Drinking ALL the BEER: The Great British Beer Festival 2017

I know, I know, the GBBF happened several weeks ago in mid-August, but I’m only just getting the chance to write about it now. I’ve been rather busy with an animation project which you can read about here. But I made plenty of tasting notes to be able to recap the festival in all it’s glory here. Admittedly the notes became somewhat illegible and non-nonsensical towards the end….What? It’s a beer festival. I got over-excited.

But hey, we’ll figure it out. Let’s go.

For those that don’t know the festival took place at Olympia, London, a f**k- off massive events space in Kensington. Now if you’ve ever been to Olympia before you’ll know it’s a very spacious, open, echo-y building. Now you know when you’re in a pub and everything starts to get a bit rowdy, someone drops a glass and a chorus of “wheeeey” immediately followed. Well that happened. A lot. You heard it begin from one end of the great hall and roll off the glass roof and through the crowds to the other side like booming thunder. It was beautiful and set the atmosphere to a T.

I’ve also got to give props so how well organised the festival was. Whenever a drink was dropped (not by my own hands, I’d never waste beer) someone appeared as if from nowhere, dropped some sort of green absorbent on it, swept it away and the party was good to continue. All the stalls were well spaced apart and well staffed, I never had to wait long in line for a beer.

The crowds were lively and friendly and it was great so see so many beer lovers coming together and nobody acting like a drunken buffoon. There were a few in costume, many running around dressed as Wally (as in Where’s Wally, Wally) I never figured out why and I’m not sure if I ever spotted the real Wally. 😦

But coming to the festival on the Saturday, the final day of the festival, had it’s draw backs. I unfortunately missed out on a lot of the really interesting ones due to them selling out. Coconut rum stout (by Cerne Abbas) and Carribean Cocktail(by Gyle 59) are a few of the beers I’ll have to stick on the wish list, as they apparently didn’t last long at this festival.

Anyways, let’s have a quick run down of a few of the brews I did get to drink. I can’t include everything because there’s too many to write about and quite frankly, I was pissed by the end of it.

Colmers by Palmers bewing co – Naturally I just gravitated to one of the stalls closest to the entrace and grabbed a half of this to start. The tagline, “deliciously hoppy,” was a bit of a lie to be quite honest. I prefer my beer to back more of a punch when it comes with hops and this fell a little flat with it’s malty, only lightly hoppy flavour. That said, it certainly wasn’t bad, I’d drink it again.

Juicy by Tiny Rebel  – I’ve actually had this beer before, in fact, when I got to the tiny Rebel cart I was a little disappointed (and secretly proud) to see that I’d actually tried all of them before. So  I opted for a pint of Juicy, a gorgeous tropical Golden ale. I wrote about Clwb Tropicana as my first blog post here and this is basically the golden sibling of that. It’s got a smooth, sweet taste bursting with tropical fruits and minimal hops. Also worked as a good palette cleanser after all the hoppier things i’d previously drank. 😉

Field Day by 5 Points  – Another one I was previously a fan of, this is my favorite brew 5 points has EVER made. But this time I had it on cask instead of Keg. I must admit I preferred the kegged version, this beer just works ice cold, but the flavour was still all there. Zesty, hoppy and refreshing with citrus fruit undertones including lemon and grapefruit.

Squid Ink by XT – I really enjoyed this Black IPA bt XT. It was one of very few dark beers I tried that day and is probably up there in my favorites when it comes to black brews. I usually not the biggest fan of darker beers, which often remind me of coffee, (eerrugh.)  but this one an nice earthy flavour with hints of bitter dark chocolate. Mildly hoppy but not over-powering, it went down very smoothly.

Ape Ale by Blue Monkey Brewery – This beer was the absolute star of the show for me. I adored it and it’s probably my favorite cask ale I’ve ever tasted. Unfortunately this was the second drink I had on the day and everything else paled in comparison. It followed my usual formula for “beers-I-love” of hoppy and fruity and yellow in colour, but it was a unique combination of caramel flavors, dried fruit, citrus and herbal bitterness. It had a certain sweetness to it almost suggestive of melons and peaches, but a dry finish. It takes advantage of every taste receptor and I don’t think I’ve tried anything quite like it before.

I think I’ll leave it there for today but you can see a few of the other things I tasted on my untapped.

TL;DR: Great festival, but go on one of the earlier days so you have your pick of the full selection. Ape ale is the Sh*t.

 

 

My First Brewery Tour @ Camden Town :)

Finally I’ve popped my brewery tour cherry as a special Christmas treat (yes. I know it’s July, long story…) for The Perseverance staff. And where better place to start than the legendary…

Camden Town Brewery!

Founded in 2010, this once micro-brewery quickly became a London favourite. Our Tour Guide (Cheers Jamie!) gave us a little history lesson on the place, telling us how the founder, aussie-born Jasper Cuppaidge, was in London visiting friends when he missed his flight back to Oz in the mid 90s. Stranded and penniless, he took a job collecting glasses in a London boozer and worked his way up the business. In the mid 2000’s he took a gamble and bought a run-down, derelict pub in Hampstead, worked his magic and reopened it as his own.

It was in that cellar where Cuppaidge brew his first batch of beer, in honour of his Grandfather, trying to replicate one of his beers from Australia. (oh yeah, did I mention his pops ran an Aussie brewery from 1910 – 1960? Must run in the family) It was a hit with the customers and he soon began selling it to other pubs. He must’ve realised he’s pretty good at it, as he decided to pack in the pub management and take up full time brewing.

That’s when he rented the brewery’s current location; the railway arches under Kentish Town West station, where the first official Brew, Camden Hells Lager, was born.

7 years on it’s bigger than ever, having sold out for a wopping 85million to the biggest brewing dogs out there,  Anheuser-Busch InBev. (In case you were wondering, they own Budweiser, Corona, Stella, Hoegaarden, Beck’s..to name a few.)

But they certainly haven’t forgotten where they came from..

 

Stay Real Camden Brewery

The place is quaint, cool and friendly with relaxed vibes. We felt welcome instantly and were allowed a moment to dote over their nicely decorated bar area – complete with classic Donkey Kong arcade rig, and then we let the tour commence. I won’t bore you with the technicalities of the brewing process because A) I’ll probably get it wrong, and B) you can just google that yourself. Instead I’ll just share with you some snaps and tid bits from our tour.

Great Barrels O’ Beer

Just to give us an idea of the sheer scale of the amount of beer that’s brewed here, our tour guide, Jaime,  started us off with a little bit of maths. Pointing to the enormous silver barrels that towered over us he asked us, ‘if you were to drink 4 pints a day, how long would it take to get through one of these monsters?’

After umm-ing and Aaah-ing and pretending we had some sort of logical format for working this out we hazarded a few guesses. “4 years?,” “7 years?” “5?” “6?”

After sniggering at the answers we’d just pulled directly from our behinds he gave us their answer. 17 YEARS. 17 years, at 4 pints a day, to drink through one of these barrels. Now let’s do some actual maths. 4 pints a day for 17 years equals around 24820 pints. Now times that by the 7 barrels in the photo equals 172740 pints.

Challenge accepted. 

After that we were walked around to the room I call the Hop-House, (not it’s technical name) where the magic begins. We got a try a little taste of the hops (not so nice pre-beer form) and get a good oogle around at the machinery. At this point I was pretty much just a kid in a candy shop, running around snapping pics and inhaling the sweet smell of fresh booze, so no, I don’t remember what these giant silver tanky things did…. But it was probably important. I’ll just leave you with this.

The Cannery

My favorite getting bottled up

brewing away

Classic Barrels

Pre-brewing Hops

Brewing Process

 

After that we got to return to the bar for some tasting. Admittedly I’d already tasted most of their permanent range, so most of this part was really just a recap for me. But certainly needed. It’d been a while since I’d had a sweet zesty glass of Camden Wit and on a beautiful summers day such as today it really hit the spot. Seriously, I’d forgotten how much I love this beer, if you’ve never tried it go out and get some, a wheat beer with a twist.

We also got to try the Unfiltered Camden Hells, which I didn’t know existed until this day. Coupled with a glass of regular Hells for direct comparison, the Unfiltered was only subtly different, but definitely a welcome larger to an ale advocate like me. It was a little dryer, a littler cloudier to look at and a more full bodied flavour over all. I certainly preferred it over the Hells, however like I said, the differences were subtle. It’s very much like having a pint of Hells.

And Finally, we got a taste of Inner City Green, a seasonal Summer larger. Now this was my kind of beer. It’s a safe session option at 3.9%, which I haven’t often seen in lagers, and the flavour was right up my street. Slightly hoppier than you’re usual lager, with elements of zesty fruit and herbal aromas. I really enjoyed it and will be keeping an eye out for it in my future pub endeavors. Seeing as it’s Summer and Summer means lager season for me, I’ll be looking out for the best craft lager, and this is certainly the first contender.

So we enjoyed our free pitchers of beer in the sun and the lovely people at Camden Brewery were even kind enough to share some of their staff meals with us. Can’t thank them enough, we had an amazing time and will definitely be returning to the bar for some casual drinks.

Bottom line: Camden Town Brewery is awesome. Get yourselves down there for a tour or just to enjoy a few drinks at the bar. Prices are reasonable, staff are friendly and the venue is beautiful.

Cursory introductory post.

Hello fellow beer bellies!

Again, apologies for the lack of pictures, I’ll update this post with snaps as soon as I have some. lack of phone camera is really slowing me down as I often forget to take my camera out with me.

Here is my typical but necessary let-me-introduce-myself post. I’ll tell you a little about myself, why I’m doing this blog, then a quick a rundown of a few of my favorite pubs and beers, some craft, some..”normal”.(Is there an opposite of craft?)

So… about me.

By day, I’m a pub chef at a nice little joint in Bloomsbury, Central London. When I’m not running around the kitchen swearing my head off and throwing ladles at colleagues, I am working on animations, illustrations and other digital media, in the hopes of one day making a creative career for myself. Sometimes the pressure of creative work takes it’s toll, and that’s partly why I’ve started this blog. Because what do I do when I’m not working?

I drink. 😉

I’m a self proclaimed beer belly. I love the stuff. Always have. I still remember my year 6 camping trip, when I snuck a six-pack of non-alcoholic Becks into my luggage, thinking I was the absolute shit. Since then I’ve left the Becks Blue behind in favour of more crafty options.

I have my preferences; fruity, american-style keg pale ales are probably my favourite and I prefer weaker ales, at around 3.8% – 4.5%, as I like to enjoy a good session. But I have a place in my heart for all styles of beer and lately have been trying to taste more things outside of my comfort zone.

A few of my favourites…

I will be writing more in-depth reviews for a few of these but here’s few favourite beers and a few favourite pubs of mine, in no particular order.

Beers

Camden Pale Ale: (4%) Camden Town Brewery (Camden) This is pretty much a staple drink for me. Reasonably priced(£4.50 – £4.90 in central London) and widely available in most places. Slightly citrusy, fruity hops with a sharp bitter after taste. (shout out to Camden Wit, which didn’t make this list but is a gorgeous wheat beer by the same brewers)

Neck Oil: (4%) This session IPA from Beaver Town Brewery (Tottenham) is a firm favourite of mine. delicious both canned and keg, a smooth, cirtrusy flavour with a hoppy finish. Price varies from around £4.40- £5.90 a pint. Cans are around £2.99 in most shops. And I’ve got to give credit to the awesome artwork on all Beavertown cans.

Wu Gang Chops the Tree: (3.8%) By Pressure Drop brewery (hackney), this is one of my favourite German style wheat beers. A herby aroma with a sweet but not sickly flavour. It’s light on the taste buds and goes down like water. They have it in a lot of weatherspoons which is great as I can get a craft option for cheap. (£4) In more central locations it’s around the £5 mark.

Pubs

The Chequers: (145 High St, London E17 7BX) I don’t actually live in Walthamstow anymore but I still consider this to be my local. Dubbed by Pokemon Go(It’s a Pokestop!) as the “hipsters with kids pub,” it certainly is a live example of the gentrification of Walthamstow. But hipsters aside, it is a great pub, plenty of space,  3 rooms, an open fire and(most importantly to me, being a smoker) a large heated beer garden dotted with fairy lights and bric-a-brac furniture. they have a huge selection of real ales, just a few craft beer options on keg and a few more in the fridges, as well as your standard beers for the not-so-crafty beer lover. DJ sets some nights and good music always. Oh and the food is lovely for pub grub.

The Faltering Fullback: (19 Perth Rd, London N4 3HB) Another regular watering hole of mine, this traditional irish pub is a real life Tardis. From the outside, it looks like a small house with ivy climbing up the walls. you walk in to a large bar and what looks like not much space to sit…but wait… there’s a room around the right side of the bar…and another to the left…and what if we go straight through…Holy shit. Towards the back is a huge, dining hall style room packed with tables, a big telly and a pool table. But truly the best part of this pub is the beer garden. It’s the smokers utopia. wooden decking stretching up 4 levels, (maybe even 5??) with some sections well covered from the rain. Heaters everywhere, ivy and plants thickly scattered about. Here you can find a big open space table for large groups as well as intimate little corners for those date nights.  They only have one or 2 craft beer options on at a time and it’s never anything spectacular, but this pub is all about atmosphere.

The Perseverance: (63 Lamb’s Conduit St, London WC1N 3NB) Ok I’ll confess. I work here. I’m shamelessly self advertising. I was a bar tender for just under a year and now a chef. This pub might not look like much on the surface, the tables are wobbly, the chairs are falling apart, half the lights don’t work, but it really offers something special. The staff are the friendliest and most welcoming I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Seriously. I get annoyed when I go into other pubs and the bar tenders aren’t as lovely as us. You’ll always get a warm welcome here. 4 cask ales which change regularly, 3 ciders and 12 keg taps with craft and regular beers. Oh and the food is great…I make it after all.

 

So there you have it.

That’s me in a nut shell. upcoming on my blog expect to see in-depth reviews for beers and pubs, tasting tests, brewery visits and other beery thoughts.