GOTCHA! Hope you didn’t fall too hard for our April Fool (we’ve kept it below in case you missed it)!
But we do have real new beer news and our little joke wasn’t too far from the truth. We have indeed always wanted to make an oyster stout and, as a brewery committed to only producing vegan beers, that’s been a no-no. So we’ve worked around it and made a stout using oyster mushrooms!
Our oyster mushroom stout really is in tank right now and it will be available for drinking in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for news. The word on the streets of Walthamstow’s most glamorous industrial estate is that it’s tasting amazing!
The original post…
At Beerblefish we’re really proud of our commitment to keep our beers vegan, always. We’ve written much before about how we achieve this, and it means that some styles of beer are off-limits to us, or very difficult to make – no milkshake IPAs or honey beers for us!
However, we’ve always wanted to make an oyster stout and now, finally, we’ve found a way to do it – by using entirely vegan oysters grown specifically for the purpose right here in the Lea Valley. These oysters have never touched an animal product; no bacon butties for breakfast, no milk in their tea.
After a tense and meticulous growing program, our brewer, Michaela, put on her waders and carefully harvested enough to put in one small brew. She likes to call the oyster beds her “water allotment” – an extension of the land-based allotment she lovingly tends throughout the year.
One of the benefits of using vegan oysters is that they are less likely to produce pearls, meaning there’s less chance of breaking your tooth on one if it slips into your pint. Our oyster stout is in the tank now and should be ready to drink in the next couple of weeks – keep an eye on our social media for a launch date!
Our very own Beerblefish gruit, Viking Ale, has been pouring from cask all week in the taproom. It is a beautifully balanced herb beer. Not all of the ingredients are widely used in modern food and drink, so I thought it would be useful to discuss them in a blog post and see if we can pick out the flavours contributed to the ale by each different botanical.
Gruit is a term used to describe a blend of botanicals that flavours a beer, and the name of the style of beer that uses the blend. Before hops became the norm in beer production in the 14th and 15th century, all sorts of different herbs were used for the same reasons we use hops today; flavouring, bittering, and some even had antiseptic qualities to aid in preserving the beer.
Why drink one in the 21st Century? The style produces complex and interesting beers that adventurous drinkers love to explore, and brewers find really fun to make! The floral and herbal notes found in gruit ales are not found in your average hop-forward modern beer and drinking them gives a sense of connection to history.
Juniper – Familiar to fans of gin, juniper brings a resinous bitterness to the ale that balances the sweet malt character perfectly.
Heather –A bit more mellow than some of the other ingredients, the heather really rounds out the flavour and softens any sharp edges brought by juniper or myrtle. Contributes a woody aroma and a floral taste.
Myrtle – Sweet and resinous, Myrtle brings an aromatic pine-like note to the experience. A particularly important ingredient in many gruit ales as, like hops, it has a preservative effect and can help extend the shelf life of beer.
Yarrow – Bringing a sweet, perfume-like note, yarrow is subtle butgives the beer a really bright floral twist.
Kveik – In addition to the botanicals, we also couldn’t resist fermenting the beer with farmhouse yeast. Traditionally collected after each brew and passed down through generations of farmhouse brewers in Norway, Kveik (from the Old Norse word ‘kvikk’, meaning quick or lively) is now available commercially and we think it adds a touch of authenticity to our Viking Ale.
For quite some time, we’ve thought it likely that our Cashmere Brut IPA would be gluten free, but as with all things that could be harmful to anyone, we had to make sure. Along with many of our other beers, Cashmere is treated with Brewer’s Clarity, which contains a highly specific fungal endopeptidase enzyme to help remove haze from beer. One of the things that is cleared out by the enzyme is gluten – reducing the residual gluten in the beer is effectively a side effect of reducing the haze and trying to make our beer clearer.
As all our beer is vegan, we don’t use isinglass finings in our beers, meaning we have to find other ways to make them clear. We use Brewer’s Clarity as part of that process meaning that a beer being both gluten free and vegan is no coincidence.
We recently sent off a sample of our bottled Cashmere Brut IPA to Murphy & Son for testing and today we received the results: the beer has less than 10 parts per million gluten, meaning it’s well within the 20 ppm legal limit to call it gluten free.
We’re always looking for ways to make our beers more accessible. Making them all vegan was an easy first step, but we’ve been dragging our heels on taking on the gluten free world because we’ve had so much else going on – but now we’re proud to say that our Cashmere Brut IPA is gluten free and we’re thrilled that this means that even more people will be able to enjoy it!
Right now, Mumme is in fact the word. No, not the sparkling grape-derived drink with a similar brand name, but rather our new-but-old-but-new historically-inspired ale that hailed originally from Germany.
As you’ll know by now, we love a heritage beer at Beerblefish – our range based on nineteenth century recipes has been around for a few years and we’ve just decided to make our Viking Ale a permanent fixture (with a shiny new label – more to come on that) – and the latest style to take our fancy is from the German city of Braunschweig (or Brunswick in English). This style was called Mumme in Braunschweig, but was often written Mum in England.
In common with many more recent brews, there were two types of Mumme brewed – one was made for the home market and was low in alcohol, while the other was exported – known as Schiffsmumme because it was for shipping.
The people of Braunschweig had started brewing Mumme by the time it was first recorded in the late fifteenth century and it remained popular until the late eighteenth century, at which time its popularity started to wane – helped along in Britain by a high import duty no doubt designed to protect the British brewing industry. An ale called Mum continued to be brewed in Ireland (then part of the UK) but other beers took over and the style was consigned to the beer history books.
Braunschweiger Mumme’s demise predates the national adoption of the German beer purity law, but it is thought that this kind of ale brewed in northern Germany was part of the reason that Bavaria, in the south, introduced the law in the early sixteenth century, in order to protect Bavaria’s own beers from competition – Mumme used ingredients that fell outside the beer purity law, including herbs, spices and stone fruits (usually plums or prunes).
Our Mumme includes prunes, cardamom, cinnamon, camomile and orange peel, which are made into a kind of tea before being added to the wort. It took Michaela and Glenn a few tries to get the combinations and proportions right and they found it was better to brew a tea with each ingredient and then combine them, rather than starting with a mixture of ingredients.
The malt bill for our Mumme includes three types of malted barley (extra pale, crystal 150 and Munich malt) along with dark malted wheat. The only hop is Hallertauer Mittelfruh, which is used for bittering, while the spiced tea does all the work for the flavour and aroma.
The result is a dark, slightly smoky ale with a spicy and fruity edge to it and a silky mouthfeel. At 6.9% ABV, it’s quite robust, but still very drinkable and very different from anything we’ve brewed before.
You’ll find it now in our online shop and it will be available from our stockists very soon. Tried it? Let us know what you think!
In September, we reached a milestone in our story – our 100th brew. We wanted to brew something really special, so we decided to mark the occasion by inviting our friends at Pope’s Yard Brewery (Hertfordshire) over for the return leg of our collaboration.
The result of that brew is a beautiful Flanders Winter Ale that we’ve called “Tezamen”, which means “Together” in Flemish Dutch and symbolises both the collaboration itself and the togetherness that we’re all striving to create in these uncertain times.
In designing the label, we’ve taken inspiration from the art nouveau heritage of Belgian architecture and typography, with the background hinting at socially distanced people all linked together despite how far apart they are.
The beer itself, at 6% ABV, is a dark reddish-brown ale with a full body and the hint of residual sweetness that’s typical of a Belgian beer.
Whether you’re able to socialise (safely) in person this winter or you’re partying by video call, we hope you’re able to enjoy this beer as intended: Tezamen – together.
Tezamen is available now in our online shop and from the brewery bottle shop – see below for our Christmas opening times.
We’ve got a new beer in our range and it’s just perfect for this time of year! Our Gingerbeerble spiced beer has three different preparations of ginger in it, along with a blend of other spices, and is just the drink for cosying up by the fire on a cold, dark night.
Now, what if we said you could get even cosier? Right from the start of developing Gingerbeerble, we thought it would be great for mulling. Yes, mulled beer. In the UK, it’s not that popular these days (although it is undergoing a little bit of a renaissance as we brewers look for ever more interesting things to do with beer), but it was very popular at least as far back as the 17th century and is still popular in some other European countries to this day – that’s particularly true in Belgium, where Kriek is turned into Glühkriek (the beer equivalent of Glühwein), as well as in Germany and Poland.
At one time, drinking warm beer, or “flip” as it was known in the UK and the USA, was so popular that various different tools and vessels were made to help in its quick preparation, including flip irons, which were put directly into the beer to warm it and it had a reputation in the UK for being a drink of the lower classes or ne’er-do-wells.
These days, we think everyone should at least try flip. In mulling our Gingerbeerble, we’re going to be making use of modern technology, relatively speaking, and we’ll be leaving our flip irons in the museum. There are lots of different things you could put in flip, and the proportions are certainly not set in stone – if you like it sweeter, put more sugar in; if you don’t like brandy, try rum or bourbon instead.
Ingredients:
2 x 500ml bottles of Beerblefish Gingerbeerble spiced beer
5 tbsp dark brown sugar (or more or less to taste)
1 cinnamon stick (or ½ tsp ground cinnamon)
½ tsp ground nutmeg
4 tbsp orange juice
90ml brandy (or another dark spirit if you prefer – rum works well, so does bourbon) (optional)
Orange slices to garnish
Method:
Heat the Gingerbeerble in a 1.5 to 2 litre saucepan on the hob.
Stir in the sugar and add the cinnamon stick, nutmeg and orange peel.
Bring the mixture to a simmer for 2-3 minutes (do not boil it!) and stir the mixture to help the sugar dissolve.
Remove the mixture from the heat and add the brandy if you want to.
Serve in mugs with an orange slice, a mince pie on the side and cosy slippers on your feet!
You can keep the pan simmering on the hob for as long as you need before serving (but keep an eye on it, of course!) – remember that the alcohol will decrease and the spice intensity will increase the longer you leave it.
If you try this recipe, please show us what you made using #beerblefish – we love seeing how you get on!
Before setting up Lamorbey Wine, Bob was a number cruncher, sitting at a desk working on spreadsheets in the City. He knew that redundancy was coming up so he started thinking about what he might do next.
“I enjoyed wine and realised that there was a gap in the market in Sidcup. By the time I took redundancy, I was ready to take a risk, so I set up Lamorbey Wine from scratch.”
Spotlight on… rolling up the sleeves
Bob told Glenn that the challenges he faced in setting up included finding the right location, fitting out the shop and sourcing appropriate stock. “Whilst my city role would’ve seen me assign areas outside of my expertise to others, I had to handle all of this myself.”
Spotlight on… tapping into heritage
The name “Lamorbey” refers to the name of the local village which was swallowed up by Sidcup and the area even featured a hop farm (until about 100 years ago) so you’ll find “wild” hops growing in the area, just like we have near the brewery.
Spotlight on… beer in a wine shop!
Bob’s favourite beer style is a good old fashioned bitter, although he also enjoys Belgian ales too (especially Saison Dupont). “Speaking of bitters, I have stocked Beerblefish’s take on this style, Edmonton Best Bitter.” Bob has also stocked Lady Mildmay, Hoppy Pale Ale No.6, 1820 Porter, 1853 ESB, 1892 IPA and Cashmere Brut IPA. “Cashmere Brut IPA in particular has been very popular and feedback from customers is that Beerblefish make beers (and gin) of very good quality.”
“I used to stock a range of Belgian ales, but my customers are more interested in beers from local microbreweries – which is great to see.” Bob encourages people to be adventurous so that they try a range of beers. “Hopefully one day Beerblefish will release a Lamorbey Lambic for my customers!” You never know, Bob, you never know!
Spotlight on… what the future holds
Bob told Glenn, “In terms of the coming year, I’ve shelved my plans for world domination until after the pandemic as (thankfully) I’ve been quite busy. Of course, government dictated rules and regulations can change at a moment’s notice so who knows what the future holds?”
Spotlight on… bottle shop romance
Glenn always likes to ask our stockists how many couples they know have met in their place – and Bob’s has to be the best answer yet: “Me and Jackie for starters!”
Spotlight on… the secrets of success
Bob says his shop is successful because, “Customers appreciate my personal service, quality products and fair prices.” Glenn asked Bob how a regular customer would describe his shop: “Essential!”
Glenn finished by asking Bob if there is anything else interesting that customers should know. Bob says, “Pop in and say hello, you might just be surprised!”
This weekend sees the changing of the clocks (we like to think they’re changing from Beer Summer Time to Gin Maybe Time) and the journey to the darkest part of the year is well underway. At Beerblefish HQ, we reckon it’s time to cosy up with something delicious to drink by the fire or snuggled up on the sofa under a nice warm blanket.
We’ve got plenty of beers in stock or coming soon that fit the bill. We’ve a fresh batch of our 1892 IPA bottled up and ready to go – that will be on our online shop later today – as well as 1820 Porter. Both of these beers go really well with hearty autumnal dishes like stews and roast dinners, and the porter is especially good with a rich, chocolatey pudding.
On the horizon, we’ll have our new Gingerbeerble spiced beer into bottles and onto the shop pretty soon too – you can’t get much more cosy and autumnal than that – and a new batch of its Blackbeerble stout cousin is also coming soon!
We’re also in the midst of getting our Christmas offerings up and running. We’ll have gift packs going live on the webshop over the next few days which you can have sent directly to whoever you want (within the UK) – we can help you to spread a little Christmas cheer, even if you might not get to see everyone you would want to this festive season.
It’s harvest time for hops! We’ve known that the Lea Valley is a rich hopping ground for a long time and we’ve wanted to make a green hop beer with local hops for just as long – after all, our Limited Edition Hopped Gin is flavoured with self-seeded hops from Walthamstow, just the other side of the river from the Beerblefish Brewhouse.
However, we weren’t expecting the lovely surprise we got this week when we discovered that the wild (or at least self-seeded) hop plants growing up the gates to the industrial estate where we’re based had borne fruit, and was laden with beautiful cones ripe for the picking.
We had previously agreed with the landlord and the neighbouring industrial estate that we could pick and use any hops that grew – we’ve seen several hop plants in the neighbourhood over the four and a half years that we’ve been here, but none of them have ever produced cones before.
As with our gin hops, we have no definitive idea what variety these are – there are two plants and, from the hint of mint, we think one of them might be a Fuggles variety. The other has a slight lemony aroma, but that doesn’t narrow it down massively given the myriad citrusy hop varieties.
The hop plants are less than 50 metres from the brewery door, so we picked them and then ran them straight into the freezer to preserve all their hoppy goodness, ready for Michaela to brew them into a green hop beer. Keep an eye out for our green hop brew over the coming weeks!
My name is James Atherton and I grew up in Leeds. I moved to London via Manchester and Edinburgh and for the past ten years I’ve lived in Harringay, North London with my wife, Bethany, and our cat Ozric.
James and Ozzy the Cat
What made you decide to become a brewer and how did you get to where you are now?
I first started making beer at university when I realised that homebrewing was cheaper than even student bar prices. I moved around a bit after graduating from my Biochemistry and Computer Science degree, and it wasn’t until we moved into our current house ten years ago that I had the space to homebrew again.
A few years later, I heard about UBREW, a homebrewing club that allowed me to brew on shared equipment in Bermondsey on a scale that wouldn’t be possible in our cellar. Friends and family told me that these beers were good and that I should consider setting up commercially. I had intended to do so on a commercial kit that UBREW were installing, but in the end we managed to get our current space in Edmonton before that came to fruition. Our kit came from a defunct brewery in Suffolk and we did our first brew in our own premises in October 2016.
Since then, the brewery has continued to grow – we hired our first staff in June 2018 and I was thrilled to welcome our new brewer, Michaela, in August this year.
What’s been the most challenging thing about establishing your brewing career?
This interview and overcoming intense apathy. Seriously, working out what I was doing it for. The whole point of setting up a brewery was that I enjoyed creating and brewing beers and I’m not hugely incentivised by making massive profits. I need to eat, of course, but money was never the driving force behind the brewery. That’s why, in 2017, Bethany and I decided to refocus the brewery as a social enterprise, concentrating on how we could make it do good in the world.
At the time, my cousin was trying to find a civilian job after a career in the army, so we decided to see if we could help people in a similar situation by hiring people coming out of the armed forces who were interested in a career in brewing; one of our first employees was ex-Royal Artillery. My professional background is in IT, so I also decided to give time and, when possible, money to charities that provide IT education.
The first ever commercial pint of Beerblefish Bloodletter
What’s the best beer you’ve ever drunk and why?
There’s absolutely no way I can narrow this down to one beer, so here’s a selection of my favourites:
Ohana Kumquat IPA – this is a perfectly-balanced beer with an amazing body and carbonation and it was totally unexpected. The best beer on a three week tour of Southern California breweries.
Rodenbach Grand Cru – just amazing. A balance of sour and malt and subtle hop, mixed fermentation flavours…it just has everything.
Cantillon 2013 Lou Pepe Kriek – easily the best kriek I’ve ever tasted. Subtle, soft, sour and the aftertaste was not like any other fruit sour because there were no edges to it.
Beerblefish Bloodletter II aged 18 months – this was the forerunner to our 1892 IPA. It was good when it was first in the bottle, but slightly harsh on the bitterness; having mellowed for 18 months, it took on a slight hint of sour balanced with rounded bitterness and a strong malt profile – it drank like a 4% beer when it was actually 7.2%!
Westvleteren 12 – heaven in a glass. Sweet but not cloyingly so, velvety, soft, great with food – the best beer you can have with monastic paté.
Iron Fist Velvet Glove – this is the best stout I’ve had anywhere in the world. It does exactly what it says on the tin – it caresses you with a velvet glove then knocks you out with an Iron Fist.
And what about the best beer you’ve brewed?
A toss-up between 1892 IPA and 1820 Porter. I love the mixed fermentation character. Traditional British ale flavours are paired with the slight sour berry flavours from the brettanomyces, plus there’s a twist of modern hops on the aroma.
And the worst?
The first ever homebrew done in the cellar of our current house. It was horrific. I bittered with Columbus hops and the flavour hops were Cascade. It had a pale slightly golden colour, poured and looked great, crisp white head, nice carbonation out of the keg. It tasted of burnt, bitter onion peel or overcooked garlic. Disgusting. I’d used too much Columbus, there was far too much bitterness and, as I later discovered, I hate Columbus hops with a fiery passion. If they’re in a beer, I can now detect them at about 18 inches from my face and it is the work of Satan in hop form.
If you were only allowed to keep one beer style forever, what would it be?
Flanders red. Because it’s amazing.
Other than the obvious two (Covid and Brexit), what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the independent brewing industry right now?
Even though you said I couldn’t have Brexit, I’m still going to say Brexit as the biggest challenge. AI singularity or asteroid strike are next. After that, the Small Brewers’ Duty Relief Coalition. They want to penalise small brewers by pulling up the ladder that allowed them to get to where they are. While I don’t think that Small Brewers’ Relief on duty is perfect and I understand that the current cliff-edge in the taper system is unhelpful, the solution is not to make smaller breweries pay more duty while larger breweries pay less.
What are you most looking forward to for the future of Beerblefish?
Eventually moving the brewery to somewhere with enough space that we don’t have to stack the staff on top of the fermenters. Also, to one day have all 10 of our fermenters in operation (currently we’re at seven). This interview being over. Oh, and all the lovely beers we’ve got coming up – we’ll be doing a batch of our Viking Ale with Kveik yeast soon and, after a very successful pilot, we’ll be brewing a larger batch of our new gingery bitter, Gingerbeerble. And finally, I’m excited about tasting our hundredth brew, which is a Flanders red that we brewed this week in collaboration with our friends at Pope’s Yard Brewery.
Which Beerblefish beer is your favourite at the moment?
As we head into Autumn, it’s either our new Gingerbeerble or our fresh batch of lovely Cashmere. I also enjoyed the mini casks of our small batch Belgian Porter over the summer.
If you could brew any beer in any style, with no restrictions on price or quantity of ingredients, what would it be?
It would be an 8.6% version of 1892 IPA, aged for 18 months in a wooden foeder; I’d split the batch 50/50 and age half of it on cherries for 6 months and then blend it back with a fresh batch before bottling.
So, there you have it: all about James. Thanks, James, for doing this interview.
The answer to this age-old quandary depends on a number of factors, including what type of beer it is, how good the beer is, and what the ambient temperature is where you’re going to drink it, but I think we can all agree that “2C” is never the correct temperature unless you’ve just run a marathon in a desert or something! However, one thing to remember above all is that the “right” temperature to drink a particular beer at is the one at which you enjoy it the most. If you prefer drinking your favourite beer at four degrees Celsius even though the brewery recommends 12 degrees Celsius, then go for it, it’s your choice – but it’s probably wise to at least consider the recommendation before dismissing it out of hand.
Note that we’re looking at serving temperature here, not storage temperature – that’s a whole different topic that’s become a talking point recently, and we might cover it in the near future – but in the meantime, let’s look at how cold (or warm) your beer should be when you take that first sip.
There has long been a friendly rivalry across the Atlantic Ocean between the Americans on the one hand, who tend to drink their beer cold and can’t understand why the British drink “warm” beer, and the Brits on the other hand, who assume that American beer is best served cold because it means you don’t have to taste it.
Now, both of these points of view are based on an outdated impression of each nation’s beer culture and don’t take into account either the cross-pollination of styles and techniques that has happened in the last thirty years or so or the massive boom in independent and craft breweries in the USA that has seen a bit of a shift away from macro-produced light lager towards a varied range of interesting and tasty styles.
Traditional British (cask) beer is typically designed to be at its best when served at “cellar temperature” – around 12-13 degrees Celsius (about 55 degrees Fahrenheit). Older British pubs were built with cellars that would be at around that temperature and, when they were built, there wouldn’t have been much that a publican could have done about the temperature. It would have varied a bit with the weather, but it would have been assumed that beers would generally be served from a cask sitting in a cellar at 12 degrees Celsius.
As refrigeration was invented and then became accessible to ordinary folk, the possibilities for beer expanded until we developed some unofficial rules for the temperature at which beer should be served. Generally, lighter (in colour) beers should be served colder than darker ones, weaker beers should be served colder than stronger ones and lagers should be served colder than other beers. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, including the golden rule above – drink it at the temperature you like it.
There are different schools of thought on just how cold the coldest-drinking beers should be served. Our view at Beerblefish is that four degrees is the absolute lowest temperature a beer should be served at, and that should be reserved for macro lagers that have little to no hop flavour. A tasty lager or a very pale ale should be a little warmer than that – maybe five to six degrees – and then other types of beer should get a little warmer from there.
The problem with serving beer very cold is that it inhibits the release of carbon dioxide (i.e. you don’t get as many bubbles rising to the surface and popping), and it’s the carbon dioxide that helps the aroma of the beer to escape into your nose as you go to take a sip. Aroma makes up a huge part of our beer drinking experience, so if we lose that part, it impacts our enjoyment of the beer as a whole. On the other hand, it can be difficult to regulate the pressure of a well-carbonated beer if it’s too warm – if it’s on draft, it will fob, and a bottle is likely to gush out like a Champagne fountain. So, that leaves us needing to find the happy medium between these two perils.
At Beerblefish we recommend that our Heritage Ales are served at British cellar temperature (12 degrees Celsius) – they are based on nineteenth century recipes, so the British pub cellar is their natural habitat. If it’s a very warm day, we might put a bottle of 1853 ESB or 1892 IPA in the fridge for a short while before drinking, but we’d rarely chill our 1820 Porter even when the sun’s shining.
Our contemporary beers have more varied needs. Our stouts and milds, particularly the imperial varieties, and Edmonton Best Bitter should also be at cellar temperature – as should Beerblefish’s new baby, Gingerbeerble – but many of our paler beers need a bit of chilling. We recommend that our Hoppy Pale Ale series, Cashmere Brut IPA and Pan Galactic Pale Ale should be served at around five to six degrees Celsius. That’s probably a little warmer than your fridge, so either don’t put them in for too long, or make sure you take your time in pouring them and finding your snacks to go with them! And don’t forget that your hands will warm up the glass, so there might be no harm in slightly over-chilling.
At the end of the day, we all have our preferences for beer temperature – some of those are based on expectation from our beer cultural experiences, and others just because we like something a certain way, but we at Beerblefish believe it’s important to keep an open mind when drinking beer because we might just learn or try something new one day that massively enhances our beer-drinking experience!
Last week we took a look at how we at Beerblefish design our range of Heritage Ales. This week, we’re moving onto how we create our contemporary beers. The current trend for drinkers wanting new and exciting beers all of the time means that we do a lot more of this than we do designing new heritage brews. It’s led us to creating a couple of series of beers where we only change one variable.
The first of those series to come about was our Hoppy Pale Ale series. The brews are simply numbered in sequence and are designed to showcase hops and not the yeast or malt. The malt bill is 100% extra pale malt and we stick to a one hour boil time, pitching at 20 degrees Celsius for a clean fermentation – unlike our heritage brews, we’re not looking for the funky yeast flavours we can get by experimenting with fermentation temperature.
We usually select two or three hops to include, carefully deciding (by smell) which of the hops we have in stock work well together. If there’s an exciting new hop out that we haven’t tried before, we might order it in and include it.
Following on from the success of the Hoppy Pale Ale series, we’ve got its first younger sibling, Hoppy Little Fish No.1, in the fermenter at the moment – this will be the first of our new series of table beers, still showcasing hops but at a lower ABV. Look out for it in a week or two!!
Our contemporary range isn’t all about hoppy pales, though. James Atherton, Beerblefish founder and MD, has an eclectic palate and likes to make a variety of styles, including stouts and milds. He says, “I generally don’t like to use roasted malts in dark beers. I prefer using chocolate malts for the softness they give in the flavour and mouthfeel.” He thinks this is a particular benefit when making a fruity stout, where it’s better to have chocolate and coffee notes, not burnt bitter notes.
Beerblefish occasionally ventures into lager, too. In that regard, we’re very traditional, and like to observe the German beer law, the Reinheitsgebot, even though we’re definitely not required to! We use German lager yeast, lager malt and we always use noble hops for bittering and at flame-out. We normally brew our lagers in winter, not summer, because the lager yeast is resilient to the colder temperatures and will still finish fermenting even when it’s freezing outside.
One part of the design process that James (and the rest of the team) always enjoy doing is grabbing 20 examples of the style of beer being created and sipping through them while making tasting notes. We can usually tell within a few minutes what malt bill, flame-out hops and style of yeast have been used and sometimes the rough temperature it’s been fermented at. However, sometimes there will be an enigma of a beer that’s more difficult to work out and there has been more than one time that James has woken up in the middle of the night with a Eureka moment, having realised what the hop he’d missed was.
This isn’t to say, of course, that beer design should be simply about copying other beers, but it would be a foolish brewer who ignored the best examples of a style when trying to create a new recipe. It also helps to stimulate the imagination, so that new styles can be created and new variations on older types of beer can be tried.
Sometimes, though, the purpose of the beer is the driving force behind the creation. This time last year, I went to a dinner party and everyone was drinking wine. There were two or three elegant bottles with stylish labels sitting on the table and the other guests were drinking from their fancy wine glasses and having a great time. I’m allergic to grapes and can’t drink wine unless it’s sparkling (yes, I just have expensive tastes!!) so, although I had a beer, I felt a bit left out of the communal activity of sharing a drink with friends. I decided to do something about it and asked the team to make a beer that fills the gap that wine left on my dinner table.
We batted about a few ideas for styles – saison was on the list because it can have some Champagne-like qualities, and we thought about doing something with actual Champagne yeast too. I’d also briefed the team that the beer needed to be seriously classy and suggested that we call it Cashmere, which led us to then use the Cashmere hop as the primary flavour. Cashmere has a lemon-citrus note that pulled us towards the Brut IPA style, which is not too bitter and very dry on the finish – just like a dry white wine.
The resulting beer does exactly what I wanted it to – packaged into a 750ml bottle with a fancy label, it looks good on any table and the beer is up to the job. It’s light and fruity, very pale gold in colour and, at 6.7%, is strong enough to make you want to share a bottle or two with friends.
We hope you’ve enjoyed these insights into how Beerblefish beers are designed – there may be a part 3 at some point, looking at some of our seasonal specials!
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