Is it a champagne? Is it a sparkling wine? No, it's a beer!
Need a celebratory gift for a beer lover? Someone who won’t thank you for a bottle of champagne’s finest? Look no further. Those groovy guys at Adnams have come up with just the tipple.
Brewed to commemorate 350 years of brewing at the current site, Sole Bay is a 75cl, 10% Belgian-style beer that arrives chicly disguised as a sparkling wine, complete with tin.
Champion Beer of Britain brewer Adrian Redgrove, receiving the trophy from Roger Protz for his Harvest Mild
Wondering whether to head to CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court this year? My advice – Go. More than once if you can. Because I bet there’ll be more you want to try than you manage on your first trip.
This year’s event is as awesome as ever, and I use that word in its truest sense. Having been there yesterday for the opening trade day, I’m not surprised 47,000 pints were sold. With over 700 real ales, ciders & perries including a strong foreign contingent, it is a drinker’s paradise.
Take a peak at life on the ocean wave
With a million people expected to watch the 100 Tall Ships cross the finishing point as they sail into Hartlepool, Black Sheep will be the pint being poured in The Village, between PD Ports Victoria Harbour and Hartlepool Marina. With activities running from morn till dusk, from 7 to 10 August, visitors can not only watch the action, but go on board the ships and meet the captains and crew.
See Tall Ships 2010 for more information.
Hampshire’s Food Festival is heading towards the half-way mark, but don’t let the word “food” put you off – there’s more than a few liquid events included on its list of activities.
Take Wickham Vineyards in Shedley for example, halfway along the coast from Southampton to Portsmouth. In the news this year for buying some of the former wine shops from the now defunct First Quench chain, it continues with its original business – an 18-acre vineyard complete with celebrity chef, Atul Kochar’s out-of-town restaurant, Vatika.
Working in a bar or restaurant and want to expand your beer horizons? Garrett Oliver, brewmaster for New York’s legendary Brooklyn Brewery will be speaking at Imbibe 2010 on Tuesday afternoon at Earls Court.
While you are there, check out the Hop & Apple Garden for a few other fruit and cereal-derived tipples. Taste your way around the globe, from Shepherd Neame’s iconic Spitfire Ale via a medley of world beers from adventurous suppliers like James Clay, continue reading…
All the fun of the fair
Those of you within striking distance of Hampshire have a fun month ahead. Hampshire Food Festival returns for its tenth appearance throughout July.
With everything from watercress workshops to wine tasting, events kick off in earnest this weekend.
Head to Portsmouth for the Gunwharf Quays Festival, where the star turn will be Raymond Blanc in the food theatre, plus a 40-strong real ale festival, an Italian food market and regional food stalls. Open Fri-Sun.
If you are in Basingstoke, drop by Festival Place, where inimitable wine expert Olly Smith will be keeping chefs Ed Baines and John Burton Race chained to the stove for their cookery demos. Sat 3–Sun 4 July
The artisan innards of boutique brewery, Grain
A bit like the Easter Bunny, Tindall’s Summer Loving makes just one appearance a year and this year’s public sighting will be at Grain’s Summer Festival, Saturday 26 June.
Perfectly poised near the Suffolk / Norfolk border near the picturesque village of Alburgh (pronounced Arrbraa), Grain is one of East Anglia’s most go-ahead small breweries.
Brit Beer takes over at Tate Modern
Forget Brit Pop, it’s Brit Beer turning heads at the UK’s leading galleries. The Tate Modern is trialling an all-British beer list with a view to extending the concept to all its other bars and restaurants.
The 20-strong list reads like a Who’s Who of the new British beer movement, with Punk IPA and Paradox from Scots rebels, BrewDog, alongside Lovibonds’ summery wheat beer, Henley Gold, and Sambrook’s Wandle from up the Thames in Battersea. continue reading…
A restful finish to an exhilerating journey
Thousands of miles, hundreds of samples and dozens of fine people to chat to – oh yes, plus the odd windmill, shire horse, malting house and a working 110-year-old steam engine – all came to an end with a pint of Jennings’ Cumberland Ale overlooking Morecambe Bay in Cumbria.
Many months earlier, CAMRA’s Beer editor, Tom Stainer, had entrusted to me the task of tracking down the best breweries to visit around the country. Perhaps the biggest journalistic project I had undertaken, but certainly one of the most fulfilling.
And the results? You can see my baker’s dozen in the current issue of Beer, or take a look here, where you’ll also see a few extras that I just couldn’t leave out. There’s a few you’d expect – Fullers and Adnams – plus a number perhaps less well known outside their locality. The other result of my quest is that I became even more determined to launch www.drinkbritain.com
These places are too good to leave them to those in the know. As in my feature, drinkbritain.com will be showcasing those places where the quality of the welcome matches the quality of the product.
And if you know of somewhere that should be featured, tell them about drinkbritain.com or let me know and I’ll get in touch.
In the meantime – Cheers!
An eclectic selection on offer
On Friday an unusual art event took place at the Market Gallery on Duke Street, in the increasingly trendy Denistoun area of Glasgow (not far, in fact, from the lovely Coia’s Cafe). Eric Steen, a Portland, Oregon based artist whose work could be described as “Beer-as-art-and-social-activism” had recruited thirteen amateur brewers to present their best beers to the public, in the concluding evening of the Glasgow Beer and Pub Project, part of the biennial Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art.
The welcoming party
So the scene was set – an array of fine British drinks ready to welcome their French fromage shaped cousins. A little nervous perhaps. As our Vive le Cheese ambassador, food & wine writer, Katrina Alloway, had said, what grows together goes together. So were we attempting too much?
But, I reasoned, we Brits have never been shy about exploring. And there had been many interesting sightings from fellow flavour-nauts – the malt maestro himself, Dave Broom, broke off from finalising his World Atlas of Whisky to say that Lagavulin 16yo [a traditional smoke-fest from Islay] was ‘a killer’ with Roquefort.
A tweet exchange with thewinesleuth suggested that Astley’s late harvest sweetie – a new discovery for both of us at the recent English wine trade tasting – might go well with a light blue or crumbly goats cheese. Artisanal cidre is such a legendary cheese partner, it would be rude not to see if the affinity crosses the channel. And as for beer…
Make mine a pint
It’s arrived! The 2010 National Cask Ale Week is open for business, with 100s if not 1000s of pubs – and more than a few breweries – seeking to refresh our glasses with something rather fine.
That other ingredient of the good life, music, makes a number of guest appearances, and ladies are particularly well catered for on April 1 – the number of women drinkers has doubled in the last year alone, and surveys suggest that nearly half of women who try cask ale carry on indulging in the real thing. As advocates of speaking to the people that really matter, the number of Meet the Brewer events is truly heartening. Finally, if you throw in some fun contests plus a few week-long local beer festivals, odds are it’s going to be a fun time. continue reading…
Shiny, happy microbrewery in The Old Brewery
Beer is being brewed again at one of Britain’s most naval historic spots. Following a 140-year hiatus, the Meantime Brewing Company is fermenting once more on the site of the old Royal Naval Hospital’s brewery.
Linking seamlessly with Discover Greenwich, the newly opened visitor centre for the Old Royal Naval College site, Meantime’s The Old Brewery will be responsible for beers both ancient and modern. Its shiny copper brewkit stands smartly to attention in one corner of the café/bar complex.
a hop in a bush is worth two on a pole
In tests, six out of 10 preferred the bitter made with the National Hop Association’s new trial dwarf hop, with nearly 90% recommending that it should go onto further trials.
The world’s first dwarf hop with bittering as well as aromatic qualities was put through its paces at the Society of Independent Brewers’ Annual Conference earlier this month in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Being roughly half the height of conventional hops – up to 18 feet – dwarf varieties offer a much easier harvesting prospect plus pesticide savings of up to 50%. They grow as a large hedge rather than needing complex, costly wire stringing systems as a means of support, making them easier to plant and maintain. continue reading…
Beer will be on the menu in more ways than one at London’s newest hostelries, The Old Brewery, courtesy of award-winning Greenwich brewers, Meantime. As well as classic combos such as oysters and stout, dishes under discussion include smoked salmon cured in Meantime IPA and pale ale-braised neck of mutton. Even desserts throw up a dilemma: lemon tart with Kent hop-infused meringue or Meantime Chocolate Porter sorbet?
Opening in late March, The Old Brewery forms part of Discover Greenwich, the £6m redevelopment of the Old Royal Naval College into a maritime cultural and educational complex. Café by day and bistro by night, the adjoining bar will also house the beer bottle and glass collections of the original beer hunter, the late Michael Jackson. continue reading…
