Beautiful coincidences

Sometimes my two businesses - geology and brewing - cross over and customers of one become customers of the other. So it was that Andrew Noakes came on a geology walk and later purchased some beer. He was my first mail order customer in fact and has become an enthusiastic fan of my saisons. He took a couple of my beers along to a tasting at his local home brew club hosted by René van den Oort from Beautiful Beers the specialist beer shop and René was very interested - real cork and muzzle he commented. He couldn't sample them though as he was driving. So, thanks to Andrew's lead Poppyland beers came to René's attention. As it happened, I was already following René on Twitter so I contacted him to ask if he would be interested in stocking Poppyland beers in his Bury St. Edmunds beer shop. Possibly he said, but not before he had tried one or two. So I took three down for him to try and he was impressed. 'Superb' he tweeted about "Seafood Lovers' Ale". "Must try", he said about Over the Hill, my collaboration IPA.

So I took Mrs Brewer on a shopping trip down to Bury St. Edmunds and delivered my beers. René and I chatted for much of the afternoon and not un-naturally I bought a lot of interesting stuff from his huge selection of Belgian and continental beers. Quite by coincidence, who should come in to the shop to buy a few bottles? None other than John Bexon, the head brewer of Greene King's brewery in Bury. To my delight he bought an "On the Edge" saison of mine, even before René had unpacked the box. Who would have through it? After years of consuming theirs, it was good to think Greene King were returning the compliment.

Apologies to René for such a poor likeness of him captured on my phone. He is much more good looking. John, looking very swarve, I am sorry I didn't get to chat with you longer but look forward to swapping notes with you one day.

Pilot takes off

It's not every day that you start a new career. When you start up as a microbrewer it is difficult to know exactly when you have started. Is it the day you told someone you wanted really to be a brewer? Or when you came home from the Brewlab course? Or the day you found your premises. Or lashed out more money than you dare tell you wife about in starting the business? Or the day you mashed-in to make your first commercial beer beer? Or the day you bottled it off?

No, I reckon the day you really start your new career is when you stand in front of the public and offer your own beer for sale, that you have planned, brewed and bottled yourself and designed the label and marketed it and talked about on the radio and you got it into the papers, with pictures of you leering at the camera. Then you are brought up short. People say, 'How much?' and you say "£5.99 a bottle" and they say "Oh..." And you think, "Bugger, I've overpriced it". And he says, "Ah...well. Mmm...OK then. I'll have 6 please." And you smile to yourself and think, "Yes! I am a real brewer now."

So the day came. Saturday 30th June 2012 dawned bright and clear and I donned my new pink-striped shirt and a pair of pale Fat Face flairs and I waddled down to the Cromer Farm and Health Shop wearing my name badge: "Martin Warren, Poppyland Brewery". This was my first outing. I was a debutante. Poppyland Pilot was a virgin and un-tested beer. So was it good enough? Would it gush all over the customer's living room carpets? Was it too bitter? So many anxieties. Edoardo was there (on a return work placement from the White Dog Brewery near Modena, where I had been for experience of the Italian market last year) and he approved of it.

It actually turned out to be a wonderful day. The customers in Andrew and Lisa's shop were intrigued, engaged, inspired and delighted by Norfolk's newest brewery and not only bought the beer but one or two of them came back and bought some more the same day, which was a shrewd move, as it proved to be very popular. I only released four cases to each of the retailers (Cromer Farm Shop and The Real Ale Shop) but I relented and brought another two in for the launch day in Cromer. We sold five and a half cases in the Cromer Farm and Health Shop that day and the other 6 bottles went the next day. It was small beer really, as the brewing industry goes. Small beer, but my beer. That was a result. Now, I am a brewer.

All the feedback so far about the beer has been positive. "A classy ale, well done", said Teddy Maufe, the farmer who grew the barley that it was made from. "Superb", said Steve Downes, of the Eastern Daily Press.

Phew!

The Barley to Beer Project is funded by:

I am sure I should be telling you about something else but I have to get this off my chest. This goes back to November 2010 when I was working-off a rather extended period of redundancy notice from the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service. It was Price Waterhouse Coopers, the management consultants,  who fingured my post - Collections and Information Manager - as the one member of middle management who could be laid off without any apparent break in front-line service. My boss, the Head of Museums could see that this would be very wounding to the service, as I was reaching the end of a 20 year project. I was only 18 years into it and still had some final goals to deliver. We do take the long view in museums. Modes had been a life's work (don't ask, it's a museum thing). It would have been heart-breaking to leave it un-finished. She very kindly agreed to allow me to get as close to the finishing tape as possible and complete some vital work before I departed. She found some funds from her back pocket (real managers always have something in their back pocket) and I had a lengthy extension beyond my due redundancy date.

Well, I was 6 months into my notice and by that time I had been thinking of what I was going to do, post-redundancy. My early-retirement pension would be reasonable but a big step-down from a full salary. So that's why I was thinking about all of the things I could do to supplement my income. Geology, consultancy, maybe writing or publishing but the strongest dream was to become a microbrewer. That's why I went onto Amazon and ordered '"The Microbrewer's Handbook" by Ted Bruning (Beers of the World, Second Edition 2009, £9.95 or less). So I found myself going Hell for Leather to finish my 'Modes' work and worked all the hours God sent (was I crazy?) but occasionally while commuting I would put the laptop down and pick up "The Microbrewer's Handbook".

On one occasion I clambered onto the homeward train, hot and lumbered with laptop. I dis-robed, took out my handbook and laid it on the table while I put my coat and baggage into the rack. Being rather a private person I didn't want to show all-and-sundry in the carriage that I was reading a book for wannabe brewers, so I placed it face down on the table while I did this. But, just as I had feared, the man opposite began to take an inordinate interest in the book that I was being so coy about. Bloody cheek, I thought.

I sat down but didn't turn it over. "That's the Microbrewer's Handbook, isn't it?" said the stranger opposite. 'Ehm, yes, it is, as it happens." 

"I thought so", he said, "I am its publisher."

That wasn't strictly true. He was the actually the originator of the idea for the book and had done all the groundwork to make it happen and then sold the idea and the rights to the actual publishers who brought it to market.

Isn't it curious? It's another one of the amazing co-incidences that has occurred in my recent life. Who would have thought that the prime mover of the very book that has influenced and encouraged my headlong flight into brewing should be a resident of North Norfolk and get onto the very train that I did and sat opposite me on the very occasion that I had decided to take this book to work to read on the train. And I had got it out and stuck it right down in front of him. Scary.

When he was considering a new edition of the Microbrewer's Handbook, Rupert Wheeler contacted me to find out how I was getting on. Unfortunately, at that time I had nothing to report, as it was early days and I really hadn't made any progress, nor demonstrated any real commitment to starting a brewery of my own. He must have thought I had whimped-out. So I told him about the newly (re-)started Panther Brewery at the old Reepham Brewery (run by Martin James, with whom I have brewed - a tiny bit).

Well Rupert, if you are reading this, I have a real case study for you now. The Poppyland Brewery is about to burst upon the scene and take the world of microbrewing by storm!

Let's hope so.

If you are a wannabe brewer (Dale), don't do anything else until you have read "The Microbrewer's Handbook".

Pilot is on the runway

This is a milestone. No longer a wannabe, I am a brewer! Yes! [Punches the air in triumph]. With plenty of work still to do in the Poppyland Brewery, and licences still to be issued, not to mention more brewing equipment to make, I felt I urgently needed to get some beer to market for the summer season in Cromer. Hence I became a cuckoo brewery (well if it's good enough for Mikkeller, it's good enough for me). With much help and support from St. Brendan of the Iceni and the loan of two breweries I have brewed my first commercial beer and it is resting quietly in the back of the Poppyland Brewery now, ready for sale on 30 June 2012.

A lovely krausen from the US-05 yeast taken on Brendan's phone.

At Brendan's suggestion I made a 90 litre mash tun from an old whisky barrel and it made its debut at the Elveden Brewery where I mashed-in (twice) and boiled the wort. It fermented a week there before it was racked into a couple of 18 gallon casks (or kilderkins) and was taken to the Iceni Brewery for dry hopping and secondary fermentation under air-locks. Today, with Kathy's help (Brendan's assistant) we bottled off 200 x 660 ml bottles of Poppyland 'Pilot'. This is a big IPA based on Branthill Maris Otter malt, with a predicted abv of 5.9% and packed full of hops (Columbus, Cascade and Summit). Two thirds of the output was dry hopped with American Summit hops and one third dry-hopped with Columbus (which Mrs Brewer suggests should be called 'Co-Pilot' - nice one). This has huge aroma and grapefruit flavours and a long hoppy finish. Just the sort of thing to please the beer connoisseur on a summer's day. Enjoy. You can get some from me or The Cromer Farm and Health Shop in Tucker Street (behind the church).

Discovering new beers

On most occasions when I go to Norwich nowadays I call at the Two Brewers Beer and Cider Shop in Magdalen Street. It is up near the traffic lights at The Artichoke end. I would encourage you to do the same as it is lacking in customers. Use it or lose it, as they say. Good craft beer isn't the cheapest way to drink but once again it is a question of quality versus quantity and the difference between price and value for money.

In Carlos Branquinho's tiny little shop you can not only find Norfolk Square's excellent ales but a whole host of beer from other craft breweries in Norfolk. I especially go for Green Jack's big swing-top bottles of Baltic Trader Imperial Stout, the fantastic Ripper barley wine and the last time I bought Gone Fishing ESB (£7 for 750 ml). Furthermore, without the expense of travelling to the Continent or even America, you can enjoy beer from world famous breweries like Dogfish Head, Uinta, Goose Island and Mikkeller.

A new brew on me was Smiske natural ale from the Smisje microbrewery in Mater, Oudenaade, Belgium. I lashed out £3.50 on the little 33 cl bottle (7% abv) and hoped for the best. When I got home, I drank the Gone Fishing while I made a (fantastic) lamb curry and it was a wonderful example of a strong English ale or extra special bitter. Then I moved on to the Smiske. On opening it, I sniffed the bottle. Oh, surprise. TCP! But when I poured it the aroma all but disappeared. This phenolic flavour in beer is usually considered a fault but in this case it most certain is not! I poured it into a nice stemmed glass and it built a fine white head and had a golden colour. The first taste was unusual. Mmm. Yeasty, but in a good way. Slightly smokey, coal, medicinal; bitter from noble hops, flavoursome, phenolic, TCP again, dry and that long, long yeast. Wow, I liked it! This golden Belgian ale had plenty to say. It was assertive and I am sure you won't have had anything quite like this, except perhaps real Pilsner Urquell (with its pitch-lined barrel aging), only this was more so and better for being bottle conditioned. This was well-aged I suspect. Coor! Are those Hallertau hops, or Styrian Goldings perhaps? Full-flavoured and stonking. Smiske shows what a good yeast can do for beer flavour and I really recommend it. Get on down to Magdalen Street and get some Smiske, while stocks last.

I am cultivating the live yeast from the bottom of the bottle and multiplying it up with the intention of pitching it into a 5 gallon batch of home brew sometime soon. Watch this space.

Street art and graffiti

There is a difference.

Near the Centre Pompidou, Chatelet, Paris I was astonished by this incredible image:

Sorry, don't know the artist. 20 April 2012

Street art inspires romanticism, stirs patriotism, spreads revolution, even breeds anarchy.

In West Street, Cromer the spray-can anarchist evidently approved of my revolutionary new idea - the Poppyland Brewery:

1 September 2011

Not like in Colombia, where a microbrewery in Bogota received a deadly message of disapproval, delivered to one of its pubs in the form of a hand grenade.

I keep out of politics and just let the beer do the talking.

A Dirty Weekend in Paris, with beer

"Here are the keys", he said. "I changed the sheets on the sofa bed and now I am off  to the South of France. See you next week." And with that we found ourselves alone in a 'Cute little apartment in the best district of Paris'.

We didn't know him from Adam but his name was Frederic. His food was in the fridge, his dirty washing was in a pile in the bathroom. There was a ring of dirt around the bath. No vacuum cleaner (though there was a pipe from one) not even a dust pan and brush. All the wardrobe doors were bike-padlocked up. Just two drawers to put our stuff in. There was more but I won't bore you. Mmmm. Cute.

But it certainly was central; the 1st Arrondissement. The Louvre and Notre Dame were just a few streets away. The Gothic gargoyles and flying buttresses of the Eglise Saint Eustache loomed over us as we looked out of our first floor windows. The street was quiet and the windows double-glazed, although the Pompiers de Paris had their station literally next door. Fortunately they don't put the siren on until they leave the street.

It was a rainy week and not quite the Springtime in Paris we had hoped for. We were grumpy at first but, for me at least, Paris began to get under my skin. I was warming to it's history and grandeur as the days passed. We walked the streets of the Marais, the Latin Quarter, walked around the Louvre, visited the Tour Eiffel (but didn't inhale go up it on account of the queues for the one serviceable lift). We ate a lot of cakes. Then, just as I was about to walk past it, Mrs Brewer saw a beer shop, a very special beer shop. Le Cave a Bulles. Proprietor Simon Thillou was happy to talk about beer and was delighted to hear that I was opening a brewery. Maybe I would bring him some when we were in production? Sounds like a good idea.

Also in the shop was Simon's American friend Jordan. "Don't buy the Mikkeller 'It's Alive'. This is better. If you only buy one, buy this" and he handed me a different Mikkeller beer. At €34 it ****** **** ought to be good. I looked at Mrs Brewer. "Go on then", she said. So I became the owner of the most expensive bottle I have ever bought. I don't suppose I can put it down as a business expense but it was certainly good research for where I need to go with Poppyland Brewery. These are the leaders and the competition.

It didn't disappoint. The Mikkeller Nelson Sauvignon is a very special beer. It was plastic corked and muzzled in a sensibly brown 750 ml champagne bottle, 9% abv and it had a wonderful deep orange amber colour. The aroma just climbed out of the glass, powerful, citrus orange from the New Zealand Nelson Sauvin hops. I knew what was coming: it was going to be big. Yep. It was. A lovely foaming white head developed as it was poured, sinking gradually to a persistent ring and lacing. The first taste was huge, stacked full of fresh citrus, orange peel, Cointreau, yeasty, bitter-sweet, cidery, gorgeous, more-ish. The aroma was still there an hour later, huge, bursting. I had never had a beer like it, now smelling of fresh tea and autumn leaves in warm sunshine. This was all balanced by good malt but really, it was the hops and the gentle brett that were the stars. Ooooh! Exquisite. A tiny sip just filled the mouth. Its three months in the Austrian wine cask had certainly been time well spent. That bottle kept me entertained for the rest of the evening as I read the excellent and stimulating resource book for brewers, 'Radical Brewing' by Randy Mosher. I won't forget that evening. €34 well spent and cheaper than a disappointing 2008 Chinon that we drank at Les Papilles later that week. The food there was good, but not such good value for money as lunch at the restaurant of Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester on Mrs Brewer's birthday. It's all about the difference between cost and value for money.

By the way, in London on the way home, I visited Cask and Kitchen's Pimlico joint and there I found Mikkeller's 'It's Alive' on tap, all-be-it on top pressure. It didn't disappoint either, but it was rather cheaper, £4.60 a half if I recall. It's a busy establishment but very good for craft beer. Go there.