Craft Beers

My favourite under-age tipple

American Craft Beer Classification Chart in Durango

Durango Brewery, Colorado

One of the most welcome developments in recent years has been the emergence of microbreweries in most parts of the UK and, as I discovered last month, with equal vigour in the States. They provide a staggering array of alternative ales to the big brewers. The same big brewers who had decimated the local breweries in the 70's and 80's. The big four: Scottish and Newcastle, Ind Coupe, Watneys and Allied had replaced local beers with homogenised corporate products that were heavily marketed and lacked any distinctiveness. They duped a generation to drink lager and keg beers with brand names that bore no relationship to place or reason. They then tied pub landlords into selling their beers and drove many independent pubs into bankruptcy.

The only opposition came from CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) but in the 1970s it was mainly a protest organisation campaigning against the takeover, and inevitable closure, of town breweries. My favourite beers as an 18-year-old were Dutton's (Blackburn) and Mansfield Bitter both of which disappeared at the hands of the big four. CAMRA also promoted the ever-decreasing number of pubs that sold real ale. Microbreweries were perceived as uneconomical businesses for cranks and obsessives.

My beer drinking diminished from the 1970s as drink and drive legislation, family life, and a desire to keep fit for competitive running all conspired with the tasteless offerings from the big brewers to restrict my beer drinking to the occasional social event. I would occasionally discover a remaining brewery when on holiday. Hartleys of Ulverston before it was taken over, Jennings of Cockermouth, Timothy Taylor's in Yorkshire and Thwaites in Lancashire all made a trip to the pub worthwhile and some of these beers travelled to real ale pubs in the cities.

How very different things are today and not just in Britain. The recent holiday in the States was notable for the universal availability of craft beers, most communities were served by several microbreweries. What was really helpful in the States was the referencing systems for beers that measured the colour, bitterness and specific gravity of beers.

• The Standard Reference Method (SRM)is a system breweries use to measure the colour intensity, or darkness, of a beer. 
• The International Bittering Units Scale, (IBU) rates the relative bitterness of beer. The bitterness of beer is provided by compounds from hops used during brewing. 
• Alcohol by volume (abv) measures the specific gravity and is the same as in the UK 

Accordingly, the American beer drinker has a set of measures that allows the drinker to choose beer by some known parameters. It worked well and over three weeks I found myself selecting beers not just according to the locality, the nearer the better, but also to some standards that matched my preferences. The blackboard in the Durango Brewery enabled me to select a Third Eye Pale Ale and it was the perfect choice.

A couple of weeks later a friend invited me to the Ayrshire Beer Festival and along with 3000 others, including quite a high proportion of males and females in their twenties, we sampled some of the 150 real ales on sale from all parts of Scotland and England. The event is run by CAMRA volunteers and held in the Council offices in Troon. The beer was gushing from 11:00am until 11:00pm over three days. I managed 4 sessions and sampled about 10 beers. Each day you could vote for your favourite beer. Highland Brewing's Scapa Special and Mobberley Ales RoadRunner were my choices and I have already been thanked and invited to drop in at the breweries when next in the areas. Localism is reviving beer drinking, once again conjuring up the reality that small is beautiful.

Beer

I have just returned from a 600 mile road trip over the past four days visiting old haunts in the Borders, Yorkshire Dales, Lancashire and Cumbria and new places in north Yorkshire. The common thread throughout the trip was beer and pub food. The emergence of micro breweries in recent years is a timely reminder that rampant capitalism reduces choice, destroys local jobs and diminishes the rich diversity of local produce that should be the measure of local well being. I sampled old favourites like Thwaites, Timothy Taylor's and bought the first pint of Wainstone's Amber which was brewed in North Yorkshire and released that very day. A beer with no harsh harmonics which prompted a second visit to the bar. And it will be the beer for my daughter's wedding in September.


I began to think about all the good local beers that have disappeared over the years but particularly in the 1970's and 1980's when Watneys, Allied Breweries and Scottish & Newcastle carried out a beer cleansing programme and bestowed us with keg beers and increased flatulence. I made a mental list of my favourite beers over the years. A lot of it has gone and the new microbreweries, whilst welcome, find it easier to source their ingredients nationally rather using local produce. 

So in no particular order what has whet my palate the most over the years and would I pick in my first eleven beers to drink with the pub food that was surprisingly fresh, local and good last weekend.

Dutton's Bitter, Blackburn, closed
Hartley's Bitter, Ulverston, closed
Mansfield Bitter, Mansfield, closed
Timothy Taylor's Landlord, Keighley, family run and still going strong
Bellhaven Best, East Lothian, now owned by Greene King but still a good pint
Tetley's Bitter, Leeds. (weaned on this as a teenager at my local)
Tolly Cobbold, Ipswich, closed but nectar in the summer of '68
John Smiths, Tadcaster, more widely available nationwide
Thwaites Smooth, Blackburn still thriving
Theakston's Bitter, Masham, drove past the brewery at the weekend
Greenmantle, Broughton Ale, a sentimental choice as they support hill running