Our First Beer Festival

Several of the pubs in Berkhamsted host great beer festivals – The Rising Sun, The Crown and The George & Dragon – but our festival last Saturday was the first beer festival in a brewery in Berkhamsted for at least one hundred years and possibly ever.

Our theme was a Celebration of the Chilterns and, in addition to four of our own beers, we offered ales from eight other local breweries. Beer selection for beer festivals seems to be one of the dark arts. Should they be unusual and niche or known favourites? We enlisted Dave Culliton from Aston Clinton Beer Festival to offer advice, select the ales and, with his able team, manage the bar.

 

Easter means Hares not Bunnies

Easter is almost upon us and the shops are filling with chocolate eggs and bunnies. But if you really want to be Easter-authentic then I propose you celebrate Easter by toasting your beloved with a pint of Haresfoot ale rather than a chocolate bunny.

Easter is thought to be German or possibly even Babylonian in origin. Most believe that Easter gets its name from the old English Ēastre or Ēostre, the Teutonic cum Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring (see picture), for whom a festival was held in her honour every year at the vernal equinox. But some believe that Easter is derived from Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of spring, and a homophone of Easter.

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please

The tangential title of my blog is the 1980 hit single of Splodgenessabounds – a "song” which tracks the frustrations of a man not being served at his local bar. But I digress, the point is that lager and crisps, that most rudimentary of pub orders and the default beer and food combo, is a very distant relative of the current trend offered by sommeliers of beer and food pairing.

The push for beer and food matching has been around for several years now. Famously, the sommelier at Le Gavroche, Michel Roux Jr's two-starred Michelin restaurant, advises on the beer choice per course. Last year, Britain's Beer Alliance launched their “There's a Beer for That” campaign, which allows you to request beer matches for food on their twitter feed (just tweet @BeerForThat with #beermatch).  

Let the Judging Commence

Having done the Advance Course at the Beer Academy, I thought I would give Judging Beer a crack. Obviously I am no expert, having just started, but more of a keen amateur. However, I thought it is worth jotting down what I have learned because it all starts with how to taste and appreciate beer – a useful skill to have even if you don’t get to officially judge beers.

There are lots of websites out there which tell you how to taste and judge beer. I suppose this blog forms my bluffers guide. Not surprisingly judging beer comes down to: Sight, Smell and Taste.

A Mid-life Journey

A few weekends ago I paddled down the Grand Union canal in a Canadian canoe garbed in a Native American headdress and war paint. This wasn’t on my agenda, it wasn’t something I expected to be doing in my middle-age but, then again, I hadn’t anticipated investing in a microbrewery.

The trip down the canal was to launch our new Totem AmericaPale Ale. We named the beer after Berkhamsted’s very own totem pole. This genuine totem pole, made by the Kwakiutl tribe from red cedar, can be found adjacent to the Grand Union Canal. We paddled to the totem pole and pulled up alongside to take a few photos; we didn’t have the courage to land or dance around the totem pole and we suspect it would have upset the elderly residents of Alsford Wharf (who now own the totem pole). 

The Mysterious Powers of the Totem

Another blog from George (in a drunken haze) ...

I don’t like Totem! … or do I? As a co-founder and marketeer from Haresfoot brewery it's a dangerous thing to say perhaps?

I’ve always been on the sweeter side… from a beer perspective. When we launched Totem , a 4.5% ABV American IPA secretly I was highly cynical. I like dark beers, I like a dominant malty taste and don’t most other people?  Isn’t this a Marmite beer – you love it or hate it and how many people are going to love it? It’s too niche I thought!  However a strange thing happened to me. It started on Saturday. I was in the Boxing Hares bar running the shop. No fewer than 10 customers came in and asked for Totem – a significant allegiance given the beer has just been launched. I tried a sip from our stock back in the cold room- maybe I’m wrong?  Way too hoppy, almost sour to my taste buds… who in their right mind would like that?

Eight Go Brewing

Guest blog by co-investor George also appeared in the Aldbury Outlook.

April 12^th 2014; a cold spring evening and a landmark day –Lock Keeper’s Launch Ale flowed from the pumps in the Valiant Trooper. It is hard to put into words the pleasure of drinking your own beer in your local pub.

Haresfoot Brewery was the idea of eight friends and local business men: Simon, Philip, Nigel, Nick, Martin, Keith and, from Aldbury, Scott Carter and me. You might call it our mid-life crisis. Rather than buying fast cars, taking up triathlons or donning lycra, we built a brewery. It’s been an incredible adventure. When you set up your own business you have to be prepared to do whatever is needed: leafleting in town, working in our shop, manning the bar for a party or jumping into the car to deliver a new firkin to a pub that’s run out on a Friday afternoon – oh and of course actually making the beer. I’ve learned about the science and art of brewing drawing on my background as a chemist and discovered that there are more varieties of hops than you’d every think possible.