Third time lucky - Parts 1 & 2

It was a case third time lucky last Sunday afternoon when, after a spot of shopping in Tunbridge Wells, Matthew and I decided we could do with a drink. It wasn’t exactly serious shopping, but rather an excuse to get out of the house and leave Mrs PBT’s in peace. We didn’t realise at the time, but Eileen was in the early stages of a bout of cellulitis. You might not have heard much about this condition, but if not treated quickly it can be serious, and even life-threatening.

I won’t go into details here, although if you want to know more, then take a look on this link, but what I will say is that between us Mrs PBT’s and I know quite a few people who have had cellulitis, and that most of them are male. Eileen has been prescribed a course of strong antibiotics, so strong in fact that they have left her feeling nauseous, and completely off her food. I’m jumping the gun somewhat here, as on Sunday, whilst suspecting cellulitis was the cause of my wife’s malaise (she’d experienced this condition previously, about, three years ago), we weren’t quite completely certain, and besides, I want to get back to the narrative and tell you more about the three pubs we visited.

Upon reaching Tunbridge Wells, we headed to the south of the town and the area next to the former Tunbridge Wells West station. The site is occupied by a large Sainsbury’s superstore at one end, and by branches of both Lidl and Homebase at the other, and it was the latter shops that we called in at. For the record though, Tunbridge Wells West station still stands, with the large, former booking hall and waiting rooms, surmounted by an impressive clock tower, now home to a Smith & Western, "cowboy-inspired" restaurant, alongside a small hotel.

The Spa Valley Railway, now operate a heritage service of mixed steam and diesel trains along the former BR branch-line to Eridge, and it was the latter station we were heading for, by car though, rather than by rail. The line to Eridge, formerly connected the West station with Tunbridge Wells Central, although following the removal of the rail link, the “central” suffix has been dropped. The line itself closed pretty late in the general scheme of things, after having survived the notorious Beeching cuts of the mid-1960’s, by some 20 years or so.

It was a useful diversionary route, so its cull by the notoriously anti-railway government of Margaret Thatcher, was both unjustified, unnecessary, and almost certainly was driven by the redevelopment potential of the large goods yard and train depot, next to the West Station. As mentioned earlier, the former west yard was snapped up by Sainsbury’s, with the large area of adjacent flat ground forming an ideal car park.

Since those dark days of 1985, the heritage enthusiasts of the SVR have managed to reopen the former line in stages, initially to Groombridge and then eventually to Eridge, where it connects with the Southern mainline to Uckfield. I am mentioning the SVR primarily because their preserved railway line crops up several times in this narrative. Also, as mentioned earlier, it was Eridge we were heading for, in order to visit the Huntsman pub, next to the station.

This former King & Barnes pub, is now a free-house, having been sold on by Dorset brewers, Hall & Woodhouse, who took over, and the closed the much, lamented K & B Brewery, in Horsham, back in the early 2000’s. I’ve soft spot for the Huntsman, which probably dates back to the last time I travelled from Tonbridge to Eridge, on a British Rail train. This would have been shortly before the line closed in the mid 80’s.

I’ve only returned to the Huntsman on a handful of occasions since then, although I’ve been meaning to revisit for quite some time. The last time I set foot in the pub, was on a return from a winter ales festival, held at the Coopers Arms in Crowborough, but prior to that Matthew and I had visited the Huntsman a decade or so previously. On that occasion we were in the company of friends from West Kent CAMRA, and the visit followed on from a ride on the Spa Valley Railway. We enjoyed a decent lunch at the pub, along with some equally fine Badger ales, before walking across country to the picturesque Crown Inn, overlooking the green at neighbouring Groombridge.

This time we headed south from Tunbridge Wells, before turning off the busy A26 road at the bottom of a valley. We then followed the road for a short distance past Eridge station and parked the car. As we walked along to pub, we could see across to the sunken garden at the side of the pub. It seemed deserted, which set alarm bells ringing, and when we reached the entrance, there was no sign of life and just a rather ominous notice on the door.

“Sorry, we are unable to open the pub today, due to a power outage,” or words to that effect, which meant my second attempt, this year, to visit the Huntsman, ended in failure. "Never mind,” I said to Matthew, we can visit the High Rocks instead. Returning to the car, we followed the narrow road from the pub, in a roughly westerly direction, whilst keeping an eye out for a turning on the right, to the High Rocks.

We didn’t see one, and not long after, ended up in Groombridge. We could have stopped at the aforementioned Crown, but parking can be a little tricky there, so we continued up the hill towards Tunbridge Wells, through Langton, and the edge of Rusthall. Plan C was to call in at the Beacon situated along the quaintly named Tea Garden Lane. It must be a decade or more since I last set foot in the Beacon, but back in the day it was a favourite watering hole for local CAMRA members, due to it stocking the then, rather rare, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord.

A lot can change in 10 years, or even in four, because the pub was last surveyed by the local CAMRA branch in January 2019, but since that time the Beacon appears to have morphed into a very upmarket, wedding venue. It was all very pleasant, but the place is no longer a pub catering to the casual drinker. We walked up the steps leading to the terrace bar, passing through what looked like the reception area, as the Beacon now offers accommodation.

At the bar, we directed through to the terrace, by a member of the waiting staff. I said that we only wanted a drink, to which the reply was, “That’s fine, I will bring you the drinks menu.” This duly arrived, but it seemed to be wine only. When I mentioned the Beacon’s former reputation for “real ale,” the young man gave me a look that straight away said he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. “It it’s beer you want, we do have Coors,” he said, with a faint hint of expectation in his voice.

I politely declined his offer and told him we’d be heading elsewhere.  This was a shame, as the view from the Beacon’s terrace was stunning, with vistas right across what is known locally as "Happy Valley," and it is this natural feature through which the Tunbridge Wells- Eridge line runs – (Spa Valley Railway!). As if to illustrate the point, we heard the whistle of a steam train as it passed through the wooded course of the River Grom below us.

I called this piece, "third time lucky," and indeed we both were when we made our way to the third hostelry of the afternoon. However, despite the title of this post, I shall have to leave describing the “lucky” third pub, until next time, as I’ve waffled on rather too long with this one. To be continued.

Footnote: It appears that a communication problem was responsible for the perceived “no beer” situation at the Beacon, as following the post, a friend phoned the Beacon and was told, by the manager, that they currently have on two Cellar Head keg beers, English Pilsner, and Session IPA, plus a few of their "lovely" bottles.

I also discovered that the “drinks menu” given to Matthew and I, was a photocopy of just one side of the menu, and was missing the bulk of the information relating to the snacks, charcuterie, lunch, cocktail and the "Draught.” The latter, of course was the beer. So full apologies to the Beacon, even though this mix-up could easily have been avoided.

Further details can be found in the extensive correspondence between Stafford Paul and me in the comments section.

Hazy, cloudy, milkshake, or just plain murky - it's supposed to look like that!

 Beer was never meant to be cloudy, certainly modern beers. Throughout the ages brewers went to great lengths to perfect methods of delivering a beer that looked attractive to the drinker, and this became far more important with the advent of clear, glass drinking vessels. They could get away with cloudy beer when stoneware, or pewter tankards were the order of the day, but glass was much more unforgiving.

One method of ensuring a clear and attractive looking drink for the consumer, was to leave the partially finished beer in the fermenter or subsequent maturation vessel to drop right of its own accord. This could be quite time consuming, so the discovery of finings, such as isinglass, was an important one, especially as it sped up the process by several orders of magnitude. Finings work by causing yeast cells, suspended in the maturing beer, to clump together, so they eventually drop out of suspension, leaving a bright and sparkling end product.

This method was used for ages, but the adoption of filtration as a method to clarify beer, took things to a whole different level, especially with the advent of pressure filtration systems. Filtration is the method most commonly used today, and it is widely used for virtually every type of beer, with the honourable exception of cask conditioned ale. The latter, still relies on finings, added to the beer after racking, to achieve a clear, bright pint, but it is hamstrung by the live yeast that remains at the bottom of the cask.

Careless handling, or not allowing sufficient time for the beer to clear and the yeast to settle, can result in a hazy, or downright cloudy pint, but the majority of cellarmen and licensees are experienced enough not to let this happen. Indeed, those of us who've been drinking cask ale for a long time, have grown to expect a beer which looks bright end sparkling in the glass, and most drinkers worth their salt would quite rightly return a glass of beer that doesn't look right.

Occasionally, despite the best practices in the cellar, a cloudy pint can still get through and this is where the difference between a good and a bad licensee comes into play. The publican who knows what he or she is doing, will change a dodgy pint without question, and also take steps to find out why such a situation occurred. Cloudy beer is either due to insufficient maturation time, or the cask is fast approaching empty, and the sediment in the “belly” of the cask, is being drawn up through the lines and into the customer’s glass.

An inexperienced or sometimes unscrupulous licensee would claim that “It's real ale and it's supposed to look like that!” Over the years that untruthful and rather pathetic excuse has fortunately disappeared, or at least most of us thought it had, until the rise of so-called craft ale/craft keg. Many of these beers are unfiltered, and also un-fined, the excuse being it’s a more natural product, but whilst this this may well be true, the fact that the kegs still contain live yeast, is bound to result in a cloudy pint.

Worse still, rather too many of these “natural” beers don't just have a slight haze but are what many of us have come to describe as “craft murk.” In other words, they are thick, turbid, and just look completely wrong in the glass. The argument put forward by craft devotees is these beers are supposed to be like that – sounds familiar, although who exactly said that, and when they made such a declaration remains a mystery. 

The plot thickens further, if you’ll pardon the pun, as it turns out that some new styles of beers are designed to deliberately appear cloudy, murky if you prefer because “That's what they're supposed to be like.” This is the claim put forward by the brewers who produce these murky beers and the outlets that sell them. Probably the worst offender here is the style known as New England IPA, or NEIPA for short. As far as I'm aware this is a totally made-up faux style of beer, but unfortunately due to hype, peer pressure, the rise of beer ticking -  Untappd, and sites such as Rate Beer, where subscribers sing their praises, or otherwise, NEIPAs and other cloudy/murky beers have acquired a large following.

To me this is yet another case of the "emperor's new clothes", as no one is prepared to call out the people promoting this false style of beer. I say false because the group of small American states in the far northeastern corner of the USA that constitute New England, never had much of a tradition of brewing India Pale Ale. However, as with West Coast IPA, and also East Coast, the term India Pale Ale has become seriously debased, just for the purpose of making money from selling craft murk to gullible people.

I'm not even sure how they make these beers so deliberately cloudy. Does the end product have a surplus of yeast or is the “milkshake” appearance of NEIPA down to bad brewing techniques? Normally, trub, which is the protein and spent hop residue leftover from the brewing process, is left behind in the copper or whirlpool, rather than being allowed to make its way into the fermenter, so is it this protein haze, or other, suspended matter that gives the beer its orange juice like appearance? Perhaps it is no coincidence that aficionados of these beers describe them as being “juicy.”

Personally, I prefer my beer to taste of malt and hops, rather than orange or pineapple, because that's what much of this craft murk stuff looks like when served up. Unfortunately, this type of nonsense has undone much of CAMRA’s good work when it comes to promoting good cellar practises. So now a bar person, with very little knowledge of beer, can quite truthfully trot out the excuse it's supposed to look like that, when serving up a glass of murk to an unsuspecting customer.

I was reminded of this on Friday, when I called in at a well-known local beer emporium in Tonbridge. There was a range of beers including two from Iron Pier Brewery of Gravesend. I opted for the Wealdway IPA, the Wealdway being a long-distance footpath running right across the Kent & Sussex Weald, from Gravesend on the Thames Estuary to Eastbourne, overlooking the English Channel. A friend and walked this particular trail back in 2010, so Wealdway IPA seemed a rather fitting beer, as it brought back special memories.

The barman pulled me a pint, but when I went to pay for it, I noticed the beer was taking a long time to clear in the glass. I asked if it was supposed to be a hazy beer, and was told, “yes.” I wasn’t impressed, as had I known this, I wouldn’t have ordered it, but having paid for it, was willing to give it a try. Fancying a spot of al fresco drinking, I took my pint outside and began drinking it. The beer was all OK, but despite what some might argue, whatever was causing the haze, spoiled the taste, and it certainly wasn't the perfect marriage of malt and hops one would normally expect from an IPA.

Whilst prepared to put this down to experience, I was a little peeved there was no POS material on the bar, or the plump clip, advising that this beer was supposed to be hazy. When I went to “tick” the beer on Untappd, I noticed a friend from West Kent CAMRA had ticked the same beer at the same outlet a couple of hours before me. He too thought the beer should not have been murky, so I messaged him said the same thing.

When I'd finished the beer, I returned the glass, but this time there was a different person behind the bar. I expressed my dissatisfaction with the beer and informed him that a friend had also questioned its cloudiness and posted about it on Untappd. Following my disclosure, the beer was removed from sale, as it was either coming to the end of the cask, or possibly it hadn't dropped right bright in the first place. Whatever the reason it should not have been served, but obviously mistakes can sometimes occur, even in the best run establishments.

Once the error was highlighted, the pub acted in the right way by removing the offending beer from sale. The barman apologised and asked if I'd like another beer instead. I declined this kind gesture, primarily because I needed to get home. Had I been a bit more on the ball I could at least asked for a stamp on my pub loyalty card, the one they use to promote cask ale. One stamp per pint, and after 10 stamps the card holder is rewarded with a free pint.

I’ve droned on too long, but wanted to make the point about the way craft murk has muddied the water. For the record, and just to make sure I wasn’t talking out of my rear end, I checked Iron Pier’s website, as well as on Untappd, and like any other self-respecting cask ale, Wealdway IPA is supposed to drop bright. Vigilance pays in these uncertain times!

 

 

Speak up that person at the back!

I was up in that there London place on Tuesday evening, for an after-work event held at a rather unusual, but quite stunning pub that I've never been to before. The occasion was the British Guild of Beer Writers Annual General Meeting, held this year at the Samuel Pepys, an impressive and stylish Shepherd Neame house, tucked away at the end of a narrow alley leading down to the River Thames.

If my memory serves me right, this was the 3rd Guild AGM I've attended, but held in a room tucked away at the far end the Samuel Pepys, and not sufficiently far enough away from the rest of the pub, meant much of the proceedings were drowned out by the sound of customers who seemed especially noisy that evening. A faulty PA system didn’t help either, which meant I didn’t really hear much of what was going on.

Some might say that was a good thing, but I couldn’t possibly comment on that, although if you ask me in private, I might tell you why. Fortunately, acting chairman, Jonny Garrett mentioned that his theatrical training might assist, and many of us were grateful that he was able to project his voice to the back of the room. Jonny of course, is the author of a "Year in Beer", one of
the best books I’ve read about beer, its seasonality, along with guidelines of how to experience the very best of what the UK has to offer, beer-wise, throughout the year.

The book was a present, the Christmas before last, and I was thinking, should I perhaps have brought my copy along to the meeting and asked Jonny to sign it? Possibly, or does that smack rather too much of unashamed fandom? But Jonny’s address, and the way he manged to keep the meeting going, in spite of the noise issue, helped save what was otherwise a rather un-edifying experience, with little of interest to report. So, let’s concentrate on the pub, instead.

As mentioned previously, the Samuel Pepys is tucked away down a narrow turning off busy Upper Thames Street. Known as Stew Lane, which once afforded direct access to the Thames. “Stew” was a medieval term for a brothel, and from the nearby landing watermen would have ferried passengers across the river to Bankside opposite, an area largely free of the rules and regulations of the City itself. On Bankside there were theatres, bear-baiting pits, and a large number of the aforementioned stews. As a man who frequently went in pursuit of pleasure Pepys, no doubt, often made the short journey across the river.

The pub which carries his name, is housed in a 19th Century former Thameside tea warehouse, and originally opened as a pub in the early 1970s. Today’s pub appears much more recent in its construction, and after stepping inside from Stew Lane, a flight of steps takes the visitor up to a bright and airy, loft-style bar and restaurant, boasting many character features, such as wooden floorboards, full height windows and exposed brickwork. From a small balcony that overhangs the Thames, the Samuel Pepys offers spectacular views across the river to Bankside, the re-constructed Globe Theatre, and the former Bankside Power Station, home of the Tate Modern Gallery for many years. Looking to the left, the visitor will see Southwark Bridge and dominating the skyline, adjacent to London Bridge station, is the Shard. Completed in 2012, this is the tallest building in Britain.

My journey up from Kent took me by train to London Bridge, where I changed platforms for a one stop  ride, across the Thames, to Cannon Street station. It was then a five-minute walk to the Samuel Pepys. As already mentioned, the pub is owned by Shepherd Neame, but before ordering a drink, I headed to the section reserved for the Guild AGM, introduced myself and signed in. As far as beers were concerned the organisers were running a tab, behind the bar, but slightly disappointed at discovering the Whitstable Bay Pale had run out, and not fancying Spitfire (the other cask offering), I opted instead for a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil.

Keg, of course, but quite quaffable and I followed it with a pint of East Coast IPA, from Bear Island – the latter being Sheps’s “craft ale” brand. Again, drinkable and refreshing, although I’m not sure about the East Coast tag. A little later on I bumped into BryanB who writes under the name of Beer Viking. I noticed he was pouring a bottle of Shepherd Neame Double Stout, into a glass, this full-bodied 5.2% abv stout, being one of Shep’s Heritage brews. Keen-eyed Bryan had spotted the bottles behind the bar and said the brewery’s bottled India Pale Ale was also available.

At 6.1%, and with a busy day at work ahead of me, the following morning, I gave that one a miss, and called it a day after the three pints, but where was the food? As someone who's always up for a free scoff, I was a little disappointed there was no buffet as I'm pretty sure previous AGMs have featured food of some description. I would have to wait until I got back to Cannon Street, but that moment came much sooner than I was expecting. Shortly after 9pm, the bar staff came around and informed us that the pub would soon be closing, so could we all please drink up and vacate the premises. This seemed rather strange, but I suppose it was Tuesday, and in the heart of the City of London, most drinking is associated with people meeting up with colleagues and friends for a couple of beers after finishing work, before catching their trains home to rural suburbia.

Any thoughts too, of a final drink went out the window, but as it was a school night, and I needed a clear head the following morning, it would not have been a good idea, anyway. Some of the attendees talked about going onto the Pelt Trader, a modern looking dive bar below Cannon Street station, that I passed on my way to the meeting. I've heard of this pub before, and apparently it is a well-known craft beer bar. It sells cask as well as craft keg and takes its name from the Skinner's Company Hall opposite.

It looked much busier at 6:30pm than it did when I made my way back to the station, some three hours later, but it was food I was after, much more than beer, and whilst salvation came in the form of a steak-bake slice from Greggs, at London Bridge, it was the portion of chips from Kebab Express, almost opposite Tonbridge station, that sustained me on my walk home. An interesting evening out, with a new pub visited and another potential port of call bookmarked for next time. In addition, there were some interesting and friendly people to chat with after the meeting, but I shall probably give the AGM itself a miss, next year.