CAMRA's 40th Anniversary - Bristol & District CAMRA

PINTS WEST
Arbor Ales at
Foodies Festival
Arbor Ales provided the only real ale bar at the “Foodies Festival”
in Battersea Park on Saturday 30th July. In spite of the very
warm weather, excellently conditioned and cooled ale was enjoyed
by this correspondent and several thousand other visitors.
An fine addition to the portfolio sampled that day was Nelson
Sauvin, one of their single hop brews, which went well with Arbor’s
new Oyster Stout cheese produced by the Cheshire Cheese company!
A job well done.
Pictured serving at the event are Jon Comer (peering above the
cask and Namaya Reynolds.
Mark Hanrahan
News from
Arbor Ales
The main development at Arbor Ales currently is the success of
the new range of bottled-conditioned ales. All bottling is done
in-house at the brewery, which allows for a large selection of
different beers to be available; at the time of writing no fewer than
twelve different beers were conditioning. In addition to Arbor’s own
two pubs, current outlets include Grain and Grind on Gloucester Road,
West Country Ales in Cheddar, Corks of Cotham and Favourite Beers in
Cheltenham.
On the global front, last year’s harvest of American hops has sold
out, having been over-subscribed by 30 per cent. The brewery still has
limited supplies of a few of these hops but one or two beers are on hold
until this year’s harvest arrives around November time. In particular,
this means that the three 18-gallon casks of Yakima Valley IPA (7.0%
ABV) recently sent to the Great British Beer Festival offered the last
chance to sample this popular ale on draught until the next harvest becomes
available; there are still a few cases of bottles available, but these
will no doubt be gone before too long. As a consolation, Kiwi IPA has
been brewed using Green Bullet, Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, Pacific Gem,
Pacific Jade and Southern Cross hops. A 12% barley wine has also been
brewed in collaboration with the Dorset micro Art Brew.
An ‘outside bar’ is now up and running having been active at the recent
Harbourside Foodies Festival in Bristol. The travelling Arbor Ales
bar also featured in Battersea Park, London at the end July to promote
the forthcoming move by the brewery to sell their wares in the capital.
The 100 new casks recently acquired have all gone into circulation and
it looks as though another batch will be required sooner rather than later.
Lastly, congratulations go to Paul Worsley, assistant brewer at Arbor,
who has just picked up his first award. Paul’s first attempt at brewing
Oyster Stout recently won Beer of Festival at this year’s Cotswold
Beer Festival. An impressive achievement considering Paul only started
brewing back in February.
Henry Davies
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