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An occasional insight into the goings on at The Betwixt Beer Co, Wirral.
Apologies for the long wait for this issue, we do call it an "occasional" insight :~) just not very "occasionally" at the moment!
If you have any comments, questions or something
you'd like us to add to the next Brewsletter, please do get in touch,
brewer@betwixtbeer.co.uk
tel 077 929 67414
Cheers,
Mike.
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In this "quart in a pint pot" of an issue -
* Wirral Food & Drink Festival - wow.
* Betwixt Beers win at Wirral Food & Drink Fest - "2 out of 3 aint bad!"
* Lions' Pride flutters by after World Cup - but Red Admiral flies in.
* Guest Beers from Northern Brewing, Cheshire - Choc Stout & Wheat Beer.
* New Farmers' Markets in Wirral, Liverpool & Woolton, Betwixt is at some of them!
* Essex Boys win Champion Beer of Britain, for 2nd year running!
* CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival - success in a pint glass.
* Beer In The News.
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Wirral Food & Drink Festival. Post-fest report.
A big 'Hello' to any of you who came along, tried the beers, and signed up for The Brewsletter. What a couple of days!
The event was held at the appropriate venue of Claremont Farm, near Clatterbridge (see www.wirralfoodfestival.co.uk for info about what was on at the festival or www.claremontfarm.co.uk for more about the Claremont's farm, fishery & excellent farm shop).
Some food festivals can seem a bit 'corporate' - detached from local farming, produce and local people, so we worked hard to avoid this, describing the event as 'A Celebration of All Things Homegrown'. We tried to keep this in mind throughout the festival.
Given the happy faces of people enjoying good local beer, buying local food and drink to take home, or supporting local charities through their games stalls, plus the children and parents enjoying the tea garden and teddy-bears' picnic, and the positive feedback from farmers, producers and volunteers, I think we did pretty well in keeping it local and friendly.
That said, it wasn't exactly a small event! We had guessed that over the 2 days, maybe at most 3,000 - 4,000 people might make it out to the farm for this new event (over the Sun & Mon of the August Bank Holiday). When about 14,000 turned up, we knew we had underestimated a little!
Together with brewing colleagues, friends, family & volunteers (largely from the ranks of Wirral's CAMRA branch, thanks folks! see www.camrawirral.org.uk) Betwixt helped to organise the beer side of the festival, which included our own stall, plus a mini beer festival with more than 20 casks of fresh, cooled, local real ale.
The beers came from 9 different Cheshire & Merseyside craft-brewers, and we purposely tried to have as wide a range of styles as possible. We managed to source 11 distinct beer styles - everything from blueberry bitter & an apricot wheat-beer, to pale hoppy golden ales, trad bitters, mild, stout, ruby and strong ales.
We thought that the range of beer styles was important to show drinkers that there is more to decent beer than the 'choice' of "bitter, bitter or bitter" in varying strengths, that you often find, even in many decent real ale pubs.
The tents used for the beer area were very striking, though perhaps a bit dark & cramped in the bar area (they were actually teepees, see www.papakata.co.uk) but we squeezed in 20 firkins (traditional 72-pint casks) and 6 handpumps on the bar.
We think that we must have done something right, as just before closing time on Monday we had totally sold out, apart from a few pints of Cain's Mild (one of my favourites). I hope a few drinkers were introduced to this lovely beer, and discovered that behind its deep dark colour there is a light-bodied, easy-drinking lovely chocolatey drop.
After we finally closed, the exhausted volunteers summoned the last of their strength to raise a few glasses of the mild & we polished the rest of the cask off, no problem.
Big thanks to the local brewers that supplied the fine beer, especially Northern Brewing & their friend Mike Elliot who came up with the excellent cooling equipment, also thanks to main sponsors Cain's & and all of the volunteers.
Those involved said it was a very friendly & fun event to help out at, so get in touch next year if you think you'd like to spare us a few hours (either on the beer side, or any of the many other jobs that need doing).
We will keep you posted about plans for next year's festival.
See the Daily
Post's report on this year's festival.
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Betwixt Beers win at Wirral Food & Drink Fest - "2 out of 3 aint bad!"
Following on from the Wirral Food&Drink Fest news, Betwixt are pleased & proud to announce that our hoppy golden 'Sunlight' (in a rare cask outing) won Champion Beer of the Festival.
Cain's Sundowner (lemon-flavoured golden ale) was voted 2nd place, and our recently renamed 'Red Admiral' ruby ale was in third place.
Despite helping to organise the beer side of the event, I promise we had nothing to do with counting the votes in the beer competition!
Our stall at the festival was overwhelmed by interested drinkers - it felt like we never stopped giving tasting samples and chatting to people over the 2 days. By midway through Monday, we had sold out of both of our own Betwixt beers & just had our guest beers left (Wheat beer & Stout from Northern Brewing).
After breaking down the bar, returning all of
the empty casks to their rightful owners and trying to re-stock for this
Saturday's New Ferry market - we're still recovering from this busy but
hugely enjoyable weekend!
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Lions' Pride sent off - Red Admiral flutters in.
Some would say that the England team have nothing to feel too proud of in our exit from the World Cup, but we were always going to change the name of our ruby-coloured fruity/spicy strong ale, once the tournament had ended.
'Red Admiral' is the beer's new name, partly because of its ruby red colour, and we hope you admire its complex flavour, but our friends at The New Ferry Butterfly Park also inspired us to choose the name, as the Red Admiral is a fairly regular visitor.
Amongst other plants, the Red Admiral caterpillar is said to feed and live on hops, and volunteers at the park have been trying to encourage the growth of 'wild' hops, but sadly (from a brewing perspective) only the unproductive males have grown so far!
If you've not tried it yet Red Admiral should be available to taste at any of our markets.
For more information about New Ferry Butterfly Park see www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/cheshire/res_new_ferry.htm
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Guest Beers from Northern Brewing, Cheshire - Choc Stout & Wheat Beer.
As mentioned above, in order to have an interesting range of beers, in addition to our own Sunlight & Red Admiral, we are also currently bottling and stocking 2 beers from our colleagues at Northern Brewing (of Sandiway, Cheshire, where we brew our own Betwixt beers).
Northern's beer names often have a 'Northern Soul' music origin, as MD Colin is a huge fan of the style. Their "One-der-ful Wheat" refers to a classic Northern Soul record label. It's a 4.7%abv 'wheat bitter' style - quite dry & quenching, with a more English accent, rather than the unusual fruity and spicy flavours of a Belgian or Bavarian wheat brew.
Northern's "Two-tone Chocolate Stout"
is a rich, strong English style stout (5%abv) - it is brewed not with
chocolate itself as some beers are, but instead uses 'chocolate malt'
(malted barley, roasted like coffee or cocoa to give coffee & choc
type flavours). Though not as strongly roasty as a dry Irish stout, this
beer is still not for the faint of heart - I think it tastes of dark choc,
rum and raisin, and the burnt currants on top of a good rich fruit cake.
(apologies if I've come over all "mmmm, i'm getting gasoline..."
like some drinks writers!)
See www.norbrew.co.uk
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New Merseyside Markets - & Betwixt Hopes to Treat you at some of them!
For those of you who need a more regular fix of fine local produce, there are several new farmers’ markets on Merseyside
- Woolton Village, every 2nd Saturday.
- Hope Street, every 3rd Sunday.
starts 17th Sept (this Sunday), as part of the Liverpool Food & Drink
Festival, visit
this link for more info about some beery events around the festival
-
The Sunday event itself is a celebration of good food & drink in an expanded street farmers' market - last year was busy, but a great atmosphere.
- Newhall Nurseries, Chester High Road (A540) Heswall, every Saturday & Sunday, 9am-4pm.
Betwixt Beer Co will be at the regular Hope Street Market from this month onwards, we are also looking at attending the Woolton and Heswall (A540) markets, but will let you know a.s.a.p.
If you know of any other good markets in the region
that we should consider, please let us know.
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Essex beer voted Undisputed British Beer Champ - Now a double whammy!
A bunch of Essex boys & girls have won CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain.
Crouch Vale Brewery (South Woodham Ferrers, near Chelmsford) have succeeded in doing what no other brewery has done before – winning Champion Beer of Britain for 2 years running, with the same beer (Brewer’s Gold, a beautifully balanced, fruity/hoppy, golden ale).
Hearty congratulations to Colin, Ollie & the
rest of the folks at Crouch Vale.
See - www.crouch-vale.co.uk
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Great British Beer Festival – bigger & better.
The Campaign For Real Ale’s annual Great British Beer Festival was held in early August, at its new venue of Earl’s Court, London (moved from Olympia).
Dubbed as the world’s largest pub, it competes well with its more famous Munich cousin, Oktoberfest. Despite being a much shorter festival & attracting fewer visitors, GBBF (as it is known to beer afficionados) manages to stock about 450 brews, in a massive variety of styles, from all over the UK, plus an amazing array of interesting foreign beers, wheras Oktoberfest only has a few beers from each of the 6 Munich breweries, and only stocks beers in a very limited range of lager & wheat beer.
GBBF does however lack certain facilities – (apologies to the squeamish . . .) Oktoberfest, I’m told, has some gold-plated public vomitoria for drinkers to relieve themselves of excess beer in order to continue to drink more. Wunderbar!
The new venue for allowed GBBF room to increase visitor
numbers, to 66,000, up from about 46,000 last year. CAMRA have hailed
this year’s fest as an overwhelming success.
See www.camra.org.uk
Talking of decent beer fests – next month
sees our own local OctoberFest, at Pacific Road, Birkenhead, tickets are
reported to be on sale at certain pubs, see www.camrawirral.org.uk
for more info (click on "festivals")
We hope to have some beer on sale, including our wild Wirral hopped "BeWilder".
Get your tickets ASAP, as they sell like hot cakes.
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Beer & Food; Autumn Recipe - Delia's Beef In Beer.
I’ve not yet tried this recipe myself, but Delia is almost a living saint, so I’m sure it’s perfect!
When I’ve made my own version in the past (improvised around a couple of other recipes), I’ve used a strong, malty/spicy brew to marinade the meat & form the rich gravy. (I’d recommend our Red Admiral ruby ale & some good braising steak).
I’d also serve it with fresh or pickled beetroot &/or red cabbage & boiled potatoes, plus add carrots to the pot at the start & mushrooms nearer the end (& I wouldn’t go for the odd-sounding cheesy/garlic/mustard croutons!)
For the short recipe version see -
www.deliaonline.com
For a longer article by Delia & the recipe itself,
see -
www.bbc.co.uk/food/
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Beery bits - odd stories from the world of beer.
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Czech Up - Women Turn To Drink (healthy beer though)
Czech Radio reports that Czech beer scientists are currently testing their new 'Lady Beer' - a low alcohol beer specially designed to help women going through the menopause. Hops used to flavour beer naturally contain phytoestrogens, but this new Czech brew has about 10 times the amount, which, it is hoped, will relieve some of the common symptoms of menopause (hot flushes, night sweats & loss of bone density).
see - www.radio.cz/en/article/80948
(article also available here on realplayer audio)
and a piece by US menopause medical expert, Nancy Schurr
at -
www.menopauseexpert.com/estrogenbeer.html
for an overview of the reported health benefits of beer,
see a usenet (newsgroup)
piece I wrote a while back, after I went to a beer & health lecture
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Sad day - Adnam’s say “nay” to dray horses.
Traditional Suffolk brewery, Adnams of Southwold, have sadly announced that they have stopped delivering to pubs in the town using their traditional horse-drawn dray.
The decision is said to be due to the brewery moving its distribution depot to an out of town site, along a busy road, which would be a lengthy and dangerous journey for both horses and driver.
Comments on the BBC Suffolk website suggest that
locals are saddened by the change, while some go further and say that
the move is “a cynical cost cutting measure”. More comment,
audio files, interviews, etc at -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/
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If you've made it this far, well
done!
As I said at the top, apologies for the lack of brewsletter recently -
just been too much to do & not enough time! I hope to get a shorter
email out more regularly, but no more than about once a month.
If you'd like to be reminded about which markets we are at each weekend, we can send texts out on the day before - just send us a text or email (with your mobile no.) saying which area you can make it to - "Wirral" "Liverpool" or "all" & we'll do the rest.
If you have any comments, questions or something you'd
like us to add to the next Brewsletter, please do get in touch,
brewer@betwixtbeer.co.uk
tel 077 929 67414
Cheers,
Mike.