Beer Talk with Plymouth WI

I did an unusual beer talk a few weeks ago as a guest of the lovely ladies of Plymouth Women's Institute. To make this more interesting we did some beer and food matching. I have to say I was very impressed with the ladies and in particular their palates, which seemed quite deceptive to the extent that unprompted they were able to describe many of the hop and malt flavours present. So perhaps their is some merit to the belief that ladies taste buds are more receptive than those of men?

On with the evening and we started the tasting with a locally brewed beer in South Hams Eddystone. A tasty 4.8% IPA style beer with the cascade hop being the most dominant. This was paired with some fine pistachio milk chocolate that was quite sweet. I've found the bitter citrus hops of an IPA can match quiet well with the contrast of the sweet chocolate. The ladies loved the match but found the beer a bit of a challenge.

Second came a beer at the opposite end of the flavour spectrum with Penpont Beast of Bodmin, a big bold brassy 5.0% malt driven beer which was paired with a strong mature cheddar. The two flavours worked well together, there are few better matches with beer and food when if comes to a mature cheddar! The ladies liked this one a little better, the sweet biscuit flavours and hint toffee of the beer being more to their palate.

Next to the favourite match of the night, St Austell Brewery Clouded Yellow paired with a Bavarian smoked cheese. The ladies loved this beer, its low bitterness levels scoring highly with them and many were able to identify this wheat beers banana and clove flavours. Again the smoked cheese offers something different with the food match and Clouded Yellow seems to work well in cleansing the palate with this lightly smoked flavour.

The least favourite came next. Not unexpected, the stout matched with chilli chocolate. Nothing wrong with either, indeed Ramsbury Silver Pig stout is a wonderful beer with traditional liquorice and roasted camp coffee flavours that were a match for the bitter chocolate and its late chilli kick, however the stout flavours were just too challenging for the ladies palate.

The final beer and food match was St Austell Tamar Creek and pate. The former is a proper Lambic style cherry flavoured ale with enough tartness and acidity to make the lips purl. The oily pate was a fine contrast and this was perhaps the second favourite match of the night. A very challenging beer, the ladies were very prepared to give it a chance and they appreciated its character and understood its role as an aperitif beer.

The purpose of the night was to showcase beer to the female palate, but I was both surprised and delighted with the expertise with which they were quickly able to describe flavours and their interest shown in beer. It was also a fun night matching the beers with the food and I'm sure many ladies will have left thinking about the weekends meals and matching to beer rather than wine. Hopefully it will also mean some husbands and friends receive interesting tasty beers as Christmas gifts this year to accompany the obligatory boxing day jumper!

Birmingham Beer Festival 2014

Starting to get busy at Birmingham

I was lucky enough to attend Birmingham CAMRA Beer Festival this week and what a great festival it was. Over 250 beers were on show, it was held at the New Bingley Hall Hockley, a new venue for the event it suited aptly. I was there with St Austell Brewery, organising their brewery bar and it was a pleasure to represent their beers, which were superb and very well received by the Birmingham public.

The CAMRA organisers were also impressive with their professionalism, willingness to help and above, the desire to enjoy the festival. I think there are aspirations that the festival will one day be on a par with Manchester and there seems no reason why they cannot get close to this. They certainly made us feel very welcome as did the drinkers of Birmingham who attended the festival.

The first night was a trade night and it was great to see the senior CAMRA members dressed in collar and ties, recognising that this was a serious opportunity to show case cask ales to local licensees, it reflected well on the whole event. However the best night fell on Halloween, the Friday night. Many members of the public got into the spirit of the season as did many of the members working on the bars. On the St Austell bar we were not left out, dressing the bar and ourselves for a spooky evening.

Halloween on the St Austell bar

Our most popular beer on Halloween was Bucket of Blood, a fine beer, the name clearly attracted a lot of attention. Spookily tinged with red and hints of spice, it went well and made a change from the heavily hopped mpore fashionable beers.  However, talking of hops, our most popular beer was Big Job, a 7.2% monster of a Double IPA, this beer quickly sold out even with rationing to half pints. This is a real beer festival beer and of limited availability on draught, although it is available in bottles all year round. Its doubtful of its commercial viability as a potential permanent draught beer due to its high abv and cost, but as a fun beer for a festival, its a winner!

Talking of more commercial beers the St Austell Proper Job and Tribute were very popular on our bar and it was interesting to see so many people had not tried Tribute before. One forgets just how big Birmingham is and the potential to try St Austell's flagship beer in the area has not been that big in the past.

On with the festival and the Saturday began slowly but suddenly in the middle of the afternoon the floodgates seemed to open and people thronged to the event. The St Austell bar was now very busy and from a point where we had lots of beer we now found ourselves with the potential of running out. Luckily we lasted the night although it was a close call. Of our choice of six beers we were left with just three on sale by the end of the night and only a few gallons of each at that.

Congratulation go to Birmingham CAMRA for a well run and enjoyable event. As a brewery bar we felt very appreciated and as though our hosts were genuinely pleased to have us there. It was great to be a part of the festival and although there are doubtless always things you can improve for a future year, the 2014 Brum Beer Fest was a very good effort - WELL DONE.