Brighton Hip City
Brighton and Hove Beer Week
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| How many seagulls has Seattle got, eh? |
Brighton and Hove Beer Week organiser Emma Inch got it spot on in her publicity when she said that if you were to design a beer town it would probably be like Brighton. It's just a cool place, so cool in fact that it was voted the #1 Hipster city in the world on the CNBC business media website, beating the likes of Seattle, Portland and Lisbon. I've lived here for twenty years and I wouldn't live anywhere else (well, maybe New Orleans if the US ever gets universal healthcare). We've got more record shops than you can shake a stick at, more theatres, tattoo parlours, guitars, beards and weird shops by the street-full. Plus we've got the beach.
We also have the bars and the pubs and so many of them are so good that I have trouble on a regular basis deciding where to go for a beer. So why not, thought Emma, organise a festival involving as many great pubs as possible? Actually, she wasn't the first person to try something like this. The last three Springs have seen the Brighton Tap Takeover, organised by the Laine Pub Co which owns several pubs and bars in the centre of town. Their approach was to invite a selection of hip breweries, such as Yeastie Boys, Wild Beer, Four Pure and Wylam, together with several local ones, including Burning Sky and Lost and Found, to each take over the taps of one of the Laine's bars. A great idea and a successful one.
Brighton and Hove Beer Week was different in a number of key respects. There was no central gathering point (the TTO had the North Laine Brewhouse as its hub), no wristbands, no lanyards. The emphasis was placed on arguably the most important element of a town-based festival, the pubs themselves. And there were lots more of them. Hove was represented, courtesy of the Watchmakers Arms, Westbourne and the Bison Craft House. Even Hanover and Bevendean got in on the act. Also, nearly all the pubs involved offered a range of beers from Sussex breweries. There were tap takeovers from Cloak + Dagger, at the new Idle Hands bar, Bedlam at the Greys, Burning Sky at Bison Craft House as well as Siren at the Brighton Beer Dispensary
There were several eye-catching events during the week, of which the most notable was probably the opening night's Mile High Beer Tasting, a tutored session presented by Miles Jenner, Head Brewer at Harvey's, on board the British Airways i360. The Brighton Bier Haus hosted a beer and cheese pairing night, there was a collaborative tour involving Brighton Food Tours and Beer and Brew, plus several new beer launches and a couple of chances to visit Loud Shirt's tap room and brewhouse.
My personal highlights were Beers on the Pier and the Burning Sky 5th birthday celebrations at the Prince Albert. The opening Saturday evening was also memorable. It started for me at the Brighton Bier Haus, with the first half of the Liverpool v Brighton match, then the Northern Monk tap takeover at the Pond and I finished up at Bison in Hove. Their deck is a great place to people watch on a Saturday night. The beer, Arundel's terrific Uptown NEIPA, was pretty nifty too.
I spent the rest of the week wandering between venues, sampling mostly Sussex brews and taking to heart Emma's suggestion in her publicity to each time try something - or somewhere - I'd not drunk before. My meanderings reminded me irresistibly of another of my favourite Brighton events, the annual Great Escape music festival. That's partly why I decided not to miss Beers on the Pier because it was held at my favourite Great Escape venue, Horatio's Bar.
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| Drinking a half of Cellar Head's Strang #1 Trial Hop |
Eight breweries had stalls at Horatio's - North Laine, Unbarred, Holler, Loud Shirt, Cellar Head, Dark Star, Abyss and Franklins and, thank heavens, the weather was good. I sampled beers from Holler, Loud Shirt and Cellar Head, and Charita and I were able to order our food from the bar and sit outside to eat it while gazing across the water. We did also spend time swatting the seagulls away. Isn't this what living in Brighton is all about? Auk!
Brighton Beer Week was a simple idea, brilliantly executed and I very much look forward to 2019. Nice one, Emma!
The Great British Beer Festival, or what beer goes best with bacon and eggs?
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| "Oi! Where's the f****ing craft beer?" |
After CAMRA's recent falling out with Welsh brewers Tiny Rebel, about how they should be allowed to serve their beer at the festival, it struck me as ironic that this year's winning brew should be produced by another of craft beer's most revered names. Yet, as I wandered from stall to stall, bar to bar, I could not help but notice the lack of a significant craft beer presence.
There were breweries represented. Five Points had their own mini-stall and I took advantage of the fact by trying their Derailed Porter (5.9%) which I enjoyed a lot. Greyhound had their own bar and Thornbridge had a massive stall although I was disappointed by their Crackendale Pale (5.2%). Arbor were represented by just two brews, their Breakfast Stout (yep, another one!) and The Devil Made Me Brew It. There were decent showings too from the likes of Brew York, Bedlam and Fallen Acorn, to name but a few.
Belgian Beer Tasting
But apart from a visit to the overseas bars, which included a good range of American ales (many of them lethally strong), my main aim on the day that I visited was to take part in one of the beer tasting events. I had begun to realise that although I have, in my time, drunk a fair number of Belgian beers I remain woefully ignorant about Belgian beer culture. Since there is so much kowtowing these days in its direction I thought that a tasting might help to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. And who better to fill those gaps than Tim Webb and Joe Stange, editors of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide to Belgium (now in its 8th edition)?
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| Guezerie Tilquin's extraordinary Stout Rullquin |
If you're familiar with Kensington Olympia you will probably be aware that like many conference venues it has little in the way of small intimate spaces. The tutored beer tasting was held in was a vast, high-ceilinged exhibition room. The tables were placed well apart, making it resemble a huge cafeteria, and the acoustics were terrible. What I did hear sounded eminently sensible although I did feel at times that it would have helped if I had memorised the first half of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium rather than just reading it through once.
Still, the contrast between the beers was fascinating. I have yet to take to saison as a style - most seem to resemble lightly fruited pale ales - but the two examples that they chose were distinctive and memorable. The first was the terribly named I Rate Saison (Brasserie de la Senne), a sharp, cidery brew; the other, la Vermontoise (de Blaugies/Hill Farmstead) was tangy and spicy.
Goatee Phil's Hove Craft Beer Trail
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| Phil gets opinionated at the Urchin |
The idea of doing a beer tour came from trips that Charita and I made, the first to Budapest and the second to Prague. In both places we signed ourselves up for a tour and while neither told me much about craft beer it was hard not to relate them back to our own home town and for me to think "How would I approach such a tour in Brighton or Hove?"
By the time I was starting to think seriously about the idea there already was a regular beer tour of Brighton, organised by Beer and Brew, so I booked myself on it and saw straightaway that my approach would need to be different. Rob Parker is a qualified Beer Sommelier, a still rare breed, and his presentation and analysis of the beers that we sampled was very much that of the trained palate. Using a Beer Wheel of taste variations he encouraged us to identify the different flavours we detected.
Now, nearly two years later, I find that I am still learning the language of beer. What I do know about is my own reaction to beer, its changing flavours and the changes to pub culture over the last thirty years or so. That was the story that I wanted to tell. Craft beer is only a part of it.
So one Saturday Charita (Momma Cherri), myself and the Albion Roar's Alan Wares took a walk around Hove and visited four pubs that, in their own different ways, illustrated a part of the story that I want to tell. We discovered - well, Charita discovered and spent some time subsequently convincing me - that I needed a fifth pub because of the distance between two of the pubs we visited. She also suggested that I should include food. Naturally, we agreed that that food should be provided by her!
We are now ready for you. The Goatee Phil Craft Beer Trail is up and running and is taking bookings. The next one will be Saturday 19 October from 2 till 5 in the afternoon and there will be another tour four weeks later. Dates after that are in the lap of the gods, or maybe Trip Adviser!
Links and acknowledgements
@beerbythesea
@WatchmakersArms
@bisonbeer
@CloakDaggerBrew
@TheGreysPub
@burningskybeer
@Harveys1790
@NMBCo
@CellarHeadBrew
@Darkstarbrewco
@abyssbrewing
@LaineBrewCo
@WestbourneHove
@BrtnBierHaus
@LoudShirtBeer
@SirenCraftBrew
@thornbridge
@FivePointsBrew
@thepondbrighton
@ArundelBrewery
@thegreatescape
@NorthLainePub
@HollerBrewery
@gbbf
@FranksBrewSussx
@ArborAles
@beerandbrew
@BrtnDispensary
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