Beer festival goodness at Shakespeares

Hello,

    well, after two days of vigorous research I have now sobered up sufficiently to tell you about the Shakespeares 3rd (are you sure folks?!) real ale and cider festival which started on Thursday and runs until tomorrow.


Alespeares


Being a fest stalwart I was there Thursday evening, with my friend Mr C. We were in fact, the first people to sit upstairs in the concert room or Bards Bar as its more likely called. From a very good selection of ales I started with a pint of Steel City Parasite God, Spoof mild. This was a very interesting beer because firstly, it wasn't a mild by any stretch of the imagination, and secondly, its the first 2.7% beer I have tasted that I really enjoyed. Mores the shame it wasn't my round because I could have found out if it cost much less.

I bemoaned the lack of drinkable or useful sub 2.8% beers before and nothing has changed since, but here is one that actually tastes rather nice. Mind you, even knowing its a spoof, I still can't over emphasise just how un-mild it was! It was like any one of Steel City's excellent roster of 5-6% hoppy beers but with less alcohol. I'd have called it a modern luncheon ale.....

Next up I had an actual mild, half a Stringers Dark Country, and an excellent half of Arbor Ales Weissbeer. Mr C had bravely offered to try a real ale and he had a half of the Ascot Ales Aurole, and he liked the Weissbeer as well, but he is a staunch lager drinker at heart so went back to Becks for uor next round! The Weissbeer was a very good attempt and had that fruity Belgian quality that you find in Little Valley Hebden Wheat, which is far and away my favourite British wheat beer. The Stringers was a nice enough drink, but didn't really match up to the wheat.

Our final halves were of Ironbridge Citra, Botanist Q Gold and the excellent Yorkshire Heart Nightliner Stout. This was easily the best beer I tried at the festival, though the citra gave it a good run for its money. Alas we were only having a short visit as we were headed for the Kelham Tav, Ship and Wellycutler later.

There should still be plenty of beers on if you fancy it, like I say its on till Sunday - here are a few other Breweries who's beers are on the programme that I didn't try :

Attwood Ales
Black Hill
Brewshed
Cotswold Spring
Full Moon
Geltsdale
Liverpool Organic
Offbeat
Prospect
Llangorse
Quantum
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Wilson Potter
Blue Bee
Revolutions
Abbeydale
Summer Wine.

An impeccable selection, with bands on as well, and a range of ciders and Perrys including Millwhites, Orchard Pig and Pure North. All good!

Wee Beefy

Imaginary 2.8% beers

Hello,

    back in January I noted a beer tasting session in Parliament for MP's to sample some of the 'brave new world' of exciting lower strength beers.

It didn't seem that strange - after all, it was obvious that the punitive HSBD fiasco would frighten a few brewers (and likely many more punters) off strong beer and that the ever so begrudging reward of a duty cut on very low strength beers would spurr some brewers into brewing said products. No-one seemed very sure or willing to provide evidence of the level of this impact though.

Much was made of the innovations that the great magnanimous brewing family had utilised to create a whole range of exciting new beers at 2.8% or below. The scene was set to see what this new breed of ale was about, and, best of all, to make an informed judgement about whether the brewers claims held any credibility.

Well, its April now, and even though lower strength beers may be aimed squarely at a "Summer" market (don't forget we just had it!) it would surely be the case that Brewers were already rolling out their new array of ultra weak ales, which they had since well before the duty imposition in October to create.

I am not saying that no such beers have evolved in that time - as clearly shown by the Beer Today blog I linked at the time, there were quite a few beers from a number of (albeit mainly larger brewers) offered for sale. Yet, I haven#t seen any. And interestingly, there hasn't exactly been any response, commercial or publicity wise, from brewers that, erm, well, you kind of like and respect. Thornbridge dallied with a series of low gravity beers a few years ago but I got the impression they were just experimental excercises in brewing. BrewDog did nanny state, which was a hugely unpleasant beer, now of course not to be seen in cask form.

But that's it.

Good, innovative and respected micro's like Magic Rock, Summer Wine Brewery, Brodies beers, Hawkshead, Ilkley, Dark Star and Red Willow have all done lower gravity beers, but all around the kind of acceptable established cut off point of 3.5%. This weekend I had a bottle of the Ilkley Mary Jane at that strength - it was very nice, but as with all such offerings, I found myself wooed principally by the flavours that I hadn't expected, in a beer that I attributed the oft used description "impressive for its strength".

So, one wonders,  where are these amazing new beers? I have seen one 2.8% beer. It was rubbish. I would desperately like to try a few and roll my beer drinkers palate over them all to pick out the flavours and characteristics present in such a beer but I have never seen one other than that I tried once in the Shakespeare.

Maybe I only drink in pubs that sell exclusively micro brewery output, and the weak beers are all made by nationals and mega regionals - perhaps because I buy almost all my bottled beer from Asda, who never change thier beer range more than once a year I am missing out on the bottled 2.8% offerings?

Whatever the explanation though, I stilll haven't seen any.

Which suggests there is a very real chance that the Government will oversee a minimum pricing policy that will do nothing to improve the plight of the British pub, further tax hikes that see us the most punished drinkers in Europe, a nonsensical tax hike on stronger and usually more interesting brews that punishes those with an interest in aged or imperial/export beer styles, and has offset this dire situation with an idiotic plan to reward brewers that make beers that no-one makes, no-one drinks and seemingly, no-one can find!

Has anyone seen a 2.8% or lower real ale, anywhere? And if so, what was it like? Please let me know what you thought - lets see if we have just transferred rarely brewed luncheon ales or light ales from dark bottle shelves to cask, or whether as predicted by CAMRA, and the mega brewers, sub 2.8 really is the way forward...

Wee Beefy.