During the
afternoon of my second day - Friday the 26th September - at Stockholm Beer
Whisky Festival (SBWF) I got an invitation from Lars (Brill & Co) to attend
a Tasting-session with Bath Ales. I had just been to a similar session (with
Camden Town), but I figured that it might be equally interesting to try beers
from this brewery. I had heard of Bath Ales prior to this occasion, but as far
as I could remember I have never tried any of their products.
At 5
o’clock (pm) I sat down with a number of curios people (including my
blogging-colleague Johan from “Beers & Beyond”) in a small room facing two
gentlemen representing Bath Ales and as it turned out Beerd Brewery. Little did
I know then, what a treat I (and the others) where in for.
On the
table in front of me stood 6 empty beer-glasses, but that was about to change.
Moussa Clarke – export manager at Bath Ales – and Shane O’Beirne, brewer from
Beerd Brewery started with a short presentation of their two breweries. Beerd
is wholly owned by Bath Ales, but it’s operated as a totally separate brewery
and brand, with a slightly different ethos – more out of the ordinary. The brew
houses are located in the same area, but in separate buildings. There is a pub
in Bristol called Beerd, the town’s first Craft Beer Bar and obviously they
serve Beerd Beers!
The six
glasses where filled (not all the way up) with some good English beers, some better
than others. When the last beer was tried an additional glass was added, with
yet another beer.
The beers
we tried during the afternoon were;
- Gem - the original Bath Ale
- Monocle - a good Beerd-brew
- Convict Autstralian Pale Ale (cheeky name, no pun intended) - another Beerd, exotic fruit from the Auzzi-hops!
- Silvertip - a bit of a lightweight, just ok
- Hindsight - to funky in my nose, more ginger in my mouth
- Barley Wine Sulis Collection - this is a new favourite!
- Ghost Hare Chili Porter - quite hot!
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| Barley Wine - Wow! |
All good
beers, but Convict was really nice and the Barley Wine was amazing. The Ghost
Hare on the other hand is not a new personal favourite of mine. Even though the
chili was quite mellow it was harsh enough to set my sensitive taste buds on
fire. Good thing I had left some Hindsight behind, the ginger really helped me
there.
I went to the Brill-display right after this session and tried yet another Bath-beer – the Wild Hare.
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First thing the next day – 11am, I dragged the boys away from the Brill-counter and sat them down at table out in the corridor. Sharing some organic (KRAV) Must (non-alcoholic apple-beverage) from Karlskrona Musteri we started talking about Bath and Beerd.
The sad truth is that I didn’t write down any of this – I couldn’t find my notebook and figured I’d remember what was said anyway (doubtfully). But as I’m trying to type down my remembrances of our discussions, not all is lost.
Regarding
the interest for organic beers in Britain, I do recall they claimed that it was
turning more and more away from organic and towards local beers brewed with locally
produced commodities and ingredients rather than organic.
They have
done some collaboration-brews with local breweries, but considered doing some
on larger scale – maybe sometime in the future.
The
collaboration with Swedish importer/distributor Brill & Co will hopefully
lead to a wider spread of their brews in Sweden/Scandinavia.
Thanks to
Moussa & Shane
