Cornish (Beer) Noir…

For best results read in an American accent.

It was a gloomy, drizzly afternoon in a sleepy Cornish harbour village about as far from the City That Never Sleeps as you can get.  I’d had an intense weekend… training a bunch of broads* to make great radio. I needed to unwind. Luckily I’d got a Wild Card invite to take a look round St Austell Brewery with Head Brewer Roger Ryman. This wasn’t just any brewer it was the guy who invented Clouded Yellow. For those not in the know it’s a vanilla-flavoured, bottled wheat beer and one of my favourite poisons. Sure he’s also the man behind the popular Tribute Ale, but when a brewery’s makin’ more than 21 million pints of a beer then I’m usually looking for something a bit more specialist.

Luckily Roger’s just the guy. Not only does the brewery turn out millions of pints of its best selling ale, it also makes niche beers for connoisseurs like me and has a two barrel microbrewery on the side for trialling new and exclusive brews.

He showed me round the joint and told me about its heart transplant. The brewing gear had been in there since the 19^th Century and was starting to wear out. It was no simple job to replace it. They had to take off the roof and lift out the old so they could put in the new. It meant closing the place down for a fortnight – if it had taken any longer Roger coulda run into trouble, but by some kinda Cornish miracle it was done and dusted in time.

Roger's microbrewery

 

The shiny new brewery was impressive and cosy. But being something of a beer anorak I couldn’t wait to get into the chilly barn of a microbrewery where Roger was cookin’ up his latest experimental brews – although not as overjoyed as when he offered me the chance to taste ‘em.

 

 

 

They looked about as appealing as a vat of cack. Just sitting there in a couple of open fermentation vessels, but I knew that looks could be deceptive.

 

Raspberry porter.

 

Roger drew off a draught of what turned out to be a raspberry porter. It was delicious. A chocolately brew with a rich  raspberry flavour leading to more chocolate on the finish.

I wondered what was in the tank next to it. It looked green and nasty but Roger said it was a big IPA he’d cooked up usin’ lager yeast and citra, nugget and centennial hops.

 

It was a wow of a beer. A real zesty brew that took my breath away. He told me he was gonna call it Big Job. I could see why. I felt kinda down in the mouth that these were limited edition brews. They were the sort of beers you’d wanna come back for more of. Luckily a trip to the sample room was just around the corner. There were more of Roger’s beers there that I knew I needed to try. He wanted to make sure I left no stone unturned, so I worked my way through the range. It was a hard graft.

St Austell Brewery's sample room. NB: Tasting beer is work NOT fun.

We started with an unnamed 2.8% beer, an ABV a lot of brewers seem willing to tangle with now Parliament’s dangling the carrot of lower taxes for weaker drinks. Seems the suits are totally out of touch with the folks that drink ale. When a tipple’s this tasty you don’t need to neck a dozen pints; you want to savour the flavour, but it seems those guys at the Palace think everyone’s into binge-drinking. Still the weak brew had more flavour than I was expecting. It was like caramel with biscuitty notes and apparently gets its flavour from what Roger says is a fair amount of crystal malt.

Dartmoor Best Bitter at 3.5% was still a bit weak for me, but it had the attraction of tasting like a brewery smells. Malty and alluring. Next, we tried the Trelawny a

3.8% peach of a brew. Peachy on the nose, carrying through to the taste. I’d had a pint in a pub once but it didn’t go down too well. Just goes to show you’ve got to look after your beer if it’s gonna taste how it’s meant to.

Next things got regal. Black Prince, a 4% brew, is a grainy, drinkable mild with a roasted coffee aroma and a slightly creamy chocolatey flavour. I could see myself drinking it by the fire on one of those cold Cornish afternoons.

We moved on to Roger’s baby. Tribute’s the beer he originally brewed for the solar eclipse of ’99. It used to be called Daylight Robbery. The guy likes a play on words as much as much as he likes making beer. It’s not a bad brew, but in some joints it suffers from being served too cool. Truth is it’s actually quite tasty. It looks great too – a glass of burnished gold. It’s sweetish and keeps its bitterness on a leash, but then it surprises you with a fruit salad-like fruitiness and you know if you were sittin’ out front of a bar overlooking the Atlantic on a summer’s day you wouldn’t be too heartbroken to be putting some of it away.

We crossed the Atlantic for the next brew, or at least its hops came from there. They give Proper Job, a 4.5% IPA, a citrus and pine character. I liked it. It was drier than the Tribute and more bitter too. Roger said if I liked it in cask, I’d be bowled over by the bottled version – which is stronger.

St Austell pump clips.

We moved on to a couple of brown beers – both of ‘em 5%. HSD strong and dark with shades of dried fruit and Admiral’s Ale – a sweetish, caramelised fruity flavour beer with a tangy, softly bitter finish.

I was starting to feel pretty relaxed. My intense weekend seemed a long time ago. Roger said there was more beer to try, but I knew it was time for me to split. But he wanted me to try them and asked if I’d take a few bottles home. I wasn’t going to say no. But that’s another story.

Sometimes when I’ve been out west I’ve got a little tired by the lack of variety when I hit a new joint, but that’s a tale I’ve told before. There’s more to St Austell Brewery than meets the eye and I’d say if you’re out this way you’d be missin’ a trick if you didn’t pay it a visit.

 

Cornish born and brewed.

 

● For more about the brewery visit http://www.staustellbrewery.co.uk/

Tribute ale is 4.2% ABV.

*By which I mean a group of women who are: “liberal, tolerant, unconfined and not limited or narrow in scope”. (From A Feminist Dictionary 1992 edition).

Dorchester Beerex…

First I must declare this is a live blog which means I’ve had a couple of beers although am not incapable!

Dorchester Beerex is awesome – a v.friendly event with lots of great, well kept, beer and plenty of chatty punters.

Special mention for the Mayor of Bridport, Dave Rickard; founder of Town Mill Brewery Allan Swannell (and his friend from Chorley Wood whose name I didn’t get); Rich Gabe who helped organise the festival and does brewery liaison for CAMRA, and Alan Hall (I *really* thought we’d met before!).

I managed to try all on my hit list (see previous post) but was chatting too much to taste any others except for a glorious half of Sixpenny IPA! Of these I’d say it was a tie between Yeovil’s Stout Hearted and Art Brew’s Monkey IPA as to which I preferred. DBC’s Yachtsman was nice but didn’t set my world on fire.

Monkey IPA (6.4%) started mellow but then a wonderful bitterness
came through giving it a good bite. The Stout Hearted (4.3%) had a prominent roasted, ‘burnt’, flavour at first sip leading to a much more chocolatey flavour – perect for this time of year.

I wish I coul have stayed to try more, but have had a fantastic afternoon and will be putting this beer festival in my diary for next year!

F***ing good IPA and a preview of Dorchester Beerex

One of the best things about being a beer writer is being able to call breweries up and ask if you can visit, knowing they are most likely to say yes. Even better is getting the inside story on them and their beers and, effectively, a tutored tasting with the brewer.

And so it came to pass that I headed east to visit Wayland’s Sixpenny Brewery near Blandford Forum* for a feature on dark beers I was writing for Dorset magazine (in the Feb issue, out now!). I had to drive more than 100 miles to get there but, man was it worth it.

Initially it was their 6d Black (4.4%) I was interested in. This honey porter fitted nicely into what I’d got planned for my feature and turned out to be my favourite beer of the selection I’d chosen to write about. It looked great, dark with chestnut hues and a nice creamy head which brewer Scott Wayland told me is retained thanks to the inclusion of a little wheat malt which also increases the beer’s mouthfeel and fullness of palate. It lived up to its appearance, tempting me with its coffee aroma and then satisfying me with a dry, chocolatey flavour reminiscent of a truffle, and a good astringent finish. I could have drunk it all day – had I not been driving.

Scott & Lorraine Wayland enjoying a drop of their 6d Black

But then Scott invited me to try his Sixpenny IPA (5.2%). I tasted it and asked permission to swear. “This is FUCKING GOOD beer!” was my immediate reaction. I had discovered another dancing beer. I’m not sure any description  I write of it will truly do it justice, but I’ll begin by quoting what I wrote about it in my beer notebook (*puts anorak on to read from notebook*): “I LOVED this beer. DELICIOUS. ‘CAN’T WAIT to have more.”

Pale bronze in colour, it had an aroma of grass clippings, melon and lychees and – although some hate the use of this word to describe how a beer tastes – a complex hoppy flavour with a pronounced bitter finish leading to a subtly sweet, with elements of barley sugar and toffee apple, aftertaste. Despite this positive carnival of taste sensations it also had a mellow quality that made it easy to drink and tempered the flavours so they didn’t overwhelm.

Sixpenny IPA to take away!

It’s probably no wonder then that it won Weymouth Octoberfest and took Beer of the Festival at Salisbury Beerex last year. You’re going to have to come to Dorset to get some of this amazing beer though, as Sixpenny tell me most of their customers are within a 20-mile radius of the brewery. Although I can see their beers being perfectly at home, and selling well, on the bar at The Rake, The Euston Tap or at Cask, were there a will and logistic possibility of getting them to London, and of course I am trying to persuade pub landlords closer to (my) home in Devon to get some in.

Both the beers will also be at CAMRA’s Dorchester Beerex this weekend, although I hear it’s sold out so maybe I shouldn’t be telling you as if you haven’t already got a ticket you’re going to be disappointed.

I’ll add insult to injury by also telling you what’s on my Beerex hit list (other than more of Sixpenny’s beers of course!). Art Brew’s Monkey IPA (6.4%) “packed with spicy American Chinook hops” sounds like a goer – and as their Lemon beer tickled my fancy at my last Dorset beer festival I have high hopes for it; because I’d not heard of Hallertau hops before I’m interested in a trying a drop of Dorset Brewing Company’s Yachtsman (4.7%), and I’ll also be looking out for Yeovil Brewery’s Stout Hearted. All of which is being made possible by my partner, The Man, who has generously agreed to be the designated driver. My hero!

Assuming that lot lives up to my expectations, watch this space for when I report back.

* Wayland’s Sixpenny Brewery has a fantastic little bar and beer shop where you can buy their beers to drink on the premises or take away. For opening times, directions and contact details visit their website: http://www.sixpennybrewery.co.uk/index.html