Early summer ales

Crack some coriander seeds and they release a pungent, spicy aroma with surprising citrus notes of orange, lemon and lime. Add some dried orange peel (careful now, the pith is bitter) and chuck the lot in the copper just as you're finishing the boil on a pale wort (a wort containing 30% malted wheat and hopped to a low bitterness level). Throw armfuls of soft, fruity Perle hops in afterwards (perhaps some Saaz hops too), cool and ferment warm with an ale yeast.

Cask condition the beer and enjoy it, served cool, on warm, sultry afternoons when you should be at work. Watch the world go by. Relax.

Feel better?

Good.



SHESELLS SEASHELLS, with its pale straw colour and clean (Northern Brewer) bitterness, starts as if it might be a lager style beer. But then the zesty, juicy Cascade hops kick in and you know you've got a thirst quenching summer ale in your hand. And a straightforward, easy drinking one at that.

Obviously local weather conditions ensure these beers are suitable most of the year and we only stick to form for the sake of our poor customers who live inland, where it's cold and raining for much of the year.

Fresh Stuff

We've new stock from our mates in Sussex, Somerset & London Town. It's classy stuff you know.

We've picked these up along the way so there's no transport costs, or middlemen, or any other unnecessary premium on the price; they're terribly good value.

********update**********

This week's promotion runs until 1pm Saturday, the 5th of June. Moor, Dark Star & Kernel - 4 for the price of 3 (least expensive free). It's the perfect chance to get acquainted with these micro-heroes.

The politics of size

Microeconomics is no small beer - Financial Times Letters
Published: May 18 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 18 2010 03:00
From Mr Stephen Pugh.

Sir, Martin Wolf argues that the former prime minister was less to blame than some have suggested for the UK’s economic plight (“The economic legacy of Mr Brown”, May 14). It is quite plausible that another administration might have done little better. Mr Wolf’s focus is on macroeconomic failure, but I believe that it is in microeconomics where Gordon Brown failed where others might not have done.

The undeniable truth that markets do not always create an optimal outcome was taken by Mr Brown as an excuse to regulate and tinker to an unprecedented extent, often with unforeseen consequences.

An example from my own industry is the introduction of “small breweries’ relief” in 2002. The taxpayer now provides a small brewer producing around 5,000 hectolitres of beer with an annual duty subsidy of about £170,000 (and even more for those brewing stronger beers). The relief is so highly tailored to the small brewer that those brewing slightly more are likely to be in the position that even if they could brew their beer for nothing, their duty bill would still make them more expensive than a microbrewer.

I hope that the incoming government is less prone to believe that microeconomic changes will inevitably improve the operation of markets and if George Osborne is looking for some savings I have a suggestion ...

Stephen Pugh,
Finance Director,
Adnams PLC,
Sole Bay Brewery,
Southwold, Suffolk, UK

********************************************************
Dear Stephen,

“The relief is so highly tailored to the small brewer that those brewing slightly more are likely to be in the position that even if they could brew their beer for nothing, their duty bill would still make them more expensive than a microbrewer.”

That suggests a micro-brewer is capable of brewing beer with a non-duty cost of brewing below £55 per barrel. It simply isn’t possible, not from where I’m sitting.

I’m not close minded to the various arguments but there is a distinct lack of data from which to work. If you’d like to suggest to SIBA that we form a working group to look analytically at the situation I’d fully support it and push to be involved. We can’t continue throwing the debate backwards and forwards without evidence.

Let’s hope George Osborne chooses not to take up your advice in the meantime for it will result in the closing of a bright, successful local business (in an area that is desperately short of such) and the loss of 4 full time jobs.

Regards

Eddie

Eddie Gadd
The Ramsgate Brewery Ltd
1 Hornet Close
Pyson's Road Ind Est
Broadstairs
Kent CT10 2YD
01843 868453
07967 660060

Be a Judge

Blind tasting and judging at a well organised beer competition is great fun. Six to eight of you sit round a table assessing samples of beer one at a time, discussing fairly straightforward attributes such as clarity and aroma, and subsequently marking them according to your own judgement. It isn't difficult, you don't need to be an expert, just keen and intelligent enough to be fair minded. Judges are drawn from a diverse pool, ensuring a spectrum from expert to novice is present at each table - the experts explaining the process and the rest just getting on with it and having a laugh. There's plenty of room within that spectrum for beer bloggers too.

The South East Society of Independent Brewers is holding its annual Beer Competition at the South East Beer Festival in Tonbridge, Kent, on Friday the 16th of July this summer. In a marquee on the local sports ground (the Juddians Rugby Club) around 120 beers, from 30 or so breweries based in the South East, will be judged during lunchtime by about 100 keen assessors. Following the judging, which takes a couple of hours, and whilst the scores on the doors are totalled up behind the scenes, the judges mill around enjoying the free beer and lunch they so rightly deserve. The festival opens gates at 5pm and the results are announced about an hour later.

There's some room available for new judges and it's about time more came from the blogging community. If you're interested, get in touch with me, it'll be fun, I promise.

I love *this* beer....

I get asked 'what's your favourite beer' on a regular basis and, over recent years, I've developed an answer: my favourite beer is the one in my hand. I'm not being flippant, just faithful, easily faithful - it comes naturally. Look, if I fancy a beer I'll scan around at what's on offer, choose according to my mood and devote my beery attention to it, and to no other. Where's the enjoyment in drinking one beer and thinking about another, a different one, one you're not drinking?

Warminster Malting

I visited Chris Garrett at Warminster Maltings a couple of weeks ago - we've been using his malted barley to brew our beer for around 5 years now and have developed a close and beneficial working relationship. I like to know the materials I'm brewing with; malt and hops vary quite naturally from season to season, year to year, and it's a brewer's responsibility to take account of this irregularity and produce beer with acceptable consistency. Now, as a *small* brewer, with little purchasing clout, I'm not in a position to draw up demanding specifications for my supplies, and, even if I could, I'd be unable to verify them with the limited lab checks available to me. So ours' is a world slightly more intuitive than that of our bigger cousins and the better our understanding of the whole chain of supply, the better that intuition works. So I like to track back, through the chain, to the field, talking to the key (and not so key) people along the way in an attempt to pass understanding between us.

Chris and I, along with Piers from Nelson, Phil from Goachers, and James from Wantsum, have been discussing how we might get our barley grown locally, here in the Garden of England. There are many varieties of barley available to the farmer with new ones, bred for ever increasing growing efficiency, emerging all the time, but we smaller brewers tend to favour a rather old fashioned one, Marris Otter, for its superior flavour and brewhouse performance. 'Otter' was bred back in the 60s and its agronomic performance is way below today's standards, so it's no easy task to persuade Giles to struggle away with it when he could be growing something else, something with less risk and greater yields ('doesn't stand up' is farmers' vernacular for 'difficult to grow'). Brewers are fussy too about nitrogen levels in the grain - too little and our precious yeast is uncomfortable, too much and we get haze problems (in the beer). Generally, suitable soils for growing malting barley are the less fertile ones and, *very* generally, these are in East Anglia not in Kent. That said, Kent isn't completely devoid of fields of barley, there are isolated pockets but, at the moment, it is completely devoid of fields of Marris Otter barley.

So getting locally grown barley is by no means straightforward but, thanks to Warminster Malting, it is going to happen: the first acres are to be planted up later this year, the first grains harvested next spring and the malt on-line and in-beer next summer. And I'll be able to witness, first hand, the whole process from planting to drinking. It'll be a great year.

I must tell you more about Chris Garrett and his Warminster Maltings one day - it's one of those businesses that is sooo well run it makes you laugh out loud. I get most of my hops my Humphrey and most of my malt from Chris and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Why the World Cup is bad for pubs

In the short term it won't be, well, not if the pub has a large screen and an eager audience. But the long term doesn't look so good and events such as the World Cup have a negative effect. And here's why: beer sales are in decline across the UK (because you're drinking poncy wine) and sales are shifting from pub to supermarket. These supermarkets are well run, they know how to play suppliers off against one another and they therefore get beer at low prices. These low prices, in turn, drive up volumes which, in turn, gives the brewers greater incentive to be involved, which, in turn, gives the supermarket better bargaining power, which, in turn, lowers prices. Do you see where all this is going? Course you do, rock bottom give away price land, that's where.

But how, you ask, does this affect the pub? Obviously because it's cheaper to drink at home. But it always has been and this isn't the whole truth, there's more going on. You see the prices the brewers get for their supermarket cans and bottles doesn't necessarily cover production costs or make a profit. The brewers' profit comes from the beer it sells to the pub. So, as supermarket prices go down, pub prices go up. Up and up to rip-off central and beyond - we're in a declining market and yet the wholesale price of draught beer continues to rise above inflation and above duty increases defying, at first glance, economics. What goes through your mind when you're charged £3.60 for a pint of beer that you know very well would cost you a pound a can? "Rip-off" you think. And you'd be right. Get this: I have just been quoted, quite reasonably, £93.11 for a 50 litre tub of Stella, ex-vat. That, with vat, works out at £1.24 per 568ml serving, which is the size of a large Stella can. The same large Stella can that costs £1.10 today at a major UK supermarket.

That's right, despite all the costs of the cans, the 'secondary' cardboard packaging and the extra time and machinery costs associated with a canning line versus the far quicker, simpler bulk beer kegging line, and despite the cans having a retail margin on top, versus my wholesale industry trade quote, the canned beer is still cheaper than the keg. Retailed 'small pack' beer is now cheaper than trade draught beer.

And it's set to get cheaper during the World Cup. You know who's expected to fund that now don't you?

Point your finger at the supermarkets if you like but point it too at the big brewers going down the pan, desperately hanging on to market share and dragging the pub industry down with it. The small minded, bonus-greedy, little shits.

Sorry about the swearing: I don't do it lightly though.

Sorry

Yesterday's post was awful wasn't it? I *know* that nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility and I *know* too that pride is a rather dangerous feeling, best avoided, or at least saved for the rarest occasions, such as watching your daughter come third in the first heat of the 60m dash on sports day. But I'm weak and susceptible to over-excitement, prone to forgetting the point of it all: to just brew it, as best I possibly can, and leave the rest to others.

I want to make it up to you - come up to the brewery today, before 1pm, and I'll stand you a pint (or two if your constitution is up to it). Then you won't need me to tell you whether or not you like the beer, you can decide for yourself.

Brewing is a great leveller - the better you think you're doing the more self critical you become in order to avoid as much dillusion as possible.