Travels
England/France/Germany/England
Amy and I went to England in March. This was a pretty long holiday for us (longer for me as I took in upon myself to renew my visa). I had spent the previous year diving straight into the craft, and now faced a return to the beer culture of my past.
Lest I forget the taste of proper craft, I had left a couple of boxes of homebrew at my parent’s house so I had a few gushers and some Vintage Vintage Ales to keep me going if I got fed up of boring brown beer.
Hitting the wondrous North of England, we head into the Sheffield Tap and a good gathering of friends old and new. Beer wise, it was mixed: Magic Rock’s Gose was impressive and the thing I wanted more than ever, a pint of Jaipur, was every bit as good as I remembered. But a Tapped Brewing 7% IPA with no discernable hop flavour or aroma was unforgivable, and a Magic Rock brown ale that tasted of home-brew? It got to to the point where on the next round I wanted ‘something decent’: a pint of Jaipur.
The following day we have a bimble around Castleton, and Crackers and I chase the beers — simple pints of bitter, all different makes but with pretty much the same taste. One of the pubs has a working one armed bandit and I lose all of 40p in its Gamblor-esque grip.
Onwards to France where the beer was largely fizzy and yellow but strangely appealing. I sat in a kerbside seat, waiting for Amy to appear from a book raid, drinking the fizzy yellow stuff. It makes me think that 90% of the quality of beer is captured in the quality of mood and surroundings. We find a ‘craft’ beer bar someone near the big cemetary and settle in for the evening. Mostly American styles but somehow passed through a gallic filter. Le Trois 8 was my idea of a perfect bar: a small number of taps, plenty of empty seats and the urge to follow a drink with another. We get chatting to some Americans and they book us in at a vegetarian restaurant and guide us on our way.
Then, for me, Mecca. Bamberg, via Frankfurt. Bamberg is a funny little German town. Split in two by a river there’s an old part and a new part. We arrive late, go for a pizza and I order a Keller Bier. It’s simply the best beer I’ve ever had, light and moreish. We bimble about and head into a pub that sells chips, and order some Helles from the surliest bartender in Germany. I tend to steer away from Helles in the US as they’re usually bad but here it was perfect. Light and drinkable.
And then on to Spezial. Full of locals of course. A Marzen and a Lager. Easily the best smoked marzen I’ve ever had — the smoke character enchanting and body beguiling. It’s like eating food but it’s beer.
We bimble about the city the day after, books and record shops mainly (I spy a copy of Phallus Dei), and a weird taxidermy type place. After a light dinner (ordering a shoulder of pork in Germany means you get a whole shoulder by the way) and onto the highlight of the trip: Schlenkerla. Fastenbier is on and it is just as good as the beers at Spezial. And the Marzen and the Weiss (the murkiest, yeastiest Weiss I’ve ever had). And just the feeling of sitting in the bier hall drinking the best beer in the world was a great one.
Home and onto Cardiff. Whistlestop tours of pubs and familiar sites. We go into the craft pub, home of Tiny Rebel brewing company. A lot of misses here: Camden Helles which is almost there but something of a shadow of the Helles I had in Germany. Arbor 2014 was one of the most disgusting beers I’ve had in a long while. Whilst ordering a Full Nelson from Tiny Rebel, I am asked whether I’d like it in Cask or Keg. I chose Cask, and asked them to dial down the malt profile and swap the hops out for Simcoe. Seriously I understand that keg and cask can go different places and support different beers but don’t serve both in your tap house eh?
The super local brewery saved the day: Pipes American IPA was so good that I ordered a pint of it, murky, dank and packed full of hops. A welcome end.
Then home for a week, working in Wrington. There’s a new brewery opened up by the place where we used to buy eggs. It’s super trad english fare but surprisingly solid — decent stuff. I spend two evenings in the local pub drinking what else but Butcombe Bitter. It’s the second best beer of the trip, proper British Bitter. You can bottles of it but it doesn’t work — it’s got to be fresh (Butcombe moved from Butcombe to Wrington a while back) and it’s got to come from a cask.
And now I’m back in Oakland. I biked over to the Hog’s Apothercary today for their “Real Ale” evening. They’ve done everything right — conditioned tapped, sparkled. The beer is good — tasty and morish despite being a “blend” of Pale Ale and ESB. Whenever I see the word blend, I always assume that they were trying to get rid of two beers that were bad.
But the surroundings were wrong, the food was nice but overpriced (14 dollars for a hot dog and crisps?) the sense of American drinking was strong: That you should be moving on pretty soon. A stark contrast with my experience of drinking Butcombe Bitter, being alone with the Barman as they’d decided to shut for and hour but served me anyway. British Beer is not a beer for tasting or deep analysis — it’s a support for an evening spent in the pub, or some rambling conversation. I’ll be back for the beer, but probably not for a session.
