Category Archives: Beer

Beer for a Time

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Above all, beer is a social drink, and one of the great pleasures in life is buying supplies for a film night, a meal, or a weekend away. Even the act of getting in a couple of boxes of canned lager for a barbecue has its pleasurable side. More pleasurable, some might say, than actually drinking the stuff. There’s something about the planning ahead, and the knowledge that whatever happens, there is at least enough beer, which appeals to the survivalist hidden inside us all. Beer to last the evening. Beer for the weekend. Beer enough until we can get to the shops again. But what about beer for a much longer span of time than this? How would we plan, for example, to provide beer for fifty men, for five or six months, when the supplies you take with you are all the supplies you have?

“Large quantities” is the obvious answer, and for the arctic whalers of the early nineteenth century, whose summer voyages took them into waters uncharted even by the Royal Navy, large quantities were what they took. I’ve written before about the amount of beer taken by whaleship Esk, on its summer voyage to the Arctic in 1814: approximately 3520 gallons of ale, from two separate breweries, including a cask of “fine ale” to toast their success. They took more ale than fresh water. The Master, William Scoresby Jr., also had 120 bottles of Porter in his personal supply.

The quantity–three to four pints per man per day for the voyage–was provided as much as a source of energy as anything else. Whaling was physically hard, and the days were long. In the Arctic summer, working in daylight around the clock, they could seem endless. But the choice of beer was also important. Though the contents of the ship’s hold were kept mostly above freezing by the surrounding seawater, the ale they drank in sub-zero temperatures must have been bitingly cold. High alcohol content helped stop it freezing, but even so, Scoresby reports standing a bottle of Porter mere inches from the fire in his cabin, and watching ice form.

Yet even with all that ale on board, and the additional ‘cabin bottles’ the men were given in exceptionally bad weather, sometimes it was still not enough. In 1816, the ‘year without a summer’ which followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, temperatures in the Arctic were low enough for even these tough men to put on mitts. Old hands had a personal supply of spirits for these occasions, which they exchanged for coffee and sugar with the ill-prepared first-timers. We can learn a lot from these Arctic whalers, about keeping a cool head in the face of danger, about perseverance and fortitude. But the lesson I take from this is that whatever you’re planning, always have something in reserve. Because even at temperate latitudes, when it comes to your beer supply, it’s not worth taking chances.

This post was written as an entry to Zak Avery’s competition.

Pubworking

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Alex Johnson, otherwise known as Mr Shedworking, is expanding his blog media empire from sheds and bookshelves to pubs. Now that they have wifi, and offer food and hot drinks during the day, many pubs are just as welcoming to mobile workers as coffee shops, as long as they play by the rules. The advantage over a café, of course, is that in a pub, you don’t have to move very far to get that after work pint. The new site offers links to wifi maps, tips and advice on how to go about being a pubworker, and reviews and comments on specific work friendly pubs. Perfect for when you want to step out of the garden office for a change. It is also a place where you can post recommendations of pubs on an interactive map. Here’s what Alex has to say:

 

More and more people are working from home in garden offices, spare bedrooms, kitchen tables, lofts and cellars. Some are also working in other ‘third places’ such as coffee houses and coworking facilities. But we believe there is a huge untapped resource for homeworkers – and homeworkers on the move – which is being overlooked: our pubs.

Pubs are the ideal place to inspire creativity and business activities. They’re a cornerstone of our culture, they’re plentiful and they’re underused during exactly the hours many homeworkers need somewhere comfortable and relaxing in which to run their business.

Important players in the pub industry are certainly keen to attract this section of the working population as witnessed by the massive roll-outs of wifi spots in pubs throughout the country. Yet the potential for providing dedicated facilities is still largely unmet. This site aims to convince both potential customers and landlords that there is mutual benefit for everybody in pubworking. [Pubworking]

 

Ormskirk Baron Audio Reviews Podcast

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For the past year or so I have been meeting up with @baron_orm, Twitter-friendly beer blogger extraordinaire, to review bottled beers, and record our thoughts in audio. So far the audio has only been available through the Ormskirk Baron blog, and the main feed, but I’m pleased to announce that you can now subscribe to the audio feed as a podcast, so you can listen to our ramblings wherever you are. There is of course also the full feed of all the Baron’s reviews, or subscribe by email.

A complete list of all the beers reviewed so far, with their [baron rating], can be found on the Baron Rating Master List.

 

Rules for Brewing in the 18th Century

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Hannah Glasse (1708-1770) is often credited with inventing modern cookery books, and is sometimes called “the mother of the dinner party”. Her book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, which she published herself by subscription, appeared in 1747. It contains recipes for all kinds of dishes (I am a big fan of her pies), and instructions on managing and running a kitchen. In those days beer, and in particular “small beer” was drunk by most people as a substitute for water. Brewing was a common activity, and larger houses had their own brewhouses. Here are Hannah Glasse’s rules and instructions for brewing in a domestic kitchen (I’ve modernised the spelling). She takes care to offer advice on what to do if the available vessels are not large enough to take the whole brew in one go, and it is interesting also to note the emphasis on cleanliness, and on making sure that everything is boiled and “scalded”: “Take great care your casks are not musty, or have any ill taste; if they have, it is a hard thing to sweeten them.”

RULES for BREWING

Care must be taken, in the first place, to have the malt clean; and after it is ground, it ought to stand four or five days.

For strong October [ale], five quarters of malt to three hogsheads, and twenty-four pounds of hops. This will afterwards make two hogsheads of good keeping small-beer, allowing five pounds of hops to it.

For middling beer, a quarter of malt makes a hogshead of ale, and one of small-beer. Or it will make three hogsheads of good small-beer, allowing eight pounds of hops. This will keep all the year. Or it will make twenty gallons of strong ale, and two hogsheads of small-beer that will keep all the year.

If you intend your ale to keep a great while, allow a pound of hops to every bushel; if to keep six months, five pounds to a hogshead; if for present drinking, three pounds to a hogshead, and the softest and clearest water you can get.

Observe the day before to have all your vessels very clean, and never use your tubs for any other use except to make wines.

Let your cask be very clean the day before with boiling water; and if your bung is big enough, scrub them well with a little birch-broom or brush ; but if they be very bad, take out the heads, and let them be scrubbed clean with a hand-brush, sand, and fullers-earth. Put on the head again, and scald them well, throw into the barrel a piece of unslacked lime, and stop the bung close.

The first copper of water, when it boils, pour into your mash-tub, and let it be cool enough to see your face in; then put in your malt, and let it be well mashed; have a copper of water boiling in the mean time, and when vour malt is well mashed, fill your mashing-tub, stir it well again, and cover it over with the sacks. Let it stand three hours, set a broad shallow tub under the cock, let it run very softly, and if it is thick throw it up again till it runs fine, then throw a handful of hops in the under tub, let the mash, run into it, and fill your rubs till all is run off. Have water boiling in the copper, and lay as much more on as you have occasion for, allowing one third for boiling and waste. Let that stand an hour, boiling more water to fill the mash-tub for small-beer; let the fire down a little, and put it into tubs enough to fill your mash. Let the second mash be run off, and fill your copper with the first wort; put in part of your hops, and make it boil quick. About an hour is long enough; when it has half boiled, throw in a handful of salt. Have a clean white wand and dip it into the copper, and if the wort feels clammy it is boiled enough; then slacken your fire, and take off your wort. Have ready a large tub, put two sticks across, and set your, straining basket over the tub on the sticks, and strain your wort through it. Put your other wort on to boil with the rest of the hops; let your mash be covered again with water, and thin your wort that is cooled in as many things as you can, for the thinner it lies, and the quicker it cools, the better. When quite cool, put it into the tunning-tub. Throw a handful of salt into every boil. When the mash has stood an hour draw it off, then fill your mash with cold water, take off the wort in the copper and order it as before. When cool, add to it the first in the tub; so soon as you empty one copper, fill the other, so boil your small-beer well. Let the last mash run off, and when both are boiled with fresh hops, order them as the two first boilings; when cool empty the mash tub, and put the smallbeer to work there. When cool enough work it, set a wooden bowl full of yeast in the beer, and it will work over with a little of the beer in the boil. Stir your tun up every twelve hours, let it stand two days, then tun it, taking off the yeast. Fill your vessels full, and save some to fill your barrels; let it stand till it has done working; then lay on your bung lightly for a fortnight, after that stop it as close as you can. Mind you have a vent-peg at the top of the vessel, in warm weather, open it; and if your drink hisses, as it often will, loosen till it has done, then stop it close again. If you can boil your ale in one boiling it is best, if your copper will allow of it; if not, boil it as conveniency serves.

When you come to draw your beer and find it is not fine, draw off a gallon, and set it on the fire, with two ounces of isinglass cut small and beat. Dissolve it in the beer over the fire: when it is all melted, let it-stand till it is cold, and pour it in at the bung, which must lay loose on till it has done fermenting, then stop it close for a month.

Take great care your casks are not musty, or have any ill taste; if they have, it is a hard thing to sweeten them.

You are to wash your casks with cold water before you scald them, and they should lie a day or two soaking, and clean them well, then scald them.

The Rise of Real Ale

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Back in June I made a few observations about what happens when lager drinkers are introduced to good quality IPA, and noted that big, bold flavours, rather than watery blandness, might be exactly what people want. Put like that it seems obvious, but somehow over the past 40 years the big brewcorps have convinced us that bland is best. Yesterday the Observer newspaper carried an article highlighting the rapid growth of small real ale brewers and the ‘renaissance’ in real ale in the face of a recession. Lager still accounts for over 74 percent of the beer market, so real ale has a long way to go, but that doesn’t mean British drinkers like mainstream lager much, or will stick with it when shown alternatives. Mainstream lager is the Microsoft Windows of the beer world. It is usually the safe choice, even if the overall experience is vaguely disappointing. I am confident that if exposed to lovingly made, refreshing, hoppy alternatives, a lot more people would move away from the bland end of the lager market. After all, “safe, but vaguely disappointing” isn’t really a sensible way to make any kind of decision, is it?

From the article:

Significantly, Siba’s smaller members, who each brew fewer than 350 barrels a week and constitute the vast majority of its membership, saw volume sales rise by 8.5%, an impressive achievement in the jaws of a recession.

“A lot of our members are professional brewers who have worked for the big brewers and have now set up their own business,” said Grocock, whose organisation had only 20 members in 1980. “They are brewing all sorts of beers; we are not just talking about bitter and mild, but stouts and porters, wheat beers, heather beers up in Scotland. There’s now a huge variety out there.” More.