Difficult Position

No, this post isn't about the advanced acrobatics required by the Karma Sutra, but rather about the uneasy position I, and most certainly many others, find themselves in. It is only 7 posts ago that I could in all honesty write these words:

"as long as the beer remains good then I am a happy BrewDog fan".

As a result of the latest marketing stunt, which is more clearly laid out by Mark over at Pencil and Spoon, and Pete Brown, I find that statement sorely challenged. As I have commented on Mark's blog, I am shocked by this latest whoring of the BrewDog name to the media circus, which of course we bloggers are part and parcel of, whether we like it or not.

At the end of the day, as I have said before here, the important thing for me is not what is written on the bottle, not the factory that the bottle came from, but what is in the bottle, the beer itself, and this is where I feel BrewDog can very easily redeem themselves, they make truly excellent beer.

Yes, the Portman Group often appear to be misguided zealots, ranting, raving and generally getting the wrong end of the stick entirely, but paying  excessive attention to them does nobody any favours.

I don't care if you call your beer Nanny State, Knackered Old Cripplecock (still the funniest suggested idea for a beer name in history) or Coors Lite, it is the brew itself which will pass or fail the test of excellence, and it is excellence in the beer that the niche market BrewDog is looking to exploit cares about. There is a very fine line between standing for one's beliefs and courting needless controversy, and this stunt is needless. The people that Tokyo* was allegedly aimed at lapped up the beer, loved it, raved about it, gave BrewDog heaps of positive, free, advertising and marketing.

Those very same people are no doubt confused and have taken a step on the path to disenfranchisement from the BrewDog brand.

As lovers of craft beer (I am sick of the phrase "beer geek"), many of us consider ourselves sophisticated, well read, educated and worldly wise, and this is most probably why this stunt has backfired so spectacularly - BrewDog have insulted its core target group, not a very good "lesson in marketing".

As I said, they can easily redeem themselves. Admit they were wrong to pursue this course of action, attempted justifications just makes me think that they should stop digging their hole, and go back to what they do best, making great beer.

After all that is what James, Martin, myself and the rest of the beer blogsphere care about, great beer.

Driving Mrs Velkyal

Today is a momentous day in Velkyal World, and one that Mrs Velkyal has been eagerly anticipating since the day we arrived in Charlottesville. Today I got my driving license, at the ripe old age of very nearly 34! People have looked at me with incredulity for years because I couldn't drive, but when you live in Prague for 10 years with its phenomenal metro, tram and bus system, there really is no need to burden yourself with the expense of a car, insurance and petrol (that's gas, and at current prices it is about 4 times as expensive as here in Charlottesville!).

In honour of my passing the test, first time round as well, here are a couple of songs to take you in to the weekend.

By the way - I am now on Twitter, so come follow me!

Those Lovely Gaels!

Sometimes I am really impatient, especially when it comes to trying my homebrew. Generally speaking I leave my beers in the primary fermenter for 14 days before bottling and then three weeks to condition. Admittedly I sometimes dip in a bit early, purely for scientific reasons you understand, to compare the fully conditioned ale with something in progress.

Thus it was that 11 days after I bottled Gael, a Scottish ale, I succumbed to temptation and was greatly encouraged by what I tasted. Yesterday, I tried a fully conditioned bottle - as ever I am using my Cyclops variant to describe my beer. On a quick side note, does anyone else laugh at some of the descriptions you read on BeerAdvocate and RateBeer? I have no problem with the premise behind both sites, and am indeed a member of both, but some people really do write Jilly Gooldenesque bollocks. Anyway, back to my beer:

• Sight - dark amber, orange edges, large white head
• Smell - malty sweetness, lightly spicy, very subtle cocoa
• Taste - toffee, light chocolate
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 2/5

Oo-er missus, this is nice (purely subjective opinion of course, but aren't most things?)! I believe the ABV is only about 3%, making it a nice session beer, but it has a decent medium body so isn't watery when drinking it. One thing I noticed in particular was just how clear and sparkling the beer was, when I brewed it I used Irish Moss for the first time. Only a few bottles of this remaining in my cellar, and they'll be gone soon enough!

Previously Unpublished Pictures (I think)

My brain is on something of a hiatus today, I guess I am suffering from bloggers cramp, if such a thing exists. There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I guess the following pictures are something of 5000 word essay about beer, their meaning is of course a purely subjective interpretation on the part of the reader.

Two Countries Divided By a Common Beer Style

For those of you who are not aware of my employment, or lack thereof, situation at the moment, at weekends I work in the tasting room of the Starr Hill Brewery. On Saturdays and Sundays you are very likely to find me at the bar in the tasting room, serving samples of the brewery's range of beers to visitors, it is a job that I enjoy immensely. One of the most common questions I get asked by visitors is which of our beers is my favourite, and I am very lucky to work for a brewery whose range I genuinely enjoy. At the moment, because these things change, I have to admit that I have two favourites, we currently have a bourbon barrel aged, dry hopped barleywine available to which I am particularly partial, but from our core range, my clear favourite is Northern Lights IPA. For some time then I have been planning to get my hands on a bottle of a British IPA and do a comparison tasting of British and American IPA, that bottle arrived on Wednesday and was St Peter's India Pale Ale from Suffolk in England. As ever, I am using my variation on the Cyclops system for my tasting notes (the sooner American brewers adopt this system as well the better as far as I am concerned).

First up the English IPA, naturally as England is the home of IPA.

• Sight - amber with a definite orange, small white head
• Smell - bitter orange peel, faint caramel
• Taste - sweet maltiness, spicy hops, mellow citrus
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 3.5/5

What a nice beer this is! Seriously, it is delicious, an excellent balance between the hops and malt, both kind of up and in your face, but neither dominating so much as to make it either sickly or like sucking lemons, there is a noticeably bitter aftertaste which I really enjoyed. A beautiful beer.

And now the American contender:

• Sight - sparkling amber, loose white head
• Smell - heavy grapefruit hoppiness (it's the Cascade!)
• Taste - In your face grapefruit, smooth marmelade background
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 4/5

Damn it I love this beer, I really pity people who can't get this beer in their neck of the woods, seriously it is such a nice IPA. The thing it has for me over most IPAs in the US is that there is far more going on than just a hop bomb. Yes there is that classically American C hop, in your face, grapefruit citrus that you expect, but the malty sweetness of the body, and a subtle boozy glow, set that off perfectly. As I say to a lot of people in the tasting room, it is like hoppy marmelade. It is interesting the number of women who tell me that don't like hoppy beer, usually after they have just tried our Pale Ale, and thus don't want to try the IPA, but love it when I eventually persuade them just to try.

There really isn't much to tell these two excellent beers apart, other than the hop varieties in use. Perhaps then Northern Lights is closer to a genuine IPA than many of the hopbominations out there in the American market because it has the extra maltiness needed to balance out the big citrus flavours. My only gripe with the St Peter's is the use of a green bottle, but that is purely because my experience here so far is that green bottles don't travel as well as brown - thinking about Pilsner Urquell here for sure, so much so I have sworn not to drink it until I am again in Prague and can have it unpasteurised, it really makes such a difference.

Now if only I could find somewhere with Northern Lights as a cask conditioned ale, who happen to have a cask of St Peter's India Pale Ale, then I would be in IPA nirvana.

Brewing Tunes

Once again I am brewing today, for something like the third time in a month. I bottled the Machair Mor yesterday and this morning, while waiting for UPS to deliver a case of beer from Vintage Cellar, I will be making Biere d'épices - my spiced Christmas ale.

While I am brewing, I will of course be listening to some of my favourite music, so here is my selection of brewing tunes for each stage of the process.

1. Steeping the grains: Hope Street - The Levellers



2. Boil: Amerika - Rammstein



3. Hop Additions: Uprising - Muse



4. Chilling The Wort: Obsessions - Suede



5. Pitching the Yeast, Fermentation: The Sun and the Sky - The Violet Burning

Some Things Mean More

Starr Hill Barleywine, superb;
Primator Weizen, magnificent;
2-0 against Manchester United, priceless