BBB - Birmingham's Beer Scene Comes Of Age

After making a move to London earlier this year, it was great to be returning to my “home city” of Birmingham on Friday 26 July in very auspicious circumstances – to attend the Birmingham Beer Bash, after many months of building anticipation! I had been looking forward very much to a great event where I would get to pick and choose from a wide selection of interesting beers and catch up with lots of Brummie chums – and I hoped above all that things went smoothly for the organising team, a group of Birmingham's beery best – who had gone out on a limb to bring a momentous festival to our city. I was not disappointed!

Having attended IndyMan last year, I knew there was a new standard in place for beer festivals, just as there has been a new wave of breweries sweeping the land. IndyMan broke free of the constraints faced by CAMRA festivals, being backed by commercial beer enterprises and a different financing structure; looking to be staffed mostly by brewers and associates able to sell and serve their own products; and offering the best of cask, keg and bottle dispense – but also, crucially, in a really interesting venue that offered lots of scope for different festival areas and events.

Birmingham Beer Bash (or BBB – hence “bCubed” as it is also known) had a similar but quite simple agenda – to bring amazing beer to the city, whatever it's dispense. It was a huge bugbear of mine while living there that we seemed to be lagging behind other (smaller) English cities massively, in that we had no “craft” beer bars – i.e. those offering exciting keg beers as well as a strong range of the cream of UK cask and bottle offerings, and international beauties appearing too. In the year before I left, things were definitely on the up – first The Victoria started to offer bottles from Kernel, Partizan, Arbor, Summer Wine, cans from Ska Brewing, and an improved draught offering with Hardknott, Thornbridge and others; then Brewdog Birmingham opened, at last bringing some keg lines to the city (along with their trademark 'punk' attitude :-); and then the Craven Arms was revitalised by Chris and Sharon Sherratt, with a great ever-changing cask range and bottles in the fridge from De Molen and Cantillon.

But before this, some local beer chums had met for a 'twissup' and expressed their concerns that good beer just wasn't reaching Birmingham in the way it was flowing into other cities – and somehow, they all took a leap of faith together, and decided they could take matters into their own hands and change Birmingham's beer scene to the one they wanted to see – at least for one summer weekend!

12 months later – and their dreams came true. I have to admit I was anxious for the team – having run beer festivals myself I knew of the pitfalls, nervousness, and the 101 things that can go slightly off-plan – but even more so if you're not backed cashflow-wise by a large consumer lobbying group, there is no precedent for this type of event in the city, and your biggest question is “if we build it, will they come?” - well, I hope from the time the doors opened on Friday morning, their fears were allayed and they could start to enjoy the adrenaline buzz!

I attended for two sessions – the Friday evening and Saturday daytime – and it was a wonderful feeling to be walking down through the backstreets of Digbeth (a part-arty regeneration/part-Victorian industrial area of Brum – think Hackney Wick, but Digbeth got there first!) on a scorching summer day, knowing lots of friendly faces and interesting beers awaited us. I say “interesting” rather than “awesome”- as I felt the point of the varied beer list was to showcase a wide range of styles and new beers, not just the familiarly great and good – to push people outside their comfort zone a bit.

So what were my highlights?

• The Venue – I thought this was pretty amazing – buildings originally part of Birmingham's canal and industrial heritage, providing lots of interesting spaces that could be used in different ways for the event, such as the seminar room with the International and Junction bars, the courtyard with it's canal-side setting providing a food court, and the larger cask, keg and bottle area. I don't know what the arrangements for food might have been had it rained the whole time, but it looked like there was enough space to go round, with numbers just right – no crowding, no queueing for ages for bar service or loos, and plenty of space to mill about, but enough punters for a buzzing atmosphere on both sessions I attended.
• The food – so great to be reunited with the artisan food from local producers Loaf and Squisito – we feasted on meatballs with great bread and salads (good choice for a hot summer evening), Italian-style sausages made with fennel and local beer from Tunnel Brewery, and then tried some Pop-up Dosa – this divided opinions as some weren't keen on the textures of some of the different dosa condiments, but I loved every element of it and felt it was another good food option for the weather.
• The people – the sheer amount of amazing people there – exhibiting brewers and associates (great to see @HardKnottDave, @HardknottAnne and @HopcraftGazza again, and meet @dredpenguin from Weird Beard); so good to catch up with Birmingham chums I hadn't seen since I moved; beer bloggers who had travelled from up and down the country to be there; the beery Twitterati out in force (great to see the glamourous @BeerBeauty again, and too many other people to list!); and of course the amazing BBB team of lovely, lovely people (you all know who you are!) who were always ready to greet you with a big grin and a hug, regardless of how busy and knackered they must have been feeling!
• The fringe events – I was super-excited about these, getting to listen to a great talk on hops from Paul Corbett of Charles Faram Hop Merchants, all about malts (and what he considers to be beer ingredient perversions) from Dom of Thornbridge, and another great session run by Dom on how to identify the types of chemical faults to be found in 'bad' beer, which certainly made you thirsty for a 'good' beer by the end of it but with a keener sense of what may be going on in your glass.
• The beer choice – so many beers, so many styles, so many breweries; bottle, keg and cask – with around 130 beers & ciders being featured on draught over the 2 days, and many more in bottle from @Stirchleywines, there was something for every taste – I did my best to try as many as possible, but special mention must go to Hardknott Rhetoric II, which we went back for many refills of; Arbor Ales / Moor Beer Double Dark Alliance; Sadlers Ales Dr Hardwicke's DIPA; Compass Berry – but really, too many to mention.

And the downsides?

• The beer choice! – even enlisting the help of a 'beer buddy' to help me try as much of a range as possible by sharing their choices with me, still wasn't enough to get me round all of the beers I wanted to try in the space of two sessions – never mind the beers I'd earmarked in the programme but didn't happen to be on during the times I visited. But I think that's the mark of a good beer list – to leave you wanting more – even though making the choices as my last session drew to a close was agonizing!
  
• Missing out on a burger – I had been really pleased to hear the Original Patty Men would be serving all day on Saturday; I'd tasted their burgery delights before at Digbeth Diner, and was muchly looking forward to munching on this again; but sadly they were so popular that they had run out by 2pm, just as I was about to go fetch my lunch from them – I gave them a friendly telling off for depriving me of meaty goodness, but satisfied myself with another dosing of Squisitodeli's lovely sausages.
  
• The waiting – altogether such a great festival that delivered above my already high expectations – must we really wait another year for it to happen again? (Please, let it happen again!)
  
  

It was a very rewarding experience all round – and made me quite emotional for the team, to think how great they must feel to know they had pulled it off, hundreds of people enjoyed themselves, gallons of good beer was consumed, much beer learning went on, friendships were formed and cemented, and certainly from my point of view as a punter, everything seemed to run smoothly on the surface – and who knows what interesting projects, sharing of knowledge, and collaborations are now fermenting away as ideas in the minds of the many brewers who met up during the event! I salute all who organised the festival, the sponsors who made it possible, and everyone who turned up and made it all pretty amazing. Viva Birmingham Beer Bash, the city's beer scene has now come of age!

Sadlers Ales at the Windsor Castle Brewery

The Windsor Castle brewery - where Sadlers Ales are produced - is based in Lye, a Midlands town along the route between Birmingham and Stourbridge. I had first come across their Jack's Pale Ale being served at Inn on the Green (Acocks Green, B'ham) several years ago, but it is in recent years that their beers have gained more prominence, with award-winning established recipes alongside new and hoppy beers emerging. So when earlier this year I organised a Number9 #Twissup, that would take us by Number 9 bus from the centre of Birmingham to the door of the brewery, it was a great opportunity to see inside the brewhouse, try their range of ales, and have a good chat about hops with their head brewer, Chris Sadler.

Chris explained that the Windsor Castle brewery was originally founded in Oldbury by his great-grandfather, but that brewing operations ceased in 1927 – these were resurrected in Lye by Chris' father John in 2004. They have developed their portfolio since that time, and now have around 8 regular beers, and several seasonals and specials appearing. The Windsor Castle also serves as the Sadlers' taphouse, and is renowned for it's food offering as well – but it was the array of 10 cask Sadlers ales along the bar that immediately caught our eye and lifted our spirits when we entered. The bar staff explained they don't usually feature a guest as the house beers are so popular and turnover is quick, and there are usually seasonal brews to form a counterpoint to the core range, giving drinkers a wide choice of styles and strengths to choose from. They also have bottled versions of some of these beers in the fridges.

After making our initial purchases to start checking out the ales available, we met Chris in the bar area; he took us through to the brewery's hop store, and talked us through their current range. There are several traditional styles covered, such as Red House, a 4% Black Country mild, and Worcester Sorcerer, a 4.3% Best Bitter. Their Mud City Stout (6.6%), with cocoa and vanilla richly complementing a blend of dark malts and oats, is multi-award winning, and an immensely flavoured beer whether from cask or bottle; and the JPA (Jack's Pale Ale) is a very sessionable 3.8%, which has recently had it's recipe tweaked to make it a 100% Citra-hopped beer. This tasted fantastic on cask and came out on top as my beer of the day, despite the many other lovely beers we tried during the Twissup. 

Chris explained that as he has now taken over the Head Brewer duties from his father, it has given him the opportunity to 'play around with hops' a lot more and develop new recipes and specials, such as their Hop Bomb – available in 330ml bottles as well as on draught, this caused quite a stir in the Midlands beer scene when it appeared, with the 5% abv providing a good base to carry through the Amarillo and Citra hop flavours and aromas. It was great to see such a range of exciting hops in the storeroom, and we easily spent the best part of an hour discussing characteristics and uses, as our party had two professional and at least two homebrewers who were all eager to talk with Chris about alpha acid values and aroma characteristics, and how crop variations in different years give rise to recipe changes and adjustments.

But back to the beer – and we heard about two recent beers that Chris has been working on – the Dr Hardwicke's Double IPA, which is continuously hopped throughout it's 85-minute boil and comes out a hefty 8.5%, and an Imperial Stout, which was still in development but Chris seemed pretty excited about already and described as 'something special'! We were able to have a taste of the latest batch of Dr Hardwicke's to be brewed – just about to go into the conditioning tanks – and this certainly had a lot of hop bite and full body even as an unfinished beer that still has to receive it's dry-hopping, so I'm looking forward to tasting this when it's finally ready.

We spent a while longer having a look round the 10-barrel brewery and the cask store, where sacks of used grain from the mashing process were stacked up ready for a local farmer to take away, and returned casks awaited cleaning and refilling with ales to be sent out again, before returning to the bar to work our way through the rest of the range and pick up some bottles to take home. I tried their delicious crisp Red IPA and also Basilisk, a bitter with some slightly sweet notes but a clean finish, and took home bottles of the Mud City, Hop Bomb, and Mellow Yellow, a pale ale with a hint of honey.

It was great to see a truly family-run brewery (Chris's sister also runs the taphouse and restaurant side of things) that is still keen to create new recipes and experiment with different hops coming to market, and it certainly marks them out as the most progressive brewery in the Birmingham area to my mind, and the only one bringing truly well-rounded but sparkily hoppy ales to Midlands punters.

And if you are yet to discover their beers, and like the sound of their hop-experimentation and special recipes, you can find some at the upcoming Birmingham Beer Bash festival on Friday 26^th and Saturday 27^th July 2013; there are rumours there may be some Imperial Stout available in bottles, and on draught will feature the hefty Dr Hardwicke's Double IPA, and 'Lion Hart', their 4.2% July seasonal beer – which is described as a blood orange ale brewed with juicy American hops and fresh pineapple – sounds perfect for a summer festival!

Three Amazing Local Offies

Now that I have come to leave Brum, as a parting shot I wanted to pay tribute to something unique in the beer scene that the city has to offer – three amazing local offies within roughly a square mile of each other – or more correctly, a triangle – around the Stirchley and Selly Oak/Bournbrook areas of South-West Birmingham. To find one 'local' (i.e. non-city centre) off licence stocking something a beer geek would consider interesting is rare enough, but to have three within walking distance of each other is pretty special. And now I've moved to other parts of the land where a decent bottle shop is nowhere to be found, I keenly miss the ability to walk in somewhere and spend a good while browsing what's new on the shelves, have a chat with knowledgeable owners on what's upcoming on the beer scene, and leave with arms groaning with great purchases and a shopping list for 'next time' already forming in my head. So if you get the chance to visit Birmingham and have the time for a short bus or train ride to the suburbs, make sure you take a large bag and an even larger budget, and get yourself to one of these gems:

Stirchley Wines & Spirits – 1535 Pershore Road, B30 2JH

http://www.stirchleywines.co.uk/ 

When I first moved to Birmingham, at the time more of a cider and wine drinker than ales (there being no real ale to be found in my previous Belfast haunts at the time to educate me), Stirchley Wines was the only place where 'interesting' beers could be found, signalled by the pink elephant of the Delirium Tremens sign outside the shop. Since then, Krishan and his father have worked to bring a constantly-updating selection of beers to Birmingham's thirsty punters, and the breadth of choice has skyrocketed in recent years. You will find a great selection of Belgian stalwarts – including Rochefort, Rodenbach, Cantillon, De Struise - and stars of the US scene such as Flying Dog, Uinta, Stone, Weyerbacher, Anderson Valley. You'll also find a great range from Nogne O, Brewfist, Elav, and other emerging craft scenes, and the full list of Oktoberfest biers in season. Up and coming UK breweries are also well represented, in particular a good range from Kernel, Hardknott, Thornbridge, Brewdog, Beavertown, Bristol Beer Factory and many more. And the local brewers get a look-in too, so it's a good source to find some Wye Valley, Purity, Beowulf, Titanic, Church End and Sadlers, among others. Not to mention the Japanese craft beers recently arrived from Hitachino Nest, a fair amount of bottled cider, and occasionally a 'beer bread' produced by local artisan baker @loafonline.

USP – a long-standing institution which now also has two draught keg taps dispensing deliciousness from the likes of Magic Rock, Harbor, Thornbridge, Mikkeller and others, to take away (smart-looking containers provided). And as well as getting involved in lots of community projects and pushing forward the beer festival scene in Birmingham (check out @birminghamcubed happening in July), Krishan will enthusiastically talk your ear off about beers of all kinds if you let him!

Cotteridge Wines – 1825 Pershore Road, B30 3DN

http://www.cotteridgewines.com/

Within a couple of years, the team of Jaz and Kal have managed to turn this local grocer and off licence into a beer nut's heaven – with what I believe to be the widest selection of craft beer available in the city. They were keen to engage with the growing beery community in Brum, asking for advice and suggestions on what to stock, what breweries you'd recommend, and offering trade lists to see if there were particular beers you were after. A few years ago, it was great to be offered a list of all German beers currently available to them, and be asked to 'take my pick' on what I'd want to buy next time we were in the shop – and the German range is still pretty amazing to see. Since then, they've made personal connections with many breweries up and down the country, leading to a recent collaboration brew with Brodies (called Bish's APA, to thank @the_bish for his help I believe), which should be hitting the market in coming weeks – if not already sold out in advance to the online beer geek community! On their groaning shelves, you'll find beers you're familiar with, beers you've heard of but not had the chance to try, and rarities and new releases you didn't even know you were desperate to drink yet! And if they aren't stocking it, chances are they can source it for you, so don't be afraid to ask. Last time I visited, there was a huge amount of choice, but in particular large ranges from Mallinsons, Arbor, Williams Bros, Fyne Ales (including one of my favourite beers, Jarl), Ska in cans, Maui, To Ol, Buxton, Red Willow, Evil Twin, Brodies, Odell, De Molen – and an absolutely jaw-dropping selection from Mikkeller.

USP – always something new and unusual 'just in', with competitive pricing and an ability to track down that 'rare' beer you might have been seeking (provided it's still being produced of course!) and ensure it's reserved for you to pick up. And soon – their own beer brewed with Brodies – perhaps more collaborations will be in the pipeline?

Wine Stop – 75 Raddlebarn Road, B29 7DA

Now this off licence is less 'beery' than the above two, and is in the studentville areas around Birmingham university, but is definitely worth seeking out. The proprietor, Hardeep, is a complete whisky (and whiskey) freak – it's clearly his passion and hobby as well as his business – and there are over 100 different whiskies available here with Hardeep happy to spend time talking you through several of them, working out what kind of thing you might like or explaining the characteristics of new whiskies he has acquired. He has even had a whisky produced for him by renowned distillery Caol Isla – named 'The Whisky Thieves', this is available from the shop in reasonably priced limited edition bottles, and has a spicy, peppery note, that smooths to a slightly sweet finish. It's very easy drinking but with enough complexity there to be interesting, and we've already restocked on a second bottle as a memento of Birmingham's great drinking scene. Hardeep will be happy to recommend several different bottles given your preferences and price range, but I'd also advise you look at his Indian and Japanese whisky offerings as I don't believe this selection can be bettered anywhere in Brum. On the beer side, although the selection may appear small, there is certainly enough of interest – they stock the legendary Bathams Bitter, alongside some Thornbridge, Cairngorm, Sam Smith's, Otley, Hook Norton, and Wye Valley, and other English and Scottish breweries, and a couple of different versions of Harviestoun's Ola Dubh, a rich whisky-cask aged dark beer (great with dark chocolate!).

USP – a whisky and whiskey selection that can't be beaten (plus Bathams in bottles!), and knowledge dispensed by a friendly proprietor as obsessed with the whisky scene as you may be with the beer scene, and happy to spend a while sharing his spirit recommendations or discussing beer while you browse the shelves. And the only “Birmingham” whisky – The Whisky Thieves – definitely worth picking up!

So although I write this smitten with a wry bitterness that these three amazing local offies are no longer local to me, I also feel immensely proud and delighted that Birmingham can offer such an amazing choice and service to beer and spirit fans – whether aficionados or newbies, they will find friendly faces happy to advise and converse in any of these three establishments, who are all moving the scene forward in their own unique ways. Visit, and enjoy!

Popstrami and beer in Stirchley

The Birmingham food and drink scene has really expanded in the past few years - mostly through the efforts of obsessives and enthusiasts taking matters into their own hands and doing it themselves - whether it's organising a street food event that's now a regular occurrence (@DigbethDiner), offering something new in wine shopping (@lokiwine), delis and food stores (@AndersonandHill) and bakeries (@YorksBakeryCafe), great coffee (@urbancoffeeco and @SixEightKafe), improving and adding to the beer range in bars (@TheVictoria), nurturing fantastic craft beer off licences (@StirchleyWines and @CotteridgeWines) or bringing ramen to the people (Minmin Noodles). These are just some prominent examples, and as a result I've been able to try a wider range of foods and beer than seen before in Birmingham, and make some new discoveries.

The start of December saw a Popstrami pop-up event take place in Stirchley, at the recently opened Loaf Community Bakery and Cookery School, which brought something new to the city – in the guise of the “Breuben” – a Brummie take on the Reuben sandwich which is most famously found in Katz’s New York Deli, but I’ve seen appearing on London-based food blogs in recent months too - succulent, eye-wateringly thick-filled meaty delights.

The team behind Popstrami all have solid gourmet credentials and are scarily passionate about what they do – Tom runs Loaf and has revitalised the food scene in Stirchley, with a vegetarian co-operative shop Stirchley Stores operating alongside his bakery premises; Dom works the night shift at the bakery, turning out inventive baked goods at an alarming rate; Nick is a home-smoking and curing obsessive and writes food blog Smoke and Umami; and Lap is the “Rebuen sandwich fascist” who carries out all manner of impressive cooking feats (smoking an eel from scratch being one he’s recently written up). They’ve collaborated before in various combinations – including a previous Popstrami pop-up American Deli event at Leverton & Halls in Bournville, and the Backyard Brummie barbeque team participating in Grillstock in Bristol.

So when I heard via Twitter that they were hosting another Popstrami event, I was keen to get down there and enjoy some good foods. This would take the format of a set menu for £10 published in advance: Jewish chicken soup with giant matzoh ball; (B)Reuben with pickles; Baked cheesecake to finish.

Even better that the event was Bring Your Own and Loaf HQ is just 5 minutes down the road from Stirchley Wines, meaning I could pick up some decent beers to complement the foods. I think Krishan did a fine trade that night as several people in attendance had clearly visited to browse his shelves and choose some beers to bring with them, including a group collecting a crate of Aventinus!

On walking in I was greeted by a room full of friendly faces and Nick ladling the unctuous, bubbling chicken broth into cups, and dolloping in a matzoh ball and a sprig of dill. He handed it to me with a grin, declaring "it's rich with chicken fat!" - and slurping it was like an enveloping hug as you warmed up from the sub-zero temperatures outside. The dill cut through the fattiness with a bright aniseed note, while the matzoh gave a bit of texture to chew on.

Then there was a wait with anticipation for the Breuben to be prepared - we each had numbered tickets, and our number would be called from the end of the production line once the order was ready. Here, Lap, Dom and Tom worked the line - first preparing the layers of meat onto rye bread, then adding sauerkraut and Swiss cheese, and finally some "special sauce", before the outsides of the bread were brushed with melted butter, and it was cooked on a griddle until nicely toasted, and the cheese had melted a little to hold the whole thing together. Then it was cut in two, arranged so you could appreciate the sheer amount of meat filling it was stuffed with, and served with Nick's homemade pickles - salt-cured, naturally fermented gherkins preserved in both a half-sour and a 3/4 sour marinade (depending on the length of time they'd been curing for), and pickled radishes.


I carried mine off to the seating area and pulled up a chair beside others who were digging in, and opened the first of my beers - I'd picked a Brooklyn East India Pale Ale to go with the Breuben, needing something fairly hoppy to cut through the fat and salt richness, but not so hoppy that it would compete on my tastebuds. I saw other diners had gone for a similar tactic - John from BrewDog Birmingham had chosen the same beer as me, and another chap had a bottle of Stone Levitation Ale, while others opted for crisp German lagers.

 


The Breuben itself was pure indulgent deliciousness - I couldn't help but close my eyes at times while eating it as it was just such a pleasurable, meaty experience, with the pickles providing a great contrast with their crunch and slight sourness, and the generous amount of brined, spiced, smoked ox cheek pastrami providing a big kick of flavour and with a meltingly flaky texture - this was like "beef bacon" according to Dom, but the expression doesn't quite capture it's succulence. The meat would almost have been over-flavoured (if such a thing is possible!) if it hadn't been for the other elements of sauerkraut, sauce and cheese dampening it down a bit and making this a great combination between the lightly crunchy, toasted bread. I was so sorry when my sandwich ended that I almost considered buying another, but I knew I'd not manage the cheesecake if I did, so consoled myself by chatting to other attendees about how amazing a sandwich this was, while I finished off my EIPA.

After a while, I was ready to seek out dessert - this was a cheesecake flecked through with vanilla, and ingeniously baked in foil 'takeaway' cartons, which could then be cut in half diagonally to give two portions. This was not too sweet and had a buttery biscuit base, with a dollop of spiced apple compote on top to lift it slightly. I paired this with a Mikkeller Wheat Is The New Hops,  with it's fresh grassiness enlivening the mouth - wheat providing flavour without the high levels of bitterness found in hoppy beers, making it a good foil to a sweeter dish.

Ox cheek pastrami

As I hung around afterwards chatting and finishing my beer, I did spy one attendee deciding to have seconds on every menu item - that's clearly how good it all was - and as the event didn't quite sell out (I feel sorry for those who didn't make it, though it was an exceptionally cold night), I was lucky enough to have another Breuben made up for me, to take home and have for breakfast the next day, and also to buy a generous portion of the ox cheek pastrami, which I used over the next few days to make my own amateur versions of a Reuben at home.

This was an excellent event to have ventured out to the Birmingham suburbs for, on a cold winter night, and great to have a source of good beers nearby too, to make the experience complete. I would imagine the @Popstrami and Backyard Brummie team will have more events in the pipeline for 2013 - keep an eye out for them on Twitter so you can partake of the meaty goodness too!

And for much better pics of the food and event, check out @ysl807's great photos here.

Irish Dark Beers & Stout Stew

On a recent visit to Ireland, suitcase space was limited for picking up some beer to bring home from the burgeoning microbrewery scene there, and shopping time was scarce. So having to make a snap decision while in Probus Beers near Trinity College, I decided to just pick up a couple of Irish dark beers, that I could bring back and have in a kind of “compare and contrast “ session over one evening with other similar beers I could source in England.

To go with the beers I wanted to try cooking some beef-in-stout stew. I haven't made this before (using sausage for stew is the preferred recipe going back generations in our family for some reason, probably war years austerity!), but I do love a good plate of warming stew; it's something you can find in many cafes, bars and coffee shops in Northern Ireland, but not often in England (although apparently @newinnharborne do a winter stew on their current menu). So I dug out a likely recipe, bought in some good quality beef from Harborne Village Butchers, and found an afternoon with plenty of time to get the stew slow cooking in the oven and the beers lined up to drink.

The first up was Knockmealdown porter from @8degreesbrewing, a micro that started in 2011 – I hadn't had much by this brewery before so was interested to try their dark beer. At first I realised I'd left it a little too long in the fridge and needed to let it warm up for a bit once poured, but once that had happened more aroma was released – and I was surprised to find a slightly sour note in this – reminded me a bit of Orval, mixed in with some coffee-ish scents. The lactiness was evident also in the taste, and I'm not sure was meant to be there (later batches of this beer have been described as having a sweetish finish); it wasn't unpleasant, but left me feeling unsure of how this beer should “actually” taste.

 

Next I poured the Guinness Export – this had more tartness & bitterness than I was expecting, as I thought it may be more smooth and roasty. I had used this in the stew as it was the right size bottle for the recipe, readily available in England, and I didn't want to use one of the beers I'd brought back from Dublin in the cooking, otherwise I wouldn't get the chance to properly taste them! I was expecting to like this beer a little more than I did but it was pleasant enough without being particularly exciting.

While drinking this, I served up the stew that was finally ready after several hours cooking – thankfully the beef was by now really tender and tasty and the liquid absorbed. The meat flavours had a slightly more bitter note than I'd expected, so I may choose to use a very slightly sweeter stout when I make this dish again. I wished I had some Irish wheaten bread to go with it, but hadn't had time to hunt some down in the shops of Birmingham so crusty bread and some ground black pepper would have to do. After some research, I had settled on this recipe and was pleased with the results.

Once we'd had the stew, we moved on to the O'Hara's Irish Stout (brewed by Carlow) – again procured from Probus – and this delivered much more of what I was expecting and hoping for. Sweet roasts on the nose, like a rich filter coffee with a touch of cream and sugar. That lovely coffee bean note was carried over into the flavour, with a silky mouthfeel, but wasn't overpowering – making this more of a 'pintable' stout for enjoyable everyday drinking than something you'd sip with reverence – but I liked it very much for that aspect and would hope to encounter this on draught somewhere next time I'm in Dublin.

 

I then wanted to try the Irish Stout that Carlow Brewing Co produce for Marks and Spencer. Initially I thought this may be the same beer as the O'Hara's Irish Stout, but Carlow informed me they are actually different beers, and this was obvious once I'd poured it. It was much lighter in the mouth and on flavour than the previous beer, with a slight effervescence. The pronounced roastiness wasn't there, but the hint of smooth sweetness made this easy drinking, although not that memorable. Not a bad beer, but not a particularly distinctive one either.

Last of the night was the bottle-conditioned Porterhouse Celebration Stout – this is a beer they produced as a one-off originally, to celebrate their 10^th Anniversary, but I now believe is produced every year as they realised it was quite popular. Although there was no year of production on this bottle, and it's 'best before' date was November 2012, I suspect it was fairly recently made and would have benefited perhaps from keeping for a while. But it can be difficult to take the gamble of ageing on a beer you don't know that well, so better to drink it and then you can judge if you'd be better storing it, the next time you get hold of a bottle. While this didn't have the full-on richness I'd experienced the first time I'd tasted this beer a few years ago, it certainly had a velvety texture on the palate, bitter roasts and sweet, woody liquorice notes. A worthy nightcap, though I couldn't help wondering what other delights this beer would have yielded up, given a bit of time resting in the beer cupboard first.

An enjoyable evening trying a few new beers with a theme and learning to cook a new dish – my overall vote for the evening would go to the Carlow O'Hara's stout, and I do hope to find bottled and draught versions of this side by side next time I'm across the sea, for more of a comparison and dark beer session!

Holdens ales and Chamberlains hospitality

Chamberlains is a fish & chip restaurant in the west of Birmingham – along the Hagley Road – and in the past 20 months since it's been open has gained a great reputation for it's quality food, enthusiastic welcome, and the many different events they run, such as gluten free evenings, '2 for £10' Tuesdays, and charity lunches.

When I'd first visited, back in February, I really enjoyed the food but felt there was one thing lacking – some good Black Country bitter to go with it. I suggested to Simon, the co-owner, that Holdens would be a good match, knowing they had a range of traditional bitters and golden ales in bottles that might suit various tastes, and suggested they perhaps just try a case or two and see what their customers thought. I didn't realise at the time that the Holdens site was just a few miles up the road, and is in fact the nearest brewery to Chamberlains, making this a perfect local partnership. Since then I've been back a few times to enjoy sampling their beers with a hearty meal, and other customers seem to have appreciated the beer choice too.

I found out via Twitter that Chamberlains would be holding a food and beer sampling event, including a meal and a Holdens beer for £10 on the night. I was very keen to go along to check out what was on offer, and I was long overdue some of their great battered fish anyway, so meeting Richard in town first we were soon on a bus (number 9 or 126 from the city centre) that would take us and our appetites almost to the door.

Once there, we met Lucie Holden, one of the Directors of this family brewery, and James Froggatt, who were pouring out samples of a range of their beers. This included several I am familiar with – the award-winning 3.9% Golden; the smooth and slightly floral Golden Glow (4.4%) - a particular favourite of mine; the 5.1% Special bitter, which is a bit weightier in mouthfeel; and the fantastic Mild with it's assertive nutty and bitter roasty flavours, that give way to a caramel and chocolate sweetness. I hadn't had the Mild in a while and had forgotten how rich this was in flavour. The bitters all have the distinctive Black Country flavour profile of a refreshing start ending with a smooth malty finish, very moreish.

Lucie introduced a few other products outside the core range. Firstly, in 2012 the brewers had embarked on a programme of monthly specials, on a theme of “Holdens Rock Gods”. Each month a new beer was produced for cask and bottle, with the brewers able to play around with different malt and hop combinations – mostly traditional English varieties – while artist Joe Goode designed labels celebrating the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Andrew Eldritch, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger and others. The bottle available to sample tonight was the August brew – Buffalo Soldier – named in honour of Bob Marley – which had a delicate citrus note. Next year, their specials will be named along the theme of World Leaders – so I'll be looking out for perhaps a few controversial heads of state popping up on the pump clips.

Next I tried this year's bottling of the Holden's Old Ale – a real winter warmer at 7.2%, which has been matured for at least two months in cold storage, although this example was over 8 months old. Lucie talked us through the process and said they had wanted to produce a beer for the end of the year, but didn't want to go down the route of a spiced ale. This won a Gold in the Champion Winter Ales category in 2011, and is complex with tannic notes giving way to raisiny fruits and a warming finish.

Photo from Richard

I was also surprised to see a Holdens own-label cider, called “Summat Else” at 4.5%, which was very drinkable; fruity but with a dry finish, and not over-carbonated like some other ciders sold by breweries. Lucie explained they wanted to sell a cider, but had taken their time choosing a small producer in Ledbury to create the perfect blend for them, with a definite bittersweet character to it. Richard was particularly taken with this, and very keen to plan a return visit so the Mussels in Holden's cider and cream sauce from Chamberlain's current menu could be tried too.

Holden's are currently brewing at capacity at 50,000 pints a week, and are currently working through expansion plans to double this, to keep their pub estate watered and to take advantage of their own bottling plant, which also contract-bottles for several other UK breweries. Hopefully brewery tours will start up once the expansion is complete, but in the meantime they have a new shop onsite, and the nearby brewery tap – the Park Inn, is open and serving the range of beers and pub meals.

Once we had worked our way through the beer samples, it was time to turn our attention to what Chamberlain's co-owner Dan, the chef, had to offer. This was an opportunity to try a range of flavours from their repertoire as a starter, before sitting down to our choice of fish and chip meals. Our plates included smoked salmon with cream cheese on melba toast and a pesto dressing, which was very flavoursome; delicate grilled plaice with black pepper; breaded haddock goujons; battered cod; and a light and delicious combination of tempura-battered hake with sauteed onions and zingy chilli slices, which I could have eaten all evening!

But it was time to relax and enjoy a proper plate of fish and chips – either haddock, plaice, cod or hake - and choose a Holdens beer to go with it. I'd normally have a Golden Glow but decided to go for the Special on this occasion, with the battered hake to go with it. This was on top form as usual, and I enjoyed helping Richard out with his enormous portion of haddock too. Afterwards I had a bottle of the lovely Mild for 'dessert', and picked up some of the Old Ale to take home with me.

When I came to pay, Simon came over to say he had waived the cost of my meal, as a thanks for supporting them and suggesting they stock Holdens – but I hope they are the ones picking up the thanks from customers now enjoying the benefits of two local and family businesses combining their efforts and making this a 'destination' restaurant where you can relax with a choice of Black Country beers during and after your meal.

Coffee Beer Taste-Off

I unfortunately have a predeliction for beer hoarding – gathering up interesting looking stuff from travels around the world, supermarkets, online and the two excellent Birmingham beer shops of @StirchleyWines and @CotteridgeWines, and then hanging on to them for ages in my beer cupboard until the right 'opportunity' arises to drink them. Now and again I'll have a bit of a poke around to see what's lurking in there, and if some kind of theme emerges, perhaps it will prompt me into a spate of 'drinking up'.

The line-up

On a recent Saturday, I realised I’d acquired quite a few coffee beers in the cupboard, and after a great supper of steak-frites, some after-dinner coffee beers seemed like a good fit. This would allow me to compare and contrast them, to see which had elements I liked and what made a ‘good’ coffee beer in terms of my personal taste.

It felt some kind of food accompaniment was called for, and a ponder on Twitter led to @simonhjohnson suggesting vanilla cheesecake as a good match; so with cake supplies purchased, @dave_car ready to help out with the drinking, and the beers lined up, we commenced sampling:

Traditional Scottish Ales - Double Espresso 6%

It would seem this beer is made for the export market, with labelling on the back in different languages and “Premio Caffé Birra” on the front, and the label is a stylish matte black with gold embossing. As soon as the bottle was opened a good whiff of coffee and dark chocolate ganache was released. It poured very dark and opaque. In the glass, more chocolate sweetness came out in the aroma but there’s a tiny hint of something else – something slightly artificial like pots of ‘non-diary creamer’. The taste was disappointing compared to the initial aromas, a little thin and watery, but at least no bitter unpleasantness. It was smooth enough but just not much depth, body or finish.

 

Batemans – Mocha 6%
Oddly this was very fizzy when first poured into the glass. Mid-brown in colour, it didn’t have a lot of discernible aroma, especially when compared to the previous beer. However it’s ‘lightness’ in comparison perhaps made it a little more gluggable, if not particularly outstanding flavour-wise. But if you wanted a lighter-style beer with hints of coffee rather than something heavy, this would fit the bill.


Hitachino Nest - Espresso Stout 7.5%
This is produced by the Kiuchi Brewery in Japan, and was brought back from our trip there in April 2011. I don’t mind admitting I have a soft spot in my heart for this beer, as it was the first ever ji-biiru I tasted when @dave_car brought me back a bottle from an earlier trip to the US. I like the description, there's just something about the wording: “This espresso stout is brewed using well-roasted espresso beans. The recipe is based on the imperial Stout loved by the Russian Emperor. Please enjoy the balance of its rich taste and coffee flavour” – the last sentence in particular making me think of Bill Murray's Suntory advert for some reason.

The label states “Scadenza: Nov 2012” which I imagine means “use by” in Italian, so it was appropriate to get on with drinking it now rather than further hoarding. It seemed to me that standing around in a darkened cupboard for a while had brought out vinous notes in it, almost a hint of barrel-aging character. The coffee was more muted on the nose, but it was still there subtly in its full-bodied rich roasty flavour – not as much perhaps as a younger version of the beer, but I savoured the increased structure that had come through with time, and the subtle blending of roast malt, coffee, sweetness, wine and oakey tones.

Homebrew – Coffee Stout (about 4.5%?)
This was a bottle from our own homebrew kit – our first attempt at bottling (from the Dark Beer Drink-Off preparations) and had been stored for around 6 months. We had used a Coopers Premium Irish Stout kit, and modified it with a litre of fresh-brewed coffee in the FV, and had been really pleased with how it turned out at the time, drinking most of it fresh from the barrel with only a few Grolsch-top bottles stored. Just in case, I opened this one carefully in the sink – and it was a bit of a gusher – but thankfully only a little beer was lost. It quickly calmed down and was slightly effervescent in the glass, but not in a bad way. Compared to the taste when it was first made, I felt it could do with more vanilla and sweetness, as the sugars had fermented out leaving it quite dry in bottle. But it still had a smooth coffee character with a hint of roast bitterness, and was very pleasant to drink – it seemed like a competent enough attempt when in comparison with the other beers we’d had that evening.

Dark Star – Espresso 4.2%
 
I’ve had this beer (and loved it) in cask several times, but not had a bottle in years. It had a much sweeter milk-chocolate nose than I was expecting, and did have a full, silky mouthfeel, but disappointingly less coffee than I remember it having. As it came into contact with the air more aroma was released, but it still didn't give the depth of flavour I thought I’d experienced in it previously – maybe this is one where the cask version holds all the cards? I’ll certainly be looking out for it on cask over the next few months to try out that theory.




Each coffee beer was quite different to the others, and it was a push to get back to some more homebrewing, to find that our own-made beer (albeit from kit) wasn’t too far off the mark from the commercial offerings tasted. I think my favourite would firmly rest with the Hitachino Nest though – the ‘accidental’ aging gave it the most interesting and complex flavours of the night; perhaps there is something to be said for hoarding after all!