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"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
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London Beer Tastings 2011.
Export Stout was featured in a piece on bottle conditioned beers from London in BEER August 2011. Read more about London bottle conditioned beers.
ABV: 7.8% and 5.6%
Origin: Bermondsey, London SE1, England
Website: www.thekernelbrewery.com
 Evin O'Riordan of The Kernel brewery, London SE1 Evin O’Riordan, founder and head brewer at the Kernel brewery in Bermondsey, is not only arguably London’s highest rising new brewing star but is increasingly enjoying international recognition. Early in 2011 Kernel was listed as one of the top five new breweries in the world by users of the leading international beer rating website, ratebeer.com. Its strictly artisanal bottle conditioned beers with their tasteful, minimalist labels are also changing the way we think about selling beer in London, finding their way into top flight restaurants and trendy bars as well as more established beer outlets.
The compact 6.5hl (4 barrel) PBC plant, until recently the smallest freestanding brewery in London, first began producing beer late in 2009 in the railway arch which it shares with an artisanal cheesemaker and a cheese and charcuterie importer. Demand is now outstripping supply, particularly given that all the beer is currently hand bottled, and plans for relocation and expansion are being actively pursued.
From Waterford in Ireland, Evin studied English Literature as a postgraduate, but ended up working with cheese at Neal’s Yard Dairy, a leading distributor and retailer of fine British cheese based in Borough Market. It was on an extended trip to New York City to help set up a Neal’s Yard shop that Evin’s interest in brewing was engaged. He returned to London determined to become a craft brewer, and trained himself through home brewing with London Amateur Brewers and the Durden Park Beer Circle.
 Inside the Kernel brewery, London SE1 These influences account for the two poles of Kernel’s output. On the one hand there are traditional porters and stouts, often based on historic recipes reaching back to the styles’ London roots (and not forgetting the parallel history these dark beers enjoyed in Evin’s homeland). On the other there are pale ales and IPAs in the contemporary North American hop accented mode. Exact recipes change from batch to batch, particularly in terms of hops, making the Kernel label more like an artist’s signature than a stable and consistent brand.
 The Kernel Export Stout London 1890 I visited Kernel early in 2011 as part of the research for my London beer guide, and came away with a handful of tasting samples of what turned out to be outstanding beers. One of the very best was an excellent Export Stout, based on an 1890 Truman recipe, which later won supreme champion at that year’s International Beer Challenge.
The dense mahogany beer had a rich and finely grained deep beige head and a lightly roasted coffee aroma with notes of tar and minerals. A thick and weighty gulp of beer then filled the mouth, with notes of blackcurrants, cindery herbs and liquorice humbug sweets. A milky-textured swallow set up a very long finish with big chocolate and ashy notes emerging with blackcurranty and chaffy retronasals and a definite pursing bitterness. The beer started off stern and challenging but soon became cheerful, warming and full of flavour.
The Porter, also from an historic recipe, is lighter but almost as good. Again this was a very dark mahogany beer with a fine beige head. A very chocolatey, lightly roasty aroma had spicy hops, while there was a touch of burnt rubber along with vanilla, slightly acidic fruit and estery perfume on the smooth chocolate malt palate. A tasty, roasty and slightly astringent finish had a touch of woodsmoke and burnt vine fruits, like the raisins embedded in the crust of a well-baked tea bread, with more coffee, chocolate and rooty hops. An excellent beer.
For reviews of Kernel beers in more modern styles, see the next post.
Top Tastings 2009 / CAMRA North London Tasting 2010 / London beer tastings 2011 / Top Tastings 2011 (2001 vintage)
ABV: 8.5%
Origin: Chiswick, London W6, England
Website: www.fullers.co.uk
 A run of Fuller's Vintage Ale poses for the camera, Hock Cellar, Fuller's Brewery, London W6, October 2011 Until the recent resurgence that took everyone by surprise, craft brewing in London seemed locked in a decades-long cycle of decline, and today only one brewery remains as a living link back to the glory days when the capital of the British Empire was also the beer capital of the world. That brewery is Fuller’s, a modest local independent at the dawn of contemporary beer connoisseurship back in the early 1970s. Back then it was ready to give up cask beer and go with the flow of the big brewers who were converting to keg, but thankfully it was persuaded to stick with tradition, and has grown from one of the revered names of the early days of CAMRA to one of the world’s best breweries. And its Vintage Ale, bottle conditioned barley wine with a remarkable propensity to mature and develop complexity in the bottle, is to my mind one of the world’s best beers.
Brewing on the site, wedged beneath the Thames and the busy A4 road at Chiswick in west London, is claimed to date back to a brewhouse in the gardens of Bedford House on Chiswick Mall in the 1650s. Thomas Mawson started the first commercial brewery there in 1701 and a Fuller first became involved in 1829. The founding date of 1845 shown on the brewery logo was when John Bird Fuller got together with Henry Smith and his brother in law John Turner to take over the site.
 Fuller's Griffin Brewery, London W6 Descendants of the founding partners remain involved, including chairman Michael Turner and sales and personnel director Richard Fuller. Most of the red brick brewery buildings date from the 1870s but parts are older: the wisteria carpeting some of the walls may be the oldest in England, from a Chinese cutting planted in 1816. Perhaps the beer helped it flourish as another cutting from the same batch that went to Kew Gardens later died.
Although Fuller’s kept faith with cask, for decades it routinely filtered and pasteurised its bottled beers. Vintage Ale is part of the story of how that changed. In 1995, veteran head brewer Reg Drury was asked to develop a special beer to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the current company, and devised a recipe that, though it wasn’t a straightforward historical recreation, was intended to be something like the sort of beer the brewery would have produced in 1845.
According to the current head brewer John Keeling, Reg was keen to add extra authenticity by bottle conditioning this beer, which was later named simply 1845, but was nervous of infections, so the first batches were pasteurised before being reseeded with fresh yeast. He was disappointed that the pasteurisation robbed the beer of some character, and finally took the plunge in leaving this stage out. He found ensuring a vigorous secondary fermentation was the best protection for the beer, which proved a great success.
Two years later the marketing department, pleased by the performance of 1845, came up with the idea of an annual bottled special beer that used “champion” ingredients – the best available malt and hops from that year’s harvest. Reg decided to base this on the brewery’s well-reputed but pasteurised barley wine, Golden Pride, and again made it a bottle conditioned beer. As an annual release, Vintage Ale, as it was named, appeared in a dated bottle presented in an attractive card case.
When the debut 1997 version hit the shelves, no-one at the brewery imagined that they’d still be drinking the beer 15 years later. They just assumed it would sell out over the year and then be replaced by next year’s model. But as the years passed both brewery staff and canny beer connoisseurs starting tasting older versions, and realised something remarkable was going on.
I’ve written about Vintage Ale before on this blog as it’s cropped up at tastings I’ve attended or hosted, or as I’ve sampled my own supplies. But in October 2011 I had the opportunity to attend a remarkable event hosted by John Keeling at the brewery. To celebrate the launch of 2011 Vintage Ale, John had lined up samples of all the previous vintages for a vertical tasting — almost certainly the last time such an event could happen as stocks of some of the vintages such as 1998 and 2002 are down to a few cases.
In his introduction John not only imparted some of the background recounted above but also talked about the way the beer evolves over the years. To the delight of those members of the audience who love poring over facts and figures, he handed out a fascinating table with a comparitive analysis of the various vintages on the day they were bottled and in September 2011. Of course the alcohol increases as the yeast gets to work on the residual sugars, while other chemical processes break down more complex sugars into simpler, fermentable ones that the yeast then attacks. But the increases aren’t huge and seem to fall back over time. The 2008, for example, was 8.47% ABV when bottled, and 9.12% on the more recent measurement. But the 1997, which went into the bottle at 8.67%, is now only 8.71%.
There’s a widespread assumption that the breakdown of sugars will make the beer drier over time, but that’s not the only thing that’s going on. Much more noticeable is the change in hop bitterness, which rapidly declines, dropping by about 25% in the first year or so and continuing to fall after that. The oldest beer for which an original bitterness level was recorded was the 2002, with 43 IBUs, now reduced to 25. But even the 2010 has gone down from 41.3 IBUs to 30.25 in a year. Condition — the amount of carbon dioxide in the beer — falls back too, and both these processes contribute to the older beers tasting sweeter and maltier rather than dryer than their more youthful siblings. The tables also show the count of live yeast cells dropping back, but by no means disappearing, so although fermentation slows with age, it doesn’t completely cease.
Vintage Ale isn’t the ideal beer for a vertical tasting as the brewery varies the recipe subtly every year — the first few were made with prizewinning barley and hops but this proved impossible to sustain so recent variations have been more down to the brewers’ imagination. Nonetheless there’s a remarkable thread running through pretty much all the beers, given a rich and varied twist by the effect of ageing. Most interestingly, the quality and complexity of the beers seems to peak and trough over time. Just past the middle of the age range, you start to wonder whether they’re now beginning to deteriorate, but older beers still have picked up magnificently. This is a phenomenon I’ve read about in connection with other beers capable of ageing, but the Fuller’s tasting demonstrated it in action.
Given this, I’ve thought it appropriate to weave in some of my previous Vintage Ale tasting articles and other unpublished tasting notes in the appropriate place below, alongside the notes from that amazing evening in October. Apologies — this is a very long post.
2011
The youngest Vintage Ale, this includes Westminster and Tipple malts, some of them from organic barley grown by Sir James Fuller on the Neston Park Estate, with Goldings, Organic First Gold and Sovereign hops. Tasted on release in 2011, it was a rich orange-amber with an excellent foamy yellowish head. The yeasty, spicy aroma was almost Belgian in character, nutty and varnishy with a hint of liqueur. A burly orange malt palate was lightly bitter with chewy hops over firm cereal, biscuit and nuts. A fine and warming finish had late notes of smooth hops and a touch of marzipan and the overall impression made clear the close relationship with Golden Pride.
This was the first tasting of the evening and I marked it highly despite it being young, but having tasted all the versions back to 1997 I came back to it — compared to the old versions, it was fizzy and lacking in depth of flavour. It’s still worth drinking young, though, just a very different experience.
2010
This year’s beer was brewed with Tipple malt and dosed with Goldings and Fuggles hops on the boil, then dry hopped with Goldings and Target before being bottled. Tasted in October 2011, it has a much richer and more mature aroma than the 2011, with some faint honeyed, musty notes, orange liqueur, marzipan and a slight note of thinners. The beer was luscious on the tongue with plenty of rich but dry orange biscuit and nuttiness, still with an overall sweetish impression. A very slightly sherryish finish had marzipan, a very faint flinty roast hint and late sultanas. Not as vivid as the younger beer, but not yet developing the really interesting flavours that came later.
2009
One of the simplest Vintage Ale recipes, this one had East Anglian Tipple barley and a single hop, Kent Goldings. I first tried it a couple of months after release, at another event at Fuller’s hosted by John at which three of the beers in the series were sampled along with other Fuller’s brews. Here’s what I wrote about it on my blog in January 2010:
My favourite beer event of 2009 took place in the historic Hock Cellar at Fuller’s brewery, London’s last surviving classic family brewery and an icon of English ale. In early December, members of the Fuller’s Fine Ale Club gathered with brewery managers and staff and a smattering of beer writers to celebrate that club’s 10th anniversary with a special tutored tasting. Our host was head brewer John Keeling, a man whose world class skills with malt, hops and yeast, encyclopaedic knowledge and good taste are almost matched by his ability to deliver an informative and entertaining presentation brimming with obvious enthusiasm for his products. John is clearly a man who could have successfully followed a whole range of careers — people who care about beer should be glad he chose brewing.
John has a fascination for the process of maturation and ageing, and took that as his theme for the evening, beginning with the relatively short but vital maturation Fuller’s famous cask beers undergo at the brewery and in the pub cellar. We then moved on to explore the portfolio of strong bottle conditioned beers the brewery has built over the last couple of decades, including Prize Old Ale, inherited from the takeover of George Gale, and the recently launched Brewer’s Reserve matured in malt whisky casks. The grand finale was a succession of three examples of Vintage Ale…
The new 2009 version was an amber beer with a big foamy yellow-orange head, a slightly phenolic smooth malty aroma with a biscuity note, and a zesty fruit sherbet palate with savoury malt flavours and that spicy orange note that’s part of the house character. A warming smoothly malty finish began with orange flavoured foam from the high condition and settled into mouth coating fruit, hops and nuts. A fine beer packed with vivid flavours, but perhaps still too fresh and bright.
Almost two years later at the same venue, I found the beer had a consistent amber colour with the previous versions, and was clearly much less carbonated than at the previous sampling. It had a sweet, very marzipan-tinged aroma mellowed out with honey cake notes and a very slight touch of pine. I wondered also if there was a hint of soy sauce or Marmite — the note you get from the process called autolysis which sometimes happens when yeast cells break down. The palate was smooth and rich with a piny character coming through, again leaving a sherry-like slick on the tongue. The orange and salty, savoury notes were still there but had clearly become more herbal and honeyed. A spicy orange liqueur finish balanced sweetness with dry nuttiness.
2008
This was made from floor malted Maris Otter barley and Northdown and Challenger hops, and I’d also tasted it when young, thanks to some sample bottles supplied by the brewery. Back in December 2008 I found bottle number 35242 contained a bright orange-golden beer with a fine orange tinged head and an aroma of fruit sherbert, malt, spice and phenol with petally notes and barley sugar beneath. The palate was full and fruity, a bit like a dessert wine, but balanced with orange liqueur, spice and detergent notes. A warming bittersweet orange finish built a note of slightly medicinal hops. “A little sweet and lightweight but should mature very well,” I wrote in my notebook.
I was proved right when I revisited the beer at the vertical tasting: the 2008 was the best bottle we’d opened thus far. It was a lovely amber colour — it had probably darkened slightly with age — and threw a bubbly slightly yellowish head. A subtle, sweet, raisiny and yeasty aroma had cherry and, yes, marzipan notes. The palate had a piney, rooty dryness a little reminiscent of turmeric, but softened by honeyed notes, with herbs and a definite note of salt. A lovely orangey liqueur-like finish was sweet and lightly nutty, balanced out by subtle spices.
2007
 Fuller's Vintage Ale 2007 I’d bought this 10th anniversary edition, made from Maris Otter pale malt and Fuggles, Target and Super Styrian hops, from Sainsbury’s soon after it was released, but stashed it away and forgotten about it. I finally opened bottle 46623 in February 2010, and found a rich deep amber beer with a foamy orange cream head, a restrained spiced orange and peach aroma, and more orange and peach in the liqueur-like palate. Luxurious spices also danced in a rich, foamy and well-integrated beer with a long fruity and spicy finish. Notes of Cointreau gave way to a late mineral note.
Around 18 months later at the vertical tasting, this one looked notably darker than younger offerings, with the head still foamy but not so persistent, and a less pungent, more restrained aroma, fruity and sweet but also more malty and mellowed out. The beer was notably different in character than its predecessors, drier with the exotic spices I’d picked up on before still present. I also noted figs and raisins on the palate, and signs of ageing such as Marmite and a hint of oxidation. An interesting finish slicked the mouth with spicy, nutty flavours and an almost mastic-like piney note. No sign of the Cointreau.
2006
I believe the vertical tasting was the only time I’ve tasted the 2006, which was made with Super Styrian hops. Once again this was darker, and with a notably less persistent head. The fruity aroma had a slight note of chlorine, soon smothered by rum and sultanas. A salty but also very complex palate was complex but rounded and surprisingly yeasty, with dried fruit, drying biscuit and orange again. The finish was lingering and dry as nutshells. “Really ineresting” read my notes.
2005
This was one of two aged Vintage Ales featured by John at the 2009 event. Shortly afterwards, I wrote on this blog:
[The 2005 version] demonstrated what a difference four years can make to a beer of this type, as evidenced by the vocalisations that filled the room once glasses had been lifted to noses and lips. This one was also amber, brewed with floor malted Optic pale barley malt and a single hop, Fuggles, and though still lively it poured with a much less bubbly and energetic head. The aroma was still full of fruit but had taken on a mature woody pencil lead note and had more complex spicing. Also gaining in complexity was the palate, with fruity berry and orange flavours, sherry and that note of “madeirised” oxidation often found in aged beers (and mature red Bordeaux-type wines) that always tastes minty to me. A lovely sappy mouth-coating finish followed, with cream, oranges, nuts and a light roast touch.
How was it faring almost two years later? Excellently, as it turned out. Notably drier than the younger beers, it was starting to lose its head retention. Fruity orange and rum notes on the aroma set up a slightly sweet and malty palate with lovely dry spicy flavours — savory (the herb), spiced orange, muscat and marzipan. A big orange warming finish lost some of the sweetness and developed a slightly stony quality — perhaps not quite as generous as the previous tasting had been. “Short and precise,” remarked John.
2004
This year’s beer, made to a very simple recipe of Maris Otter pale malt and Goldings hops, seems to have been more widely available than some vintages have been, and I’ve had several opportunities to try it.
Once again I’d bought the beer at Sainsbury’s soon after it was released. Drunk young in January 2005, it was a lively copper-amber with a yellowish head and a rich, hoppy and complex aroma with seeds, burnt wood, nail varnish and yeast. A creamily malty and fruity palate had nutty hops, almond toffee flavours, orange marmalade and a touch of meatiness. A sharply fruity swallow was followed by a hoppy citrus pith finish that turned winy and warming.
In summer 2005 a rare cask version turned up at the Catford Beer Festival – I found this a rich, if slightly cloudy, brownish amber, with a bubbly persistent white head and a complex strawberry and banana toffee aroma with a touch of liquorice. There was more strawberry on a salty, oily palate with marmalade and varnish notes and emerging hops. A sweet swallow led to a firm and warming finish with complex tongue-drying hops.
In December 2006 I noted that bottle 37209 poured a rich reddish-amber, with a smooth, nutmeggy head and a very rich and complex petrol, fruit and new leather aroma. A gum-tingling fruity malt palate was chewy with intense orange flavours, cake, mint and jammy fruit. A cleansing swallow introduced a long and warming tangerine peel finish that ended very dry with late tongue puckering hops.
The brewery generously provided a case of this vintage for a bottled beer tasting I hosted for North London CAMRA in February 2010, where it turned out to be the majority favourite. Tasting bottle 04560 from that batch, I noted how dark a shade of ruby the beer had become, with a thick and fine slightly orange tinged head. The aroma was intoxicating, with orange, apricot and raisin fruit, mature port and cream. A full but quite dry and woody madeirised fruit palate yielded complex spices and notes of chewy hops, turning quite woody and slightly tannic.
Raisin fruit and bitter herbs emerged on a warming, tingling finish with nuttiness in the back of the mouth, some olive flavours and a slightly pursing woody note. I wondered then if the 2004 overall is a little less complex and a bit sterner than some other years, especially as its fruity intensity seemed to be mellowing with age.
At the vertical tasting the beer still presented with an astonishing aroma, beautifully aged with rum, pine and notes of sulphur and marmite. The palate was gorgeously rich and sweetish with cherries, nuts and oranges, but also nicely spicy, with the carbonation dropping right off by now. A coating finish had lightly drying resins, spice, a little salt and lingering alcohol.
2003
Inevitably with a process like this there will be the occasional disappointments. The 2003, with Maris Otter malt, Target, Challenger and Northdown hops, was another one I hadn’t had before, but the bottles the brewery had dug out turned out to be notably oxidised: “smelling like second hand shirts,” wrote Mark Dredge. I detected a papery, musty nose with a ground pepper note. The mustiness persisted on the palate, with salt and old books, cherry and a slightly watery quality. Spice, salt and a touch of malt showed on the finish, and the orange managed to fight its way through.
John insisted on trying some bottles from another case, which, though better, were still a little musty, and notably salty, with a nutty finish and a Christmas pudding note. This was undoubtedly the lowest scoring vintage of the evening and not in a top condition — but I’d have been happy to finish a bottle all the same.
2002
This edition marked the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and, picking up on a golden theme, included Scottish Golden Promise malt and Goldings hops. I was sent a couple of bottles of it by the brewery at the time, the first one of which I sampled in December 2003 when it was just over a year old. I found a reddish-amber beer with a subsiding white head, an intense fruit salad aroma with a woody touch, and a sweetish, lively, fruity palate with toffee, pineapple sherbert and cherry. The finish was rounded and nutty, with figgy fruit, malt, hops, almonds and touch of alcohol — overall a refined beer.
I resisted cracking open the second bottle until January 2009. By now the beer was burgundy-chestnut in colour, with a light foamy slightly orange head and a rich, meaty dark fruit cake aroma with notes of madeira, mint and peach. Remarkably fresh orange jelly flavours emerged on a mellow, complex and oily palate with lightly bitter notes, more salty meat and peach flavours and spicy edges. A slick, slightly numbing orange liqueur finish was not as complex as I was expecting but the beer still impressed.
Fast forward almost three years and, in the context of its predecessors at the vertical tasting, especially the disappointing 2003, this beer stood out as one of the very best of the evening, and also as one of the most individual and distinctive vintages. It threw a remarkably good head for a near-decade old beer, with a very grainy aroma – the fruit had fallen back to leave a spicy rye note. There were also thick grainy notes on the palate, with some marmite, orange and even a touch of chocolate. Dry, salty and bitter flavours floated over rich, sweetish malt. A rummy but drying finish had a dark cakey note, with bitterish mellowed hops and nuts showing through. Even more refined than when I first tried it.
2001
Following the 2002 at the vertical tasting, the 2001 proved to be another outstanding beer, originally made to a deliberately hypertraditional recipe. Again it had a healthy head, its foam even slightly overflowing the bottle neck, and a beautiful rich apricot and violet aroma with loads of peachy fruit and a touch of sulphur. A really unusual palate had notes of cheese, rose petals, rum, fruit cake, exotic fruit, dates and blackcurrant syrup. The alcohol was more evident on the finish than on many of the other vintages, though not excessively so – otherwise it remained petally with artichoke, minerals, and a touch of hops. It was complex, not too drying, and absolutely delicious.
2000
In the millennium year, Vintage Ale went organic, with Champion Optic malt and organic Target hops. Sampled at the vertical tasting in 2011, this was another in a run of astonishing beers. Rich amber with a fine beige head, it boasted a touch of sherry and tobacco in a malty, nutty aroma. The palate was initially sweet, rich, thick and slightly piny, with vanilla, wood and marzipan notes, though seemed to thin as it swirled in the mouth. A lightly peppery finish was dominated by sweet marzipan, with late spicy mastic flavours. A very serious beer.
1999
 Fuller's Vintage Ale 1999 This was the last of three Vintage Ales made with the original “champion” theme in mind. Before the vertical tasting it was also the most mature example I’d ever tasted, as John had previously brought it out as the pièce de résistance at his earlier tasting in 2009. Shortly afterwards I’d written written on this blog:
Finally the decade-old version emerged, exhibiting some of the characteristics John mentioned when covering the effects of ageing, such as a thinning body, mellowing hops and darkening colours. Again this had been a pure pale malt beer (Champion Optic) but was now a nut brown, with only the smidgen of a head and a very complex port-like aroma rich in malt and fruit cake notes.
The Champion Fuggles hops that had gone into the beer were notably less pronounced. The palate had lots to say, with orange, cherries, mellow red wine, mint and meaty flavours and a sweeter effect than its predecessors. That spiced orange was back in the finish, though mellowed, with gritty slightly roasty notes and mildly bitter wash, and all sorts of intriguing retronasal hints.
The oldest beer was extraordinary, and got the majority vote when John called for a show of hands. Only one or two hands were raised in support of the 2009 as the best of the three. Myself, on balance I enjoyed the 2005 the most, but I’ll remain grateful I had the chance to try all of them.
At the vertical tasting I noted a deep amber beer with a thinning off-white head, and sulphur, farmyard and marmite hints dancing round a sweetish raisin fruit aroma. The beer was clearly thinned on the palate, but had something of the character of a fruity aged Burgundy, with a touch of Madeira thrown in – overall it was dry, nutty and very complex, with a peanut hint to the drying finish. It was doing a good job of retaining its excellence.
1998
Now one of the very rarest Vintage Ales, this had Champion Alexis malt and Northdown hops. At the vertical tasting it was still lively despite its age, valiantly throwing up some foam. A sweetish, fruity and spirity aroma had sherry hints. The palate was lightly oxidised and certainly thinnish, but really complex and spicy, with nuts, pepper, and that salty tang showing through again. A tasty, characterful finish lingered with intriguing spicy notes.
1997
Brewed in May 1997 and bottled the following July, this first Vintage Ale was well over 14 years old when opened at the vertical tasting, but it still had the energy to climb out of the bottle, with a slowly bubbling overflow of foam. In the glass it was rich amber, with a nicely off-white head. The aroma had strong Madeira notes with a touch of marmite and cherry fruit. A gorgeous nutty palate had hints of apricots, mushrooms, nuts, cracked pepper and, for one final time this evening, the persistent orange notes of Fuller’s yeast. A nutty, fruity finish lingered with a hint of mint. The thinness of age was evident, but the beer was amazingly still packed with flavour.
A bottle of this was included in the goody bag. I wonder if it will still be climbing out of the bottle at 20.
Read another view of the vertical tasting at Pencil & Spoon.
London Beer Tastings 2011.
This beer was featured in a piece on bottle conditioned beers from London in BEER August 2011. Read more about London bottle conditioned beers.
ABV: 5.3%
Origin: Chiswick, London W5, England
Website: www.fullers.co.uk
 Fuller's Bengal Lancer Bengal Lancer was launched in 2009 as Fuller’s contribution to the growing range of India Pale Ales, as well as the swelling ranks of this legendary London brewery’s bottle conditioned beers. A cask version is also available on a seasonal basis. It’s constructed from a simple recipe of classic English ingredients: pale barley malt and Goldings hops.
A tasting sample supplied by the brewery poured orange-amber, with a bubbly off-white lightly orange tinged head. The aroma was quite restrained and slightly flinty, with a fresh yeasty character and obvious hop resins. A fully malty palate had the brewery’s typical suggestion of orange and a note of burnt rubber suggestive of crystal malt, with firm resins quickly emerging to turn bitterish and peppery. A thick and slightly sticky swallow yielded pepper and coconut notes, leading to a long developing and subtle finish that started nicely hoppy and gradually built to firmly rooty bitterness.
IPA as a style that aspires to the strength and hop character of its 18th century origins has largely been appropriated by US craft brewers bearing fistfuls of Cascade and Chinook, and some recent British revivals have been rather timid. I like Lancer for being big and vivid enough to stand up to the Americans while remaining distinctively and unmistakably English with its classic earthy and rooty Goldings flavours. Arguably it could handle a few more notches of alcohol, but it certainly isn’t lacking impact.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/fullers-bengal-lancer/118513/
London beer tastings 2011
For more background on the brewery see Camden Town Hells Lager
ABV: 4.5% and 5%
Origin: Kentish Town, London NW5, England
Website: www.camdentownbrewery.com
 Tap handles line up at Camden Town Brewery. Pic: Mark Dredge. Although the marvellously juicy and refreshing Hells Lager is to me Camden Town’s greatest achievement so far, their other regular beers, though straightforward, are worthy of mention for their consistency and quality.
Pale Ale, which veers towards the US interpretation of the style, is I believe the best seller. These days it’s mainly available as a keg beer, but cask versions do pop up, and I tried one earlier in 2011 at the very inviting Pineapple pub in Kentish Town not far from the brewery.
This was a slightly hazy warm blond beer with a fine white head and a light but creamy, spicily hoppy pineapple and grapefruit aroma. Thistly but not too bitter US hops were evident on a fresh, fruity palate with notes of pineapple, coconut and lime over syrupy, slightly biscuity malt. The beer rapidly settled into a smooth, tasty, lightly bitter finish with some creamy malt.
The keg version is normally filtered (though unpasteurised) but among the brewery’s offerings at the London Brewers’ Showcase in October 2011 was an intriguing unfiltered keg edition. Hazy and gold with the additional carbonation to sustain a thick white head, this had notes of sulphur in an attractive aroma with subdued hop notes.
Exotic and spicy fruity hop flavours gave an impression of Turkish delight on the palate and there was a slightly protein-tinged egg yolk hint. A nice bittering finish with grapefruit and cracked pepper hop flavours and slightly floury malt left a pleasant impression. The cooler serving temperature of this pressurised beer was also welcome after sampling from several casks on stillage.
Asked to choose only bottle conditioned beers for my tutored tasting of London beers at the Great British Beer Festival, I opted for Camden Town’s Wheat Beer as the ambassador for NW5. This is a proper unfiltered cloudy wheat beer, a heartfelt homage to the Bavarian Weissbier style with malted wheat, malted barley, noble hops and an authentic yeast. It’s on the darker side of the style with a fine off-white head, and a creamy, lightly phenolic aroma with emulsion paint notes.
The palate is very spicy and quite complex with a classic tangibly citric and slightly sweaty wheat beer palate, hints of custard cream biscuit and orange and touch of clove. That clove becomes more evident in a big spicy finish with marmalade notes underpinned by a bready cereal slick. The quality and authenticity of the beer was very much appreciated by the audience at Earls Court.
Read more about these beers at ratebeer.com:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/camden-town-camden-pale-ale-keg/135338/
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/camden-town-camden-wheat-beer/133547/
London beer tastings 2011. For more Brodie’s beers and more background to the brewery, see previous post.
ABV: 3.1%, 3.9% and 5.7%
Origin: Leyton, London E10, England
Website: brodiesbeers.co.uk
 Brodie's Citra Like the brewery’s Amarilla, Citra is a popular, refreshing and approachable beer featuring an especially fragrant new US hop. A cask sample I tasted at the (sadly no longer beer friendly) Palatine in Stoke Newington was pale yellow, with a fine white head and a low but hoppy aroma of citrus and malt. The dry and hoppy palate was citric, peppery and resinous with a pleasantly firm underlying malt character and hints of casky wood and iodine. A long peppery finish had soft malt and a big hoppy bite, with lingering orange pith character.
Proving the Brodies can also cut it in more traditional styles is their thoroughly decent session bitter, English Best, made to a conventional recipe of Maris Otter pale and crystal barley malt and Fuggles hops. Sampled on cask in the Old Coffee House, one of the brewery’s two West End tied pubs, this was amber with a just off-white and persistent bubbly head. A classic casky aroma had smooth toffee malt and light fruit. The palate was very fresh and malty with nuts, gentle citrus and a herbal bittering note, while a light, tasty finish develop spicy hoppy touches.
Olde Ardour, an old ale made with a dash of oat malt and a hop mix that includes Goldings, is one of my favourites of the brewery’s beers. I first had it on cask at the brewery’s home pub, the King William IV: a dark brown beer with ruby hints, some bubbly beige head and an inky, sappy, sweet, roasty and very fruity aroma. Dark malt flavours filled the mouth, with sappy roast notes and bitter chocolate, leaving a rich finish with lighter chocolate and roast, a slightly rubbery note and perhaps a hint of sourness.
A bottle conditioned version supplied by the brewery as part of a batch of tasting samples was better still: a deep cherryish brown beer with a thick yellowy-beige head. That rubber was still there on the aroma, alongside chocolate biscuits and nutmeg. The smooth, sappy palate had smooth chocolate, tangy fruit and a toasty, roasted, toffeeish note reminiscent of a dark Bockbier. The well conditioned beer still felt foamy on the tongue in the finish, which settled with roasty chocolate malt and an oily quality, and then built lasting chocolate orange and rooty bitter flavours.
For more Brodie’s beers see next post.
Read more about these beers at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/brewers/brodies/3911/
London beer tastings 2011.
For more Brodie’s beers , see previous post. For background to these tastings see the review of Amarilla.
This beer featured in BEER August 2011 as part of a piece on bottle conditioned beers from London. Read about more bottled London beers.
ABV: 3.8%, 4.3% and 10%
Origin: Leyton, London E10, England
Website: brodiesbeers.co.uk
 King William IV pub, Leyton, London E10, home of Brodie's Beers. Out of 12 different Brodie’s bottle conditioned beers supplied to me as tasting samples, Passion was the one I picked to feature in a piece on London’s bottled beers for BEER magazine, and was also my Brodie’s choice for the tutored London beer tasting I hosted at the 2011 Great British Beer Festival. Passion is certainly not one of the world’s best beers, and not even one of the brewery’s best, but it’s certainly striking, and I’d chosen it because to me it captures much of the spirit of the Brodies’ approach to brewing.
The beer’s key selling point is that it’s made with significant quantities of passion fruit, picking up on the fact that some of the new American hops like Amarillo have distinct passion fruit tones. The aromatic fruity quality is well displayed on a delicate golden ale base — it’s a very pale gold beer, wth a white and persistently clingy head. The passion fruit aroma is overwhelming, but there are some spicier notes in there too. The palate too is luxuriant with juicy fruit, and lightly tart with good pale malt beneath. A fruity finish lingers with lagery malt and a dusting of light hop bitterness.
At the tasting it divided opinions with significant groups of people that either really liked it or really disliked it. Hardly scientific, I know, but I got the distinct impression that the former group were predominantly younger drinkers discovering good beer, while the latter were predominantly older, longstanding real ale drinkers.
Red is probably the best Brodie’s beer I’ve tried, a really unusual and very impressive take on an Irish-style ale made with Maris Otter pale, black and crystal barley malts and Styrian Goldings hops. My bottled sample poured a lovely rich amber with a big light beige head and a biscuity, estery aroma with notes of fruit cake, nutmeg, varnish, earth, chocolate and rum. A firm palate had chewy, nutty malt with burnt toast, chocolate and vanilla notes, rum again and slightly phenolic root beer hints. The sweetish finish was deliciously nutty and roasty with an almost brown malt cakiness and late touces of roast and ash. A very complex and satisfying beer.
The regular version of Superior London Porter in bottle and cask weighs in at 7.2% ABV, an unremarkable strength for a porter a century or so ago but relatively hefty by today’s standards. I’ve had varying experiences of this beer and sometimes found it a bit rough. However, every so often the brewery bottles a special version at an even stronger 10%, and a tasting sample of this supplied by the brewery was much more impressive. A very dark brown, near-black beer with a deep beige head, it had a chocolate, rum, vanilla and sticky dark malt aroma with light fruit and spice. A smooth chocolatey plalate had espresso coffee, tangy raspberry fruit, ripe figs and an alcoholic kick, though with the vivid flavours very well integrated. The beer finished slightly tartly and more promptly than I expected, with more chocolate, medium roast, strawberries and coffee.
Read more about these beers at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/brewers/brodies/3911/
London beer tastings 2011
ABV: 4.2%, 6.8% and 5.3%
Origin: Leyton, London E10, England
Website: brodiesbeers.co.uk
 Brodie's Amarilla English Summer Ale Brother and sister James and Lizzie Brodie exercise two of the most fertile imaginations in London brewing in their small brewhouse behind the sprawling old William IV near Leyton Green. When I spoke to James earlier in the year, they’d brewed 40 different beers since taking over and reviving the derelict brewery in 2008, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the total is now 60 and rising.
The beers have ranged from traditional British styles and historical recreations to all manner of delightful eccentricities. There’s been an East End rye beer made in the presence of a rabbi, a 22% naturally fermented Elizabethan Ale, a strong chilli-infused dark lager named Doppel Dunkel Weiße Heiße, and a Pink Pride beer brewed in solidarity with victims of homophobic violence. There are beers with American hops, spiced and fruit beers, imperial stouts, and various pleasing nods to the cosmopolitan culture of East London with, for example, real ale versions of Caribbean stouts.
The pair’s father Brian Brodie has owned the pub for 13 years, and back in 2000 he worked with a third party to set up the Sweet William brewery, fitting out the stables with a new five barrel (8hl) plant designed and installed by Rob Jones of Dark Star. But things didn’t quite work out and brewing ceased in 2005, until three years later when James and Lizzie, longtime homebrewers, revived it, becoming one of the first of a new wave of London brewers.
When I visited the William to gather some tasting samples for a BEER piece about London bottle conditioned beers to tie in with the launch of my London guidebook, I ended up picking up 12 bottles out of a huge range, and with these and numerous other opportunities, I now have notes on approaching 30 Brodie’s beers. In this and subsequent postings I’ve picked out nine of the most interesting.
 Brodie's Californian Amarilla is one of the most popular beers, described as an English summer ale but with definite American pale influences, and foregrounding the character of the Amarillo hop, as pronounced in East London. A cask version I tasted at the William was a slightly hazy light gold with hardly any head and a grapefruit and passion fruit aroma with a slightly sweated hop note. A nice light grainy palate had more exotic fruit with lychee and grapefruit, taking on a more syrupy note in the mouth. A long, decent and refreshing slightly thistly finish turned bitterish with perhaps a slight slick of fatty dark chocolate. The combination of grainy middle and vivid fruity hop notes accounts for the beer’s appeal.
Black IPA, or Cascadian Ale as it’s sometimes known, is currently high fashion in the world of internationl beer geekery, a hybrid style combining American IPA-like hopping with dark porter-style malts. I’ve not been entirely convinced by some of the examples I’ve tried as they seemed too much of a shouting match of strident roast and citric hops. But Brodie’s Black IPA, which I sampled on cask during the William’s late summer festival, is one of the more successful.
The beer is black with a bubbly yellowy beige head and a spicy dark resiny aroma balanced by malt. There’s thick toffee and dark cake on a sweetish palate followed almost immediately by a firm through controlled pinne and citrus hit, with enough fruity complexity to foffset the bitterness. A fruity, smooth, dark and chewy finish remains thick and citric with lingering marmalade flavours.
Californian was one of my review bottles, a pale yellow very lively beer with a thick white head that makes a virtue of the piney Chinook hop. This is obvious in a resiny hop aroma with some vegetal farmyard and light pinoli notes. A crisp vanilla malt palate is immediately beset by chewy, piney, grapefruit hop flavours which remain fresh and assertive but not overbitter. The chewy resinous finish has hints of light malt, earthy lime and peach.
For more Brodie’s beers see next post.
Read more about these beers at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/brewers/brodies/3911/
National Homebrew Competition, Bristol 2011
 National Homebrew Competition 2011: the view from the judging sheet. Pic: Phil Lowry of beermerchants.com. Home brewing still struggles with a bad reputation in the UK. Folk memories of Boots kits bought principally on the promise of only a few pence for a pint “just like you drink down the pub” but instead producing smelly, cloudy concoctions that remain the only alcoholic drinks left unfinished at the end of the party — such stereotypes die hard. When I told friends and colleagues I was going to judge a homebrew competition, their commiserations were delivered without a hint of irony.
This is unfair. There are many other fields of human endeavour where able and enthusiastic amateurs (and let’s not forget that for all its negative connotations the word derives from the Old French for ‘lover of something’) are accepted as capable of producing work that rivals and occasionally even exceeds in quality that of professionals — think of cookery or gardening, for example.
These same occupations enjoy healthy communication and interchange between amateur and professional spheres. In the USA and some other countries where a flourishing craft brewing scene has been built from scratch on the tabula rasa of a beer culture effaced by industrial brewing, the vast majority of commercial brewers have been recruited from among home brewers, and the ties remain close — witness the various ‘pro-am’ events and competitions on the other side of the Atlantic, and the commercial beers that began as prizewinning homebrew competition entries.
In Britain, where a tradition of commercial craft brewing persisted, the first generation of microbrewers was largely made up of professionals fleeing or made redundant from bigger breweries. Brewing on a domestic scale was once the norm, of course, but the ascendancy of the “common brewer” established a received wisdom that the “mysteries of the craft” were way beyond the scope of unpaid dabblers equipped with tea urns and plastic buckets, an assumption reinforced by most people’s experience with those 1970s Boots kits.
This assumption is becoming increasingly untenable. If doubts remain, they would quickly have been dispelled by random tastings of the entries at the UK National Homebrew Competition held in Bristol at the beginning of September 2011, where the quality the best homebrewers are capable of was obvious for all to taste. It was also significant that, besides homebrewing experts, the judging panel included some of Britain’s leading professional brewers — people of the calibre of Fuller’s John Keeling and Moor’s Justin Hawke — as well as beer writers and other industry figures, all of whom felt privileged to be asked, though it was purely on a voluntary basis and at their own travelling expense. Bristol Beer Factory, one of the UK’s more forward looking micros, offered invaluable practical assistance.
The crowd of hopeful entrants, helpful stewards and curious judges that gathered at the Tobacco Factory — the regenerated former Imperial Tobacco works in a now-trendy part of south Bristol — reflected the changing complexion of Britain’s developing beer scene. The home brewers were predominantly youthful and clearly alive to international beer culture — though almost exclusively male. Far from being an easy way of making pints for a pittance, brewing is for many of them a consuming pastime that involves serious commitment in terms of equipment and time.
This wasn’t about kits and malt extracts — pretty much all the beers in the competition were “full mash”, brewed from scratch with malt and hops just as in the commercial sector. In fact four entries were from professional brewers who made them at home, permissible under the rules of the competition which admitted any beer brewed on non-commercial equipment. The fact that full time brewers also spend their free time brewing is a demonstration of quite how much passion drives the industry.
I’ve judged at numerous commercial beer competitions but this was quite a different experience, and not just because we were asked to use the BJCP guidelines, of which more below. The bane of commercial competitions is not bad beer but boring beer — beer created under the pressure of marketing departments so obsessed with giving it the widest possible appeal they end up creating the lowest common denominator. Tasting a succession of technically flawless but bland beers with nothing distinctive to say for themselves can be a dispiriting experience.
Home brewers have no such commercial imperative — they brew to please themselves, and to satisfy their own curiosity. Yes, there were a scattering of misfires, “gushers” and bad beers in Bristol, perhaps a few more than you’d expect from the commercial sector (who are by no means immune to technical problems), but blandness certainly wasn’t an issue. The relatively high numbers of entries in the American pale, IPA and Belgian ale categories illustrates the point. The imagination on display was reflected in the final Best in Show winners — a delicious porter flavoured with vanilla, an American amber and a Bavarian-style wheat beer bursting with authentic spicy and fruity flavours.
Organiser and home brewer Ali Kocho-Williams says that, though there have been previous national competitions run by British home brewers’ club the Craft Brewing Association, this was almost certainly the biggest event of its kind yet organised in the UK, with 243 entries and 116 participants. And it was the first to use the BJCP guidelines. This is yet another example of how US craft beer culture, which was originally partly inspired by the beer consumer movement in Britain, is now returning the compliment by feeding the aspiration and imagination of young British brewers and beer connoisseurs.
The Beer Judge Certification Program was first set up in the 1980s by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) and, although it is now adminstered by its own organisation, its accreditations and procedures remain in use for AHA competitions. The first BJCP exam in the UK was held in January this year and a number of official Beer Judge badges were proudly on display in Bristol.
“I got involved in the BJCP and qualified as a judge via the New York City Homebrewers Guild,” Ali told me. “I got excited and enthused, and came back to Bristol with a head full of ideas about developing a homebrew club. About a year ago I floated the idea within what was then a nascent Bristol Brewing Circle of organising a competition. This was originally going to be a regional event, but open to all. When the Craft Brewing Association announced that they weren’t going to run their competition this year, I was urged to turn ours into a national event. It all rather went from there.
“We decided to adopt the BJCP because it offered a much broader set of guidelines than those previously used in the UK. It also gave the beers a much better chance of being fairly assessed and for brewers to receive detailed feedback. Following the first British BJCP exam, there were qualified judges around, and judges need to be active in order to maintain their status. What I didn’t expect was that it would make me the point of focus for competitions in the UK, nor that I would have over 50 people asking me to organize BJCP courses and exams here so that they could qualify as judges!”
At first I felt a little apprehensive about the BJCP angle. I’m not a certified judge — I’ve had no formal beer tasting training — and I was flattered that my knowledge and experience was thought sufficient to exempt me from qualification. American culture takes these things very seriously, applying a thoroughness and rigour which to British eyes can seem a little, well, anally retentive. And in common with other US beer competitions like the World Beer Cup, the BJCP gives great weight to the principle of judging to style guidelines: currently the program recognises around 80 beer styles grouped into 23 major categories, each one defined by a detailed description of at least 500 words.
Perfectly good beers can be marked down if they fail to conform to these. A fellow judge – who was BJCP accredited – and I actually had an example of this during the competition, where a rather decent beer in one of our flights had clearly been entered in the wrong category by someone who hadn’t read the guidance properly. With some heavy heartedness we duly marked it down, though perhaps not as ruthlessly as we ought to have done.
While I appreciate that judging beers within style categories helps to establish a level playing field so like can be judged against like, I’ve long been uncomfortable with the straitjacket such a system might place on the creativity of brewers if too rigorously enforced. On the other hand, the categories cover a very broad range of possibilities so brewers should be able to find a place for even their most eccentric creations, in the catch-all ‘specialty beer’ category if nowhere else.
In the event I got used to speed reading the style guidelines, which helpfully include commercial examples considered to be within the specified style, and quickly got the hang of the detailed scoring. Although more complex than any other judging system I’ve yet used, I had to agree it helped give fair consideration to each beer.
Ali’s experience suggests home brewing’s place within the UK’s wider beer culture is at something of a turning point. “There are more home brewers, and more of them are moving away from beer kits and experimenting with new ingredients – quality products that weren’t available before, like imported hops from the US, New Zealand and Australia,” he says. “And although the crossover between professional and home brewing is not as developed as in the US, it’s growing.”
He’s certainly right on that last point. Britain has a mushrooming crop of microbreweries, and increasingly the people behind them come from outside the established industry. Some plunge straight into commercial brewing, often with the aid of an experienced business partner or consultant. But many come through home brewing, either by taking up brewing purely as a hobby and only later deciding to turn it into a business, or by using home brewing deliberately as a springboard to a commercial operation.
One of Britain’s highest achieving new brewers, Evin O’Riordan of the Kernel in London, is a good example of that last group. He returned from a stay in the US determined to become a working craft brewer, and honed his skills through home brewing, becoming involved with the Durden Park Beer Circle, a group of amateurs who dedicate themselves to recreating historic British recipes. Evin is a key figure in the London Brewers Alliance, the umbrella group for the capital’s multiplying craft breweries, where London Amateur Brewers is also represented. And recently one of Britain’s most outstanding micros, Thornbridge, has teamed up with pub chain Nicholson’s in an arrangement familiar in the USA, running a home brewing competition in which the prize is the chance to produce the winning beer commercially.
All these developments are to be welcomed. As I said above, home brewers brew what they like, and the influence of the home brewing aesthetic is one of the main reasons why US craft brewing today is so eclectic, dynamic and innovative. British brewing could make good use of the energy, creativity and love of the amateur, ensuring that the gap between the beer kit and the commercial micro is filled to everyone’s benefit.
Read a full list of winners at www.bristolhomebrewcompetition.org.uk. For more about the BJCP see www.bjcp.org.
There’s a blog piece about the event and more pics by Phil Lowry here: http://beermerchants.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/national-homebrew-competition-2011/
First published in Beers of the World June 2009
 Westholme Stores, Goring-on-Thames -- not your average local Londis. Beer writing is full of unexpected pleasures – such as finding oneself in a pretty English village interviewing the owner of one of the best-stocked beer retailers in the region over a plate of homemade Gujarati dhokra and spiced puris. My host is the genial Jayesh Patel, better known locally as Jack, and as we chat, the surprises just keep on coming.
For a start, Westholme Store, or simply Jack’s, a large converted suburban house in a residential street in Goring-on-Thames, looks on the surface like an ordinary convenience store, and indeed functions as such. Part of the Londis franchise, it does a good trade supplying the locals with everyday necessities and is also, in the best traditions of such places, something of a community meeting point.
 Shelves at Westholme Stores, Goring-on-Thames But examine the aisles nearest the checkout and you’ll find a dazzling range of rare and classic bottled beers. When fully stocked, there are around 650 on offer. Two thirds are British, mainly from small producers. Jayesh is proud to offer beers from local Thames Valley and Cotswold brewers such as Ridgeway, Appleford and West Berkshire but there’s plenty from all over – he deals with distributors and takes advantage of Londis’ own direct delivery arrangements, but also sources hard to find beers by personally persuading breweries to cooperate locally in supplying mixed pallets. Scotland (BrewDog, Williams Brothers) and Yorkshire (Hambleton, Kelham Island) are currently particularly well represented.
Then there are the Belgians – Trappists, abbey beers and strong specialities with tiny outfits like Alvinne, Angerik and Serafijn alongside bigger names – plus some good German lager, Kölsch and Weissbier, a couple of Czechs, US stalwarts Anchor, Brooklyn and Flying Dog and a range of world lagers that digs rather deeper than Chang and Keo. There’s a handful of real ciders too, though currently no glasses nor other beer-related items.
 Jayesh Patel of Westholme Stores, Goring-on-Thames And the next big surprise is – Jayesh is passionately interested in beer but doesn’t drink. “When I lived in Kenya I used to drink Tusker but I gave up alcohol a long time ago,” he explains, “though I do sip to taste if we’re opening bottles.” A couple of years back, having run the shop since 1988, he felt he’d exhausted the potential of the local market and was searching for ways to attract customers from further afield.
 Serious gourmet beers at Westholme Stores He tried wine but found himself struggling against supermarkets. Then he stumbled on an article on a CAMRA website asking why more corner shops didn’t stock good beer. The spark was ignited and he threw himself into research, visiting other retailers, studying books, magazines and websites and taking courses.
The strategy has worked – he’s now a destination shop for beer enthusiasts in the region. But, perhaps more importantly, he’s also winning new converts. Locals popping in for a pint of milk or a lottery ticket are fascinated by the array of unusual bottles and labels, and more than a few have been tempted to experiment, under Jayesh’s expert guidance.
 Well, they say that Rochefort can sometimes develop a banana note. He’s also taken advantage of being in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where the river Thames slices through the Chilterns to form the Goring Gap. Three popular walking trails – the Thames Path, the Ridgeway and the Chiltern Way – pass close to the shop, and there are cycle routes and good rail connections, so you can spend a day enjoying the area and go home with a few bottles of something unusual. Then there’s the traffic on the river itself – in the summer he walks the towpath handing out flyers to boaters.
Among future plans are tasting evenings in the village hall with brewers and beer writers, extended trips around the UK to source more obscure delights, and a mail order service. What he’s already achieved inevitably leads you back to pondering the original question that inadvertently started it all – why don’t more corner shops stock good beer?
Fact file
Address: 24-26 Wallingford Road, Goring-on-Thames RG8 0BG
Phone: +44 (0)1491 872619
Web: www.beersnale.co.uk
Hours: 0600-1930 (Sun 1300)
Drink in? No
Mail order: Planned
Manager’s favourites: Kenya Tusker, Ridgeway IPA, Krönleins Crocodile
Beer picks
- Appleford Power Station 4.2%, Appleford, Oxfordshire. Tasty, complex bottle conditioned bitter with biscuity, slight burnt rubber notes, pippy peppery hops and spiced orange.
- Hambleton Nightmare 5%, Melmerby, North Yorkshire. Excellent flavour-packed burgundy-brown stout from renowned microbrewer: blackcurrant pastilles, burnt toast, raisiny fruit and soft chocolate.
- Ridgeway/Hepworth Oxfordshire Blue 5%, Sussex / Oxfordshire. A fine golden summer ale with a flowery fruit salad aroma, fruity floral palate and a lemon jelly and peach finish.
- Thornbridge Jaipur 5.9%, Ashford, Derbyshire. Authentic IPA at an approachable strength, with dried apricots, spiced orange and nettly hop resins in a puckering pepper finish.
- West Berkshire Dr Hexter’s Healer 5%, Yattendon, Berkshire. Toast, autumn fruit, citrus peel and rounded rooty bitterness in a chunky amber ale brewed for and named after a Wantage landlord.
This was the last of my Beer Sellers pieces published in Beers of the World as the July 2009 issue turned out to be the last. All have now been archived on this site, where new instalments continue to appear occasionally.
Beer sellers: Westholme Store
ABV: 4.2%
Origin: Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England
Website: www.applefordbrewery.co.uk
 Appleford Brewery Co Based on a farm in rural Oxfordshire at Brightwell-cum-Sotwell near Wallingford, Appleford was founded in 2006 by Andrew Torrance, formerly an accountant at the Morland brewery which was bought and closed by Greene King. Beers tend to be sold locally.
The bottle conditioned version of the brewery’s standard bitter Power Station, named for the nearby landmark power station at Didcot, is amber with a fine beige head and a fruity, lightly sulphurous aroma with a spicy orange whiff. The palate is full and biscuity with notes of toast, yeast, wet plastic and burnt rubber. A hoppy bitter finish has a tinge of tart apple core and gritty roast notes. Substantial and tasty, though best drunk fresh.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/appleford-power-station/62396/
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