One of the problems of trying to be a beer tourist in Belgium in July is that many places shut for their annual break. This was the case with Cantillon, Brussels’s oldest surviving lambic brewery, a real working museum of beer, which is why we had to squeeze in a visit as we were leaving… Read More If it’s Tuesday, this must be Kölsch – Part Three
It was a bright, cold day in April and the clock was striking – well, 7:30am, actually, since I had a 9am appointment to mash in some finest Maris Otter at the Goose Island brewery in Fulton Street, Chicago, and I had decided to walk the three or so miles from my hotel down town,… Read More A Perfect Day
This is a fascinating picture, and not just because of the cats: it depicts the sort of labour-intensive cellar practice that the Burton union system was invented in the 1830s to eliminate, though this engraving dates from 1875. It illustrates the scene in the cellar at Thomas Aitken’s Victoria Parade brewery in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia,… Read More How many cats can YOU spot in the brewery cellar?
There were eight or ten of us sitting on benches and chairs around the walls of the smokehouse on Jon Gjerde’s farm at Ringheim, mostly middle-aged Norwegians, drinking cool, citrussy, lightly conditioned farmhouse beer, telling jokes and stories, talking about brewing and the creating of ale, and the local district’s long line of skiing champions,… Read More Oppskåka: the true meaning of beer
I cannot lie, my stomach made a little flip when I walked into the union room at Marston’s brewery in Burton upon Trent on Wednesday. Here it was: the most iconic fermentation system on the planet. The only example left, out of – well, dozens, certainly, perhaps even hundreds, of unions in use in breweries… Read More Blissful unions
I’ve been going on holiday with my family to the Mani, in the middle “finger” of the Peloponnese, pretty regularly since 2006: it’s a beautiful, almost entirely unspoilt place, the beaches are broad and sandy, the sun almost continuous, the people are friendly, the food is excellent, locally sourced and cheap. The beer, until now,… Read More Mani hands make light beer
Should you wish to know the differences between the craft beer scenes in London and Munich, Burchard Stock is a good man to ask. For two years he was a brewer with the pub brewery chain Brewhouse & Kitchen in Britain’s capital, ending up in charge of the Islington branch, close by the Angel: indeed,… Read More If you want craft beer in Munich, it’s pure Helles
I am green – viridian. Ron Pattinson has been dropping hints every time I see him about his secret big new project with Goose Island in Chicago, and it’s now been revealed: a reproduction of a London porter from 1840, including authentic heritage barley, properly “blown” brown malt, and blending a long-vatted beer with a… Read More AB Inbev’s new 1840 London porter and the hornbeam question
There ARE smaller breweries that Poppyland, but not very many: the room that the 2½-barrel brewkit sits in measures about 160 square feet. Your living room is probably larger. So the “brewery tour” consists of standing in a corner and pivoting on one heel through 180 degrees. That’s it: you have now done the Poppyland… Read More The world’s quickest brewery tour
Kveik: a word we’re likely to be seeing a lot more of in the beer world. But what is kveik? Here are a couple of things it’s not: Kveik is NOT a beer style. It’s the name given in parts of Western Norway to yeast used in the local tradition of farm brewing, it looks… Read More How to brew beer like a Norwegian farmer
