Anchor Brewing: Keep Calm and Carry On

I've got a massive soft spot for Anchor Brewing. I love their Steam Beer - it reminds me of a passage in wine writer Hugh Johnson's memoirs. Talking about the difference between new world and old world wines, he notes that big new world wines are like being in a room with lots of printed fabrics - curtains, sofas, wall hangings - and everywhere you look, there is another big print. It's all a bit unrelenting, overpowering, suffocating. Old world wines, he claims, are like being in the same room, but then you look out of a window and glimpse something beautiful, something just out of the edge of your peripheral vision, and then it's gone. When you look for it again, you can't find it, but you know it was there.

That's how Anchor Steam Beer makes me feel. There's enough flavour in there that it's obviously a tasty beer, full of earthy, spicy Northern Brewer hops and a dab of caramelly malt, but always at the periphery there is something a little different. It's almost as though I'm actually projecting flavours into the beer - the flavours are familiar, but they are subtly changed by the weather, my mood, or what I had for lunch a few hours ago. In fact, now I write this, the phrase that John Peel used to describe his fascination with The Fall springs to mind: "Always the same, but always different". Either that, or there's massive batch variation, but such is my love and respect for Anchor beers, I can't truly entertain that as an option.

So news that Anchor has been sold came as a bit of a surprise, but I'm enough of a softie to believe that the beers are such icons in the history of American craft brewing (and perhaps even globally) that they are beyond change. One thing is sure; it is either the making or breaking of the brand. Either the beers will carry on unchanged, and the brewery will continue prosper in perpetuity, or the beers will change, and the love and support that Fritz Maytag has spent decades building up will evaporate overnight. For obvious reasons, I'm hoping for the former - the latter is not an option.



Thanks to Rick Kempen at Bier & Co for the bottle of Humming Ale.

Beer Movies: "Eddies: The Documentary" and "The American Brew"

This weekend saw me not attending the inaugural Rothwell beer festival as it raged a mere 200 metres from my front door. On Friday, the good lady had a night out planned with friends, so I was was on parenting duty. Saturday, the day I had earmarked for trying some of the finest small brewery beers that Yorkshire has to offer, was somewhat marred by my unexpected attendance at work - staff sickness, with no-one else available to cover. So rather than a breathless account of what I drank on Saturday, this is a report of what happened on Friday night.

Happily, I had a couple of beer movies to watch - "Eddies: The Documentary" (IMDB summary here) and "The American Brew" (IMDB page here), along with a quantity of beer to drink. The beers were good - St Austell Proper Job (5.5%abv) hitting the mark as ever, with its combination of biscuity pale malt and tropical fruit-accented hoppiness. The other two beers were homebrewed by a friend, Gordon McKiernan, who frankly needs to make a move to a bigger plant - a pale ale with a lovely spicy East Kent Goldings profile, and a smoked oatmeal stout with a whisper of blackcurrant fruitiness to it. Someone give Gordon a go on a bigger or better plant, please.

So, the movies. "Eddies" is about The Eddies, an annual competition to make a TV advert for the Big Rock brewery. I say TV advert, but the slightly weird thing is that these adverts are never shown on TV. In fact, they're not shown outside of the awards ceremony itself. It's a cult phenomenon, started in 1993 as a publicity stunt by the brewery. The fervour with which fans of the brewery make these ads can't be solely down to the $10,000 prize. Like a lot of niche cultural phenomena, people just want to say that they took part, that they were there. And like a lot of niche cultural phenomena, you either get the joke or you don't. I have to say that I enjoyed it, although it's also fair to say that the film isn't really about the beer - it's about the people and their devotion to The Eddies, which just happens to be connected to beer. It could be cheese rolling, dwarf throwing or badger taming, and the film would be just as much fun. But then I guess beer is really about people, so perhaps it is a film about beer after all.

"The American Brew" is a whole different kettle of boiling wort. It's a fairly thorough and well-made documentary about the history of brewing in America, with lots of cameo appearances from craft brewers, and the seemingly odd inclusion of lots of talking heads from the bigger American macro brewing giants. Well, it seems odd until you find out that this film is sponsored by Anheuser-Busch (as was, now A-BInBev), and part of the "Here's To Beer" initiative. When I found this out, I tried my very best to find something to dislike in it, but failed. It's a really well-made, well-produced and even-handed history of brewing in America.

If I have any criticism, it would be for the prominence given to Budweiser, although that might be slightly exacerbated by having recently had lunch with Josef Tolar, retired head brewer at Budvar. Overall, it's a great romp through the facts and the stories, enhanced immeasurably by great archive film and photography, and I really liked it. To be honest, it's worth it alone for seeing Fritz Maytag do an impersonation of an angry German restaurateur refusing to buy Anchor beers, something it's fair to say wasn't on my list of things to see before I die, but turned out to be strangely satisfying to witness.

Bitter End Brewing Co.

Quite some time ago now, those nice folk at Bitter End Brewing Co. sent me a mixed case of bottled beers, and a glass from which to drink them. The glass is still in the cellar (I need to get clumsy in the glass cupboard to make some room for it), but the majority of the beers have now passed through the evaluation process.

Before they sent me the beers, they messaged me explaining that they didn't want to change the world, they just wanted to brew good honest beer, and I have to admire that modest ambition. It's somewhat at odds with their claim to produce innovative, progressive and exciting beers, but that's the nice thing about beer - you can try it and make up your own mind. There's more than enough innovation, progression and excitement in beer at the moment, and although it makes me sound old, it can just be bloody tiring and annoying. One thing that a few years working in restaurant kitchens taught me was that it's better to achieve consistency, than to over-reach and be erratic with occasional flashes of brilliance. That sounds like I'm already damning them with faint praise, but consistency is a much overlooked attribute.

Lakeland Bitter (3.8%abv) is a good ordinary bitter, with some soft toffee malt character working well alongside a brightly bitter hops. Lakeland Amber (4.2%abv) is a good example of the maxim that you should always try two servings of a beer before passing judgement - the first bottle seemed slightly flat and phenolic, although the other two are softly nutty, rounded, with hops serving only to add structure rather than to dominate. Lakeland IPA (5%abv) is a pale golden ale, with some floral character on the nose, a citrussy palate, and a snappy finish - "solid but unexciting" say my notes, and I know better than to argue with my notes. The best of the bunch, to my surprise, the Lakeland Honey (5%abv). Starting out with a softly floral aroma, becoming sweet mid-palate, and then finishing pleasantly dry and spicy, the sweet-dry double whammy is interesting and enjoyable, with the honey contributing significantly to the character, but never being overpowering or cloying.

So there we have it - good, solid beers, brewed with an eye to the modern style, and on this showing, not a duffer among them. Will they set the world alight? Unlikely. Will they become a cult, sought out by beer geeks everywhere? Unliklier still. Are they the sort of beers that you'd be delighted to drink after a long day on the fells? Absolutely.

Community Beer Festivals

- in which we move from a discussion of the specific, to the generic, and muse upon the phenomenon of community beer festivals.

A couple of events to plug, which may be of interest if you happen to be local to Leeds. This weekend, there is a beer festival in Rothwell. It's for charity, which is why it's a fiver to get in, but for me the reason that this is a big deal is that it is about 200 yards from my front door, and obviously I'd be a fool not to go. The beer list looks OK too. I'm particularly looking forward to trying some beer from the Five Towns brewery, run on a part-time basis by a nursing assistant, and Mallinsons, whose beers I've tried in bottle but not from cask. That's a couple of pints right there.

Also this weekend is the inaugural LS6 Beer Festival. Leeds 6 (the postcode) has long been a hotbed of creative hipster activity, having a great concentration of students, musicians, and generally bohemian types. The line up of beers is pretty great, and they have a load of bands on too. It's got all the makings of a great day out.

What I find really heartening is that both of these events are charity fundraisers. The church hall in Rothwell has never hosted a beer festival before, but it's been selected as an event that will make people turn up and donate to a good cause. Perhaps in days gone buy, the event would be a fete, with a jumble sale, tombola, and WI stall. But this week it's beer. And the usual mode of fundraising in LS6 is a music all-dayer at the Brudenell Social Club. To see real ale at the heart of this event is great news.

So, in Leeds this weekend, the suburbs and the inner city will be hosting inaugural beer festivals. Is interest in real ale starting to become as widespread as these festivals might suggest?

Now Drinking: Guinness Black Lager

I have to admit to being slightly bemused by the news that black lager is the fastest growing category in beer at present. Clearly starting from a base of next to nothing, achieving multi-hundred percent growth is pretty easy. I remember the Summer of Magners, when they recorded something close to an 800% growth spurt. So perhaps it's hardly surprising that the world's favourite black stuff should seek to bag a slice of the pizza. And given that their black stuff is the most famous black stuff in the world, it seems reasonable that they should launch Guinness Black Lager (4.5%abv)

I managed to get a huge and fairly persistent head on this, by pouring it from a height of about six inches. I wanted to knock a bit of carbonation out of it, and by happy accident, I got it about right - what I'm left with is a very acceptable gentle prickle of CO2. There is a bit of DMS/worty character on the nose, and if I couldn't see that it was black, I wonder if I would pick out the faint roasted and chocolate notes? I'd hope that I would, but I can't be sure. Ditto the palate - there is a burst of flavour just after the swallow that vaguely suggests a bit of roast grain character, and a suggestion of herbal hops, but on the whole, it's pretty anaemic.

It's easy to knock a big brewery when they try something new, just as I did when InBev launched Artois Bock five years ago. In some ways, I really like their attempt to brew something that tastes inoffensive, but looks like proper Guinness - maybe that way people will be less scared of trying dark(er) beers. At the same time, it's a bit of a shame that it's so dumbed down - there is a suggestion of a good beer here, but it's all a bit too dilute to really hit home.

But what really kicks this one in the nuts for me is the back label: "Guinness Black Lager is cold brewed with roasted barley to deliver a unique character and deeply refreshing taste. Enjoy ice cold straight from the bottle. Lager evolved" How many bits of innaccurate, unhelpful and meaningless bobbins can you count in those three sentences?

How Do You Drink Yours?

I was walking home from my new writing room the other afternoon - and when I say writing room, I mean the public library in Rothwell - having just finished a commission about ordinary brown beer for Off Licence News. True to form, there were various problems with various breweries getting in touch in time to be included in the article. This was, I would guess, a combination of idleness, disorganisation and breweries employing PR companies who don't seem to know anything about the breweries they PR for. But I digress.

Walking back from my new writing room, feeling happy and tired, I thought I might drop into the pub for a pint. Sadly, all the pubs in Rothwell seem to major in John Smiths cask or Tetley's, and ironically, given that I'd just finished an article on ordinary brown beer, I didn't fancy either. In the end, I went to the supermarket, bought a bottle of Bateman's XXXB, and after ten minutes in an ice bucket (hey, you can't take the ponce out of me, even with ordinary brown beer), I sat and had a reflective glass of beer.

I reflected on the fact that I was having a beer in the middle of the afternoon, and how great it is to have a job and a lifestyle that allows this. Drinking beer for me has always been partly about a delineation of time. If I'm having a beer, then that means I've discharged my duties for the day, and I can relax and fritter away a few units of time in a way that I find relaxing and enjoyable. Reflecting more on it, this makes me sound vaguely like an alcoholic, but so be it. I like to work hard, and I like to have a couple of beers. In my world, this is quite normal.

In times past, before being nearly married, and before parenthood, I'd think nothing of going to a pub on my own with a book, or a newspaper, and while away a couple of hours reading, with a few pints and a comfy armchair. Lately, I'm more likely to stake a claim on the sofa, fire up the netbook, and open a beer. Years ago, when I briefly dabbled with smoking, a roll-up would be like a punctuation point in the day. These days, the paragraphs are longer, and the punctuation is beer. Either a new paragraph in the middle of the afternoon, or the end of a chapter mid-evening. As well as loving the tastes, and not objecting to a little mild intoxication, a beer means I'm having a bit of 'me time'. Please don't think that I use beer in order to get 'me time' - that would be a sign of a problem. But conversely, these days I rarely stay in the pub until closing time - in fact, I can't remember the last time I had a night out where the bar stopped serving.

And so, I'm curious - does this ring any bells with anyone? Is there a point where you think 'ahhh, that's that taken care of, I'll have a beer'? Or do people pop to the pub for a couple after work, and then not drink at home? Or do you generally go home and then go to the pub for 'lasties'? (that used to be my favoured mode). As I ask in the title - how do you drink yours?

Man Makes Living By Selling Beer

I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I thought I'd give it a go. Most people know that I manage Beer-Ritz in Headingley, Leeds (it says so in my "About Me" bit over there on the left). Well, it seems that a lot of people don't know that Beer-Ritz also runs a mail order service at www.beerritz.co.uk.

The mail-order service doesn't run from the shop, it runs from our warehouse near Wetherby. In an attempt to publicise it, they've asked me to select some mixed cases from breweries that I like, do some tasting videos about them, and see if we can add something to the online shopping experience in the process.

From my point of view, it's fun, because I get to do more of what I enjoy - tasting beer, and writing and talking about it. In fact, it's better than fun, because (smugness alert) I actually get paid to do what I enjoy. From my employer's point of view, it adds a point of difference to their online shop, potentially driving trade, and maybe for their customers, it allows them to make a more informed decision about the beers they buy.

I'm not going to endorse any beers that I don't personally enjoy, because that would be stupid, and would cost a lot more than they can afford would ruin any independent credibility I have. But I'd be interested in hearing what you, dear reader, think about it. You can have a look at what I've been doing here - or search for "zak" in the search box at the top of the page. Does it add value (without adding cost)? Will it help people make a decision? For the less beer-savvy, will it help point out good quality beers, or is it just more me-me-look-at-me nonsense on my part? More to the point, when we put mixed cases of Marble 50cl bottles on the site in a couple of weeks, will you break the internet trying to buy some? Will you read their blog that we've started, and I'm maintaining?