 

I’m certain I am not alone in thinking this; neither am I alone in experiencing an upsurge in creativity after a beer or two. Do other Bloggers feel the same, I wonder?

“A Moveable Feast” is  probably my favourite book from one of my favourite writers. It provides a fascinating glimpse into a world that was a mixture of simple pleasures and decadent delights. A world free from political correctness, health and safety and the Nanny State. A world where people were left to get on and live their lives as they saw fit. In short, not just the world of “the lost generation”, but a lost world altogether.

 

A Decent Glass at Last!

I’ve been searching for a decent beer “tasting” glass for some time now, unaware that the answer to my quest lay much closer to home than I thought. For years I’ve been using a classic, straight-sided pint glass, courtesy of local brewers, Larkins. It’s great for volume drinking, but as a glass designed to bring out the best in a beer in terms of appearance, aroma, condition and taste, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Leffe presentation set

I knew the answer lay in a “chalice-style” glass, and the obvious place to source one seemed to be Belgium. A work colleague was paying a brief visit to the country back in the summer, so I asked her to look out for a suitable glass for me. To my colleague’s  great credit, seeing as she knows next to nothing about beer, she brought me back a presentation gift box, produced by Leffe which not only has two Leffe branded, chalice-style glasses, but also four different bottles of Leffe beer.  Most UK drinkers will be familiar with two of the bottles; Blond and Bruin, but also included were two other Leffe beers which I hadn’t come across before; Tripel at 8.5% ABV, and Rituel 9˚at 9.0% ABV.

  

I haven’t drunk these potent beers yet, but I look forward to doing so, especially as we’re into November now and the mercury has plummeted. More to the point, as far as this post is concerned, I haven’t tried the glasses either! They are perhaps more goblet than chalice, but have an attractive motif, and would grace any bar, or indeed dining table, but the real reason I haven’t made use of them is their wide bowl shape is not conducive to retaining, or indeed concentrating beer aromas.

Having been a participant in a couple of training sessions for CAMRA Beer Tasting Panel members, I know these things, and I therefore knew exactly the type of glass I was after.

After lots of fruitless scouring through various charity shops; an often over-looked but sometimes surprising source of unusual glasses, I had a look on Amazon; again a useful and surprising market place for branded beer glasses. Most of the glasses produced by the well-known Trappist brewers were featured, along with examples from several lesser known Belgian brewers. In a deliberate attempt to make each one stand out they were all subtly different from each other, with two main styles emerging – either chalice type or thistle shape. What I was really after was something in between the two!

The right glass, at last!

After I had almost given up, salvation came in the form of the lined half-pint “tasting” glasses, produced for use at our recent CAMRA Beer Festival, at the Spa Valley Railway. Tall and slim, with a reasonably sized bowl above the stem, which tapers inwards, and then out again in a thistle style, so as to form a “trap” which concentrates aroma, and maintains condition within the beer. The glass also holds significantly more than half a pint, making it suitable for beers packaged in the increasingly popular 330ml size bottles.

For the tasting and enjoying of speciality beers, especially the stronger ones, this glass is ideal. But for everyday quaffing, I’ll be sticking with my trusty straight-sided pint glass.

In Praise of Green-Hopped Beer

For the past two years running I’ve written a post or two about Kent Green Hop Beer Fortnight .  For those who haven't been paying attention, Kent Green Hop Beer is beer made with fresh, or green Kentish hops, rather than using hops that have been dried, as is more traditional in brewing. The resulting beers have a characteristic fresh taste because the green hops used contain oils and other aroma compounds that are normally lost when hops are dried. The brewers make sure the hops are as fresh as possible by using them within 12 hours of being picked.

Hops are used as the ‘seasoning’ rather the main ingredient in beer, and impart tanginess, bitterness and aroma. When beers are brewed with green hops, the fact the hops are fresh and un-processed means they are an unknown quantity. This combined with the influence of the weather, and other seasonal factors, on their growing period ensures the flavour of the resultant beer will be different each year. As brewers are normally at pains to ensure their beers taste the same every time, these factors add a variety and interest which would not normally be present.

Almost every brewery in Kent makes at least one green-hopped – some make several, and with over 20 breweries in the county that’s a large range of beers! In fact more than 30 were brewed this year, and with each brewer creating their own recipe, they were all different as well.

In order to showcase these beers, and bring them to the attention of the public at large, the Kent breweries have banded together to set up Kent Green Hop Beer Fortnight. This officially begins at the Canterbury Food & Drink Festival; held this year on Friday 26th September 2014. This is the only occasion and location when all (or nearly all!) Kent Green Hop Beers are available in the same place at the same time. Select pubs throughout the county also stock Kent Green Hop Beers throughout the two week period following the festival, ending just before the middle of October.

Of course green-hopped beers aren’t confined to the Garden of England alone; brewers as far distant as Ilkley in Yorkshire have brewed their own versions, as have brewers in the Thames Valley and  those based in England’s other main hop-growing area – the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. It is therefore worth noting that the Teme Valley Brewery, who are based at The Talbot at Knightwick in Worcestershire, run their own Green Hop Beer Festival which is of a size to rival that of the Kent one. This year’s event featured around 35 green-hopped beers sourced mainly, but not exclusively, from local brewers.

So do green-hopped beers taste different to more conventional ones? The short answer is yes, but the difference is perhaps rather more subtle than that between green tea and normal dried tea. Green-hopped beers have a definite resinous taste which is almost certainly due to the abundance of hop oils and other flavouring compounds. These are elements which are either diminished, or lost altogether during the normal drying process. Friends have commented on a distinct mouth-feel to the beer, and I have noticed this too in the form of a slight furriness on the tongue and the roof of my mouth. Whatever the difference, the fact that brewing with green hops can only be done during harvest, creates a very special beer with a truly unique flavour.

.The idea of green-hopped beers has now spread far beyond these shores, with brewers in New Zealand now producing their own version of these beers. A number of American brewers also produce what is known as a “Wet-Hopped Beer”; sometimes referred to as a “Harvest Ale”. As far as I can tell, these are beers brewed using fresh, un-dried hops, so to my mind, at least, they are equivalent to our green-hopped ales.

The very first green-hopped beer, certainly in the modern era, was surprisingly not brewed in a hop-growing area, but was instead conceived by Wadworth of Devizes, in Wiltshire. The company’s Malt & Hops was the original, and some would say, still the best, green- hopped beer. Somewhat surprisingly, the beer has been brewed on an annual basis for the past 22 years; the first batch having been brewed as long ago as 1992! In view of this achievement, the name of the beer has now been changed to The Original Green Hopped Beer.

Wadworth brew this beer in their traditional old Victorian brew-house, which particularly lends itself to the green hop brewing process. The malt used is a pale ale malt with just a hint of crystal, and the main hop used is Earlybird Goldings. Once brewed the beer is stored in casks for a few days to obtain natural conditioning and can be drunk almost immediately the yeast has settled out.

Some might dismiss the whole “green-hopped” thing as just another publicity exercise; with a few people going even further, comparing it to the media circus which surrounded Beaujolais Nouveau, a decade or so ago. However, unlike the marketing of an immature and, at times, rather thin red wine, which incidentally the French thought we were crazy to go chasing after, green-hoped beers are all about the heritage and future of Britain’s hop-growing industry.

This isn't just about grabbing a seasonal product while you can: English hops are in desperate need of a boost. Hop acreage has dropped from a high of 71,189 acres in 1878 to around 2,500 now, and this decline has continued in recent years by the increasing popularity of hops from places like America and New Zealand. The demand for the citrus and tropical fruit flavours imparted by these hops shows no sign of abating, and is side-lining the earthy, floral, hedgerow fruitiness of traditional English varieties. Anything which helps reverse this trend, by encouraging an interest in our home-grown varieties, has to be encouraged and is surely worthy of the support of every English beer drinker.

Stocking Up

As if people hadn’t guessed from all the tat in the shops, the dreaded “C” word is fast approaching. With child now grown up, and no sign of any grandchildren on the horizon, Christmas in the Bailey household has long since lost its sparkle. It would be nice to go away; somewhere snowy and cold with fir trees, picturesque scenery, time-worn towns and villages and a real traditional Christmas feel. Austria, Bavaria or Switzerland would all fit the bill nicely; they seem to celebrate Christmas on the continent with much more meaning and far less commercial tack than we do in the UK.

 

Unfortunately, our son works in a hardware shop, and Christmas is the busiest and most lucrative time of the year for the retail trade. The whole of December and the beginning of January are a “no” as far as him taking leave is concerned so, for the foreseeable future, it’s Christmas here in dear old Blighty.

Like most beer lovers I usually get a stock in for Christmas, to accompany the mountain of food we always seem to have, and to see me through the days of between Christmas and New Year, (like many firms, the company I work for has an enforced shutdown over the festive period.) In the past I used to get a polypin in; but drinking the same old beer day after day does get a trifle boring and, besides, one needs different beers for different occasions; different times of the day and to go with different foods.

So, as in previous years, I’ve already started stocking up. Everyone’s favourite supermarket Waitrose have been of assistance here, with some good offers on a number of beers. Several weeks ago, the large 750ml “sharing “ bottles of Meantime IPA and Porter were selling for a pound off, but for the past couple of weeks a number of  eminently quaffable and well respected beers are on offer at four for £6.

Included in the deal are St Austell Tribute and the same brewery's excellent Proper Job. Gem and Organic Wild Hare from Bath Ales also feature, alongside various beers from the Duchy Originals range. The crowning glory, as far as I am concerned is that the complete range of Fuller’s bottles are also selling at four for £6, and what’s more, you’re allowed to mix and match. Some Waitrose outlets carry Golden Pride; Fuller’s premium, superior-strength bottled ale, which weighs in with an ABV of 8.5%. This stunning beer is also included in the deal, but it always seems to be out of stock at my local Waitrose. Hardly surprising, I suppose as in pure terms of more bangs for your buck, it’s excellent value.

Not all the beers shown here are included in the offer

Golden Pride aside, I’ve been stocking up on London Porter and 1845, but before the deal comes to an end on Tuesday (4^th November), I’ll be getting in some bottles of Bengal Lancer and Wild River. If, like me, you want to take advantage of this excellent offer then I suggest you hot foot it down to Waitrose before Tuesday.

A Well Deserved Win!

The good news, especially for local readers, is that the “Beer of the Festival”, as voted for by attendees at the recent Spa Valley Railway Beer Fest, has been awarded to Larkins Brewery for their Green Hop Best.

This 4.0% ABV best bitter certainly packed in the hops, and when married with the toffee-like, chewy maltiness imparted by the generous use of crystal malt, that is Larkins signature; this beer was a worthy winner, especially as this is only the second time they have brewed Green Hop Best. The beer is brewed on harvest day, with hops straight from the fields that aren’t dried and is only available for about 10 days. The two casks of it at the SVR Festival sold out really quickly; such is the reputation and the taste of this excellent beer.

Larkins beers are brewed just outside the small, but picturesque village of Chiddingstone, in the south west corner of Kent. The company was founded in 1986 by local farmer and hop-grower, Bob Dockerty, at the family home - Larkins Farm; hence the name. They produce a range of fine traditional Kentish ales which are listed as follows: Traditional 3.4%, Platinum Blonde 3.6% (Seasonal Summer), Best 4.4% and Porter 5.2% (Seasonal Winter).

Larkins grow around four acres of hops but, somewhat ironically, Bob had to stop growing them when the brewery was first set up as, between farming and getting the brewery off the ground, he just didn’t have sufficient time. Then, around four or five years ago he decided to start hopping again due to difficulties in sourcing the varieties of hops he wanted for the beer.  Fortunately the wirework and poles needed to support the hop bines were still there, so Bob replanted the hops, and has been using them in his beers ever since. Larkins grow three varieties: Early Choice Goldings, Bramling Cross and Whitbread Golding. Each has a different aroma, and they are used in differing amounts in each of the company’s four beers.

Bob and Harry Dockerty

Having been brewing for nearly 30 years, and farming for even longer than that, Bob has now been joined at the brewery by his nephew Harry. Harry has been learning the trade and is now assistant brewer. Having known Bob since he first set Larkins up, I am extremely pleased for him, Harry and their fellow co-workers Guy and Mick at the brewery for wining this thoroughly deserved award, and look forward to trying their Porter when it is officially launched next week. (I missed it at the SVR Festival, as it sold out even quicker than the Green Hop!).

This article about hop-picking at Larkins, recently appeared in the Guardian newspaper.