Dark Beer Night

It's definitely a dark beer night tonight. Nothing to do with Halloween; it's just that I happen to have two bottles of fine dark ales to savour this evening, and enjoy them I certainly will!

First up is Double Stout, from Hook Norton, a superb dark stout brewed to a 100 year old recipe. Poured into the glass, it is a jet black beer with a real thick creamy head. Taste-wise, it is a full-bodied beer, dry in taste, with roasted malt and chocolate flavours and just the right degree of bitterness to match. It is also bottle-conditioned as well, and drinks far stronger than its 4.8% abv suggests.

Next up is an old favourite; Fuller's London Porter. Slightly stronger at 5.4%, and not quite as dark; this is another recreation of an old recipe. Brewed using pale, crystal, brown and chocolate malts and bittered with Fuggles hops this is a stunning, silky-smooth beer with wonderful chocolate notes to the fore, and just the right degree of subtle bitterness in the background. It doesn't pour with quite the same thick, creamy head as the previous beer, and despite its extra strength, doesn't taste quite as strong as the Hook Norton stout either, but it's still a world-class beer in my book. I hope to see it on draught some time over the next few months, alongside my all time favourite Porter; that brewed by Larkins of Chiddingstone.

More on "Top Pressure"

It seems my recent post about the Pubs of my Youth has sparked a bit of debate, especially with regard to the subject of "top pressure". Our friends in the north have commented that this system was virtually unknown in the northern heartlands, and yet it was pretty common down south. Basically it was a system designed to serve cask-conditioned beer using "top pressure" CO2, which was applied, via an adaptor, to the shive hole of the cask and then, when a tap was opened on the dispenser on the bar, used to force the beer out of the cask and into the customer's glass.

The brewers claimed that the system kept beer better, and prevented it from going off. Whilst the latter was undoubtedly true, the former was not, as the gas applied to the beer had a tendency to dissolve and make the beer overly gassy, and at times quite unpalatable. Nevertheless, during the early 1970 this system was adopted by several of the large brewing conglomerate's that had sprung up during the previous decade, and was particularly favoured by both Courage and Whitbread who owned the majority of the pubs in the part of East Kent where I grew up. To say that "top pressure" was actively encouraged by the brewers is an understatement, and it was the "norm" in most of the local pubs. But not everywhere, as I am about to relate.

Back in 1974, during the summer break from university, I popped my head around the door, for the first time, of what for a while became one of my favourite pubs in my home-town of Ashford. This was at a time when I had started to take a firm interest in Real Ale and real pubs. The pub was called the Trumpeter and, as it was a Whitbread house, I ordered a pint of Trophy. To my surprise the landlady went to a bank of antique looking hand pumps and pulled me a pint. Although my village local sold "Real" Trophy, this beer in an un-pressurised form was like gold dust, especially in Ashford itself. However, here I was in a pub which I had never been in before, drinking a pint of Whitbread Trophy that wasn't full of bubbles.

I told a friend, and fellow CAMRA member, the good news, and he hot-footed it down to the Trumpeter to see for himself. However, on my next visit to the pub I ended up being served a fizzy pint from a gas tap, fitted to the outlet of one of the other pumps. Thinking that the brewery conversion team had been in, and fearing the worst, I enquired about the means of dispense, only to be told that the real thing was still available, but was reserved for regulars only, plus "those in the know"!

The reason for this clandestine approach was that, so far as the brewery were concerned, the Trumpeter sold only pressurised Trophy. However, the locals were not at all keen on having their beer gassed up, so unbeknown to Whitbread, one hand pump had been left in working order and was still connected. I was sworn to secrecy over this matter, as was my friend when he joined me for a drink later that evening. The last thing the landlady and her regulars wanted was for the brewery to get wind of the fact that one of their pubs was serving cask beer by “non-approved” methods.

As well as serving traditional beer, the Trumpeter was an unspoilt traditional town pub. Over the course of the summer, until my return to university, I became quite a regular there and eventually ended up on first name terms with the landlady. Her name was Ethel, and in common with other legendary female licensees, ran the pub single-handed in the time honoured tradition, standing no nonsense and governing proceedings with a rod of iron. Despite this, she always had a friendly smile and a greeting for customers - with the exception of representatives from the brewery that is!

I have related the above story, in depth, to illustrate the point that "top pressure" wasn't universally welcomed by drinkers, and was even unpopular with certain licensees. It was the real "bug-bear" of CAMRA back in the early days, especially as it ruined otherwise perfectly acceptable beer.

I have scoured Google Images for pictures of the Trumpeter (demolished as part of a road-widening scheme during the 1980's), but so far without success.

Upmarket "Pong"

Although budget supermarket chain, Lidl are continuing to crank out cut-price bottles of ale from the likes of Marstons and Shepherd Neame, upmarket Waitrose are currently mid-way through an excellent promotion on bottled beers. A wide range of bottles from the likes of Brakspears, Fullers, Hook Norton and Jennings are on sale at two for £3.00, and what's even better is you can mix and match!

Some of the beers included in the offer are extremely good value when purchased in this manner. They include Fuller's 1845 and Brakspear's Triple; both premium strength beers, and both fine examples of the brewer's art. Fuller's London Porter, which is another old favourite of mine also features on the list, as does Hook Norton Double Stout. I also noticed Pilsner Urquell on sale at the same two bottles for £3.00, but this might be a different promotion.

My advice therefore is get down to Waitrose quick, whilst stocks last. The promotion runs until 9th November, but with such good bargains available, some beers could run out long before this!

The Pubs of my Youth - Part I; Country Pubs

A few weeks ago I posted a piece about why I stopped going to the pub on a regular basis. Here I describe my introduction to the world of pubs and beer as a teenager back in the early 1970's.

I spent my formative years living in East Kent, and the pubs I knew in my youth were a mixture of both town and country ones. When I first started drinking, most of the pubs I visited were real in the sense that they were unspoilt "pubby" type pubs, even though most of the beer sold in them was not, certainly in the CAMRA accepted meaning of the word. (Most of the beer was cask-conditioned back then, but served by "top-pressure" dispense.)

I first began to explore local pubs when I reached the age of seventeen. Shortly after my birthday, my parents bought me a motorbike. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing teenage dreams were made of, but I was grateful to them nevertheless. The vehicle in question was a Honda C 90; a semi-automatic, 3-gear, 90cc machine. The reasoning behind their purchase was to save my father having to ferry me about. Living in the country is all well and good, but when you're a teenager you want to be where the action is, which normally means reaching the nearest town. The other idea was to get me out of the house more. My parents were concerned that I was spending too much time in my bedroom, listening to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull etc. and the motorbike certainly certainly achieved this, as I am about to relate.

One of my school friends had a similar machine, so we decided to make the most of the light evenings of early summer and explore some of the local country pubs. My friend had a head start on me, in this respect, as he had already been "dragged" round quite a few of them by his older brother. He was thus the ideal person to introduce a somewhat shy and introspective sixth former, as I then was, to the delights of some of south-east Kent's best country pubs.

We visited some superb pubs, a few grotty ones and some in between. What most of them had in common though was the fact that they still functioned as traditional pubs, acting as focal points for the communities they served. Most had separate public and saloon bars, the former particularly appealing to the pair of us, as we both were aspiring dart players. Beer was inevitably cheaper in the public bar, the furnishings fairly basic, with lino or tiled floors being the order of the day. The saloon bars, on the other hand, tended to be more comfortably furnished and were earmarked as places where one could take a girl to, should we be successful in asking one out!

Whilst not all the rural pubs we visited fitted the archetypal image of the unspoilt, traditional country alehouse, run by the same family for generations, complete with stone-flagged floors, scrubbed oak tables, high-backed, wooden settles, a simple serving hatch for a bar, behind which casks of beer are stillaged waiting to be drawn off by gravity, most of them existed as pubs which still served their original purpose, i.e.. to serve the local community. These days many have become upmarket restaurants or, worse still, closed altogether.

I have many happy memories of those pleasant summer evenings, spent riding out to local pubs. The territory we covered ranged from Romney Marsh (still home to a couple of real gems), through to the area of the North Downs between Ashford and Canterbury. I won't name the pubs, as they are unlikely to mean much to most readers. More to the point, many of them are either closed now, or altered out of all recognition. What seems remarkable now though is that as seventeen year olds we had no trouble getting served in these pubs. We were accepted by landlords and locals alike and, as I said earlier, happily took on some of the latter at darts, even though we invariably lost!

I look back on those days with a considerable amount of nostalgia. Life in general was much simpler then, with far less restrictions, rules and regulations. Landlords were free to police their own pubs, without interference from, or "sting operations" by the likes of trading standards officials or public health inspectors. Licensees were also much more free to run their own businesses as they saw fit, rather than as the owning brewery or pub company dictated to them. I belong to a generation that was lucky to have known this unspoilt world of pubs, even though it was soon to disappear. As they say, "those were the days!"

Even More Cheap Supermarket "Pong"

Lidl's have done it again with their cheap bottled beer offers. I chanced upon their latest offers earlier this evening, when I picked my son up from the station after work.

First there were two offerings from Shep's, Tapping the Admiral and Dragonfire, both 4.0%. I'm glad I didn't buy the former, having read Beer Nut's rather unflattering review of the beer; but I did succumb to a bottle of the latter, purely out of curiosity as the label claims it is brewed from a blend of oats, rye and wheat, as well as malted barley. I haven't tried it yet, but will let you know what it's like when I have.

Also on offer were two beers from the Marstons stable; Burton Bitter and Banks' Bitter (both at £1.00 each), plus two from Wells & Youngs; Young's Bitter and Bombardier, (£1.19 each). I bought a couple of the Marston's group beers; at a pound each it was foolish not to. Presumably Shep's, Marstons plus Wells & Youngs must be subsidising these cut price deals, but I for one don't mind taking advantage of them from time to time.

London Drinker

Whilst doing a bit of research for my recent trip round a few choice London pubs, I neglected a rather important source of information. The source was none other that that excellent bi-monthly publication, London Drinker.

I was reminded of this at the weekend, when a friend lent me a copy he'd picked up recently. As well as a good read, the magazine is packed with adverts from good real ale pubs, many of which sound worthy of a visit. For instance The Cask, close to Victoria Station, sounds well worth calling into as do the King William IV (Brodie's Brewery), the Pembury Tavern, the Red Lion (Isleworth) and the Old Coffee House.

The current edition also has a feature on German Beer Pubs in London. I wish I'd read this article prior to last week, as I learned that an establishment called Katzenjammers is situated just round the corner from Borough Market. I was in this vicinity last Thursday, drinking in both the Rake and the Market Porter. Had I known, I could have called into Katzenjammers and sampled some German beers as well!

The silly thing is I've got plenty of back issues of London Drinker at home; why didn't I think of consulting them?

ps. A certain well-known, and somewhat controversial free-house also has a large ad in the current edition. No prizes for guessing which pub it is!

More Cheap Supermarket "Pong"

I popped into Lidl's over the weekend, primarily to stock up on a few bits and pieces. In case it hadn't escaped any one's notice, it's Halloween in a couple of weeks time. I know it's an unwelcome import from across the Atlantic, but unfortunately it looks set to stay, and every year there seems to be more and more ghoulish tat in the shops. Anyway, getting in the spirit of Halloween Lidl's were offering a couple of Wychwood beers, with a loose 31st October theme, at the bargain basement price of just £1.00 a bottle!

The prime contender for Halloween was the appropriately named Wychcraft, a blonde 4.5% abv beer said to be brewed from three different malts and three different hops, (the label doesn't state which varieties though!). Less obviously connected with Halloween was Wychwood's Goliath, a much darker 4.2% beer.

Both beers were pleasant enough, and of the two I much preferred the Wychcraft. Obviously Marstons are promoting, and heavily discounting both these beers. I don't want to get into the territory of minimum pricing, or other health-lobby sponsored nonsense, but what I will say is just because these beers are dirt cheap, and I bought a fair few of them, I haven't been sitting here getting sloshed or used them to "pre-load" before going out on the town! Alcohol Concern, and other similar busy-body do-gooders, please take note.