New Career, in Beer

Christmas at Fuller’s. Says it all

So, 2016 is now a memory and it has been twelve months since I started my New Career, in Beer. I’m glad to see the back of 2016 to be honest. An amazingly disappointing year politically and far too many heroes of mine from the Arts have left us. Here’s to a happy, healthy and optimistic 2017. Christmas was extremely busy at the brewery but also fun and rewarding. My weekly tastings culminated in tastings of our special edition beers – 170th Anniversary Ale, Brewer’s Reserve, Past Masters, Vintage Ale and Imperial Russian Stout. Great stuff! We then enjoyed stouts from around the world and finally a tasting of Kerstbiers brought over from Belgium that was held over two weeks.

Santa pays a visit to Fuller’s

Belgian Kerstbier tasting

December got off to a bang with a sneaky trip across the Channel to Bruges, via Noel Cuvelier’s fabulous beer shop in Abele, West Flanders. Wifey and I caught up with all our Belgian friends, including ex-pat Ian and Patricia at Cafe ‘t Terastje, Bruno at the Vlissinge, Tom at Volkscafe St-Jakobs and finally Daisy at ‘t Brugs Beertje. We also managed to squeeze in some Christmas shopping for stocking fillers, chocolate and beer of course. Its a truly magical place year round but if you get the chance to visit around Christmas I urge you to go. It is simply beautiful and the beer bars stock up on Christmas ales – ones that do the season justice that are extravagantly flavoured and very high in ABV. Yum.

Beautiful Bruges

Local Beer Nut Luke McGlynn held his second bottle share too. The usual suspects, Lexie, Lotte and Mat arrived along with some newbies. It is truly a great evening, one that I look forward to immensely, superbly marshalled by Luke. January promises to be a big turnout which means even more beer to be consumed. Not one for the faint hearted! Big thanks to Chris at the Mitre for putting up with us, what a gent!

December bottle share

Thank You Fuller’s was held on the Friday before Christmas. A whirlwind of a day due in part to the brewery closing early at 12.30pm when the free tab at the Mawson started. The pub was rammed and it was great to catch up with everyone over a couple (well, more than a couple) of pints of Fuller’s beer. Jill and her team at the Mawson’s were run off their feet so hats off to them too. The previous Friday saw our Quality Team hold their Christmas get together. After some food we headed off for a tour of local Fuller’s pubs before ending up at the Distillers in Hammersmith for some Dad dancing. Needless to say it was a late night and not the ideal preparation to drive down to Cardiff the following morning for some Welsh Christmas spirit. And to reacquaint myself with new Welsh craft beers – Tenby Harbour being very impressive – and dear old Brains. Great night in the Old Arcade, one of the world’s best pubs. The evening was topped off by the might Super Furry Animals playing on their home backyard. Tidy!

Halvarieberg, Bruges

I also interviewed for the position of Trade Quality Advisor at Fuller’s and was delighted to receive the news that I was successful on our last day at work before Christmas – a fabulous early Christmas present. From the New Year I will be supporting our teams in the trade with improving the quality of their beers and cellars, carrying out audits and delivering training. I can’t wait as this is the role I wanted when I first decided to move into the beer world over two years ago. I am also helping out on Saturdays with hosting brewery tours. I love meeting tour groups, people from all around the world brought together through their love of beer. To prepare myself for my new role I also took up the opportunity to spend a couple of days in the Brewhouse making beer. I spent a day with Stewart when we brewed 1,040 hectolitres of London Pride – over 192,000 pints! We also brewed HSB and Seafarers.

Adding Caragold malt into the hopper

The following day I helped Henry prepare the malts and hops for the following weeks brew of Frontier and Honey Dew. This included physically adding 48 twenty five kg sacks of Caragold malt into the hopper – I can confirm that this activity will result in a stiff neck. We then weighed out all the hops that would be needed by Stewart for the brews – bittering hops, aromatics and dry hops for the Frontier. A very early start but a thoroughly rewarding couple of days and invaluable experience.

Weighing the hops

Having a bit of time on my hands I took the opportunity to take a group of Goose Island guys around the brewery for a private tour. I think I enjoyed the day as much as Josh, Jonny and Fred did. We ended up in the Hock Cellar for an extended spot of tasting – no half measures! A lovely day with some truly great beer guys and I look forward to catching up with them again at the official launch of their new pub, the Vintage Ale House in Balham next week. I also took the opportunity to renew my relationship with a number of Hampstead hostelries with Jazz keeping me company. The Spaniards Inn, Holly Bush and Flask all received a visit and each pub was fantastic, especially the Holly Bush which is now part of the Fuller’s estate.

Jazz keeping an eye on the kitchen at the Spaniards Inn

Finally we received some shocking news. Daisy at ‘t Brugs Beertje had sold up! Everyone assumed that we knew but the news arrived as a huge surprise. Her official last day running the pub was the day before New Year’s Eve. So we had no choice other than to drive over to Bruges again, catch up with old friends – again! – and spend time at Daisy’s wonderful pub. We were also lucky enough to grab a table at Cafe In ‘t Nieuw Museum – probably the best steaks I have ever tasted. We were delighted to be able to toast Daisy’s retirement and are already looking forward to buying her a beer as a punter when we return in April.

PD and Daisy

So, that’s a wrap – my first year in my New Career, in Beer. Cheers!

Christmas Day beer

 

 

 

New Career – in Beer

Fuller’s Brewery tours always start at the Mawson Arms. They sometimes end there as well, when thirsty tourers want to take in more of that favourite beer enjoyed at the tasting in the Hock Cellar, which always comes at the end of their tour. Tours usually begin at 11am, sometimes earlier depending upon demand. They leave every hour until the last one at 3pm, except on special occasions when a late tour has been booked for a large party. Numbers are usually restricted to 15 max, to help easily navigate the tour group through the 170 year old brewery and allow for everyone to get the chance to view the various items of heritage breweriana located around the tour route. Its quite common to have 2 or 3 tours leaving at 5 minute intervals on the hour – again, depending on demand. Tourers may stop by in advance of their tour for some breakfast or a spot of lunch depending upon their departure time. Alternatively, many come back to the pub for a later lunch with a couple of well deserved beers following one and a half hours of tramping around the brewery. A more in depth description of the tour can be found here:

https://pauldav1963.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/fullers-brewery-tour-so-good-we-did-it-twice/

Thirsty tourers at Fuller’s Hock Cellar

Many of our tourers are either on holiday or business – or a combination of both. A great number of our tourers are either representatives or owners of breweries. We receive many Americans and Europeans hailing from Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, etc. Visitors from South America – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay to name a few and the far East are also heavily represented and that probably makes the Mawson one of the most cosmopolitan pub in London. You never know who you are going to bump into and the other Friday we had a one day conference on ‘Recreating old beers styles’ by the British Guild of Beer Writers and the Brewery History Society. It was held at the Hock Cellar and culminated in all of the tour guides taking groups from the conference on a trip around the brewery. After a lengthy tasting the attendees ended up at the Mawson for further research into Fuller’s wonderful beer and I was able to meet and chat to beer writers Tim Webb, author of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium and Tom Stainer, editor of What’s Brewing’s quarterly magazine, aptly named Beer.

Thank you Fuller’s, March

The conference also coincided with our monthly Fuller’s Friday, this time held on a Thursday due to the bank holiday! Thirsty attendees jostled for position at the bar with the Fuller’s team enjoying the monthly thank you to employees for a job well done.

The following week saw the Spring edition of the London Brewers Market at Spitalfields. I went along to support Fuller’s who had a stall there and were promoting Frontier, Montana Red, IPA and Wild River. The great and the good were also in on show: Orbit, Anspach and Hobday, Four Pure, Gipsy Hill, Trumans, Southwark, etc. The good weather diverted me from the Sambrook’s brewery tap launch to hook up with wifey at our local Fuller’s pub and enjoy some much needed sunshine on the outside terrace.

London Brewers Market

Three Sods Brewery, London Brewers Market

Back to the Fuller’s tour, we recently we had owner Jamil Zainasheff and Beer Ambassador Travis Combe from Heretic Brewing Company, based in Fairfield, California come in for breakfast before hooking up with their tour. Jamil and Travis were over to spend some time in London and to meet up with other craft brewers as they have some interesting brewery collaborations in the can, no pun intended. I had a great time chatting with them about beer, the scene on the West coast of the US and the beer world in general. Jamil generously gave me a couple of his beers to sample and they were tasted and reviewed last weekend. It always amazes me how friendly and helpful beer people are. I may just be very lucky but everyone that I have met over the past 3 months has been warm, engaged and interested in what I am trying to do with my career.

Bruges Groenerei canal 

Speaking of tours, beer chum Fiona Sadek and I headed off to Bruges the week after Easter for a day touring the beer bars of this great city. We were blessed with wonderful spring weather and the Eurostar brought us to town by lunchtime. Visits included the tap house Brugsch Bieratelier, oldest pub Cafe Vlissinghe, most romantic pub De Garre and world’s best pub ‘t Brugs Beertje. A truly wonderful day.

De Garre

Last week, our leader Jill came back from a well deserved break in Thailand so its back to normal. Next week sees my first visit to the Beer O’Clock Show and I will update you on that next time. Cheers!