An evening of beer and charcuterie at the Beer Boutique

Posted on 30 December 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

Beer and pig, what could be better? Well, smoked beer and smoked pig perhaps? We’ll come to that later. Mid-December, thoughts of Christmas shopping on hold, we go to Putney for a small ticketed event at the craft beer shop, Beer Boutique.

The evening was organised with The Charcuterie Board and Moons Green, passionate British artisan producer of everything piggy. Quite a broad group of people from beer lovers, pig lovers (no tittering at the back) and people fancying a good evening. Nice simple format with Beer Boutique Max introducing beer and meat men introducing the meat, eating and drinking our way through six beers and six different meats.

What Max lacks in beer and brewing knowledge he more than makes up for with enthusiasm, adrenaline and genuine passion. This worked well because it broke the ice and people weren’t afraid to ask questions. Most of all it was a fun evening, no beer geekery or po-faced tasting.

The beers were all classics and the charcuterie was both beautiful and plentiful.

We kicked off with Sam Smith’s Winter Welcome and marmalade glazed ham. Both relatively undemanding but simple and classic. The slightly bocky paired well with ham glaze and neither dominated.

Saison Dupont and English saucisson sec came next. The taste of the farmyard and a perfect marriage, a really successful pairing. This classic saison has a straw flavour which matched will with the earthy pig in a charcuterie board staple.

Most adventurous on both counts were Rule of Thirds (Siren/Beavertown/Magic Rock collaboration) and guanciale, that’s cured pig cheek to you. The beer was a very good IPA but given the stellar contributors not great and the guanciale was nice, a fine way to use cheeks. Personally a straight heavily hopped Citra or Cascade with a slice of lardo might have been better. The bitter IPA cutting the high fat is a fine principle though.

Westmalle Dubbel paired venison and wild boar salami. Malty and complex, the beer held up superbly against the rich venison. Keep eating, keep drinking and layers of flavour keep coming through.

Duchesse de Bourgogne paired with rosemary bresaola. The beer, a Flanders red ale aged in oak casks, is one of my all time favourites but pairing it with charcuterie was always going to be difficult. Both beer and meat were superb. As a pairing, average.

Schlenkerla Märzen and hot smoked bacon. Do I need to say more? Rauchbiers are often described as having the smell and taste of bacon, and the Schlenkerla is the one against which they are all judged. Hot smoking of bacon is a clever twist on something we all love. Lovely.

What a great evening! I’ll say it again both the beers and charcuterie were superb. No geekery, no pretentiousness. Only disappointment was that the charcuterie was not for sale and not easily available to the public. I really hope that this is the first of many such evenings. Sign me up now.

What’s Brewing, November 2014 – Agony Column

Posted on 16 December 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

I do my best to help the troubled letter writers to What’s Brewing. After last months letter from MH of Axminster (Pubs being turned into crèches), it’s official, Children are the new battleground!

On which side is CAMRA going to come down?

JG of Glasgow believes that MH infers that children should be banned from all public places! On the other hand perhaps she would like to see beer served in crèches – now there’s an idea!

PS of Nottingham applauds the zero tolerance approach of some landlords. He is right in blaming the parents though.

PJS of Wandsworth tackles the Berliner Weisse questions raised by Roger Protz and suggests a small Berlin brewery. Of course there are numerous good British Berliner Weisses nowadays but they are not ‘real ale’, it’s ok to drink the Berlin brewed ones because…?

DS of Chelmsford is back, happy to be perceived as a ‘dead horse flogger’ in this nation of animal lovers! 1970’s style beer is hard to find, of brands that are still available the keg beers have generally improved, whereas some of the cask beers have in some cases got worse (viz. Young’s Special and many more) – think on.

Birrificio Italiano at the Finborough Arms

Posted on 1 December 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

The unprepossessing Finborough Arms

A pub on the Finborough Road, Earl’s Court, so far so bad. Add a theatre, a great keg and cask selection, and a proper landlord who just happens to know one of the leading lights of the Italian craft brewing scene – hooked. So a tap takeover and meet the brewer by Birrificio Italiano at the Finborough Arms was a no-brainer for your correspondent.

Agostino Arioli, Birrificio Italiano

Agostino Arioli of Birrificio Italiano is one of the best known Italian brewers (one of 850 commercial breweries now!). In common with other brewing luminaries he preached freshness. I agree, having tasted beer straight out of the tank at breweries you get so much more flavour. Also Agostino doesn’t like to filter, I’m not convinced about this, I can see the theory of leaving everything in the beer but can also see the sense in stabilising it somewhat.

There were six beers on keg and once the theatre crowd had dispersed Agostino gave a talk. The epitome of Italian class and cool, it was entertaining and informative. My rather incomprehensive notes on the beers follow,

Tipopils – Not many wise people would disagree with landlord Jeff Bell’s choice of this for his house lager. A classic.

Imperial Pils – Comparatively weak at 5.8% by the standards of modern Imperial versions but this is another long standing B.I. beer. A substantial, full flavoured beer.

B.I. Weizen – Big banana hit! Not so spicy but a sipping hefeweizen.

La Piccola – My note on this one just says ‘Bonkers’. I seem to remember it was a good bonkers. It’s a light saison with added Sichuan pepper that gives that weird umami thing going on in a beer. I’m pleased with my one word summary.

Bibock – Quite dry for a bock, a good thing imho. A classy drink.

Nigredo – Saved for last, a black IPA, it ran out!

So this isn’t the site for long flowery descriptions of beers but there are three take home messages from this evening.

Birrificio Italiano beers are seriously well made, seriously good beers – drink them where you find them. Plan your next Italian holiday around a trip to a brewery.

Finborough Arms – don’t be fooled by the location. Landlord, beer selection and quality, food, theatre, events make this a proper good pub. If you want a quiet drink don’t go there on Chelsea matchdays though.

Quality not quantity – you don’t need 300 ho-hum best bitters and make a festival out of it. Half a dozen quality beers of interesting styles is a lot more fun.

Venue:                  7/10
Beer selection:      8/10
Beer quality:         8.5/10
Atmosphere:          8.5/10
A good night out:   9/10
Total score:            41/50, 82%

Craft 100 at Craft Beer Co., Clapham

Posted on 11 November 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

Admirable idea to get 100 artisanal beers in a nice pub like Craft Beer Co., Clapham. But therein lies the rub. It’s always going to be a victim of its own success. So get there early on a weekday. Also the crowd, or lack of it, is much more diverse than the beer geekery who descend in the evening.

Twenty six beers in the launch/exclusive/collab section meant that you were tempted not to look further – and I’m not sure I did. The International Rainbow Project beers were still around at this time and for me the Wild Beer/Toccalmatto collab was unmissable, Indigo Child was as good as I’d expected, marvellous balance and depth.

It’s a nice venue, astroturf garden at the front and the back, where they put the cask beers and some interesting food, dosas on this occasion. (Stick with craft pork pies and sausage rolls imho). By the evening the place is heaving though, making it unpleasant.

Kernel’s Glen Garioch Barrel Aged Stout was the usual impeccable quality. Am I alone in thinking that Kernel’s real strength is in paler beers. Their IPA and Pale Ales are the nonpareil of British brewing. The Berliner Weisse is a lovely re-addition to the British scene. But the stouts, mmm, they are good, only. (NB Don’t bother looking for a description of the beer on the Kernel site, they don’t do that stuff, uncool maybe?).

Following the path less trendy, Kent Brewery’s Pumpkin Saison was lovely. Spicy, sweet in a good way, nice. You’ll have to take my word for that as it’s disappeared from their website now.

It’s a ‘festival’ that you have to go to for the great and rare beer – but get there early.

Venue:                 7/10
Beer selection:        8.5/10
Beer quality:          8/10
Atmosphere:            8/10
A good night out:      7/10
Total score:           40/50, 80%

What’s Brewing, October 2014 – Agony Column

Posted on 5 October 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

I do my best to help the troubled writers to What’s Brewing. But first, let’s be serious for a moment.

To quote from Pete Brown on the front page, “…a growing understanding of real ale as a crafted product…” – so we are only a short step away from saying that real ale is craft beer. Then CAMRA can say that craft beer is a good thing taken with a pickled curate’s egg of course? The sensible side of CAMRA is slowly finding it’s voice. Perhaps it realises that embracing some the beers that currently don’t conform it will gain more new converts than it will lose old diehards.

Now, the letters,

BY of Rochester doesn’t own a computer and blames the fact that he is of an elder age group. Sorry. No. You have had 20 years to come to terms with computers. Being of pensionable age means you get free courses and there is always the public library. For all but an impoverished few not using computer technology is a lifestyle choice. Lower processing costs make discounts for online ordering a sensible choice.

SB of Radlett is horrified that the Cyclops scheme is supporting lagers. It is clearly discredited and “will only cause confusion about what CAMRA stands for”. Heaven forbid that CAMRA stands for good beer or lager for that matter.

GB of Milford is disappointed that microbreweries keep changing their offering. So that’s an all year saison, a heavy with the barbie and a golden ale on a freezing winters day then. I guess he buys his asparagus from Peru all year round too.

And finally, a really excellent star letter, from MH of Axminster complaining about pubs being converted into crèches, now that’s a campaign I can support.

Greene King Craft, really?

Posted on 28 September 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

Greene King Craft beer. Oh dear. You know this isn’t going to end well. Let’s start by accentuating the positives. Greene King are one of the band of British regional brewers who helped keep real ale alive in the seventies. Abbott Ale had a deservedly strong following (though I never thought it a great traveller and like many others is nowadays rather anodyne by comparison).

Since then Greene King IPA has morphed into the Watneys Red Barrel de nos jours, Greene King have absorbed and closed other smaller regional breweries. They sit in marketing no man’s land between the big brewers and genuine regionals.

There is obviously plenty of heritage at Greene King with beers like the fine 5X Barleywine which is also used as a base in some other beer. However the marketing people have seen the craft beer revolution and thought this is the bandwagon for us. They have carefully noted the names of all these new fangled hops but have clearly neither tasted the beers or taken any note of the quantities needed to achieve these flavours.

Whether by accident or design the Belhaven offering is much better and sticks to its roots better. It is a much more convincing marketing and taste proposition.

Yardbird Pale Ale, 4.2% – Bright, refreshing pale ale with a hoppy finish. Bright and refreshing possibly, hoppy finish no, over carbonated yes. Full of hops and with a lasting fruity flavour, Yardbird is inspired by the bold American pale ales. Full of hops no, they could definitely have squeezed more in. Inspired in the sense that the bold American pale ales sell well and this is a bandwagon Greene King would like to jump on.

Noble Lager, 5.0% – Brewed with the tettnang hop to produce a crisp, light & aromatic finish. Brewed with an echt hop yes. Nothing wrong with it but extremely unremarkable. Samuel Adams Boston Lager uses the US clone of this hop and is produced on a much larger scale but is far superior.

Double Hop Monster IPA, 7.2% – Late hopped for maximum aroma & a refreshingly bitter finish. Oh dear. It is not a double hop monster, have these people never tasted a real double hop monster? What were they thinking?

Belhaven Scottish Oat Stout, 7.0% – Deep dark intense. Drink at room temperature. This is the type of thing they should be brewing. It’s a bit lacking in depth of flavour for the alcohol content but it’s all right. I wouldn’t mind a bottle of this in a Greene King pub given the other fare on offer.

Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA, 5.6% – Bold bitter juicy. Amazingly an accurately description! Very much a ~~English~~ British IPA though it uses Challenger, Cascade and Hersbrucker. The flavours though are more hedgerow berries and the bitterness not face melting. It is really juicy, each mouthful leaves me salivating. This beer has gown on me and definitely breaches the ‘half-decent’ barrier.

What were the marketing department thinking of? Who were they trying to sell to? Hard to imagine. They have chosen to jump on the ‘craft’ bandwagon, compare and contrast with Guinness who have gone the heritage route with their new porters.

The beer geek – laughed out of court
The old bloke in the pub – why would he choose these?
The girls night out – uncool
The supermarket bottle drinker – just maybe for a change, but no repeat.
The ‘interested’ drinker – if the ‘interested’ drinker has discovered craft beer then this will be a severe disappointment

If I was in a large pubco pub in Scotland then I might have a Belhaven, that’s the best I can say.

Eagle eyed readers will be wondering where the reviews from Intoxicated Shep are. I did give him some bottles but didn’t seek his review on this occasion. It could have turned nasty.

Disclosure: I ‘won’ 4 cases of these beers at a draw at the excellent Imbibe exhibition but I was not asked to write about them. I have suffered for free so you don’t have to pay to find out.