A year of lock-down beers

The beers that I have enjoyed over the three periods of lock-down that the country has experienced so far, have covered the whole gamut of what is available. By that I mean cask - in take-home containers and mini-kegs, plus other beers in both bottles and cans.

Prior to the start of the first lock-down towards the end of March 2020, I’d already accumulated quite a stash of bottles and was busy stocking up on cans. The bottles were a result of me over-stocking at Christmas, whilst the cans had been purchased primarily to take on the North Sea cruise to Hamburg, that Mrs PBT’s and I had booked for last May.

 As you can probably imagine,beer is expensive on cruise ships,  and whilst wine connoisseurs are well catered for, those of us who enjoy the juice of the barley, have to make do with big name “international brands.” Not my thing, and with a fridge in the cabin, why not stock it full of better and more enjoyable beers, to drink whilst sitting out on deck or on the balcony of the cabin?

This not only assumed the weather would be kind, but also didn’t take into account that nasty little piece of RNA that arrived, unwanted, from the Far East. In addition, at the start of that first lock-down, we rather naively thought things would be back to normal by May, and would be setting sail for Hamburg, as planned.

Talk about being blown completely off course, and with panic buying stripping supermarket shelves bare – mainly of toilet rolls and pasta, the thought crossed my mind that beer too might fall victim to problems in the supply chain.

 I needn’t have panicked, especially as my good lady wife came the rescue by including several consignments of Budvar and Pilsner Urquell cans with a home delivery from Tesco. These were augmented by bottles of a beer that has since become a lockdown staple. The beer I’m talking about is St Austell Proper Job – an aptly named beer if ever there was one, and I shall be referring to this excellent beer again, before the end of this article.

 A few weeks into lock-down I became aware of “Flavourly;” the craft beer, gourmet food and snacks subscription club. I was tipped off about this company, by a fellow member of the WhatsApp Beer Socials Group that I’m a member of. The tip was, Flavourly were running a promotion on beers from Gun Brewery. I signed up, paid for my case of 24 beers and waited for the consignment to arrive. They arrived in good order and I soon got stuck into them. 

Another case followed, this time the Moor Beer Company. This is the brewery who claim that their canned beer qualifies as “real ale” because it undergoes secondary fermentation in the can.  I’m still not convinced about this, especially as, unlike bottles where you can watch the sediment closely, as you carefully pour the beer, cans are opaque meaning a hazy pint is far more likely than a clear one.

On the whole I managed to pour a reasonably clear glass of beer, but the temptation is always there to carry on pouring, whilst gazing in horror as the yeasty dregs plop in undoing, in an instant, the care and attention you just put in.
 

Another case followed, this time the Moor Beer Company. This is the brewery who claim that their canned beer qualifies as “real ale” because it undergoes secondary fermentation in the can.  I’m still not convinced about this, especially as, unlike bottles where you can watch the sediment closely, as you carefully pour the beer, cans are opaque meaning a hazy pint is far more likely than a clear one.

On the whole I managed to pour a reasonably clear glass of beer, but the temptation is always there to carry on pouring, whilst gazing in horror as the yeasty dregs plop in undoing, in an instant, the care and attention you just put in.

I was on a bit of a roll, so opted for a third case, this time ostensibly from Wild Beer, but quite a few of the offerings were rather off-beat, collaboration brews involving the addition of various fruits to the beer. Fine if limes, mangoes, passion fruit or guava float your boat, but not so good if you like your beer to taste of malt and hops.

I wrote a post about Flavourly, halfway through lock-down, and looking back I’ve still got mixed feelings, about some of their collaboration and crowd-funded brews, especially when they get that little bit too experimental – as detailed above.

 A month or so into lock-down one, I started buying cask beer in either two- or four-pint milk containers from the Nelson Arms in Tonbridge. These were pre-ordered and paid for by phone, prior to collection, and over the course of last summer, I purchased several of these.

Despite being quite fussy with my choice of brews, I found that beer purchased in these containers doesn’t keep well, as it quickly loses condition and ends up going flat. I moved onto five litre mini kegs, finding these a much better idea.

Five litres though are equivalent to nearly nine pints, which is quite a lot of beer to get through, especially if you end up choosing a brew you subsequently decide you’re not particularly keen on. I had several of these, mainly Larkin’s Best Bitter and Porter, that I pre-ordered and paid for over the phone, before picking them up direct from the brewery.

At the beginning of December, local beer café Fuggles re-styled themselves
as a beer shop, because they were not allowed to operate as a pub. This was due to Kent being in placed in one of those confusing tiers that the government toyed with during the final quarter of 2020.

For me, this was a good opportunity to call in and pick up a few bottles, and I took advantage of Fuggles excellent selection of German bottles, which included my favorite Rauchbier from Bamberg – Aecht Schlenkerla Märzen.

Shortly after, in a move that was regarded as little more than sheer spite, rather than actually doing anything to stop the rise in Corona infections, the government banned the collection of draught beer from pubs. This was followed at the beginning of January by the imposition of the third and, as it turned out, the longest national lock-down.

Haven’t mentioned my other “go-to” beer, Pilsner Urquell, often seen on offer in six-packs of 330 ml cans at just £5 a pop. I’ve always got a few cans of this world classic beer chilling away in the fridge, and it’s not unknown especially at weekends for me to crack one open to enjoy with my evening meal – especially the Sunday roast.

The beer has an ABV of just 4.4%, but drinks like one of a much higher strength. A peppery hop bitterness, derived from the prize Saaz hops, is to the fore, and this overlies a solid base of delectable toffee maltiness. The malt gives body to the beer, and this prominent maltiness is a direct result of the triple-decoction mashing regime still practiced at Pilsner Urquell. With this sort of combination, it really is one of the most satisfying and thirst –quenching beers around.

Proper Job is in a similar league This pale-coloured and powerfully hopped, IPA, is packed full of citrusy and resinous hops, set against a background of chewy, Maris Otter malt. Along with Pilsner Urquell, it has become my other “go to” lock-down beer.  As mentioned above, both beers are often on special offer in supermarkets, and today I found 500 ml bottles of Proper Job on sale in Sainsbury’s for just £1.49 each.

Right now though, and despite the quality of these beers, more than anything else I am looking forward to a pint or three of a well-kept cask beer.

Normal service will be resumed

There’s lots I’d like to write about, especially with pubs with beer gardens being allowed to serve us thirsty punters, but it’s the age-old story at the moment, of too much work and not enough play.

On top of a nice healthy order book, I’m two members of staff down in my department, one due to school holidays and the other due to work-related stress. The first absence is fine, as most parents are glad of the opportunity of spending time with their children, but the staff member off sick is, I’m afraid, a direct consequence of the three-month lock-down we’ve all been living under.

I don’t want to dwell on it, apart from saying it’s one thing for members of the government's SAGE committee to obsess about reducing Covid infection rates, but a completely different one when they fail to take people’s mental heath into account. I'm fortunate to have a family supporting me, but my staff member lives on his own, and with no-one to talk to, apart from his work colleagues, I’m not exactly surprised he’s finding it difficult to manage.

So, in between taking up the slack and playing a key role in the ongoing re-structuring that the company is going through, I’ve been rather tired when I arrive home from work. The past two evenings have seen me nodding off in front of my computer screen, and when I have woken up, I’ve either lost the thread or run out of time.

To keep the interest going, here’s a little piece about my ongoing garden re-vamp; a project that has accelerated over the long Easter break. The pace may slow down as other distractions such as pubs re-opening loom on the horizon, but if you’ve got even a passing interest in gardening, then do please read on.

The back garden is looking rather like the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme, following the final removal of the wretched leylandii conifers. The latter had formed an impenetrable barrier along the left-hand boundary, since the day we moved into the property, shading out all other plants whilst encroaching more and more on the lawn.

Now that the trees have gone, we’ve gained a new strip of garden along the
margin, of around six feet. I’d partially removed the leylandii last year, in order to allow the contractors better access for when they replaced the fence, but just before the Easter break, an old school friend of Matthew’s, who now works as a landscape gardener, called round to remove the trunks and also the roots.

After straining every muscle in my body and aching in places I ought not to ache in, I’d removed two of these buggers, so paying someone to remove, and cut up the remaining seven, was worth every penny. Matthew’s friend also cut what remained of our old Bramley tree into suitably sized logs.

Unlike the conifers I felt more than a twinge of sadness over the loss of the apple tree, even though two large sections of it were already lying on the ground. The core of the main trunk was rotten, so it was a potential hazard, but even so it continued to crop well until a few years ago, providing us with plenty of Bramley’s for pies and crumbles, plus ample leftover fruit for me to take to work.

When Matthew was younger, I constructed a tree-house for him, based on a platform supported by the four main branches of the tree. Its removal leaves a large area of rough grassland, behind the summerhouse that I need to find a use for

I’ve got plans for the line of the new fence once I’ve finished installing trellis along the top of each section.
Mrs PBT’s values her privacy and was somewhat against the removal of the conifers – even though they were an eyesore. I appreciate the neighbour, whose garden is behind the fence, is a nosey old git, but he can only walk with the aid of a Zimmer frame. Furthermore, as my dear lady wife was never one for laying out in the garden sunning herself, wearing only a bikini, I can’t see what the problem is.

I keep telling her we could have far worse neighbours than “old grumpy guts” next door, although his limited mobility didn’t stop him phoning round on Easter Sunday, with some unwanted advice about how to fix the trellis. Once a know-all, always a know-all!

I have a clematis ready for planting, that I rescued last spring, prior to the fencing being replaced, and said neighbour has a Montana variety that is already putting out its tendrils across the fence. So, once the trellis is secure, there will be a couple of climbing plants at least, ready to cover the blank canvas.

A trip, or two to the garden centre is next on the agenda, starting this weekend, but before doing so, some careful forward planning is in order. I
will leave most of that to Mrs PBT’s, but in addition to a selection of sun-loving shrubs, I’ve got a collection of seedlings coming to fruition on the back bedroom windowsill, to add to the mix.

I appreciate there’s nothing about beer, or travelling in this short article, but rest assured, there will be in subsequent posts.

Flogging a dead horse?

Although CAMRA has run plenty of successful campaigns in its 50-year span, it has also run the odd spectacular flop. The thing about a flop is to recognise when you’ve got it wrong, but one long running campaign the organisation continued to run was a dud, right from the start. “Flogging a dead horse,” is perhaps the best description.

"Make May a Mild Month" ran, in various guises, for what must have been several decades. The idea was to save the forgotten and some might say neglected, style of beer, known as Mild Ale. There are plenty of online sources should you wish to know more about mild, and also plenty of definitions of what the beer actually is.

Some of these are far geekier than others, but as history plays a part, with the definition becoming distorted over time, I will leave readers to conduct their own research, should they wish. For the purposes of this article, all you really need to know is that, up to and including World War II, mild was the staple drink in Britain’s pubs.

More than that, mild was THE drink of the working man, outselling more expensive draught beers such as bitter by some and more. A decade or so later, its fortunes entered a long slow and ultimately, quite painful decline. When CAMRA was founded, mild was still the logical companion to bitter on pub bar counters up and down the country, with most brewers offering both styles in their tied houses.

This could be why CAMRA set out to save it, but had the campaign spent more time bothering about the quality of the beer, rather than remaining fixated on the style, they might have arrested its decline. Instead, they concentrated solely on saving mild ale as a style and ended up on a hiding to nothing.

At its best mild could be enjoyable and satisfying, but at its worst it was thin, insipid, and totally devoid of character. Worse are the horror stories, from the “old days” of unscrupulous landlords, adding all the “slops” from a night’s drinking, back into the cask – yuck!

So, despite dozens of CAMRA members being “persuaded” into professing their support for mild, and going out of their way to drink it, the style was already in terminal decline. CAMRA’s efforts, however well-intentioned, couldn’t hide the fact that apart from a few honourable exceptions, the mild brewed by most breweries – certainly those that continued to produce it in cask form, was in the main inferior to the bitter(s) or draught pale ale they offered.

I became caught up in this hype back in the early 1980’s, when I became an active member of Maidstone & Mid Kent (MMK) CAMRA. This was the first CAMRA branch I identified with, even though I’d been a member since the mid 1970’s.

A bit of history first, to get us up to speed, I joined the Campaign in 1974, during the summer vacation from Salford University.  The first branch meeting I attended was one held by Canterbury branch, at the City Arms, close to the world-famous cathedral. Hand-pumped Whitbread Trophy, brewed at the former Fremlin’s plant at Faversham, was the cask ale on offer, and jolly good it was too. 

I later attended what was probably the inaugural meeting of Ashford CAMRA; Ashford being my hometown. My attendance at these meetings was confined to university vacations, and during term time I made no effort to go along to any events that must have been held by branches in the Greater Manchester region.

I saw no real need to attend local CAMRA events, as decent and cheap cask ale was available in most of the region’s pubs. Whitbread and John Smiths were the odd ones out, as they only supplied keg beer. I also had a busy social life – those were the days, and evenings when I didn’t go to the pub were few and far between. It wasn’t until I moved back to Kent in 1979, after buying my first house in Maidstone, that I decided to bite the bullet and become involved with the local and, it has to be said, highly successful MMK CAMRA branch.

Faversham brewers, Shepherd Neame, were the main provider of real ale in the county town, with all nine of their pubs stocking the real thing. This was in sharp contrast to Courage and Whitbread, who owned the bulk of Maidstone’s pubs, but sold mainly bright, processed beer, served by top-pressure dispense.

After showing more than a passing interest in the branch, and volunteering to deliver its newsletter – Draught Copy, to local pubs, I was asked to join the committee, which I considered quite an honour. The branch chairman and secretary at the time, were keen supporters of CAMRA’s fledgling mild campaign – the bit about drinking it during May came along later, and encouraged other committee members to do the same. Cask (real) mild was only available in Shepherd Neame houses, as whilst a handful of Courage and Whitbread pubs served real ale, it was bitter only that was stocked, the mild being keg only.

This meant making a point of being seen to be ordering, and of course drinking mild. Shep’s mild was pleasant enough, but it wasn’t a patch on their excellent bitter – something went wrong with that later. The mild also suffered from low turnover, so many pints whilst still drinkable, were not exactly served at their best. Small matter, we all thought we were doing the right thing to save this dying stye of beer and were even proud of our efforts.   

In our naivety we thought that our combined efforts would be sufficient to turn the tide and rescue cask mild from oblivion. How wrong could we be, as during the mid-1980’s, Shep’s announced that, due to falling sales and low turnover, they would be dropping mild in cask form and their pubs would now stock it only as a brewery-conditioned keg beer.

Talk about a kick in the teeth, all that posing with a pint of mild, all those excellent pints of bitter ignored in favour of a lackluster and inferior pint of mild. A lesson well learned, go with your heart rather than your head, don’t be guided by what others think and slavishly follow them.

CAMRA continued their increasingly forlorn, mild Campaign well into the 21st Century, encouraging branches and breweries to run special promotions of this style every May, but all to no avail. Looking back, I wrote an extensive article, five years ago, titled “Why I Won't Be Supporting CAMRA's Mild in May Campaign,” and an even longer one, the year before. Both questioned the reasoning behind CAMRA’s increasingly embarrassing Mild Campaign, but do make quite interesting reading, if you are at all interested in mild.

Six years on, my attitude hasn’t changed. If people are shunning a particular style of beer because its lacks character and appeal, then no amount of campaigning, arm-twisting or obsession by CAMRA, or any other group of people, is going to change things.

It seems I am not alone, because on Pub Curmudgeon’s blog, there’s a post from 20^th February, written largely in celebration of CAMRA’s 50^th anniversary. In the comments section, there’s a lengthy, and rather tongue in cheek contribution from a correspondent called “Mild Drinker Matt.”

It summed up neatly and succinctly, the points I’ve been making about the absurdity of these campaigns, and it also made me laugh. Here's a taster, so you can see what I mean, but it's also a good way of wrapping up this article.

"My journey with CAMRA began when I saw an advertisement in Opening Times magazine for a ‘mild challenge’. Visit pubs, drink mild, collect tokens, claim a t shirt and most important of all, SAVE MILD. It didn’t work but that is not the point. Something needed to be done and they were doing something.”

“Mild’s decline continued. Year on year mild slumped in volume. It disappeared from pubs, it suffered quality issues of low turnover but every year I knew something must be done, so I did it and so did CAMRA. No one wanted to drink mild anymore as it was a bland wishy-washy sort of beer, but it needed saving and nobody else was trying to save it.”

I rest my case!

Getting ready for the off

It’s been a roller-coaster couple of weeks, which might explain why I haven’t posted much on the blog recently. An unexpected problem with my car, which then snowballed into a couple of other expensive issues, saw me not only car less for five days, but didn’t exactly do my bank-balance any favours either.

Fortunately, son Matthew had two weeks off from work, so was able to drive me to and from work, and also lend me his car in order to drive Mrs PBT’s to the shops. So, with work remaining fiendishly busy as well, I’ve been looking forward to the long Easter break.

Leading up to this, unseasonably fine weather at the start of the week (where did that go to?), made my regular lunchtime walks even more pleasant than usual. Spring flowers in abundance, not just daffodils, but glades of pale-yellow primroses coming into their own, lambs skipping about in the fields, left me with a spring in my step – if you’ll pardon the pun.

Wednesday’s walk saw me making a rare diversion down into Charcott, home of the award-winning Greyhound. Licensee Richard was busy getting the garden straight, assisted by a member of staff. I stopped for a quick chat. Shortly after, landlady Fran appeared with some cups of tea for Richard and his helper.

She confirmed the pub would be re-opening on Tuesday 13^th April for drinks, with food being served from the following day. 13^th April happens to be my birthday, so providing nothing disastrous occurs in the meantime, I aim to be sitting out in the Greyhound’s garden and enjoying a pint of Larkin’s, come rain or shine.

 As well as improving the garden, the couple have converted the porch area, at the front of the pub, into an area that provides shelter from the elements, but without being closed in. Good news as it increases the Greyhound’s ability to cater for an increased number of outdoor drinkers, until that magic day arrives, when Nanny decides we’ve been good boys and girls, allows us back indoors and starts treating us like responsible adults.

The Greyhound is just over 10 minutes’ walk from my workplace, but even nearer is the Little Brown Jug; a large It is an attractive late 19th Century building which despite being enlarged over the years, still retains much of its original character.   

The Little Brown Jug is just over five minutes’ walk away and is situated directly opposite Penshurst station.  I have been watching, with interest, the preparations the staff were making, in advance of re-opening. Disappointingly, it hasn’t been warm enough for bikinis – unlike last summer. For more information, please refer to this post which I wrote at the time. A large open-sided tent has been erected in the Jug’s equally large garden, in anticipation perhaps of the fickleness of the English weather.

I haven’t yet checked online, but I imagine the pub will be taking full advantage of Prime Minister Johnson’s roadmap out of lock-down, by re-opening at the earliest opportunity on 12^th April – Covid-19 infection rated permitting. Assuming they are, I shall be waiting in line for the chance of a pint in the garden.

House beers - revisited

Back in 2008, I wrote a post titled, “House Beers.”  It was one of the very first articles I posted on this blog but after viewing a thread, on the Beer Socials Whats App group I belong to, I felt inclined to re-post my 13-year-old piece, as the points raised seem just as relevant today, then they were back then.

News broke, that come pub re-opening, a well-known local free house will be offering not just one, but two “house beers.” This seemed to spark much excitement, but not from my direction, so before going any further, what exactly is a “house beer?” 

The answer is it is a beer that is branded as being exclusive to the pub in question. It may be named after the pub itself, the landlord or a feature of local interest, but if the publicity and spin behind the beer is to be believed, the beers is produced exclusively for the pub. But is it?

The term “house beer” covers a multitude of sins, ranging from a beer brewed to a certain recipe and then made available to any pub interested in taking it, through to a beer that is genuinely brewed specifically for a particular pub. So far so good, but if we discard the first “mass circulation” house beer type, and concentrate on the accepted use of the term, it becomes self-evident that it would need a combination of a very small micro-brewery and a pub with a very large turnover to make the brewing of a genuine “house beer” worthwhile.

The smallest sized plant normally chosen by micro-brewers is five barrels (180 gallons), which amounts to an awful lot of beer for any pub to shift in one go! Admittedly the beer can be stored for a while, but it is likely to change in character during the storage period, which is why I am certain that very few so-called “house beers” are the genuine article.

I have learnt from years of experience that many so called “house beers” do not tick the “exclusivity box,” and neither do they meet the “carefully crafted pint of beer, brewed to the highest standards, from the highest quality ingredients,” criteria either.

This is especially true when a brewery chooses to mix two or three different beers, and then pass them off as a “house beer”. This is blending rather than brewing, and whilst these beers might be good for the landlord’s ego, they do the cause of the small independent brewer no good at all.

Even worse than pubs selling brewery mixes, are pubs that sell a brewer’s bog-standard beer under their own name. Over the years I have come across several examples of this form of deception, and whilst its prevalence is nowhere near as wide as it once was, I still think it is dishonest.

Many years ago, when I was much more of CAMRA zealot than I am today, I annoyed the owner of a local free house, by asking too many questions about the beer the pub was calling “Our Own”. “Where does the beer come from?” I inquired. “Is it a local brew, or do you bring it in from elsewhere?”

All these questions were met with a stony silence so, perhaps rather foolishly, I then asked mine host if he brewed the beer “out the back.” I knew full well that he didn’t as, back then, word would soon have got around that the pub in question had started brewing it own beer.

Obviously rattled, the landlord told me, in no uncertain terms, that the beer was “Our Own” and if I couldn’t accept that then I should take my custom elsewhere. As I was with work colleagues at the time, I ignored this suggestion and settled for a pint of Fullers London Pride instead. I like to know what I am drinking, so had to chuckle when I later discovered that the cantankerous old landlord had been prosecuted, by Trading Standards,  for passing off Fremlin’s Bitter as his own brew. Talk about karma!

My message to landlords, and also to micro-brewers, remains the same as it was 13 years ago. I appreciate that times are hard and that you need to drum up sales and increase trade. However, please don’t do it in such a way that deceives the drinking public, and which in the end does your reputation no good at all.

By all means offer a genuine “house beer”, but please don’t try and insult our intelligence, or our taste buds, with half-measures or out and out fakes. Better still, do you really think drinkers will travel to your pub for the sole purpose of sampling your “house beer?”

I remain unconvinced, especially as when I come across a beer I haven’t seen before, I like to give it a try. I won’t be pleased if I discover that what I have been drinking, is just a re-badged beer, or a blend of two or more different brews. Equally, if I do spot a pump clip advertising what purports to be a beer brewed specially for the pub itself, I am likely to give it a wide birth.  

Am I being snobbish? Probably yes, fussy too, and downright picky, but I remember the days of “badge brewing” when the likes of Archers and Cottage Brewery were churning out a never-ending number of allegedly different beers, all based on a small handful of basic recipes. 

The beer tickers might have been delighted, but those of us who could see through this, and view it for what it was, were less than impressed. Personally, I can’t see it catching on again, but who knows?

Competition Time (no prizes).

First, the attractive building in the third photo down, is a former West Kent pub. Not only that, it was THE pub where I had the "discussion," mentioned in the post above, about "Own Ale." Can anyone name it?

Second, can anyone name the pioneering establishment which served "Own Ale," back in the early 1970's, thereby reviving the practice of pubs brewing their own beer? This was at a time when there were only four, home-brewpubs left in the country.