Got Great Taste, Well Then, Try These!

I was lucky enough recently to be asked to judge at the Great Taste Awards, run by the Guild of Fine Food, a body I genuinely admire for their warm & welcoming family nature, passion for all things tasty and for being one of the most powerful movements championing great produce and products, not only to the industry but giving consumers a clearly defined marker that they can trust in the one, two and three star system.

Not only that but, most pleasingly, the quality of the bottled beers was genuinely the best I've ever judged in any competition - full stop. This is not to denigrate any other bottled beer competition, I am only speaking as I find - and I, and the other judges, were extremely impressed with the quality of the brews.

It was a blind tasting with only two beer writers on both panels, paired with three or four others who have, what can only be described as, excellent palates. There was some healthy debate about some of the beers, downright disagreement about others and a chorus of approval for many.

However, and sorry to put a bit of dampener on this great beery moment, if I had to say one thing though, it's that a lot of the brewery's descriptions seriously let them down. I swear to god, some of the entry forms had 'bottled beer' or simply 'beer' on them!! Really chaps, if I was writing a report card it would say 'must do better' in big red letters!

But, that's a minor blip on an otherwise super result for British brewing.

So, without further ado, drum roll please for the winners!

3 star     Purple Moose Dark Side of the Moose

3 star     Harviestoun Schiehallion

3 star     Otley O Garden

3 star     Thornbridge Jaipur IPA

3 star     Thornbridge Bracia

3 star     Orkney Dark Island Reserve

3 star     Dartmoor Legend Beer

2 star     Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted

2 star     Harviestoun Old Engine Oil

2 star     Harviestoun Old Dubh 16

2 star     Monty's Sunshine

2 star     Otley 06 Porter

2 star     Otley 08

2 star     Thornbridge Kipling

2 star     Orkney Dark Island

2 star     Black Sheep Ale

2 star     Dartmoor IPA

2 star     Hobsons Old Henry 5.2% ABV

1 star     Chiltern Brewery Three Hundreds Old Ale

1 star     Chiltern Brewery Lord-Lieutenants Porter

1 star     Chiltern Bodgers Barley Wine

1 star     Bristol Hefe

1 star     Southville Hop

1 star     Otley Colombo

1 star     Thornbridge Wild Swan

1 star     Wold Top Bitter

1 star     Wold Gold

1 star     Laverstoke Park Organic Lager

1 star     Black Sheep Riggwelter

1 star     Dartmoor Jail Ale

1 star     Hobsons Town Crier 4.5% ABV

1 star     Whitewater Clotworthy Dobbin 5.0%

1 star     Cairngorm Black Gold

1 star     Cairngorm Wildcat

Hello Again!

If you like these then you can buy them here
I just wanted the picture!

Well, I managed to survive another collaboration beer tour and it seems you guys and your thirst for interesting beer hasn't abated.

And talking of interesting beer... I tried the St Austell Trelawney the other evening and it's a very suppable brew. It's interesting to see that in the craft beer world still making a very drinkable, low ABV beer, still has it's place.

Light citrus notes and a spritzy body make this a real BBQ winner, in fact this leads me on to what I reckon is a great way to cook chicken on the BBQ, I did it last night (not on BBQ sadly, just under grill, fifth floor flat and all that!!) and it was jolly yummy indeed!

Firstly, spatchcocking the chicken (a phrase that, I'll admit, always elicits a childish snigger from me). If you've never done this before then trust me, it really is insanely easy. I'll be honest, I've known the technique for about a decade but never done it, more fool me!

If you want a really easy 'how to' video, then this is the one to watch

So, here we go, this will serve four greedy people and six not so greedy people!

Equipment
Stove-top-proof tagine or other large cooking vessel with lid
Large cooks tongs
Skewers soaked in water for at least 30 minutes (use these to spatchcock bird)
Hot grill/BBQ
Baking tray
Sieve
Small-medium saucepan

Ingredients for chicken
Groundnut or rapeseed oil
2.4kg chicken (free range) - spatchcock and remove wing-tips (freeze off-cuts to make stock later)
1/2 litre chicken stock
1 bottle of barley wine/old ale, not too bitter, suggest UK one like Golden Pride/Old Tom etc.
8tbsp pomegranate molasses
4tbsp harissa (I like Belazu rose harissa)
1tbsp Ras-el-Hanout or Sumac
1 cinnamon stick broken up
4 crushed cardamom pods
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
Bulb of garlic chopped in half horizontally
Whole large green chill, with a small slit made in it
Seasoning

Additional Ingredients for Sauce/finishing:
2tbsp pomegranate molasses
1tbsp agave nectar
Seasoning
1 lime (zest finely grated off and flesh reserved)
Handful of mint/coriander/parsley

Method:

1. Heat pan/tagine
2. Make deep slashes in flesh of chicken, season liberally
3. Add some oil to pan, and put bird breast-side down in pan to brown
4. Meanwhile, mix together the wet ingredients and chop, crush, slit etc. dry ingredients, keep separate
5. When wet ingredients are mixed and dry prepped, the bird should be browned
6. Turn bird over, and add dry ingredients to pan to fry for about 30 secs then add wet ingredients
7. Cover bird and turn down to a medium simmer for about 40 minutes
8. After 30 minutes, pre-heat grill to maximum and pre-heat baking tray
9. After 40 minutes, check the bird is done (meat thermometer favoured method but checking for any blood in crease of thigh also good)
10. Take out of pan and place on baking tray, put under grill (or you can do this stage on the BBQ)
11. Sieve remaining cooking liquid into a pan, mushing the garlic and ginger with a fork, and reduce until consistency of runny honey
12. Once it's browned, take out from under grill, turn off grill, place bird at bottom of oven on tray to rest (if on BBQ, clear an area free of coals as your 'cool' area and put chicken there to rest)
13. Test your sauce for the balance of sweet, sour, salty, bitter - add a little of the pomegranate molasses for sour, some agave for sweet, some lime peel for bitter and some salt where needed - keep warm
14. Carve the chicken and then, whilst it's still on the chopping board, pour over some of the sauce
15. Then, add more sauce as serving - this goes really well with a simple bulgur wheat-based tabbouleh or, if you're like me, I prefer something with a bit more snap like cucumber, radish, spring onion and uncooked sugar snap peas
16. Put rest of sauce in a jug, arrange chicken on a big plate, put salad in a big bowl, put on table, dig in!

Oh, Oh - It's Otley Tour Time

Thaibo is Back Baby! And this time it's got company!

Yep, you heard right, on June 30 we'll be kicking arse and being berry naughty as me and the Otley boys bounce around town showcasing our new collab brew, Hedgro (thank you Katie Hunt at CAMRA HQ for the name!) which is made with gooseberries and elderflower and, as mentioned a little bit enthusiastically earlier, Thaibo is back!

If you haven't tried this truly bonkers brew before it's a clear wheat beer made with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, lime skins and galangal - it's really delicious, I promise you : )

As I said, I'll have Nick and Matthew Otley with me, to talk about the beers and generally being charmingly Welsh!

So join us as it will be, as they say in Wales, TIDY!

I May Be a Bit Late on This...

I'm drinking beer on a horse         On the nose you'll get some heady aromas

and I probably am... but has anyone else noticed the resemblance between Garrett Oliver from Brooklyn Brewery & the Old Spice guy? Just me? 

Baffled & Bemused

Clearly not one of the world's best bottled beers

I'm a bit confused this morning (not that this is much different from most other mornings) over national newspapers and their attitudes to writing about beer.

Yesterday morning there was a 'top 10 bottled beers' slideshow online at the Independent; the headline is the world's best bottled beers but the choice is bizarre at best by that standard (Doom Bar for example, as far as I can remember, hasn't won any major world awards for at least five years) and some of the descriptions bear more than a passing resemblance to what's written on the websites.

And apart from the fact that, obviously, I earn my living from writing about beer what really bothers me is, as Pete Brown reported on his blog, there seems to be some sort of in-built prejudice against beer within the national press, or more to the point beer writers!

You can tell the disdain they have for beer because, instead of getting a specialist beer writer to select a range of award-winning beers, they got a freelance who used to be a political aide to Zac Goldsmith; now that's not to denigrate the chap, I'm sure he's a great professional and I have no problem with him saying yes to the commission, hell we've all done it.

What I don't understand is why the paper gave him the job!

After all, you don't ask a political correspondent to write about the arts, you don't ask a war reporter to comment on wine - so why the hell do the nationals always ask someone totally unqualified to write about beer? It just doesn't make sense.

If you care about beer, at all, please pull the nationals up in the comments sections and let's try and get them to give this fantastic, complex and exciting drink the respect it deserves.

Kicking Ass and Taking Names!

Just a quick update, I'm at Otley today brewing thai-bO - with kaffir lime leaf, galangal, lemongrass and lime skins! Hence the pictures! I've also tried the gooseberry & elderflower pale ale (name to be decided, needs to have an O and Goo has been rejected!) that will be fantastic once it's finished!

I'd also like to thank anyone who came to the Japanese Craft Beer tasting the other evening, some fascinating beers and £700 raised! Great work the White Horse who not only hosted and staffed the event but donated what my fee would normally have been to the fund, which was above and beyond - great work chaps!

Sharpen Your Tongue

On Saturday at the Draft House Tower Bridge the lovely, delightful and talented Mr Stuart Howe from Sharp's in Cornwall will displaying his wares - and possibly some beer.

The first session at 1pm is for ladeez only and is an in-depth tutored tasting with food matches, so if you are of the female persuasion and want to come, then please rock on over to the Barley's Angels Facebook page and sign up. There will then follow at 3.30pm  a small public sampling session, no food but the chance to chat informally with The Howe himself.

Treats on offer are:
Cask Atlantic IPA

Cask 3 year old Massive ale

Turbo Yeast Abhorrence from Beyond the Ninth Level of Hades

Bottled Monsieur Rock

Bottled Single Brew Reserve 2010

Bottled DW

Another bottled beer yet to be decided

So, hopefully that will be enough to wash the rather unpleasant taste out of all our mouths left by the comments about beer by a Royal press officer this week !

NB: I have a financial interest in this venture