Jan 2, 2013 - Not a Grumpy Publican Post

Just a shortie today. I was sitting here in the quiet pub (being closed on Wednesdays during the off-season) and dealing with end-of-year inventory and paperwork and so forth, and realized that the last time I'd blogged was somewhere in England back in November. Tempus fugit ex nostrilium. I'm trying to get used to writing the number 2013 on checks and thinking about a new calendar year. 2012 was, in my opinion and as the records show, our best year yet. We seemed to have turned a corner. Overall gross takings at the till were up almost 15% from 2011. This is cheery, and means that I don't have to write a grumpy publican post to start out the new year. 2012 also won us an award and installed me in my first foreign meet-the-brewer video. What could be finer?

Looking forward, progress is being made on planning for the next pub, albeit more slowly than I would like. And that's my fault, as I keep experiencing difficulty letting my staff do stuff that they are perfectly capable of themselves. Must. Let. Go. Also, I've been working on refining my recipes, particularly my session beers. It's interesting so see that putting a mere 100g less Galena at the top of the boil makes an enormous difference in the balance of the final product.

And before you wander off and forget to plan a visit to the pub, this year's Tanninbomb, our oak-aged old ale, is extraordinary. The new cellar we built last summer has been causing just a small amount of increased conditioning, especially over three months it takes to age, so it takes a bit of breathing on the stillage to get it right. I'm quite happy with that. It's worth the trouble. See you at the pub.

A Celebration of Prevarication

I know some who plan their vacations down to the last detail. All the major tourist highlights and media-flogged points of interest must be taken in in the most efficient manner as possible; a jamb-packed orgy of stress-inducing sights and sounds and diesel tour busses. Not fun, really. I prefer a richer experience that can be experienced by sailing the gentle, wayward breeze of organic encounter in the pubs and footpaths of England.

Last night this errant breeze had unexpectedly washed me ashore at the Bridge Inn in Santon Bridge, Holmrook, for the World's Biggest Liar Competition. This is an event that originated in the 19th century, and still runs strong on an annual basis. I had first read about it while staying for a couple of nights in Wasdale Head back in September of 2004 on a random walking jaunt across Cumbria. I never expected that I'd see the day I might witness this noble and solemn spectacle.

Be it known that I'm not trained in journalism, and I somewhat reluctantly blog. However, uncertainty reigned supreme as I found myself charged by the Hardknott Brewery in Millom to be their blogger representative at the pub. The choices were to (A) tell a five minute equivocation under the bright lights of the stage before a crowd of over a hundred crammed into the function room of a rural public house, or (B) write about the event over t'Interweb.

On the five mile walk over to the inn from the train station I thought up a handful of less-than-true figments of my holiday-corrupted imagination. The illusion of a large, hirsute American taking the stage was taking on a cloudy, misshapen and ambitious form. To my ultimate benefit, over my first pint at the bar, the barkeep formed me that tall tales that don't connect well with the Cumbrian locals, their folklore, their history and their local color might not be well-received. Good enough for me. Plan B goes into effect, and I'm merely left with enjoying the show stress-free and scratching together some sentences for the 7 people who actually read my blog. Perfect.

Through connections that I don't completely understand I was put at the press table at the side of the stage, notebook in hand, pondering the sense that I didn't really deserve this. That didn't stop me from attempting to take notes and liberating an assortment of Cumbrian ales. The Jennings Brewery, who sponsored the event, had on a special Biggest Liar ale that was brown and biscuity and reminded me of my own "Quid Hoc Sibi Vult" Special Bitter which I hope is still on the pumps back at the home office. I felt at home, as I most often do in this part of the globe.

There were 12 contestants this year. Having been to Cumbria many times in the past, indeed spending a splendid tour learning English brewing techniques and pub operations over the years, I had not a whit of trouble sorting through the regional accents and local references. Around the third contestant I began to see the structure of the storytelling, for that's what it came to be in my mind. This is the weaving of tall tales; a celebration of prevarication. Part of me wanted to compare the act and delivery with stand-up comedy, but, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, there was something special going on here. You can't bottle this and stick it on a shelf at the local tricky-tacky shop. Selfishly, I wanted all the cameras and media and promotion to just go away and bring me back to a lost era when tales would be spun at a local around a coal fire with a pint of the usual.

Ah, the stories. It is not my intention to write reviews here. I'll leave that to the local media. But, ah, the stories. I was particularly amused by the true account of a journey to Whitehaven trying to sell a box of four kittens. There were stories about badger ancestry, web-footed cats, the origins of the word haggis, the rhyming meter of the tale of Ruby Tuesday's sister. This is an art that sadly persists in its absence. There were three winners, but they all won.

Altogether it was a splendid and unique evening, and I am thankful to all who made it possible.

Speaking of unique, it quickly became well-known that an American publican and brewer was on the premises, observing and writing. I was asked more than once whether I would consider putting on an event of a similar nature at my own pub. No, I replied. Not going to happen. Full stop. I understood the event to be unique; it belongs here and only here, and only gets lost in translation. To commercialize it and exploit it would be tragic. This is not something that should be interfered with by a large American, or anyone for that matter, and that is not a lie.

Notes From Cornwall

Cornwall was fantastic. However, I have had to leave it a bit earlier than I expected. There are rumblings and goings-on up north, of the beery variety, that have put me on a train back to familiar Oxford. Then tomorrow I head up to the Lake District. I don't totally know what awaits me up there, but that's the way I like it. I do know that there is an event planned in Leeds on my last night, and I would also like to spend a couple of days pottering about the pubs and fells of Coniston.

Sadly, I'm seeing more pubs going corporate. By this I'm not talking about design, layout and atmosphere (that's a different matter), but rather staffing and management. It is harder to run across the publican-led pub, especially in urban areas. And the smiling, friendly staff that engages you in a conversation is the exception rather than the norm. Kudos to the Tinner's Arms in Zennor near St. Ives. The barkeep warned me that the 5.2% ABV pint that I was in the process of acquiring was " a bit strong", and the landlady gave me advice for the walk over the neck of Cornwall to Penzance. I give high ratings there to the Admiral Benbow and the Turks Head.

Cornwall is definitely dominated by the St. Austell's brewery. A large percentage of the pubs I visited were tied. Last night I was in Fowey on the southern coast, a beautiful little harbor town. Out of the five pubs, four were tied, and the fifth sported Sharps Doom Bar, Wadworth 6X and, you guessed it, St Austell's Tribute. While there, staring out over the harbor, I got to witness a young, cocky Diageo boy replace a shiny ice-cold Guinness font with a newer and shinier ice-cold Guinness font. Yuck.

I'm supposed to be in the land of the unsparkled pint, but an Austell's pub in St. Ives was dispensing "northern". Nothing wrong with that in my book, unless the sparkler was used to prop up a fading cask, which was the case on more than one occasion. I ran across another in Fowey.

The business plan for the satellite pub is coming along slowly. Thoughts and images need time to soak in. I finish this entry from my new favorite pub in Oxford, the Rose and Crown off Woodstock Road, which I discovered off the Good Pub Guide. A free house with a well-kept cellar, lots of little rooms, and a covered patio overgrown with vines. It's also bereft of students. Cheers!

Don't Look For Me at Work - I'm Not There

[Bloggers note: I couldn't figure out how to upload pictures from an iPad, so edited accordingly. Any insights out there?]

It's Saturday already. It was Wednesday morning when I landed in Manchester. After a lovely two nights in Oxford revisiting some of my favorite pubs like the Bear, the Old Bookbinders and the Turf, I'm now enjoying my first full day in St. Ives way down the tippy end of Cornwall.

I had hoped to make a blog entry earlier, but finding reliable WiFi has been a chore. It is showing up more in the pubs than I recall in years past, but there seems to be something odd and persistently unreliable about it. It reminds me of a rotating lighthouse beacon that smiles on you for 10 seconds once every four minutes. Many things are opposite of the way they are back in the States, such as light switch positions, traffic lanes, and the inability of hot water taps to decide whether they are on the right or the left, so perhaps zeros are ones and ones are zeros and my portable American electronic device is caught in a state of bewilderment.

Ah, the pubs. Pubs to the left of me. Pubs to the right. Good pubs. City pubs. Rural pubs. Locals pubs. Tourist pubs. Student pubs. Cozy pubs. Wetherspoons pubs (yes, for the sake of research I need to go in then and have a look around, and to have a £1.49 pint to stay in budget). I'm here to research pubs, to study them (in a purely academic fashion, of course), to scrutinize their design and atmosphere and architecture. There is a business plan in the works and I'm sorting that out.

Another reason to be here is to have a cracking good time off, and to ensure that any work I perform whilst on this Island is something that I do in my spare time and when I'm in the proper mood. So, as such, I'm off for a pint.

Little Green Men

I was just going through my blog roll while brewing today and read Bill's report on the fresh hop season. This caused me to think that I never did finish that post about our own fresh hop beer. Now I feel I have to rewrite the thing, as it is no longer relevant in the face of the fact that, to be blunt, we drank it all. Here's one of the last pints coming over the bar and soon to be in my possession.

Bill also posted about terminology back in September. "Wet Hops", "Fresh Hops", "Green Hops", "Moist Hops". I don't know that there is universal agreement. I called mine "Green Hopped" as the hops were very shiny and green. Yes, I know, whole cones and pellets are also green, but not green-green, if you know what I mean. Not one to remain caught up endlessly in terminology, I thought I'd just run with it. We've been growing hops up our porch at home for several years now and I never managed to pick them. This year I got up early on a brew day and picked a quarter-kilo of the little green guys.

I have to admit that I don't know what strain they are. My wife thinks they are either Willamette or Cascade, and I'm guessing Cascade based on the shape of the cone and the aroma. I took one of my recipes that works really well on cask for a 5.5% ABV very pale IPA. I used Cascade and Centennial for bittering and Cascade and Simcoe for the finish. The poor little fresh guys got chucked in right at flameout. I didn't really have a name for it until a couple of days later when, while I wasn't even thinking about it, "Little Green Men" popped into some unfashionable outlying region of my cortex.

It came out beautiful. After two weeks sitting in the cask I tapped the first firkin and put it on the bar. It was gone in a day, although it is possible to do that in September when trade is still fairly brisk (as opposed to the dismal season we are heading into now). The effect of the fresh hops is subtle, but I believe it expresses itself better at cellar temperature and without the surfeit of bubbles you might encounter in a kegged or bottled version. I can't help but wonder, though, if a similar effect could be achieved with lawn clippings or dandelion greens, or whether this whole fresh hop thing is simply a marketing gimmick or cry for attention.

Now it's the season to get cracking on the alternatively-bittered November beers, such as my chanterelle, peat moss and wet-big-leaf-maple brown ale, brewed with Belgian Ardennes, cucumber seads and a dash of mace.

No Time Like the Present

I've been waiting for the perfect moment to open my bottle of Colonial Mayhem, brewed in Cumbria last November and hand-delivered to me by some other visiting brewers back in May. That time never came, and so there it sat, until yesterday when I decided that for the sheer joy of still being alive I would celebrate by opening the blasted thing and having a snort. Since my plane ticket to England in November was booked last week, and my Britrail pass arrived on Friday, I suppose I could celebrate that as well.

I know of a number of beery sites that like to give complicated beer reviews. I'm not into that. All I'm going to say is that it poured a bit fizzy, tasted delicious (probably due to pure Millom spring water) and made my barkeep smile (yes, I shared). I understand that a pin of the stuff from a second batch might be stashed away at the brewery for my visit.

The Pub With No Beer

Thanks to heaving crowds the last two weekends, we are almost out of beer. Our proud collection of six hand pulls are still there, but only two of them are burdened by the responsibility of dispensing ale. So, until tomorrow (Wednesday) there is a Best Bitter and a Stout, both sessionable and chock full of yum. On Wednesday there will be a new one-off, six-hopped IPA, and then on Friday the new tweaked recipe of Bridleway, a 3.5% Session Bitter, will be eager to be unleashed on the thirsty masses. See you at the pub.