Darkest Hackney

I fundamentally disagree with the basic working of principles of both CAMRA and Ratebeer, and yet I always have a great time at the Ratebeer table at CAMRA festivals. The observation that drinking good beer with other people who really enjoy drinking good beer is far more important than any organised rule-bound consumer group is too obvious to even bother making.

And so it was that I was back at the East London & City Pig's Ear festival in Hackney on Wednesday night, where the Ratebeer table was exactly where I left it a year ago, though the faces had changed a little. Still, the chat was great and the recommendations were invaluable.

Having been drinking pale beers in Leyton and then braved the cold on my way back to Hackney, I was in the mood for something dark and warming. Bottlebrook Smoked Porter jumped out at me just after I'd picked up my glass (nobody else wanted the dinky stemmed half-pint: I rather liked it) and it certainly had all the full-bodied warmth I was after, with a nice balance of dark fruit against the porter dryness. However, I found it hard to detect any smoky elements to the flavour -- a lightweight compared to, say, Station Porter, but it got me off to a good start.

The buzz around the table was all about BrewDog Coffee Stout, and though I thought it still a little early for a 9%er, the thought of missing it was enough to twist my arm. My first impression was of a deceptively easy going strong, sweet stout. But there's a lot going on here as well: citric hops are never far away, but their bitterness is complemented by the coffee notes and never allowed dominate the dark treacleish stout character. Superbly balanced.

I wasn't planning to try Riptide -- the other BrewDog beer on cask that evening -- not having been a huge fan of it from the bottle. But Simone was fairly forthright in her advice, and I'm glad I changed my mind. This is so much more complex from the cask, possessed of a sharp acidic spiciness in its incredibly full body. Further confirmation of my theory that black beers are where you really get your money's worth with cask. The only other Scottish beer I went for was Kracker, a spiced amber ale by Kelburn. Smooth, easy-drinking, but not in the same league as BrewDog at all.

I tended to stick with darker beers from the English selection. Crouch Vale's Blackwater Mild was pretty much a textbook example to my inexperienced palate. You get a sudden sour fruitiness up front, redolent of plums in particular. This keeps going until it's overtaken right on the end by black roasty flavours, finishing dry. One of those simple-yet-complex tasty beers. I wish I could say the same about Old Ale 1066 by Goacher's of Kent -- I want a richness and warmth in my old ales that this just wasn't giving me.

Evidentally, I wasn't the only one sticking to the dark brews since, by the end of the night, the milds, porters and stouts were few and far between. One of the last left was Waterloo, a porter by Boggart. It's a tasty one with just a little phenolic unpleasantness in what is otherwise a sweet full-bodied beer offering subtle hints of chocolate.

In between these dark warmers I chanced a couple of paler, but equally warming, continental beers. More about them, and a day spent in London with no new beers at all, in the next post.

Local beer for local people

Saturday saw the end of the 2008 Belfast Beer & Cider Festival, Ireland's only CAMRA-organised event. Accompanied by some fellow beer aficionados up from Dublin, I put in a solid seven hours of tippling during the afternoon and evening. One of the main draws for me was a couple of unfamiliar beers from one of the province's two cask beer breweries: Whitewater of Kilkeel.

Crown & Glory is brewed especially for the Crown Liquor Saloon in Belfast, a pearl of Victoriana owned by the National Trust and one of the most beautiful boozers on the planet. The tribute bitter is much less elaborate, being pale and light of texture, with an unfussy quaffable character. The malt and hops are carefully balanced to produce a very easy-going pint with no really dominant flavours.

There's a bit more of a challenge with Nut Brown, a darker shade of amber with a touch of sharp astringency. I still enjoyed it, however -- there's plenty to keep the drinker interested, with a sweet toffee-like base making it quite more-ish.

In my considered opinion, neither of these is as enjoyable as Whitewater's standard ales: Belfast Ale and Clotworthy Dobbin, though I've consistently found the bottled version of both to be an improvement on the cask editions. Though one doesn't say that too loudly in front of the CAMRA officials.

More from Belfast anon. I didn't get to try Wickwar's excellent Station Porter from the cask since it was inconsiderate enough to win beer of the festival on Thursday, and was therefore long gone. Still, a well-deserved prize I'm sure.

The British invasion

It goes without saying that the section of the European Beer Festival serving UK cask ales was called a "pavilion". They were serving cheese at one side of it, but no cucumber sandwiches. As with most of the stands, it was staffed by volunteers from the exhibiting breweries. Outside on Sunday afternoon I got chatting to a very nice chap from one of the southern English breweries who was telling me that CAMRA actually stands for "Come And Meet Real Arseholes" and that he used to gleefully burn his cardboard membership card on the way out of the Great British Beer Festival each year until the bastards switched to plastic. Someone, at least, was glad to be free of real ale tyranny for a weekend.

One particular beer drove me straight to the British Pavilion. For quite a while now I've been intrigued by the press that Thornbridge's Jaipur IPA has been getting. I was really looking forward to it and was hugely disappointed with the reality. It's a very thin, very pale (despite appearances, left) affair and is utterly one-dimensional: hopjuice of the worst kind. Should I be putting on my flameproof suit now?

Thom was insistent I try the Brakspear Triple, and I wasn't going to resist, having enjoyed their EPA very recently. This was from the bottle and is an interesting concoction. I was immediately struck by how little it resembles a Belgian tripel, but it's not typically English either. What you get is a sweet honeyish flavour with just a touch of spice, on a light ale body. Interesting, and worth further investigation.

Other light beers included Belhaven's Twisted Thistle -- a fairly hefty 5.3% ABV, but gently hopped to be dry and easy drinking. Wold Top's Falling Stone was tougher going: crisp but possessed of an off-putting sulphurous tang. I was much more impressed by Otley OG, another easy drinker, almost to the point of blandness, but with a saving lemon zest flavour. The award for quaffability, however goes to Archer's IPA. There's just enough body here to keep things interesting, but everything else is toned-down to make it eminently sinkable.

The chap from Wickwar talked a very good game, and only by agreeing that Station Porter was indeed excellent but I'd already tried it, was I able to smooth-talk him into giving me something else. He wouldn't let me go without recommending Mr Perrett's from the bottled selection so that was one of my first ports of call on Saturday. I have to say I prefer my stouts to have a bit more body than this, especially when they're sailing towards 6% ABV. However, there was a nice touch of liquorice to it, making for a pleasant experience, but still only a shadow of the full-on joy of Station Porter.

In all probability the difference in my perception of the two Wickwars is down to presence or lack of smokiness. I was therefore immediately drawn to Manx brewery Okell's and their Aile smoked porter. It's very dry and incredibly roasty with lovely back-of-the-throat flavours. Not so much smoke, however, but the quality here can't be argued with. I had great hopes for Harvey's Porter, speaking as a huge fan of their best bitter. I was disappointed though: it's an unchallenging beer with a nice touch of raisins in it, but not a whole lot going on generally. Smoke. That's what it needs...

Another one of those legendary English beers that I only get to read about on blogs is Hook Norton's Old Hooky. I liked this: very sweet, almost leaning towards marzipan notes, and a tasty elderflower character as well. Their Black Country Mild is also pretty damn good: a relatively pale shade of ruby with a superb balance of charcoal dryness and dark fruit.

Finally it was back to the bottles for some Yorkshire Stingo by Samuel Smith's. This bottle conditioned 8% ABV strong ale is wonderfully warming with big big malt notes, yet manages to avoid being any way cloying. Stonch is currently offering a chance to win some. If you happen to be in the right neck of the woods, this stuff would make it well worth trying your hand.

Everything you see on TV is fake

Especially me. Oz Clarke and James May were in the Bull & Castle last night filming a couple of sequences for their upcoming TV show on beer. (They've been previously sighted on the beer blogosphere here and here.) The bit involved them having decided that mass-market beer in Ireland is generally rubbish (well spotted) and turning to the nation's home brewers for something decent. The brewers present their beers to them one at a time and they pick a winner. Of course, not all of us at ICB make beer, and several people brought extra beers along, so the line-up was padded out with some fake home brewers, including me. The proprietor of Black Cat Brewery is over at the GBBF at the moment so gave me his fine Centennial Ale to present to the guys. My pitch won them over and this is the one they picked. I'm told, and well believe, that Laura's Jump Up, Hop Back IPA was their favourite on taste alone, but evidently my superior skill at talking to a camera about things I know nothing about counts for more in TV land.

I was talking to Oz afterwards. That man knows a startling amount about beer. The show, due to air in either October or January, looks to be brilliant ("Basically it's about how it's OK to get a bit pissed and enjoy yourself" -- James May). Look out for me in episode four and don't believe a word that anyone on TV says.

Leaving the glamorous media life behind, I'll finish my run-down of the Great British Beer Festival which I attended last Tuesday. Readers from the Society for the Protection of the Beer Nut's Liver will be pleased to note that I don't have many more beers to mention. Apart from the Clotworthy Dobbin I got from the Northern Ireland bar, I only had two thirds of a pint from the main regional bars of the festival.

The brewer from Moor had paid a brief visit to our table so, in the absence of any other decision-making mechanism, it was his Peat Porter I went for. I was hoping I'd get something like Wickwar's Station Porter which I enjoyed recently and which (far less importantly) had just picked up third prize in the Champion Beer of Britain competition. There's a great balance to this beer: a dry and roasty porterishness next to a sweet alcoholic scotch maltiness. Not a whole lot of smokiness to it, but I still approve.

My last festival offering is Finn's Hall Porter, from the Beowulf brewery in Staffordshire: I'd reached that stage of festival-going where I'm picking beers based solely on the cool names. There's a very pleasant bitter damson-like quality to this one, backed up by more of that porter dryness, this time with coffee overtones. Another quality black session beer: more of this kind of thing closer to home please.

Having been drinking and blathering for over six hours, it was time to pack up my festival glass and head back to Heathrow. Last time I was through I rejoiced at being spared the unpleasantness of the landside Wetherspoons due to Heathrow's revised security arrangements. So, having first made sure there was nothing of interest in the landside bar, I went through to the main departure lounge of the terminal, and the much-more-civilised Tin Goose where Adnams Bitter was on tap. A deliciously sessionable sweet pint, this one, with lots of fruit and an interesting sulphurous note I've come to associate with Adnams beers. A decent, unchallenging pint to finish with before heading back to the land of mostly-crap beer. I'll definitely be stopping at the Tin Goose next time I'm through Heathrow, though I may be moving up to the first class lounge now that I'm that bloke off the telly.

Just so long as no-one discovers I'm a fraud...

Chuffing great

Pete Brown: you're a genius.

On Impy Malting a while back, Pete suggested in a comment that us bloggers try and blag our way into the Great British Beer Festival trade session on the strength of our journalistic credentials. Of course, not even I would have the brass neck to imply that my meanderings here are worth special treatment from an organisation as big and important as CAMRA, so I did the blagging from my role on the editorial board of a Proper Beer Website. And they bought it too. So, barring disasters, I shall be nipping across to London on the morning of Tuesday 5th August and home again the same evening. From noon until 5 I will be at Earl's Court. Drinking.

I thought I'd use this post as a sign-up sheet for anyone else out there in the beer blogosphere who might be going. It'd be great to say hello in person.

To get a bit more mileage out of my post title, I'm covering a beer which was another donation from Thom out of his CAMRA quarterly goody bag: Station Porter from Wickwar Brewing in Gloucestershire. You don't need the golden CAMRA rosettes to tell you this is real ale -- just pour it into a glass. It foams lazily at the top, with just a handful of large bubbles giving way to a light tan skim of froth on the surface. Unsurprisingly the texture is wonderfully smooth, accentuated by a dense velvet body.

There's a dry and bitter aroma, followed by a mild yet complex flavour: dark chocolate and smoke spring immediately to mind. I'm not seeing any reference to smoked malt being used, but it has that Laphroaig-like medicinal quality reminscent of MM Imperial, though not as overpowering.

It would be very easy to drain the whole glass in no time if it wasn't for that body and a big 6.1% ABV. In general I prefer my sippers to have bigger, bolder flavours, but I don't object at all to the mildness in this one. The texture more than makes up for it.