October 2008

It’s taken the best part of 14 months, but the Merry Andrew is finally available from the brewery. It will be available at the end of the week from Threshers at:

• 24 High St. Steyning
• 149 Green St. Eastbourne
• 7 Woodland Parade, Hove

…and also casked at the Worthing Beer Festival. Needless to say, the Pulborough and Steyning farmers markets will also have it.

Also, on the 1st of November in the afternoon we are doing a tasting with Merry Andrew and Velocity at the Steyning Threshers. We may have samples of another one as well.

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We plan to be regularly available at two farmers markets for sales and free samples. You’ll be able to find us on Saturday the 25th October at Pulborough farmers market (village hall Pulborough) between 9am and 1pm.

We also plan to be at Steyning farmers market (High St. Steyning) on the 1st of November between 9am and 1pm.

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If you ever needed to show a visitor a typical pub you couldn’t go far wrong with the Punch and Judy. Nestled between low houses on a back street in Tonbridge, Kent, its exposed wood beams, dark wooden floors, brass rails at the bar, desultory couples at tables with their half pints and Sunday papers, are a very British kind of ideal. Most in the room recognise, or know each other; some have been coming here for nearly 20 years.

The coffin in the front room would be unusual, though. Colm Powell, 44, the publican, has just ended a 10-day hunger strike, during which he slept in the coffin every night in a rococo but heartfelt protest against rising rents, beer prices, and fines imposed by the pub company, Enterprise Inns, that owns the pub.

….from the Guardian

CAMRA estimates 44,000 jobs have been lost in the last 5 years – this must be having an impact on the employment statistics. I wish him the best. His website is here.

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I’ve seen a few adverts for this recently, it’s a pressure group that exists to put the drinkers side of the case against the various anti-alcohol groups infesting the body politic.

I’m sure the last thing they need is the brewery signing up, leading to accusations along the lines of ’sponsored by the brewing industry’. On the other hand, I have signed up in a purely personal capacity.

Take a look at their site and see what you think.

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Take a look at this advert for Stella.

Beautifully produced of course, and with a voice over by Patrick ‘the voice of God’ Stewart (I’m told that he stands in for God when God is unavailable).

Notice the problem ?

Bueller ?

Anyone ?

Ok. Repeat after me:

In fourteen hundred and ninety two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

…and where does maize come from ? South America, that’s where. What on earth were Belgian brewers doing with Maize in 1366 ? Perhaps more to the point, boasting that a beer contains maize is like boasting that a beefburger contains soya.

I know Stella drinkers are not renowned intellects, it would seem that neither are Stella advertising executives.

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Something that happens less frequently as we get older is a genuinely new experience so at my advanced age I tend to treasure them when I encounter them. This weekend I managed a small example when I tried my first sample of a Flemish red ale.

I held the glass up to the light to see what originally appeared to be a deep brown was glowing red in the autumn sunlight.

A sniff. Overwhelmingly vinegar.

A sip. Worse than vinegar, it’s vinegar and syrup mixed up together.

Yes, it turns out that the beer, Duchesse de Bourgogne (named after the charming young lady above), tasted like a sweet and sour version of something to sprinkle on chips. The urge to spit came hurtling down from my brain but I bravely overpowered it and took another sip.

Yes, utterly disgusting.

Sip, really quite awful – how can they sell this stuff ? I’ve thrown beers away that tasted better than this.

Sip, more to the point, how do the buyers drink it ?

Sip, sip. Dreadful, quite dreadful.

Si… Oh, its all gone!

In fact, its so awful I’ve taken a bottle away with me to check.

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I’ve just spent four hours drinking a variety (25!) of Belgian beer at the Master Brewers of Belgium beer tasting course in Shoreham. Consequently I’m slightly inebriated, even at half a mouthful per sample – some of those beers are 12%!

I’ll write more fully on the tasting tomorrow, but one important aspect for us, was that I brought a couple of bottles of St Cuthman’s Green Wheelbarrow (9%) along with me for sampling. Everyone was very complimentary and in fact I could see (well, taste) that it stood up well in the illustrious company.

We have to import some special ingredients and yeast for this. These cost an enormous amount and I have been seriously wondering whether or not we should make this attempt, but todays reaction from the people on the course made the decision clear. I’ll do the orders on Monday and we shall brew it as soon as we can in order to be ready for Christmas.

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As a relief from watching the stock market melt, I went for lunch in a pub today. Instead of the usual 3 day old copies of the Sun, this one had a number of back issues of New Scientist, and I was interested to learn:

It has long been thought that Saccharomyces pastorianus, the yeast used in lager production, formed only once from the hybridisation of S. cerevisiae and S. bayanus. Instead, the team discovered that it happened at least twice in two separate locations

Fancy.

Nothing new under the sun apparently.

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Blogging has been rather light recently because we’ve been more than busy with the brewery itself.

• We made Merry Andrew last week in what is becoming an increasingly smooth process. It’s fermenting nicely and I have high hopes for it.
• We are trying to move to a steady schedule of brewing once a week. Plans for the immediate future are more Velocity, Black William – our stout, and St. Cuthmans although it’s not clear if this will be Green Wheelbarrow at 9% or Red Wheelbarrow at 11%
• The existing design for the website has reached the end of its useful life now that we are in production. The replacement is being worked on and should be available in a few weeks for comments
• We’ve been asked if we can supply casks for private individuals. We don’t have the licenses to do this right now but I hope to have some arrangements in place as soon as next week.

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