Jury duty

I confess to having done a little jumpy-up-and-down dance when Adrian, festival organiser for CAMRA Northern Ireland, asked me to judge the Champion Beer of Belfast at their festival this year. I'm usually at the festival on the Saturday and have often missed the most interesting beers. An excuse to go up on the Thursday was very welcome. To see a CAMRA awards process from the inside was a bonus.

I arrived in a dark and rainy Belfast with just enough time for a swift half in The Bridge House, just a few metres from the festival venue. This is a vast JD Wetherspoon I've never enjoyed visiting before, but CAMRA NI have seen fit to elect it their pub of the year for the last two years so I thought maybe a reappraisal was in order. For a Thursday lunchtime it was surprisingly quiet, mostly office lunchers and a fair few tables of spillover from the festival. All very mature and civilised. My half of Old Empire was pretty good too: peachy with a pleasant sulphurous bite. 93p well spent.

I reported for duty at 2 and met my fellow judges: 8 of us in all. Branch chairman Philip ushered us to the tasting room in one of the Ulster Hall's beautifully renovated salons and led us through the final six beers which had been whittled down by the festival volunteers from all those available. The process was ably assisted by Steve, running with the jugs of beer from bar to judges. The panel were tasked with grading each finalist with marks for appearance, aroma, taste and finish, weighted in favour of the final two criteria.

All tasting was, of course, done blind, with only the broad style designation revealed in advance. And they were a mixed bunch: bitters Peter's Well (Houston) and Pale Beacons (Brecon) were rather insipid, being done no favours at all by being decanted from cask to jug to glass, knocking most of the condition out of them. I had had Blue Monkey's BG Sips high on my hitlist having heard great things about it, but scored it last when it showed up. This golden bitter was almost entirely flavourless and I reckon I'd only go near it on the hottest of days, and only then if it was at lager temperatures with lager levels of carbonation.

The two dark beers claimed joint second prize. Mordue's Newcastle Coffee Porter was definitely in the ha'penny place for me: a thin and rather boring porter with little sign of any coffee at all. There was a bit more substance to Otley Oxymoron: a bitter spicy middle which made up for the waft of cardboard oxidation on the nose. It turns out they've designated this as a black IPA and while I'm not an outright supporter of the thesis that black IPA is simply hoppy porter, this beer presents blind tasted evidence that this may in fact be the case.

The winner left the rest of the crowd for dust: though inauspiciously pale and hazy, Dark Star's American Pale Ale was a symphony in citrus. At 4.7% ABV it's weighty enough not to be too bitter, adding some beautiful sherbet substance to the fruit, and the end result is insanely drinkable and moreish. I can't imagine there was any surprise when Adrian and Philip (on stage, right) announced the result.

The day's work done, it was down to the main hall to see what else was on offer. I made a beeline for the newest Irish beer, of course: Ballyblack stout from the spanking new Ards brewery. It reminds me a lot of the excellent Dungarvan Black Rock: that same roasted dryness tempered by ripe dark fruit and a similar spicy gunpowder tang in the finish. Brewer Charles Ballantine was on hand for a bit of after-sales service and a good natter about the complexities of setting up a brewery in NI. I'm definitely looking forward to more from Ards.

My experience with BG Sips notwithstanding, I hit up the other offering from Blue Monkey next: 99 Red Baboons. This was much darker than I expected: almost black with mere hints of ruby around the edges. It's a very tangy beer, sweet-sour with a sort of baking soda softness. Interesting, but I couldn't say if I liked it or not. Along the same lines but much better was Leeds Midnight Bell. This ruby mild had me thinking of Rodenbach, with an almost puckering sourness, but it made it eminently refreshing and one I could have had a few more of.

Wolf Brewery's Norfolk Lavender Honey is another for the too-odd-to-like bracket: sweet and spicy with a powerful honey aroma and flavour, but very little by way of lavender. It could have done with some floral lightness to balance the sticky honey, I think. Summer Wine Barista Espresso Stout also goes all out with a speciality ingredient, but while Mordue may be wasting good coffee, Summer Wine are laying it on too heavily. The end result is too dry, too roasty and too thin, with the poor condition doing nothing to dispel the impression of a glass of cold coffee. I had higher hopes for Gorlovka, a 6% ABV stout from Acorn and it's a solidly drinkable beer but one which should be doing more at that strength. I could happily neck this, but that's not what it's designed for.

Steve gave me a couple of recommendations of beers I probably would have passed by otherwise, and very good they were too. Bowman Elderado is a summery little number, pale gold and just 3.5% ABV. The not-so-secret weapon is elderflower and it adds an amazing piquancy to it, like a Chinese spice mix. A dry, almost chalky, feel keeps it drinkable and wonderfully thirst quenching. At the opposite end of the scale, there's Elland 1872 Porter: 6.5% ABV and massively chocolatey; sweet but beautifully smooth and to complete the circle, showing that gunpowder finish I enjoyed in the Ballyblack.

This year saw the first time a separate cider bar operated at the festival and I had a couple of halves for the road there. Northern Irish cider is undergoing a well-overdue boom and it's great to see apples from my native Armagh being put to better use than baking.

Final thanks to Adrian, Philip, Steve and all the crew at CAMRA NI. This gem of a festival really is a credit to you all.

Jet set whistle-wet

I reckon I'm pretty adept at the whole London-in-a-day thing, despite my protestations last time round. My old friend the Heathrow Express is a vital part of this: it's pretty much impossible to make it into central London in time for anything even resembling "morning" without using the businessfolk's 15 minute rail service to Paddington. Of course, there's a side effect whereby a sufficiently late flight home leaves time for a pint or two in town before the effortless slide back west to the airport. On Monday evening the pub of choice was the Carpenters Arms, a freehouse just a couple of streets away from Paddington, and my drinking companions were London's beer blogging legends Boak and Bailey.

I started out with a pint of Leeds Best, having read great things about it and been hugely entertained by the brewery's co-opting of the Carlsberg-owned Tetley's look and feel. The beer itself is a limpid shade of orange with a tight head and gives off a strong marmalade aroma. On first tasting there's an unsurprising sweet mandarin flavour but it's quickly knocked into touch by the rising force of English hops bitterness. It rushes towards harshness but stops just short, finishing dry and setting the stage for the next mouthful. A gorgeous beer and a tough act to follow.

Peter's Well, from the Houston brewery near Glasgow was next up, suspiciously golden but definitely not one of your lager-a-like summer ales. The dominant notes here are lemons, with the zestiness sitting on a flat and full, slightly greasy, body. The whole thing puts me in mind of Jif Lemon, creating fond thoughts of pancakes. Of course there had to be a dud in the bunch, and it was the O'Hanlon's Yellow Hammer Bailey set up for me next -- after I asked for it, I should add. Like so many of the beers haunting English casks there's really not much to it. It's another pale yellow job with a good body but very much a let-down in the flavour stakes.

After putting that away deftly, there was just one more new beer to be had. Kentish Reserve by the Whitstable Brewery was as malty as its amber hue suggested, yet still retained a lovely bitter hops flavour for balance. At 5.2% the whole experience reminded me of another, more commonplace (digitally inspired) strong ale from Kent: one I've only ever had from clear glass bottles so I probably shouldn't proclaim the Whitstable Brewery version as infinitely superior, but I will anyway. So high were my praises that Boak reckoned she'd go for a pint of the same next, thus prompting a practical demonstration of the vagaries of cask ale. The pint she brought back to the table, though looking identical to mine, smelt almost exactly like a kriek. When it passed my way for assessment (like I know anything about out-of-condition cask beer) I found it wasn't quite ready to go on chips, but probably would be by the end of the pint. So I got to witness Boak performing that great British ritual of Taking A Bad Pint Back. It was substituted without fuss. I was secretly disappointed.

Time was marching on but I couldn't leave without a pint of Harvey's Best Bitter, a beer I thoroughly enjoyed earlier this year. It barely touched the sides of the glass, but then it's one of those complex-yet-unfussy beers that still works well when inhaled at speed. And with that I said my goodbyes and sped off into the night, back on the Heathrow Express and into Terminal 1 where the departures board was telling me that, against any semblance of normality, the evening flight to Dublin was expected to leave as scheduled and that I really ought to be heading to the gate if I didn't mind too much awfully. "I don't really have time for a beer in the landside Wetherspoons" I thought. But I went and checked what was on anyway. To my horror I saw a pump clip for Hooky Gold, and was steeling myself for the swiftest half in aviation history when I noticed with relief a "Coming Soon" tag above it. Phew. So I turned tail, nipped through security, had a quick butchers for anything interesting in the airside bar -- Pride and Adnams Bitter: nice, but not worth missing my flight for -- and plonked down in my aisle seat just before the Aer Lingus lady shut the aircraft door.

Yes, I've got this post-work pints in London thing down to a fine art.

A big thanks to Bailey and Boak for the recommendation of a lovely pub within walking distance of both my day's work and Paddington, and it was great chatting to you, though far too brief. Shame I couldn't bring any of your homebrew back with me, but those airline regulations are in place for my safety, y'know?