Big Tasty

If there's one thing I know you've had fantasies about it's fresh, cool, tasty beer on a warm Summer's day - I'm right aren't I? There you are, sitting on a quay-side slurping from a condensation covered glass, waves gently lapping at your feet, sun high, bright and warm. Maybe there's some decent street merchants vending delicious spicy chick peas or vegetable somosas. There's probably some musicians jamming away in ear shot. And the sound of kids' wild laughter from a nearby funfair. A stilt walker lopes by and you get up and go to chose another tasty, cool pint from a list of a dozen or more.

Wake up. It's happening. Next weekend in Ramsgate.

July 4th - Ram Francisco - not as muddy as Glastonbury.

India

I told you all about the Pale India Ales last year when we released 'No Tomorrow', well I was wrong and Tomorrow has arrived. This year's offering is "India", an 8.3% pale ale brewed with all East Kent Goldings from the 2008 crop at Brooke Farm. First run out was a cask at the Dover Winter Beer Festival back in February and it was pretty good. Next is the Planet Thanet Easter Beer Festival and the Chambers Beer Festival, both on the weekend of the 10th April.

In the meantime there is a store of bottled India and it's ready and on-sale. For a paltry £2.50 you get 330ml of smack-in-the-face Kentish hops - there's no fuss and bother about this one, it's bitter, bitter, hoppy and bitter. And it kicks like a mole, to paraphrase Count Arthur.

It does drink extremely well.

Satyameva Jayate.

News update

Here's a quick roundup of brewery news:

The White Cliffs Winter Beer Festival kicks the beer season off this evening (sorry for the late notice) and a sell out crowd will inevitably leave you outside in the cold. However, tomorrow is also a good day to visit and is not sold out.

Here is last year's post about it - not much has changed. This year we sent a cask of INDIA - it's a strong pale ale. A very strong one, with lots and lots of hops in it.

Our bi-monthly specials, 80 Shilling Ale and Great Scot!, are selling very well indeed - the latter, you'll remember, is malty and sweet whilst the former is something unique: a pale beer brewed with Islay peated malt for that juicy smoky flavour, unavailable anywhere else, to my knowledge. This is such a strange brew that I'm completely dumbfounded by its seeming popularity out there - you are a bunch of nutters! I've already brewed thrice as much as I intended to and it has still sold out with three weeks to go - well done, you deserve an 'open-minded beer drinker' T-shirt.

The next bi-monthly installments have both been brewed this week and will each spend two weeks reposing on a bed of hops - Dragon's Blood ESB is back to stay for two months this year, partenered by 'A Common Conspiracy' - another collaboration with the Saints and Sinners Brewers, Steve & Phil. I'll tell you more when I have the time but for now, know that it's an amber ale in the Californian Steam (or Common) Beer style - a beer that transcends the lager/ale boundary. We brewed it just 24 hours ago and the fermenting room smells of gorgeous German and American hops.

The shop shelves are largely bereft of euro-beer at the moment and nothing is yet on order - I'm waiting for the Mighty M to fill some of our casks and hoping the exchange rate swings in favour in the meantime. Watch this space.

That's all for today, now, when's the next Dover train?

Bored? Need something to do this weekend?

Well here's a couple of ideas:

The 3rd annual Bramling Beer Festival will be held at the Haywain, in Bramling, on the Wingham Road near Canterbury, Friday through Sunday. Landlord Kevin is offering good food, live music and a sound range of ale and cider. This is a popular do and you'll find it very relaxing.

ever seen a nicer looking pub?

And it's Canterbury Eurofair weekend in Dane John Gardens, again running Friday through Sunday. Foodies (don't you hate that term? like, er, yes, I like food - er, don't you? - who doesn't?) are well catered for with a range of blah blah blah (friday afternoon - forgive me).



So get off your proverbial and get some produce down you. Now!

Hear Ye, Hear Ye.

SIBA, the society of small independent brewers, is holding the 2008 South East beer festival (and competition) at the end of the month (29-31st August) up at the 'Hop Farm' near Paddock Wood. All kinds of stuff is going on from 'Bat & Trap' to 'Hot air balloon flyout', whatever either of those entail. It will be a rattling good weekend and I do suggest you camp there to make the most of it.




Unfortunately for me, since Gray the Dray is heavily involved there, we're a man down here. And since Scooly decided to get married on the Saturday I won't get there until the Sunday. Hey ho, it'll be worth it.

In the meantime, here's hoping GADDS' bring back more gold medals than a GB cycling team!

Moshing Pit

Very pleased to announce a couple of music festivals that we're suppling:

By hooking up with the Workers Beer Company (splendid outfit) all you happy hippies will be able to sup GADDS' finest whilst rolling in the mud at a festival headlined by Neil Young at the Hop Farm in Paddock Wood in early July.

And a week later it's Lounge on the Farm in Canterbury. Wanting to take the annual event to a new level, organisers were quick to recognise the value of stocking proper local beer to charm their guests, rather than the usual festival piss available elsewhere.

I do like a dusty, sunny, countryside music fest' and it's great to see some are making a proper effort to give the punters true quality. Well done all concerned.

See you down the front?

Rare Treat

This weekend is one of my favourites - it's the Rare Breeds Beer Festival down near Woodchurch close to the marsh. We go as a family every year and follow an accepted and effective format: the kids spend much of the time in the centre itself ooing over strange looking pigs and I spend much of the time in the beer tent ooing over strange looking beers. By 9pm we're all a bit worn out and crash where we are, crawling to the tent when the ground gets dewy. One year we had a mass impromptu football match and another I found myself wandering around a field full of dozing bullocks in the moonlight. I'm hoping for impromptu cricket this year.

It's a proper lovely do, as my sister would say.

See you all there.

BTW - Dr Sunshine's should shine in the Monty, friday night, promise (ish).

A very Good Friday

Planet Thanet Easter Beer Festival is pretty much the highlight of Isle's cultural calender, attracting the great and the good (and the weak and bad) to a two day indoor celebration of ale. It's one of many such events held all over Britain throughout the year but it does stand out. It stands out so well it's clearly now head and shoulders above all of them for it's slick organisation, affable atmosphere and peerless beer quality. I took the kids along and guess who we bumped into, on Good Friday of all days?

From Festival photos

Think I'll go back again today.

Festival warm-up

I've been quiet again. It's because the brewery hasn't been quiet. Not quiet at all.

Anyway, news! I've taken large store of top notch Euro-micro-niche ale from brasseries various and it's moving pretty darn quickly. I also have some cask conditioned from The Lowlander and an aliquot of this delivery will be on full, naked display next week at the PTEBF in the Winter Gardens.

One of the above mentioned is a stout called 'Pek & Veren'. If either of you can't remember your Flemish vocab' lessons, P&V translates as 'Tarred & Feathered' and at 8%, with an astonishing depth and balance of flavour, it's pretty easy to see why it's named so well. I'm down to the last two bottles already [hic].

The producer of such a delight is a small concern know already to some of my loyal customers, Brouwerij De Molen. The big M, as we like to call him, has gone fairly bananas over producing short run, highest quality ales of fabulous character and I reckon it must be paying off. His latest top-of-the-range is an Imperial Porter that has created such a stir in our nerdy beery world that it hit top 50 in the RB stakes almost immediately. Consequently he will only sell it direct from the brewery so we haven't got any. But what we do have is the father of this and it's called 'Rasputin' and it's brilliant.

But don't take my word for it. Pek & Veren, cask conditioned, is, as said, available at the Easter Guzzlefest, as is 'Engels' (super-czech-hoppy) and 'Donder & Bliksem' (no idea what it tastes like but it means 'Thunder & Lightening'). Me and my Mum will be there on Friday (21st) afternoon so stop me and buy me one.

That was the Night that was.

Dover Beer Fest.

Nothing under 5%.

Doesn't take long to reach your daily unit allowance.


It's the friendly staff, as well as the gothic surroundings, that make this a special one.