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Best beer and travel writing award 2015, 2011 -- British Guild of Beer Writers Awards
Accredited Beer Sommelier
Writer of "Probably the best book about beer in London" - Londonist
"A necessity if you're a beer geek travelling to London town" - Beer Advocate
"A joy to read" - Roger Protz
"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
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Top Tastings 2011 (Ambrée), Beer sellers: Abbaye des Saveurs
ABV: 6.5%
Origin: Bavay, Nord, France
 Theillier La Bavaisienne (Ambrée) Northern French bières de garde are generally assumed to have deep historic roots in the local tradition of farmhouse brewing, though today’s best known and best selling brands are of more recent origin than you might expect. They’re revivalist beers developed in the 1970s (Jenlain) and 1980s (Choulette, Ch’ti, Trois Monts) by old established independent brewers who rightly decided that distinctive but accessible regional specialities might form the basis of a better survival plan than attempting to compete head-on with the lager giants.
Theillier, in the village of Bavay, an important capital in Roman times, is a little different. This small farmhouse-based operation is the oldest surviving brewery in the region and has stuck to making the same traditional styles throughout. Michel Theillier, in post since 1978, is the seventh generation of an unbroken family line that’s run the business since 1835, with production only halted once during that period, when the occupying Germans requisitioned the brewing vessels during World War I. Undoubtedly the recipes have evolved during that time, and today’s flagship Bavaisienne beers emerged in their current form in the 1980s too, but they can lay considerable claim to authenticity.
Most of the 1,000hl of annual production is sold locally but a small proportion is exported to the USA. I’ve never seen them in the UK, so I pounced when I found 250ml bottles of them on the shelves of the Abbaye des Saveurs in Lille. There are two Bavaisienne beers, the original amber and a blond, also available in 750ml bottles and only distinguishable by the label colours – blue and red respectively.
Both are brewed from pilsner malt and some coloured malt for the ambrée – some of the barley is grown locally but the historic decline of brewing in the region has largely stripped it of malting capacity so like most of its neighbouring breweries Theillier uses barley malted over the border in Belgium. Hops are Brewers Gold from Germany and yeast is obtained from Duyck, brewers of the Jenlain beers. These warm fermented beers undergo a traditional cold maturation period of a least a month at -1°C before being chill filtered but not pasteurised.
The blond was a splendid beer that poured golden with a fine white head and a richly malty, slightly lagery Germanic hop aroma. The crisp but full palate had a firm cereal character with a fine note of fruit, firm nuttiness, pleasant sweetness and a touch of slightly citric hops. The gently drying but still sweet finish became very nutty with a slightly warming note and a delicious natural grainy quality. Overall it was a well-muscled and quite straightforward beer but with a certain elegance.
The amber I found better still. It poured a classic amber with a little light beige head and a rather retiring slightly spicy aroma with nuts and cinder toffee. Like the blond the palate was firm and sweetish, with an emerging oozy lusciousness and plenty of malt character – biscuits, peanuts, even a touch of smoke. Gentle, almost medicinal spruce-like hints emerged before a nutty, coating and very satisfying finish with a light but building note of hops.
Again a straightforward beer but characterful, flawlessly made and a real taste of tradition.
I drew on the following book for some background details:
Gabriel Thierry 2010, Sur la route des bières du Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Bouvignies: Nord Avril
Top Tastings 2011
ABV: 7%
Origin: Ouderschild, Texel (Noord-Holland), Netherlands
Website: www.speciaalbier.com
 Texels Bock With my slightly sweet beer tooth, I’ve got a soft spot for the Dutch interpretation of bo(c)kbier, which has become an institution in its own right in the Netherlands, a seasonal focus for drinkers and a rallying point for the country’s beer consumer movement, PINT.
It’s even the subject of two competitions and a festival. “Het Beste Bockbier van Nederland” – the ‘best’ beer in the style – is chosen by a panel of beer experts at the Bokbierfestival organised by PINT in late October in Amsterdam, while “Het Lekkerste Bockbier van Nederland” – the ‘tastiest’ beer – is named by ordinary drinkers at a separate event organised by the Arendsnest beer pub supported by the specialist pub landlords’ organisation ABT.
Almost all Dutch brewers now produce a bok at the relevant time of year: old established brewers usually produce theirs in traditional cold-fermenting lager style while the newer micros tend to make boks as warm fermented ales. Standard strength for the style is up to 7%, though stronger variants are now made. One of the most successful standard strength microbrewed entrants in recent years is Texelse Bock, from what’s now one of the Netherlands’ most consistent and enduring new generation brewers.
The original brewery was founded in 1994 by Maurice Diks in an old dairy in the tiny fishing village of Oudeschild on Texel (pronounced ‘Tessel’ in Dutch), the southernmost and largest of the chain of Frisian islands that dots the northwest coast of the continent from the Netherlands to Denmark. It’s notably expanded since falling under new ownership in 1999.
Texels Bock is brewed from pale and roasted barley malt and hops, some of which is sourced from the island. Though a warm fermenting yeast is used, the beer undergoes extensive cold lagering before being bottle conditioned. The resulting brew was named tastiest bockbier in 2009, best in 2010, and both tastiest and best in 2011.
I encountered a bottle of the 2010 version at De Hems, Soho’s famous Dutch pub, which despite its authentic atmosphere and expat following is often disappointing as a source of more adventurous Dutch beers, so I considered myself lucky. I soon understood why the beer had been so widely praised.
Texeks Bock pours a lightly cloudy deep reddish-brown with a fine yellowy head. Notes of roasted malt, tar, banana, grapes and refined grassy hops are evident on a slightly flinty aroma. A luxurious palate has notes of burnt sugar, liquorice and cherry fruit – it’s sweet, but kept interesting with light hops and a chewy roast character.
The gently lingering finish is very well balanced, smooth and satisfying, with more malt, a bit of hop bitterness and a toasty edge. A classic, comforting cold weather brew.
For more background on the style, see Proef/SNAB Ezelenbok.
Top Tastings 2011 (bottled Cuvée d’Oscar), Beer sellers: Abbaye des Saveurs
ABV: 6.5% and 7.5%
Origin: Lochristi, Oost-Vlaanderen, Vlaanderen
Website: craigallan.fr, www.proefbrouwerij.com
 Craig Allan Cuvée d'Oscar (brewed at Proef) These beers are produced in Belgian Flanders by a Scottish brewer based in Picardy, northern France, and are decidedly international at heart. Craig Allan trained in Edinburgh but found the British brewing scene hidebound by tradition. He now lives in Méry-la-Bataille, in the Oise département, and is working with the owners of Lille’s Abbaye des Saveurs beer shop and specialist pub La Capsule to create a new range of beers. The aspiration is to open a brewery somewhere in the area but in the meantime brewing takes place at the ever reliable Proef in Lochristi, over the Belgian border, proving ground for so many interesting new beers.
Having shaken off the weight of one deep rooted brewing tradition, Craig isn’t likely to succumb to another one, and his beers are a long way from the bières de garde typical of French Flanders and Picardy, leaning instead towards US-influenced craft beer styles and a spirit of artisanal experimentation. The former tendency is most evident in Agent Provocateur, a self described hybrid of a Belgian golden ale and an IPA.
Tasted from a keykeg at La Capsule, this was a cloudy golden beer with a foamy white head and a very rich fruity aroma with notes of kiwi fruit, pineapple, resinous Cascade hops and some farmyard scents. There was less hoppy bitterness than I expected on the rich full palate, though tasty apricot jam flavours came through, and a solid maltiness coupled with the characteristic esters of Belgian yeast established the golden ale side of the hybrid. A lightly sweet, lightly drying finish had some vegetal hop character.
Much as the Agent provoked me to appreciation, Cuvée d’Oscar (‘Oscar’s brew’, named after Craig’s baby son) turned out to be something else entirely. My personal tastes veer more towards dark beer anyway, but this one was so original and unusual. It’s based on a wheat Bock of the Schneider Aventinus variety, with a “high proportion” of wheat malt joining Munich, crystal and chocolate barley malts in the grist, fermented with Bavarian wheat beer yeast and given a twist with a good dose of hops, including dry hopping with New Zealand Nelson Sauvin.
A keykeg sample was thick and chestnut brown, with a thick bubbly off-tan head, looking very much like a strong Belgian brown, but certainly not smelling like one. The aroma was very fruity, with grape and apricot notes, followed by an unusual and very complex toffee palate with apricot, pineapple, chocolate, malt loaf and a spicy, yeasty quality. A pleasant finish was packed with vivid and unusual flavours, blending chocolate and toffee notes with satsumas, grapes and a touch of roast, with spicy hops nicely balancing an overall biscuity sweetness.
The bottle conditioned version I bought in the shop left even more of an impression. This looked very similar, again with a foamy head, and again I noted grapes and apricots in a creamy aroma. These fruits showed up too in the complex, sweetish palate alongside chocolate, breakfast cereal, exotic spice and a developing hoppy bitterness, with a luscious bubbly texture adding to the sensual delight. Chocolate turned quite dark and stern in the finish with raisins, toffee and an emerging powdery dryness with roasted malt flavours rounded off by apricot nectar, with a touch of herbal, lettucey bitterness.
Another brewer to watch, without a doubt.
Top Tastings 2011
ABV: 7.2%
Origin: Macclesfield, Cheshire East, England
Website: redwillowbrewery.com
 Redwillow Ageless Double IPA Recent years have seen the emergence of a number of new, small British breweries that place themselves firmly in the international craft beer movement rather than the native real ale tradition. I hesitate to use the label “craft beer” as in my view even the most dyed-in-the-wool cask ale producers should be counted as craft breweries, but there’s certainly an emerging and influential group of young brewers who are determined to do things differently, often looking across the Atlantic for inspiration.
The most recent example I’ve encountered is Redwillow, founded in 2010 by Toby McKenzie in Macclesfield. I happened across a selection of Toby’s cask and bottle conditioned beers at one of Manchester’s burgeoning number of interesting beer venues, the Font Bar, in early December, and with limited time to spare opted to try a bottle of this US-inspired double IPA. It turned out to be a good choice.
The beer poured amber, with a very big puffy yellowish head. Grapefruit and tropical fruit notes quickly seized control of a toffeeish malt aroma. More tropical fruit exploded on a resinous palate with notes of spice, burnt toast, lavender, sesame oil and a slight washing up liquid hint – an impressive intensity of flavour but nowhere near as overbearing as some beers in this style. Pineapple, coconut and a building peppery note danced in a long finish, with a minerally, chewy quality and some spicy, seedy notes.
Top Tastings 2011, Beer sellers: Abbaye des Saveurs
ABV: 8.5%
Origin: Blaringhem, Nord, France
Website: www.bracine.com
 Brasserie du Pays Flamand Anosteké Brune Imperial Smout In November 2011 I was in Lille for a few days, checking out among other things the excellent beer range at the Abbaye des Saveurs shop in Vieux-Lille which will shortly feature in a Beer Sellers piece here. It was an opportunity to remind myself both of the joys of traditional bières de garde from this region of France, and to explore the work of some of the newer breweries now emerging, who take a more eclectic, internationally inspired approach to developing fine local products.
A good example of these is the Brasserie du Pays Flamand (‘Flemish Country brewery’), opened in 2006 by banker Mathieu Lesenne and commercial engineer Olivier Duthoit, both in their 30s and home brewers. For the first two years they contracted at another brewery, Saint-Germain, before opening at their current site in the village of Blaringhem on the edge of the Nord département, in a former distillery that once made spirits out of locally grown beet.
The brewery first made a success of its Bracine brand using substantial quantities of Flemish hops, before developing a new range of specialities, also well hopped but “more anchored in the brewing tradition”. Not long ago much of the area was Dutch speaking, as the place name attests, and the dialect survives – the brand name, Anosteké, is a dialect rendering of ‘tot de volgende keer’, ‘until the next time’.
I tried the Brune, which is subtitled curiously “imperial smout” [sic] – not quite an imperial stout. ratebeer.com has it as a Black IPA but I’m not so sure – there’s a definite stoutishness but also suggestions of an unusually well hopped and roasty dark abbey beer. Whatever, it’s a class act.
The beer is thick and near-black with a subsiding tan head. Fruit cake, tart plums, rum and coffee are evident on a rich aroma with a sweetish black treacle note, heralding a fruity palate that gradually dries, with lots of rich chocolate character, angelica, touches of raspberry and cherry fruit, a hint of brandy and a definite chewy hop note. A smooth, slightly clinging swallow leaves a complex finish with notes of tobacco, wood ash. Dry, roasty, charred and bitterish hoppy flavours linger over moreish sweetness. The next time can’t come too soon.
 Mixing it up on the wheels of steel. Or something. Pic: Ian Harris Next weekend (2-5 February 2012) sees the latest beer and music themed festival at the very welcoming and decent Snooty Fox pub at Canonbury. Yes, you’ll be able to enjoy some great beers, but you’ll also be able to catch a rare DJ set from yours truly.
I don’t usually write about my other activities on this blog but since this one has a beer link here’s a shameless plug. In my shady past I DJ’d for several years at the famous 100 Club in Oxford Street on Saturday nights, playing an eclectic mix mainly based around classic rhythm & blues and soul, with all kinds of other retro stuff thrown in from big band jazz and rock’n’roll through easy listening, ska and Latin to punk and the odd bit of indie. The event at the Fox is billed as a rock’n’roll themed weekend but my contibutions are likely to be a bit more eclectic than that.
Besides a moonlighting beer writer, the event also features 25 new wave craft beerswith a focus on ales with unusual flavours such as a Milk Stout from Dark Star, Plum Porter from Titanic and a special jasmine IPA from Thornbridge. A brand new beer from Revolution Brewing named Unknown Pleasures in honour of Joy Division will also be featured, so I might slip a Manchester miserabilist tune in my set too.
Copies of my book will of course be on sale and I’ll be happy to sign prepurchased ones. See you there on Friday 3 February: my set starts at 2100 and the pub is open till 0100.
For more see www.snootyfoxlondon.co.uk/events.html.
Top Tastings 2011
ABV: 7.3%
Origin: Manchester, England
Website: www.marblebeers.co.uk, www.fullers.co.uk
 Fuller's head brewer John Keeling with Marble Old Manchester. "Old and from Manchester." Pic: Fuller's Collaboration beers are especially popular among the new generation of craft brewers, often across national boundaries, and have produced some fascinating results. But here’s one that crosses the generations, bringing together one of Britain’s leading old established independent breweries with one of its most impressive new arrivals, and also connecting two of the country’s greatest cities. It’s a beer that brought John Keeling, who has kept London’s Fuller’s in the first rank of world breweries, back to his native Manchester to create something rather special with James Campbell at the innovative Marble brewery.
Old Manchester Ale – “I like this beer because it’s like me, old and from Manchester!” comments John – is actually partly inspired by a London beer, Fuller’s own ESB, a favourite at Marble for its mix of juicy malt and assertive hops. When it was introduced in 1971, ESB replaced a long established Burton ale, not a light coloured India-style pale but a darker, sweeter beer in a style that originated in Burton but was once commonly brewed across England. It seems possible that ESB inherited some of its predecessor’s characteristics with its deep colour and rich maltiness.
Old Manchester turns the ESB volume control up a little and brings some twists of its own. It’s notably higher in gravity, and hopped with English Challenger, although I suspect some piny US hops have been included too. Both hop character and smoothness have been underlined by dry hopping the beer in cask and maturing for three months before bottle conditioning in Marble’s handsome Bordeaux-style bottles.
The beer is a lovely nut-brown colour with hints of amber, and a fine foamy light beige head. A beautifully fruity aroma has piney hop notes which, alongside the toffeeish, biscuity malt character, made me think of a modern US brown ale. There’s a grapefruit note on the palate which is dead dry and biscuity, though still contrives to be toffeeish, with a few lightly charred and burnt rubber hints, subtley softened by tasty fruit.
The biscuity quality persists in a finish where the piney notes recede under more fruit and a lingering peppery hop bite, lightly warming alcohol and some late candy notes. The beer is available in limited quantities – I found mine at the Pigs Ear beer festival but it’s also stocked by Marble and at the Fuller’s Brewery Shop.
Top Tastings 2011
ABV: 5%
Origin: Santa Rosa, California, USA
Website: www.moonlightbrewing.com
 Moonlight Death & Taxes Black Beer The name refers to the old proverb about certainty, attributed among many others to Benjamin Franklin. And it’s a quality that I’ve come to associate over the past few years with Moonlight beers – the certainty that the beer I’m about to taste is at least interesting and quite likely excellent.
Most people I’ve spoken to who’ve also encountered Brian Hunt’s beers feel the same, yet they’re limited to a modest production – only about 1,000 US barrels (1,200hl) a year, and with distribution over a limited area. Brian started the brewery in 1992 in an old barn in the countryside north of Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County on the outlying flanks of the San Francisco Bay Area. It moved to a purpose built facility closer to town in 2003. There are no bottles – Brian insists the beers taste their best only in kegs.
Moonlight beers are artisanal, eccentric and distinctive without shouting out for attention like some more notorious Californian craft brews. The fact that the flagship beer, Death & Taxes, is an inspired take on a Schwarzbier sums up the approach.
The beer is a very dark brown, near black, with a foamy beige head and a rich chocolatey dark malt aroma. A very firm but clean and smooth palate is dry and sacky with little sweetness, some coffee and chocolate flavours and a bit more hops than expected, but not overwhelmingly so. A long developing and perfectly controlled and balanced chocolate and bitterish roast finish turns powdery on the tongue. It’s sophisticated and flavourful but still wonderfully refreshing.
I sampled the beer during another very pleasant session at one of my favourite San Francisco beer venues, the Monks Kettle in the Mission.
Top Tastings 2011
ABV: 4.9%
Origin: London W10, England
Website: moncadabrewery.co.uk
 Julio Moncada at the London Brewers Showcase, October 2011 2011 was an extraordinary year for brewing in London. When I sent the final text of London’s Best Beer, Bars and Pubs off to CAMRA Books in early March, I felt the capital had done well to nurture six new brewers over a matter of years, particularly when they included Brodie’s, Camden Town, Kernel, Redemption and Sambrook’s. Then at the end of March I heard another new brewery, Moncada, was under development in west London.
I phoned up a rather surprised Julio Moncada, and discovered he was a former caterer from Argentina, who had originally planned to open a delicatessen business but then opted for brewing instead, partly as the ingredients were nearer to hand. I then wrote a last minute couple of paragraphs on the basis that Moncada beers would be on sale by publication date, feeling rather pleased with myself for producing something with its finger so firmly on the pulse.
As it happens, things turned out rather differently. In the succeeding months, it sometimes seemed I was hearing about yet another planned new London brewery on a weekly basis. Meanwhile Julio’s plans were delayed by trade mark and electricity supply problems, and several other newcomers such as Botanist, By the Horns, East London, London Brewing, London Fields and Redchurch beat him to it, with a rush of new openings in late summer and early autumn.
Moncada beers made their public debut on 22 October at the London Brewers Showcase organised by the London Brewers Alliance at Brew Wharf, Borough Market. This remarkable event included nearly all the new brewers alongside more established names including London’s remaining old established independent, Fuller’s. When I say that Sambrook’s, who couldn’t make it, were barely missed, it’s not at all a reflection on the quality of their beer but on the huge growth of the capital’s brewing industry.
I was glad to meet Julio face to face at the event and gladder still to taste his excellent beers, which really were worth waiting for. Notting Hill Amber was his first brew, served on cask but also available in the bottle, and a very promising start. It’s in this list of Top Tastings partly on its own merits, but also as a representative of all the new brewers that emerged in perhaps the most exhilirating year in living memory for the London’s beer scene.
My sample was a soft hazy amber with a fine white head and a very finely pointed hoppy aroma of grapefruit and exotic spice. A smooth, full and tasty palate turned rapidly bitter with grapefruit over underlying malt and a slightly petrolly note, first cakey and then slightly raspy on the tongue. The finish was bitterish and chewy but nicey rounded with a tasty smack of fruit and a little astringency. Long may the brewers of my home city keep producing such great beers.
Top Tastings 2011
ABV: 3.7%
Origin: Maldon, Essex, England
Website: www.mightyoakbrewery.co.uk
 Mighty Oak Oscar Wilde This beer won Champion Beer of Britain (CBoB) at the Great British Beer Festival in August 2011, much to the consternation of some craft beer aficianados who saw this as further evidence of CAMRA conservatism and fustiness – with all those exciting new high gravity beers out there dry hopped with massive quantities of the latest alpha acid oozer from New Zealand, here they are giving their top award to a dull old 3.7% traditional English mild.
For my part, I was more than happy with the choice. I’m a great fan of mild, which, although it’s not quite in as imminent danger of extinction as it once was, is still a minority style, and at its best a brilliant demonstration of how brewers can squeeze remarkable amounts of flavour into a low gravity beer. Admittedly the CBoB judges sometimes make eccentric choices and tend towards conservatism, but all they can do is pick what they think are the best beers that are offered to them out of a wide variety on the day.
Much as I was pleased to hear of Oscar Wilde’s win, however, the main reason it’s here is more personal. Shortly after 1800hrs on Thursday 3 February 2011, I completed my exhausting schedule of research visits to potential places to drink for inclusion in The CAMRA Guide to London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars by calling in at Leyton Orient Supporters Club.
Due to the irregular opening hours of the club, I’d not succeeded in visiting it on previous research itineraries, and had even considered not bothering with it, but in the end I was glad I made a special effort. It’s certainly not London’s most beautiful place to drink, but it’s an unexpectedly quirky venue with an excellent range of cask ales at bargain prices and a very warm welcome from the enthusiastic volunteers who run it. It seemed a good place to draw a line under my quest for the capital’s best beer outlets.
As had become my standard practice with places new to me, I went in unannounced as an ordinary drinker, ordered a half and took stock of both the beer and the surroundings. Then before taking more detailed notes I introduced myself to bar manager Mike Childs and explained what I was doing. We ended up chatting further, and when Mike found out his club was my last stop he insisted I stay for a pint on the house by way of celebration. I unhesitatingly chose one of their regular beers, Oscar Wilde Mild.
Its brewery, Mighty Oak in the pretty Essex town of Maldon, on the Blackwater estuary, has a firm link to east London brewing heritage. It was founded in Brentwood, just over the London boundary, in 1996 by brewer John Boyce, who had been made redundant through the closure by Carlsberg of the Ind Coope brewery in Romford, one of the great historic ale breweries of the region with a history dating back to 1709. Reaching for the aspiration of its name, the tiny brewery prospered and moved to its current, much bigger, premises in 2001.
It’s unusual these days for a brewer in southeast England to do well with a mild but Oscar Wilde is an exception. Mild may also not have been the tipple of choice for the flamboyant Irish poet, playwright and wit with whom it shares its name, but of course it’s Cockney rhyming slang – not that I’d miss the opportunity of raising a glass to Oscar himself.
The beer is a very, very dark amber brown with a light foamy beige head and a malty, sappy, slightly caramel tinged aroma of the precise sort you’d expect from a good example of the style. There’s also a bit of caramel on the malty palty, with some liquorice and a touch of ashy roast, offset by a pleasant fruity tanginess on the tongue. A nice drying and slightly roasty finish has a bit more brown bread flavour with notably bracing hops around the edges – perhaps a bit more than would be typical in more traditional examples, but not enough to overpower the firm malt character.
I’ve found Oscar Wilde delicious on several occasions and this was no exception, though perhaps with an extra boost of pleasure given the task I’d just accomplished. If this beer is in the gutter, it is certainly looking up at the stars, and I urge you to follow its gaze.
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Cask  This pioneering new book explains what makes cask beer so special, and explores its past, present and future. Order now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
London’s Best Beer  The fully updated 3rd edition of my essential award-winning guide to London’s vibrant beer scene is available now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
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