The Kernel Brewery, Burton Ale and the fabulous De Molen Festival

Some months ago, the list of brewers started to appear on the De Molen brewery website for Borefts, their annual beer festival, .  For those who haven’t heard of this beer festival, now held annually at the brewery in Bodegraven, it is a celebration of innovative craft beer from what is described on their website as the ‘best of the best European breweries’, with geeky favourites such as Alvinne, Struise, Mikkeller, Emelisse and the legendary Narke usually there.  The beer list contains more crackers than a Prince ‘Greatest Hits’ album.  Now some brewers like to get their prestigious awards, such as the World Beer Cup, World Beer Awards, Solihull CAMRA Beer Festival Gold Medal etc.(we’ve got a few in the bag ourselves), but to me personally, the highest honour in brewing is an e-mail from the De Molen team asking if we would like to exhibit our beer at their bash. We already knew we were invited – Matthew had bribed Menno Olivier, the Head Brewer, with a case of Jaipur the year before.

This year I was delighted to see another UK brewery had been invited too – the miscreants at the Kernel Brewery- perhaps the most celebrated of all the current London microbreweries, of which there are now many (and all producing the best beer that London has seen for many years).  After sending him a brief message of congratulations, I got to thinking it might be a good idea if we did a couple of beers together to be launched at the festival.   E-mails fired back and forth, and thus it came to pass – it was time to get our thinking caps on.  Both Thornbridge and Kernel are famed for our hoppy pale ales and imperial stouts; surely we would produce a big, crowd-pleasing hop monster, or chewy, tear-jerkingly awesome Baltic Porter? Er, no.

Evin O’ Riordain, the Head Brewer at Kernel, and I share more than a passing interest in historical beer recipes.  Before I met him, I was disappointed to learn he’d already brewed an Export India Porter, a beer made in huge quantities by the London brewers of the 19th Century.  I’d always wanted to make this, as whilst India Pale Ale (IPA) is the big famous export beer much brewed, copied, bastardised and written about today, it was India Porter that London’s great breweries, including Whitbread and Barclay Perkins exported the most. Brewed to a standard strength of around 5-5.5%abv, the recipes I have seen contain a frightening amount of hops in the recipe. Black IPA anyone? But any recreation of EIP now would simply look like I was copying the Kernel.  I shouldn’t be angry though -Evin is just keen to preserve and celebrate the great old beers of the Capital.  Amongst others, they’ve also done an Imperial Brown Stout from 1856, and an Export Stout from 1890.  It was clear one of the beers had to be a historical recipe, and seeing as Thornbridge hadn’t done one yet, this was the plan for the Derbyshire end.

His first suggestion was a Courage Imperial Double Stout Porter, surely the greatest of all old beer names. Alas, it decided that, as Stefano had just brewed the old Courage Russian Imperial Stout recipe (with Brettanomyces), and this was bubbling away in the fermenting room,  the recipes were just too similar and we decided to think of something else (Evin may still do this recipe at his place, but don’t tell him I told you).  So it was back to the drawing board.  Not for long though. ‘How about a Burton Ale?’, asked Evin.

Now THERE’S a good idea, I thought.

So what is a Burton Ale?* Burton Ales began life as the beers Burton breweries such as Bass, Worthington and Allsopp made and exported in great quantities to Russia and other Baltic states from the 1740s. This beer was not Porter or Stout, but was a style of beer unique to Burton – very strong, dark and sweet. In 1822 the Russian Government imposed a deliberately high import tariff on British goods, so the trade was effectively stopped.  The Burton brewers needed a new market and none of them had thought of sending Pale Ale to India yet, so they toned down the sweetness, made it more bitter, and, once left to mature a bit, the style was thus decided more suitable for the English palate.  The new and improved beer was sold to an even more exotic market – London, via the newly built railway.  It wasn’t long before the rest of Britain’s brewers started brewing a ‘Burton Ale’, (as they eventually did with IPA too) and so it was that the style of ‘Burton Ale’ became a staple on the bar for well over one hundred years.  Indeed, in ‘Back to the Local’, a book from 1949 detailing London pub life, it was said that there were three types of beer to be found – Mild, Bitter and Burton Ale.  Expensive, warming, and hearty, always dry hopped and given time to mature in the cellar, these beers became a Winter favourite with British beer drinkers.

The Bass Diamond advertised their Burton Ales, as opposed to the more famous Red Triangle, which advertised their Pale Ale.

However, public tastes changed away from dark and sweet beer towards lighter, more dry beers like Bitter.  Burton Ale disappeared off the bar very quickly – By the end of the 1960s it simply wasn’t being brewed anymore.  Fullers had replaced theirs, Old Burton Extra, with a new strong pale beer called ‘Winter Bitter’, soon to be renamed ESB (note to Americans – just one beer name, not a ‘style’).  Unlike other beers like IPA, Porter and Mild, Burton Ale wasn’t a style revived by the new microbreweries born after CAMRA was founded in the 1970s.  The ‘other’ Michael Jackson, famous beer writer, never mentioned it, Burton ale having died out before he published his books.  It’s almost as if the style has been erased from collective memory.

So what do you do when you need to replicate a beer style that everyone has forgotten about and no-one has brewed for nearly 50 years? Luckily, I have the fortune to know Ron Pattinson, a beer historian based in Amsterdam.   To call him a beer historian is selling him a bit short actually.  To see what I mean, have a look at this or this next time you want to know anything about beer, beer styles, the history of beer, beer tourism etc. Quite frankly he’s one of my heroes.  Anyway, Ron has amassed piles of data about Burton Ale, including numerous recipes transcribed from Brewing logs that he let us look at.  So we weren’t short of a recipe.  But which one to go for?  The Kernel brewery is based in Bermondsey, London, a stone’s throw away from the old Anchor Brewery, home of the famous Courage & Co.  It was obvious we had to base our recipe on theirs. Fortunately, Ron had a good few from them, so we stole the best bits from the 1920s versions and merged them into one recipe.  It is also fair to say we had a good bit of influence from a Fullers recipe, and what Burton Ale recipe would be complete without a bit of guidance from Barclay Perkins?

Time to source the ingredients.  We used a mix of Fawcetts’ Mild ale malt, Maris Otter, a bit of Crystal and a sprinkling of Black. The hop grist required all Goldings, and lots of them, so I called one of Thornbridge’s best friends, Will at Farams, Hop Merchants, and he sent me the very best Berry Farm and Pridewood Goldings (Kent and Worcestershire respectively – exactly what we needed).  For the yeast, we needed an authentic British Ale yeast.  The Thornbridge house British yeast would be perfect – the right fruity profile, a hint of Sulphur, medium attenuation etc.  This was shaping up to be an easy affair.

No!

Sugar was also essential for an authentic recipe. Not just any old sugar – Invert Brewing Sugar No.3.   This was going to be a bit more difficult.  I tried the sugar manufacturers, who said the minimum order was a tonne.  Try the Bakery wholesalers, they said. I spent an hour phoning them all.  Minimum order – 1 metric tonne.  I know, I thought, I’ll phone Mr Prentice at Fullers. He’ll know where to get it from. Despite being great fun to talk to, he didn’t have any to spare.  ’Try asking Mr Jenner at Harvey’s', was his advice, ‘they are quite traditional’ – which appears to include having 4 hour lunch breaks.  Time to phone the old family brewers of Manchester: they always looked after us when I brewed at Marble.  No luck.  I was starting to get desperate. Internet searches revealed nothing. Without Invert Sugar No.3, we wouldn’t be sticking to our chosen recipe, which, when recreating an old style, is pretty essential.  There could be no throwing in of granulated  sugar, as it was necessary for the right colour and flavour of the beer.  I wasn’t having Martyn Cornell annoyed with us.  Eventually, after a week of sleepless nights and worry, I found a supplier (I’m not telling you where).  We were now ready to brew our Burton.

Evin and I turned up at the Hall Brewery on the morning a bit bleary-eyed following a ‘couple of halves’ at the Greystones the previous evening.  Thankfully, Giada was going to lead the brew and we would just be required to do a bit of donkey-work and make sure we got the recipe right.  We weighed out the malt and sorted the hop additions, prepared the yeast and did a few calculations to ensure we were going to be ‘in spec’.

Weighing those fantastic Goldings out

Thanks to Giada, the brew went swimmingly, and we all shared a couple of bottles of beer, a bit of cheese and some fennel salami. An excellent Monday’s brewing had by all.  I must say ‘Cheers’ to Stefano too, for cleaning up after us and giving us help with the recipe execution.  Rumours that I nearly died digging the vast amount of hops out of the copper after losing my ability to brew without an shiny automated brewplant are completely unfounded.

'Er, Stef, where's the button that removes these hops?'

You’ll be delighted to hear the fermentation went beautifully and we hit our attenuation target with ease.  It was racked by my own fair hand last week, and is now sat maturing in our cellar with dry hops.

‘So what’s it like?’ I hear you ask.  It’s 7.2%abv, a dark ruby red, with an orangey fruity malt character.  The spicy, resinous, lemony Goldings absolutely sing through the beer combining beautifully with the malt, and the bitterness is powerful and lasting, punching through the residual sweetness. It’s a momentous beer and I’m really pleased with it.  Those of you who are attending the Borefts Beer Festival at De Molen Brewery, Bodegraven (23-24th September) will be the first to try it, and after that a small number of casks will be appearing at various excellent drinking establishments, where Burton Ale will once again take its rightful place back on the bar.  Before I sign off, I’d like to thank Evin for spending the day with us and I implore everyone to buy his beers (if you can find them). And thanks to Mr Pattinson too, to whom Evin and I would like to dedicate the project. I’ll buy you a drink at the festival, Ron.

*All this bit is based on what I learnt from Ron and also read about in Martyn Cornell’s book, ‘Amber, Gold and Black’, which is the Bible of British Beer.  You should buy it.  His blog is here.  You should read it.

Time to say Ciao/Goodbye

‘Life is just a party and parties weren’t meant to last’  

                                                                                                               Prince, 1982

The time has come for three of our illustrious team to depart to pastures new.

First to leave will be Nigel Dallas, who is unceremoniously dumping us to move back down South to our good friends, Dark Star Brewing Company.  Nigel has been at Thornbridge for about a year and a half, having changed career path from being an IT expert (geek) to fully-fledged passionate craft brewer.  Thornbridge Brewery was his first brewing job (imagine that? Talk about going in at the top…) after he completed a lengthy course at Brewlab.  When I first arrived here, Nigel was one of those who patiently took me through all the new procedures, never throwing a hissy-fit (as Matthew does) when he had to explain something for third or fourth time because I either wasn’t listening properly or just didn’t get it.  Since then, with Matt, we’ve developed into a brewing super-team, working well together to match the steady increase in production, divvying up work with ease, helping each other out and producing the best beers we possibly can.   As well as being a highly valued member of the ‘Riverside Boys’, Nigel is a bloody good homebrewer, and whoever gets a bottle of his Christmas Barley Wine this year is a lucky person indeed.

Remember how much fun we had Nige, when you hand out your Barley Wine...

With the surname ‘Dallas’, Nigel will never fail and we’d like to take the opportunity to wish him all the best.  He will undoubtedly have a great time in Sussex and, on a really positive note, it gives us all a place to stay in Brighton next time we want to go to the Evening Star.

The Talented Miss Simioni

Giada Simioni, Thornbridge’s first ever Brewster, became part of the team a few months back and joined Stefano to work on the Alchemy series and various other projects at the newly reopened Hall Brewery. Since then she has brewed some awesome beers, including her first brew, Evenlode, a stunningly good Porter at 6.2%, which has thus far picked up some rather favourable reviews.  I will be forever grateful to her for showing me how to do bits of  lab work and various other procedures that I now take for granted.  It was a pleasure to assist her in a brew at the Hall recently, (the forthcoming Thornbridge/Kernel Burton Ale) where her exacting methodology and professionalism helped us create exactly the beer we wanted.   It is obvious she has a bright future ahead of her and it’ll be very interesting to see what she gets up to next.

 There is also the small matter of Stefano Cossi moving onto pastures new.  Not much to say here really, other than him being one of the most integral parts of the brewery since it opened back in 2005.  He was here at the very beginning with Martin Dickie and Mr Corbey.  He was instrumental in developing Thornbridge Brewery from a little brewkit in a Country House shed to the most successful and awarded craft brewery in the UK.  There’s the fact that he set up the amazing Riverside Brewery complex having never worked in a big brewery, let alone operated an automated plant. Then there was the I.B.D. UK Brewer of the year award in 2010. He’s inspired countless numbers of brewers of the new generation, including me.  There’s so much more that can be said but I don’t need to say it, everyone knows he’s a seriously good brewer. What’s most impressed me is his quiet, humble demeanour and his scientific and precise approach to everything in the brewhouse.  Needless to say his methods and, of course, his recipes, will live on at Thornbridge.  He’s off to take a well-deserved break for a while from work.

So what now for the Thornbridge Brewery team?  Well it’s going to be an incredibly exciting time as we reorganise, regroup and continue to move onwards and upwards.  The Hall Brewery will continue to be used to make inspiring, experimental and innovative brews (although I’m not looking forward to digging out a mash tun again).  We already have two great brewery leaders in Rob Lovatt and Caolan Vaughan. We thus have already a ridiculous and unrivalled wealth of craft brewing experience and a real passion for great beer. We intend to give the gift of brewing (the greatest gift of all)  to one of the younger brewery operatives who has shown real promise -Matt Cruz, and we intend to invest in the other members of the team we’ve got.  Recent months have shown we can achieve pretty much anything we want here, and inheriting the Hall brewery to let off steam and get some of our ideas out just adds to the buzz round the place.  There has never been a better time to wear the Thornbridge shirt.

Versa – our new Hefeweizen

At Thornbridge Brewery, we brewers come with a variety of experience and training.  Here,  Production Director and head of Electrical Engineering, Rob Lovatt, explains his passion for the beers of Germany and how he set about designing one of our new beers – a genuine Bavarian-style Hefeweizen:

After spending the last eight months settling in at Thornbridge, I finally got round to brewing a beer style close to my heart – Weissbier.  In the early years of my brewing career, I had numerous trips to Bavaria with Meantime Brewing Company and was absolutely blown away with this particular style.  Every time I’ve brewed wheat beer,  I’ve always endeavoured to recreate those awesome bubblegum, banana and clove flavours I first encountered all those years ago.

Wheat beer is notoriously difficult to produce as it can so easily become infected, due to relatively high fermentation temperatures, which, combined with low bitterness rates and autolysis of the yeast, can result in a nutrient boost for any latent bacteria which may have survived through to the finished product. In addition, the high percentage of wheat malt in the grist can result in the lauter being particular troublesome.

There are many beer styles which don’t really suit cask dispense, and Hefeweizen is definitely one of them. It is my belief that serving Bavarian-style wheat beer from a cask is a big ‘no-no’ and shows a complete lack of understanding and appreciation of the style. Although I love cask beer, I think we are somewhat limited in the beer styles we can showcase in the cask format. We have therefore decided to package the whole brew in keykegs and bottles. We were fortunate that Jamie Hawksworth from Pivovar, operator of the Sheffield and Euston Taps, agreed to get involved as he is a good friend of ours.  We involved him right from the start – Caolan (Thornbridge Production Manager) and I spent an evening at the Sheffield Tap tasting a range of Hefeweizens to decide on the attributes for which we were looking.  He also came down for the brewday, but couldn’t quite make the full 12 hour day, thanks to a predictably difficult lauter!

After 5 or so litres of various wheat beers we decided on a burnt orange colour and an relatively low hopping rate – around 15EBUS. The grist was going to be 50% wheat malt imported from the Bamberger Malzerei, with pale ale malt, cara hell and pale crystal.  Bamberger Malzerei was my first choice for malt after spending time with Braukon Brewery Engineers in Germany.  Some of the best beers I tasted with them used this Malster.  On the hops front, for this style, the bitterness needs to be barely perceptible, so we went for Tettnanger, a fine noble hop with a mild aroma..

We wanted a medium body to the beer, which was a little bit of challenge as the brew kit here is not really set up for decoction, so we started with a 43°C step, then gambled on a 66/67°C step before going up to 72°C.  What we really wanted more than anything was masses of banana and bubblegum and clove. Any brewer worth his salt will strive for these flavours when making a Hefeweizen, a biproduct of yeast metabolism as fermentation progresses. The unique flavour of Bavarian-style wheat beer comes from fusel alcohols, esters, phenols as well as other compounds.  One of the main flavours is a compound know as 4 vinyl-guaiacol. which can be described as clove-like.   To succeed it requires as much wheat malt in the grist as possible and a 43°C rest prior to the main saccharification rest, to release the Ferrulic acid from the wheat malt, which is the precursor for 4-V-G.

Other important flavour compounds in Hefeweizens are esters, such as Iso-amylacetate which can be described as banana or bubblegum-like.  It is actually added in the commercial manufacture of Bubblegum in a chemical format.  With Hefeweizens it is produced naturally, a delightful characteristic of the enigmatic Bavarian wheat beer yeast.

The level of esters can be increased in numerous ways, one of which is adopting an open fermentation. This I can most certainly vouch for.  Indeed, Schneider Weisse Brewery have gone the full monty and chopped the tops off their cylindro-conicals, something I would love to do here at the Riverside but I don’t think my boss would be too appreciative!  It is also possible to under-pitch the yeast and play around with oxygenation levels, which we did to some extent with this brew.

I have to say we’re all really happy with the beer overall.  It has lashings of banana, bubble gum and clove, has a great mouthfeel and is thankfully bacteria free!  We also managed to Krausen it for lots of natural carbonation, producing smaller and gentler CO2 bubbles which come out of solution more slowly – a method eminently superior to forced carbonation. We also pushed the CO2 to around 3 volumes, typical for this style and a fairly good reason not to serve it from cask!

One final point:- Proper Hefeweizens need to be drunk fresh before the esters start to diminish, which is why we’ll be getting it out to you ASAP. So if you’re fortunate enough to get your hands on a bottle, don’t even think of ageing it – Get it drunk!

Rob sampling a small sample (2 litres) of Versa

 Versa will be launched at the Sheffield Tap, Platform 1, Sheffield Railway Station on Thursday June 3oth, at 7.30pm.  I can safely say the Brewery team will be there, drinking responsibly (as usual), and we would be delighted if you all came too and gave us your thoughts.

Pubs we Like: The Pied Bull, Chester

Ah, meet the Brewer. A curious and relatively new phenomenon, where drinkers are at liberty to confront us in a dark, vinegar-scented room and ask ‘interesting’ questions like ‘So, are you pissed all the time then?’, get free samples of beer they were going to pay for anyway and voice their displeasure face-to-face with the lazy buggers who love to consistently ruin their beloved pint.  We get asked frequently to do ‘Meet the Brewer’ events; maybe one or two a week.  Obviously, with our frenetic social lives, it simply isn’t possible to attend them all, and the pubs simply don’t have the financial backing to accommodate us. The perfect MtB event for me would involve lots of dry ice, strobe lighting, my theme tune pumped through the sound system, and perhaps some dancing horses prancing through the bar. In my dressing room would hang my costume, probably a diamond-encrusted purple jumpsuit, ice-cold bottles of Brewdog’s Dogma and maybe a warmed steak and kidney pudding waiting for me in the rider. I’d take numerous standing ovations for my latest creations, tell some awesomely funny jokes,  the grand finale perhaps me sawing a lady in half or jumping through a hoop of fire on a motorbike and then Prince closing the show with Purple Rain with me on bass and backing vocals. Failing that, I don’t mind an informal Q and A session on how a brewery works, and maybe a free pint.

We recently got asked to do a MtB in Chester. I’ve always had a good time in Chester, and I have fond memories of drinking in its many fine hostelries, delivering beer in the Marble Brewery van (not on the same days) and also visiting this great army surplus shop from where I used to get all my camping gear. Chester is a lovely city, a bit like a poor man’s York with lots of pseudo-Scouse accents.  Anyway, the e-mail came through from the office – ‘Anyone fancy a MtB at the Pied Bull in Chester? You’d have to finish early and you can have the next day off’. Fizzy Rob, brewery manager, and I, with a sense of sacrifice, reluctantly said we’d do it.

Lovely, clean rooms at the Pied Bull

The Pied Bull stands on Northgate Street, very near the Cathedral library. It dates back to the 12th Century and is reputed to be the oldest licensed pub in the city.  I’d never heard of it, and was, quite frankly, expecting a vinegar-soaked den with too many fruit machines and a fight in the beer garden. Luckily, the Pied Bull is not like that at all.  When we pulled up, the manager let us into the secret car park round the back and showed us to our rooms.  Freshened up, we emerged into the pub below and demanded some beer and something to eat (well, actually it was offered nicely).  Thornbridge beer all round, I had some super bangers ‘n’ mash, Janine went for the steak and Rob and wife had huge pieces of Gammon. ‘Bloody hell, what a great pub’, I thought. This was before I realised they had a little brewery in the cellar.  The Brewer, John Murray, has been brewing for longer

 than I’ve been alive and was on hand to show us proudly round his exceedingly cute but functional kit.  He pointed out his two ales on the bar – ‘try them and let us know what you think’, he suggested.   I found them to be excellent, and I expect the Bull’s Hit (4.3%), John’s hoppy golden ale, to be winning lots of praise and hopefully racking up certificates at beer festivals soon.  John’s real passion is for forgotten breweries and their beers, so we’ll keep in touch, seeing as I like that sort of thing as well.

We weren’t there to enjoy ourselves though, and the show had to begin. The event was the Pied Bull’s beer festival with 10 beers from the marvellous Thornbridge Brewery.  We went round the wrong side of the specially created Thornbridge bar, and mike in hand, introduced our brewery and all 10 beers on show including Seaforth, some freshly brewed Colorado Red and the mighty St. Petersburg.  Thus followed a raft of decent questions about what hops we used and yeast characteristics (pretty much my favourite thing to talk about) and then Rob and I decided to mingle with the crowds and converse with the Great Unwashed, common though they are.  As well as a large group of regulars, the delighted passing trade and local CAMRA members (from whom I gleaned lots of insider local pub and beer info)  we were blessed with lots of our kindred beings – brewers.  Michelle from OffBeat, James from Sandstone , Gregg from Tatton, Mike from Brimstage and a couple of others (forgive me if I didn’t mention you) talked happily about the art of brewing late into the night with us, who by this stage, were thoroughly refreshed with offerings from the bar (we had also worked hard in the brewery that day too. That’s our excuse and we’re sticking to it). The rest of the night is difficult to remember; I have vague recollections of Rob going to bed and me wandering round the centre of Chester looking for greasy food of some sort.

Anyway, a great night was had by all and our thanks go to the staff at the Pied Bull, (website here) local CAMRA pub of the year 2011, and John the brewer for making us feel so welcome.  It’s a fantastic turnaround for a pub that was until recently owned by a pub company and wasn’t even in the GBG.  On the bar when we left was Brewdog, Marble and Thornbridge beer as well as their own stuff, so you’re pretty much guaranteed a great pint when you visit. And I reckon the clean but cheap rooms are a perfect base for exploring Chester with its excellent and varied selection of pubs.  So I’ll definitely be coming back.  But I probably won’t bring Rob with me.

A great pub. Make sure you go!

3 astounding events in 1 week!

Dunlop Purofort Thermo - No more.

There were three astounding events at the Riverside complex this week.  Number one, and most importantly, I changed my wellies.  A complete crack along the bottom meant my foot was being bathed in Caustic too frequently for comfort.  Now these wellies were truly awesome.  They helped kickstart a revolution in Brewers’ footwear. You couldn’t claim to be part of the UK craft brewing revolution if you didn’t own a pair. If I was working on an oil rig, in -40 degree weather, my feet would be dry and happy. Needless to say, hand bottling beers in a -15 degree railway arch was a piece of piss.  But broken wellies are good to no-one, and it was time for a change.  Now, Renowned wellie expert and work colleague, Matthew, recommended I plump for a pair of white standard Dunlop Puroforts. I was, of course, highly sceptical. However, he pointed out, now I was working at Thornbridge, the chances of me brewing on an oil rig in inclement weather were low. So here they are:-

So far I can tell you it feels as if you’re wearing slippers instead of wellies. Anyway, number two on the astounding events at Riverside last week is the fact it was my first week brewing on the Velo kit.  This was incredibly stressful, especially considering I simply wasn’t used to:-

1. Brewing using a computer system;
2. Brewing two beers at once;
3. Using a mash kettle/lauter tun combo.

Our fantastic brewhouse - back left, mash kettle; back right, Helios lauter tun; front left Rolec hopnik, front right, wort kettle

The first day was all fine – a 6am start, Double Wild Swan – so easy low gravity beer to begin with. It was all going fine, until the auger pump broke down and we stopped delivering malt to the Steel’s (a brilliantly designed malt/liquor mixer patented in 1853, and still used around the world). This would normally be ok, but I was cleaning the wort line and trying to do a cell count at the same time. I started to panic, losing control at the wrong time – as every brewer knows, this is a deadly situation, and can lead to losses of up to an hour on “going-home time”. Luckily, we’re blessed with a team of super brewers who jumped in to save the day by unblocking the Steel’s and completing the mash.

Chimpanzee plus spanner - Fizzy Rob saves the day. Through the port hole you can check the mash mix is progressing nicely. Something I failed to do.

As much as I’d hoped it would be, it’s not all sitting on your arse tweeting rubbish and checking facebook.  There’s plenty of running around to do, counting yeast cells, hooking up cone-to-cone yeast pitching pipes, sanitising fermentors, sorting the flow meters, measuring brewing salts, throwing in hops etc. Nevertheless, using the automated system is not as complicated as it looks. Every step of the brew can be tinkered with, 40 litres more sparge liquor, an extra 2kg of malt, 7 minutes extra boil etc. Basically, it’s important to get the right parameters inserted into the program to get the brew you want.  The mash kettle and lauter tun combo ensure we get the maximum amount of extract from the malt – 95% on most days.  I think I’ll have it mastered in a couple of weeks.

Either way, it’s nice to have contributed to astounding event number three…the busiest week of production in THORNBRIDGE’S HISTORY. Eight brews at the Riverside, 440hl, or 77,000 pints. That’s a lot of happy people. Obviously this meant there was to be some frivolity on the Friday, which started early as Fizzy Rob and Caolan decided a late morning beer tasting was in order. (My bosses are better than your bosses). So Meantime Scotch Ale was followed by Thorny Goat, a brilliant collaboration beer brewed by our Caolan and Mountain Goat Brewery in Victoria, Australia.  We completed a tough morning’s graft by tasting all the beers destined for Waitrose (coming soon to a Waitrose near you – more on this later), scrubbed the brewery down, finished the washing up and got to the pub by 4pm for our traditional Friday afternoon ‘team meeting’. Just before we left, an e-mail came through from our Director, Jim, congratulating us all and letting us know he was in a bar in Manhattan, NY, drinking cask Jaipur. Now that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how we roll.

In other news, Stefano and his trainee brewster, Giada, have been brewing up at the Hall again, and after they posted down a tank full of beer for us to rack, we finally got a taste of what they have been up to. Seaforth is back and tastes absolutely brilliant.  There’s only about 40 firkins, so your best bet is to try the Sheffield Tap, or one of our family of pubs like the fabulous Greystones near Eclleshall Road in Sheffield,  or the Coach and Horses in Dronfield. I’d love to tell you what else they’ve been up to, but such barrel aging, crazy yeast escapades will have to wait for another time…

 

Thornbridge Brewers on tour

When I was a young lad, the festivals I went to involved standing in a muddy field with binbags tied round my legs, listening to the likes of Radiohead and Pulp, and getting absolutely hammered on the scrumpy we picked up on the way.  These days however, I prefer a good beer festival, and they rarely come better than the Alvinne Craft Beer Festival.  Picobrouwerij Alvinne, situated in the tiny village of Heule in Belgium, are a little brewery with a big reputation.  They brew a ridiculous variety of different beer styles such as barrel aged imperial stouts,  tripels and saisons, using a whole range of different yeasts. For the last 4 years, they have also run a beer festival which features the very best in international craft brewing. The beers that appear here certainly aren’t boring brown ‘beige-tasting’ piss-waters. This festival is for the elite, full-flavoured, complex and rare. And Thornbridge were lucky enough to get an invite.

A damn good reason to visit Beersel

Thus it was decided that myself, Nigel and Matt would fulfill the onerous brewery obligation of manning the stand (I had already booked my ticket months ago, before I’d even applied for a job at Thornbridge. There was no way I was missing this).  So on the Thursday we set off from gloomy England and made our various ways to West Flanders. Nigel and Matthew got the Eurostar straight to Kortrijk where we were staying, and set about preparing the bar at the festival site.  Now to me, this was a complete waste of good drinking time.  There are far too many excellent drinking spots in Belgium to just go off being all diligent and helpful to the festival organisers. So my girlfriend and I flew into Brussels and went promptly to the village of Lembeek to drink Frank Boon’s fine lambic produce. After some Breughelplank and Gueuze, we thought it would be rude to not visit Drie Fonteinen in Beersel, and so we whiled away the rest of the afternoon there drinking litres of kriekenlambic from stone jugs. Unfortunately we had to check in and meet the boys for a drink in Kortrijk, but by 9pm all of us were in Gainsbar with some of our European brewing friends, including Glenn, one of the brewers of Alvinne.

Janine, Glenn, Matthew and Nigel

I first met Glenn last year when we shared a B&B whilst displaying Marble Brewery’s wares at the De Molen festival. There we nicknamed him ‘Party Glenn’, for his incessant excitability, constant joking and desire to drink until dawn.  He’s a man of incredible energy and patience, typified by his other job of special needs educator.  It was great to catch up, nailing the rare bottles on the list and upsetting Nigel by only ordering big bottles of Gueuze, and soon it was time for bed (not before a sneaky visit to the fritterij for a disgustingly satisfying portion of ‘food’).

De Kasteelhoeve, venue for the festivities. Anyone for a dip?

In the morning we taxied out to the festival venue, de Kasteelhoeve, which was a kind of huge, posh barn in the countryside, nowhere near anything. The sight of the 16 brewers’ stands made me screech with happiness – here were lots of my favourite brewers with lots of new beers for us to try.  But there was work to be done first – thirsty punters raced in through the doors and slammed glasses on the bar demanding beer.  We’d brought our full bottle range, and also some sneaky bottles of Coalition, Raven, Colorado Red, Murmansk and Bracia. All afternoon we toiled, doling out careful measures to beer geeks from around the world.

Ready for action - the deeply attractive crack Thornbridge brew team

There were visitors from San Diego, Israel, Italy, Denmark, Australia and even the Wirral.  There were plenty of importers, journalists, bloggers, brewers and I even bumped into a local hop grower who, it turns out, was responsible for selling me some Belgian Cascade last year, or ‘sawdust’ as it is more commonly known. I resisted the urge to punch him if you must know. Soon it was time for a wander through and we took turns to visit our brewer friends for free beer and brew talk. The festival became packed full of drinkers, some tapping Ratebeer scores into laptops, others eating platefuls of Beef Carbonnade.  And best of all, the atmosphere was fantastic, with laughter, glasses being shared and much conviviality.

Man-mountain Ryan of Grassroots/Fano Brewing serves a thirsty fellow

We were situated next to Ryan and Ilan of Grassroots/Fano brewing, who were kind enough to share their huge wheel of cheese and sausage, and stupid enough to leave it next to me. Within an hour we had raided their supply of Triple IPA and they were happily supping our Jaipur, and we got along famously. Next door to them were Croocked Moon of Denmark, new to me but producing possibly my favourite range of beers, with NZ hopped pale ales and American lager packed with Centennials. Definitely one to visit I think. Further along there was Armand of Drie Fonteinen, who had brought some Kriekenlambick made with Schaerbeekse cherries (rare and grown only in a district of Brussels), thus sending the lambic-lovers wild with delight.  Next to him was my hero and brewing guru, Menno of De Molen, who had brought various incarnations of Op & Top, his IPA, Barrel aged Rasputin and the legendary Wild Turkey barrel aged Hell and Damnation. (He gave us a bottle of Hell and Damnation and we swapped him an Italia. We complained because the Italia was bigger, so he dropped off a couple more, calling us w%*kers and sending us into fits of childish giggles) .

The lovely Casper from Mikkeller making people happy

The Mikkeller gang, Casper, Thomas and Mikkel – a cool bunch of dandies, came for a chat and Mikkel requested some beer for his amazing bar in Copenhagen, so hopefully we’ll be able to get some kegs and bottles over there soon.  His beer list was out of this world, with barrel-ageing the order of the day, but also included some spontaneously fermented fruit beers which were stonkingly good.  Birrificio del Ducato from Italy had some news for us. ‘Stefano and I were students together, so I know your brewery well’, said Matteo. The fact they were named Italian brewery of the year 2010 by Unionbirrai thus comes as no surprise.  It was also good to see the rest of the Alvinne crew, mainly volunteers who love Alvinne and will do absolutely anything to make sure it’s a success. Well, for some free beer at least.  Some Germans had even turned up – Braustelle pay no attention to the Reinheitsgebot, making 8% Porters laced with Brettanomyces and 10% Imperial stout. About time the Germans started making fun beer again…

By the time of closing we were all a little tired and emotional after a day’s ‘work’ so we jumped on the bus and headed back to the hotel, where Matthew and Nigel were sharing a room. Who spooned whom is not known (what happened in Belgium stays in Belgium) but Nigel did look a little pale the morning after, when much ibuprofen and strong coffee was the order of the day. So back to the festival it was, as more beer geeks flooded in to pester us once more.  One of the real perks of this festival is the people doing the serving make the stuff in the first place, so questions on the beer are welcomed and actively encouraged. Over the course of the two days we had hundreds of conversations about our beer recipes, fermentations, suppliers and distributors with eager and interested beery people. Luckily our beer went down really well with pretty much everybody, with Bracia being the real stand out success.

All good things must come to an end though, and it was with a heavy heart with which we threw the beer geeks out into the freezing cold Belgian countryside and taxied ourselves away to the comfort of Gainsbar for some post festival merriment.  Our new BFFs, Ryan and Ilan joined us for lashings of more beer as we fondly remembered Mikkel’s Spontanale and other beery delights. Finally the evening came to an end and we dispersed back to our respective countries, bags heaving with bottles swapped, stole and even bought.

Great people - Smedtje and Glenn of Picobrouwerij Alvinne

As a brewery we would like to thank Glenn, Marc and Davy for inviting us to their yearly discovery of the world’s most innovative breweries, and all the volunteers who work bloody hard to make these small, independent yet international festivals happen. If you’ve never been to the Alvinne Craft Beer Festival, I recommend you make the effort.  But in the meantime, search out Alvinne beer – it’s bloody lovely!

Coalition Ale is finally released!

It was a momentous day at the Riverside on Friday when Mark Tranter, head brewer at the Dark Star Brewing Co. came to visit. Not because he helped us finish scrubbing the floor, but because he joined us to celebrate the long-awaited release of Coalition, the beer he brewed with the Thornbridge team exactly 2 years ago.

It’s always good to see Mark, one of the country’s finest brewers, and even better when we get to drink beer with him. Coalition is an Old Ale, which for me conjures up thoughts of a tired, slightly acetic beer served through the end handpump of a bar that no-one but the most ‘enthusiastic’ of beer drinkers consume, and then only in halves. But Coalition is such a unique tasting beer – copper-orange in colour, hints of barley sugar and caramel, a gentle but omnipresent bitterness and an astonishing depth of flavour that can only be achieved with two years of conditioning and maturation.  It’s a truly excellent beer, one of which both brewing teams can be immensely proud.  In Kelly’s (former brewing manager) own words, ‘I think beers like this are in some ways more unique and fascinating than big double IPAs or Impy stouts. This Old Ale was about patience and curiosity and I think it definitely paid off ‘.  There isn’t a lot of it though, rumoured to be because Kelly performed so many ‘taste checks’ on the brew (completely without foundation I’m sure Kel). He described the changes to me – ‘as I tried it over the 2 years it was in maturation, it seems that as the hop faded, it seemed to get more perfumed. The flavour actually reminded me of strawberry lip balm in its character!’.

So if you want some, it’s probably a good idea to buy it as soon as possible. I believe it’ll be sold from both Brewery shops as well as places such as the fantastic Evening Star in Brighton or their brand new pub in Partridge Green, aptly named the Partridge.  Of course it’ll be available up here as well at the Greystones and other discerning Thornbridge stockists. Don’t miss out!

(l-r) Nigel, Fizzy Rob, Matt, Mark and me, working hard on a Friday as usual

Later on in the evening I drove Mark to Thornbridge Hall, only getting lost twice and almost killing us both once, for the most prestigious awards ceremony in the civilised world: the Sheffield Beer Festival awards. Dark Star had won the Porters category and a proud Mark happily accepted his certificate from Sheffield CAMRA, a highly discerning bunch of people who select their winners by blind tastings. I’ve judged twice at this event and can confirm competition is always fierce. For their part, Sheffield CAMRA were pleased to be surprised by Mark, and positively delighted when he dropped a cask of mocha-toasted oak chip aged M&M Special Porter off for them.

Mark, fighting back tears of joy, is clearly delighted

So what now for the future of Dark Star/Thornbridge collaboration brews? Well, we’ll definitely be doing something together again. The coalition between the two breweries extends to more than the last two beers and we like to think that 2011 will be the start of an ongoing collaboration, where we brew together biannually. Such events provide brewers with a chance to learn from each other, brewing new styles and using new techniques. However, Kelly puts it another way – ‘Collaboration to me is about connection and having as fun a time as is possible. This gets reflected in the beer itself’. Whatever happens one thing is for certain – it’s always both a pleasure and a privilege to brew with Mark and Dark Star, committed as they are to producing great craft beer with real passion and flair. Long may our coalition continue.