Good Friday 2015 - Ramble On

It’s that time of year again when ageing CAMRA members dust off their walking boots, put on their wet weather gear and head off into the great outdoors. I am talking about the Good Friday Ramble, an event organised by members of Maidstone & Mid-Kent CAMRA branch which is now in its 38^th year.

It has therefore become something of a tradition, but the formula remains the same; meet up somewhere convenient for people to get to by public transport (normally a railway station), before setting off across country, up hill and down dale to a suitable local pub, for a lengthy lunchtime stop over. Suitably refreshed the party then walks back to the starting point, but normally by a different route, before we all depart and go our separate ways.

The walk is a good opportunity to meet up and catch up with people one hasn’t seen for a while, often since the previous ramble. As one wag succinctly puts it “It’s always interesting to see how many of us have survived another winter!” That remark, of course refers to the fact that none of us are getting any younger, so as a reflection of this the walks are gentler and less arduous than they were nearly four decades ago, with less hills and other natural obstacles. They are also shorter, being typically around seven to eight miles, rather than the ten to twelve miles traversed in our youth.

Although I belong to West Kent CAMRA, I know quite a few people in MMK Branch; the result of having lived in the county town during the late 70’s and early 80’s, and still keep in touch with old friends from this time. I am normally joined by a couple of my West Kent friends, both of whom appreciate a walk through the beautiful Kent countryside.

 

This year’s walk was slightly different in being linear, rather than circular, but it allowed a greater distance to be covered and also took us through some diverse areas of the county. The group met at Borough Green station, which wasn’t the easiest place for the Tonbridge contingent to get to, as it involved two changes of trains. Nevertheless we all made the 10.30am start and on a rather grey and overcast day we set off in an easterly direction towards our lunchtime stop; the King’s Arms at Offham.                  

Passing through Borough Green and along the busy A25 we turned off through the tiny village of St Mary Platt before climbing up into the woods behind the parish church. Our party of 14 was quite strung out by this time but there were people leading from the front, as well as a couple of experienced walkers who knew the route keeping up the rear. Traversing a local golf course we soon found ourselves in fruit-growing countryside and noticed poly-tunnels in the process of being made ready for this season’s strawberry crop.

King's Arms, Offham

After a distance of almost four miles we reached the village of Offham and our lunchtime stop of the King’s Arms. The King's Arms is now the only pub remaining in the village. Built in the sixteenth century, it was originally two cottages, which were later owned by a saddler and harness maker who ran his business there until granted a license in 1680. I do vaguely remember visiting the pub, back in my days as an MMK member, but I was probably more familiar with Offham’s other pub, the Red Lion, now sadly closed.

Our MMK colleagues knew the King’s Arms was hosting a mini-beer festival, and as we approached we saw evidence of this in the form of a small marquee adjacent to the front entrance. We passed inside and found a couple of tables in front of the fire which, as the weather had warmed up somewhat, wasn’t lit. There were four cask beers on sale in the pub, plus a dozen or so in the outside marquee.

Desiring something hoppy and refreshing, I opted for the Prohibition, a 4.8% pale ale from the pub’s near neighbours, Kent Brewery. The beer fitted the bill and had a real citrus flavour and hoppy bite to it. A couple of  Tonbridge Brewery beers followed; the pale and hoppy Alsace Gold, plus the dark, porter-like Ebony Moon. My final beer of the session was a half of Mad Cow; an amazing, dark, 7.5% Imperial Milk Stout, if there is such a beast!

Most of us also ate in the pub, my choice being a 6oz beef burger with chips and salad.  I was tempted thug to go for the London classic of "pie and mash with liquor". One of my Maidstone friends gave it a try, and reported that it was very good. It certainly looked attractive on the plate.

The Beer Festival

The landlord of the King’s Arms is the man behind the appearance of this Cockney classic on the pub’s menu. Hailing from souf’ London, mine host seemed keen to promote this slightly unusual dish. I didn’t catch his name, but he appeared to be quite a character, especially whilst sprinting from behind the bar to the outside marquee, and back. Apart from the pub chef, I didn’t see any other members of staff, but our licensee seemed to manage keeping everyone in this busy pub, suitably refreshed.

We left the King’s Arms shortly after 3pm, assembling outside for the obligatory team photo. We set off in a northerly direction to begin with, skirting Church Farm and the adjacent church after which the farm is named. From the logos on the buildings and processing sheds, this farm is given over to salad production, and on the crest of the hill was a whole complex of converted Porta-Kabins, no doubt used to house the seasonal workers and pickers who will be arriving later in the year. There was also an impressive collection of John Dere tractors standing proud in the yard; talk about big-boy’s toys!

Leaving this hive of rural activity behind, we turned due east and continued our walk towards our final destination, the small town of West Malling. Set against the backdrop of the North Downs, this part of Kent was looking very attractive, despite the gloomy conditions pervading at the time. We skirted the south of the town, passing en route the impressive 11^th Century St Leonard’s Tower.

St Leonard's Tower, West Malling

This is a well-preserved example of a small, early, free-standing Norman tower keep, but according to English Heritage, “Very little is known about the history of the building, including its intended function and even who commissioned the build.” It’s position on a natural sandstone ledge near the head of a narrow valley, does indicate a defensive purpose, although some claim it was the tower of the now-demolished church of St Leonard.

The final stretch of our walk took us through Manor Park Country Park and along the edge of an attractive lake which is over-looked by Douces Manor; an 18^th Century Manor House which saw service during World War II as the officers’ mess for fighter crew, stationed at nearby RAF West Malling.  From here, it was a relatively short walk to the station, although I unfortunately just missed my intended train.

Once again the Good Friday Ramble had provided a good mix of pleasant countryside, physical exercise, a fine choice of pub for lunch, plus the company of old friends along the way. I don’t know what more one could ask of a day out, so I would like to end by thanking Dick and Pam Wilkinson for once again organising the walk.

Clear-out

These were from last summer, and have already been drunk

With Easter fast approaching my wife and I are planning a bit of a clear out at home. She’s got clothes and shoes galore to take down to the charity shop. I’ve got books and some clothes of my own to get shot of, but in the former downstairs airing cupboard, which is awaiting the arrival of the builders for conversion into a ground-floor toilet, are umpteen bottles of beer.

Many of these are left over from Christmas and include a few stronger examples from Christmas 2013. They won’t, of course, be leaving the house, but I’ll still be sorting through them, earmarking those which require consumption either straight away, or within the next few weeks.

I know there are quite a few beers from Fuller’s lurking in the cupboard, including several bottles of 1845 and London Porter, and there are still quite a few bottles brought back from our pre-Christmas trip to Barcelona. The latter will need drinking as soon as possible, but there are also several bottles of  St Bernardus Abt, the odd Trappist beer, (both Chimay and Westmalle), plus some recently acquired Norfolk Nips Barley Wine, brewed on behalf of M&S by Woodfordes of Woodbastwick. Even stronger is a bottle of Imperial Russian Stout from Gadds of Ramsgate, which was bought for consumption over Christmas, but never opened due to the flu-like bug my wife and I both went down with.

I tend to pick beer up when it is on special offer at the supermarket, (buy three for £5), seems to be a favourite promotion in many stores. Alternatively, I bring back bottles from foreign parts. Either way I normally reach a stage where supply exceeds demand (a good thing, surely?), and that is why I sometimes end up with this surplus.

The surplus will start to go down, once I have raked through the accumulated stocks. There are no doubt quite a few goodies lurking there which will be a joy to discover, and an even greater joy to drink. I’m sure that I’m not the only beer lover with treasure hidden in the cupboard, and I’m doubly sure that there are true connoisseurs amongst you with proper cellars, and all that!

Happy hunting!

Why Nottingham is Not For Me

I shan’t be going to next month’s CAMRA Member’s Weekend and AGM which, this year, takes place in Nottingham. Work and family commitments have conspired against me, so regrettably I am unable to spare the time necessary in order to attend.

In some ways this is a great shame, as from what I understand Nottingham is a great city for beer, with much to offer the drinker and beer connoisseur. As well as a host of award-winning breweries, Nottingham also has some great pubs, including one of the few in the city which I have been in; the ancient and quite unique Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which nestles below the imposing Castle Rock.  The weekend would also have afforded the opportunity to catch up with friends both old and new from within the campaign.

In other ways though I am quite pleased not to be going, as the conference proceedings themselves are of little or no interest to me. Reminiscent of a 1970’s Trades Union Conference, this part of the weekend really shows that CAMRA is living in the past and has refused to move on, as I will demonstrate later. A glance through the order paper, published in this month’s “What’s Brewing” confirms this introspection, as apart from the eminently sensible motion proposed by Tandleman and his CAMRA colleague Graham Donning which draws attention to the outrageous practice adopted by many pubs of charging a premium for half pints, there is nothing really of interest and certainly little of relevance to today’s fast changing beer scene.

 

Among the less sensible motions is one which effectively rules out future CAMRA involvement in the “There’s a Beer for That” campaign, and one calling for the campaign to withdraw its support for the Cyclops scheme of beer tasting/assessment, on the grounds that it has expanded to include all beers. Yes let’s isolate ourselves from the brewing industry and burn all the bridges that CAMRA has so carefully built over the years with brewers and publicans alike.

The most controversial motion though, is Number 20; the last one on the order paper. It reads “This conference proposes that CAMRA shall oppose fracking and unconventional hydrocarbon exploration and extraction on both a local and national scale, as they pose a real and substantial threat to the production and quality of real ale”. Yeah, right on Swampy!

I am assuming that the relevance of this motion to CAMRA is the potential effect this practice could have on underground water supplies (aquifers). Not withstanding the controversy behind fracking, the jury is still out on the practice, and anyway areas suitable for shale gas extraction in the UK are both limited and fragmented; unlike the United States and Canada. In addition, the current record low price of oil makes even exploration for ground-sourced hydrocarbons unviable at the moment.

To return to the potential threat to water supplies; these days many underground sources are unsuitable for brewing because they contain high levels of nitrates, which originate from agricultural run-off, so the whole point of the motion is rendered  irrelevant anyway.

Irrelevant until one looks deeper at the motive for including this motion on the ballot paper! Any branch, of individual member, can submit a motion for debate at conference, but before going forward all motions are first vetted by CAMRA’s equivalent of the Politburo. Far worthier motions than this one have been rejected in the past, and I’m certain many will have been discarded prior to this year’s conference. This then begs the question is CAMRA lurching further to the left? Or is it unashamedly trying to woo the green vote?

Either way this issue is at best a fringe one, and at worst totally outside the Campaign’s remit. For me this is yet further proof that CAMRA has lost its way and is in grave danger of being sidelined as an irrelevance in today’s fast evolving and rapidly changing beer industry.

 

CAMRA currently boasts a membership in excess of 170,000 which is pretty impressive until one considers that its policy is determined solely by those members who attend the National AGM. The last set of figures I have seen for the Members Weekend – National Conference are from the Norwich Conference, which took place in 2013. I was one of the 1,300 members who attended that event and, enjoyable though it was, when viewed as a total of the current membership, this figure is less than 1%, which quite frankly is appalling. 

That issues of policy, membership fees, campaigning issues etc can be decided by less than 1% of the total membership is scandalous, and belies any attempt by CAMRA to promote itself as a democratic organisation responsive to, and in touch with the needs of its members. The fact that conference motions are pre-vetted by a central committee (shades of Joseph Stalin here!), before they are even put before the meeting is nothing short of a disgrace.

There are already serious rumblings amongst the grass-roots membership, and there is a small, but increasingly vociferous Unofficial CAMRA Facebook group. The Provisional CAMRA, perhaps? It really is time for the organisation to wake up and smell the coffee, or should that be the malt and hops?

A Lucky Escape?

Although my recent post about “ticking” was meant to be thought provoking, without being controversial, it did attract a certain amount of criticism, particularly from one or two individuals. The post was intended to highlight this extreme form of beer appreciation, showing the lengths some people go to in pursuit of their aim.

I was going to say “in search of the perfect pint”, but that would not really be the case with your hardened ticker, as for them it is more of a numbers’ game than anything else. However, whilst appearing in some peoples’ eyes to be overly critical of the ticking/scratching/scooping fraternity I can understand how people can get drawn into this obsession. In fact, it nearly happened to me, and at one point I was in danger of becoming a “ticker” myself.

Like “Mick the Tick”, who I referred to in the article, I too was inspired by the first CAMRA Good Beer Guide I acquired; although in my case it was a year before Mick’s, and the edition in question was the very first GBG, published in 1974.

Seeing all the brewery names listed in the back of the guide fired me with a desire to try and sample as many of them as possible. Now excluding breweries belonging to the “Big Six” brewers, there were only around 90 breweries, operating within England and Wales, (the first GBG did not cover Scotland). Managing to sample beers from all of these therefore should not have posed too much of a problem

The only trouble was that aged just 19 and with no car, or other transport of my own, the chances of travelling the length and breadth of the Britain, in order to sample these beers, was pretty much zero.  Still, living in Manchester, as I was at the time, did afford me the opportunity to enjoy the likes of Boddington, Burtonwood, Greenalls, Holts, Hyde’s, Lees, Marstons, Oldham, Robinsons, Sam Smiths  and Thwaites; even if some of them did take a bit of tracking down. I also ought to include big-brewery beers such as Draught Bass and Wilson’s; both of which were readily available in cask form.

The advent of beer festivals changed all that; as did my purchase of Frank Baillie’s pioneering guide “The Beer Drinker’s Companion”. The latter was a comprehensive guide to all of Britain’s breweries, with detailed information on every one still brewing, the beers they produced (both draught and bottled), plus information on how and where to find their pubs.

A student friend and I, both of whom shared a passion for Real Ale, made a pact that we would attempt to sample (the term “tick” did not exist back then), as many cask beers as possible; the only proviso was that we had to have a pint of each in order for it to count! As time went on we moderated this requirement to half pints instead. My interest was mainly confined to beers listed in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide, so unlike your typical ticker I never went out of my way to sample odd or “one-off” beers.

In addition I never kept a list of my “scoops”, but did mark off beers in the Breweries Section at the back of the GBG. Every year, I would transfer this information across to the new edition of the guide, building up a reasonable number of beers, but never getting into four figures. Pretty amateurish, compared to serious tickers, but it was bit of fun looking back to see which beers I had tried over the years.

I kept this up until about 10 years ago, when the explosion in the number of breweries and different beers made me realise what a totally futile and pointless task this was. Did I have a lucky escape? Not really, as I could see the futility in the whole exercise, and besides over the years I learned to appreciate a decent pint for its own sake, rather than just another name to be crossed off in the back of the GBG. Today I would say the occasion, the surroundings and the company I am with, all play an important role in my appreciation of a good pint, and whilst I am never averse to trying something new, sampling a beer, especially a “one-off”, or a re-badged brew,  just for the sake of it isn’t really my style.

People collect many things; not just different beers, and while there obviously are women who collect things, on the whole spotting, ticking, twitching etc seem to be largely male pursuits. During my formative years, I dabbled in stamp collecting. I still have an album of stamps somewhere in a box in the loft. During my primary school years, a whole group of us collected “bubble-gum cards”, with topics ranging from Flags of the World to the American Civil War.

By secondary school this interest waned, only to be replaced during the Sixth Form by building up a collection of progressive rock albums. The “collecting bug” never really leaves some people and whether they turn into a train-spotter, a beer ticker or a person who spots Eddie Stobbart lorries, the obsession to amass data remains the same.

Other factors also come into play, such as the sense of belonging which ensues from being amongst like-minded people; something which fits in comfortably with a person’s genuine desire to be accepted. With the number of breweries in the UK now approaching the 1,300 mark and around 4,000 permanent beers, plus nearly 6,000 special, or seasonal brews available, it would be a tough job for even the most dedicated ticker to work his way through that lot. Also, given the constantly changing and evolving nature of the market, it has already become nigh impossible to keep tabs on the beer market as a whole.

For my part I will continue to enjoy good beer wherever I come across it, but equally I will try and look for decent pubs and bars in which to enjoy it. As I have said before, “A pint amongst friends”, still remains one of the greatest pleasures anyone can have in life, and whether that pint is a glass of the latest über-hopped, craft-beer, in a hipster-filled bar, or a pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best in an unspoilt rural pub nestling in the shadow of the South Downs, I’ll drink to that!

Beer Ticking

I am certain that most beer lovers will have come across so-called “tickers” at some stage in their drinking careers, but for the un-initiated, “Beer ticking” is the practice of keeping your own recorded history of every different beer that passes your lips. It’s a simple pursuit, rather like train spotting or stamp collecting, but infinitely more pleasurable." Or is it?

As with anything in life when a pleasure turns into an obsession, or even an addiction, then it surely is no longer a pleasure. Most open-minded beer drinkers like to sample something new now and again, and this particularly applies when visiting a different part of the country or somewhere overseas. Part of the joy of visiting beer festivals is to do just that; pick out a few beers which catch your interest or you may have read about before and see what they are really like.

However, there are groups of individuals who go along to festivals with the sole aim of only sampling beers they have never tried before. How do they know they haven’t drank these beers before, I hear you ask? Well they keep lists; often incredibly long and detailed lists, the like of which would not be out of place in a catalogue of museum artefacts.
 
If you don’t believe me, read what one ticking, or “scooping"  website has to say on the matter "What is scooping/ticking/beer bashing? Basically, it is the drinking - and more importantly the writing down - of all "new" beers drunk; all beers thus "scooped" are put onto a master list (either paper based or, more commonly in these technological days, onto a PDF or suchlike) which can be well over 10,000 different beers in total, and the scooper carries this around with him to ascertain if any beers he encounters on his travels are "required" by him.”

As I said at the beginning, I’m sure we have all encountered such people over the years, but a couple of years ago I was reminded of "ticking" when I bumped into a character I know at the White Cliffs Winter Ale Festival, down in Dover. I won't reveal his real name, in case he's reading this blog, so let's call him Norman. Now ever since I first knew him I realised Norman was an inveterate ticker of beers, but it wasn't until my conversation with him, at the festival, that I realised just how serious he was over his "hobby". 

Norman informed me of exactly how many beers at the festival he hadn’t tried and thus needed to tick or "scoop". I wasn’t really interested and even though my glazed over expression might have conveyed this to a normal person; Norman carried on, oblivious to my increasing boredom and was soon in full swing. It was almost as though I wasn’t there as he continued giving me chapter and verse about his hobby/obsession.  Apparently the Holy Grail of beer ticking is the Egham Beer Festival, held at the town’s United Services Club. The club runs three festivals each year and prides itself on sourcing beers which are either new, or which are or limited in their availability.

Proof of this can be found on the festival website, where the following comment sums it all up. “We cannot think where one would find so many tickers to meet at one time as at Egham. We have just spent three very enjoyable days at Egham and have met so many Scoopgen scoopers from all over the country each day.”

Now you or I could probably turn up at any beer festival up and down the country and find plenty of beers we hadn’t sampled before, and with the massive increase in brewery numbers over the last four to five years, no doubt there would be breweries which we would not have heard of either. We would be pleased with this and would enjoy sampling a few of these new beers, along with renewing our acquaintance with a few old favourites. Not so your ticker. Armed with his notebook and master list he, and it is invariably the male of the species, will approach the event with military precision.

This brings us nicely back to Norman and his obsession with “ticking” new beers. I had known him through his involvement with my local CAMRA branch, and back in the days when I had my own off-licence, I remember him popping  in from time to time to see if I had any unusual bottled beers in stock (BCA's naturally).  

On more than one occasion I was able to assist him with his quest, and as a show of gratitude on his part, he presented me a weighty hand-bound tome produced by an organisation calling itself the Guild of British Beer Samplers or GOBBS* for short. This was a real anorak's bible, as not only did it purport to list every cask ale available in the country, but it included many that were no longer available. It even went as far to include special "one-off" brews, and listed separately many beers where there had been tweaks to the recipe or a slight change in gravity. In short whilst it was incredibly anal, someone, at some stage, must have sat down and compiled all this (useless?) information

I thanked Norman for this gift, even though it turned out to be an edition which had just been superseded, whilst at the same time wondering what use such a publication would ever be to me. Now don't get me wrong I am as interested in new breweries and new beers as the next beer enthusiast, but not to the in-depth analysis afforded by this publication.

Compared to some in the “ticking” community, local man “Norman” is a mere amateur. An article on “beer ticking”, published in the Publican Magazine in 2008, featured an interview with Birmingham based “Mick the Tick” who, back then claimed to have tasted 33,000 different beers. His friend, Brian ‘The Whippet’ Moore, beat this score, with a phenomenal 40,000 ticks.

For Mick, what started out in 1975 as a quest to visit every pub in a local guide, whilst on holiday in the Isle of Wight, turned into a full-blown obsession when his long-suffering wife bought him a copy of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. “I saw the list of beers in the back and thought I’d try to drink as many as I could,” says Mick, who had dabbled in train spotting and plane spotting as a teenager “before women came along.”

Now I don’t know whether either of these characters are still with us, as given the amount of beer they must have shifted over the years (even if it is all half pints), one could be forgiven for thinking their livers, and other vital organs, might not  be in the best of states. But for a further insight into this strangely obsessive fraternity, look out for a film made in 2010, entitled “BEERTICKERS: beyond the ale.” You can see a trailer from the film on this Youtube link.

 

As ticking grew with the growth of micro brewing and the increasing numbers of beers., some tickers started “bottling” beers so they could scoop many more than they could drink on the spot; taking them away to consume later. The kit required for this is some empty 250ml plastic pop bottles, a funnel – for transferring the beer from the glass to the bottle, and some labels.

Some tickers think bottling is "cheating" as it means an end to "capacity" limits at beer festivals, but others take things a stage further by forming “bottling cartels”. This involves a group of tickers getting together and deciding to bottle for each other. Each member of the cartel would then go to a different festival, or city, and bottle beers on behalf of other members. They would then arrange to meet up, as soon as possible, for a “bottle swap”.

Final word (for now), on the subject.

How to spot a ticker in your local pub

✓

Appears during the day

✓

Arrives on a bus

✓

Arrives with a rucksack/trolley

✓

Brings Panda Pops bottles (or similar) plus funnel

✓

Studies full range of cask beers before ordering

✓

Drinks halves

✓

Makes notes

 *GOBBS stands for Guild of British Beer Samplers, a tickers’ organisation formed in the late 1980s. It exists mainly to produce the GOBBS Guide, which aims to list every cask beer in the country.

Bargain Beer at M & S

It was bargain-basement time this weekend at our local Marks & Spencer, with a couple of slow-moving beer lines being sold off cheap. On Saturday I picked up a few bottles of M&S Orange Barley Beer; a 5.5% offering from Batemans of Wainfleet. Priced at just 90p per 330ml bottle this beer was a bargain which was too good to miss. The company claim “The beer is infused with bitter Seville oranges to create a fantastically fragrant and zesty full-bodied tipple that pairs beautifully with chocolate puddings.”

Also reduced to sell was M&S Norfolk Nip Barley Wine7.0% from Woodfordes. Priced at £1.40 a bottle, this beer represented another bargain, and even if the shelf life on this beer is short-dated, I purchased a number of bottles for laying down. According to the bottle the beer is “Brewed for us by Woodforde’s Broadland Brewery in Norfolk to an original recipe from 1929, this classic English beer blends roasted East Anglian barley and Maris Otter pale, crystal and chocolate malted barley with Goldings hops.”

They will come into their own, come the autumn, although it’s been so cold these past few days that I’m sorely tempted to crack open a bottle later tonight!

 

I don’t know if these reductions are unique to the Tunbridge Wells store, or whether they apply nationally, but if you are a fan of either of these two beers, or you fancy looking out for other bargains, then get yourselves down to your local Marks and Sparks.

European Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference 2015 - Excursions

In my recent post about the European Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference I mentioned that I had also booked a place on the pre-conference trip, and also the two-day post-conference trip. Details of both trips have now been made available, so I thought I’d share a few of the highlights with you.

The pre-conference excursion, which departs from central Brussels on Thursday, August 27^th, has been arranged by the Belgian Family Brewers Association; a not for profit association of Belgian breweries which have been brewing beer for at least 50 years non-stop. There are currently 21 members  representing 15% of Belgian brewers who, between them, amass a total of more than 3,500 years of tradition and experience in brewing.  

The  excursion includes lunch, dinner, and of course, beer, plus transportation to and from the Conference Hotel and everywhere in between. It is intriguingly themed:  "Oak, Fruit, Hops and More; Where Innovation Meets Tradition", so I’m guessing this entails fermentation or maturation in oak vessels; fruit (frambozen or kriek); a possible visit to a Belgian hop garden plus something extra.

According to the itinerary, the first stop is Diepensteyn castle; a once run-down castle which is now owned by  the PALM Brewery and restored to its former historical splendour. It is situated close to the village of  Steenhuffel.  Hops will be the main subject of this visit and should serve as the first inspirational item on the tour which is described as helping attendees to learn about speciality Belgium beers.

The second stop is at Lindemans Brewery in in the hamlet of Vlezenbeek, in the heart of Pajottenland. .  Head brewer, Peter Renders, will explain the centuries old tradition of spontaneous fermentation and its role in Belgian brewing. He will also talk about the role of FRUIT in the brewing process. “Peter Renders has been brewing lambic for 13 years.  His father also worked at Lindemans, and during his 52-year career, he helped make the brewery into what it is today”

The third visit of the day takes EBBC delegates to the beautiful Dupont Brewery, where “MORE beer secrets will be shared with the blogging community.”

The final stop on this full day beer tour is at the Dubuisson Brewery, the oldest brewery in Wallonia.   A discussion of the role of wood, and especially oak, in beer at Dubuisson will illustrate one of the more complex elements separating good, specialty beer from the rest…

 

Maturation vats at Rodenbach

If anything the two-day Post-Conference Excursion, with an over-night stay in Bruges, is even more exciting as we travel  through West-Flanders and dive deep into the brewery and hop culture of the region around Poperinge. According to the write-up, tour participants will revel in the hospitality of dinner at Rodenbach Brewery, where our palates will be enriched by the unique barrel-aged Flemish Red-Browns Ales produced there. We will meet personalities like Luc Vermeersch of Brewery De Leite who started brewing in 1997, in his small garden shed in Ruddervoorde, and spend some time with the brewer at De Plukker who operates a 100% organic production that started out as a hop-growing business before branching into brewing.  

Hop fields at Poperinge

We will get to know Bruges during a historical walking beer tour, which includes a visit to the Bruges Beer Museum in the heart of the city. We will also stop to meet the brewer of the quintessential Bourgogne des Flandres style at the nearly-finished new brewery in Bruges, which is going up within a stone’s throw of where the historic, Brewery Den Os originated.

The full itinerary for this two day beer adventure is as follows:

Transport to Poperinge

• Guided tour of the visitor center, “Hopmuseum Poperinge”
• A culinary “travel through the Westhoek” regional lunch at the Hopmuseum

Transport to brewery De Plukker in Poperinge

• Brewery and hop growing tour + tasting with the brewer at De Plukker, a 100% organic production that started as a hop-growing business

Transfer to Westvleteren

• Walking tour of the area surrounding Abbey of Sint Sixtus + tasting of Westvleteren ‘In de Vrede’.

Transfer to Oostvleteren

• Meet the brewer at Struise Brouwers for a visit + tasting of this innovative microbrewery

Transfer to Roeselare

• Dinner at Rodenbach Brewery and a visit with Plant Manager, Rudi Ghekiere. 

Transfer to Bruges for the night

• Optional last beer of the night at Brugs Beertje

Day Two

9:30     Meet in Reception to start the day

• Meet the brewer of Brewery Den Os for a very special preview tour of the still-being-constructed new Brewery Den Os brewery that produces the quintessential Bougogne des Flandres 

Walk to the Bruges Beer Museum

• Historical Walking Tour of Bruges 
• Visit Bruges Beer Museum in the heart of Bruges for an innovative approach to understanding the historical importance of beer + tasting

Transport to Ruddervoorde

• Meet the brewer at Brewery De Leite for a vistiing + tasting in this newer microbrewery who’s founder, Luc Vermeersch, started his beer experiments in a small shed.

Transfer to Brussels
Like the pre-conference excursion, this overnight trip includes dining, transport, all visits and tastings, but also covers the cost of overnight lodging in Bruges. So what's not to like?

The renowned, but rare, Westvleteren Trappist Beer

With these excursions coming both before and after what, by its very nature, is bound to be a very beery bountiful conference, I am wondering if my liver will stand the pace! My wallet will be alright, as I have already paid for both the conference and the two excursions; it’s a question of whether my body can stand the pace!

Moderation will have to be the order of the day, but as most Belgian beers are notoriously strong; certainly by UK standards, and with such a wide variety being place in front of conference attendees, it will be extremely difficult not to succumb to temptation!

I have visited Brussels several times, and have also made two trips to Bruges, but despite this and the experience of 40 years seeking out and enjoying good and interesting beers, I feel that I have only scratched the surface of Belgium; despite it being a country renowned for its beers. The European Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference this August, plus the two excursions I have described above, should help redress the balance, and get me up to speed with this world famous brewing nation.