A year of 2016 beer...

So the last one of these I did, year in beer from Untappd not blogposts :) was 4 years ago covering 2012, and it makes an interesting comparison to see how much beers and brewing have changed since then, if at all.
Before we get to that just a reminder of the ground rules on how Ive been using the application

• a third is the minimum amount required for a valid check-in,and extends through 330ml bottles or cans), halves and pints, only free tasters are still excluded
• check-ins arent retrospective, bar the occasional one lost to various phone issues, lack of signal, battery or in case the phone broke, but none of this I drank this beer 4 years ago stuff, which some people still do.

Unique types of beer checked-in per brewery

The first chart is basically a chart that shows the number of different beers, as opposed to total beers thats the second dataset, per brewery, which tries to highlight how varied the range of beer some breweries are now producing,though it can be skewed by local availability obviously.

Back in 2012, Adnams topped the charts with 21 different types of beer, 2016 they topped it again with 26, alot of these are the collaboration beers they now produce for Wetherspoons, but it shows they are consistently producing alot of different beers over the year above their core range.

Moving into surprising second place was Thornbridge, as its mainly just been bottles. A Waitrose opened up in Ipswich since 2012 and has carried a fair sized range of beer since, what will be interesting to see is if Thornbridge's switch to 330ml bottles will change that as Im not a fan of 330ml bottles.

And 3rd, quite literally coming from nowhere since 2012, as they didnt even exist back then, is Briarbank, who started brewing in Ipswich in 2013.

The rest in the list are mainly local East Anglian breweries, but notable highlighting of Grain (they now have a very good pub in Ipswich so tend to see their whole range on offer), Fourpure and Tiny Rebel both the results of tap takeovers at another excellent pub to have opened in Ipswich since 2012, and Muirhouse.

Marks & Spencers are a data anomoly I think with the way the beers have been created on Untappd as they just use normal brewers to produce similar versions of existing beers, most of the ones I get tend to be just Adnams or Meantime, which wouldnt have changed Adnams rank, but might have pushed Meantime into the list.

Those notably missing since 2012, Darkstar whose beers no longer seem as easily available locally in Suffolk which is a shame and Thwaites who were producing lots of fairly decent one off beers for Wetherspoons in 2012 but have since been taken over by Marstons...who basically dont.

Total Beer check-ins

The next chart shows the total number of check-ins per beer over the year, no suprises Brewers Gold still at number 1, and drunk more than twice as often as any other beer on the list, I really do like me Brewers Gold.

Next is Oakham Citra, which didnt even feature in 2012, and another Crouch Vale favourite Yakima Gold. I guess its no surprise they are all fairly closely similar in taste.

Whilst 2012 was quite abit about seasonal beers, 2016 was very much core range beers, Wherry, Landlord, JHB, with only 3 recognisably seasonal only beers. Sadly since 2012 Fat Cat beers seemed to have stopped heading south from Norwich,whether thats to do with the fact they now run 3 very popular pubs in Norwich and dont have capacity, or they simply dont send the stuff this way anymore Im not sure.

Total Brewery check-ins

Finally the number of total check-ins expressed in brewery terms, so kind of an almagamation of the previous two sets of data. And Adnams as was the case in 2012 leading the table again 150 check-ins, no surprises really given the bulk of their checkins from the other data, Crouch Vale again still in second, but only just, which isnt all that apparent from the other data, though Brewers Gold does still make up over half the total.

And a return to 3rd spot from Woodfordes, though I suspect heavily slanted by a weeks holiday last year on the Norfolk broads, where it was literally the only brewers beer available. Top tip if you do go on holiday in Norfolk, dont buy a Woodfordes Wherry polypin as your cottage/boat back up beer supply, theres plenty of it available everywhere!!! Outside of Norfolk Id say its harder to get than even I thought it was in 2012, which probably explains how Oakham are pushing hard on their heels in 4th place.

What might 2017 hold...

Probably more of the same, interestingly for 2013 I predicted Adnams would hopefully bring back a few old favourites, mark the date in your diaries Regatta last seen in 2011 is back for 2017.

Who let the dogs out ?

 "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war" #Shakespeare400

Brewdog have been busily expanding into bars recently and Norwich is their latest location. It just so happened I had a day free and could pop on the train up to Norwich and visit on opening day.

I was surprised initially when I worked out where the location of the new Brewdog venue is, its slap bang in the middle of what Id call "party night out Norwich", anyone who was walked back to the train station along Prince of Wales drive knows its full of nightclubs and lager drinkers, and Brewdog are kind of at the top end of that area opposite a Revolution cocktail/vodka/rum bar, this is not the real "City of Ale[1]" territory part of the city for sure.

And yet actually it kind of works where they are, just round the corner as Ill come on to later is the Norwich Tap House craft bar,and it feels right where Brewdog are as the punk child pushing in.

Norwich once its said had a church for every week, and a pub for every day of the year, and very much in that vein  Brewdog in Norwich are offering a unique, so they say, daily-changing tap selection,which will  amount to a 365 beers offering.

It was raining somewhat outside and the guy in the Brewdog caravan looked somewhat underused.

I got there after theyd been open for an hour, but the place was still buzzing and full with people, some on their lunch hour from nearby offices just popping in, others like me Im sure just making the effort to turn up.

Based on the 1st beer of the day recommendation, I went for the Jet Black Heart stout, albeit the bar staffs best attempts to get me to sample a few beers first and then just wandered round the bar which extends quite a way back from the main bar area into a seating/dining area as the bar also serves food (mostly grilled/deep fried), and also includes a Brewdog shop which includes merchandise, books and a selection of not just Brewdog bottled ales to take away.

 The daily draft promises 25 beers, albeit the menu only showed 24 :) but I was impressed by the Jet Black Heart stout, even though generally not a fan of keg beer infused with too much CO2 served at ice cold temperatures, this was actually really nice as a beer on its own merits, if all craft beer was as good as this I think CAMRA would have a much easier time accepting it.

Swiftly dispatching the stout I moved onto the Hop Fiction,the Jet Black Heart Stout as first daily recommended beer had already run out after less than a few hours which shows how popular it was.Though I first had to "fact check" a rumour some people had been putting around that Brewdog would be serving cask ale, they werent & wont be, but then again the rumour might have been started as an April Fool, so fool me but it was worth making sure.

But on both occasions at the bar, the staff were exemplary, prompt, friendly, and wanting to serve you, and it wasnt just me I noted multiple times the staff were chatting and helping customers with anything and everything, it actually felt like we were being spoiled.

Id only been to another Brewdog before in Leeds where the service was pretty average, as was the beer, this was much more like the Brewdog bars Id heard and read about and Id certainly recommend any visit to Norwich, even during City of Ale, its worth paying a visit.

So I reluctantly moved on to the next pub as Norwich has a selection of pubs and it was about investingating the whole rather than just the singular. But the next bar less than a few hundred metres walk away was the Norwich Tap House, which till now would probably have claimed to be one of Norwich's premier craft bar venue, at least on price matching London if nothing else.

It was empty...

I mean properly empty,I was the only person in the whole bar, having just come from a bar where I was struggling to find places to sit and having to stand & with lots of bar staff,to venture into a bar where there was no one around bar the lone bar staff & there seemed to have been no-one around nearly all lunchtime...suddenly the location of where Brewdog had placed themselves made sense. Basically anyone who previously had gone to the Norwich Tap House had found their new bar to go to at Brewdog.

Suddenly from seemingly being the bar who could charge £7.80 for a pint,and get away with it, now there was serious competion and they were losing.

I moved on from not bad but unmistakenly craft keg beers to the next pub in line, which just happened to be the St Andrews Brew house, for the first proper real ale cask beer of the day. Strangely I always used to remember this venue as the Irish Guinness bar that you ventured in only between sessions of the the Norwich CAMRA beer festival as it was nearest and you could watch the queue form. Now a micro brewery pub though it brews its own beer on site,but sadly neither of the beers I had were particularly in great condition.

So again on the move and hoped for better at the Norwich CAMRA branch pub of the year the Fat Cat Brewery Tap, which really is (if I ever get to publish my clowder of Fat Cats post) one of those pubs you have to make a special visit to in Norwich, its a good 20-25mins walk out of your way to get to, and it was raining.

Maybe thats why I arrived in a less than agreeable mood, having had 2 visits to bars where I wished Id just stayed at Brewdog, surely CAMRA branch pub of the year would sort me out. Scanning the beer list...the only beer that caught my eye Mocha Moggy by Fat Cat, one of my favourite alltime beers.

Whether I got served the wrong beer (as since suggested by the brewer) I dont know, but it wasnt Mocha Moggy as far as I know it to be, it was just a plain old boring stout, and again I was left wondering why Id bothered to leave Brewdog, so I left less then impressed.

Onwards again I picked a route back to the city centre via Grain Brewery's the Cottage, again another pub like the St Andrews brewery that opened in 2015 in its current form

They had a roaring fire which was keeping things nice, warm and drying off. I didnt realise they did food as well, beyond the famous Grain brewery sausage and onion pie, but apparently its a foody venue as much as pub which may explain that lack of patrons, to be fair it felt alot less "unbusy" than the Norwich tap house did. And the beer was great and I even got to try one of the Boudicca Brewery beers, which Id been trying to track down all day.

An interesting point to make at this stage as regular followers know I use an app called Untappd to tick beer I drink,and one of its features is you can ask it to show you beer ticks from other users of the same app within various nearby distances. Since arriving in Norwich on this particular day, Id struggled to see anything other than keg beer being ticked in via this, no Woodfordes, no sneaky Adnams, not even a Doom Bar, nothing really cask related or even standard lager/guinness/cider, which isnt something even in London Ive seen before.

But after a couple of pints I finally made my way to the final pub of the day, the Plasterers Arms, where they were promising a couple of special double IPAs in a clear "we also do Craft Beer,its not just Brewdog" promotion...unfortunately only from 6pm and I arrived at 5:45pm.

Why they chose 6pm I dont know,because there was no fanfare at 6pm that these beers suddenly came on, and no-one other than myself seemed particularly interested in them being on or was even waiting for them. So I filled the gap with a reasonable bitter, and come 6pm went on the barmans recommendation to pick the not Cloudwater DIPA v3 (and since discovering I had a backup solution for Cloudwate DIPA v3) I went with his choice, unfortunately Ive assumed I got whatever had been sitting in the pipes since the beer was pulled through and setup,  and so it was slightly less than proper temperature served if Im being generous.

So I drank it as quick as an 8% beer will let you and went for my backup solution for the Cloudwater DIPA v3, which was back at Brewdog.

Yep after at least 6hours of trawling round some of Norwich's "best" pubs I ended up back at the one bar Id started with, the one bar had anyone said to me before the day started Id be back there Id have laughed at, and yet the staff were still being excellent and friendly and even apologising when they didnt ask for the right amount of money for your beer and had to come back and ask for some more, and out of all the pubs/bars I visited that day it was by far the best overall experience for beer quality and customer experience, even if was near £5 a pint. I dont mind paying £5 a pint if the customer is being treated like they are awesome, I mind paying £4 a pint and being treated like Im basically nothing.

Which led me to this conclusion not necessarily just based on this visit, but on numerous visits Ive made over the years,there are alot of pubs in Norwich competing for the same customers,lots of them are offering the "craft beer" experience but have had till now relatively little serious competion but...

There are new guys in town.
Their name is Brewdog.

Up the game or lose out.

[1] a title Sheffield now clearly claim

CAMRA AGM & Member's Weekend part 1

Fraught - causing or affected by anxiety or stress.

That was how I felt best described the way we felt recovering over a quick couple of pints in between sessions after a breathless  start to the CAMRA AGM/Members' weekend in Liverpool held this past weekend.

Others have described the mood in the conference room on Saturday as "divided", Tim Martin chairman of Wetherspoons described it jokingly as a "bear pit", and Im sure there were plenty more adjectives flying round social media that afternoon that may have given some flavour of what was happening.

This was the 4th conference Ive attended, though that still makes me a relative newcomer to these things, and I attend them on the basis its a weekend city break usually in a different beery part of the UK. Theres a members bar, there are organised trips (some good/some not so good) and a good list of local great real ale pubs to visit, plus you get to see a side of CAMRA that maybe doesnt always get covered in full in WhatsBrewing. This is where the heart and soul of CAMRA the volunteer organisation is on show, where the detail of the campaign is dissected and the passion of members for the campaign is demonstrably on show.

"Proposal to adjourn defeated. Special Resolution 1 now being discussed. #agm2016"

Anyone reading just that tweet from the official CAMRA AGM account might be forgiven for not appreciating the significance of what had just happened, or was happening, it looks a fairly procedural piece of AGM business at a glance, though admittedly it will take me far more than 140 characters to explain it properly (and I dont apologise for that, as the detail is important).

Even though its the first time Ive witnessed such a proposal being made, the sharp intakes of breath and reaction among members in the hall to it, suggests its not something thats occurred that often in the past either.

What in effect was happening was a proposal was being put, which required a near instant vote, to immediately adjourn the whole AGM & conference, including suspending all the voting for special resolutions, conference motions and elections for the national executive and conference policies committee.

Had the proposal succeeded, everyone would pretty much have then had a free weekend to explore Liverpool instead, Id describe its impact at least, as being akin to Her Majestys Opposition asking for a motion of no confidence in the government to be passed.

It was still fairly early in the morning and I hadnt had enough coffee to wake me up fully, so it wasnt initially clear to me why this proposal was being pursued as the fallout from it would be massive, "CAMRA members vote to stop own conference" seemed a remarkable thing to be even considering, what had caused this ?.

When Id read through the conference motions I hadnt seen anything Id felt would be controversial or likely to lead to extended debate,so it wasnt that, and it wasnt necessarily about the Revitalisation project  either (though there later appeared to be some fundamentel issues with this) as it wasnt a topic down to be debated. What I, and I suspect the 170,000+ other CAMRA members, had missed completely were the Special Resolutions.

Special Resolutions

"Any motion seeking to amend the Memorandum and Articles of Association is a Special Resolution.  A Special Resolution must give the precise wording of amendments, additions or deletions of or to specified Articles or Sections.  Once submitted, it will not be amended or corrected by Conference Procedures Committee for any reason".

Normally special resolutions are mainly house keeping in nature. Either corrections where mistakes have been spotted, updates to reflect the ever changing legal minefield organisations operate in, or changes to CAMRAs policies as the world changes over time.

Special resolutions generally refer to the specific articles, they arent as self explanatory as conference motions, so you not only have to go and try and read those specific documents to understand what the resolution refers to, but also what it changes, and the implication of those changes.

Additionally this year proxy voting online for special resolutions had been introduced, in an attempt to make CAMRA seem more upto date. Now proxy voting has always been allowed by post, though few have ever taken the option, and by allowing online voting this year, more than 5000 votes were cast, which seems on the face of it a good thing more votes, more members taking part.

However with only 1400 registered AGM/Members weekend attending, and certainly less than that in actual attendance, it was clear regardless of the way the votes in the hall went, the proxy votes would always outnumber those votes, so the resolutions were already fundamentally passed regardless. Although it also wasnt clearly understood whether members could be prevented from voting online and in the subsequent ballot at the AGM/Member's weekend, or that the online voting system was secure enough.

Special Resolution 3 (Revisions concerning additional methods of voting at Conference)

Article 43 - This change would pave the way for the potential use of voting methods at Conferences (as opposed to AGMs) that are additional to the traditional show of hands on motions. For example, subject to NE approval, “remote” online voting could be introduced for Conference motions.

Those issues aside the bigger problem though was the special resolutions had been poorly framed and worded and it was clear even the Chairman Colin Valentine wasnt aware how badly framed the resolutions had been made, it hadnt been intended to extend online voting for conference motions as was in Special Resolution 3 as these are the more open to debate motions, and the discussions and points made during the members weekend, do swing votes.

Conference motions (unlike special resolutions) can be and often are amended to clear up ambiguities or make better motions, motions can also be remitted where they are sent to the national executive for review. If online voting was extended to conference motions none of those options would really be open to use anymore, and in anycase the online votes would carry the result before the debate had even happened.

But as a special resolution once submitted, can not be amended, so we were stuck with the words and all that it entailed, and it appeared stuck with the results before anyone had even spoken for or against them, which is what had led to the adjournment proposal as the only way for the special resolutions to be sent back and given a proper review to fix them

Of course none of this discussion, and alot of it was very passionately,strongly & even angrily delivered, it was certainly a chastening experience for the Chairman and national executive as they largely had to sit there and take it, would have been heard by any of the members who had already voted online,they might even not be aware these issues existed, they might not care, nobody knows.

Unfortunately I think the ensuing mess of Special Resolutions only became apparent as each one was debated in turn and increasingly the numbers voting against each special resolution increased, but by which time the adjournment proposal had already been defeated, albeit by no more than a 100-120ish votes and was the only motion in the entire weekend which required tellers to count votes, which shows it was alot closer than it was merely defeated.

One might have thought that was enough drama for the whole conference, but there was more to come which Ill cover in seperate post.

The 32nd Ipswich Beer Festival

After taking a sabbatical last year (the history of which I might write a longer more detailed post on at some point) the Ipswich Beer Festival organised by the local CAMRA branch returned this year with a brand new location at Ipswich Town Football Club's stadium and a brand new date in June.

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Held on the practice pitch, which is essentially just a large expanse of astro turf. The festival had all the advantages of an outdoor beer festival, with the benefits of all the plumbing, electricity,lighting and security provided by an indoor venue, that should have made the logistic headache of organising a bit easier.

The beer list was an impressive 180+ beers for essentially a two and a half day festival with also a cider bar, Podges Belgian bar (familiar to many local East Anglian CAMRA beer festivals) and the welcome addition of a number of local brewery bars including Calvors, Nethergate and Earl Soham/Cliff Quay.

Musical entertainment was provided Friday and Saturday nights courtesy of the Grapevine live stage promoting local bands and singers, and BBC Suffolks Stephen "Foz" Foster hosted a music quiz on the Saturday afternoon.

The beer festivals charity this time was Krissy & Friends who were able to provide a family fun area for children, which seemed to cover face painting and five-a-side football mostly. And there were a decent selection of food options from pizza,bratwurst,steak sandwiches,thai,sausage rolls/pork pies and even the football clubs famous catering, though I forgot to check if the Portman Pie was available.

The sun did shine for a bit

The football club have been keen to hold an off season beer festival for a while but essentially needed a partner organisation willing to help run and manage it for them, and with the local CAMRA branch looking for a new beer festival location it was the perfect setup, the ground is a well known prominent local location has good bus links and is only a short walk from the train station.

Essentially though this years festival was designed to be,despite the amount of beer ordered, a lower key  affair to prove the event was feasible and manageable at the location, with the hope then a longer term arrangement could be made and give the beer festival some stability for future planning, something which has been lacking for a number of years.

For the record I volunteered at the beer festival and did two shifts of bar work serving, but also spent much of the rest of the time the festival was open as a consumer so pretty much saw both sides of things.

Sadly the weather wasnt in our favour, even when the sun was shining it was remarkably still chilly for the middle of June, and it rained heavily on Friday night (including a thunderstorm) and drizzled much of Saturday, which no doubt affected turnout. Though gauging the number of visitors was difficult by sight as the size of the venue, which comfortably accomodates at least 7,000-8,000 football fans on matchday meant  several thousand could have been in attendance but spread out across  the whole area, whilst for instance on Friday night they were still queueing to get in.

Overall the beer was reasonably priced in 1/3rds, 1/2s and pints, though a SNAFU on the pint glass printing had omitted the 1/3rd measure line, meant 1/3rds in the pint glass had to be measured in a different glass and then poured into the customers glass, fortunately the half pint glass did have the correct marks.

A view on Thursday that wasnt that different even by  Saturday night.

A further confusion arose in that only the CAMRA volunteer run bars, the brewery bars & Podges belgian bar provided their own staff, marked beer token cards. The other bars either took cash (but often forgot to state that upfront) or cut beer tokens out of the card for redemption from CAMRA later. Though this is a format familiar to most beer festival veterans, it surprised enough people for it to become a major topic of conversation and complaints at the bar. It probably wasnt helped by the fact it wasnt that obvious where the bars were demarcated or that not everyone was a CAMRA volunteer. I was even asked at one stage if I was working for the brewery which Id simply happened to be standing in front of a beer rack with their brewery advert on.

These minor quibbles aside the festival appeared to run smoothly enough across the 3 days, although it was notable that considerable amount of the beer was still left by the Saturday night and was becoming a source of frustation as though again beer festival veterans may be familiar with the concept that the beer list is merely a guide not a guarantee, the amount of beer that "wasnt on" or didnt even "come on" the whole time is certainly something I think needs to be looked at in the future. Hopefully of course the club invite CAMRA back next year and the festival becomes another permanent fixture for the future.

Un avant-goût suprême...

The Advertising Standards Agency published a ruling today against the Heineken groups recent set of Kronenbourg ads featuring Eric Cantona that was slightly tongue in cheek suggesting French hop farmers were treated as celebrities for growing hops used in Kronenbourg beer that made it taste so special. Its a ruling that should have sent shockwaves through the brewing industry and community today.

Or at the very least caused a major chill through the offices of the advertising companies who make the ads for the major breweries in what is certainly a multi million pound business. Heineken alone spend close to 2billion euros annually worldwide on advertising their products.

The full ruling can be found on the ASA website and it applies to both the printed ad campaign and the ad itself available to view on everyones favourite internet based video store Kronenbourg Cantona.

But the summation of it is that the ASA ruled that Heineken had created a misleading advert that implied the beer was brewed in France, not as it actually is in the UK, and in future the ads should "...take care not to emphasise a connection with France to the extent that their ads implied that Kronenbourg 1664 was brewed in France". For some reason they also seemed to think "A Taste Suprême" implied frenchness (actually its "Un avant-goût suprême" according to Google)

Having watched the advert several times, theres nothing that I would have said that implied the beer was brewed in France, theres no shots of brewing equipment, or people being shown brewing, just some French hop farmers being treated as celebrities, theres actually even very little of the beer shown in the advert, and the obligatory albeit blink and youll miss it brewed in the UK text does appear. It is very much in no way any different to many many ads for beers.

And thats the problem and why the brewing industry as a whole should be concerned, as actually quite alot of on the face of it foreign beer sold in the UK, are brewed in the UK not abroad. But lots of those foreign beer ads, the Fosters, the Carlsbergs, the Stellas,the Becks, the peculiarly hard to understand San Miguels make a play on their connection with the country you most associate with them, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and Spain, not some factory complex in Northampton or Milton Keynes.

Even the less well advertised beers like the recent influx of Polish beers, and some craft American beers are now all brewed in the UK for the UK market. And its not just lagers or foreign beers, even UK beers suffer this "location" problem with loads brewed around the country in places that have little association with their original location which the advertising is often based upon.

If the ASA ruling holds and is applied across the board, beer ads are suddenly going to be alot harder to make.

Finally its also worth pointing out this ruling came about, from just 2 complaints

A year of beer

Now that the glow of 2012 has finally faded and were well into 2013,I thought Id return to taking a look at the data Ive been busily accumulating through Untappd,or the Foursquare of beer as Ive heard it described. 2012 was the first full calendar year Id had of using the application to checkin what beers Id been drinking and the longer I use it the more data that accumulates and the more interesting that data becomes.
Before we get to that part need to (re)clarify a couple of points on how Ive been using the application

• now that thirds are generally accepted as legal measures, have started accepting thirds as the minimum amount required for a valid check-in, though free tasters are still excluded
• check-ins for the most part are still not retrospective beyond recording checkins lost to various phone issues, lack of signal, battery or in one case when the phone broke.

Unique types of beer checked-in per brewery

The first chart is basically a chart that shows the number of different beers per brewery, which highlights how large the range of beer some breweries are now producing. Though comparisons to my previous review of Untappd checkins nearly 10months ago, arent all that valid as I was analysing all of the data at that point which included 2011 as well. There are still some obvious changes and points worth noting. Adnams have taken over the top spot from the Bristol Beer Factory, who still manage a respectable 3rd, with 21 different beers followed swiftly on their heels by Shepherd Neame in 2nd place. Considering both top spots are taken by regional/family brewers who may be viewed as more traditional with only a few well known beer brands and not as experimental as their younger micro start ups, that seems a really surprising result. Even more so as I visited Bristol as part of my 4B's (Bristol/Bath/Bournemouth/Brighton) holiday in the summer, though curiously Bristol Beer Factory beer wasnt as available or varied as youd expect.

Total Beer check-ins

The next chart shows the total number of check-ins per beer over the year, Brewers Gold still by far the top checked in beer, nearly double that of the 2nd placed Spitfire, whose discounted beer in a bottle over the year certainly helped boost their number. The other thing to note is how many seasonal or time limited beers enter the mix. Topaz Gold makes a respectable 3rd place and Old Ale, Flame Runner, Liberation Ale and even Norfolk Gem all make the list even though many were available for less than a month and Liberation particularly only found during the 4 days I was over in Jersey. Mocha Moggie might also have been further up the list as I suspect a fair chunk of the Stout Cat next to it were Mocha Moggies, but highlighting that pubs arent always to be trusted in what they put up as on the beer boards. Presumably I also ended up in some non real ale venue at somepoint during the year to explain the Tetleys checkins,which was clearly so horrid I expunged the memory :)

Total Brewery check-ins

Finally, for now at least, is the number of total check-ins expressed in brewery terms, so kind of an almagamation of the previous two sets of data. And Adnams clearly on top almost hitting 150 check-ins, no surprises really given their lead with 21 types of beer and that they make up almost half of the beer checkin list as well. Crouch Vale take second with the bulk provide by Brewers Gold checkins for sure, though Yakima Gold is turning into a bit of a favourite. Shepherd Neame though takeover third spot, pretty much as Woodfordes had previously held the same spot, with one heavily checked in beer providing the bulk and a fair few number of single check ins. But interesting to see the data kind of reflects my experience of late that Woodfordes is getting harder to track down locally which is why its falling back in the stats.

What might 2013 hold...

Well last year I predicted Id be hitting my 1000th unique beer checkin around February 2013, as it happened I passed that total back in November 2012, so I wasnt that far out, though I dont expect to break through 2000 anytime soon. Then again with so many breweries producing one off special beers, Ive seen some are even planning on brewing over 30 different recipes this year, and with places like Adnams installing mini plants to experiment even more with their range,and hopefully bring back a few old favourites, and still a whole glut of beers from the Midlands and NW to try anythings possible. Oh and I might start blogging more frequently too...we'll see :)

Greene King IPA's Enigma Variations

a review 65million years in the making...ok well not quite that long, but it feels like its taken a geological age to get around to writing up my thoughts on these two new GK beers which were first launched nearly 3 months ago. Part of that seems to be down to a slower than expected distribution of the beer to local pubs, I did spend alot of weekends trawling GK pubs to be faced with a selection of anything but Gold or Reserve on offer (almost like they were clearing the backlog), and Ive yet to see any of the bottled versions hit the local supermarket shelves either. And part of that was in the end deciding it was better to review both beers under more scientific conditions in the same pub after a slightly abortive attempt.

Couple things need to make clear though, before diving straight into the review I actually like GK's standard version IPA as a drink, I know loads of people dont, some very strongly dont, but I firmly believe alot of that is down to the way the beer is cellared and dispensed, Ive had my fair share of IPA duds to know that when its treated less optimally, it can veer from just mildly offensive to downright horrible. But when its properly been looked after its very drinkable, not ground breaking, not going to rip your taste buds out and shove them down your throat, but very definately drinkable.
  

Reserve (5.4%) 

Ok you might have thought it made more sense to review Gold first, but Reserve was the first of the two I actually found on sale anywhere, so its first in the reviews.

Now I wasnt sure what to expect from either of these two beers, Gold or Reserve at first, GK do actually make lots of different beers other than IPA, and I dont mean in terms of just recipes from other breweries theyve acquired. They do some seasonals(Alepril Fool/Bonkers Conkers), some regionals (London Glory) and certainly a range of strong ales (Suffolk Sprinter/Strong Suffolk) to golden (St Edmunds/Alefresco) already, some good, some not so good, and theres always a sneaking suspicion that the recipe for IPA is the starting point for alot of those beers, so why should another two versions be all that different. and Reserve isnt infact a totally brand new beer, its based on GKs Very Special India Pale Ale, a 7.5% bottled beer, which they sold for a while but presumably consumer feedback encouraged them to bring it down to a more manageable 5.4%

So diving straight in I bought a pint and had a sip and was pleasently surprised it didnt taste that bad, it actually tasted not bad at all, sort of like...well this was the confusing bit, it had taste it wasnt a watery nothing of a beer, you could taste it was based on an IPA for sure & there was a rich mellow fruitiness, it was slightly malty and some slightly other things too. There were tantalisingly hints of hops and I could swear there were citrus flavours as well, and you could tell this a was strong rich beer even though it didnt really taste like one.

In some ways I felt I wanted to say this was a complex beer with lots of flavour, but its not, not really, there are lots of flavours going on for sure, and they do complement each other quite well, theres nothing making you think they were just clearing the cupboard of ingredients and wishing they hadnt chucked that jar of stuff that had been sitting on the shelf for years so no-one knew what was in it, but they arent leaping out either, which curiously made it seem a much weaker beer. They are subtle to the point it tastes more like the standard 3.6% IPA session beer, yet you do feel it carrying the alcohol hit of something much stronger, which makes it more like a souped up version of IPA itself...which is arguably what it always set out to be. So as a standalone beer Id say, to be honest there are more beers with flavour, with less of a punch, that most people will enjoy drinking alot more. Given a choice of IPA or IPA reseve on the bar, Id go for the IPA its got 80% at least the same taste and is far more sessionable a drink. That sounds like I didnt like it much, which isnt the case really, it was totally fine as a beer Id not have a problem drinking it again, I think I was just expecting alot more from it. And plonk it along side food though and I think things might be different, you know from the subtleness of the beer flavours, it nots going to overpower the food, and its rich enough to draw and probably enhance flavours out a steak or heavy meat dish. again pretty much as it always set out to be. so whilst its far from being a disappointing beer, I was disappointed it wasnt packed as full as flavour as Id hoped it could be. Still I gave it 3 out of 5 

Gold (4.1%) 

Take 1 - Bury St Edmunds beer festival

so weeks passed and GK Gold IPA didnt look like appearing anywhere soon,though curiously there was now plenty of Reserve to be had instead. but I figured if anywhere was likely to have some,be worth trying and not run out, the Bury St Edmunds beer festival was likely to be the place.

As soon as I arrived, I headed straight for the GK section of the bar and ordered a half, which came straight off cask.

First sip, reaction whoa ok thats not good, right reset, maybe I havent quite got in the right frame of mood for this yet, lets try again,second sip, nope thats not good at all, in fact thats quite well ugh really. Not off, just completely unappetisingly ugh, like the kind of home brewed version of an American IPA a micro brewery might put out, it was just bitter and resinous, like drinking wet cardboard [*], with no redeeming qualities at all. And it wasnt just my reaction, we quickly sought out the comfort of a table and chairs with which to sit and continue our drinking from and joined a group of people staring very supiciously at their half pints of a slightly golden beer, much the same way I was now nursing my own Gold IPA.

"Gold IPA?" I enquired
"Yes, how did you know" they sounded impressed
"Your reaction to it, its what Ive got too" I replied miserably "its not very nice is it"
"No" they responded "its well a bit ugh"

Strangely perhaps given the fact this was looking to be a bit of disaster of a drink, it didnt take long to finish, but this was more due to the realisation the quicker it was dispatched, the quicker I could move on to finding something reasonable to drink at the festival instead, and boy the next drink (most definately not a GK beer) didnt disappoint on that, was like switching from eating some kind of bread substitute, for a just baked out of the oven farmers loaf. Definately only a 1 out of 5.


So I could have left it there, published the reviews, accepted GK Gold was just rubbish and probably never bothered touching a drop of GK Gold IPA again. But it bugged me, for all its faults IPA doesnt intentionally taste ugh, you dont spend 4million pounds on an ad campaign to get people to drink something that tastes ugh, even if Im convinced its not aimed at the cask ale market but the lager/cider drinkers instead, and Ive worked at beer festivals to know that things can and do go wrong, maybe the beer was rushed on it was the last day. It was no good I was going to have try it again to be sure...

[*] Ive since discovered the wet cardboard taste is a sign the beer had probably over oxygenated, so technically was off

 

Take 2 - Dove Street Inn

But more weeks passed and GK Gold was still stubbornly refusing to show up in the local pubs, and Id almost got to the point of giving up waiting,just publish the review and promise an update at some later point.

And then suddenly there it was, even better it was there in the same pub Id tried the Reserve in about 4weeks earlier, and I knew it would be served properly this time, so would be close to as good as it was going to be.

If it tasted rubbish again, it really was going to be a rubbish drink.

So with some hint of trepidation I summoned the courage to order it and I instinctively ordered a pint...damn that could be a mistake, I could have asked for a sample or even a half, but another pint of Ugh!!!

oh well, too late now. Notably this was hand pull drawn though [**], as infact the Reserve had been, the beer festival cask had been straight through a tap. Right nothing more for it, lets try some.

Blessed relief, it wasnt a pint of ugh this time, actually nothing like the ugh at all, this was actually tasting pretty good, not so much of the GK IPAness to this one, obviously really its golden ale, but its got some nice tropical fruitiness mango juice drink quality going on with it,bit of hops, its actually a jolly pleasant drink.

Again typically for GK these arent stand out chestburster shocking flavours, but they are flavours and they are pretty good. So good before I realised it the whole pint was gone, nothing for it better have another one, which certainly isnt what Id expected to happen.

This was a really nice drinkable beer, maybe the break in the relentless rain and the sudden appearance of the sun helped, but this was a beer I felt I could sit in a beer garden in the summer sun a heat and happily drink all day watching the world go by, a world away from the previous sample Id had.

Although no question this is a beer I could drink alot of, IPA or IPA Gold on the bar, Id choose IPA Gold

By the time Id returned for my 3rd and 4th pints a few days later with friends to share the exciting new beer Id discovered, interestingly the response from a devout cider drinker who normally hates cask ale, and a female perspective at that, was the Gold was something they could definately drink even if they did liken it to watered down lager,was this really began to feel like it could be pushing 4 out of 5 territory. Had GK stumbled upon something that pleased cask ale drinkers (even the ones who dont like IPA), but also bridged the mythical divide between cider/lager drinkers and tapped into the female non ale drinking market as well.

But I pulled back, it was good, its got alot going for it, and might be more than imagined it was, but I had to remember there are lots of good golden ales and like with the Reserve before it, actually alot of them pack plentifully far more taste and only the great ones are really worth a 4, so I ultimately I settled instead on a 3.5 out of 5

[**]Speaking to thems that know more about keeping beer than me, it was suggested both these beers need to be hand pulled to get the best out of them, than a flatter dispense method would.

Conclusion

Well overall Id have to say GKs new additions are pretty reasonable, both quite drinkable (which wasnt a given) even if I was slightly disappointed in the Reserve, its not because it tastes in anyway bad, though the Gold would definately be my pick of the two, assuming it wasnt another pint of ugh.

And that maybe the Golds undoing, the Reserve I think is slightly more robust given its higher alcohol content,but as is often the case with GK beers, for all its seeming ability to be all things to all people  cellaring and managing the pub & beer properly is absolutely critical to delivering these pints at the level they deserve to be drunk at, and not enough pubs in the GK estate do that as I sampled another fine vintage sarsons version of IPA (so bad I just left it) & a Libertine which had all the hallmarks of another pint of ugh at the weekend.

If I do ever find the bottles on sale, I might update the review to take account of them.