Ticking serves up an ace

I’ve got a bit of a confession to make, and it’s one that might surprise some of you. You see I’m a bit of a closet “ticker” at heart; not a serious beer-bore type ticker, turning up at beer festivals with a dog-eared notebook full of hastily crossed off lists of obscure, “one-off” poorly crafted and badly brewed cask ales, produced exclusively for the "ticker market."

No, instead I’m someone who just likes to keep tabs on the beers I have drunk over the years, especially those bottles and cans I’ve enjoyed in the comfort of my own home. So, it’s not exactly “ticking” in the established sense of the word, especially as I don’t go out of my way to track down new or unusual beers.

Although I’d always made a habit of writing out a list of the various beers I enjoyed on holiday, the serious list-keeping started at the tail end of 2015, when I decided to make a note of all new beers I’ve consumed at home, along with brief tasting notes for each one. This record keeping is restricted exclusively for beers drank within the house, and whilst there’s no more than a couple of brief paragraphs for each beer, my list now runs into over 40 pages.

If I knew how to create decent Excel spread sheets, I could tell you at a glance how many beers in total have passed my lips, but as my list is a “Word” document, I'm certainly not going to scroll through 40 pages and count them all. The total is obviously quite a few and, as mentioned above, many of these beers are souvenirs brought back from trips abroad – remember them? Others though, are bottles or cans picked up in supermarkets or off-licences, and supplemented now, in these days of state-enforced confinement, by home delivery, from locations up and down this fair land of ours.

Every so often during my sampling, a beer really hits the spot and on rare occasions I come across one that I consider to be an absolute classic. I found one on Saturday evening, and strangely enough it was a beer that had been lying around at the bottom of a stack of crates for the past two and a half years.

The beer in question was Spital - Strong Ale 9.9%, from Spitalbrauerei, who are based in the lovely old city of Regensburg, in central Bavaria. They are the oldest brewery in the city, with a history dating back to 1226, and their aptly named Strong Ale turned out to be a barley-wine style beer, packed full of toffee malt flavours, but balanced by just the right degree of hopping.

Dark in colour, smooth and warming to the taste, the beer was still in perfect condition after nearly three years, gathering dust at home. It was definitely one of the best beers I have drank in a long time. So, what is a seemingly conservative, Bavarian brewery like Spitalbrauerei doing turning out an English-style ale?

Well despite the conservative image that goes with being the oldest brewery in Regensburg, Spitalbrauerei are very much a go-ahead modern company. I discovered this whilst doing a spot of research, as one does, prior to a visit to Regensburg back in 2016. I found out they had started brewing a range of English-style beers, which included a Pale Ale, an IPA and a Chocolate Stout, so during that visit, nearly four years ago, I decided to check some of these beers out and see what they were like.

On a gloriously hot September afternoon, after enjoying a spot of lunch, along with a few beers, in Spital’s idyllic beer-garden overlooking the River Danube, I asked one of the waitresses where I could buy some of these new beers. She directed me to a shop, at the back of the brewery so, after leaving Mrs PBT’s and son Matthew, to go off and get an ice-cream, I wandered round to the rear of the brewery in an attempt to buy some of these more unusual beers. 

With no obvious signs of a shop, I strolled into the brewery yard, where a group of workers were busy loading a dray, to enquire further. It turned out the “shop” was sited in a warehouse at the back of the yard and was little more than a desk plus a couple of computer screens.  Having located the shop my German language skills were soon put to the test, as the two members of staff there spoke no English. 

Most local customers, of course, would turn up by car and buy their beers by the 20-bottle caseload, but the staff were quite happy to sell me a selection of individual bottles, placing them in a handy cardboard carrier. The beers were packaged in attractive-looking, long-necked 330ml bottles with a definite “craft” look to them, and are sold under the Regensburger Spital Manufaktur brand. 

There are six of these beers in total; but the Pils and the seasonal Märzen are also packaged in this style of bottle. I returned with a Pils, a Pale Ale, an India Pale Ale, a Summer Ale, plus the Strong Ale, mentioned above.  Being seasonal beers, the Maibock, Märzen, and the Chocolate Stout were not available.

I carefully packed the beers inside my suitcase, and am pleased to say they all survived the journey back to England. I drank them over a period of several months, making notes as to what each one tasted like. The following year, Mrs PBT’s again chose Regensburg for our holiday destination, as she was really smitten by the city’s old-world charms. 

This allowed me to bring a few more bottles back, the last of which was the Strong Ale I enjoyed the other night. Now this is where my tasting notes come in handy, as I can now reveal what some of the other beers were like, so without further ado, here are my thoughts on some of the other Regensburger Spital Manufaktur beers. (All the beers are packaged in stylish, long-neck bottles which glug nicely as the beer is poured.)

Spitalbrauerei – Pils 5.5%. A very pale beer, slightly sweet and possibly more like a Helles than a Pils. There is a slight hop-bite lurking in the background, refreshing in character, this beer is one to be enjoyed under the shade of the chestnut trees in Spital’s lovely beer garden, next to the River Danube, in Regensburg.

Spitalbrauerei –India Pale Ale 8.0%. A beer which is very much in the English style of an IPA, rather than the more modern American interpretation. It’s an attractive amber colour and pours with a nice frothy head which remains in the glass. It’s also a very malt driven beer, with a nice hoppy aroma and enough bitterness to counter some of the sweetness derived from the malt.

Spitalbrauerei –Pale Ale 6.5%. Similar to the IPA described above, but much more quaffable. Again, an attractive amber coloured beer with a nice frothy head which remains in the glass. Plenty of malt, and some nice hoppy bitterness to balance.

I left this beer a little too long before opening, as with a BBE date of January 2018, and me not opening it until June of that year, it had become a little hazy. Bittered with finest Hallertau and Mandarin Bavaria hops, it was still a very enjoyable beer. Goes well with cheese, according to the label.

Spitalbrauerei – Summer Ale 2.8% - I picked the bottle up on our 2017 trip to Regensburg and have to say that it is one of the best low-gravity beers I have drank. A refreshing beer, packed full of flavour. Pale golden in colour, thirst quenching and very enjoyable. It’s a real shame this beer isn’t available here in the UK.

Finally, special mention should be made of Spitalbrauerei – Helles 5.5%. Now this is one of the company’s regular beers, rather than one of the more modern ones and it’s a typical south German-style Helles. Slightly sweet in taste from the residual malt sugars, I’ve enjoyed umpteen glasses of this excellent beer, on draught; in Spital’s lovely beer garden, next to the River Danube. 


Just thinking of it is enough to bring back happy memories of some good times in the lovely old city of Regensburg. If you get the chance, once this crazy lock-down situation is over, then do visit the city and make your way to Spital’s gloriously sited beer garden. You will not be disappointed!

All at sea - or possibly not!

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I should have been in Hamburg this weekend, along with Mrs PBT’s, enjoying a short cruise on Cunard’s flagship, the Queen Mary 2. Instead the QM2 is moored offshore in Portland Bay, and I’m stuck in "sunny Tunny" as the local sometimes call Tonbridge, contemplating what job needs doing next in the garden.

When the current strain of novel Coronavirus began its slow, but inexorable creep across the world, I was still thinking, like many of us, that somehow it wouldn’t be too serious and that we’d escape the worst of its effects. How wrong could I be, but even in early February, as Mrs PBT’s and I journeyed back from a short visit to South Wales, I was still fairly optimistic that our cruise would go ahead.

We’d booked the holiday at the start of the New Year, and whilst there were reports coming out of China about a novel Coronavirus that might have jumped the species barrier, like many in the western world I paid scant attention to them. After all previous viral-related conditions, such as SARS and Avian flu, had not really come to much, but now, four months later, here we are shut up in our won houses with the world economy at a virtual standstill.

So not really knowing quite where we go from here, I’m just glad of the fact that we’re all safe and well, with enough food to eat and plenty of tasty beer to drink. We’ve a garden that’s large enough to exercise in, should the need arise, but we’re also located on the edge if town and sufficiently close to some attractive countryside in which to enjoy a walk.

I’m waiting for the lad to get himself ready, so we can head out on a stroll shortly, then there’s a Sunday roast to look forward to which, today, will be cooked and delivered to our door by the excellent people at the Nelson Arms, Tonbridge – more about that later.

The sun isn’t shining today and now, as I finish this short post, a little light rain is starting to fall. I’m going into work tomorrow and it’s nice to get a little normality back into my life, even though because of social-distancing measures, we’re running with a reduced level of staff.

As for our Sunday dinner, well three tasty roast pork meals, complete with all the trimmings, were delivered on time to the Bailey household, along with a two-pint container of Shere Drop, from Surrey Hills. I also ordered a two-pinter of Hacker-Pschorr Helles for the boy - as you have to spoil people sometimes.

That’s it for now; the cruise can wait until happier times return, but rest assured I’ll be back with more lock-down ramblings, soon.

Cameras, photography and me

This post came into being on the back of another, but as I continued writing, it became increasingly obvious that the article below was worthy of a place of its own. To elaborate, the piece I was originally writing, concerns an event that took place nearly 40 years ago. 

I began by advising readers that I didn’t have any photos to illustrate the post, because four decades ago, people just didn’t take photographs in anything like the numbers, or on the occasions that they do now. What’s more the event in question was a business trip, so taking my camera along and acting like a tourist on holiday, was not particularly appropriate either.

The camera I had back then was a pretty decent one, but not the sort of thing to just slip in your pocket. It was a Pentax 35mm SLR, and whilst it took excellent photos, it had several drawbacks. The main one was its bulk, coming as it did two interchangeable zoom lenses. These might have been great for focussing on and composing that perfect shot, but they made the camera heavy, cumbersome and tiring to be lugging about.  

People also seem to forget that apart from Polaroid film, which produced rather poor results anyway, there was no such thing as instant photos. Instead, each fully exposed film would have to be handed over to a shop such as Boots, or an outlet that specialised in film processing, for one’s lovingly created “pics” to be turned into proper photographs. 

There were no second chances, which was why professional photographers would often reel off several rolls of film at a time. Professionals could afford this luxury, whereas the cost of such extravagance was the beyond the reach of us lesser mortals. 

The increase in popularity of compact cameras, still film-based to begin with, but latterly moving into a digital format, revolutionised photography, and brought it to the masses. Suddenly, photography was within the grasp of many more people, and when cameras began to form an integral part of people’s Smart Phones, then everyone became a photographer, as phones accompany their owners everywhere.

These days the numbers of digital images captured daily, must run into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and with phone cameras becoming more sophisticated, and even idiot-proof, photography is within the reach of most people.

Just pointing and shooting does remove much of the skill, but the act of composing a decent photograph of necessity involves a degree of artistic flair, along with practice, which is much easier with a digital camera.

But let’s look back at some of my earlier cameras, where I have my father to thank for sparking my interest in photography. Dad was a keen photographer when he was younger, and I remember him having quite a posh looking camera. It wasn’t a Leica, but it was still a good model. I believe he acquired it whilst stationed in Germany, on National Service, back in the early 1950’s, and after clearing out my parents bungalow a few years ago, I uncovered a real stash of old photos – some of which date back to dad’s army days.

My first camera was a Kodak Box Brownie. It used 127 roll film and with only 12 exposures per reel, one had to be quite economical when it came to shooting photos. Dad’s camera used 126 roll film, but apart from the negatives being larger with the 126 format, I still have no idea what these numbers referred to. Black & white photos were also the order of the day, as colour was prohibitively expensive. 

All of dad’s early photos, including ones of my sister and I, were black & white, and most of them were what was known as “contact prints.”  This meant the prints were the same size as the negatives – tiny in the case of 127 film, and not much larger with 126 film. If you wanted enlargements (“blow-ups”), these were more expensive. It was only towards the end of the sixties that colour film started coming into its own, and it was probably around then that my parents bought me a better and lightly more upmarket camera. I’ve been trying to find an image of it online, but I’m fairly confident it was also called a “Brownie.” What I do know is it also took 127 film. 

In the early 1980’s, I splashed out on a Pentax K1000 35mm SLR. It was a brilliant camera, capable of a wide range of shutter speeds and aperture settings. I enrolled with an evening class on photography, whilst I lived in Maidstone, where I learned all sorts of useful tips for taking photos, as well as the basics of photography. We were also shown how to develop black & white film and learned how to make enlargements.

I’ve still got that Pentax today, and over the years have used it to take some excellent photos. I went through a spell of taking transparencies (slides), which when projected, are a great way to bore unwanted guests, or those who outstay their welcome.

Nowadays, I either rely on a little compact Nikon Coolpix 16 Megapixel, or the 48 Megapixel camera on my Smart Phone. I’m not quoting the number of megapixels to impress you, as ultimately, it’s the quality of the camera lens, the shutter speed that make the difference. 

Megapixels is all about light-capture, which obviously does play a roll, but when you think about it, why do professional photographers still use single lens reflex (SLR) cameras – albeit digital, rather than film versions?

We'll leave it there for the time being, as photography is a subject that could be discussed for hours, but I trust I've jerked a few memories and left the door open for future discussion on the how the world looks when viewed through the lens of a camera.