PINTS WEST

25 YEARS OLD
and looking better than ever
Dawkins brewery news
Have you ever tried phoning up a pub to ask whether a particular
beer will be available that evening? It turns out that it’s not
only possible, but in this particular case, well worthwhile. The
elusive beer in question was Dawkins’ green hopped ale launched at
the start of October. Made not just with freshly picked ‘green’ hops, but
ones that were locally grown. This was the first year of the project and
produced a marvellous fresh and fruity 4.3% ABV unfined golden beer.
The hop rhizomes, from which the vines were grown, had been obtained
back in March and were planted by a variety of keen local volunteers
who carefully nursed their plants for six months to provide this vital
ingredient. Given that many of the hops were grown in Easton, where
it was also brewed, the beer was appropriately named Easton Promise.
If you’re lucky, you might find some in bottles still available, but all the
casks are now sadly finished. The final one of this year’s vintage to be
tapped was at the brewery event in mid-October, where it was one of 10
cask ales available. Having appreciated so much my first pint of the beer
(having tracked it down) at Dawkins’ Hillgrove Porter Stores, this event
seemed an excellent opportunity to sample some more, and also allowed
me to quiz the assistant brewer about why they hadn’t made more. Hop
vines mature over several years, he explained, and the harvest in the first
year in particular is always expected to be very small. So that’s great
news for the future – there should be a lot more hops for next year’s
brew, and even more for the ones after that.
Another very fruity golden beer on offer was the 4.4% ABV Friese-
Greene, in collaboration with the local movie organisation ‘South West
Silents’. It’s named after a Bristol-born inventor who was a pioneering
experimenter in moving pictures in the late 19th century and acclaimed
as one of the founding fathers of British cinema. The beer was launched
on his 161st birthday – hopefully he would have appreciated the
thought.
Despite offering 10 cask ales however, the brewery event was
really to help launch the new range of Dawkins beers now available
in ‘Ecokegs’. They even had a special beer-bus there to sell them – an
old Leyland single-decker now converted into ‘Hop On The Beer Bus’,
a mobile bar. There are four Dawkins beers initially available in this
form, the 3.9% ABV Bristol Blonde, the citrusy blonde 4.6% ABV El
Dorado, the 5.1% ABV Resolution IPA, and finally the aforementioned
Friese-Greene. Dawkins believes that these unfined hoppy golden and
blonde styles are the most suitable for this method of supplying beer.
This was a technology vigorously debated, and tested, by CAMRA a
few years ago, and has since been officially acknowledged as real ale.
Unfiltered unpasteurised beer (exactly the same liquid that is placed
inside casks) is put inside a membrane bag in the keg, where it naturally
conditions itself. It is served without adding any excess gas to it,
just like real ale in a cask. Glen Dawkins was on hand to explain the
rationale behind this expansion. Because this is packaged in a recyclable
but one-use container, it allows the beer to be purchased by outlets far
away that Dawkins would not normally ship to because of the difficulty
and cost involved in getting casks to be returned to the brewery. There
are other breweries in Bristol already using this method to export
overseas for instance. In addition a number of restaurants are interested
in it, as once tapped the beer will stay fresh for longer than it would in
a cask. Sounds like a good idea. Now if I could just persuade my local
curry house to sell El Dorado on tap, I feel I might be on my way to
finding that fabled city of gold.
Bob Gibson
Mowdy Jack 4.3%
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Dartmoor’s Finest
The UK’s highest brewery
at 1,465ft above sea level,
Dartmoor Brewery creates
handcrafted cask conditioned
real ales with authentic
Dartmoor character from its
heartland in Princetown.
Dartmoor Brewery Ltd,
Station Road,
Princetown, Devon
PL20 6QX
Telephone: 01822 890789
Fax: 01822 890798
www.dartmoorbrewery.co.uk
Brewhouse & Kitchen
Meet the new brewer
There’s been lots going on at the Brewhouse & Kitchen on
Cotham Hill (near Clifton Down) in the last few months, with the
announcement of its inclusion in the Good Beer Guide 2017 an
undoubted highlight.
With Pete Edmonds, former manager, having headed up Blackboy
Hill to the Westbury Park Tavern, and former head brewer, Mark
Wainwright, having moved to the Dorset countryside to brew for 8 Arch,
the Brewhouse & Kitchen beer reins have been handed over to Will
Bradshaw, who became head brewer over the summer.
Will started brewing regularly while at university in Bath, although
he readily admits that his monthly hobby brews were of a variable
standard. Luckily for him, the only bug that he picked up from these
beers was to get more involved in brewing, which he did by helping out
Brew By Numbers and London Brewing Company while working in
the financial services industry in the capital after finishing university. In
2015, Will gave up his career in finance to become sales manager and
assistant brewer at Gloucester Brewery, remaining there until earlier this
year.
When the opening for a head brewer at B&K arose, the opportunity
for the autonomy of managing all aspects of running a small brewery
was too good for Will to resist, with the attractions including recipe
creation, stock management, production, sales, and quality control, to
name just a few.
Brewing in the same venue that serves his beers allows Will the
opportunity to ensure a high level of cellar management to enable the
beers to be served in prime condition. Another highlight of the role for
Will is the interaction with B&K’s customers, which he feels is great for
feedback and understanding of his customers’ preferences.
Will considers himself especially lucky to be brewing as part of
Bristol’s thriving beer scene, recognising that the city is blessed to
have so many brewers, freehouses and beer lines compared to many
other parts of the country. In his opinion, beer quality and diversity
are Bristol’s biggest attributes, allowing brewers the freedom and
fearlessness to experiment.
While Papa Darth, which was awarded runner-up LocAle of the
CAMRA Bristol Beer Festival 2016, has kept the same recipe that Mark,
his predecessor, created, Will has refreshed the brews of the other B&K
ales to varying degrees, slightly tweaking Hornigold and Teardrop,
but using fresh recipes for Yankee Cabot and Crockers. By doing this,
Will has attempted to put his individual stamp on the beers in order to
improve them, although he’s more than happy to let the customers try
them to make their own decision.
As well as the existing beers listed above, Will launched three
new brews at B&K’s recent, popular beer festival, all of which will be
available on the bar in the next few months. These were Tasman Ditch,
a 4.5% pale dominated by Australian and New Zealand hops; Ameryck,
a 4.6% American red; and Treason, a 5.5% chocolate milk stout with
lots of lactose and cacao nibs, which was most people’s favourite beer of
the festival.
Looking ahead, Will will be working hard on maintaining quality
and ensuring that B&K’s core beers are of a consistently-high condition
at all times. We can also expect to find new seasonal beers popping up
every month, on both cask and keg. In addition, more of B&K’s beers
are likely to be seen around Bristol, adding to their current, regular
stockists Kongs of King Street and the White Rabbit on Gordon Road,
Clifton.
Although Pete and Mark are definitely a hard act to follow, signs
are very promising that Will Bradshaw will be able to build on their
good foundations and help Brewhouse & Kitchen go from strength to
strength.
Stephen Edmonds
10 PINTS WEST PINTS WEST 11