February 2018 – Beer Tinted Spectacles

Craft Snugs

Everyone, surely, has a soft spot for a pub snug. Those cosy corners, the fugg of cigar smoke from years ‘BTB’ (Before The Ban) still greasily staining walls and furniture, in what can only be described as ‘Farrow & Ball shades’. The Bridge in Topsham, with its wood-lined snugs, one with a small direct serving hatch through to the bar; the Pianola room at The Yew Tree in Cauldon Low; the back room of The Cooper’s Tavern in Burton on Trent with its tall-backed pews lining the walls, undoubtedly hiding misericords venerating Burton brewers Great and Good beneath. Yet snugs seem a feature of the past – no place in the huge drinking establishments built by the likes of Marstons or Mitchell’s and Butler today. Snugs make way for ‘covers’ and easy access for the table service and the Hunters’ Chicken.

There’s hope though. A new generation of micro bars, or craft snugs is opening up. Freed from the capital needed for cellars, kitchens and cooling, these bars tend to focus on bottles, spirits and nibbles. And because they’re small, they don’t need to be on the High Street or City Centre circuit, with their requisite ‘high footfall’. They don’t need to think about being chameleons, serving early breakfasts, frothy lattes or renting out to the local Slimming World group. They can just be a bar, with low rent, lower overheads and hours to suit.

Saying that, one’s opened in our village that goes in the other direction. It started as a cafe, working with the exposed beams and quarry tiles laid to earth; making the most of the sagging lintels and trip-hazard floor levels, all in the aid of ‘character’. And now it’s become an after hours drinking snug. What was once someone’s front room, what was once a scullery is now a series of inter-connected shadowy snugs, serving cocktails, cake, crisps and craft beers from wherever takes their fancy. So it was I enjoyed a Nelson Sauvin Pale Ale from The Kernel (Bermondsey), a Snakecharmer IPA from One Mile End (Whitechapel), and a Queen of Diamonds from Wild Card Brewery (Walthamstow). Oh, and there were beers from local brewers too, like Slater’s (Stafford) and Freedom (Abbot’s Bromley), but I wasn’t going to miss the chance to ‘go exotic’ now, was I? And only one bottle of lager – a rather lonesome Nastro Azzurro peeped out from behind the fridge door. Which seems right – somehow, lager seem less well suited to these snugs of warmth, intimacy and close friends.

(https://skinnykitten.cafe (site still under construction at time of writing))

Velcro hype

These bloody hazy beers – these ‘New England IPAs’ – how they’ve divided. On the one hand, there’s a camp that has been veritably worshiping at their gluey, gloopy alter; on the other, a vocal bunch who see these thick, sticky, opaque creations as a product of our instagram times – more about the hype, share-ability and visual pub currency than any real substance.

Me, well, I’m relaxed…and I certainly wasn’t going to pass judgement on a whole style, when I hadn’t yet tried one; and there’s that occasionally drony voice in my head that mumbles, ‘Well, where do new styles come from then?‘ whenever I get a bit ‘Grumpy Old Man’. Someone has to go out on a limb. Someone has to try new things. Why not these?

Thing is, many purists – often brewers – often, if I may be so bold and admittedly sweeping to suggest, see any haze as an off characteristic. That is, there’s something up with the brewing process if there’s yeast left in the beer, and, or, there’s something up with the cleanliness and sanitation in the pub. Any road, I happened upon a can of Hazy Jane, BrewDog’s entry into this space. So this is a big brewery; with good kit, skilled brewers, brewing in quantity and putting it in cans. Not a line cleaning issue in sight.

And oh my giddy aunt, if this isn’t the best beer I’ve drunk in a long while. The first thing you notice is the pour: it didn’t flow but glugged; this wasn’t like an old bottle of Bass Blue which had a thin leafy layer of yeast at the bottom, this was like a turbid stream, flowing out from under a glacier – bright, inviting, yet thick with milky sediment. Next there’s the settle; this isn’t like a nitro beer (or a widget) with a slow, bubbly separation; it rocked and rolled but also soon parted; thick head above; orange juice with bits below. And then the fruit: imagine a bald-headed Frenchman who has a special pair of boots he’s worn all his life for just one job. The boots are a bit battered and somewhat stained, but they are special. These are the boots he puts on when he clambers into an enormous oak barrel once a year. These are his stomping boots and they are for stomping fruit. Forcefully, he jumps up and down; his jelly stomach wobbling; his moustache flailing up and down as he does, his Gauloises jauntily angled. This is a barrel full of citrus fruits of many kinds: melons, grapefruits, yuzu (that sort of mandarin / lemon thing), maybe something tropical (the can says pineapple, but I didn’t get that). Unyieldingly he stomps with his stomping boots; he stomps and squeezes, pulps and pounds, minces and macerates and manfully mashes the hell out of all this fruit before reverentially pouring the juice into this damn beer.

It must be the yeast: a billion little velcro hooks, grabbing the hop particles and clinging on to them. Dance with me they say. Hold me close darling, don’t let go they whisper, seductively

And that’s it. The yeast is a distraction; it’s a blummin’ fruity hop explosion. And it must be the yeast – the mouthfeel is as you’d expect: thick and unctuous, and our crazy single-cell has found it’s calling here, a billion little velcro hooks, grabbing the hop particles and clinging on to them. Dance with me they say. Hold me close darling, don’t let go they whisper, seductively. Kiss me like we die tonight, a final swansong before being swallowed, whole. If that’s the effect the haze has, then never mind the hypecocks: they’re a yeasty revelation and damn the naysayers.
Hazy Jane

Crazy sh*t

Just occasionally, brewers have really crazy ideas. I remember once, when working in Big Beer, someone presenting this idea for beer slushies. It didn’t make the cut. Then there was the ultra-caffeinated beer that boosted your mojo. Or the one infused with tequila (oops – bit late to the party on that). Then this crazy sh*t springs up in my instagram feed, courtesy of @maltjerry. Beer purists may object, but not me. If you don’t push at the edges everything gets boring. And besides, this beer, a Passionfruit Cheesecake Extra Sour from Omnipollo in Sweden has a rakish air of 1950s beehive hairdo, crossed with Mr Whippy, crossed with bleached-out squirty dog turd. What’s not to like? Now, where did I put my slushy machine…