History – Page 42 – A Good Beer Blog

My Wee Experimental Brewery

Not quite this much yeast…

I was going to call this another project but I think that might be a wee bit too much so “My Experimental Brewery” (or MEB) will have to do. I have home brewed in two periods of my life. In 1987 I visited the Pitfield Beer Shop that Knut visited in 2005 but which recently shut. I picked up some books, a few collapsible kegs and backpacked them back to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a stretch of kit brewing with my recently graduated pals. From 2000 to about 2003 I part-mashed about 100 gallons a year, mixing extract and a small mash. I was pretty good and used the best ingredients I could find. I also got a bit heavy…heavier…which has put me off brewing for a while.

But recent comments here plus thinking more about beer and culture plus a colleague with an interest in brewing got me thinking – including thinking about about all that excellent yeast I have been pouring down the drain as I rinse out the bottles for the recycling bin. I’ve probably tossed back or poured down the best part of a half litre of saison yeast in the last year and another of top barley wine leavings. That can all be farmed, reused and renewed. And half the magic is in that yeast as we all know. So I put together the makings of a semi-demi-pico brewery and plan to make tiny ten litre batches of all-grain brews. Maybe a pumpkin porter with Fantôme yeast from Belgium. Maybe an imperial Scots heavy with the mixed yeasts of dubbels and Traquair to help give comfort to a few of we Scots who never got to have that empire. Maybe I will pull down that book by Tayleur that I picked up in 1987 and make something out of what I grow this summer in the garden.

So what would you make if you could make just five six-packs at a time?

Paul Goes To The Laxfield Low House, Suffolk, England

[This post was written by Paul of Bury-St.E.]

I’ve never been to a pub quite like the Laxfield Low House. First up that’s not its proper name, but it’s what the locals call it. Its official name is The Kings Head, an Adnams pub now, but it is the stuff of legend. I’ve known of it for a number of years but have never managed to get to it before now. Set in the rolling Suffolk countryside well into Adnams territory, the small hamlet of Laxfield is a picturesque gem, so it’s only fitting that it should have such a wonderful pub, and wonderful it most certainly is. The Low House is well off the beaten track.

Largely unchanged since Victorian times this is like no other pub I’ve been in. There is no bar as such, you wander into the tap room, at busy periods you queue, which comes naturally to us British, and you order the beer of your choice from a selection of five or six, straight from the barrel. Delicious ! The taproom is one of those sort of backrooms that you just know stays at a fairly constant temperature all year round. Perfect for the keeping of beer. Whilst I was waiting to be served, the gentleman in front of me, blessed with a South African accent, ordered a pint of Carling. To the uninitiated this is factory Euro-fizz lager, also brewed in the rainbow republic. I wondered what drove people to commit such acts of gross stupidity, but then I suppose it’s just asking for trouble selling the stuff in the first place.

It’s a pub of nooks and crannies; a number small rooms and snugs plus a restaurant area. A lovely fire was blazing on the Sunday we called in. Food was excellent. Dublin prawns for starters followed by a honey and mustard grilled ham chop. Unfortunately it’s a pub you have to drive to, and I was driving, so I only had the one pint. Adnams Explorer, a golden ale of some note. Not very ‘winter’, but it slipped down well all the same. There was a welcoming fire blazing in the grate of one of the larger rooms, an interesting mix of locals and tourists lingered, sipping well-kept ale. A welcoming air flows around the whole establishment. It’s appeared to be a pub for milling about, chatting and just plain soaking up the atmosphere. The walls are a busy mix of pictures, posters and rural artefacts whilst the floors are on several slightly different levels. There were a few rural artefacts sitting in chairs, chairs I suspect they occupy on a regular basis. One local character was hawking cuts of meat in the main saloon. Meat that was on display from the open tailgate of his estate car, conveniently situated opposite the front door. All an interesting slice of bucolic Suffolk life.

I want to go back soon. Better still I want to live in Laxfield.

CNY Brewfest 2007 Is History

To say I had anything other than a blast would be something of a understatement. Being, I have to admit, my first US style beer fest with hundreds and hundreds of people in a large barn at the NY state fair with 52 beer vendors giving it away for free it was quite a lesson in craft beer culture. We met lots of great people and, at one point, one of my fellow Canucks mentioned that if this many people were drinking free beer for this long a fight would have broken out. In the Syracuse all they did was stand around and talk about really great beer.

There were booths from macrobreweries and imports, booths with people selling t-shirts and booths manned by the good folks who put out beer publications like The Great Lakes Brewing News. But most of the crowd’s attention was given to the craft brewers of New York state like Ithaca Beer Co., Sackets Harbour Brewing, Middle Ages Brewing, Ommegang and Lake Placid Brewing. I now have an UBU sticker for the bumper of my car!

I’ll put down a little more later tonight about the event but for now here are some more photos. Look at that good looking beer blog business card…

Later: OK, what were the beers of the fest? I guided a number of people to the Allagash White tap, especially after they tried the Blue Moon. One in my group kept going back for the Ithaca Double IPA and, by that measure, my favorite was the Stoudts Double IPA. Smuttynose’s Winter Ale was also a repeat customer. I certainly did not have one of every kind but I did have some great chats about great beer with folk I had not met before like Mickey who runs the festival, Stefan (Inertiaboy) and Luc (Lubiere) who I know from The Bar Towel, with Spencer Noakes, Craft Sales Director for the main distributor for the festival, with the publisher of The Great Lakes Brewing News who I got to thank for publishing some of my articles (like one in this month’s edition), Peter Quinn, Founder of the excellent Wachusett Brewing, as well as a whole crew of my brothers from Hamilton, Ontario who are connected to a great craft brew pub there – and whose card I lost so I can’t mention the place!

All in all very worthy and certainly an event that will see me return with a larger gang and maybe a bus from the north to get us around, Syracuse being the land that taxis forgot. Buy the way, the Bar Towellers last view of us was jumping in a car full of guys who had been attending the neighbouring golf show and who were good enough to get us to the Dinosaur BBQ. From there we did not get much farther. Next time, I will make sure my compadres will get better nap time.

CNY Brewfest 2007 Update

With just six days to go until CNY Brewfest 2007 at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, the 11th annual, and preparations are being made – meaning that I have booked the hotel and have business cards being printed. Business cards? Me, too – I have no idea why. Anyway, I am going to post more information here as I collect it. At the bottom of the post is a list of all the participants as of last Thursday.

- There is some good information in the comments section to the original post.
- Here is an Mp3 of the radio ad that Mick, organizer and man about Teddy’s at Armory Square.
- I am having a little trouble figuring out the schedule for CENTRO, Syracuse’s bus service. If anyone want to send them a proposal as to having a useful website that might be handy.
- Here is that list of participants, local distributors listed in brackets. A nice mix with a hearty core of local upstate micros:

North Coast Brewing Co., Fort Bragg, California (TJ Sheehan)
Smuttynose Brewing Co., Portsmouth, New Hampshire (TJ Sheehan)
Otter Creek Brewing, Middlebury, Vermont (TJ Sheehan)
Magic Hat Brewing Co., South Burlington, Vermont (TJ Sheehan)
Sackets Harbor Brewing Co., Sackets Harbor, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Dogfish Head Brewing Co., Milton, Delaware (TJ Sheehan)
Stone Brewing Co., San Diego, Ca. (TJ Sheehan)
Lake Placid Craft Brewing Co., Plattsburgh, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Rogue Brewing Co., Ashland, Oregon (TJ Sheehan)
Middle Ages Brewing Co., Syracuse, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Lindemanns, Vlezenbeek, Belguim (TJ Sheehan)
Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Young’s Brewing Co., Wandsworth, London, England (TJ Sheehan)
Chimay Brewing Co., Cistercian Trappist Monks, Belguim (TJ Sheehan)
Wachusett Brewing Co., Westminster, Ma. (TJ Sheehan)
Lagunitas, Petaluma, Califonia (TJ Sheehan)
Samuel Smith Brewery, Tadcaster, England (TJ Sheehan)
Pabst Brewing Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Onondaga)
Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Vancouver, Canada (Onondaga)
Bass Ale, Burton-on-Trent, England (Onondaga)
Hoegaarden Brewing Co., Hoegaarden, Belgium (Onondaga)
Stella Artois, Leuven Brewery, Belgium (Onondaga)
Heineken, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Onondaga)
Killians, Golden Colorado (Onondaga)
Newcastle Brewing Co., Tyne, England (Onondaga)
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, California (Onondaga)
Yuengling Brewing Co., Pottsville, Pennsylvania (Onondaga)
Blue Moon Brewing Co., Golden Colorado (Onondaga)
Saranac Brewing Co., Utica, New York (Onondaga)
Ale Street News, Maywood, New Jersey
Syracuse Suds Factory, Syracuse, New York
Rohrbach Brewing Co., Rochester, New York
Cooperstown Brewing Co., Cooperstown, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Salt City Brew Club, Manlius, New York
Anheuser Busch, St. Louis, Mo. (TJ Sheehan)
Harpoon Brewing Co., Boston , Mass & Windsor, VT. (TJ Sheehan)
Duvel Brewing Co., Breendonk, Belguim (TJ Sheehan)
Guinness, Dublin, Ireland (TJ Sheehan)
Sam Adams, Boston, Mass. (TJ Sheehan)
Spaten North America, Munich, Germany (TJ Sheehan)
Victory Brewing Co., Downingtown, Pennsylvania (TJ Sheehan)
Southern Tier Brewing Co., Lakewood, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Woodchuck Brewing Co., Middlebury, Vermont (TJ Sheehan)
Oskar Blues Brewing Co., Lyons, Colorado (TJ Sheehan)
Brooklyn Brewing Co., Brooklyn, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Miller Lite, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Sanzone)
Fosters, Australia (Sanzone)
Landmark Brewing Co., Syracuse, New York (Sanzone)
Leinenkugel (Sanzone)
Ithaca Beer Company, Ithaca, New York (Sanzone)

Book Review: Brewed In Canada, Allen Winn Sneath

With all the reviews of whatever comes through the door I do, I should not forget some recent and not so recent books I have come to rely upon and give them an airing, too. Brewed In Canada subtitled “The Untold Story of Canada’s 350-Year-Old Brewing Industry” (a gift from two and a half years ago which was published in 2001) is one such reference guide that I pick up over and over when trying to figure out who was who where they were and what it was they were doing.

Sneath, the author, was one of the founders of the now departed Algonquin Brewing Company, one time holder of 1% of the Ontario beer market according to page 293. They made a beer called Hunt Club that was available in the mid-90s from Upper Ottawa Valley LCBO in one litre plastic bottles which was often seen in my fridge back then. Dandy stuff. Anyway, his real claim to beer historian fame as far as I am concerned is the one hundred plus page chronology at the end of the book in an appendix. This has served me well when I needed to confirm facts like PEI was the last province to end prohibition…in 1948!¹

The other 325 pages or so of this book is a standard history of the sort that pays more attention to the facts that have been gleaned than the sort that has an agenda in ordering those facts to make some sort of point as has been seen recently. It covers the early colonial period, the rise of regional breweries, the consolidations sparked by E.P. Taylor’s Canadian Breweries, the Dow beer non-tainting scandal of 1966 and on to the world of micro-brewing. While this book is comprehensive and certainly a must-have for any Canadian beer nerd, the book has one irritating feature – as pointed out by Bodensatz, it has no index! This means you have to go over it again and again to recover that fact bumping around at the back of your mind but given the quality of the book it is not such a bad fate.

I am not sure but this one may be now out of print but it is worth hunting out.

¹ No wonder the moonshine is so good and plentiful there. I seem to recall the drill was to ask for “St. Augustus” when at a kitchen party.

Book Review: A History of Beer and Brewing, Ian S. Hornsey

I have been working thought my review copy of this 632 page paperback published by the Royal Society of Chemistry for the best part of a month now. It is fascinating. Likely the best book on beer I have ever read. Clear, comprehensive and incredibly well-researched, this book contextualized beer and related beverages in the cultural and scientific world contemporary to any given era from pre-historic cave dwellers to the modern era and CAMRA. Yes, insert your joke of convenience now…

It is this latter aspect, the context, that really is a treat. As we learn how beer and brewing evolved, we also learn about about such things as potting techniques, movements of peoples across continents as well as how scientific advances such as in the Enlightenment came about. I had no idea that Ancient Egypt was pretty much a society on the bottle all of the time or that the Stuarts in the 1600s were the originators of much of the alcohol related law that still exists today – including taxing drinking as a mechanism for reducing drunkenness…outside of the Egyptian-esque Court of King James I, that is.

This is such an expansive work that it is really hard to write a review of this length. It has a certain scale others I have read do not. For example, Hornsey describes 15 different peoples between the Israelites and the Celts over almost 50 pages to trace the likely route of beer making from its birthplace in Egypt and Babylon to north-eastern Europe and Britain at the time of Christ. In addition to such anthropology, there is plenty of archaeobotany where the stuff in the pot found in the grave or the newly uncovered early medieval basement as well as review of primary documentary sources going back to the beginning of writing. Also, this is a peer-reviewed sort of scientific text which both adds to its trustworthy completeness compared to some of the recent pop histories on beer as well as to its practical status as a benchmark against which other histories are measured. For the casual reader, it should serve as either a dispute settler in itself or at least as a pointer, though its extensive bibliography, to most solutions to the questions that can arise between nerds.

I may think of more to add later as I get through the last third of the book but I can leave it here by saying this is the best history I have encountered to date.

Village Games

I was sent off on a YouTube adventure by a kind reader of note who last evening sent me emails with videos of cheese rolling attached like this one and all these.

That got me thinking that maybe there were videos of the ancient pre-football village games that happen at holidays. And there were. Like Royal Shrovetide Football you can watch here. Kind of weirdly but appropriately put to music. I think this is that game explained on wikipedia. Here is another – this from Orkney. Again set to music. Here is a web page on that game. Nothing on Winchester College Football on YouTube yet.

As we start moving from the recreational and civic holidays of the warm half of the year to the traditional holidays of the darker half, I am reminded that village and community are interesting things which are not like suburbs, workplaces or shopping malls or even families. The internet will only create real community when this sort of game starts up, including people you do not necessarily like doing things together you do not necessarily understand because you must. Maybe it has and maybe it hasn’t. Maybe that is what the Kingston Society for Playing Catch is to be. I will only know if anyone gets the hat and even then likely not.

Reason #17 As To Why We Need Sponsorships

This is what I am talking about. I would love to get a copy of this book but – wow! – one hundred and fifty-four clams. Don’t get me wrong. A History of Brewing in Holland 900-1900: Economy, Technology and the State by Richard W. Unger (2001) would fit very nicely beside his next following text Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance reviewed back here with great gusto. In have a review request in to the publisher in Holland but am not holding my breath given that it is five years old. Yet access to this sort of research is vital to the workings of A Good Beer Blog.

So should you see an ad pop up sometime, this is why. Just saying.

Middle Ages Brewing By Shoe Cam

We had a bit of a beer blog break through as Gary and I met at Middle Ages Brewing in Syracuse NY as part of his day of two tailgates and my introduction to NCAA football. It was a perfect place to meet to start the day. Gary filled in when my camera’s memory card let it be known that it was not about to cross international borders this weekend. The effect was top notch shoe camera.

Let me start by saying, this experience is fairly foreign to Canada but not unknown. Middle Ages opened its doors on Saturday at 11:30 am. Gary was there at the bell and reports that there were a couple of dozen beer fans lined up with growlers to be filled. Once those guys were served, two happy gents behind the bar asked what we wanted and sold us – no, gave us free 4 oz shots of their excellent fresh ale. I tried their porter, IPA and the double IPA. All were as good as I remembered. So good I bought the baseball hat. I figure that if a brewer is good enough to go into business, make great ale and then give it to you for free, you ought to buy the hat. Note also Gary’s uncanny capture of the original portrait of the wench who wails. Gary also showed me the first beer blog award pottery component which now just needs me to forward the brass plaque for the 2006 award to be announced later in the year – though I already am pretty sure I know who is getting it.

I mention that I have not seen exactly this sort of thing in Canada before but I have almost seen it. In the days before the beer blog, I lived in the Maritimes and Halifax’s Garrison Brewery would serve all you want. But it had to be booked and was a private affair for attendees only. You got to pour and hang around asking the happy patient brewer lots of repetitive questions and also get a tour of the place but it was not a moment to meet other beerfans and you did have to stick around for the time booked. I like the Middle Ages approach better.

So a return for the tour is definitely in order as are more secret assignments with Gary and the shoe phone.

Beer Shop: Marché Jovi, Gatineau, Quebec

A run to Ottawa to see the Billy Bragg show on Saturday meant the opportunity to do a Sunday morning run to one of the better shops in Western Quebec for craft beer, Marché Jovi in Gatineau, Quebec. The shop is handy for anyone near Ottawa’s Island Park Drive and the bridge to the other side and sits near the gate of Gatineau Park.

Inside you are met with one of the tidiest depanneurs I have ever come across. I asked if I was able to take some pictures and, one bien sur later, was being escorted around the place by a very friendly guy in a dapper white grocer’s jacket. He was proud to show of the selection, let me know that there was new stock coming in and took particular pride in noting the selection of glassware – quite the thing for what you would think was a corner store – and the fact that the regular customers were quite knowledgable in their correct use. I also picked up a copy of the autumn issue of Le Sous-Verre: L’actuality de la biere!, a free craft beer newspaper out of Montreal…a review of which Google has butchered in translation here.

As Blork noted almost two years ago now, buying beer in Quebec is similar to much of the States. You can get your beer and your corn flakes and your milk all in one stop. Usually this means one large stack of macro brew – as it does most place in the states – but where the owners have imagination and the knowledge, you can create a small oasis like you find at the Galeville Grocery near Syracuse or in pretty much any place in Portland Maine. Usually it also means a walk in cooler.

Most of the stock was Quebec products including macrobrews (inlcuding Labatt Porter) but also many craft beer from breweries like Unibroue, Saint-Arnould, Les Brasseurs RJ, Ferme-Brasserie Schoune. Blork has already reviewed the white beer made by each of the last three. I picked up mixes sixes from Saint-Arnould and Schoune for ten bucks each as well as a couple of large format imports from Saint Sylvestre of France (on special for $5.79) as well as a 330 ml Floreffe dubble from Belgium. Interesting to note that Blonde d’Achouffe is being brewed by license by Les Brasseurs RJ and was included in their six pack.

I would definitely go again, especially with the indication that there were going to be additions to the stock on a regular basis. Clean and helpful with a good selection and good price. What ele could you want from a corner store?