Vale of the White Horse

These three beers all arrived for my birthday and excellent choices they were too. White Horse Brewery and West Berks Brewery are long established and robust micro brewers. Bellingers on the other hand are more recent and brew in the back of the family garage business of the same name.

West Berks Brewery are famous for Maggs Magnificent Mild, but this bottle of Goldstar was a super beer with old fashioned roast malt & burnt toffee with hints of honey and good bitterness, a fine beer indeed. Shame about the branding on the bottle, I certainly needed my glasses to appreciate that!

The White Horse Bitter at 5.1% had all the hall marks of a fine beer, with the branding on the bottle very striking and implied a confident and robust beer. It delivered in this respect being roast and malty with a hint of toffee, but perhaps the flavours were not as big as the Goldstar. None-the-less a good beer.

Goldstar left, White Horse centre, Bellingers right

The Bellingers Moonlight had more chocolate and nuttiness about it, as well as some roast malt offset by a little acidity. Of the three beers my favourite would be the Goldstar, but all were good examples of fine English Pale Ales.

My reason for featuring these is that some beers are instantly recognised as good and interesting because of the geographical area of origination. For example beers from Yorkshire and Cornwall are instantly thought of as good beers because of their county of origin. However the area of the country that cuts across Berkshire and Oxfordshire, which is known as the Vale of the White Horse, also has some fine brewers and their beers compare well with any from the fore-mentioned counties. Do try them if you get a chance.

Cider & Ginger Beer

Everything seems to come full circle in the brewing and brands world. Categories grow and then proliferate into other categories as brand owners look for growth options. One example is cider.

Cider has enjoyed a tremendous last few years with the Magners fuelled growth creating consumer interest and opportunities for other cider makers. A number of quality ciders have emerged to the fore as well as other ciders that are targeted at the 18 to 25 age category.  The latter have taken sales from Premium Packaged Spirit (PPS) brands such as Bacardi Breezer and WKD.

However, as more brands enter the market the traditional cider has begun to take on the uniform of the PPS.  Now, fruit ciders are all the rage and this is where the growth is coming from. Flavour wise these are very close to the fruity PPS brands we became so familiar with. It is basically that sweet fruity flavour that younger people find quite accessible. 

Another example is the ginger beer category. Perhaps initially closer to a PPS in flavour anyway, the market leader here, Crabbies is about to launch a Strawberry version. Consumers will doubtless show interest in this with the power of the Crabbies brand behind it and we’ll soon see the traditional PPS, fighting for the same crowded market place with a fruit cider and a fruit beer!

So, although the PPS brand is in decline, it has been replaced with a version of cider and possibly beer that is not too dissimilar in flavour to its PPS counterpart. I wonder what’s next - perhaps the interest in craft beer is the next category to find its way to the younger drinker?

In praise of the Regional Brewer

Love them or not, Regional Brewers have become beacons of hope for cask ale drinkers over recent years. However they are not always popular with consumers being associated with local monopolies, accused by some of having a stranglehold over choice and price. Also the recent interest in craft beers has led to Regionals being over shadowed for more fashionable, younger and exciting brewers who are new to the market.

But let’s be positive, cask ale drinkers have a lot to thank Regional Brewers for! They have done a great job in maintaining and growing the cask ale market as multi-national companies and national brewers have moved away from cask into lager and cider. Often much maligned, Greene King have continually invested in their cask brands and recently announced a £4 million investment in Old Speckled Hen and Greene King IPA. Marston’s too have supported the sector with their sponsorship of the England cricket team with Pedigree. In London, Fullers with London Pride have done TV advertising with James May, whilst Wells & Young’s have invested hugely for Bombardier.

What is often overlooked is that as the bigger regionals invest in marketing their brands, they also help to sustain and grow the whole cask sector. Fo example If someone is encouraged by the advertising to switch from lager to Greene King IPA, they are converted into a cask ale drinker which in turn may lead them to try many other beers.

Regional Brewers have also been very active in the campaign against the hated Beer duty Escalator. The news this week that this is to be removed, plus and a further 1p drop in beer duty, is a great credit to their sustained efforts over the past few years.

Finally, let’s not forget that Regional Brewers brew some fantastic beers, all of which are produced to a consistently high standard. The word consistency is something Regionals brands have become synonymous for. Micro’s and Craft Breweries (and I don’t know the difference) brew some very tasty beers as well, but they are perhaps less consistent. One week it’s wonderful but the following week it can be less so. However the Regional brewer has the systems and equipment in place to brew consistently good quality beer every week.

So in conclusion, do be positive if you have a local Regional Brewer and support their beers and pubs.  

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Craft Beer Rising?

Craft Beer Rising?

It most certainly is. I attended the Craft Beer Rising Beer Festival in Shorditch, London recently. A great little beer festival with live music, it was very different to the usual CAMRA run event.

First of all there was no mass row upon row of cask beers or huge beer list with silly names for that matter. Brewers were invited to attend and each given the same size stand, so no matter if you were a super regional such as Greene King, or a small up and coming micro brewer such as Rebel Brewing Co, brewers were pitched equally alongside each other.

The next most noticable thing was the age group of the general public. I've attended my share of CAMRA events in the past and they tend to attract people like me.....older, experienced ale drinkers and mostly males. CBR was totally different, fresh younger faces were there of both genders, all eager to try the new craft beers and some of the old favourites on offer.

For attracting younger people CBR should be applauded. Yes, the organisation could be improved and I'm sure a few things will change next year, but for me the most important thing was that for once, new drinkers were being attracted to the category.

So what was the catalyst for this? As good as the beer festival was with the music it played, I believe it's the "C" word that attracts younger people - Craft beer is cutting edge, its fashionable for younger people, just as the term "Real Ale" was fashionable when I was younger. The definition of craft beer is not yet clearly defined and perhaps one day the brewing industry will set about this, but for the moment, if craft beer means beer for younger people then I'm all for it.

Hare Beers

 

Had two beers named after Hares today.Wild Hare from Bath Ales I really want to like but do struggle with it. I don't really like diacetyl but this seems to be a charataristic of Bath Ales beers. It's much worse in their flagship beer, Gem, but Wild Hare sadly also has it. I do like their branding though, very distinctive.

 

Hopping Hare from the Badger Brewery is a very nice beer. Well hopped this beer is crisp with a good level of bitterness and a fine citrus palate. I'd recommend this beer, Badger are an established regional brewer of some standing and their beers are normally reliable.



Old Speckled Hen

I note with interest a quote from the Greene King Marketing Director re the origins of the Old Speckled Hen in a recent article in the Morning Advertiser. Named after an old factory run-around Abingdon MG Motor Car is certainly true, but it was definitely not parked next to the old paint shop which attributed to the flecked colours of the paint work.

The Owd Speckled Un, or Old Speckled Hen arose as the designers in the early MG Car works developed new paint schemes for cars. The Old Speckled Hen was a black car sprayed with flecks of gold paint.

Being part of he Morland marketing team that launched the brand on draught in the late 1980's I'm well qualified to know the history of the origins of the name.

Having criticised GK on one hand, I have to say they have done a great job in marketing and growing the brand since it's Morland days. Good luck to them and OSH, still a great beer!

Biere de Bretagne

Found some great beers in the north tip of France. Really noticed from previous visits there are more beers to choose from. You can still find the usual lagers like Pelforth which is quite refreshing, but there are some tasty delights to discover tucked away in 330ml bottles in local shops and bars.

My favourite was a beer called Cervoise Launcelot. I don't read French but discovered it is flavoured from 5 plant extracts, but I don't know which. The beer is full, malty with a hint of chocolate and best of all like a lot of the beers from this region it is unfiltered.

Another great beer was Duchess Anne Triple, again from the Launcelot brewery. Belgium style, sweet and sour, very distinctive.

The Coreff Brewery seem to have lots of nice beers and the Ambre is well worth seeking out. It appears in Adrian Tierney Jones 1001 Beers to try before you die and I certainly agree with him, its well worth trying, toffee, malt, liquorish but well balanced with some hop.

Rosko is the main brewery in Roscoff and you can find lots of their beers. The Blone is very satisfying, citrus, banana and hint of cloves on the nose.

If you go to this region of France, do look further than the draught lager or bottles of Kronenbourg, there are some good quality and tasty beers to discover.