Marble Brewery & Little Jim

So back to a recurring topic to see how one of my all time favourite breweries Marble are getting along since the departure of one Dominic Driscoll to Thornbridge last year. Dom's move did send a few ripples through the beer world with some bloggers even suggesting that Thornbridge might be becoming a bit of a brain drain, i very much doubt this but it was certainly interesting seeing a brewers move to a bigger brewery getting press. Mr Colin Stronge also moved on recently to Scotland's shining new hope - Black Isle, really one to watch as they're picking up a lot of business where the Brewdog bars are setting up and, from what I've heard, somewhat undercutting their wholesale accounts.

I was invited over to The Marble Arch pub and the new Marble brewery to witness the launch of a collaboration brew and a few days later - to help brew one myself.

pic nicked from single track world.com

Old Manchester is a collaboration with a member of brewing's old guard - Fullers. A traditional strong ale with that characteristic marble hop twang and some great complexity. It's an old ale and as such I'll be sticking a bit in the larder to get a bit of age on it. It's worth keeping an eye on Fullers beers, they've got an amazing history and are currently delving through the back catalogue, reviving some of the types of beers that are so inspiring to todays scene. 

Also I URGE you to try both of Marble's belgian style beers. The chocolate dubbel is utterly brilliant and I really can't get enough of it. It is quite simply as good, if not better than most of the dubbels I've ever drank, ultra complex nuttiness interplays with caramel and chocolate bitterness and Marble's signature hoppy length. The tripel is also right up there, a truly beautiful drink that's all biscuit and restrained floral notes, super body and long dry finish.

Marble are still doing great, great things and are a truly artisan and experimental operation under the steadfast guidance of Mr James Campbell. They've got a solid foundation and a much bigger and lovely new brewery. Add to that a couple of bars and the legendary Marble Arch - things look good, if you do call by the pub try the gingerbread venison it is, as they say, shit hot.

And so then, on to the brew! Always super exciting stuff and more this time, as I wasn't quite as smashed as when I went to Brewdog last year - well it was my stag do... Again all the credit goes to James as he is a brilliant brewmaster and without his input my beautiful assistant Mark and myself would likely have made a bosh. BUT we had a solid idea of how we wanted the beer to taste in terms of a massive malty body with a spot of balancing rye. The idea being to make a really full bodied ale that displays malt AND hops. This is something I've been banging on about to anyone who'll listen for the last six months!

Also a hop bill similar to Alice Porter - the idea being to use old school British hops for bittering and mix it up with new world stuff for aroma. In Alice Porter the contrast was fuggles and bramling cross Vs Sorachi Ace. In our new Marble brew we went with Goldings Vs Centennial with a spot of the more herbal williamette chucked in for a laugh! The beer was to be named little Jim after the new born kidder of two ace guys that work as supervisors at North bar.

So fast forward and we're staring in to the mash tun after loading half a ton of various malts in and we're somewhat scuppered by the fact that it's taking 2 hours or so to sparge through. James duly informs us that this massive extraction might just miss our target gravity of around 5.5%. By the end of the boil we're looking at 6.9% - oops.

Now I've always wanted to make a big beer but there are practical considerations. We're going to have a shit load of this brew to sell so it has to be easy drinking and affordable. I reconcile myself with the fact that the last collaboration from my boss at North bar, one mister Christian Townsley, was a very BIG smoked rye beer brewed at Sierra Nevada - lovely but challenging and yes it did make me hallucinate. So fuck it eh?

So I was shitting it a bit when we came to tap the first barrel, I should have had faith knowing the skill that Marble have and the knowledge of beer that we have but I couldn't help freaking out a bit. I needent have worried - it's everything we wanted it to be It’s big and bold on the nose with lovely sweet interplay of caramel, cereal and lovely citric notes and some juicy fruit.

The sweetness of the malt is tempered by a rye tang and more deep earthier notes. It’s extremely quaffable and hides the alcohol very well indeed. Smooth nuttiness hints of cherry and chocolate. Top end it’s that clean bitterness from the centennial, slight citrus and then more citrus from the Citra on the finish. Bit of herbal more rounded spicy notes too. VERY VERY pleased - hope everyone else enjoys it too!

Thanks as ever to James Campbell, the wonderful people at Marble Brewery and my employers at North for letting me do such an ace job.

X

Charts

Ok, here's an idea that I've nicked off my good friend Nick Frizzell who is a music producer, DJ and music blogger.  His blog is lovely and he occasionally produces the odd chart. Not a chart in the top of the pops sense, but a chart of what he thinks is good at the time he is writing.

It's a great way to recommend new music.

So I'm going to give it a go for beer, I'll go a step further and give the charts an occasional theme, the idea being that it's not necessarily number 1 that is the best, more that it's just the one in the forefront of my mind at the time of writing. So a simple list of recommendations and acknowledgement of what I think great beer is, it's pretty personal of course and perhaps may just be for my own benefit in getting the constantly changing list in my head down on digital paper. Who fucking knows eh?

I'll mix up the links  so fell free to click em all, and I hope that you'll find something new to try or something you didn't know about these beers. Either way I invite comments and discussions in any form...

Of course...;|)

All time favourites...
1. Orval
2. Westveleteren 8
3. Flying Dog/In de Wildeman - Farmhouse IPA
4. Brewdog/Mikkeller - I hardcore you
5. Zinnebir
6. Unita - Labrinth
7. Schlenkerla Eiche
8. Stone Ruination IPA
9. Marble Dubbel
10. Weltenburger Kloster Asam Bock


*easier than I thought

Cloudy with a chance of idiosyncrasies part 2

So leading on from my pondering over cloudiness in the last post here's some examples and explorations...

You'll find many, many British bottled beers with instructions to "pour gently to leave the sediment in the bottle." But Each beer is different and using the sediment will have different effects.

Duvel is a classic case of a beer that is better without sediment, it dulls the bright snappy classiness of the beer. When you get your Duvel in a straight glass that you have to top up, or worse you're just given the bottle and no glass you know you're being served by a plankton who knows shit all about his/her job. I've nearly set about people who insist on swirling the Duvelsediment and chucking it in the glass. I've found that this is best done with a dimple tankard.

Buxton's excellent Moor Top has a fair amount of cloudiness to it - I poured it pretty steadily and it has a beautiful golden haze, this is due to a touch of hop haze as well as a touch of loose sediment. The beer itself is delicious; light on the palate, brisk but firm bitterness balanced by fruit and a full, long finish. It has a haze regardless of how you pour it so don't

The Kernel's beers have a massive amount of sediment in them and for me you don't want it all in the glass, again it tends to dull the beer very slightly and there's so much that you do feel like you're drinking beer milkshake. The ideal serve for me is to leave the sediment and a bit of beer in the bottom of the bottle swirl it and then serve it on the side as a shot. This is common practice on the continent for heavily sedimented Belgian beers and it should be more common in the UK as it's a really nice touch that gives you options. Try one beer with sediment added and one without, or perhaps keep the sediment back and just stick it in halfway through your drink. The hardcore types will just shoot it down. I've heard tell of pubs and brewery taps in Burton actually keeping a supply of sediment to serve to punters as a tonic.

Marble's Tawny no.5 ale is one of my all time favourite beers - it's really up there with the best but the most recent bottled batch fell a bit short of my expectations. That is until I realised I was being a softy and forgetting to get the sediment in... BANG there it is - that full juicy, tannicalmost woody, bitterness. The sediment adds just that touch of body that the beer lacks when clear.

So from here on in I don't want to hear any complaining about the look of a beer until you've tasted it, you just don't know until you experiment.

Now labels and pump clips - they are a whole different ball game...

A bit of a year in beer?

What ho!

Oooh inactive for two months eh? Broken computer innit guvnor? Can't write proper posts on them damn mooble phones...

Thought I'd do a bit of a catch up then and hopefully a little round up of some of the good stuff that happened this year. Let's see how it pans out...

I got on the radio again the other day - it was yet another industry opinion needed to try and rationalise some inordinate twattery by the government or scientists of somewhat. My advice to everyone - let the craft beer industry do its work. It has incredible potential to provide work, products and exports that we can be proud of. Drop the taxes on craft beer, penalise irresponsible pub management, and stop people selling chemical drinks for stupidly low prices.

Society will thank you for it.

In a similar vein I urge everyone to resist whatever government cut is relevant to them - it is your responsibility. We need heavyweight politics now and what we have, on all sides, are lightweight ideas that have no respect to the progress human beings have made in the last century.

ENOUGH! That's politics out of my system...

I noted that Zak Avery ran a competition to write something about 'beer' and 'time' I of course am ready and on hand to delve in to my most creative depths. Although I wasn't and thus missed the deadline. But better late than never.

HA! All I did was googled beer and time!!! You can almost see the 'A hole' there!

Anyway the following entry to Zaks competition did inspire me no end and I feel was the most eloquent exploration of the theme. Apologies to Stuart - it wasn't an instant association with the image above

Now please do not feel this video mere whimsy - this is one of the UK's finest brewers in action! We've had the pleasure of many a Crown brewery beer at North bar this year from the inspiring heights of Django Reinhardt, named after my cat, a wonderful collaboration with the aforementioned Avery. A deep fruitful damson porter (often surreptitiously spiked with port by the denizens of North).

Crown's Brooklyn heights is also been an utter winner this year - now this is no lie - I haven't heard anyone mention this wonderful bright hoppy ale without waxing lyrical about its brilliance. SERIOUSLY! Good fucking work Stu, please someone get this man a bigger brewery!

The other big hitters for me were Marble and Brewdog. For me these seem at almost opposite ends of the spectrum, which is just fine.

Marble have upgraded this year and have produced some stunning beers which have now stepped fully in to the national market. Dobber! Good god man this beer is such a brute! Probably one of the finest IPAs I had and I have had a hell of a year folks.

With a solid stable of regular beers, marble do the job right. But the specials have been of such a high quality too - Ginger 6 on draught, Special, Vuur & Vlam and their peerless Chocolate Dubbel. Just reciting those few beers makes me want to get on the train to Manchester and go burgle the brewery right now!

Of course there's no review of the year that can be complete without mentioning Brewdog. Fine tuning in the brewery has turned brilliant US inspired beers in to flawless UK classics. Hardcore IPA anyone? I've a man in the bar that pretty much goes through an entire case a week when it's in. It's genius and deserved winner of gold medal in the World Beer Cup.

5am saint in kegs? Tokyo? The Mikkeller collaboration beers?

I have never smelled mangoes like I do in I Hardcore You - not even in mangoes. This sums up the beer, with the irksome omission of mangoes.

Of course the highlight of my year was my role in picking the hops and malt for this beer.

It was made as a one off. It has been drunk and appreciated beyond my wildest dreams and is actually in production now (!!!). Considering the rather chaotic inception of the beer I'm so pleased that it came out so well. It's a testament to the guys at the brewery could turn a somewhat deranged concept in to a winning beer.

I can't help but gloat of course - it wouldn't exist without me and a few 'artful' friends...

And yes of course my wife... and of course getting married was the non-beer highlight of my year darling xxx

Oooh look I got through that whilst drinking a DFH Palo Santo Marron and a FD Raging Bitch and I don't think I made any spellingg mistakles.

wokkin like a dog

Loads going on,

just finished work, plenty of really lovely new beer being drunk. I had a couple with my good friend Jimmy James Wood this evening post labour.

In particular...

Marble Special

Double Dog

I have words about

Sierra Nevada - Unrivalled

Carnegie Porter

Will I get round to writing them? Who knows?

I'll attempt to avoid bullshit and shit beer, I'll try to write as I drink the beers and I promise not to:

1. Be aloof.

2. Twitter on.

3. Lie.

4. Get needlessly technical.

So I'd be breaking my own rules to just post some notes about UNR that I made earlier.

Or summat.

ta ta

the winter olympics is wonderful

Get your stoats!!

Ahhh stout... it's probably my best friend, when all else fails a good stout works all year round. The optional additions to stout also rarely fail;

damson, oyster, port,

oats, lactose, coffee.

.

Yes... Full stop. As far as I'm concerned (at this very moment... unless proven otherwise) there is nothing else you worth adding to stout. Chocolate is the obvious one I suppose, but really, those utterly wonderful chocolate flavours in most cases are best obtained from the malt.

Every stout I've had with melty brown stuff added has been... Well... "shit". That's one of the things about beer, you can do a hell of a lot with the basic ingredients. Think about it for a minute, wine is made from grape juice, flavours may be added via barreling and blending different types of grape juice. The complexity and prestige of wine is well documented. Now look at beer you've usually got grain, water, yeast and hops... I'd say grain and hops in all their incarnations each have just as much complexity as grape juice... SO YOU"VE ALREADY GOT TWICE THE BLEEDING COMPLEXITY... There's no need to start filling it with fucking dairy milk...

Anyhow... Some additions work, not many but some, I've had some wonderful examples recently, Crown's collaboration with Zak Avery was one of the highlights of last year. A 'Double Damson' beer, the wonderfully named Django Reinhart (incidentally a name I chose for my last cat) was heady, deep and fruity with an inspired kick from Belgian yeast.

Other winners were Flying Dog's Gonzo Porter, Marble's Irish and Chocolate Stouts, Brooklyn Chocolate 08/09, De Dolle Stout plus HP's from Riverhead, Brown Cow and Elland AND a memorable espresso moment from Saints and Sinners - the delectable Insomniac!

So anyway that was supposed to be a review coz I got my laptop charger back so I'm... well... back. It got out of hand I admit.

Here's some drinking and writing.

Christmas drinking...

GAH!!!

I'm still embarassingly out of action on the Computer front and as you can appreciate the bar is mental at this time of year so very little time to post and no 'in situ' beer tastings for now...

However it would be churlish not to harp on a little about some of the stuff I've been drinking recently...

some 'special marbles'

In particular Marble's latest offering 'Special'. Marble are very close to my heart as firstly I think I was the first person to bring them to Leeds (only about 5 years back - please correct me if I'm wrong!) and also they make really great, incredibly informed, beers that are distinctive and forward looking whilst also remaining traditional in terms of 'flavour profile'...

Special is a Barley Wine, it's beautifully packaged and is brand spanking new. When the chaps over the Pennines told me about this a few months back I deemed it necessary to ask them when it was ready pretty much every week until it was... Just before Christmas.

It's corked and wax sealed, and once I got round that I shared a bottle with my missus... The nose is a very fresh, resinous hopsack affair. I touch of iron and a real soft, pink grapefruit aroma. The beer pours tawny brown and is quite light in body considering it's 10.7% ABV. Many barley wines can be syrupy which is not necessarily a bad thing but sometimes makes you not want another for some time (see lees harvest ale).

Which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing...

Anyhow the special has a plummy fizz and soft hops, building as you go, a touch of dandelion leaf bitterness (credit the missus for that) and a really silky vanilla note. Sod that it's actually creme caramel and then vanilla fudge.

Exceptional beer, well composed and potent. It's making me feel better about watching Oz Clarke, I wonder about his sanity to be honest, he always seemed rather hoity toi but composed but recently he seems to be completely soused and buggered up... Someone should tell him that he'll never be Floyd...

Anyway...

Marble are ace - they also brought out 'Decadence' which is a Imperial Stout, equally wonderful but I reckon that it needs a little time in the cellar so I'll come back to it...

I have also been drinking plenty of Anchor Christmas 2009 which is the best I've ever tasted (think pine resin and cola cubes!). Brooklyn Chocolate 2008-09 which is great and in my opinion better than this years offering. Tactical Nuclear Penguin which is daft but entirely refined actually and some pretty amazing 'jazz stout' from the Crown Brewery of which I will write more. Suffice to say Stu is brewing some extremely good stuff at the moment...

Later x