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28-10-2023, 16:50
Visit the Paul Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://baileysbeerblog.blogspot.com/2023/10/green-hop-ales-come-of-age-at-dovecote.html)
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On Friday, in the company of three members of West KentCAMRA branch, I visited the Dovecote Inn, (https://dovecote-capel.co.uk/) situated in the tiny hamlet of Capel.Two of us travelled by bus, taking the 205 Autocar service from Tonbridge, andthen alighting at Five Oak Green – a linear village, close to Paddock Wood.From there, it was a 20-minute walk, along the lanes to the Dovecote, whichalong with the adjacent row of Victorian houses, forms part of a ratherisolated settlement.
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Capel must have been a larger settlement at some time in thepast, as half a mile up the road is the church of St Thomas a Becket, whichdates back to Norman times. Becket himself is said to have preached at thischurch, and the tower was partly rebuilt following a fire in 1639. The church containssome extensive wall paintings, which cover most of the nave, which I haven’tseen, although I shall make the effort to do so, when I have a bit more time. Thebuilding is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
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Returning to the Dovecote, the pub is holding a Green HopAle Festival this weekend, and with 14 different beers on sale, as well as the pub’susual stalwarts of Harvey’s and Larkin's, it would have seemed rude, not to havepaid a visit. It also provided, for me, the ideal opportunity of sampling a fewof 2023’s crop of GHA’s for the first time. I had missed out on the launch of KentGreen Hop Beer Fortnight, for a variety of reasons, and shortly after the promotion’slaunch, I was out of the country for three weeks. The event at the Dovecote thereforepresented an opportunity to redeem the situation, in a small, but quitesignificant way.
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The significance derives from a school of thought which saysthat although Green Hop Ales are intentionally brewed using freshly harvestedhops, the finished beers benefit from a period of maturation and storage. Thisidea, and the principles behind it, is slowly gaining traction, and when onelooks back at the concept over its relatively short history, it begins to makesense. The very first Green Hop Ales were of necessity experimental, as no onereally knew how many hops needed to be added at the start of the brewingprocess, or how the finished product would turn out.
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Hops, of course, are normally dried and from experiencegained over many years, the brewer knows the correct weight of hops to be addedto each brew, in order to achieve the desired result and a consistent endproduct. Freshly harvested hops are not dried and are added “wet” – or “green”and whilst some might think it a simple matter of extrapolating back the dried hopweight for the wet one, in theory it doesn’t always work out like that.
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Consequently, many of the original GHA’s were unbalanced,and rather over-hopped, to put it mildly! I remember some of these beers possessing a rich resinous taste, alongside an almost oilytexture. In many cases you could actually feel the hops oils coating yourtongue and the roof of your mouth. This feature was obviously apparentto the brewers of these beers, and gradually, they now seemto have cut down on the amount of wet hops used. As mentioned earlier, thesuspicion was green hops were being added to the brew-kettle at the same ratethat would have been used for normal dried hops.
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Appropriate adjustments weremade, but many lovers of these beers felt that the pendulum had swung back toofar in the opposite direction. This was apparent in 2019, when I attended thelaunch of that year’s Kent Green Hop Beers Fortnight, at the CanterburyFood & Drink Festival. I wrote at the time (https://baileysbeerblog.blogspot.com/2019/09/have-green-hop-beers-lost-plot.html) that whilst all thegreen-hopped beers I tried that day were good, there was little to distinguishthem from their normal dry-hop counterparts.
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Several of my companions said thesame thing, and we all decided this was because the brewers of GHA’s had becomemore adept, over the years, at using hops in their natural “wet”state. So, by cutting the amount of green hopsused to brew this uniquely seasonal type of beer, the brewers inadvertently removedthe very characteristics that attracted drinkers to green-hopped beersin the first place. In effect, a unique and very time of year dependent beer, hadbeen turned into just another run of the mill and rather ordinary one.
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Fast forward four years,and in response to this, and with an eye to perhaps rekindling some of the hoppy-resinouscharacter that was a salient feature of those early, GHA’s, the aforementioned ideaof allowing the beer to age, and mature, has come about. A chance to samplesome of them presented itself at the Spa Valley Railway Beer Festival, a collaborationbetween West Kent CAMRA and the Tunbridge Wells - based, heritage railway. As inprevious years the event included a dedicated Green Hop Beer Bar, featuring oneof the widest range of GHA’s in the country.
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The beer festival took place last weekend, which unfortunatelyclashed with our return from holiday, especially as there was lots to do on thehome and domestic front. In a small, but still significant way, the Dovecote’s GreenHop Beer Festival acted as a replacement for the main event, at least for me.There were 17 GHA’s on sale, the majority racked on a stillage, occupying analcove, close to the front door of the pub.
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I think I am correct in saying that this was the Dovecote’sfirst event involving green hop beers, and the selection they put on was amixture of old favourites alongside a few newcomers. The majority of the beerswere from brewers based in Kent and Sussex, although there was one from northLondon-based Redemption using hops freshly harvested from Townend Hop Farm, in Herefordshire. The latter was an important feature, asthe counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, have now overtaken Kent interms of the acreage of hops grown.
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I kicked off with Gadd’sGreen Hop from Ramsgate, described as a pale ale high in bitterness,with floral hops through and through. This 4.8% beer didn’t disappoint, as I knew itwouldn’t, especially as Gadd’s have a reputation amongst local drinkers for thequality of their beers. Next up was the 4.3% Cascade Green Hop from BexleyBrewery. Brewed, as its name suggests, using fresh Cascade hops, I wasn’t sureat first whether or not to go for this one. Bexley Brewery beers always seemeda bit hit and miss to me, but after my CAMRA friends informed me, the companyhad upped its game, I bit the bullet and went for it.
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It was a decent and refreshing session bitter, so I was pleasednot to have let past prejudices affect my choice of beer. I only had time for one final beer, as Ineeded to be back at Bailey Towers before 3 pm. You might have seen me mentionthe decorators we had in, whilst we were away. Their brief was to paint thewalls, ceilings and exposed woodwork on our stairs and landing, a task we hadonly half-heartedly undertaken during the past three decades. I’d also askedthem to remove the stair carpet, and with Mrs PBT’s keen on having a new one laid,a surveyor from Carpetright was booked to call.This meant having to leave to leave the Dovecote at 2.15 pm,in order to catch the 205 bus back to Tonbridge. Before leaving the pub, Isqueezed in a swift half of Wantsum Bullion, a 4.6% green hop stout brewedusing Bullion hops. I written previously that the concept of green hopped darkbeers doesn’t really work. This offering from Wantsum Brewery did little to change mymind, but sometimes you have to give these things a try.
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I left my three friends to enjoy a few more GHA’s, plus some of the Dovecote's delicious looking food, and mademy way back to Five Oak Green and the bus home. On my way to the bus stop, Irealised I had left my umbrella in the pub. There wasn’t time to go back for it,so after a quick phone call with the licensee, to confirm its presence, I shallhave to call in for it, some time over the weekend. It will be a good excuse todiscover which GHA’s are left, and to grab a quick one for myself.
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On Friday, in the company of three members of West KentCAMRA branch, I visited the Dovecote Inn, (https://dovecote-capel.co.uk/) situated in the tiny hamlet of Capel.Two of us travelled by bus, taking the 205 Autocar service from Tonbridge, andthen alighting at Five Oak Green – a linear village, close to Paddock Wood.From there, it was a 20-minute walk, along the lanes to the Dovecote, whichalong with the adjacent row of Victorian houses, forms part of a ratherisolated settlement.
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Capel must have been a larger settlement at some time in thepast, as half a mile up the road is the church of St Thomas a Becket, whichdates back to Norman times. Becket himself is said to have preached at thischurch, and the tower was partly rebuilt following a fire in 1639. The church containssome extensive wall paintings, which cover most of the nave, which I haven’tseen, although I shall make the effort to do so, when I have a bit more time. Thebuilding is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
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Returning to the Dovecote, the pub is holding a Green HopAle Festival this weekend, and with 14 different beers on sale, as well as the pub’susual stalwarts of Harvey’s and Larkin's, it would have seemed rude, not to havepaid a visit. It also provided, for me, the ideal opportunity of sampling a fewof 2023’s crop of GHA’s for the first time. I had missed out on the launch of KentGreen Hop Beer Fortnight, for a variety of reasons, and shortly after the promotion’slaunch, I was out of the country for three weeks. The event at the Dovecote thereforepresented an opportunity to redeem the situation, in a small, but quitesignificant way.
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The significance derives from a school of thought which saysthat although Green Hop Ales are intentionally brewed using freshly harvestedhops, the finished beers benefit from a period of maturation and storage. Thisidea, and the principles behind it, is slowly gaining traction, and when onelooks back at the concept over its relatively short history, it begins to makesense. The very first Green Hop Ales were of necessity experimental, as no onereally knew how many hops needed to be added at the start of the brewingprocess, or how the finished product would turn out.
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Hops, of course, are normally dried and from experiencegained over many years, the brewer knows the correct weight of hops to be addedto each brew, in order to achieve the desired result and a consistent endproduct. Freshly harvested hops are not dried and are added “wet” – or “green”and whilst some might think it a simple matter of extrapolating back the dried hopweight for the wet one, in theory it doesn’t always work out like that.
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Consequently, many of the original GHA’s were unbalanced,and rather over-hopped, to put it mildly! I remember some of these beers possessing a rich resinous taste, alongside an almost oilytexture. In many cases you could actually feel the hops oils coating yourtongue and the roof of your mouth. This feature was obviously apparentto the brewers of these beers, and gradually, they now seemto have cut down on the amount of wet hops used. As mentioned earlier, thesuspicion was green hops were being added to the brew-kettle at the same ratethat would have been used for normal dried hops.
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Appropriate adjustments weremade, but many lovers of these beers felt that the pendulum had swung back toofar in the opposite direction. This was apparent in 2019, when I attended thelaunch of that year’s Kent Green Hop Beers Fortnight, at the CanterburyFood & Drink Festival. I wrote at the time (https://baileysbeerblog.blogspot.com/2019/09/have-green-hop-beers-lost-plot.html) that whilst all thegreen-hopped beers I tried that day were good, there was little to distinguishthem from their normal dry-hop counterparts.
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Several of my companions said thesame thing, and we all decided this was because the brewers of GHA’s had becomemore adept, over the years, at using hops in their natural “wet”state. So, by cutting the amount of green hopsused to brew this uniquely seasonal type of beer, the brewers inadvertently removedthe very characteristics that attracted drinkers to green-hopped beersin the first place. In effect, a unique and very time of year dependent beer, hadbeen turned into just another run of the mill and rather ordinary one.
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Fast forward four years,and in response to this, and with an eye to perhaps rekindling some of the hoppy-resinouscharacter that was a salient feature of those early, GHA’s, the aforementioned ideaof allowing the beer to age, and mature, has come about. A chance to samplesome of them presented itself at the Spa Valley Railway Beer Festival, a collaborationbetween West Kent CAMRA and the Tunbridge Wells - based, heritage railway. As inprevious years the event included a dedicated Green Hop Beer Bar, featuring oneof the widest range of GHA’s in the country.
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The beer festival took place last weekend, which unfortunatelyclashed with our return from holiday, especially as there was lots to do on thehome and domestic front. In a small, but still significant way, the Dovecote’s GreenHop Beer Festival acted as a replacement for the main event, at least for me.There were 17 GHA’s on sale, the majority racked on a stillage, occupying analcove, close to the front door of the pub.
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I think I am correct in saying that this was the Dovecote’sfirst event involving green hop beers, and the selection they put on was amixture of old favourites alongside a few newcomers. The majority of the beerswere from brewers based in Kent and Sussex, although there was one from northLondon-based Redemption using hops freshly harvested from Townend Hop Farm, in Herefordshire. The latter was an important feature, asthe counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, have now overtaken Kent interms of the acreage of hops grown.
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I kicked off with Gadd’sGreen Hop from Ramsgate, described as a pale ale high in bitterness,with floral hops through and through. This 4.8% beer didn’t disappoint, as I knew itwouldn’t, especially as Gadd’s have a reputation amongst local drinkers for thequality of their beers. Next up was the 4.3% Cascade Green Hop from BexleyBrewery. Brewed, as its name suggests, using fresh Cascade hops, I wasn’t sureat first whether or not to go for this one. Bexley Brewery beers always seemeda bit hit and miss to me, but after my CAMRA friends informed me, the companyhad upped its game, I bit the bullet and went for it.
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It was a decent and refreshing session bitter, so I was pleasednot to have let past prejudices affect my choice of beer. I only had time for one final beer, as Ineeded to be back at Bailey Towers before 3 pm. You might have seen me mentionthe decorators we had in, whilst we were away. Their brief was to paint thewalls, ceilings and exposed woodwork on our stairs and landing, a task we hadonly half-heartedly undertaken during the past three decades. I’d also askedthem to remove the stair carpet, and with Mrs PBT’s keen on having a new one laid,a surveyor from Carpetright was booked to call.This meant having to leave to leave the Dovecote at 2.15 pm,in order to catch the 205 bus back to Tonbridge. Before leaving the pub, Isqueezed in a swift half of Wantsum Bullion, a 4.6% green hop stout brewedusing Bullion hops. I written previously that the concept of green hopped darkbeers doesn’t really work. This offering from Wantsum Brewery did little to change mymind, but sometimes you have to give these things a try.
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I left my three friends to enjoy a few more GHA’s, plus some of the Dovecote's delicious looking food, and mademy way back to Five Oak Green and the bus home. On my way to the bus stop, Irealised I had left my umbrella in the pub. There wasn’t time to go back for it,so after a quick phone call with the licensee, to confirm its presence, I shallhave to call in for it, some time over the weekend. It will be a good excuse todiscover which GHA’s are left, and to grab a quick one for myself.
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