Cask Ale Week 19-29 September 2024

How I missed he beginning of this 'festival' I do not know, but know I do now 😉 Cask Ale Week 2024 has begun, and runs for another week until next Sunday the 29th of September (website). This is a week organised to celebrate cask ale, so is essentially British, cask ale being lauded as "Britain's national drink." Although I only found out yesterday, I did partake in a few pints...

We started off at The Crown & Sceptre, 57 Melina Road, London W12 9HY (website), where an ale from the Welsh brewery Tiny Rebel (website) was imbibed by us both, but only by me continuously, it being a Fullers pub... 😏 Anyway, Tiny Rebel Park Life is a crystal clear 4.2% pale golden session bitter, brewed with Cascade (hopslist), Citra (hopslist) and Ekuanot (Yakima Valley Hops) hops, regular readers will appreciate these hops aroused my interest! My notes say 'very easy to drink' which it was, the subtle citrus and pine proved they hadn't gone over the top with the hops, and with a gentle bitter finish, I could have drunk this all day! 👍

On our way back to the South Coast we had a brief period in-between trains at Clapham Junction, so took the break to drop into The Falcon, a Nicholson's pub (website) at 2 St John's Hill, London SW11 1RU. The Falcon is on the corner at Clapham Junction of Falcon Road and, at the bottom of St John's Hill, with Lavender Hill going up the other way, pretty much a landmark. The building is Grade II listed, and was built in 1887, although a pub had been on the site for at least another 150 years. It used to have the longest continuous bar in the country, a claim supported by the Guinness Book of Records previously. But they've done some weird thing around the back where customers can stand behind what was the bar?!? For the sake of a few more standing customers I don't see the point! Now they can no longer make the claim. 😕

Nicholson's get ales brewed for them, and this one was brewed by the 'organic' Stroud Brewery in Gloucestershire (website) in celebration of Organic September (Soil Association). Gaia is named after the Greek Goddess of the Earth, Gaia/Gaea (Britannica), and is a 4.2% 'organic pale ale' that we chose from the 5 ales on offer (they used to have 10 available from handpumps not so long ago). Apologies, but I cannot discover which specific hops were used, but I did find out that Gaia is brewed with 'old and new world hops.' A bit darker and with more body than the Park Life, slightly spicy with citrus and tropical flavours and aroma, with a dry bitter finish, not bad at all, cheers! 🍻

For further information about this collaboration I suggest a good read at the Stroud Times.

A Fair Amount of Beer News!

I originally decided to write this blog after receiving the latest "Autumn 2022" edition of CAMRA's quarterly magazine BEER, but was stimulated further on receiving an email from Nicholson's this weekend that advised me The Falcon at Clapham Junction in London (website) is closing down today (7th August 2022) for refurbishment. If you don't know the pub, it is on the corner at the Junction; official address 2 St Johns Hill SW11 1RU, very handy for Clapham Junction railway station, and on many bus routes. Anyway, it is closed until the 1st of September 2022, so if you want a drink nearby, you'll need to walk a little further up St Johns Hill to number 36 and visit Greene King pub The Junction (website) 😏 Now I'm really Up the Junction (YouTube).

Well, much of the rest of my news may be a wee bit old to you, but some of it I had missed, as was the news that John Bryan, Brewing Director at Oakham Ales, one of my favourite breweries, has retired after 27 years working at the brewery (Oakham Ales). John is pretty famous for being the first Brit to bring back Citra hops from the USA in 2009, and, as regular readers will be well aware, Oakham Citra (4.2%) is one of my favourite ales, which I have written about many times. Well, John's not disappearing completely, as he's remaining a partner in the business, and, in the short-term at least, will still be making annual hop sourcing visits to the USA, cheers John!

In BEER, I also noticed a report of a group called Drinkers for Ukraine (website) who are raising money for Red Cross humanitarian relief in Ukraine, which appears to overlap with Brew for Ukraine, which I mentioned in addition to Dave Unpronounceable's article about his visit to Ukraine earlier this year, and which I reproduced in this blog, and which I've written about since too. Indeed, breweries around the world are brewing beers with profits going towards humanitarian relief for Ukraine, eg Steel City Brewing, who have since brewed another ale called Russian Warship, Go F*ck Yourself (blog). The BEER article also mentioned another Yorkshire brewery, Bridgehouse (website), brewing for Brew for Ukraine a 4.5% blonde ale called White Crow, which was sold in the Strangers' Bar at Westminster earlier this year.

In BEER, they also reproduced an article by John O'Donnell called Ask the expert - what is a pint of beer? (CAMRA) Again, regular readers will be well aware that I have strong views on beer being the only thing in Britain that can be sold at less volume than is advertised, that is, we rarely get what we pay for, a FULL pint, and much beer is wasted (above image, tut tut) because brim measured glasses are usually the norm... And, well you can read the rest of my arguments at this blog, if you haven't before, indeed, Fiddles, Waste and Duty: Full Pint or Not?!?

Finally, I recently heard the sad news that Caledonian Brewery (website) is being closed down by Heineken as it is 'no longer economically viable.' Heineken took over the Edinburgh brewery in 2008, and beer has been brewed there since 1869. Once closed, it is planned that Caledonian beers will be brewed by Greene King at the Belhaven brewery in Dunbar (Edinburgh News).

Not all good news then, whatever, raise a glass to brewers, and cheers!