The Circle Squared at York Beer Festival

There was a pleasing symmetry to a drinking experience this week at the York beer festival. No, it wasn't the surprise appearance of Saints & Sinners / Steel City Hopsession #2 at the festival (complete with shabby chic pumpclip), but I was surprised to find a cask of Birra del Borgo / Dogfish Head My Antonia. It was exciting because this has been one of my favourite beers of the year. From sampling it in 75cl bottle format, to drinking it on draught in Rome, to finally finding it on cask in Yorkshire, I'm starting to get the sensation that this beer just can't get enough of me. I half expect to turn on the tap to make a cup of tea and find it pouring out. That would be nice.

The first picture shows a couple of casks at the brewery in Borgorose. As I was being shown around, I asked who they were for, and the reply was a bit noncomittal - it was just to go to England. I can tell now why brewer Leonardo Di Vincenzo was so economical with the truth - clearly this had been casked exclusively for my enjoyment at York beerfest, and he didn't want to spoil the surprise. How thoughtful!

Seriously though, this is something of a coup, and down to Jamie Hawksworth and his sterling work in creating a series of iconic beer business in Yorkshire (Pivo, The Sheffield Tap, plus a wide and varied importing and wholesale operation). And while we're at it, thanks to Vertical Drinks for their importing of this great beer in a rare format. But still, it's something of a credit to Jamie that he came along and judged at the festival, toting a bottle of what I think might have been a pre-release of BrewDog's AB:03, a stunning, mellow red berry ale. BrewDog James had come to see me a couple of days previously and left me with a bottle, which I selfishly didn't bring to the beer festival to share with my fellow judges. Clearly to rectify this, I will have to travel with a bottle of beer about my person at all times - Jamie's generosity proved the maxim that beer is better shared.

But back to the point - casked My Antonia. It was a beautifully hazy golden beer, with an aroma of peaches and apricots. The Saaz snap that made the keg version so brilliant was there, albeit subsumed into a more rounded, fruity character. It was alarming easy drinking for 7.7%abv. I had a half, and then tried to slowly wean myself onto weaker beers, via Hardknott Infra Red (oddly chewy in cask), Crown Red Barron (again, weirdly full bodied - maybe red IPA is a blind spot for me), Marble Dobber (brilliant, but surprisingly bitter) and Five Towns Niamh's Nemesis (beer of the festival, but by my reckoning, not even close to the best beer I drank that day).

So, York beer festival - delivering beyond expectations, and providing closure to my peak beer drinking experiences. And I didn't even have to leave Yorkshire.

Now Drinking: Crown Brewery Brooklyn Heights

Damn. Forgot to ask them to take the sparkler off.

For me, one of the most exciting trends in British brewing in the last few years has been the resurgence of the hop, or more specifically, cask ales with big American C-hop character. I've said it before, but the transatlantic conversation between American and European brewing culture has never been more excitable or exciting. Despite not getting to the pub as often as I'd like, I still think cask ale rules.

Brooklyn Heights wears its affiliations proudly on its pump clip. It's an unashamedly ballsy interpretation of an American Pale Ale. Most American Pale Ales (and IPAs) are designed to be drunk cold and force-carbonated - nothing wrong with that, but when you serve them on cask, that lack of dissolved CO2 makes the whole thing slightly sweet and sticky.

Happily, Stuart Ross of Crown Brewery (for it is he) knows what he's doing when it comes to cask ale. So rather than making a beer better suited to a quick bit of chill and zizz, he knows how to meld the hop-forward character of an APA with just the right fullness of malt body. The end result is a classic English ale that is both traditional and modern. It's trad because there's just enough earthy bitterness to it to please your old man, but at the same time, it's modern in it's marmalade-pith fruity character. There's just enough sweetness to it to balance the big, spicy bitterness in the finish.

Another classic from Crown Brewery. Great work, Stuart. And great work North Bar.

A Year of Beer 2010 #2 - Crown Brewery India Pale Ale

IPA, IPA, IPA. Bloody IPA. What does it mean? As Stuart Howe, brewer at Sharp's points out: "IPA, the most meaningless set of initials in brewing." And yet they are everywhere. I'm drinking one right now - Port Brewing 3rd Anniversary Ale, kindly gifted to me by Phil at beermerchants.com. It's a classic, a splendidly concentrated West Coast IPA, almost too concentrated, but still very drinkable despite the 10%abv, so you know who to blame if this post becomes as long and incoherent as this first paragraph might suggest it will.

Bloody IPA. I wussed out of giving a sensible definition in the book what I wrote, preferring instead to rechristen IPA as International Pale Ale. Sure, I explain what "real" IPA is, but really, the initials have become so debased as to be more-or-less meaningless. Is it going to be a 3.5%abv session beer, or a 10%abv hop monster that will knock you on your arse after one large bottle? I don't think there's any style of beer that has a greater range of flavours within it.

You'll know by now the story of IPA - a strong, hoppy beer that made the journey from England to India, via the circuitous trade routes that took it west across the Atlantic, east round the Cape, and up to India. In a moment of idle curiosity, Pete Brown wondered out loud what a beer might be like that made the journey, and then spent the best part of a year cursing himself for this idle pub thought. He did it - he brewed as authentic an IPA as he could, then took it on the authentic trade route for IPA.

I won't telegraph the punchlines in the book (for they are legion), but it's a great read. There's a lot of information about IPA in there, as well as travel writing, psychology, and the most perfect description ever of falling into a canal. But what is even more enjoyable (and I'm sure he's had a blast doing it) are the many IPAs that Pete has had a hand in over the last year or so.

I was surprised that I've only tried one of them, Crown Brewery India Pale Ale. But this IPA is so good that I almost don't care about missing the others. There's a lot of things going on here, and I don't just mean the flavours. Stuart is a great brewer, and has spared no expense in making this brew chock full o' hops - it's a total hop monster, but still brilliantly balanced. The bright, pithy, olfactory assault of grapefruit, lime, orange pith and backnote of toffee malt is mouthwatering. It's just as good on the palate, with a bonus that, being bottled from cask, the carbonation on this is bang on. Not only does it taste like real ale in a bottle, but it has the same texture and mouthfeel too. It's clean, bright and forceful, but delicate and elegant at the same time. I'd be lying if I called "the English Pliny", but it is really, really good.

It's also worth noting that Stuart has warm-conditioned this beer, partly to try and replicate the conditions that it might have experienced on the long journey to Calcutta, and also partly from a "let's just do it" experimental attitude. I can't tell you what the beer was like before conditioning - a total lupulin beast, I would guess - but what has come out at the end is a great beer. There is one cask left of this brew, and Stuart has said he will bottle it.

OK, there you have it. A beer, a book, and a (slightly too long) story about them both. Neither are currently available, the IPA being still in cask, and the book being out of print until its paperback release in June. If you live in Leeds, and come to Beer-Ritz, we should soon be able to sell you the last release of this batch of IPA, and (if you promise to return it) lend you a hardback first edition of Pete's book. Don't say that we don't try to win your custom.

Crown Brewery Pt 1: Django Reinhardt Damson Double Porter

One of the things about doing what I do (and although I realise this leaves me open to abuse of all kinds, if anyone can describe what it is that I do, in a way concise enough for a business card, I'd love to hear it) is that it is usually interesting, always varied, and every now again, really good fun.

I met Stuart Ross, brewer of the Crown Brewery, at the Great British Beer Festival last year (2009). We ended up spending most of the day wandering around the festival together, drinking beer and engaging in that great beer festival tradition, talking nonsense.

Stuart asked if I'd be interested in doing a brew with him, and we settled on doing something seasonal with an unusual ingredient. We settled on a damson porter, adding 10lbs of damsons to the copper. They gave a bit more fermentable sugar, and added a deep fruity note to the finished beer. You can read Stuart's account of the brew day on his blog (I'm sure it was 10lbs of damsons, not the 20lbs he claims, but hey, I'm not the brewer).

One of the things that I enjoyed about brewing a one-off special with Stuart was his willingness to make things up as we went along - I'm hoping that this is the sign of a confident and experienced brewer rather than dreadful ditherer. All through the brew day, although we had a clear idea of what we were aiming for, Stuart was tweaking as we went along, cutting sparge and collection a bit short to increase the OG of the wort, and only deciding at the last minute to ferment with a Belgian-style yeast strain, rather than a British one. That's why it's a damson double (i.e. "dubbel") porter.

The finished beer is pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself. The sweet fruitiness of the damsons is evident on the nose and the palate, with the darker malts giving a roasted, slightly smoky note. The slightly funky earthiness of the Belgian yeast contributes significantly to the aroma and flavour - it would be interesting to do the brew again, and ferment with a more neutral yeast strain. Shall we set a date now, Stu?

In summary, the Crown Brewery rocks, and is hopefully set for great things in 2010. But don't just take my word for it. That bloke Pete Brown (by which I mean the British Guild of Beer Writers' Writer of the Year 2009) rates Stuart as his second favourite brewer of the year, just behind John Keeling. And there's no shame in coming second to the man Keeling.

Coming up soon in part 2: Crown Brewery India Pale Ale and that bloke Pete Brown.