Beer and Food Matching for Christmas

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Christmas is somewhat empty of meaning to me. This comes from having no religious inclinations whatsoever, being above the age of 12, and generally being a cynical, consumerism-hating, contrarian. That said, Xmas is a good excuse to get a few people together and cook some damn fine food. It is an opportunity to put together the sort of varied menu that just isn’t an option in a household of two people.

Beery Christmas!

There seems to be a trend amongst British beer aficionados for considering beer something to be “matched” with food. It is certainly a topic being covered more often by the serious beer-bloggers I follow. I believe that outside the UK the idea of matching beer with good food is more common; but within the UK the public’s regard of beer is quite specific and doesn’t generally intersect with “fine dining”.[1] Pub lunch and a pint of bitter, this is acceptable; but how many proper restaurants do you see serving decent beer? There is a desire to elevate beer from its pint-swilling-in-pubs position in British culture, to place it alongside wine as something very much at home on a menu and the dining table. Things do seem to be improving. There are obvious examples where brewers are trying to position beer in this way, such as BrewDog James’s Musa restaurant in Aberdeen. But more telling incarnations are restaurants and, dare I say it, “gastropubs” that take both food and beer seriously. We have a local restaurant of this sort, two hand-pumps dispensing always-fresh and in-condition ale from local breweries are prominent at the bar and real ale even gets a wordy mention in the drinks section of the menu.[2]

The whole food/beer matching thing seems a bit “well, duh!” I’ve been selecting beers to go with the food I eat for a long time now, much as I always have with wines. Hearty casserole? A good rich red wine, something with loads of dark fruit and a tannic mouthfeel, peppery and preferably with the distinct notes of a good oaking. However, I’m just as likely to plump for rich, fruity beer with dark malt and caramel notes. In fact, these days I’m much more likely to select beer than wine. It doesn’t stop at main course, there are beers that are great with cheese, even with dessert.

Beer also has a place in cooking beyond “beer batter”. I’ve been experimenting more with this lately. Mostly it has worked well, but a couple of times the results have been terrible – the main thing to be wary of is bitterness. I basted a pheasant with BrewDog’s Trashy Blond once, the bird turned out OK with an unusual bitter bite, but the gravy was inedible.

Returning now to the annual event of “Christmas Dinner”. I recently read a blog post by Dave Bailey, of HardKnott brewery fame, which covers the topic of matching beers with Christmas dinner. This prompted me to think a bit harder and be more specific about beer matching for the Christmas meals I’m preparing.[3] Normally I’d just pull some vaguely appropriate beers from our collection. Or select wine, as it is more acceptable to the uninitiated. However, this time each course has had a specific beer matched to it in advance – well, “matched” to the best of my abilities. The beer selection has then also fed back into the course itself with a tweak here and there. Though I haven’t the time to experiment with fusing the beers into the actual cooking of the courses. It’ll be interesting to see how it is received by our non-“beer-geek” guests. I may ask them to take notes.

1st Course

Terrine of sweetbreads, black pudding, and spiced pork mince

Served with a salad of rocket, fresh orange, Kalamata olives, and shaved Pecorino Romano – with a zesty orange vinaigrette

1st Beer: Lambic/Tripel

Brouwerij Loterbol “Tuverbol” (2007) – 10.5% (Belgium)

Terrine

The Tuverbol is a lambic/tripel blend and has a typical lambic sourness but also added body from the tripel. When I tried this a while ago my notes on Twitter were “tannic, orangepeel, warm spice”. Initially I was looking for a lambic/gueuze to go with this course, as I think the sharpness would suit cold-served terrine. However, I decided that this lambic blend is a bit more friendly to the uninitiated and more compatible with the dish. The orange/spice notes should work with the terrine, which I’ve spiced with a little ground coriander, allspice, and Chinese 5-spice. Complimenting this I’ve decided to add orange segments to the salad plus a squeeze and a bit of zest to the vinaigrette.

This course will be served at about 11:00 (AM), the beer may seem a bit strong for “breakfast” but note that only a small glass of it will be served. (I wish I had champagne glasses – but I’ve never got the hang of the stuff, must remember to buy some for beer use.) After this course we’ll pop up to our local pub for a communal pint or two before heading home to relax a bit before the…

2nd Course

Whole confit duck leg

Served with tempura black pudding pieces, lemony puy lentils, and a salad of julienne celeriac, carrot, and beetroot

2nd Beer: Witbier

Beer: Brouwerij ‘t IJ “Scharrel IJwit” (Netherlands)

Confit

IJwit

I was uncertain about what to pair with the duck. I was after something that’d cut the richness of the duck and black pudding, but I’d already selected a lambic style beer for the first course. I was thinking of a light, modern, hoppy beer, something using citra hops perhaps. Then I had a chat about the menu and beer pairings with one of the guys at Bacchanalia and he suggested a wit – an excellent idea. There were few to choose from unfortunately, just two in fact, so I selected the one that was recommended but chose a Hefeweizen as a backup as its a “safe” style of beer (my tertiary backup was BrewDog’s Punk X).

The IJwit is true to the style: lemon/citrus, crisp, wheaty. A nice foil, I think, to the rich saltiness of the confit duck. I’ll try to compliment the beer with a dash of lemon juice used in dressings for the dish.

I expect we’ll tuck into the duck at around 15:00 and follow that with a siesta, or a walk if the snow still looks good, or perhaps watch a DVD or two… while I prepare the…

3rd Course

Roast Goose

Served with the usual bits and bobs: a pear, currant, and walnut “stuffing”; roast vegetables; parsnip chips; something green perhaps …

3rd Beer: Real Ale?

Ringwood “Old Thumper” – 5.6% (UK)

Goosey

A traditional beer for a traditional meal? I specifically wanted a fairly authentic “real ale” style of beer to go with this course. Unfortunately that’s a bit difficult to achieve with bottled beer. As a result, it is with this course that I’m least happy about my current beer choice. Still, I’ve persevered and considered bottled ales I’ve tried and, for “research purposes”, tasted a few additional bottled ales from the supermarket. As it is such a large and hearty meal I want something tasty but below the 6% mark, it is also ideal for it to be rich yet easy drinking – which rules out most of my favourite “hoppy” beers. A beer I have in mind is Tring’s Colley’s Dog, a favourite at our local pub. (There are people who’ve been drinking in this pub exclusively to drink this beer for years now. A pint is a “doggy” and a half is a “puppy”.) Anyway, Colley’s Dog isn’t locally available in bottles and I suspect that the bottled version would pale in comparison to a fresh pint pulled in the pub. (I’ve tried a few of my favourite small-brewery ales in bottled form over the years and the result is always disappointment.)

For now I’ve selected a bottled beer in the form of Ringwood’s “Old Thumper”. I picked a few “strong” ales from the selection available in Waitrose and tried them over a couple of nights. In the end I decided that Ringood’s “Old Thumper” was most appropriate. It is refreshing for a 5.6% ale, but still delivers good malt notes and some sweetness. The background hop notes have a peppery/herbal edge. These herbal notes from the hops will match the seasoning used on the roast bird and vegetables (pepper, fresh marjoram, thyme, and bay) and I may add some Old Thumper to the stock I use for basting and making the gravy. (I’ve experimented with beer based basting and gravy before, it requires some care as the bitterness from the beer can be too much when you reduce the gravy.)

This is the only beer choice still subject to change at this late date. I’m considering grabbing a couple of 4 pint carrykegs (growlers) of whatever I consider most appropriate, when we make our quick trip up to the local between the 1st and 2nd courses. This is a decision that could very well be made on Christmas day itself.

The roast goose should be served at about 19:00, and will be followed by a brief gallivant involving some pyrotechnics. Leading on to the…

Palate cleanser

Alvinne “Melchior Calvados Barrel Oak Aged” – 11.5% (Belgium)

The “palate cleanser” is an idea lifted from Dave Bailey’s beer/XmasDinner-matching blog entry. I tried this beer a few months ago and really enjoyed it – while it probably isn’t as “palate cleansing” as a gueuze, it is refreshing and a bit tart so should do a decent job in this role.

I expect we may sit down and relax while sipping this beer before dessert. Possibly while watching a suitable Christmas DVD, I have some seminal 70s sci-fi in mind but could be overruled. Dystopian melodrama might not be considered appropriate. I think I could settle for a couple of episodes of Red Dwarf instead. Anyway, as eventually we shall enjoy…

Dessert

Traditional Christmas Pudding made with Nethergate Old Growler Porter

Possibly served with a whisky crème-anglaise and vanilla-bean icecream

Dessert Beer

Dogfish Head “Palo Santo Marron” – 12% (USA)

Palo Santo Marron

The Palo Santo Marron is one of those “pudding in a bottle” beers. While writing this I’ve poured myself a glass and come up with: “super rich, chocolate sauce, sandalwood & vanilla, a trailing spiced licorice molasses warmth, a lingering sense of burnt toffee.” What better to go with Christmas pudding?

I must confess: the pudding is the only part of the planned meal that I will not have made from scratch (well, ignoring ingredients like bacon and black pudding – although I have made the former myself in the past.) I’m really quite anxious about this. We bought the pudding from the local last year and it’s a “Nethergate Old Growler” pudding, which was a favourite porter of ours that used to be near-permanent at said local. I’m just hoping the pudding will live up to my standards; or, failing that, the exquisitely rich beer covers for any failings on the part of the pudding.

I also plan to serve the pudding with a “whisky anglaise”, using a mere dash of a peaty Laphroaig. That said, I’m seriously considering attempting to use a chocolate sauce that incorporates the beer instead. In which case I think I’d have to serve dessert with some vanilla-bean icecream.

Beer beer beer! Food food food!

While the “menu” above may seem notable for the sheer volume of food and beer, it should be taken as an “all day” schedule as detailed in the last of the notes for each course. The beer list may be notable for the fact that it is missing beers from my favourite British craft brewers. No BrewDog, HardKnott, or Moor beers – for example. I’ve spurned BrewDog on purpose: fearing my friends may think I’m a little too obsessed. I did experiment with some beers from HardKnott and Moor and decided not to run with them. Moor’s Old Freddy Walker was almost the dessert beer, but it wasn’t “puddingy” enough. I’d definitely have used HardKnott AetherBlaec if I had more than one bottle left, I could match that nicely with a whisky-anglaise. I was also thinking of pairing HardKnott Infra-Red with the confit, but that’d just look like I was stealing the brewer’s suggestion of pairing it with duck. Not to worry, beers from all these breweries – and more – will be enjoyed over the Christmas period.

Bon appétit!

Pork

[1] My father gave me a book by Garrett Oliver called “The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasure of Real Beer with Real Food“. This book was written by an American author who “discovered beer” some 20 years ago – in London. The first two paragraphs of his introduction pretty accurately describe my real ale experience on moving to the UK. However, no mention of food is until he buys his European rail pass and hits the mainland. The book then continues through a wide coverage of beer styles and specific beers and discusses pairing them with food. (British ales are given worthy consideration, though with a lot of reference to pub food. Unfortunately the specific breweries and beers covered seem a bit dated and mainstream.) I think the book is very much worth reading if you’re interested in beer and especially if you’re also interested in food.

[2] Things start to fall apart when the staff come onto the scene unfortunately. They could also do with a more adventurous selection of kegged beers, I like the idea of a “guest keg”. The bottled beer selection is, unfortunately, just plain crap. What’s required is a “sommelier” who also loves and can recommend beer/food pairings – sounds like my kind of job! Probably wouldn’t pay the rent though.

[3] Christmas dinner preparations began 2 months ago when I ordered the goose and confited the duck legs, continued 2 weeks ago when I ordered a forequarter of pork and have featured heavily since. Tasting beer (aka “research”) featured in this time as well – with a particular focus on cleaner food matchings. I had to butcher the pork, which is now mostly wrapped up as dice, mince, and rolled roasts in the freezer. The mince is required for the terrine and stuffing. (The value you can get out of buying a whole forequarter of pork is amazing.) This was the main activity of the weekend just passed, along with the making the terrine using lamb sweetbreads I’d reserved from their spring availability. (I also made venison Xmas mince pies, I’ll write about these separately.)

BrewDog AGM: Epic Beer Journey

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Tactical Nuclear Penguin

So, I’m an “Equity Punk” – AKA a shareholder in the company known as BrewDog. I’ve explained the history leading up to this in a previous entry, now it is time to write about the events of December 4th 2010 and the surrounding days.

As part of being a company with shareholders you must have AGMs (Annual General Meetings). Horribly boring things AGMs… but this is BrewDog, how could it be boring? We almost didn’t go actually. We’d visited the brewery before, back in September when we were in Scotland for a friend’s wedding, so it wasn’t new to us. On that visit we were warmly received, had a great personal tour, tasted some beers from the fermentation vats, and came away from the place thinking “wow, just brilliant” (neither James or Martin were there, but – believe me – there’s more to BrewDog than the top dogs.) It didn’t really seem necessary to travel all the way up to Aberdeenshire again. In the end I made a very last-minute decision: go we must! I already had a car arranged for the appropriate time (we had other uses for it if not driving to Aberdeen), but hotels for the trip weren’t booked until about 48 hours before we left.

To the North!

A80 – between Glasgow and Perth

Getting to Aberdeen was the main problem that needed to be solved. I considered all the options: bus, train, plane, car. I’m a little bit of a control freak, so the car won out in the end. We were a little worried actually, in the week prior to the AGM Scotland was snowed under literally. There were reports of people being stuck in snow on motorways, the Scottish authorities were having to air-drop supplies of deep-fried pizza. People I was in contact with in Scotland were saying: “no, don’t do it!”. Regardless – on the evening of Thursday December 2nd we got in the car and headed to “The North” to see how far we could go. We only went as far as Cheshire though, to overnight in a Travelodge, the ground there was icy with packed snow but the M6 was still clear and easy driving. On Friday morning we awoke at a leisurely time, scraped the ice off the car, and set out for Aberdeen. (We’d originally planned to visit Edinburgh and stay there on Friday night, but it was one of the worst-affected places in the lowlands so we changed our plans.)

Although slow, the drive up through Cumbria, southern Scotland, past Glasgow and on towards Perth was actually all plain sailing. There was a bit of snowfall, and some slowish traffic in places, but we made good time. Things slowed down between Glasgow and Perth, thanks to a combination of roadworks and snow-cover. Perth to Dundee was worse. The road was down to a single lane mostly, with a treacherous on-again off-again passing lane. (Looks clear, try passing, oh bugger… thump, thump, ice cover, slow and pull in back behind the car doing 40mph.) After Dundee and upward to Aberdeen wasn’t too bad however. From beginning to end, with minimal stops, the drive had taken about 7 hours.

Other people we spoke to had similarly interesting journeys. @anthonyqkiernan caught a rail replacement bus from Glasgow. It was just him, a bottle of whisky, and the bus driver for the entire journey. @BrewDowg and his wife came up from London after rescheduling a flight from Gatwick to Luton, they arrived in Edinburgh to discover the trains had been cancelled, then luckily a direct Edinburgh to Aberdeen service was run – on they hoped, with much relief I presume!

After checking into our hotel in Aberdeen we went straight to the BrewDog Bar. The bar lived up to, and beyond, my expectations. To the initiated the photo of the beer list should be enough, to others: I really can’t explain. It was an excellent evening, the staff at the bar are brilliant, and the atmosphere convivial. We even met such luminaries as James Watt and Johanna Basford. James even shared an Angel’s Reply with us – a king amongst all the beers I’ve ever drunk. The BrewDog bar is just excellent, an amazing array of bottles craft beers are on offer, a great range of kegged BrewDog beers, and even kegged guests! On Friday there were kegs on from Mikkeller and Nøgne ø. The Spontonale from Mikkeller was memorable, it’s a “spontaneous fermentation” beer – i.e. lambic style.

The bar closed at midnight, which seemed early but it was a sensible time for us to pack it in.

The AGM day begins

Musa Aberdeen

Saturday morning… AGM time! On awakening the first thing I did was hit Google to try and find a decent espresso in Aberdeen. My search was: “has bean” aberdeen. I found Kilau Coffee, a coffee house that I’m happy to recommend (if you like short strong espresso ask for ristretto). They don’t actually use HasBean beans, no, even better: their beans come from as roaster on the same street. (Coffee and espresso is another love of mine, I’ll shut up about coffee now though.)

We rocked up at Musa (the James Watt / BrewDog café/restaurant) at about dead-on 11AM. The place was already well filled with Equity Punks. The scheduled events of the day included a brewery tour, a business talk with James and Martin, and a beer tasting. This was run in two streams, we chose the one that started with business. So while we sat down to free gourmet food and beer in Musa a bus-load of punks was on its way to the brewery in Fraserburgh. I’d been to Musa once before and thought it was pretty good, this time around it was even better (that’s ignoring the fact that it was all gratis!) Good beer, good food, a perfect match.

The business talk was interesting and, in typical BrewDog style, amusing. Including details of upcoming beers and developments that I dare not mention, as well as amusing anecdotes about not wanting to have sex with Mother Teresa, Martin’s lesbian porn collection, and eating stoats for breakfast. The inside information on business developments was interesting and encouraging and I wish I knew exactly what I could and couldn’t repeat here. I’ll offer a few seemingly benign facts about BrewDog’s FY2010:

  • Distributing to 22 countries
  • Brewery planning permission granted
  • BrewDog bar fonts installed in 25 pubs
  • Securing 2nd bar site in Edinburgh imminent (signed and sealed)
  • Profitable! Yay!

There was also information about special beers planned for 2010, some of which I’m very excited about… but you’ll just have to wait.

It isn’t all perfect of course, capacity is a major issue causing the company headaches. Not just brewing volume, but infrastructure and staff too. They just can’t keep up with demand. The new brewery is still a lot of paperwork, red-tape, and construction away. Stop-gap measures are being made in the short-term, but all our beloved but less produced brews must continue to fight for a spot on the schedule with the core money-makers. (Not the worst of problems for a brewery to have, but quite frustrating nonetheless.) Plans to improve in all these areas are afoot, including hiring new staff and deployment of improved technology.

Beer tasting at the BrewDog bar

Bar!

Beer Tasting

After a bit of Q&A we trundled a couple of blocks up the road to get to the BrewDog Bar. There were some special beers on for the AGM, the most special of these being AB:04. In the bar Martin conducted a beer tasting, backed by music (this was to save us from James’s oral-sex beer-tasting approach, which we did get to witness for one beer at least.) The tasting beers were: Zeitgeist, Eurotrash, 5AM Saint, Punk IPA, Hardcore IPA, and AB:04 (OMG, mmmm…) I’ll avoid detailing each beer, there are some brief notes copied from my Twitter feed in the AGM photo album if you’re interested (click the beer links).

A period of continued beer enjoyment ensued while we waited for the other AGM-stream to return from their brewery trip. We met and chatted with a few people in this time, and even said hello to the HardKnott brewery gang (Dave, Ann, Alfie, and Sooty). (We’d been in Twitter-contact over the previous 48 hours reassuring each-other that the drive to Aberdeen was actually possible.) We’ve actually been following HardKnott brewery for some time, having visited their former brew-pub, The Woolpack in Eskdale, on a Lakeland hike in 2009 (they’ve since given up the pub to focus on brewing great beer.) Anyway, before long a coach appeared outside the pub and we filed all aboard. Brewery ho!

Brewery ho!

Squirrel!

Fraserburgh is about 45 minutes from Aberdeen in good conditions. I’d say the bus driver did a good job getting us there in about an hour; despite slow cars, lorries, and gritters. The first thing to strike me on arriving at the brewery was that when we were there in September there were two 200 hectolitre fermenters outside, now there were six! On arrival we were introduced to a tap that dispensed 5AM Saint, I think a few people would have happy for that to have been the whole of it. But, 5AM Saints in hand, we were then led on a comprehensive brewery tour by head-brewer Stewart Bowman and the animated German brewer Franz. From grain & hops to bottling the entire BrewDog process was explained and discussed.

Stewart was very clear and facilitating, and certainly passionate about what he does. We learnt some of the history of brewing and brewing improvements at BrewDog and some of the ethos behind their brewing. Stewart is very keen that beer should be as pure and unadulterated as possible. One of the interesting points was about not using isinglass to help beer drop clear; why cut off an entire segment of the population from enjoying your beer? (Sure, they’re vegetarians – the poor people won’t eat meat, they should at least be able to enjoy a good beer.) This, of course, then extends to the whole debate about cloudy beer and filtering beer. I’ve still got a lot to learn about this aspect of beer style and brewing, it’s only quite recently that I discovered that most cask ale wasn’t vegetarian-compatible.

At the end of the tour there was also a punk-shop (i.e. stuff on a table) where people could buy beer and merchandise at a considerable discount. After a short period of purchasing, admiring an End of History squirrel (right), milling around and chatting we popped back on the bus, waved the brewery goodbye, and headed back to Aberdeen.

Punk evening in Aberdeen

Sorry about the flash!

The bus trip back to Aberdeen was somewhat soporific, there was a small chorus of snores in the background. We were unceremoniously, and somewhat gratefully, dumped right outside the door of the BrewDog bar. Beer time! Actually, we only had a couple of beers before our stomachs called out for some beer-absorbing food. Not knowing where else to go we popped down to Musa for a quick dinner, which turned out to be a 3-course dinner. The food was great, including the challenging blue cheese icecream. It’s a bit of a pity that some damn punks had drunk all the good brews earlier that day!

Back to the bar! Our last session at the BrewDog bar was “OK”, the highlights being the people we met and spoke to. While the beer we drank was also excellent we didn’t really cover much ground. The problem with there being just the two of us is that it takes some time to get through a beer, especially a 660ml bottle of rich, tasty imperial stout. Thus an abrupt midnight closing and turfing-out was the lowest point of the whole trip. Midnight, on a Saturday? Things were just warming up! Perhaps I’d paced myself too slowly, and allowed dinner to get in the way of the enjoyment of good beer. I think my main problem was that there was such a great beer list and we had to leave the next day. I even missed out on the half of AB:04 I’d been looking forward to. To be honest, I ended the day on a “low note”, returning to the hotel in a bad mood. The hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, compounded matters by making a bit of a mess of our booking. It all worked out in the end, where “worked out” means I didn’t have to break any of my own fingers.

The day after, back to the brewery?!

Brewers in their natural habitat

Sunday morning! I awoke feeling a bit bad about being so grumpy the previous night. But regret as I might, the night was past and we must move on. (All the minor, aggravating, and probably co-incidental cock-ups aside… breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn was superb if you like fry-ups and waffles.) Anyway, an over-priced purchase of a CF card (knew I forgot something), a trip to Kilau Coffee, and a complicated hotel-cockuped car-departure later… and we were on our way out of Aberdeen in the opposite direction to home. Back to the brewery!

Far from finishing our AGM trip on a bit of a BrewDroop, we had something else planned. The drive to the brewery wasn’t problematic and we arrived in decent time. BrewGod extraordinaires Bowman and Franz (do these guys sleep?) were busy mashing in a RipTide at the time but were happy to let us get in their way and chat to us about their brewing. We’d come to the brewery with a purpose: to leave with a keg of beer. And that we did, with a little 30lt keg of 5AM Saint. (Plus a few more odds and ends.) This may seem all a bit ad-hoc, but we’d been talking to a SalesDog about this prior to our trip, and had spoken to Martin Dickie about picking up a keg in the bar the night before. The keg was destined for a local restaurant way-down-home in Hertfordhire: Hitchin’s Radcliffe Arms. Before we left the manager had suggested that we could bring him back a keg… so we did!

BrewDog Bar

BrewDog Bar

It snowed a bit while we were at the brewery and for a moment I was worried that we’d be stuck in Fraserburgh. It wasn’t that bad in the end though, and we made our way back to Aberdeen for one last bar visit. The BrewDog bar doesn’t open until 15:00 on a Sunday, which is about when we made it back to Aberdeen. The bar was quiet when we got there, and we ordered a platter or charcuterie and cheese. While Kat had a beer I had to settle for some non-alcholic fizz, amusingly this was Bundaberg Lemon-Lime-&-Bitters all the way from Australia. The cheese was good and smelly, there was even some live music – he sang about the smelly cheese (it really was smelly.) I had a chat with Bruce (the manager) and bought a selection of expensive, yet delectable, foreign bottled brews – mostly from the US. All good things must come to an end however, so we returned to the car set off on the long journey home.

All over

The drive south to an overnight stop near Carlisle was easy. The next day’s drive home, via Epic Fireworks in South Yorkshire (making our trip literally “Epic”), was scenic and unhurried. The M1 was buggered past Leicester but we managed an easy hop across to the A1(M) and that was clear all the way home. We arrived back in Hitchin with plenty of time to drop off our keg of 5AM Saint, unpack, tidy the car a bit, and drop it at the local hire place with an additional 1200 miles on the odometer. The BrewDog AGM weekend seems blessed in reflection, Scotland was snowed-in the day before we drove up and also the day after.

Homeward bound

The whole experience was intense and tiring. The beer and people were excellent. I’m already looking forward to the next AGM… but dudes, how about we don’t do it in winter next time? :)

The photos above, and many more, can be viewed in chronological order in our BrewDog AGM 2010 photo gallery.

BrewDog AGM: Background

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I drafted up a “first” entry about the BrewDog AGM (Annual general Meeting), with the intention of writing 4 entries about our epic weekend trip to Aberdeen. But I don’t really have time for that it turns out. Anyway, the subject has been well covered by at least one proper beer writer now. Beer-blogging extraordinaire Dave Bailey of Hardknott Brewery has an excellent series of posts about the BrewDog AGM – read them, who better to blog about a brewery AGM than a brewer?! I’ll stick to a more personal coverage of my long-term BrewDog/beer journey and our AGM trip, more suitable for the few friends and family who read this. (Hi!:)

Beer Tasting Line-Up

BrewDog

You probably know who BrewDog are since I have mentioned them before, but here’s a quick recap anyway. BrewDog is a rapidly growing craft-brewery based in Fraserburgh, way up on that bit of Scotland that juts out to the North-East between Aberdeen and Inverness. The brewery was founded in 2007 by James Watt and Martin Dickie, who were old school chums I believe. Martin is a brewer and before founding BrewDog worked at the excellent Thornbridge brewery. I think James’s qualifications are something like law and/or economics. The story is that during a casual meet-up sometime, possibly over a game of pool, they got talking: “we can’t find beer to drink that we actually like, why don’t we just make it ourselves?” Thankfully for us beer drinkers they took the plunge. Zoom forward 3 or so years, through bank loans, funding, a public share-offering, and massive expansion – the brewery now fills all of the industrial building they started out in. It’s overflowing in fact, they have six 200 hectolitre fermentation vats out in the carpark! They now employ something like 40 people up in Fraserburgh, the brewery operates 24/7 and is producing at-capacity, and something like 70% of their production is exported.

While the capacity issues are a problem, everything else is looking great for BrewDog. This is also great for those interested in them continuing to exist so that they can continue to provide us with excellent beer. That’s what this is all about of course: beer! BrewDog aren’t popular because of their crazy eyebrow-raising PR stunts (which seems to be what they’re most known for), no
– people simply love the beer they produce.

A brief history of my alcoholism

I’m a very taste-oriented person who likes big & bold flavours. There are at least a couple of reasons for this. First, I grew up in restaurants in Western Australia with chefs for parents; second, when it comes to alcoholic beverages, I grew up on punchy Australian red wines more than anything else. In Australia I appreciated beer but never considered it a substitute for a good glass of wine. There were decent beers available, but even the best beers lacked edge. In my younger days Guinness was about the pinnacle of beer for me. In my university years in Sydney I discovered and loved the tasty (to my palate at the time) brews produced by the likes of James Squire and Little Creatures (what utterly crap websites!) However, my favourite beers were those I drank in places like the Belgian Beer Café, Chimay Blue for example. In 2005 I moved to the UK and the locals introduced me to Fosters and Stella, needless to say, I didn’t really drink beer for a while after that. Luckily it wasn’t long before I discovered and began to love what the British call “real ale”. So much flavour! I wasn’t keen on the lighter brews, but “real ale” stouts, porters and old ales quickly became my favourite alcoholic beverages – eventually I even joined CAMRA. At this point my love of beer was about malt flavours: toasty, rich, toffee, coffee, chocolate. I hadn’t really discovered hops yet.

Discovery of BrewDog, and hops

In 2007 I changed jobs. One of my new colleagues was keen on beer from this new brewery called “BrewDog”. I can’t remember my first BrewDog beer, but it won me over immediately – it might have been a Punk IPA. This was a beer from a bottle, British bottled beers are mostly pretty crap but here was one that I liked better than most cask ales. Insane! It was totally different too, I’ve long enjoyed Belgian and German bottled beers but this was both unlike them and also unlike the British bottled beers. The main difference turns out to be hops, an abundance of flavoursome hops. This was a beer with not only a shedload of hops in it, those hops were “new world” hops full of crazy fruity, resinous, citrusy flavours. I ordered more of their beers and discovered that they did even tastier brews with all kinds of flavours: hops, dark malts, whisky cask aging, crazy experimental stuff. Hardcore IPA, Paradox Imperial Stout, and Tokio* became my favourite beers. (I didn’t stop going to our locals to enjoy a pint of good real ale however. The real ale is still great, and the community of the local pub cannot be replaced by a bottle of beer at home!)

It has been a crazy and complicated journey since I discovered BrewDog. I could go on, and on, and on… I’ve got to a point where I upset and confuse even small-time CAMRA geeks, who retreat from my onslaught of hops, malts, and flavours, to the simple realms of “I just like a good beer, I do”. (Not meaning to stereotype CAMRA people, I am a CAMRA person! In as much as that I am a member, volunteer at beer festivals, occasionally find the time to join in on other official events, and even diligently enter beer scores as part of the NBSS. Although the latter is mainly to ensure that my local stays in the GBG as it doesn’t attract enough votes otherwise – I could go on about what I think is wrong with the NBSS and GBG now… but will spare you the politics and geekery. I also don’t have a “better solution”, so shouldn’t whinge.)

It turns out that the US doesn’t only make crap lager

Along the way I’ve discovered the delights of US micros, much to the detriment of my wallet. This is a natural progression, as it seems to be that the US brewing scene is a much bigger inspiration to BrewDog’s style than traditional British ale. My initial interest in US beers came through learning about BrewDog’s influences, becoming more interested in the writings of more “radical” beer bloggers, and finding a shop that actually sold the stuff. This shop being Bacchanalia in Cambridge. I exchange £s for beer there far too often, like a good addict I keep going back to the dealer.

I’ll save the details of my discovery of US craft beers for some other time.

And the world turns

I’ve also discovered a whole world of British and European “craft brewing” that is outside the normal world of CAMRA, and is, I’m afraid to say, far more vibrant and exciting. But– the world of real ale isn’t static, it is moving along too. A shortage of local hops led brewers to try more foreign hops, some liked what they found and have held onto their foreign flavours. (Some traditionalists do not approve.) Perhaps BrewDog’s news coverage has had a wider impact too. A favourite brewery of mine, Buntingford (our closest brewery), recently did an Imperial Pale Ale that was absolutely stonking. I had this from cask at a beer festival and was immediately reminded of cask Punk IPA. This was actually better than Punk though, it was a truly wonderful beer. I have to wonder: has there been some influence here? I think, and hope, that the entire micro industry here in the UK is approaching a state of upheaval that will jump it out of the conservative, traditionalist rut it seems to have been stuck in. Both Buntingford and Oakham breweries (local examples) have even been running a series of “single hop” beers, how the humble hop has moved up in life!

I think that up to this point I have thoroughly reinforced at least one point: I’ve become an utterly incurable beer geek. My discovery of “real ale” and CAMRA involvement were one thing, but BrewDog pushed me to an entire new, globe-encompassing, flavour-hunting level. Somewhere along this path BrewDog made a public share offering. They called this “Equity for Punks”. I can’t say that it looked like a wise investment at the time (although the lifetime 20% beer discount helped), then again… money sitting in the bank was (still is) actually losing value anyway. In the end the decision was more about loving the beer and hoping they could keep on pumping the stuff out. Kathlene and I bought a pair of shares and thus, IMO, became more committed beer geeks than all our beer geek friends! We became Equity Punks.

I’ve skipped a lot of finer details in the name of not turning this into an overly dull 10,000 word essay. But the above is a brief history of beer in my life up to now, and how it came about that I became an Equity Punk. In my next entry I’ll actually get on with describing our BrewDog AGM weekend.

The Brew Shrine

Trashy Blonde Bunny Stew

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Bunnies! (Not fluffy... anymore...)

Bunnies! (Not fluffy… anymore…)

It was to be rabbit stew for dinner this evening, having picked 3 bunnies up from the butcher in the Hitchin markets. We’re having to try out new butchers at the moment – alas there aren’t many around and I’m not so keen on what I can find. Sadly the best butcher in Hitchin, Mr Foskett, shut up shop for semi-retirement. I’m thinking of buying a car just so I can get to a decent butcher again … desperate times. Anyway, I digress.

Flicking through my Clarissa Dickson-Wright Game Cookbook I felt inspired to bring bunnies and beer together by a recipe for Rabbit Saltimbocca braised in Heather Ale. I wasn’t interested in saltimbocca though, so have instead loosely based this recipe on Clarissa’s Rabbit Stew recipe on the previous page.

Having recently received an order from BrewDog I had a few beers to choose from and settled on the Trashy Blonde (ABV 4.1%; OG: 1.0417; IBU: 40; Hops: Amarillo, Simcoe, Motueka) as it wasn’t too bitter for stewing with (I’ve had some beer based stews come out way too bitter in the past.) The recipe uses salt-preserved lemons as I thought the wonderful lemony hint they add to the flavour would compliment the beer-based gravy, I believe it worked quite well.

Ingredients

  • 3 Bunnies – jointed to saddles and legs (everything else I put aside for stock)
  • 3 Trashy Blondes (330ml bottles) – or other tasty beer, I wish I had 5AM Saint for this actually
  • 380g Pork Belly – roughly cubed
  • 4 tablespoons of Olive Oil
  • 15 Shallots – topped, tailed, and peeled (285g once done)
  • 6 cloves of Garlic – crushed, peeled, roughly chopped
  • Fresh herbs
    • 4 sprigs of Oregano
    • 2 sprigs of Rosemary
    • 4 sprigs of Thyme
    • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 2 Salt-Preserved Lemons (i.e. Moroccan style) – roughly diced
  • 3 teaspoons of Capers – I prefer salt-pickled over vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons of heavilly-reduced Chicken Stock – or a stock cube, or use light stock instead of water
  • 3 Anchovies – I used salted anchovies in oil
  • 1 tablespoon of Black Peppercorns – coarsely crushed

Method

I suggest cooking this sort of thing in a big heavy enamelled pot. I’m using my 24cm Chasseur. Whatever you use should be oven-proof, although you could also simmer the stew on the stove if this is not possible. At some point you also want to pre-heat your oven to 150C (I do this near the end as my oven gets to 150C in less than 5 minutes.)

The pork belly is optional (well, everything in any recipe is optional – in this case I just think the pork is extra-optional.) If using the pork belly then the first thing to to is put a tablespoon of olive oil into your stew pot and heat it, then thoroughly brown the pork. Remove the pork and put it in a bowl to the side.

Browned bits

Browned bits

Now add another tablespoon of oil and brown the bunny bits in batches. Just put in enough at a time to fit on the bottom of the pot without them touching. Once browned on both sides remove the bits to the bowl with the pork and repeat until all the bunny is browned. All of this “browning” should be done on quite high heat – there will be smoke and black build-up in your pot. Do not be scared, this is all good.

Next toss the shallots into the pot and give them a good browning as well. Put them aside also. Turn the flame under your pot down low and add the rest of the oil to the pot and then the garlic. Sizzle this very briefly (don’t let it brown, sizzle for mere seconds! Only because I like the smell.) Now pour in the Trashy Blonde! Whooosh! Steamy fun. Using a wooden spoon or scraper give the base of the pot a good scraping to pick up all the tasty residue.

Scrunch up the fresh herbs a bit and throw them in. Then throw the rest of the ingredients in: preserved lemons, capers, stock (if using), anchovies, and black pepper. Set this simmer for a minute then add the meat and shallots back into the pot. Top this up with hot water or light stock until the meat is just barely covered. Bring to simmering point and then pop it in the oven for 1 hour.

How you serve it is up to you, but here’s what I did:

  • 15 Baby Potatoes – in 1cm thick slices
  • 3 Parsnips
  • 2 Carrots
  • Bread

Roast Parsnips & Carrots: Bring the oven up to 250C. Peel the parsnips and carrots and chop them into 2 or 3 large chunks. Lightly coat with oil and put them in a baking tray. Sprinkle with sea-salt and black pepper then pop into the oven. Cook until – well, cooked.

Potatoes: Do this after putting the other veggies into the oven. Using a slotted spoon, or similar, remove all the meat and other bits from the stew to a bowl. Cover and set aside. Bring the stew gravy to simmering point and then add the sliced potato. Simmer until the potato is cooked to your liking. When the potatoes are cooked add the meat back to the pot and let simmer a little more to warm before serving if necessary.

Bread: The thin and tasty gravy you get with this recipe makes this a perfect stew to have a bit of bread with. I get a good sourdough from our local baker. Whatever bread you use please let it be something robust, not the modern fluff you get in the supermarkets. A good traditional bread with a firm texture will take up the stew juices beautifully, the modern junk will just turn to slime.

Serve with a bottle of Trashy Blonde, of course!

Trashy Blonde Bunny Stew

Trashy Blonde Bunny Stew

BrewDog Beer Bash

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On Saturday June 19th I held a little BrewDog beer tasting. The tasting list was, in my opinion, impressive. We sampled the 10 brews pictured below, from left to right – they’re ordered by %ABV. The beers range in strength from a mere 4.1% for the Trashy Blonde through to a whopping order-of-magnitude increase to 41% for the Sink the Bismark.

Beer Tasting Line-Up

So, what’s this “BrewDog” you ask? Well, they’re a relatively new brewery up in Scotland, situated in the almost-crazy north of the UK, close to Aberdeen (well, close by Australian standards). They do things a bit differently compared to your typical small British brewery. We’re not quite talking “real ale” here, certainly not in any traditional sense. What we have here is a micro modelled a bit more on the US style, more so than is comfortable for some in the CAMRA scene maybe. That said, BrewDog do release some of there beers in cask form, the Hardcore IPA from cask is one of the best ales I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy.

What people know BrewDog for mostly seems to be crazy-strong “beer” and ostentatious marketing. This is unfortunate, because they make some excellent beers that stand up perfectly well on their own beery merits. Of course, you’ve got to get people’s attention somehow – and the BrewDog guys seem to be good at that! As for crazy beers, the 4.1% Trashy Blond isn’t crazy at all, it’s an great beer and I’ve been told it’s sublime from cask. (The Live and Let Live in Cambridge sold a whole firkin in a single weekend, most of it on Saturday.) The 4.5% black lager, Zeitgeist, is crisp and refreshing as a chilled beer. Many of the stronger beers are no crazier than good Belgian ales, Bashah at 8.6%, two imperial stouts at 10%, and Devine Rebel at 13.8%. Sure, things do get a bit silly north of this point. But even the 18.1% Tokyo!* is distinctly beer, it is possibly my favourite brew – to enjoy in moderation! These are just a few from the wide variety of beer you can get out of the ‘dog.

OK, intro over. Pop along to the BrewDog website if you’re keen to know more. So, back to that beer-tasting lineup…

  1. Trashy Blond – 4.1% – Blonde Ale
  2. Zeitgeist – 4.9% – Black Lager
  3. Bashah – 8.6% – “Black Belgian-Style Double IPA”
  4. Paradox – Isle of Arran – 10% – Whisky Cask Aged Imperial Stout
  5. Paradox – Smokehead – 10% – Whisky Cask Aged Imperial Stout
  6. Divine Rebel – 13.8% Barley Wine (yes, that’s how they spell it…)
  7. Abstrakt – AB:02 – 18% Imperial Red Ale
  8. Tokyo!* – 18.1% – Vanilla Oak Chip Aged Imperial Stout *
  9. Tactical Nuclear Penguin – 32% – (Imperial Stout!?)
  10. Sink The Bismark – 41% – (IPA?!)

(* It’s Tokyo star, by the way, not Tokyo-asterisk, or Tokyo-there’s-a-footnote.)

I’m afraid I didn’t really gather detailed feedback on the beers. There was a plan to do so, but really we all just wanted to get on with imbibing and enjoying. The main idea was to expose some people to beer they wouldn’t normally try, and that we did!

Happy BrewDog Drinkers (and one juice drinker)

The Trashy Blonde and Zeitgeist were the only beers served fridge-chilled. (I think the Bashah works well either way, as does the Devine Rebel.) Both went down well, with little comment. The black larger attracted the most interest, and was labelled Schwarzbier by our token German.

The Bashah was appreciated, but didn’t seem to burn much of a memory into peoples’ minds. I was reading out the labels on the beers prior to tasting, as they’re quite entertaining, and the Bashah piqued some interest from its rambling and “meaningless” blurb. I think the actual beer may have been a let-down for some in contrast to the theatre of the label text.

Next came the Paradox imperial stouts – it seems that these have left the most indelible impression upon the audience. Even now, several weeks later, people mention the Isle of Arran as a favourite if I ask about the beers. If people in the group were to buy and drink any of the beers by preference it seems it would be the Isle of Arran. It has the particular distinction that it was enjoyed even by those who normally don’t drink beer at all. One description of the Arran was “nice combination, extravagant adventure.” The Smokehead, on the other hand, seems to have been less to people’s tastes. I got the impression that there was a feeling of being smacked in the face with, well, smoke. Smokehead is certainly an experience for the uninitiated. The thing is that that initial hit of smoke is mainly in the aroma; but, while distinctive, it comes across in a more mild manner on the palate. Personally, I’m a lover of single malt whiskies and thus might be less sensitive to the smokier flavour in this beer than some. Those who appreciate whisky appreciate the Smokehead I think.

A couple of Tokyo stars

Sadly the Abstrakt AB:02 and Tokyo!* didn’t attract much comment. These were both last-minute additions to the line-up. AB:02 because I’d ordered 6 of them and felt like I could sacrifice one to the tasting. Tokyo!* because one of the tasters, by sheer coincidence, was wearing a Space Invaders t-shirt! The back of the Tokyo!* bottle includes the text: “This is a beer inspired by a 1980’s space invaders arcade game played in Japan’s capital.” (Damn! Now I have one on my desk and I have to try very hard not to drink it!) I have to say, parting with a Tokyo!* is difficult, I really do love this stuff. (Note to self: order more!) Unfortunately it is also on the pricey side, for beer. But realistically the Tokyo!* is certainly in no less a league for flavour and enjoyment than an equivalently priced wine! (In quid-per-millilitre we’re talking about a roughly £20 bottle of wine.)

After the heady 18.1% experience of Tokyo!* came a smack in the face with a Penguin. This was actually my first taste of the Tactical Nuclear Penguin, something I’d call not-quite-beer at a whopping 32% ABV. What they do is explained on their blog (watch the video), like applejack – or scumble (“it’s made from apples, well mainly apples”) – they freeze the water out of the drink thus increasing the ABV. The general feedback was quite positive, with the main word in use being “smoke”. However, like the Smokehead, the smoke is more upfront on the nose than on the palate – and less upfront than in the Smokehead. TNP and Smokehead are quite different drinks of course, one a beer the other, in my opinion, a beerish spirit. I’d say it is certainly rich and caramelly, with a touch of smoke, quite a caramel sweetness too, not just caramel flavours. I’m a whisky drinker, one keen on smoke and peat, and the hint of that whisky cask in the TNP works quite well for me. It isn’t for everyone though, a fellow beer and BrewDog advocate describes TNP as “a cheap gimmick” – harsh!

STB, Hop Nectar

The grand finale was, of course, Sink the Bismark. The experience of the TNP, as good as I think it is, actually pales against Sink the Bismark! The TNP steals character from whisky, that’s the first thing to run through my mind on tasting it, and I appreciate that. The STB is 100% its own unique drink. It’s rarefied essence of hop. It’s a total hop explosion. It’s like having your tongue bashed flat with a bale of hops wrapped around a brick – but in a good way. There’s something special about this STB, it is a drink that surprisingly has merit and value outside of the sensationalism around the crazy idea of a 41% ABV “beer”. This is spirit of hop, perhaps we could call it hopsky? The reaction around the table contained a fair amount of surprise I think. Nobody knew what to expect from this, and nobody was expecting something that was so interesting and enjoyable. The choice quote that puts forward the STB over the TNP was: “Amazement at the quality of STB, not a cheap gimmick like TNP. Maybe that’s just my preference.”

I have another bottle each of STB and TNP and I’m not sure what to do with them. They’re quite something, the STB especially so. I think I’ll be putting them aside, perhaps for at least a decade. Something to crack open on my 40th birthday?

In the end I think it was the Paradox – Isle of Arran that hit a sweet spot in experience, flavour, and strength. It seems the clear favourite from conversations had since the tasting. I myself would rather sip Tokyo!*, but I’m also quite happy with a glass of the Arran in my hand. And I think the Arran may represent the best value for money as a total beer experience. (I note that James Watt’s new venture(?) Musa Aberdeen has an Arran crème brûlée on the menu – I’m intrigued!)

My personal summary of the beers I enjoy the most is: STB and TNP are very rare treats for special times. Tokyo!* is a grand drink to be reserved for moments of decadence. Isle of Arran is a decadent and enjoyable weekly nightcap drink, like a great whisky. And Zeitgeist is my BrewDog session beer, though it does battle in my life with the Bashah – which looses out only in that it is too strong to drink much of on a regular basis.

Finally, the BrewShrine…

The Brew Shrine

Disclosure: Kathlene and I are BrewDog punks, we have one pair of shares between us – it’s a bit of a lark. I was drinking and enjoying BrewDog beer prior to “buying in” of course. We bought in because their innovative Equity for Punks IPO scheme was interesting. Nothing at all to do with the 20% shareholders discount, honestly! ;) We’d have to spend quite a lot of money on beer to break even on cash. Good thing that wasn’t the point! (That said, if BrewDog survive for the long-haul I expect we will break even eventually!) Mainly it is fun. Being a shareholder is fun, you get to see the news first in the shareholders’ forum, get early access to special beer releases, presumably there may be AGMs (which would rock, I’m sure.) Shareholders may even be permitted to pop into the brewery, by advance arrangement… I can vicariously live the dream of being a brewer through these dudes, that’s what I’ve bought in to.