To Krakow

September 1^st is regarded as the meteorological start of autumn, and the sudden drop in temperatures since the weekend, along with today’s blustery conditions, has certainly given conditions outside a real autumnal feel.

It’s not quite time yet to start battening down the hatches, or putting the garden furniture away, but with evenings starting to encroach on the day it won’t be too long before it’s time to do those tasks and get the wood-burner lit.

Fortunately there’s still time for a late summer-early autumnal getaway, so this weekend sees me flying off to Krakow in southern Poland, for a long-overdue and well-deserved mini-break.

It will be my first time in Poland, a country I have wanted to visit for some time.  I chose Krakow because, unlike the nation’s capital Warsaw, the city was largely spared the destruction of the Second World War. Consequently much of the Krakow’s old town remains intact, so for people like me, who appreciate historic towns, there will be lots of attractive sights and fascinating old buildings to maintain my level of interest and stop me from flagging.

By Jorge Lascar - Sukiennice and Main Square as seen from St. Mary's Basilica, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26948762

I’ll be travelling alone, as Mrs PBT’s isn’t particularly into sight-seeing and neither is she a fan of multiple pub visits. Instead she has booked us both on a cruise at the end of October. This means I will have free-reign to explore Krakow’s many pubs and bars, and indulge myself with some of the region’s finest local beers.

The weather’s looking rather changeable, so it might not be the blue skies, warm temperatures and wall-to-wall sunshine I am looking for, but whatever the climate, it will be good to get away from the frenzied atmosphere surrounding work, at the moment, and the equally frenetic mood of the dis-United Kingdom in general.

Curry night at the Nelson

I realise Tonbridge’s Nelson Arms has featured quite regularly on this blog, but that’s because it’s a good pub and a success story as well. It’s another example of a pub coming back from the dead, after being written off by the owning brewery or pub company, but once in the right hands, it’s thriving.

I found myself  back in the Nelson last Thursday evening, as my local CAMRA branch was making a presentation to the landlord. But there was also another, more compelling reason to tempt me in, and that was Thursday night “Curry Night,” and I wanted to give one of the pub’s famous curries a try.

Now it might seem a little strange for a back-street local to be serving food in the evenings, but the Nelson is just that bit further away from the town centre, to make it not quite in the thick of it when it comes to pub crawls and circuit drinking.

So in order to drum up additional trade, the pub offers hot meals from 4pm onwards, mid-week and from midday through to mid-evening time, at weekends. As well as a selection of curries on Thursdays, Tuesday is “Pie Night;” and they’re proper pies at that, if you know what I mean.  The Nelson has also made quite a name for itself with its Sunday lunchtime, roast dinners.

Knowing that the CAMRA presentation would take place at 9pm, I arrived at the pub at around 7.30pm.  This would allow ample time for a meal, plus a few beers before the start of the official business.

A friend joined me for dinner, which allowed us both to take advantage of the two curries for £15 offer, (normal price £10 each). We both opted for the Keema Lamb Mince, which came with Pilau rice, plus a couple of large poppadums each. The lamb was nicely spiced without being over-powering, so in view of this, I’m tempted to give some of the pub’s other curries a try – see photo opposite for details.

As usual, there was an interesting range of beers on sale, with offerings from Gun Brewery, Goacher’s, Kent Brewery, Titsey Brewing and Young’s. I started with Goacher’s Real Mild  3.0 NBSS, before moving on to Scaramanga Extra Pale from Gun Brewery and then Elysium New England IPA from Kent Brewery. I scored both the last two beers at 3.5 NBSS.

There was a good turnout, with around a dozen local CAMRA members coming along to show their support. The presentation was for Runner-up Cider Pub of the Year. 

Biddenden, Chiddingstone and Double Vision are amongst the ciders stocked by the Nelson, and whilst I’m obviously pleased for the pub and devotees of fermented apple juice, I have to confess my interest in cider is pretty minimal.

I suppose I should be pleased that the aforementioned ciders are traditional in nature and from local producers, but my view is that CAMRA should stick to promoting beer, and leave cider drinkers to start their own organisation. We’ve been through this before, and it’s not going to happen, but I wanted to say it all the same.

So overall, it was a very good evening, with the chance to catch up with some old friends and acquaintances, as well as enjoying some good beer and equally good, Asian-inspired cooking. The only downside was an early start the following morning, but at least it was Friday!

Greene King - again!

There’s more to come regarding Greene King, as we attempt to ascertain how a well respected regional brewery came to be regarded as a "bête noire" in the eyes of many beer drinkers. Before doing so it's worth remembering that over the course of the past forty years, that East Anglia-based Greene King, transformed themselves into Britain's largest, independently-owned brewer and pub company, so they were bound to pick up a few enemies along the way.

Things didn't start out too well between CAMRA and Greene King, as despite the company brewing some distinctive and well-regarded beers, they were very much the “villain of the piece” as far as the Campaign was concerned. Their policy of favouring “top-pressure” dispense in the majority of their tied pubs, was a definite no-no in the CAMRA’s eyes, as despite the beer being cask-conditioned, the use of extraneous carbon-dioxide to deliver it from cask to glass, led to the exclusion of many of their houses from CAMRA guides - both local an national.

This policy was slowly relaxed over the years, and relations between CAMRA and Greene King gradually improved, although it wasn’t too long before the Suffolk company again blotted its copy-book, this time in 1987, with the closure of the brewery of Rayment & Co Ltd.

The latter were a small brewery based in the small Hertfordshire village of Furneux Pelham. (See image opposite). Greene King had acquired the brewery in 1928, along with its estate of 35 public houses, but it continued to brew its distinctive “Pelham Ales” right up until closure.

There was no reason to close it, apart from a small, country brewery not fitting in with the image that Greene King saw for itself, of a modern go-ahead company. Ten years later, the group’s much larger subsidiary brewery, at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, suffered the same fate.

I mentioned this closure in my first post about Greene King, and I again want to look at my own relationship with the Bury St Edmund’s based company, and note how it has changed over the years.

Fast forward from that article, to the mid 1980’s when I was living in Tonbridge with a new wife, and a new job. I’d become involved with the local CAMRA branch which, in those days, only covered Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. Things were ticking along on pretty much an even keel, when the news broke that Greene King had bought a number of pubs in Kent and Surrey from Allied Breweries.

Not long after, the company opened a depot on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells,  to supply their new acquisitions. As secretary of the local CAMRA branch, I received an invite to the official opening, rubbing shoulders with the mayor and other local dignitaries.

Following the opening of the depot, GK beers started appearing in free trade outlets as well, and were generally welcomed. I certainly had no problems with their beer, and even enjoyed a trip around the Greene King brewery in Bury St Edmunds. The visit was organised by the landlord of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” -  the Tonbridge pub I used to drink at. The daft name came about as a result of a previous landlord being called "Tom," but after his successor started stocking Greene King beers, the opportunity to visit the brewery came about.  

I’m not sure why things began to sour between GK and CAMRA, but I suspect it might have been because of the buying spree the former embarked on during the late 1990’s – early 2000’s. During this period Greene King acquired Hardy & Hansons, Belhaven, Ridleys and Morlands. The takeover of the latter brewery brought Ruddles beers into the fold, because Morlands had acquired the Rutland-based company a few years previously.

Of the breweries listed above, Belhaven is now the only  still brewing. As well as brewing distinctive and much-loved local beers, these breweries were places full of character and steeped history. During the 1990’s, I had the pleasure of visiting Ridleys, Morlands and Ruddles, never imagining they would end up being bought, and closed down by Greene King.

This spate of acquisitions and closures, led to the firm being nick-named “Greedy King,” but now it is the king that has fallen. However, unlike Asahi who purchased Fullers, earlier in the year,  CK Asset Holdings are an investment company, not a brewer. They will undoubtedly seek to recoup some of cash they have paid for Greene King, and the  concern is, they will start selling off pubs; especially some of the smaller and more traditional ones.

We are unlikely to see the fallout from this deal for a while, as I think I’m right in saying it has still to be approved by Greene King shareholders. But with the pound at an historic low, thanks to you know what, we almost certainly haven’t seen the last of foreign investors snapping up British companies, at bargain basement prices.

Digesting England by the pound

I suppose the £4.6bn takeover of Greene King, by Hong Kong-based, CK Asset Holdings, now makes Marston's Britain’s largest brewer, but for how long? In the dog-eat-dog world of a Brexit-driven weak pound, it is anybody’s guess, and more and more a case of "Selling England by the pound."

In the meantime the Wolverhampton-based Marston's group appears to be doing well, and over the Bank Holiday weekend, Mrs PBT’s and I visited one of their newest establishments for Sunday lunch.

Eileen’s brother lives in Gravesend with his girlfriend and, as they hadn’t seen us for a while, we were invited over for a spot of lunch.  We were aware that a table at a local carvery had been booked, but that was all we knew, so on one of the hottest Sundays of the summer, we jumped in the car and drove over to Gravesend.

It’s a pleasant drive which, dependent on the route,  takes you through some really pleasant countryside and some rather attractive settlements. Places like Shipbourne, Ightham and Meopham are real, picture post-card villages, with some attractive looking pubs; most of which are known to an old hand like me!

We arrived shortly after 1pm; the journey having been largely traffic-free, and after the usual pleasantries, cups of tea etc, we set off to find the “mystery” carvery. We took my car for the simple fact that it was the largest, and after a quick thrash along the busy A2 towards Ebbsfleet (that’s where all the traffic was),  we turned off towards the international station.

I was on familiar territory now, as Ebbsfleet International, with its Eurostar services, has been the departure point for company visits to Cologne, in order to attend the International Dental Show. En route, my brother-in-law had dropped a clue, by mentioning the word “Marstons,” so I was guessing that our destination would probably be one of the company’s new-build, eateries. 

I was correct, and after turning off the main road, we turned into a new housing development that I’d noticed back in March. Another turning, at the top of a hill brought us to the “Spring River” pub and the adjacent Marston’s Inn.

This was an hotel and a quite imposing hotel at that. Constructed more in the vein of a Travel Lodge than a Premier Inn, this was the first “Marston’s Inn” I had seen. The pub though looked much more familiar, being similar in nature to the two Marston’s pub-restaurants I have visited in Norfolk.

The establishments in question are the  Copper Beech in Cotessey – close to the Norwich Showground and the much newer Greenstone in Dereham.  Both my parents were fans of the Copper Beech, and I'd visited the pub with them on several occasions, so as we walked up to the entrance of the Spring River, I knew very much what to expect.

It was just as well that a table had been booked, as the place was heaving – despite the heat. Somewhat predictably all four of us went for the carvery option. Equally predictable was the fact that my three companions all opted for beef, whilst I went for pork; a wise move as it happened.

One thing I really enjoy about a proper roast Sunday dinner are the vegetables which make up the bulk of the meal; them and the lashings of gravy! I piled my plate high before sitting down with the others. My roast pork was nice and tender, which was more than could be said of my companions beef, but with all of us nicely full, we didn’t bother with a sweet.

Drinks had of course been ordered, and whilst the selection was pretty much the Marston’s standard range (Hobgoblin, Wainwrights and Pedigree), I am pleased to report that the latter was on top form. I scored it as 3.5 NBSS, and would have given it a 4, had it not been pulled through a wretched sparkler!

As I said earlier, the pub was full and bustling with lots of hot and sweaty people – England at its best, but like their other establishments, Marston’s have done a good job with the Spring River. With further housing development already underway closely, and the area earmarked for more, the group is onto a winner. What’s more,  the strategically sited hotel means travellers using Eurostar services can spend the night prior to catching one of  the first services to the continent, the following morning.

In search of Greene King

The news about the acquisition of Britain’s second largest brewer, Greene King, by Hong Kong-based, CK Asset Holdings broke sometime during the day, last Monday. The first I knew about it was a message appeared on one of the WhatsApp CAMRA groups I am a member of.

As with the takeover of Fuller’s, by Japanese brewing giant Asahi, the news came as a complete surprise, but then I’m not one for keeping abreast of how things are progressing financially with these companies.

There’s probably been  more than enough written about the Fuller’s takeover, and I’m sure the same will soon apply to Greene King, so what I want to do here is take a look at the latter from a personal perspective, and ask why what was once a highly respected and well-regarded regional brewery, morphed into the reviled and un-loved national concern that it is today.

I don’t intend going into the history of Greene King here, as there are plenty of online sources available for those who are interested in the early development of the company. Instead I want to start by revealing how I first became aware of the company and how, at one point, I became determined to seek out and sample Greene King beers for the first time.

Whilst I was in the sixth form at school, I had a friend who, unlike the rest of us, was far more interested in beer and pubs,  than progressive rock music and chasing after girls. I have written about this friend before, and probably mentioned that him and his family were originally from London.

It came as no surprise then to learn that my friend's aunt owned a holiday bungalow at Clacton-on-Sea, and what’s more, she allowed my friend to talk her into letting it out to him plus a small group of school friends. This was to be for a week during the summer holiday, after we had finished at school for the final time.

As you can imagine for four 18 year olds about to go our separate ways, it  turned into a proper “lad’s holiday.” Three of us were due to start university at the end of September, whilst the fourth member of  our group had already started out in the world of work.

Apart from anticipating our “A” level results, we hadn’t a care in the world. We spent our time in and out of the pubs and the amusement arcades; our dream girls, or any girls for that matter, having failed to materialise. On one occasion we hired a couple of two-seater pedal trikes, and set off to explore the surrounding area, which really meant stopping off at a suitable  pub, or two.

Now as my friend knew far more about the brewing industry than the rest of us, he not only acted as our guide, but he also managed to select a pub based on its owning brewery. So in the days long before the internet, and several years before CAMRA first appeared on the scene, our school friend guided us to a pub belonging to a brewery called Greene King.

I’ve no idea what the pub was called, or whether it’s still trading, and to be honest, I remember very little about the place, or the taste and condition of  the beer on sale there, but that was my first experience of Greene King, as a brewery..

Greene King cropped up a year later when, having gone our separate ways, I met up with my old school friend when we were working together as contract cleaners, in a hospital, during the university summer vacation. Roughly halfway through our contract, we took the day off and headed up to London for a pub crawl based on the first ever CAMRA Guide to Real Ale in London. I've written about our experiences here, in great detail, should you wish to take a look.

The crawl took place back in 1974, and towards the end of the day we ended up at the Anglesea Arms; a pub which was probably the first free house in London to capitalise on the growing interest in "real ale.”  The pub offered a selection of beers which could not be found anywhere else in the capital, and my friend's guide informed us that the revered Abbot Ale from Greene King, featured amongst the selection of hand pumped ales available at the Anglesea.

Unfortunately, despite the wide variety of beers on offer that evening, Abbot Ale was not on tap, and it was to be several years later that I finally managed to track down a pint of any Greene King beers, and the chance finally came on a weekend visit to Bedford, some time in the mid-1970’s.

A group of friends from university had moved to the town, primarily because during their time at uni, they had formed a rock group and wanted to keep it together after finishing their studies. They chose Bedford because the lead guitarist’s girlfriend came from the town, and her father – a first generation Polish immigrant, owned a poultry farm in a nearby village. There were several empty chicken huts on the farm, one of which was requisitioned as a place for the band to practice in.

My then girlfriend and I were still living in Salford, where until recently, we’d all attended the local university. We’d been threatening to visit our rock musician buddies in Bedford for some time, so after making the necessary travel arrangements, we took a train down from Manchester. We actually took several trains, as we wanted to avoid the much more expensive option of travelling via London.

I can’t for the life of me remember the route we took, but I do remember our train towards Bedford being delayed sufficiently long enough to prevent us being able to enjoy a drink in the town that evening.

Our friends drank in a smashing little Greene King  pub, called the Flower Pot. It was situated just off the town centre, but by the time we found our way there, “time” had already been called. I began to think my quest to sink a pint of Greene King was doomed, but I needn’t have feared, as the following lunchtime, we all met up at the Flower Pot, where I was able to knock back several pints of GK beer.

The beer was probably IPA, rather than Abbot, and it should also be remembered that the Greene King beers available in that part of the country, came from the company’s Biggleswade Brewery, rather than from Bury St Edmunds. For brewery history buffs, the Biggleswade plant was the former Wells & Winch Brewery, which was purchased by Greene King in 1961. It was used for the production of GK beers until 1997, when it was closed following a “re-structuring” by the parent company.

I enjoyed many pints of Greene King on that weekend and on subsequent visits to Bedford, but before finishing I’m pleased to report that the Flower Pot is still trading. According to WhatPub it is one of the oldest pubs in Bedford, with low ceilings, small windows, dark wood and subdued lighting, which give it a cosy, traditional atmosphere. This is exactly how I remember the place.

Footnote: I have unearthed an old photo of the Flower Pot, taken in 1980. I will add it to the post, once I have scanned it in.

Hitting the buffers

I picked up a copy of the most recent “London Drinker” CAMRA magazine, whilst at GBBF last week. There’s always plenty of interest amongst it pages, and not all the article are about London.

A particularly sad piece of news from the wilds of Norfolk, caught my eye. It concerned the closure of Buffy’s Brewery, who are throwing in the towel after 25 years of trading. The brewery was based in the village of Tivetshall St Mary, and was founded in 1993. Buffy's beers could be found in several pubs across Norfolk as well as at their own pub, the Cherry Tree at Wicklewood, near Wymondham, which they will continue to run.

The closure was blamed on there being too many breweries in Norfolk, and with over 40 of them all competing for a slice of a diminishing market, something had to give. Like many industry observers, I was more than a little surprised to learn that Buffy’s had gone to the wall, but Roger Abrahams, who founded the brewery, along with Julia Savory, claimed that the micro-brewing sector was close to saturation point, and that competition between brewers “had become very aggressive.”

Mr Abrahams alluded to those pubs who wanted something different every time, and this reminded me of the so-called “badge brewers.” I wrote a lengthy article about this phenomenon, back in 2012. For the uninitiated  "badge brewing" is when a brewery churns out a plethora of different beers, often with silly names which, whilst purporting to be different brews, are just a variation on a handful of basic recipes.

By doing this they are catering primarily for the "tickers" market, and are duping those drinkers foolish enough to believe they are getting something new and different each time. What they are doing of course, is not illegal but at the same time it does push the boundaries with regard to what constitutes a new, different beer, and what doesn’t.

Two companies, in particular were infamous for this practice Cottage Brewing and Archers Ales, both of whom are no longer brewing. The two companies between then produced a staggering amount of supposedly different, “one-off” beers, based around a number of different themes.

Cottage Brewing majored on their “Whippet” series, named after the owners’ dog, whilst Archer’s produced a range of beers with a “locomotive” theme. The connection, in the latter case, was that Archer’s were based in part of the former Great Western Railway locomotive works in Swindon.

Buffy’s, by way of contrast, concentrated on a core range of traditional-style beers, primarily bitter in flavour and mainly brown in colour. This may have been their downfall, especially within an increasingly fickle licensed trade, which expects something new, or different every time.

However, as the examples of both Cottage and Archer’s illustrate, chasing after this “fickle” trade is wrought with its own problems; especially in a market which is already over saturated and over-competitive.

Brooklyn (owes the cut-price beer under me)

Keeping in the spirit of using an obscure album track for a cryptic title - as promoted by Retired Martin, some of you might know this one from classic American rockers, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and their former band.

Continuing my search for cut-price beer on the shelves of local discount stores, I discovered that whilst Home Bargains eventually exhausted their quite extensive stocks of Goose Island Honkers (I picked up a second load last month, as did one of my work colleagues), they had instead obtained a supply of cans from New York’s renowned Brooklyn Brewery.

Two different types were on sale at just 79p a can, and what’s more being from the USA where, as we all know, everything’s bigger and better, they are 355ml tins, rather than the 330ml cans which are standard on this side of the Atlantic. 

The beers I picked up were Scorcher IPA 4.5% and Summer Ale 5.0% , but then to throw a further Brooklyn beer into the mix, I subsequently found East IPA 6.9% on sale at our local Tesco, for £1.04 a can.

All bargains for cash-strapped home drinkers, but it does lead to the question why are a couple of well-respected US breweries discounting their beers in this fashion? The answer in the case of Goose Island, was that Honkers is being discontinued, by AB InBev, who now own the brewery. But what about Brooklyn Brewery? 

Although Brooklyn retain their independence,  Japanese conglomerate Kirin Holdings, now own a 24.5% minority stake in the company. Brooklyn Brewery, unlike many of its American craft contemporaries, has long chased after growth abroad, and a couple of years ago was tipped to export around 150,000 barrels. 

Much of the company's  distribution in Europe, is through a  partnership with Carlsberg, but this doesn't explain why they would want to "dump" beer through UK discount stores.

So what about the beers themselves?

Scorcher IPA 4.5%. Golden in colour, rather than amber. Very bitter in a harsh sort of way, with little in the way of juicy malt to act as a counterbalance. Quite a thin beer, but certainly thirst quenching on a baking hot summer’s day. However, on a damp mid-August day in England, the effect is somewhat lost
.

Summer Ale 5.0%.  A refreshing and flavourful pale ale made specially for warm weather. The English two-row barley adds a degree of “breadiness,” which made me think it also contained a portion of maize.

This is not the case, and the malt is balanced with German and American hops to achieve a clean bitterness and a pleasant floral aroma.  The beer reminded me of certain native “Summer Ales,” in particular Westerham Brewery’s Summer Perle, but also Harvey's Olympia. 

East IPA 6.9%.  A  strong American-style IPA, despite the blurb on the can about joining the English tradition with spirited American hops, to create a well-balanced IPA.

There are certainly plenty of citrus aromas in this light amber coloured ale, and these combined with the resinous flavours from the hops, make for a very satisfying beer, despite the strength.

Conclusion:  with the possible exception of Scorcher, they are all quite quaffable beers, but like many which have crossed continents to reach these shores,  I suspect they would taste even better in a steamy bar, in downtown New York.