Ramsbury Brewery

A recent visit to Wiltshire included a stop over in the Bell at Ramsbury, a fine pub in it's own right but made even better as its the showcase for the Ramsbury Brewery brands.

The pub itself is full of character and the food all that you would expect from a small rural town business at the heart of its community. Quite distinctive but wholesome. We also loved the honesty bar for those staying, at the top of the stairs and adjacent to the rooms. A great idea!

My first Ramsbury was the Flint Knapper, a good beer but it this was quickly followed but the Ramsbury 506 and what a great beer this is. A 5% IPA style brew, it was well balanced citrus, bitter and a touch of malt. I really like Hopback Summer Lightning but the 506 is certainly up there with it.

An unusual name, 506 is named after the American Parachute Regiment that was based in Ramsbury during the Second World War and the beer is a fitting tribute.

Ramsbury Brewery itself forms part of Ramsbury Estates, a large long established farming business on the outskirts of Ramsbury. The farm grows barley for brewing including the sought after Maris Otter variety and forms part of the stunning Kennet Valley. Living in Cornwall it's difficult to imagine countryside that will match the far South West but this certainly comes close.

The 506 was the start, but there are other beers worth a mention. Ramsbury Gold is the breweries best seller and you can see why. A golden easy drinking beer, it is a fine balance of malt and hops and the superb colour makes it very attractive to drinkers.

The next are probably two marmite beers. I'm not a great fan on honey beers, being too sweet and I prefer a hop bitterness. The Honeybee is a good honey beer and will have its fans but its not for me.


The final beer is a real marmite of a beast at 6.1% abv, quite literally! Named after the specialist breed of cattle farmed on the estate, the beer is quite a challenge. I found it a real meaty beer, quite smokey bacon, a bit spirituous and on the sweet side. However some people loved this beer and having used it at beer tastings and as part of the Craft Bottle Beer range we offer, I can appreciate it's finer points.

Good luck to Ramsbury Brewery, they are about to invest in a new brewery and they brew some great beers. Do try them if you see them.

Craft Bottle Beers

So Craft Bottle Beers finally got underway at Saltash Regatta last weekend. It has taken a lot of planning and hard work, a few false starts, not to mention costly mistakes, but at last we have begun to sell a few bottles of beer.

Our plan is to sell a selection of beers from local craft beers at events throughout the South West - its a hobby mainly but it does at least give me a chance to indulge my passion for beer and in particular bottled beer to enjoy at home.

Craft Bottle Beer Stand

Saltash Regatta is a two day event with local stall holders and producers all vying to sell their wares. Sadly the weather was not great but I'm delighted to say our stall was very popular. In fact the event rivalled some larger food and drink festivals for popularity and we were certainly pleased with how well we did.

Our stand could have been better and some things we planned to do in terms of branding did not work as hoped. However we were at least the equal if not better than many of the other stall holders.

Our first sale was a bottle of Cheddar Ales Potholer. a very tasty golden beer and one that

Golden/IPA's

proved to be a popular seller throughout the day. We had a range of 17 different beers and split them into beer styles to make it easier for customers to follow. The most popular style was the Golden/IPA range of which we had seven great beers. Of these special mention of the Ramsbury 506 as the first IPA to sell out. This is a wonderful beer and drinks very well in bottle - a fine balance of citrus hop that is not overly bitter.

Penpont Shipwreck Coast also sold well from this style as did the Piston Broke from Box Steam Brewery. Of the Pale ales,  Box Steam Tunnel Vision was the most popular with many local Cornish folk likening it to Doombar, although I'm not sure if that's good or bad!

We probably had too many Stouts on sale and although I personally love this style of beer and it is on the comeback, there are still many people who still find the roasty, toasty liquorish flavours challenging.

The final style we called Strong/Vintage ales. I was surprised how well these beers sold. Ramsbury Horny Highlander a 6.1% real meaty beer tasting of smokey bacon and slightly spirituous sold very well. I struggled with the flavour a little myself but lots of people liked this beer. Another lovely beer in this style was the Bellingers Moonlight, a fine dark malty beer erring on the side of a Porter but not quite.

So off soon to source more beer for our next confirmed event which is at Mount Edgcumbe Classic Car show on Sunday 4th August, although we still hope to find something suitable for late July as well. Lisa and I both loved the days, talking about beer and helping to guide people as to what flavours and styles will suit them best. As a Beer Sommelier this is a really satisfying part of what we are doing and it was great to impart a bit of knowledge to people who were genuinely interested.

Wish us luck for the next one.......

Beer and Cars Combined

There can be fewer unexpected locations to find a brewery than with Bellingers of Wantage. Traditionally brewing is closely associated with the farming industry and so many small breweries start life here, in fact farmers were once brewers as in the case of the Saison style of beer. Nowadays many start up breweries can be found on industrial sites and although this does not carry the mysterious charm that craft drinkers seek, it is very practical and commercially viable.

Front of the tin brewhouse

Bellingers however is fronted with a very modern car dealership for Vauxhall and Chevrolet cars. It's quite an impressive business and building and you would never know a brewery existed but for some signage on the forecourt. The car dealership boasts all that you would expect from a cutting edge sales business, with vehicles displayed to look their very best. The brewery on the other hand is situated in a shiny tin covered building that is hidden away at the rear with the dealership's service dept.

Bellingers are a 4th generation company and the brewery uses an image of Les Bellinger who flew with the RAF in the Second World War and then went on the lead and grow the company in the years thereafter. The company is now a major landmark as you approach Grove and Wantage from Oxford.

Being an ex resident of Wantage and certainly proud of my Oxfordshire roots I am delighted to find  this brewery and recommend their beers.

Two beers I purchased were the IPA and the Moonlight. The branding on the former is not great and does not reflect the beer, which certainly is a refreshing IPA, however the colour ways suggest a darker beer. The branding on the Moonlight I liked a lot better, reflected Bellingers heritage and the label colours and balance just seemed to imply a quality beer.






Bellingers IPA & Moonlight
 



The IPA had a hint of chocolate combined with citrus on the aroma - chocolate orange like! The palate was more hop, pineapple, herbal like, but there was a hint of fruity esters as well. The finish was bitter and touch astringent which actually I quite liked. Overall a beer in the English IPA style and very drinkable.

The Moonlight was the more interesting of the two beers. Chocolate and fruity esters on the aroma, there was a lot going on here. The palate was fruit cake, spice, roast and a bit nutty. The mouth feel was nice and full, with good conditioning bringing the beer to life. I liked this beer better and it is a good example of a Strong pale ale.

I' m looking forward to my next visit home when I will make another trip to this craft brewery to try some of their excellent brews.

Yeovil Ales

Passing through Yeovil recently was a good opportunity to call into the brewery of the same name to buy some of their excellent beers. The brewery is located on an industrial estate as is quite common now for smaller breweries. The signage around the brewery is not great and it is easily missed.

Three beers from Yeovil ales

Having spent a lifetime working for Regional brewers, it is quite sobering to realise how few people keep the mash tuns churning of smaller breweries such as this. However their beers are none-the-less still very good.

Star Gazer flavour wheel

I purchased three examples of their beers. The first thing that struck me was the branding on the bottles. All are clearly part of a quite distinctive family style. The labels are clear and offer good standout, in fact they are right up their with some of the better labels I've seen and very good for a smaller brewer.

Star Gazer is a really easy drinking 4% bitter. A good beer in this style is one that is not too challenging but has enough flavour to keep you interested. Star Gazer has a degree of floral hop balanced with roast malt, but the key is balance, its easy to drink.

The flavour is a toasty roasted bitter beer with floral hop. Also interesting for a relatively low abv beer such as this is that its a bottled conditioned beer.



Lynx Wildcat flavour wheel

Lynx Wildcat is a 4.3% brewery conditioned beer. The aroma is grassy and touch herbal, but overwhelming hop. The taste is biscuit malt but an overriding tropical pineapple hop is the dominent flavour. I really liked this beer. It is in the English IPA style, drinks well and is on a par with other classic English brewed beers of the same style.

The name commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Yeovil built Lynx Helicopter.

Stout Hearted flavour wheel

The final beer I tried was the Stout Hearted, as the name suggests a fine 4.3% dark stout, plenty of roasted malt and hint of chocolate on the aroma, but one unusual thing about this stout is the higher than normal level of hop you might get in a beer of this style. Not quite a black IPA, but certainly there is a hint of this in the taste of this beer. 

 

All told I really like the Yeovil Ales. They were good quality and very drinkable. The label designs were excellent and easily as good as many of the larger brewers produce. I'd certainly recommend beers from this brewer.

 

 

Stouts & Porters

Without doubt the most popular beer style at the moment is IPA. These heavily hopped golden beers have really caught the imagination, fuelled by the interest in craft beers and use of American and Australian hops. However one other beer style that is also making something of a comeback is the good old fashioned stout or porter!

Now, most brewers bottled beer range is not complete without a beer of this style and its great to see. They are really very different to IPA's and Pale Ale's and have also moved forward from the harsh roast flavour that some stouts have had in the past. It's now common in these beers for chocolate and coffee to be dominant flavours making them sweeter and fuller.

Hook Norton Double Stout is a fine example of this style, a good balance of chocolate and roast and not as sweet as some of the more modern stouts can be. St Austell Brewery's recent addition of 1913 Cornish Stout is step back in time as the name suggests. Well balanced again, it has that touch of liquorish and roast typical of an oatmeal stout that make this a bit more of a savoury drink. Fullers London Porter is a quite superb beer and in my view one of the best beers of this style on the market. Finally, just like a dessert, Meantime Chocolate Porter is the perfect beer to finish the night on.

There was a time when the mere mention of the words stout and porter would be a firm indicator not to buy! However the next time you visit the local supermarket, sidestep the IPA's for once and give one these great beers a try. Don't spend the whole night drinking them, you won't enjoy it, but they do make a superb contrast to your normal beer choice so slipping one of these into your repertoire of an evening will enhance your overall enjoyment of drinking beer.

And to finish, if you did not already know, the difference between a stout and a porter is historically strength (abv%). Porter was traditionally the standard fayre that the London Porters drank and stout was a word used to describe the strongest beers - in fact historically there were even pale stouts brewed, but then that's another story.....

  

Importance of Beer Festivals!

One thing I've enjoyed reading over the weekend are the tweets emanating from people attending Reading Beer Festival. This along with conversations I've had this week with the organisers of Plymouth Beer Festival, has reminded me of the vital role these festivals play in showcasing and promoting sales of cask ale.

However, there are problems...beer quality at these events can at best be described as variable. Most regional CAMRA groups - the most common of beer festival organisers don't have the finance or equipment to provide cooling on their beers. Thus although different methods are used to try and keep the beer cool, much is often served at room temperature, particularly as the festival progresses in time.

The more popular the event, the more people and the hotter the room gets and the more beer in each barrel  that is drunk, increasing the serving beer temperature a lot quicker. Not great when most brewers and many pubs are stringent in ensuring their beers are served at perfect cellar temperature. So more often than not, the beer festival that is designed to promote the sales of cask ale, ends up serving beer that is too warm, indifferent quality, not that palatable and certainly not what consumers are used to experiencing in pubs.

Financially beer festivals are a risk - beer is expensive and a lot of money has to be invested up front to buy stock. It's easy to get wrong. Have too much and you can lose a lot of money. Have too little and you end up with a lot of unhappy paying customers.

Barrels at Bristol Beer Festival

So why do this and why are beer festivals still so popular? For one it's down to passion. The people that organise these events are passionate about beer. They are real ambassadors for the category and live and breath cask ales, working tirelessly to ensure beer festivals are a success.

Another reason is that many consumers see cask ales as British. They want to be patriotic and see a home grown product succeed over and above the larger mass produced lagers, kegs and a certain Irish stout. Many consumers are willing to overlook a slightly warm and unpalatable pint, in-fact it's almost expected and part of the experience - unpleasant as some warm beers can be.

Beer Festivals are also great social occasions where friends can meet, enjoy a drink and swap stories. Beer is a great ice breaker for strangers to converse, the one thing they have in common is a taste for beer so instantly there is something to talk about. Music has also become a key part of some festivals so the event is more of a party.

From the brewers perspective festivals provide a vehicle to show case their brands, launch new beers and reward beers and brewers for excellence. Every brewer wants to win an award at these events, no matter how small the festival or beer category. They are important from this respect giving the smaller brewers in particular a level playing field to compete against the larger more establish regional brewers.

I have spent many a long day at beer festival's, both socialising but mostly working and believe their importance is huge. Every person that goes to a beer festival is a potential ambassador for beer. Brewers should be trying hard to reach these people and interact with festival organisers, who themselves are important opinion formers. Some brewers spend a great of money on marketing and overlook this grass roots form of reaching customers. Perhaps that's to the benefit of the smaller brewers whose only marketing option is to look at events like this - interesting then that the surge and interest in cask and craft beers has come with the growth of smaller brewers!

Good luck to all Beer Festival organisers. I for one am looking forward to my next event at Plymouth.

Beer & BBQ's!

So at last the sun has arrived and suddenly everyone starts thinking about al-fresco dining and the good old English BBQ. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, BBQ's were something only the local pub did as a treat but now every back garden has one.

Instantly BBQ's are associated with a can of Fosters for refreshment, but just like the food we cook has moved on to become more adventurous, our choice of refreshment needs to change as well.

That's not to say there is anything wrong with a refreshing lager on a hot summers evening, but don't limit yourself to that when it comes to the choice of beer. So what beer's go best with a BBQ? Lighter golden beers seem to be the most appropriate as naturally we drink with our eyes so here are a few suggestions of great beers to enjoy. Somehow the heavier stouts and strong ales don't lend themselves to this, great beers that they are though!



Old Empire & Summer Lightning

Marston's Old Empire is packaged in a clear bottle and looks attractive. Be careful of light strike but this beer is a good old fashioned English IPA. A clean refreshing bitterness with good but not over powering hop. It also has a good alcohol punch at 5.7% abv so a beer to respect. You don't often see it on draught but in bottle it's a gem.

Hopback Summer Lightning is a real favourite of mine. A classic beer and one of the first golden ales. It is a CAMRA prize winner and has managed to become an all year round beer rather than just a beer for the summer. The aroma is a grassy hop and hint of lemon. The taste is hop citrus, grassy and dry refreshing savoury finish, but not at all harsh. Hoppy yes, but not for hopheads.

St Austell Proper Job is a wonderful beer, packed full of citrus hop, lemon and pineapple, the Chinook hop gives a pine resinous character while the cascade compliments with a touch of spice. One of the first real hoppy English beers in the American style, its been overtaken by many imitators now in terms of hoppiness, however the bottle in particular is really well balanced drink. Plenty of bitterness without being completely unbalanced.

All three of these beers are great with the BBQ, far more interesting than a lager but just as satisfying. Do look for other IPA's though. If you like hops then go for the American style ones but for a real balanced beer that will not overpower your dinner, the English IPA's work best.