Counterfeit Oregon Plates (Or….There & Back Again….)
Greetings fellow beer lovers! With less than two weeks to go to #ISBF7 - and having been a bit quiet - I thought it was time to break AN EXCLUSIVE BEER!
Yup indeedy!
For this one, I’ll hand over to one of my early beer heroes and blog inspiration Tim Rowe (@polymathtim on that Twitter) and Chris Dixon one of the pillars of ISBF, both Birmingham Beer Pioneers via their efforts with one of the great early Craft events - Birmingham Beer Bash (If you went, you know)
HUGE thanks to The Nicest Man In Beer (The Divine Mr Andy Parker) and Team Elusive for letting them loose on the Grainfather!
Did I say that this beer was EXCLUSIVE TO ISBF????
Take it away Tim!
It has been quite some time since I last wrote (blogged?) anything meaningful about beer, so here we are…
This year will mark my first time at Independent Salford Beer Festival, after many aborted attempts to get there in previous years. So it is very much an honour to not only be asked to participate in the creation of a beer for the festival, but also to be working with Andy Parker of Elusive Brewing to create something a little different. That is how me and Chris (@ckdsaddlers) found ourselves aboard a rammed, boiling hot train carriage trundling our way down in the general direction of Finchampstead (by way of Reading) last Friday afternoon.
We could just have travelled on Saturday and headed off again, but where would be the sense of fun in that? Any opportunity to explore the beer scene of a particular city should be grasped with both hands, so we did just that. Reading has definitely changed certainly since I was last there (early 2000s for a music festival or something), and most definitely for the better. First stop a quick Friday evening livener in The Greyfriar adjacent to the station before onwards to the hotel and ultimately the Double Barrelled taproom. Wow what a space, buzzing with custom and a packed tap-list full of beery delights (and what immaculate toilets too!). It would have been rude not to indulge in one or two, so we did!
Double Barrelled. Phwoar! What a line-up!
Double Barrelled ticked off, there was one other Reading destination on the evening’s plan of action, and that place is none other than The Nags Head!!! Talk about a revelation, yeah this place delivers on that and then some. Twelve hand pulls dominate the bar space with a range of beer that has to be seen to be believed. Siren, Mallinsons, Elusive, Five Towns Brewing all sit within elbow distance of each other, but then you realise they are not alone because another 14 keg lines are equally packed with goodies just to the side of the bar. There was perhaps only one way to end such an action filled day and that honour most definitely went to Absolute Carnage from Five Towns because why not?!?
Absolute Carnage!
Saturday morning calling and powered by a hearty breakfast of dosa (from the aptly named Crispy Dosa opposite the hotel) we were off at a pace towards the Elusive taproom and brewery.
Elusive Brewing, of course, need no introduction, having become an ISBF institution since their arrival in year 3, as well as winning the coveted “Beer of the Festival” crown on one occasion. Andy as ever living up to his moniker of the nicest man in brewing™ was all ready to go, with the pilot brew set up sitting front and centre of the brewery to ensure absolute exclusivity for the beer yet to be created. Having figured out exactly how to operate the pilot brew-kit; grain was weighed out and mash-in began…
So. What were we brewing?
Ideas had been thrown around, beginning with a beer built using white chocolate magnums as an inspiration point, through to the oft silly throwaway Mercer’s Meat Stout and beyond (Silly? Ed….). Using cold brew coffee however was the point at which a recipe began to form. Of course we couldn’t go to the home of the campaign to reinvigorate Black IPA (#BIPACOMEBACK) and not brew one could we? Of course we could, so we went with the polar opposite of the BIPA and decided on brewing a White IPA (inspired in no small part by Chainbreaker from Deschutes Brewing, OR). A wheat forward spiced hybrid of IPA and Wit Bier was the perfect beer upon which to build something quite interesting! Additions of coriander, orange peel and a generous amount of Citra & Centennial in the hop schedule looked after the basics…
Hops and shiz...
Staying with the coffee theme, a decision was made to look at potentially using coffee beans in cold side to amp up the flavour. It’s from these additions that the finished product also happened to take its name; because as it turns out, not only is cascara (coffee cherries) a pain in the arse to source, it also has a dubious legal status in respect of its use in commercial food and beverage production.
*Edit: Turns out the addition of coffee in the cold side turned the look of the beer into something the Tories would let run abated into the seas around our coast, so we ultimately decided against it.
All put to bed and ready to chomp
All “on the day” additions and the boil complete, the beer was then tucked away in its own cosy little SS fermentation tank. A Belgian Abbey yeast was pitched to start getting to grips with the very orangey wort produced. Time then to take in a couple of drinks in the taproom next door for a post brew day “debrief”. (By “debrief”, he means playing on the mini-Sega!)
Statler & Waldorf (aka Chris & Tim) Looking happy with their efforts…
A quick hop by bus to Reading later and we found ourselves outside The Alehouse. With its eccentric clientele, rabbit warren like lay out and veritable pump-clip mausoleum (notably a very old Moor Brewing Co and Kitchen Brewery stood out but no doubt there were many others to take in too), it was definitely just the place to round off the day. Well-kept beers from Wantsum and Grain breweries amongst others, ending on a Boon Mariage Parfait. The night becomes a slight blur after this, but what blur it was… Including a just pre-midnight visit to the Palmyra Lebanese restaurant, with amazing falafel, and an exceptional pickled beetroot side. We had seconds of the beetroot!
Fortunately, after all that excess, we had a little lie-in on Sunday morning. Nothing to do with the hotel bar “large doubles” pre-bed… As it was an afternoon getaway, a wander around Reading town centre to clear the head was very much in order. This included a “not at all intended” cross-river detour to the Fox & Hounds in Caversham, for a pre-train livener. Cask Five Points and Neptune served in a proper handled mug was a perfect precursor to the thankfully cooler train journey back to the Midlands.
So, all that’s left to say is a massive thanks to Chris for getting me involved, to Andy and Jane for being fantastic hosts, and to Jim for being trusting enough that this wouldn’t turn into a Potato & Lactose IPA. You’ll be able to grab Dubious Legal Status from the Keg Bar come ISBF and we guarantee you’ll quite like it!
Tim (@PolymathTim)
Cheers Tim!
Still a few tickets left. Click here to make yourself a sound beery decision!