beards, bellies and ale

this week we tootled along to the Battersea Beer Festival for a celebration of real ale. For those of you unfamiliar with ale it is defined as… ”beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide”.

It is the kind of stuff that most australians would think of when they imagine being served warm beer and I have had the odd visitor turn their nose up at it but really, it is delicious. Apart from the many and varied flavours that you don’t get drinking cold lager, it is produced all over the place in small breweries which means it always has a story. So, the stories from Wednesday night included:

• Old Bushy Tail – a reddish malty beer from Bushy’s brewery on the Isle of Man
• Quadhop – fruity hoppy golden ale from Downton brewery in Wiltshire
• Hophead – an old favourite hoppy bitter from Dark Star in West Sussex
• Dogwatch Stout – chocolate aftertaste from Nelson in Chatham
• Beijing Black – lovely stout from Potbelly in Kettering

and last but not least, Madog’s Ale which according to the notes had a ‘malty nose’ which in reality translates to smelling of farts from Purple Moose in Porthmadog in Wales. 

German beer styles

My first ever post on our blog…hoorah! And what better place to start than a list of German beer styles! We’re heading to Berlin tonight so stay tuned for photos of us sampling them:

Altbier (“old beer”): top-fermented then cold-conditioned

Berliner Weisse: top-fermented, sour wheat beer

Bock: strong, bottom-fermented

• Doppelbock: stronger version of bock (“double bock”)
• Eisbock: bockbier lagered at sub-zero temperatures
• Maibock: brewed to celebrate Spring

Braunbier: made with dark malts, usually bottom-fermented

Dampfbief (“steam beer”): warm top-fermentation

Diaet Pils

Dinkelbier: top-fermented with a proportion of spelt malt (“dinkel”) and usually including both malted barley and wheat

Dortmunder Export: pale, bottom-fermented

Dunkel / Dunkles

• Muenchner Dunkel: dark, bottom-fermented
• Schwarzbier (“black beer”)

Export: typically a golden, bottom-fermented beer

Gose: top-fermented, sour wheat beer

Haferbier (“oat beer”)

Hanfbier: brewed with hemp blossom rather than hops

Hell / Helles (“pale”)

• Muenchner Hell

Kellerbier

Koelsch

Kraeusen

Lagerbier: bottom-fermented

Landbier

Maerzen (“Maerz”=”March”)

Pilsener / Pils

Rauchbier (“smoke beer”): produced using malt that has been smoked over beechwood

Roggen: top-fermented beer made with malted rye (“roggen”); also usually includes both malted barley and wheat

Schankbier: beer with a lower-than-usual alcohol content

• Luettje Lage (“little round”): dark, top-fermented Schankbier

Spezial

Steinbier: currently extinct!

Ungespundet (“unbunged”): only made by a handful of breweries within a 30km radius of Bamberg

Vollbier

Weissbier / Weizenbier: top-fermented; typically made with equal parts wheat and barley malt

• Hefeweizen / Hefeweissbier (“hefe”=”yeast”): unfiltered wheat beer
• Kristallweizen: filtered wheat beer

Zoigl: brewed in communal breweries in Oberpfalz

Zwickel (“tap”): unfiltered, bottom-fermented

summery sundae

Jus and I are just back from our annual trip to leicester for summer sundae. A most excellent little festival with room to breathe, toilets with soap and lots of chidlets with little ‘ear defenders’ on.

We managed to catch Wild Beasts (www.myspace.com/wildbeasts), Camera Obscura (www.myspace.com/cameraobscuraband) and roisin murphy (of moloko fame).

We also managed to sample several of the beverages from the real ale tent – Justin dug the Moonshine from Abbeydale Brewery in Sheffield and I had far too many of the Herefordshire Perry.

Fortunately we got a bit of sun in amongst the rain dribblets and a very pleasant time was had by all. 

k x