Not exactly pubs or beer, but a few pictures from a local hop garden on a fine early summer afternoon...
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Not exactly pubs or beer, but a few pictures from a local hop garden on a fine early summer afternoon...
They're certainly romping away this year,despite the drought: the neighbour's Admirals reached the top of the wirework in late May-the traditional date was Midsummer's Day.
Whilst we're on a gardening theme I thought that I'd bring this one up. Not a hop garden, but a hop heaven - for some anyway.
In Mr Hall's garden? A very brave man, as hops are prey to all types of noxoius bugs. I thought that they were organic , as I noticed that my neighbour had sprayed off the bottom of his bines. I think Jody Scheckter grows some organic hops at Laverstoke-anyone tried his organic ale and lager? We might be over that way this weekend-I'll try to dive into the farmshop.
Indeed...
Had a bottle of the Organic Ale a few months ago. I hadn't heard of Laverstock Park Farm at the time, but the label was interesting and led me to look the place up on the internet - quite an operation being developed there...
Thought I'd revive this thread: Eddie Gadd of Gadds brewery posted this: http://gaddsbeershop.blogspot.co.uk/...blog-post.html
I'm not sure if our neighbour has started picking yet-I should think he has, but I haven't been past this week.
Looks like he'll be getting the ingredients in for a green-hopped ale - will you be supporting the Kent Green Hop Beer Fortnight - seems to be centred around Canterbury.
Soon be time for Darkstars Green Hopped I.P.A. Best dust off the crash helmet.:drinkup:::drinkup::drinkup:
Already planning my trip to the HopFest!
Hops still in the garden today...
"the Strisselspalt hop"
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/n...CMP=ILC-SEARCH
good response from Pete Brown
Marstons did a single-hop Strisselspalt beer earlier this year. Whilst not particularly memorable, it was certainly more interesting than a pint of Kronenbourg...
I guess there's an element of familiarity breeds contempt, MD. They do actually brew some good beers - Silver King, Excelsior and Treacle Stout are great, if in good nick. However, they are also guilty of churning out endless indifferent pale seasonals around 4%, that just merge into each other, character wise. Then again the celebratory B2K was magnificent and Revolution IPA and Quicksilver are far too good to be occasional brews. Overall, I think other local breweries such as Mallinsons, Magic Rock and Kirkstall have overtaken them. If they have any insight, it might give them a kick up the jacksie.
That's Interesting,I wasn't aware of that,living in the Surrey/Hant's Borders area,(the Hant's end) there is quite a few Fullers outlets not too faraway,mostly ex-Gales pubs which aren't my first port of call as I think the general range of Fullers ales are pretty run of the mill, the outstanding London Porter being an exception,maybe I should investigate further.
I rather like Ossett beers.the Fullers tie is that Ossett removed a regular beer from its pubs(timothy taylors maybe)and installed London Pride so Fullers rather than bring back empty lorries when delivering sometimes bring back Ossett beer.often seen around west london Fullers pubs.
To be honest I only remember drinking the Silver King at the Woking Beer Festival one year, I'm sure I must have encounterd Ossett elsewhere but don't recall,I take the point about familiarity,breweries fairly local to me,Triple fff and West Berks aren't bad but can become run of the mill when drunk on a regular basis.I have had some Magic Rock Dark Arts recently and was very impressed.
This is'nt a dig at you aleandhearty but why do people think that if a beer is readily available then it is not a decent drink,if that is the case then new brewerys would have to keep opening all the time to keep certain people happy about not drinking the same drinks all the time.
I am happy drinking a beer i like on a regular basis,if it is a drink that i like then i carry on liking it i dont get bored with it,i enjoyed drinking Shipstones and Home in the 80s and Youngs and Holts in the 90s and now living very close to Nottingham the beer you see on the bar most regulary is Castle Rock Harvest Pale,this is a really nice beer and i will never get bored of drinking it.
I currently drink Darkstar beers until it comes out of my ears and have done for a few years now with no sign (and none expected) of being bored of it, I do think some breweries can rest on their laurels and loose their way,not Darkstar or Castle Rock, Harvest Pale is up there with the best.
More news of the Canterbury GreenHop bash. I don't think I'll get to Canterbury, but I'm working on a greenhop outing. Howard Batt who has supplied some of the hops farms just down the road from us:top man.
http://kentgreenhopbeer.com/2012/09/...beers-of-2012/
Just to re-iterate, the main thrust of my whine against Ossett is the fact that they churn out too many insipid occasional brews. This is a view held by quite a few people in the pubs I frequent. Unfortunately, it does tend to impart a slightly jaundiced view of the brewery as a whole, despite the strength of their core brews.
Al,regarding your point about new breweries opening all the time, I don't really follow your logic. If multi pumped venues have a constantly rotating stock of guest beers, surely they provide enough choice for the drinker?
I guess it's horses for courses, but my drinking patterns have changed considerably over the last twenty years. At one time Landlord, or Ind Coope Burton Ale were my beers and I'd drink virtually nothing else. However,we live in a golden age for beer lovers. My usual mini-crawl of four pubs has thirty two pumps between them. Even if they all sold a couple of the same regular beers, I wouldn't want to drink them. I love variety and searching for the next WOW! find. (However, that's not to say I must drink totally new beers every session). Otherwise, how do you come across beers such as High Wire, The Accomplice etc?
Other factors are that I like to support small breweries and a nagging fear that this golden age isn't going to last forever.
I was trying to make the point that if you want to have a different drink whenever you go in a pub at some point you would have drunk all the beers from the brewerys so more would have to keep opening to satify your need for more new beers.
I do take your point about it being hosres for courses,i am probably a bit different to most regular forum users,if i go in a local pub,there is a Spoons less than 5 minutes walk from my house with 10 different beers on i will try one if it tastes good then i will stick with that beer while i am in there.
My original point was not directed to you but to some others on the forum who think if a beer is readily available then it is a boring beer because you can find a drink of it in lots of their local pubs.
Some beers are boring not because they are readily available but because they are bland uninteresting middle of the road beers designed to keep the mainstream happy of which there are more than people who like beers with a bit of taste and edge about them, the former I am talking about are beers such as Bombardier ,Spitfire,Doom Bar, Greene King IPA,mass produced rubbish in my opinion,the chicken Korma's of the beer world. Now some people obviously like them hence their popularity, I dont dislike chicken korma but when out for a ruby, nine times out of ten would be more adventurous.My favourite brewery is Darkstar ,firstly because all their beers are bloody good, but also because they are readily available to me in the south east, whereas beers from brewers like Marble,Thornbridge and Magic Rock plus many others are harder to come by in my locality without trips to the likes of London or Brighton for example which unfortunately I cant afford to do more than once a month or two, so some of these lesser tasted beers build up a certain sense of mysticism about them.
Anyway enough of all that deep rubbish,at the end of the day you either like,or not, a beer because you actually like it (or not), not on the frequency of its availability.
i prefer to try new beers and with about 8000 different beers brewed every year its unlikely i will have to resort to the mainstream beers ever again.is it not the case that when you get really good beers like Dark Star regularly its impossible to go back to bland beers like doombar etc.i regularly drank Fullers beers for twenty years until i started using a pub with ever changing guests.have say i have drank a lot of poor beers from poor brewers but the good ones make up for it.
having tasted greene king -ipa gold i think the head brewer has wasted his time looking for a new hop for his beer.