Getting The Beers In

I may have let it slip in previous posts that I’m acting as the beer buyer for this year’s Rail and Real Ale Festival, which takes place in October at the Spa Valley Railway in Tunbridge Wells.  As in previous years, the event is a joint venture between the Heritage Railway and West Kent CAMRA. The railway are supplying the venue and are also bank-rolling the festival, whilst us in CAMRA are supplying the knowledge and expertise to ensure there are 60 plus cask-conditioned ales, most of them locally brewed, served in tip-top condition.


This is the first time I’ve undertaken such a task; I’m not acting entirely alone in so much that I’ve had assistance and advice from a CAMRA colleague as to which breweries and which beers to go for, but I’m the person doing all the leg work in contacting the breweries, obtaining prices delivery details etc and then actually placing the orders. Thankfully, most of this work can be done by email – however did we manage in pre-Internet days? Even so I’m finding it a bit frustrating when breweries fail to respond to my requests for information; sometimes after several attempts to contact them.

 Most of the breweries approached are either from Kent or neighbouring East Sussex, with a handful from London and Surrey. With such a wealth of brewing talent and interesting beers on our doorstep, it seems foolish to cast the net further a field. To be fair, most of the companies contacted have now replied, but there remains a small handful that seem to make a point of stubbornly refusing to answer emails. This begs the question, why have email in the first place? And why be in business if you cannot be bothered to respond to sales enquiries? At the end of the day it will be their loss, as with so many breweries operating in the area there are plenty of alternatives to chose from, and in the meantime work continues with planning the rest of the festival.

If you live locally, or even in London or on the south coast, then why not come along?  The festival runs from Friday 18^th to Sunday 20^th October. The bulk of the beers will be on sale at Spa Valley’s Tunbridge Wells West Station headquarters, which is a short walk from the town’s main station. There will also be a smaller range of beers available at the two stops down the line; Groombridge and Eridge - the latter station having connections with mainline train services to London Bridge. There will also be a few beers served on the trains, so what could be better than sitting in a restored passenger coach, hauled by a vintage steam or diesel locomotive, as it chugs its way through the scenic Kent and Sussex countryside, enjoying a tasty, locally-brewed pint of ale? Further details can be found here.

Footnote: The Harvey’s Best was in fine form the other night at the Royal Oak Tunbridge Wells, where we held our monthly meeting to assess progress with the festival. The Session Pale and Cobnut, both from Kent Brewery, were also very palatable in the Bedford, when we called in before catching the last train home.

A Brief Overview of Annafest

 I’m not quite sure how to describe Annafest, apart from to say it was unlike any beer festival I have ever been to before. But then German beer festivals aren’t the same as those we have in the UK anyway. For a start they’ve been running a lot longer than home-grown events; sometimes by as much as a couple of hundred years. Take the grand-daddy of them all, Munich’s Oktoberfest, which began in 1810 and, with the odd break for wars plus a couple of cholera epidemics, has been going strong ever since!

Visitors to this world-famous orgy of beer drinking will be aware that despite the large number of “tents” (temporary halls would be a more accurate description), only the six brewers based in the city are allowed to sell their beers at Oktoberfest. Contrast this with CAMRA’s forthcoming Great British Beer Festival where there will be getting on for 800 different beers to choose from and you get an idea of just how different festivals are in Germany compared to the UK. Whilst British beers festivals are about sampling as many different beers as possible, German beer festivals are about having a good time, with some serious drinking as an essential accompaniment, of course, and this is how I would describe Annafest.

 The event takes place at the Kellerwald, a wooded hillside on the edge of Forchheim, where there are a series of natural rock cellars cut into the hillside. These cellars were originally constructed for the storage and maturation of bottom-fermenting beer, in the days before refrigeration was developed. Today there are two dozen such “Kellers”, the majority of which are just open for Annafest, although a handful remain open all year.  During the summer evenings the Kellerwald is the perfect location for a cool beer in the shady woods  The event is held over a 10 day period around the 26^th July, which is the feast of St Anna (Anne), the mother of the Virgin Mary

Although pilgrims had been journeying to a nearby chapel consecrated to St. Anna since the early 16^th Century, Annafest in its present form began in 1840, when the Forchheim shooting club moved its main shooting ground from the "shooting meadow" on the river Regnitz to the Kellerwald.  As well as plenty of beer drinking there are other attractions such as fairground rides, various stalls, plus six stages which feature a wide range of different musical acts. The local Forchheim breweries Hebendanz, Greif, Eichhorn and Neder all brew a strong Bock beer especially for this festival, the so-called Annafestbier, and a number of other local breweries also supply brews of their own as well.

With seating for about 30.000 people, the Kellerwald provides sufficient accommodation for the 450.000 - 500.000 visitors who come each year over the course of the 10-day festival period. A regular shuttle bus service is provided from the town and surrounding areas to the Kellerwald and back again, so getting to the festival is not a problem. For those of a more energetic disposition, it is not that far to walk up from the town and many people choose to do this, working up a king-sized thirst on the way!

One comment I have seen sums up the whole event quite nicely. "A great atmosphere and very cool location, in the woods above the town. It's everything the Oktoberfest isn't: cool woodland beer gardens instead of hot, smelly tents."

Mass Overload?

A litre is not a sensible measure for drinking beer. I say this after my recent visit to Annafest where the litre, or Maß (Mass) to give the unit its correct name, was the only measure beer was sold in. This, combined with the fact that most of the Kellers only stocked a strong “Festbier” with an abv of around 5.7%, meant it was necessary to pace one’s self very carefully when it came to knocking back the beer. Fortunately most of the Maß mugs were stoneware, rather than glass, so this at least helped the beer to remain cooler for longer.

Unlike the southern half of Bavaria, especially the area around Munich, Maß measures are relatively uncommon in Franconia, with much more sensible stoneware half litre mugs, known as Steinkrug or Krug, (but never “Stein”), the norm in most pubs. Jon Connen confirms this in his “Guide to Bamberg & Franconia”, stating “Litre measures are the exception rather than the rule in Franconian beer gardens. Franconians tend to consume more beer with less fuss than the macho Bavarians of Munich.” It was therefore doubly strange to see them being used at Annafest.

 Litres, of course, are roughly the equivalent of an imperial quart. I say roughly, because a quart actually works out at 1.136 litres, so the Maß is slightly less than two pints. Leaving this small difference aside for a moment, when was the last time you saw anyone drinking out of a quart pot in an English pub? Your most likely answer is, like my own, never, but quart measures were relatively common in England, back in the times of Charles Dickens, and I’m not certain when they fell out of favour. For some reason though this heavy and cumbersome measure has continued to be used in southern Germany.

I have three main criticisms of the Maß, the first of which concerns the weight of the vessel itself plus that of the contents, ( one litre of beer will weigh approximately one kilogramme). The second is the beer slips down a bit too readily, and the mistake I always make is by the time I’m on my second Maß the first has started to kick in, and it’s then I realise that ordering a second one was not such a good idea.! The third, of course, is that I like to sample as many different beers as possible, especially when I am visiting somewhere for the first time. Volume and alcoholic strength constraints make the Maß a most impractical vessel for the beer connoisseur. I’m not saying the Bavarians  should go the whole hog and offer the equivalent of the third or half pint measures one sees at beer festivals here in the UK, or the “thimbles” used at the Great American Beer Festival, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere along the line.

Perhaps what this all boils down to is that centuries of usage have proven the English pint to be the perfect measure for social beer drinking. What do other people think?

Café Abseits - Bamberg

Café Abseits, in Bamberg, is one of those places I’d always meant to visit, but somehow never quite got round to doing so, despite having made three previous visits to the city. Billed as Bamberg’s “premier beer speciality pub”, Café Abseits is tucked away down a side street on the “wrong side of the tracks”, to the east of the station. However our recent visit to Franconia included a day spent in Bamberg, and whilst on this occasion we didn’t manage to visit the pub, we did notice a newly constructed entrance to the station on the eastern side; a facility we were to make use of on a return visit a couple of days later.

We had spent the first part of the day in Coburg, a town which is almost as far north as one can travel and still be in Bavaria. It was a blisteringly hot day; far too hot unfortunately to climb up to the impressive Veste (fortress) Coburg, which overlooks the town. Instead we found a backstreet pub, (the Bratwurstglöcke) with some nice shaded outside tables where we could sit in the relative cool and enjoy a couple of mugs of locally-brewed Coburger Brauerei beers. The plan was to stop off in Bamberg on our return journey to Forchheim, in order to pick up some bottles from the shop attached to the internationally-renowned Weyermann Maltings, which are on the east side of the station.

 

I had taken the precaution of  contacting the company by email, to confirm the opening times of the shop, but unfortunately their reply contained an error and did not state  that on Friday’s the shop closed at 3pm, an hour earlier than we were anticipating. My son was not best pleased after having walked up, through the swelteringly hot heat, to find the place closed. I wasn’t over impressed either, but put the mistake down to experience, and made a mental note to call back on a future visit. I then began to quickly search for somewhere where we could grab a beer and cool off.

Fortunately I had with me Jon Conen’s excellent “Guide to Bamberg & Franconia”, an essential travelling companion in this part of the world. The nearest pub to us was Café Abseits, less than 10 minutes walk away and, what’s more, it was described as having a beer garden attached as well.

We found the pub without too much trouble, and walked through the side entrance straight to the aforementioned garden, which was at the rear of the pub. Fortunately, given the extreme heat, the garden was nice and shady and we were soon sat at a table studying the beer menu prior to the arrival of the waiter. I opted for the Huppendorfer Vollbier, an amber coloured and well-hopped beer from the village of the same name, situated in the Fränkische Scheiz, (Franconian Switzerland) area to the east of Bamberg. Matthew’s choice was Mönchsambacher Lager, a much paler beer from Mönchsambach, a village to the west of the city, in the area known as the Steigerwald. He followed that up with another of the same, whilst I went for the Gänstaller Kellerbier; origin unknown, but very drinkable all the same.

We weren’t the only visitors from England that day. Sitting a few tables away from us we couldn’t help over-hearing a group of men speaking in our mother tongue. After a while, I went over and had a word with them. It turned out they were a group of beer enthusiasts, (I didn’t ask whether they were CAMRA members or not), from Nottingham, doing much the same as us really – spending a few days at Annafest, interspersed with visits to other towns and villages in order to track down and sample some of the local beers. They were staying in nearby Buttenheim, at the Löwenbräu Brauerei – one of two neighbouring breweries in the village. We swapped notes and shared a few recommendations, one of which we decided to follow the following day.

The beer enthusiasts left, shortly before us, but before we departed I had a closer look at Café Abseits’s beer extensive list (see photo’s). As well as the three draught beers already mentioned, the pub carries a wide range of bottles, including a number from the pilot brew-plant at Weyermann Maltings, home of our abortive visit earlier. There were also some examples of what, for Germany, can only be described as experimental styles of beer, such as pale ale and porter!

We decided to leave such beery delights for another occasion, as Café Abseits’s is definitely somewhere worthy of a much longer visit. Not only that, with the weather as hot as it was, we never got to see the inside of the pub, having spent the whole of our visit in the garden at the rear. However, at least I can now say I’ve visited Bamberg’s “premier beer speciality pub”. As for the pub's unusual name, it apparently translates as "the other place", so now you know!

Franconia 2013

We arrived back home last Monday evening, after a most enjoyable week in the northern area of Bavaria known as Franconia. We based ourselves in the small, picturesque town of Forchheim; a town of just 20,000 inhabitants, but with four breweries, which lies roughly halfway between Nuremberg and Bamberg. The prime, but not sole, reason for our stay here was to visit Annafest, an event which began life as a religious festival, but which is now one of the largest folk festivals in Franconia. I ought to add that by “folk” I don’t mean lots of bearded men in chunky jumpers wailing out sea-shanties or traditional rural ballads with a finger stuck in one ear, but rather folk as in “something for the people”, something which everyone can join in with and have a good time.

Naturally, as in much of Bavaria, beer plays an important role in such events, and Annafest was definitely no exception to this. I will be writing a much more detailed post about Annafest a bit later, but for now I just want to say that we visited the event on three separate days, which were interspersed with days out exploring some of the surrounding Franconian towns and villages; towns such as Bamberg with its eight breweries and villages full of rural charm and, as like as not, a brewery to match. In the countryside we came across Bierkellers tucked away in the unlikeliest of places, serving cool refreshing Kellerbier – beer which smacked of locally grown hops and sold at unbelievably low prices (€1.90 per half litre). Whilst in towns such as Bamberg, Coburg and of course Forchheim, there were unspoilt basic boozers, tucked away down side streets mixed in with internationally renowned establishments such as Schlenkerla and Spezial in Bamberg.

All in all it was like visiting a beer lover’s paradise; somewhere which at times just seems too good to be true. I will be recalling some of our discoveries over the next couple of weeks or so, depending on time and other commitments (I’m acting as beer buyer for this year’s Spa ValleyRailway Beer Festival, and I’ve got quite a bit of ringing around and chasing to catch up on). In the meantime attached are a few photo’s to wet your appetites.

Annafest

Beer festivals are like buses, you wait ages for one to come along and then three arrive at once! OK, not quite all at once, but one after another, and this time of year always seems a particularly busy one for celebrating the fruits and delights of the brewers’ art.

Last weekend saw the highly successful SIBA South East Region Beer Festival, which I’ve already reported on here. This weekend sees the similarly- sized Kent Beer Festival, one of the longest running events of this nature in the country; in fact the Kent Beer Festival is the second oldest CAMRA festival in Britain. The first one took place in 1975, so next year, 2014, will be the event’s 40th anniversary. After a gap of several years, I attended last year’s festival and, after thoroughly enjoying myself, made a commitment to go along this year. Unfortunately the event immediately precedes another beer festival; one which takes place abroad, and one which I have wanted to attend for quite some time. 

The event I am referring to is known as Annafest, and is held every July in the small Franconian town of Forchheim, in northern Bavaria. The event is primarily a folk festival, held over a 10 day period to celebrate St Anna’s day (July 26^th). St Anna (Anne in English), was the mother of the Virgin Mary, and Bavaria being a staunchly Catholic country celebrates such events in style, and with the help of more than a few beers of course! We’re not actually flying out until Monday morning (22^nd), so in theory I could have joined my friends at Canterbury yesterday for the first day of the Kent Festival, but with going away there were a lot of loose ends to tie up at work, but shopping and packing to do today, (not much fun with a hangover!), so I reluctantly decided that Canterbury would have been one festival just too many.

So what of Annafest? Well, not having been before I’m not quite sure what to expect. The festival takes place on a site occupying a wooded hillside, just on the edge of Forchheim. The “Kellerwald”, as the area is known, has 23 Bierkellers (beer gardens really), most of which only open for Annafest, although a small number are open all year. There are also fairground rides and attractions, plus six stages featuring a wide range of different musical acts, (quite what sort of acts remains to be seen). About nine or ten local breweries supply the beer, including the four breweries based in Forchheim itself, with many of them brewing a special “Annafest Bier”.

The event opened today (Saturday 20^th), with a parade through Forchheim, followed by the ceremonial tapping of the first cask by the Bürgermeister, (town Mayor), but hopefully there will still be some beer left by the time we arrive late Monday afternoon. We’re renting an apartment in the centre of Forchheim, so shouldn’t have far to travel, and anyway a shuttle bus runs between the bus station and the Kellerwald. Whilst there, we’ll obviously be visiting the town centre taps of the four Forchheim breweries, as well as exploring a bit further a field. Forchheim is roughly halfway between Nuremberg, (where we’re flying in to) and Bamberg. We’ve visited Bamberg before. Not only is this beautiful city home to eight breweries and famed for its “Raucbier” (smoke beer), it also contains some smashing pubs. A return visit will definitely be on the cards.

I’ve got two books for guidance: John Conen’s excellent Guide to Bamberg & Franconia, plus Ron Pattinson’s Trip! (South), which covers a much wider area of southern Germany. I’ve also got the Annafest App for my Smartphone, which gives details of the various Bierkellers, opening times, beers sold, availability of food, music or music free etc. It also has a plan of the Kellerwald showing the location of the various Kellers, names, times and venues for the various music acts, plus general information about the event.

All in all it promises to be an excellent event, especially as the weather looks set to remain fine, for the first half of the week at least. Tandleman, who has been to Annafest before, gave me a few words of advice. “Take plenty of insect repellent”, he said. When I asked why, he reminded me that warm summer nights and forested areas are a bad combination when it comes to attracting biting insects. Thanks for the tip Peter, my “Jungle Formula” insect repellent is already packed.

A Few Random Beery Thoughts

Does anyone know who brews the Firestone Walker American Independence Pale Ale, currently on sale in Wetherspoons outlets? Actually, what I probably should ask is which UK brewery is brewing this 5% beer under licence, as I doubt very much that it's all being imported from across the pond.

Anyway, it was by far the best beer I had last night in our local JDW in Tonbridge, unlike the much vaunted Robinsons Trooper which distinctly underwhelmed. I enjoyed Robinsons ales during my time in Greater Manchester, back in th mid 1970's, but every time I've tried a pint of their beer down here, it's always disappointed. Perhaps Robinson's beers just don't travel, although going back to the Iron Maiden inspired Trooper, Curmudgeon also found it underwhelming, and that was on its home patch in Stockport!

Also disappointing were the two  bottled IPA's from Traditional Scottish Ales which I picked up cheap in Lidl's a week ago. Both Rok and Ben Nevis are just 4.0%, and both fail totally to deliver. Weak and insipid with that nasty "woody" after-taste which to me is normally a sign of yeast infection. There is a brewery not a million miles from here which seems to suffer from the same problem, yet amazingly keeps going. Perhaps some people actually like this in a beer, but I'm not one of them, and I'm glad now that I didn't return to the store, as I was threatening to, and buy some more. I've still got a bottle of Wild Stout, from the same company, to try, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I also came across some beers with this "woodiness" back in April, whilst in Norwich for the CAMRA Members Weekend. I won't name and shame, as this was three months ago, and the brewery concerned might well have cleaned up its act, but selling beers in this sort of condition, doesn't do anyone any favours, and tarnishes the micro-brewing industry with a largely unwarranted name for producing beers that are hit and miss.

I've got a few more beers to try over the weekend, which I hope will be somewhat better. In the meantime, who is brewing Firestone Walker American Independence Pale Ale?