Doctor's Orders

Having escaped work a bit early yesterday I finally got a chance to pop into my new local, it having opened on Sunday. Doctor's Orders is Nottingham's first Micro-Pub, and the name came about because it used to be Carrington Pharmacy (which has now moved a few doors closer to town). This also explains the 'prescriptions' window through which you can have a look at the beer stillage. Room being at a premium there's no bar, it's just a matter of grabbing yourself a table and ordering your beer, and don't be expecting much other than beer or cider or you'll be disappointed. It's cask only, and all that straight from the barrels you can see on the (rather posh spring-tilted*) racks. No hand-pulls, no frills - anywhere!

I had a half of Lincoln Green 'Marion' Pale Ale, which was in damn good condition. The beer range looked decent, if not hugely adventurous - it'll be interesting to see how they develop the range they do. It was also nice to be able to have a look at the 'soon to appear' beers - there's a chalkboard as well as printed beer menus.

All in all, and despite it being a fleeting visit, I was really impressed. It's certainly a good place to have within five minutes walk of my house, especially since the fact they don't do food means that me and the dog will be welcomed providing we behave ourselves. As far as I remember they're open 12-2 and 5.30-12 daily. It's a bit of a trek out of the city if you are visiting Nottingham, it being a good mile away from any of the 'must visit' city pubs, but it's a great addition to the (very) local beer scene.

* I was a bit jealous; none of the weekly chock-combat against 18 gallon casks we used to have in the pub I ran.

The Flipping Good Beer Shop

I'm a bit behind with this one, but given Nottingham's fairly laid back approach to the whole craft beer thing, it's probably quite appropriate...

We've got a new specialist beer shop. It's out in Gedling and it's a retail arm of the Flipside Brewery. Gedling might be a bit out of the way but what is most definitely a big bonus is that there is a (free) car park directly opposite. Given we sometimes go out that way as a family to walk the dog down by the river I'm sure I'll be much more easily persuaded to do so on my days off now I know that on the way home I can pick up a few cheeky bevvies from a rather interesting selection. I might even get a chance to browse a bit more at my leisure if I'm not fighting to control my daughter who seemed at least as interested as I was in the beer selection, even if she's a little less capable of looking with her eyes rather than both hands!

Pictured is my first (I'm sure of many) haul. I'll probably post some tasting notes to let people know what I think when I get a chance. My wife picked, and drank, the Flipside 'Dusty Penny' and enjoyed it - the other ones I've yet to crack open.

Their shop-specific website is in a bit of a work-in-progress state at the time of writing, but you can check it out here. Good luck to the folks at The Flipping Good Beer Shop, I hope it works out well for you!

Spoilt for Choice?

Note: This is an article I wrote for the Nottingham Drinker, hence why I refer to Nottingham. However, I'm also interested in hearing if this situation sounds like a familiar one in other places!

Here in Nottingham we can be rightly proud of some great local breweries keeping us all happily contemplating life through the bottom of a beer glass. However it's interesting to compare the range of choice that we have in Nottingham compared to other great beer cities like Sheffield and Leeds. Although the East Midlands now has more breweries than our neighbours up in Yorkshire, many pubs don't take advantage of that range.

Why is this? I think that in some ways there is a vicious circle that has arisen that restricts our choices. We have our city's award winning ales, and it's only natural that publicans want to stock them and drinkers want to enjoy them. This all sounds rosy, so what's the problem? Well it can mean that one pub ends up stocking a very similar range to other pubs nearby.

A pub manager can hardly be blamed for wanting to stock and advertise 'award winning ales,' and indeed if everyone around you is doing so you are almost obliged to just to keep up – it's a competitive business after all. Similarly you can hardly blame the breweries for selling the pubs the award winning beers they sell so much of, they too are fighting to make a living. Unfortunately it can provide a disincentive for diversification.

We, as drinkers, when faced with an array of different beers, are often attracted to the familiar, or understandably enticed by the 'Champion Beer of...' sticker on a pump clip, if only to see what the fuss is all about. To digress briefly; try popping into your local wine shop the day after one of their wines has been recommended on Saturday Kitchen – I'm pretty sure it'll all have gone.

The final part of this circle is the award system itself. Again it's entirely natural for people to want to rank and order things – getting together with like-minded individuals and thrashing out opinion on what's better than what and why is a lot of fun. The problem is that once the award is decided upon, the loop closes, and it can lead to a homogenisation of the range on offer.

Is there a solution? I'd certainly not advocate increasing a pub's range of beers for its own sake, too often it can come at the expense of quality. Should we ban the CAMRA, SIBA and the like from holding their beer of the year awards? Well, no. It's impractical, unreasonable, and quite frankly why spoil the fun? It's what beer is about after all. More awards? Well, the more awards you have the less the fact that a beer wins an award becomes relevant. I do think that there is scope for a re-think in terms of how awards are given, particularly in the light of the explosion in numbers of breweries, and especially in regognising the new and innovative. Although ale is a traditional product there is nothing to suggest that introducing it to people has to be done in an old-fashioned way.

On a more personal scale I do think that there is also a point here about customer and pub relationships. If pubs are to survive and prosper they need to be dynamic and forward thinking, and coming up with new ideas can be difficult. If customers build a good relationship with a pub's management then they can become a great source of those ideas. So if there are interesting beers or breweries out there that you'd like to see more of, why not see if it's possible for the management to get them in?

Hiatus and Return

I've had a brief break from blogging, mainly because I've had a lot on, and much of my time has been spent reading about spirits - not something I'd imagine most readers of beer blogs are interested in.

Today, it's budget day. Tax on beer will go up. A tiny number of people have signed the petition against beer duty escalation, and Camra have come under criticism for not urging their members to sign it. In a way this is understandable - their members, I think, should be urged to sign it. In the end though it's a large and (as far as I can see) democratic organisation, and by its very nature is therefore unlikely to do something quickly enough to be effective. Still, maybe a pointer towards the fact that it is there, suggesting to members that they make up their own mind about whether the government should be supported in doing this? I'd suggest silence from beer's largest consumer group on the issue could be construed as tacit consent.

Locally, BrewDog Nottingham seem to be going strong, presumably because it is 'The only destination for real beer in Nottingham!' which means the pint I had in the Lincolnshire Poacher the other night must have been a figment of my imagination. Bastards. £2.60 for a glorified dream. BrewDog are going ahead with Totem 'Red Indian' Pale Ale. I was rather surprised a company who go so far as to use 'flavor' on their website and 'draft' on their chalkboards are so clueless about culture across the pond that they don't know 'Red Indian' isn't exactly politically correct. Maybe we should be glad it's not a dark beer they're releasing with an accompanying racial slur as a name. Nottingham's criminal reputation doesn't need any enhancement from scenester-induced race rioting after all.

Anyway, proper blog to return very soon. I'm off to check out Hops in a Bottle in Mansfield today before the prices go up, and hopefully get to write about some nice beer!

* Website not up and running yet but they're on Twitter.

Good News?

News from Christopher Leslie, my MP, 3/4/12:

NOTTINGHAM

As we approach the Chancellor’s Budget on 21st March, the eyes of many in the brewing trade will be focused on what happens to beer duty. We are fortunate to have a very successful regional brewery at Castle Rock near the station, which I took the opportunity to visit this week (see picture below with Managing Director Colin Wilde looking at their ‘copper’ boiler). They produce a fine range of regular beers, from dark to pale and at different strengths – and it was fascinating to see the process from start to finish. The beer trade has evolved enormously in recent decades, and there is now a growing market for high quality local beers, although the supermarket cheap end still undercuts on the basis of price and quantity. We need to keep an eye on how the beer duty system is structured, so that it does not advantage the mass production end over the bespoke and higher quality smaller brewers who we need to support as much as possible.

All sounds like good news, although at time of writing he has yet to sign the Early Day Motion that Andrew Griffiths has put forward. Have a look at it, and have a look if your MP has signed. If they haven't, drop them an email or a letter. In my experience MPs are usually happy to hear from constituents, and for the sake of a few minutes of your time, you can get them to make a difference. If you, or anyone else you know, needs more convincing, you should read Pete Brown's blog post on the subject. Signing the e-petition is a good thing, but I think letting your MP know about how you feel on this is a lot more powerful.

PS. I should probably have mentioned Find Your MP, in case you're not sure of who to write to.

Good Beer, A Valuable Thing?

Value is a tricky thing. The opening of a brand new, and relatively expensive bar in Nottingham has drawn attention to this via that medium-for-the-indignant; Twitter.

"£3.50 for a half pint?! WTF? This won't be my usual place, I guarantee!! [closely followed by, my emphasis] Gone to a real pub - picked up copy of Nottm Drinker. Article about @BrewDogNotts. Quotes from them are so pretentious!"*

c/o BrewDog Notts Twitter feed

It was only the opinion of one Camra member, and shouldn't be held up as representative of the group, but the first tweet was re-tweeted by Nottingham branch, and as far as I am concerned that represents a certain level of agreement if not outright approval of the sentiment. It's a statement that assumes all beer is equal, hardly what you'd expect to be endorsed by Camra. From the 'draft' list they put up on Twitter yesterday I'm struggling to see which one it was that was £3.50 for a half, but I'm guessing it may have been an imported beer and so not on this particular board. So why did I put the pic up? Well, it shows the paradox (pun intended). The Paradox Jura is an equivalent price of £3.50/pint for a 5% beer, but I would defy anyone to find a beer that is that complex for that kind of price. Or, drawing away from mucking around with the alcohol equivalents, how good a wine are you going to get for £3.50 in a pub? You'd be lucky to get a glass of the wine world's equivalent of Budweiser - well made, but hardly exciting.

Not for £3.50 you aren't...

I'm not a member of Camra, and from an outsider's perspective it seems there is a lot of emphasis placed on the price of a pint. Membership discounts, discounts in discount pubs, all that kind of stuff. It's all wrapped up in championing the rights of the consumer. All well and good. But is cheap beer really that good for us as beer drinkers? Campaigning for cheap beer surely plays into the hands of those who make lots of the stuff doesn't it? Those whose volume of sales makes up for lack of profit per pint. I'm not talking about allowing ourselves to be ripped off at will, or paying way over the odds, but maybe it's worth thinking about it before having a rant about prices. A pint doesn't have an intrinsic worth. In a capital based economy and society, it's worth what people are prepared to pay for it - as are most things. Once again I find myself on the side of good beer rather than cheap beer. Can I afford to drink Paradox Jura, or even any of the other great beers on that list,  all the time? No, but I'm glad it's there, and on the rare occasions I get to go out and challenge my palate it's great to think there is something different around, something that does just that. If it means that I don't get to drink as much when I'm out, then that's fine.

The competitive nature of the system has an somewhat unfortunate side-effect of encouraging lowest common denominator products. So much of 'business management' is about profit through marketing and driving costs down rather than producing something that has its own merits. Every little doesn't really help.

How can you buck this trend? Ironically enough there are brewers that have designed their beers specifically to win Camra awards, and then shoved their prices right up. I'd like to think, however, that there are people who just want to brew the best beer they can, and hope to turn a profit at the other end - almost like a horse drawing a cart, or is that too revolutionary a concept. Still, maybe there's an upside of all of this? Maybe there'll be more Hardknott beers and the like to go round for those of us who like beer as a treat? And if any of this makes me sound like a beer snob, then maybe I am. You'll certainly not see me at the bar in Wetherspoons asking for my Camra discount.


*Link to Nottingham drinker is here if you want to judge the merits of that second tweet for yourself.

BrewDog Nottingham Launch

Well, it had been open nearly a week at the time, but I suppose you don't get a chance to have an opening week more than once, so I don't blame them for making the most of it. The 'press lauch' event was Tuesday night, and it was great to meet some of the people I've been chatting to on Twitter; Simon, Matt & Rick from Notts Brew, Ian and Marverine.

BrewDog types... (Max & Johnny)

So on to the bar. Well, I'd go for the beer, ignoring all the hype and everything else surrounding it. The fact of the matter is that whatever criticisms that are levelled at BrewDog, very few of them centre on the beer they make. Yes, their PR can grate a bit, but then if you are a beer geek, it's not you the PR is aimed at, it's aimed at the yet-to-be-converted, the ones that don't spend a lot of their free time immersed in Untappd, Ratebeer and ahem... Beer blogs. I only had BrewDog draft* (sic) since that's what my wrist band got me.

Blitz, 2.8%: I kicked off with this one. Good malty/liquorice flavour but the lack of body means it came across as a bit watery as I got through it. Good for such a low strength but at £3.60/pint I can't see them shifting huge amounts!

Big Dog (Broad Street's giant)

Punk IPA, 5.4%, £2.95 for 2/3 of a pint: I've not had this since they started dry-hopping it, but it is really very good, as you'd expect from what, I suppose, is their flagship beer. Bursting with passion fruit and mango flavours and a grassy note from the Nelson Sauvin. Nicely counterpointed by a bitter finish.

5am Saint, 5%, £2.95 for 2/3 of a pint: Fruity, particularly red fruit. Raspberry notes. More bitterness than the Punk. This was the first one where I thought, 'it needs to be on cask.' Being a bit more subtle than the Punk, I thought the aromas just didn't come out at you until it had warmed up a bit.

Prototype 17.6, 4.1%, £3.95/pint: Speaking of raspberries, this ones flavoured with them. Pleasant enough, although I'd suggest it's more of a summer beer than one for February. Fresh, perfumed and clean and with a good, tart finish. Reminded me a little of Williams brothers Roisin rather than a more overt fruit beer. The 17.6 is because it's the 6th batch of prototype 17.

Hops Kill Robin Hood, 7.8&%, £2.95/half pint: The one that's definitely not a Robin Hood beer, you know, it's ironic? Moving on... It's really very good. Still got massive hop flavour, but not quite as candied as the Punk, and I think all the better for it.

Hardcore IPA 9.2%, £3.20/half pint: Pithy citrus; grapefruit and orange on the nose. Sweetness and slightly syrupy on the palate.

Alice Porter, 6.2%, £1.85/half: My friend Nik was waxing lyrical about the kerosene aromas of this one, and he was right, there's an air of jet-fuel about it. If that sounds foul, it isn't, it really works.

What event is not improved by the addition of a knitted beard?

Paradox Jura, 15%, £3.50/third of a pint: Imperial stout aged in Jura whisky barrels. Cutting to the chase, this is one of the most amazing beers I've ever tried. Lots of coffee and chocolate on the nose, the vanilla/bourbon flavours coming through on the palate giving way to a PX sherry finish. Velvet-smooth and luxuriously sweet. It's a big beer, one to dwell on. I'm sure it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea (another friend described it as being like post-mix syrup, but it didn't stop him drinking it!) but I loved it!

Are there any criticisms? Well, if it were me I'd go for a more informative bar lay out, they're trying to sell beers that many people have never heard of before, and since many people don't know what they want before they get to the bar, having labels on the fonts might help. I suppose the argument runs that the staff will keep you informed about the beer, and help you make a choice, but that can't always happen when they're busy. Other things like terrible queue management can be put down to opening week inexperience amongst the staff. If this seems a bit picky then I apologise, don't let it make you think I didn't like the bar!

It will be interesting to see how things work out once the novelty factor has worn off. Will people in Nottingham be prepared to carry on spending the kind of prices they're being asked to pay? It's not London, and you don't have to be an economic analyst to know that there's less money knocking about up here. They also need to get wi-fi in there.

Good luck to BrewDog Nottingham, and thanks for a cracking evening.


* How cool can you get? American spelling and everything, that's why they're next to a movie theater! Look at that, nearly managed to finish without taking the...

Hops Kill Robin Hood

Well, there we are then. I was right with my second point the other day... BrewDog's new beer is (drum roll really not necessary...)

'Hops Kill Robin Hood.'

So there we are, rather depressingly predictable. Shallow, brainless marketing apparently.*

I'll give it a try tonight, see what it actually TASTES like. Now there's a thought...

This is classic BrewDog though: 'It’s time the legend of Robin Hood was killed off as a marketing tactic.' Presumably opening a pub in Nottingham with a week-long special Robin Hood beer doesn't count? Hang on, of course, it's killing Robin Hood. I'm struggling to keep up with the sophistication.

*Oh. Should that read, a response to shallow brainless marketing? Actually, who cares?

Local Feathers to be Ruffled

Cryptic I know, but BrewDog, who are quietly and subtly going about opening a new bar in Nottingham,* are apparently releasing a new beer to coincide with the opening. Apparently it is:

"A brand new beer brewed just for the bar that should ruffle some of the local's feathers..."

Disclaimer: *If you are likely to get touchy about Nottingham please close your browser.*

Still here? OK, you were warned... So I'm prepared to go along with the hype, and just for fun, inviting speculation about exactly whose feathers they are intending to ruffle, and in what way. I'm not from Nottingham, and although I am proud of my adopted home, I'm not averse to poking fun at it (it's a sign of affection don't you know).

• Nottingham CAMRA? General target, or them representing CAMRA as a whole. I kind of hope not, potentially be a bit lame. Entertainment value if it backfires though, are people really going to stop going to Castle Rock pubs? There's only one BrewDog bar round here, and lots of VERY good Castle Rock pubs.
• Nottingham myths and legends? Robin Hood's from Yorkshire kind of gig. That'd get them some press... Robin Hood's Doncaster Pale Ale anyone?
• Football? Well, Forest at any rate. My personal favourite. Rarely do folk round here get so stuck in a groove as when they start saying their team BELONGS in the Champions League. Although they don't have football in Scotland do they, so it's probably not a goer this one.
• Of course it might just be a beer, and the feather ruffling is just because it isn't Harvest Pale. But this is BrewDog of course. 

I also have to be quite nice to them between now and Tuesday in case I don't get through the door and have to rely on my spy network.

*Yeah, right.

Marston's Pedigree (Sort of)

A post from Simon over at CAMRGB HQ got me thinking about the whole dispense thing - it was interesting reading stuff from Tandleman about Camra's apparent willingness to think about thinking about possibly maybe putting the idea of having a think about voting to concede that some, although not all, obviously, keg beers might not be the collaborative work of Pol Pot and the Golgothan shit demon.

I don't really care about the dispense system for a particular beer. I'd happily let the brewers chose how to serve their beer - the clue's in the fact that it is their beer. It seems a bit strange to suggest that they'd go to all the trouble of brewing a beer without a suitable way of serving it in mind. I am happy to defer to their expertise.

On the other hand, it would really disappoint me if a way of serving beer were to be dismissed out of hand, or disappear altogether. Tandleman also mentions that BrewDog* and others have decided not to bother with cask again, which, if it's true, is frankly quite pathetic for any brewery that claims to be innovative. Closing cask off entirely sounds more like sulking than innovating, why not keep your options open?

So what has this rambling got to do with Pedigree? I used to work in a pub that served Pedigree, and I didn't drink it in there, but I did drink it up the road at the next pub which had a much smaller turnover. Same beer, both kept 'correctly,' but tasted different simply because of the variables involved. Others much preferred it the other way round. Which was 'better?' Well, neither, and I suppose some people would see the variation as an irritant, but I think it made things just a bit more interesting, and interest, while a bad thing if you owe Tony Soprano/Mastercard/insert other loan shark's name here, money, is generally a good thing.

*Supported, however anecdotally, by my being told today that the new Nottingham venue hasn't got a cellar. I'm guessing a keg room  - used to have those in a couple of pubs in Australia I worked in, no casks conditioning in those.

Brewdog Nottingham (Part II )

So BrewDog are moving in to Hockley (or the Lace Market - I'm not sure where one begins and the other ends).

They'll be on Broad Street, on the former Shaw's site. It's next to the Broadway Cinema and Café Bar, somewhere that used to be franchised as part of the Castle Rock empire (the bar part anyway) but is now entirely independent. I think the it will complement its neighbours rather well, hopefully Broadway/Bar de Nada rather than Revolution anyway, and BrewDog's arrival will make broad street altogether more interesting than another Tesco opening.

For more details see here on the BrewDog blog.

Looking forward to having a checking it out in February, and I'll keep an eye on things when I pop in the Broadway.

BrewDog 'Alice' Porter

I thought yesterday would be an ideal time to crack open a BrewDog, after they seemed to indicate one of their next projects would be in my adopted home town.

Black, with a cappuccino coloured head. Lots of roasted malt aromas as you'd expect. Some gentle coffee too. On the palate there is bags of cherry fruit, liquorice and a dry, earthy finish. Good BrewDog juxtaposition in getting a medium bodied beer with 6.2% alcohol and deceptively rich flavour. Top stuff.



£2.59 (33cl) from Beers of Europe

On a more serious note with respect to BrewDog Nottingham, it'll be interesting if it challenges the small brewing scene in Nottingham. There is a new brewery opening up next month (in the form of the Navigation Brewery), and it seems that they, like Castle Rock, the perennial darlings of Camra (as you'd expect from a company run by a former Chairman), and The Nottingham Brewery will be focussed on 'Real Ale.' That's not to say that that's a bad thing, but, while Blue Monkey seem to have more of a modern outlook they seem too small at the moment to re-invigorater an area that I think could do with sparing a thought for where the next generation of drinkers is coming from. A non-traditional new pub with a focus on good beer rather than some awful theme bar with the beer coming a way behind. I think they'll do really well.

Brewdog Nottingham

So it seems Nottingham might be dragged into the whole crazy world of Brewdog's Craft Beer antics. According to the guys on Twitter an announcement is coming soon, and it seems that the site might be a former factory in the Lace Market which ties in with the uber-trendy/post-apocalyptic/industrial thing quite nicely.

This is all complete speculation so far (just a bit of fun and Twitter rumour), but it is interesting nonetheless!