|
|
Christmas at The Gunmakers
I've twice written about dogs in the pub this week. Now let's end the seven day cycle with news about woofs in a supermarket chain. Flying Dog of the USA and Brew Dog of Scotland have come out on top in the Tesco Drinks Awards 2009. That means their award-winning beers will be on sale in larger Tesco stores nationally. The pups in question are Brew Dog Scream, Flying Dog Pale Ale and Flying Dog Gonzo Porter.
I have two complaints to make. First off, Gonzo Porter is absolutely rank. Sorry extreme beer fans, but it just is. You watch - it'll end up on the discount shelf, before being quietly withdrawn. Secondly, this is irrelevant to those of us living within the warm embrace of inner London, where Tescos are tiny and stock little more than big cans of Heineken with easily-broken dispense mechanisms.
 A fortnight ago I announced the photo contest I'm running together with Alan McLeod of A Good Beer Blog. We've had 118 entries so far, and we're only half way to the finish line. You can view them in this Flickr gallery. You'll see that one plucky entrant has pitched in with what appears to be a photo of a bowl of chips and a fat bloke who's just heard some very bad news. It takes all sorts.
How to enter: Email beer-related photographs, taken by your good self, to BOTH stonchblog@gmail.com (me) and beerblog@gmail.com (Alan) before 9pm London time on Sunday 14 December 2008. You can enter more than one photo. You'll need to include you full name and postal address, which we'll disclose only to the prize-giver if you're a winner. Prizes can be viewed on the announcement page.
 Dogs and pubs, pubs and dogs. Music to my ears. I want more canine regulars, four-legged friends who pad in through the door and sip water while their bipedal masters enjoy a pint. That's why I was particularly pleased to see Peter, Martin's new guide dog.
Last time Martin visited us, he had Jaid in tow. Now the old girl's enioying her retirement, and a young chap has stepped into her shoes (dogs don't actually wear shoes - I'm speaking figuratively).
Inspired by this visit, and those of young Percy, I've now put it about that I'll be getting a dog of my own in January. Everyone seems happy about it, apart from one miserable cow from the Midlands who thinks a cat would be more appropriate.
She was right about the pork scratchings, but she's wrong about this.
There used to be an American website called Ratebeer. It was used mainly by those preoccupied with beer, people whose interest went beyond healthy and into the realms of obsession. Essentially, it was a giant box-ticking exercise. Users could divide the beers of the world into "haves" and "wants", giving them scores as they went along. I never liked the concept around which it was built, but I did benefit from the remarkable database of beers and breweries produced as a side-effect. I even used to participate in the discussion forum from time to time. Recently, hackers infected the site with viruses (or something like that) and it was taken off-line.
I'd be interested to hear how many of you were fans of the site. I promise not to flush your head down the loo and steal your dinner money. Honest.
 When I was a child, I really didn't like dogs. My family's only pets were rabbits. Well, I did have a goldfish for a year. I won it at the Westoe Village fair, but it was rubbish and died on its first birthday.
Fortunately, I have no fixed personality and am capable of massive and startling changes of opinion. One such volte face has resulted in a fondness for canines, and a yearning to own one. Pubs are wonderful places for dogs. They get loads of attention. I'd call him (it would have to be a him) Gurble. Don't ask why.
A fellow publican has beaten me to it. Scott of The Betsey Trotwood acquired a puppy last week. He's called Percy and he gets carried around Clerkenwell in a trendy little bag. Here's a picture of the two of them, visiting my pub.
UPDATE: This afternoon our shaggy-haired pals were in the pub again. One of them did a little piss on the floor. I won't say who.
From BBC News Online: Chancellor Alistair Darling has cut VAT from 17.5% to 15% in his pre-Budget report as part of a £20bn package aimed at kickstarting the UK economy . . . duties on alcohol, tobacco and petrol will rise so the price remains at their current level. So pubs and other businesses that sell alcohol get no comfort whatsoever from this VAT cut. Alcohol is an important part of our economy and our national life. British people like drinking alcohol. Alcohol brings us together and helps us to enjoy our lives. That might sound bad, but only because we've had so much propaganda from the antis forced down our throats. Of course, I'm probably preaching to the converted - you read a blog about beer written by a publican. But think through all of your friends, family and other acquaintances. How many of them think drinking is bad, so much so that it deserves to be punished and made prohibitively expensive? I suspect the answer is very few, and moreover I suspect none of those antis fall into your "friends" category. I don't think I can vote for any political party that's so out of touch that it seeks to punish behaviour almost all of us consider normal and - dare I say it - healthy. Still, it's not all bad news. I note from the 6 o'clock news that Sophie Raworth is looking really fit again.
On Friday afternoon, between a busy lunch and an even busier evening, Steve Williams - CAMRA's London director - visited our pub. He'd spent the morning down at Fullers, where he'd picked up a bottle of John Keeling's new barrel-aged beer, Brewer's Reserve. We drank it. I wasn't impressed. Give me 1845 any day. Or better still, cask London Porter. I drank lots of that on Sunday. It's lovely.
I took Monday evening off and went on the lash with a friend (I still have some). I dropped into Tesco Metro on the way home. There, I bought a 5L minikeg of Heineken. Strange behaviour indeed from a man who (a) has access to better lager - on tap, no less - whenever he wants it and (b) is supposed to appreciate quality beer. Sometimes, there's no accounting for one's own inebriated machinations. So there was a big can in my fridge when I woke up. And it was full. It seems I'd broken the flimsy plastic tap. That hampered my efforts to dispense a glass of fizzy yellow stuff - all I could get was foam. Sensing a moment of blog magic, I had the presence of mind to take a photo with my mobile. You see, even when fully (not half) cut, I'm still on duty.
Yes, I went a full week without posting. I was busy with various things. Some of it was terribly important and exciting. As you will be able to deduce from the above, some of it wasn't. There'll be two more blog posts today. I've timed them to appear when you least expect it. I'm playing with you.
 So here it is: the Christmas 2008 beer blog contest, hosted by A Good Beer Blog of Ontario, Canada and Stonch's Beer Blog of London, UK. The photography theme worked well last year, so we're sticking with it.
Myself and my Canadian chum Alan have bothered our sponsors and pals for prizes, and we've come up with quite a haul. Best of all, you can win something wherever you live. Namibian pastoralists, you can rejoice. Scientists stationed in Antarctica, feel the love. Patagonian Welshmen, even you can win. This is truly global. There are three UK-only prizes: - From Beer-Ritz, Britain's bestest online beer retailer and this site's generous sponsor, an international selection of a dozen harder-to-find dark ales, stouts and porters.
- From BrewDog, Aberdeenshire (the closest thing to rock stars in the beery firmament), two mixed cases of their singular concoctions.
For Ontarians, we have this to offer: - From Roland + Russell, beer importers, a gift basket of miscellaneous love and good feeling.
- From Church-key Brewing of Campbellford, a brewery tour and lunch at their Stinking Rose pub.
For those in the USA, where socialism and terrorist-pallying have been deemed acceptable after all:
- From Flying Dog Brewery of Maryland, USA (and this is verbatim, because it makes no sense to me) "a Barrel-aged Gonzo, Humphrey the Humper dog, Gonzo Poster and Gonzo T-shirt".
Finally, for everyone, there's all of this lovely gubbins to be shipped to wherever the bloody hell you live: How to enter: Email beer-related photographs, taken by your good self, to BOTH stonchblog@gmail.com (me) and beerblog@gmail.com (Alan) before 9pm London time on Sunday 14 December 2008. You can enter more than one photo. You'll need to include you full name and postal address, which we'll disclose only to the prize-giver if you're a winner. We'll upload all the photos to a joint gallery as we go along. The picture you're looking at was taken by John Lewington, our first prize winner last year. He called it "Two pints of bitter". You can read the story behind that photo here.
Good effort, Fullers. The brewery's website features an interactive Google map showing the location of all of their pubs and bars. That should help you track down London Porter, their current guest ale. Here's the map.
It's a shame that the only Fullers pub in Clerkenwell is truly awful. Give me the lease, I'll sort it out.
The worst place in London is the corner at the North side of Oxford Street and the West side of Tottenham Court Road, where there's been metal fencing up for three hundred years and thousands of pedestrians are forced at snail's pace through a bottleneck narrower than your mind.
You see? There are places that are even more unpleasant than a Wetherspoons.
People feel skint right now, even if they aren't. I've stopped putting the FT headlines on the wall in the gents. Publicans might take comfort from the common belief that their industry fares better in recessions and wars than many others. Even if things get really bad, people will still want to drown their sorrows. That might be true, but in recent years pubs have gone in for selling quality - often expensive - food in a big way. What's going to happen to that side of the business?
I saw In Bruges the other night. It was very, very good. Thank you, Virgin Media. The Colin Farrell character repeatedly refers to Belgian ale as "gay beer", but is converted by the end (well, only after a huge coke binge during which he karate chops a midget). Bruges - or Brugge, as it's known to the Flemish speaking locals - is a great place for beer drinking. I've been twice. However, it's a city you aren't allowed to visit with mates. You simply must be with wife/girlfriend your other half, and that's the end of the matter. Digs was Die Swaene, both times. Afternoon visits to De Garre were heavenly. It's a tiny place down an alleyway, famous for it's strong house beer, served with cheese. A nice evening was spent in De Zolder, an atmospheric cellar with nice food. The Halve Mann Brewery tour is good fun, even if the beer is somewhat ordinary. And then there's the unforgettable 't Brugs Beertje. It's got a massive selection of beers, and if you're lucky they'll draw the curtains and let you stay very late. It's where I discovered Hercule Stout, and it's responsible for the second worst hangover of my life. Our canal boat tour the day after was rough on the guts.
Readers who've been following this blog since the beginning might remember the image to the right. In early 2007, it used to appear on the top left of the page. I took it inside the Halve Mann brewery, in the attic where they keep their antique kit and collection of breweriana.
I'm about to announce another competition. It's going to involve photography (how original). Beer-Ritz will be providing the top prize.
 Have you ever wondered why licensees plump for products from the big brewers? You might think it's purely down to name recognition at the bar. But then customers who blindly go for big brand name products tend not to be one's target demographic anyway (they're more likely to be stupid and, consequently, poor).
No, it all comes down to the realities of beer distribution. In practice, the big pubcos to which most places are tied offer little choice. For example, I can't buy my favourite British lager - Moravka. Instead, I have to choose from a list of big-name draught lagers of which Staropramen is undoubtedly top dog.
And why so little choice? Because the big brewers - the likes of InBev, Carlsberg and Heineken - offer a value added service to pubs that smaller producers can't hope to match. They'll install and maintain your cellar equipment for free. They'll supply you with glassware and point of sale materials. All of this comes in handy, saving landlords plenty of cash. On top of that, they offer deep discounts based on volumes to the pubcos, increasing their profit margins (note that this discount doesn't get passed on to licensees).
The days of national brewers supplying large quantities of cask ale are gone. You might remember that S&N sold the Courage brands to Wells & Young's in early 2007. Carlsberg announced just last week that they won't be brewing Tetley's in Leeds any more. Instead, regional and microbrewers are the ones producing the beers we love. What kind of service to they offer to pubs? In truth, it isn't too good.
Recently I appealed for brewers to send me bar towels for use in the pub. The response was poor: Timothy Taylor and Adnams have stepped up, and apparently I'll be getting some from Wadworth. But I'm not going to complain too loudly. Ale brewers operate on very tight margins. Most don't have cash to splash on marketing. Moreover, the fact that many pubs that sell lots of ale - mine included - tend to chop and change their draught line-up reduces the incentive to provide point of sale materials and other services.
Some of the larger ale breweries are in a position to actively compete for business. The Adnams rep regularly visits us (indeed, he reads this blog). The Marston's rep calls me every couple of weeks. Their efforts don't go unrewarded - I do order their beer.
Greene King, as you might expect, are at the forefront. Last week, I received their new IPA pumpclip in a fancy presentation case. A few days ago two bottles of their new wood-aged beer (Old Crafty Hen, if you're interested) arrived with a covering letter from the head brewer. However, the latest effort from the Bury St Edmunds outfit has left me cold. It's called the "Kings of Ale Licensee Loyalty Scheme". Like Green Shield Stamps of old, if I collect vouchers affixed to their casks, I can redeem them for tat listed in a catalogue. Two autotilt stills, of the kind I wrote about last week, would set me back 150 tokens. In other words, if I spend around £12,000 on their substandard IPA, I can claim a prize worth about £100. Sorry, no deal.
Phew, that was a long one. If you're one of the people that have read to the end, then well done - both of you. You see, this is why I like to keep things brief. You've got better things to do than read long blog posts, such as reading BBC News Online or surfing the net in pursuit of demoralising porn. In case you're wondering, the photo is of a famous Greene King pub in Cambridge. The chap wheeling the bike is Richard Naisby of Milton Brewery. I was on a pub crawl with him at the time. Inside, we grimaced our way through a fairly dodgy pint of Bath Gem.
 Young's Winter Warmer was once my favourite beer. When I first moved to London, it cheered me up no end in the cold months. Nothing was more disappointing than seeing the Young's sign outside a pub, but being denied a pint of the dark, sweet seasonal brew inside; nothing was more joyous than seeing it on sale at the bar and pints of it in the hands of fellow drinkers.
Sadly, Winter Warmer is no longer brewed in London. Young's of Wandsworth merged with Charles Wells and moved production to Bedford in 2006. As such, you could argue that it's no longer a London beer. Nevertheless, for me and, I'd like to think, many others, its arrival in pubs here is a happy time. I enjoyed my first pint of the season yesterday at The Lamb in Bloomsbury.
The pub was packed, and I had to bunch up with two old chaps on one of the banquettes. I had two bags of groceries with me that threatened to spill on to the floor as I eagerly prepared for my first swig. It was a glorious pint, marvellously drinkable despite being strong and full-bodied. It starts bitter and finishes long and sweet. I decided not to have a second, because the first was just so perfect.
The Lamb is at 94 Lamb's Conduit Street (WC1N 3LZ, map). The photograph is of the Fenner Brockway statue on Red Lion Square, just down the road from the pub. Brockway was a left-wing MP and anti-war campaigner who was born in British India in 1888 and lived for 99 years. It's long been one of my favourite statues in London. The pose suggests eccentricity: the outstretched arm, the slightly awkward placement of the feet, the rare mixture of joy and zeal on his face.
 Blackheath is one of the very few parts of outer London I'm willing to shlep it out to. A major draw is, unsurprisingly, the heath. It slopes down from the high, flat section at the top of Greenwich Park. All Saints Church wouldn't be terribly impressive if it were to sit elsewhere, but stationed on one corner of Blackheath, it's a tremendous sight. Then there's the village itself, which still feels like it's part of Kent. It was, until the County of London swallowed it whole in 1889.
Of course, we have to maintain a link to beer, don't we? Well, boys and girls, I have one for you. Blackheath is home to ZeroDegrees, a (guess what?) microbrewery. I wrote about it last year. Back then, my views on the beers were mixed. Either I've become less harsh in my judgments (I rather think I have), or else they've improved things in the brewhouse. Last time I visited, on a fine early autumn day, the Black Lager was magnificently bitter and roasty. Here's a photo my pal Ross took of our pints, with the glass-enclosed brew kit behind.
ZeroDegrees is at 29-31 Montpelier Vale, Blackheath, SE3 0TJ (Tel: 0871 4262721, map). It looks out on the heath. The pizzas are good.
I've just ordered a few barrels of a beer I'd never even heard of until it appeared on our pubco's list of guest ales. Apparently, Wallsend Brown Ale - from Mordue in Newcastle - is brewed to an old-fashioned recipe, but with a small quantity of Bamberg smoked malt (perhaps from Weyermann?) added to the grain bill. Sounds interesting. Has anyone tried it?
Mordue is a Tyneside microbrewery (website). Wallsend is a rough part of Newcastle (there are nice bits, honest). They nearly went bust earlier in the year, after a dispute with the tax authorities. Yikes.
I love gulping beer. If I think back on the times I've most enjoyed my favourite bevvy, it's always when I've been drinking it quickly.
In Prague, we always used to enjoy our first half litre the best. As the mugs slapped down on the table, delivered by an unsmiling waiter (invariably a stranger to deodorant, but often well acquainted with fiddling bar tabs), we'd raise them in a salute to youth and smash at least half the beer in one. The rest would take one, perhaps two, more pulls, then it was time to call for the man in the apron once more.
Now, when I'm working and I want to stop for a beer, it's that first smack of a perfectly conditioned pint of Landlord that makes me happiest, as a busy pub swirls around me. Forget the gentle sips of the so-called connoisseur. A pox on the solitary drinker. I can swirl and sniff with the best - or should that be worst? - of them, but it's no bloody fun, is it?
It might be fizzy yellow swill, but it's our fizzy yellow swill. There's a new ad campaign that emphasises how bloody British Carling is, based on the provenance of the barley used to produce it. The central message is misleading. 100% of the barley used might well be domestically produced, but that ignores the fact that cheap adjuncts are used to bulk up the grain bill. If you compare lagers that contain rice or maize to those made with 100% malted barley, there's a world of difference in terms of appearance, head formation, mouthfeel and - most importantly - flavour.
This ad was spotted at a bus stop on Clerkenwell Road, directly opposite the site of the old Griffin Brewery.
I was in my office taking care of some emails. There was a knock on the door. "This just arrived from you, a courier dropped it off". For a moment, I was reminded of my former life. But the person handing me the package wasn't a secretary, and what dropped on my desk wasn't a bundle of legal documents. Instead, the unsolicited package contained a pump clip. But not just any pump clip.
So, Greene King IPA's been given an image makeover. One of Britain's best selling ales has a sexy new badge, and the Bury St Edmunds massive have paid out bigtime to deliver it to publicans in a posh presentation case. I won't be stocking their beer any time soon, but I appreciate the effort.
 "Stills" are the things ale casks like to sit on. If they're any good, they're spring-loaded. As beer is drawn through the lines and the cask empties, it becomes lighter. The pressure on the springs is gradually reduced and the cask slowly tilts forward, allowing all the but the dregs to flow through the tap. If you were to tilt your barrels by hand, not only would you be creating unnecessary work for yourself, you'd also risk disturbing the sediment in the beer and throwing it into suspension. I'm a lazy and a clumsy oaf at the best of times, so I wouldn't dream of faffing around like that.
A pub that sells lots of real ale needs adequate stillage to keep up with demand. Because casks need to be prepped in situ two or three days before dispense (more on that here), you need at least twice as many stills as you have beer lines. Now that I have four hand pumps on the bar, I needed to overhaul the cellar. Once again, our pal John came to assist.
Yesterday I met him at The Betsey Trotwood for a pint of Shepherd Neame Late Red and a bacon sarnie. He'd brought a few lengths of metal tubing in the back of his van, which he dropped off at the pub. Today, in the space of a couple of hours (including tea breaks and pee breaks), he built me a two-storey rack and attached eight new stills to it. It's securely bolted both to the walls and to the floor. The end result looks brilliant and works a treat.
Those unlucky barrels that still have to sit on the floor look somewhat forlorn. You can see one of them, poking his sad little aluminium head into the left hand side of the photo. He's a Theakston's Old Peculier, and I'll be serving him on Tuesday. Other casks in the cellar include Tim Taylor Landlord (of course), Hook Norton Old Hooky, St Austell's Tribute, Wychwood Hobgoblin and Black Sheep Bitter.
I spotted this bus on Gray's Inn Road yesterday. Having convinced the public to recycle waste, it seems the authorities are turning our newly-green habits against us. As the ad points out, if there are lots of wine, beer and spirits bottles in your recycling bin, you're almost certainly an alkie. For shame, for shame. What will your neighbours say about you? Solution: stop recycling and hide your empties in black bin bags. Drink and be merry.
A crate of Orval recently joined my personal stash in the cellar. A gift from a pal, it's purely for my own consumption and not for sale. I've decided I'm going to use the empty bottles to hold single flower stems on the pub's tables. I'll have to drink them first, though. It's a hard life.
Orval (website) is a highly-regarded Belgian ale brewed by Cistercian monks. It's distributed around the world.
|
