Special: LCBF We Are Beer Week Guide
A monthly newsletter about London beer and pubs, written by journalist Will Hawkes. This is a special edition about We Are Beer Week produced in collaboration with the London Craft Beer Festival
Donostia Beer
14 years on, I can easily recall José Ramón Elizondo, the former owner of Aloña Berri in San Sebastian. He was in his mid-sixties, straight-backed and smartly dressed, with a lavish white moustache and a genial, encouraging catchphrase whenever a customer ordered from the elegantly arrayed selection of dainty pintxos on the bar: muy bueno, muy bueno.
His food was - to my uneducated palate, anyway - undeniably muy bueno, particularly brandada de bacalao, an unctuous blend of salt cod, olive oil and potato served on a dainty piece of bread.
I expect plenty of you have had a similar experience. Any serious European glutton has gorged themselves in the Basque Country, whether it be San Sebastian (Donostia, to give it its Basque name), Bilbao or, for the serious heads, one of the towns in the region’s verdant, hilly hinterland (‘Bilbao? Yes it’s not bad but you have to try Oñati, darling’), invariably washing it down with high-quality wine or cider.
But not beer. Here, as in the rest of Spain, beer is popular but limited. Not necessarily bad, predictably refreshing - but almost always pale lager, even if breweries making a greater variety of beer are on the rise. The way Spaniards tend to order beer - Una Cana, ‘a beer’, nothing more - tells you all you need to know about this nation’s, and this region’s, straightforward relationship with beer.
Enter Basqueland in 2015. Kevin Patricio and Ben Rozzi, Americans frustrated by the quality difference between Basque beer and the rest of its gustatory options, started brewing on a tiny scale for the San Sebastian restaurant, La Madame, where Patricio was head chef. In order to shift the rest of the 3000 litres produced in those early batches, they sent some to other restaurants in San Sebastian. It was popular, Patricio says; those restaurants, among them many of the city’s most-feted, soon demanded more.
At this year’s London Craft Beer Festival, the capital's drinkers will get an opportunity to taste why. Not only will Basqueland be at the festival - Patricio is there on Friday - but they’re also part of two events for We Are Beer Week: a collaboration beer and food pairing event with 40ft Brewing at the latter’s home in Dalston on Wednesday August 9th, starting at 5pm; and a tasting of beer from their Barrelworks Programme, hosted by Brand Ambassador Elliott Konig, at Kill The Cat on Brick Lane on Thursday 10th.
What is perhaps most interesting about Basqueland’s beers is how they convey Basque culture to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world to the Basque Country. These are beers brewed along global craft-beer lines - IPA, Helles, Imperial Stout, all largely unknown in San Sebastian until recently - but with a deft touch that reflects local preferences. “Our beers are all about balance and dryness, and they’re made to be good with food, too,” says Patricio (below, second from right, front row).
It’s notable, too, that their most popular beer is a 6.8 percent IPA, Imparable, not a session-strength pale ale or lager. That says something about local tastes.
Terroir, to be honest, doesn’t really come into it. English malt (Simpsons), American hops, London Fog Yeast: these are the tools of Basqueland’s trade. There’s no choice. This is not a part of the world where malt is produced in great volume, and hop-growing is nascent to say the least. This year, Patricio says, Basqueland will produce a green-hopped beer made with hops grown by a recently-established local producer.
This blend of the local and the foreign reflects how Patricio has done things since arriving from New York alongside his Basque wife Maite in 2011. At La Madame, Patricio - who is half Filipino - introduced flavours from Asian cooking, the sort of things that are easy to find in the UK or USA but were scarce in the Basque Country. Controversial, perhaps, but he insists that local chefs were never anything but friendly. “This part of the world is very welcoming to outsiders,” he says.
Basqueland’s brewing team, led by former Toöl man Oscar Deuss, spends most of its time on the hop-focused core range, but there’s more experimental stuff, too. 75 barrels are housed at Basqueland, sourced from a supplier in Bordeaux - just around the Bay of Biscay and across the border - used to age a variety of different beers, some of which will be on show at the Kill The Cat event.
And then there’s Basqueland Izakaya, the brewery’s venue in the heart of San Sebastian, serving not only beers from Basqueland but other European breweries alongside a pan-Asian menu that takes in everything from ramen to teriyaki. A short walk across the neighbourhood of Gros from Aloña Berri, which shut in 2010, it has that distinctive Basqueland feel: a blend of Basque and beyond.
The event at 40ft is shaping up to be one of the highlights of We Are Beer Week. The collaboration brew is a dry-hopped Kveik beer, offering, Patricio says, “low-mid bitterness, [and] a nice dry and distinct yeast profile,” and made with a trio of hops: Azacca, Cascade and Huell Melon. Muy Bueno? There’s only one way to find out.
…………………
What is We Are Beer Week?
For four years between 2014 and 2017, London Beer City - the precursor to this newsletter - operated as a beer week, tying together the London Craft Beer Festival and the Great British Beer Festival with a series of events at pubs, breweries and other venues around London. We Are Beer Week runs along similar lines: it’s a project aimed at bringing the excitement of the festival to venues around the capital. Keen to find out more? Peruse the schedule here.
…………………
Star of Sussex
Lewes may be Britain’s most interesting brewing town. This South Downs settlement of just under 18,000 people is home to Harvey’s, one of the greats of the English tradition, Beak, among modern brewing’s most feted names, and Burning Sky, just four miles away, a decent contender for the best modern brewery in the UK.
Then there’s Abyss Brewing. Based in a former maltings, it has its roots deep in Lewes - literally as it turns out, having been born in the cellar of a local pub - The Pelham Arms, run by co-owner Andrew Mellor - and having expanded courtesy of crowdfunding that brought in donations from more than 400 locals. “Lewes is a really exciting place to be,” says Andy Bridge, Mellor’s business partner. “On a Saturday, there’ll be people coming to Harvey’s, then us, then Beak - a really nice migration of beer tourists.”
In that respect, Lewes reflects modern British beer in all its variety. London drinkers who’ve not made it down to Sussex yet will get a chance to try Abyss’s beer during We Are Beer Week, at Clapton Craft in Finsbury Park. A special beer has been brewed for the occasion, and there’ll be more from Abyss too.
What can you expect? Hoppy beers were where Abyss started, but now they made a wide range of styles - gose, stout and pilsner, for example. (They’re also keen on cask ale, with two hand pumps on at their taproom in Lewes.) A good range, a variety, and a fair reflection of their unique hometown.
…………………
Gnome Home
La Chouffe is one of Belgium's most charismatic breweries, what with their gnome logo (check out Mc Chouffe and his kilt) and consistently good beer. Owned by Duvel Moortgat since 2006, La Chouffe will be hosting a party at West End Belgian bar Lowlander, with La Chouffe, Cherry Chouffe, and Chouffe Soleil aon draft, free stuff, Chouffe games and prizes.
…………………
Five Beers to Try at LCBF
Given the sheer number of beers available at this year’s London Craft Beer Festival, choosing what to drink might prove problematic. Fret not! Here’s five to get you started:
I drank a lot of beer on a short trip to Washington DC last year, but the best was made by Port City, a brewery based in Alexandria, just outside the American capital. Led by Bill Butcher, a stickler for doing things right, Port City’s approach is perhaps best exemplified by this superb Belgian-style wheat beer, which abounds with classic orange peel and coriander flavours. One of America's finest witbiers.
This pale ale packs a huge amount of flavour into a 4.3 (CHECK) percent beer. Inspired by a sensory comparison session at this year’s Brewers Conference in the US, Forest Road used some high-end techniques (ask founder Pete Brown about it) to produce a beer that abounds in lime blossom, orange and grapefruit, with a long, clean finish that’s unusual in session pale ales like this. Not surprisingly, this beer already makes up 10 percent of Forest Road sales just a few months into its existence.
Beak - another Lewes brewery - is the name of the moment, if the well-spoken young man in a Beak cap sitting in front of me at Lord’s earlier this summer is anything to go by. If you like thick, juicy IPAs, then they’re up there amongst the best; this 6.5 percent fruity boi is a festival of tangerine and mango, like a smoothie for boozers.
The Kernel Biere de Saison Apricot
Deep within The Kernel’s brewery in Bermondsey, in railway arches which date back to the 1830s, there’s a couple of rooms where beer lingers in barrel and tank, on and off fruit and often in bottle too. These are beers that time to reach their peak, but when they do they can be sublime in a way we expect more from Belgium than Bermondsey. This saison is made with apricots from Essex, imparting bold fruit to balance the dry tartness that characterises the style.
Lost & Grounded Extra Dry Lager
Once upon a time, it would have been verboten to bring a lager made with rice to a craft beer festival, but those days are long gone. Given it’s Lost & Grounded, too, you know this’ll be good: made with Pils malt and 25 percent flaked rice, hopped with Magnum and Tettnang, it’s extra dry and refreshing. If it’s hot at LCBF, you know where to go.
…………………
Pastry Party
When I first heard the phrase ‘Pastry Beer’, I imagined a Croissant floating in a pint of Bitter, which - while a nice example of entente cordiale - is not, it turns out, quite right. The term actually describes a style of beer rendered sweet and unctuous by a mixture of brewing technique and sugary adjuncts - an approach that, you won’t be surprised to hear, is capable of turning traditionalists puce with fury.
Needless to say, these beers emerged in the United States, where a desire to recreate favourite desserts and sweets in boozy form drove a boom in the middle of the last decade. Alex Kidd, the man behind (very funny) beer blog Dontdrinkbeer, claims to have coined the term in 2017, and both it and the associated trend crossed the Atlantic in earnest soon afterwards.
It has led to some truly extraordinary beers, made with ingredients including (but not limited to) breakfast cereal, Skittles, doughnuts and more marshmallows than I care to imagine. The beers, as you might expect, tend towards the sweet, although there are plenty with a touch of tartness to keep things the right side of cloying. The production and enjoyment of these beers has become a lively, playful subculture within modern beer, populated by those who refuse to countenance the idea that beer should be limited to four ingredients.
Two of Europe’s foremost pastry purveyors, Unbarred of Brighton and Norwegian outfit Amundsen, have collaborated on a special beer for We Are Beer week. It’s called Cherry Garsour, and it’s a cherry, chocolate and fudge ice cream sour, to be unveiled at Mother Kelly’s in Bethnal Green on Thursday 10th, the day before LCBF. For pastry past masters, it’s a can’t miss; for pastry apprentices, a chance to learn. There’ll be other beers by both breweries on (draught and can), plus prizes to be won, from 5pm until closing
…………………
Orange-y Boom
Is it a coincidence that the London Overground’s most important line, which runs between Highbury and Croydon, opened in the year that craft beer began to take off in London? I don’t think so. There are plenty of other factors involved here (cough gentrification cough), it’s true, but there is a fairly strong correlation between the two.
The ribbon was cut on the extended offspring of the former East London line in April 2010; breweries and beer-inclined pubs quickly began to spring up along its route soon after. Some of the key pioneers have gone now - like the late lamented Mason and Taylor, the bar that Ed Mason co-ran before he co-founded Five Points, or Beavertown’s first base as Duke’s in De Beauvoir - but there’s still plenty of beer interest along this orange stretch.
Plenty of these, you’ll not be surprised to hear, will be hosting events during We Are Beer week. The bars and breweries of Bermondsey are a hop, skip and jump from Rotherhithe Station; Texan beers will be flowing at Anspach & Hobday’s Arch House, while - a few hundred metres away - Turning Point will be hosting a tap takeover at Craft Beer Junction. The venue for LCBF itself is close to both Wapping and Shadwell, while Gipsy Hill will be taking over the taps at the Wapping Tavern.
A few stops north, at Shoreditch High Street, you’re within strolling distance of both the King’s Arms in Buckfast Street (home to a four-day celebration of hoppy beers from Raise The Bar winners) and Kill The Cat in Brick Lane, which will host Basqueland’s Barrelworks tasting. Their other event, at 40ft’s base ‘The Bootyard’, is almost on top of Dalston Station, while Hackney Church Brew Co are offering £3.50 core-range pints all night just down the road the night before LCBF.
…………………
London Beer City is written by journalist Will Hawkes. If you’ve got a story or an observation, contact me on londonbeercity@gmail.com. If you like what you’ve read, please share it with your friends; if you’ve been forwarded this email and enjoyed it, you can sign up here. Unsubscribe here. Thanks for reading.