Autumn marked the time for major brewing festivals.  While, in the past, there were technical reasons for this, cultural reasons were also a factor.  With modern technology, technical reasons have become less critical.  However, the brewing industry has always appreciated bowing to tradition and respecting culture.  Accordingly, as summer finishes, and we come into the Harvest months, we are coming into Beer Festival Season.

Having just returned from the Great British Beer Festival, and with this five day event still in full swing in London, I thought that it would be interesting to have a look at two beers from breweries that have achieved significant critical acclaim at this event.  Both beers to-day are I.P.A.’s in a nod towards the style that is probably most talked about by devotees of current beer festivals.  Our first beer is 13 Guns – an American-style I.P.A. from the Crafty Dan brewery in Blackburn, and a beer that was hailed as the ‘unofficial beer of the GBBF’ last year at the festival.  The second beer is from Saltaire Brewery, and is, in fact, a collaboration between Saltaire and Dark Star Brewery.  Saltaire won gold for Best Specialty Beer at the GBBF this year (after winning silver last year) with Triple Chocoholic.  The second beer that we have is called ‘Le IPA’ – a beer that was brewed as a once-off by this Yorkshire-based brewery to mark the occasion of the Tour de France passing through Yorkshire this year.  While both beers are from English breweries, they both have an influence from abroad.

Beer Festivals –

Festivals to celebrate communities have often been based around harvest time.  With beer one of the inevitable outputs of this harvest time, it is no surprise that enjoying beer was central to such festivals.  Arranging festivals to coincide with a time which would have been one of the more hectic times of the farmer’s calendar was a clever way of giving people a reason to look forward to a time of year when they would have to be particularly busy.

Nowadays, beer festivals are a celebration of the wide range of styles of beers that are available from a diversity of breweries.  They are an opportunity for breweries to present their stalwart and new beers to a range of people who are particularly passionate.  In a time when mass marketing, and huge advertising budgets have resulted in a impersonal disconnect between big brand breweries and their consumers, beer festivals are the antithesis of this – the chance for breweries to present their brews, interact with beer drinkers, sample other breweries beers and catch up on relationships formed over many years.

When it comes to beers that are presented at beer festivals, modern best festivals will present an array of beer styles – albeit, sometimes catering to a particular sub-set of breweries.  Most large festivals are country-based, and will focus on the beers from that country.  The Brussels Beer Festival, which takes place this year between the 5^th and 7^th of September is an example of a festival that focuses exclusively on beers from Belgium.  The Great American Beer Festival (in Denver Colorado, this year between Thursday, October 2^nd to Saturday October 4^th) has found that there are so many American Breweries that want to be involved, that it has become difficult to incorporate international beers as well.  In Munich, Oktoberfest happens over the 16 days up to and including the first Sunday in October (this year between Saturday 20^th September and Sunday 5^th October).  Oktoberfest presents an array of tents, each one representing a major German Brewery.

In recent times, many of these festivals have embraced the global craft brewing community by also featuring beers from international breweries that have enjoyed critical acclaim.  The Great British Beer Festival is slightly anomalous in this regard – with interesting results.  This event is organised by CAMRA (the CAMpaign for Real Ale).  CAMRA as an organisation has strongly promoted cask conditioned beer, and the GBBF primarily presents ‘real ale’ or cask conditioned beer.  In fact, CAMRA has sometimes been criticised for sometimes taking an overly restrictive approach – very much presenting their belief that ‘cask ale good; all other beers baaad’.  However for the last couple of decades, the GBBF has also included stands recognising the popularity of beers from other countries.  Such stands bring in beers to the GBBF from an array of different countries, and up to recently these beers were almost always available at the GBBF in bottles.  This year, American craft breweries took the trouble to transport casks of American craft beer to the GBBF.  Given the fact that these beers typically remain in date for only three to six weeks, the logisitics and timings that this required was impressive.  Ironically, by including beers from other countries that are not real ales, CAMRA has indirectly encouraged American craft breweries to adopt real ale, cask conditioned beer and brewing.

Historically, the timing of beer festivals was related to brewing practices and available technology.  The German Oktoberfest involved the presentation of Vienna Lagers (an amber lager) at Harvest time.  Such beers were referred to as ‘Oktoberfest’ or ‘Marzen-Oktoberfest’ beers.  The latter name referred to the fact that the beer was brewed in March (Marzen) and presented at the Oktoberfest festival.  The delay between brewing and presentation of the beer resulted from the fact that the best technology that was available at the time for refrigeration was an underground cellar that held beer at a reasonable (though not excessively cold temperature).  The six months of the summer at these ‘cool’ temperatures was sufficient to age and condition the beer.  With modern technology, beer can be cooled in tank to less than 0⁰C, and aging can be achieved over a shorter period of time as a result.

Nowadays, beer festivals benefit from the improved technology available to brewers.  In contrast to the old Oktoberfest festival that was centred around a single beer style, modern beer festivals offer a range of beer styles.  In broad terms, three large groups of beers tend to feature at these beer festivals – stalwart beers that have heritage and have been popular for years past, new beers that are being presented by breweries – often brewed to a style that is showing significant popularity at the time, and one-off brews that are brewed to demonstrate the brewer’s creativity, ingenuity and sense of fun.

Crafty Dan 13 Guns –

Beer Style                           -  India Pale Ale (American Style)

Alcohol by Volume          -  5.5% a.b.v.

Brewed by                          -  Crafty Dan Brewery

Brewed in                           -  Blackburn, Lancashire, England

13 Guns was brewed in tribute to the original 13 States of the United States.  India Pale Ale is a beer style that originated in England.  However, just as beer festivals were limited historically to certain regions, and this limitation was lifted as time went on, so too have beer styles become very mobile.  India Pale Ale has been adopted in the U.S. craft beer movement as the ‘go to’ beer for ‘hopheads’ – craft beer officionados with a great love for hops.  So much so is this the case that ‘American IPA’ has become a sub-style (India Pale Ale brewed primarily or exclusively with American-grown hops), and ‘English IPA’ refers to original IPAs brewed with English hops).

13 Guns is brewed with an explosion of different American hop varieties – Centennial, Citra, Amarillo, Chinook, Apollo and Kohatu.  In true American-influenced style, this hop character is balanced by a blend of grains – Pale Ale, Munich Malt, Caramalt and Rye.  The last three of these grains combine to give a rich red-gold amber colour to the beer – this colour tinges the beer’s head with a tan hue - and contribute malt character and a touch of sweetness.  The blend of hops in this beer simply work magic on the foundation of this base.

In the aroma, tropical fruits (lychee, apricot, tangerines, passion fruit, pineapple), citric and white grapefruit and pine sit on top of a malt sweet and toasty nose backed up by very subtle caramel in the background.  On first sip, the luscious sensation of the mouthfeel is followed immediately by gentle malt sweetness balanced by hop character and a soft bitterness at the back of the palate.  This is a beer where retro-nasal aroma is very much in evidence.  As 13 Guns is swallowed, the aroma of the beer follows the beer down the throat, and as one exhales, this aroma is carried again back up to the back of the nose – the result is a beer whose finish balances a lingering and pleasing bitterness with the memory of rich hop aroma and flavour.

It is no wonder that 13 Guns was hailed ‘Unofficial Beer of the GBBF’ last year.  13 Guns blends a rich history of 200 years of brewing tradition in Blackburn with a modern American take on a classic English beer style.  If beer festivals are meant to both allow brewers to present the best of what they can achieve through their beers, and at the same time, encourage collaboration, inspiration, creativity and new interpretations in beer, 13 Guns is a beer manifestation of this happening in liquid form.

Le IPA –

Beer Style                           -  India Pale Ale

Alcohol by Volume          -  5.6% a.b.v.

Brewed by                          -  Saltaire Brewery

Brewed in                           -  Yorkshire, England

Collaboration has become a hallmark of the craft brewing industry.  Where beer festivals bring beer lovers together, it is no surprise that this can result in some marriages (or at least, some illicit affairs) along the way.  Collaboration brews involve a number of breweries (typically two, but no reason for it to be limited to this) coming together to create a beer between them.  The creativity of both brewers allows them to bounce ideas and inspiration off eachother, with the hope that the resulting beer is better than either brewer could have achieved by him (or her) self.  Collaboration brews allow brewers to push ideas to extremes, knowing that the more off-the-wall suggestions will be balanced out by their partner brewer so that ideas are pushed to the limit without going over the edge.

Le IPA (which, for those of you who didn’t do French to Leaving Cert, is French for ‘The IPA’) is an India Pale Ale with a French twist.  The hops in this beer include American classics Columbus and Simcoe, Triskell, and (for the French twist) French Brewers Gold.  Again, these hops are balanced out by a blend of grains – this time Pale Malt with a substantial amount of Vienna Malt (the malt that gives Oktoberfest beers their amber colour), Munich, Crystal and Torrified Wheat.

The aroma of Le IPA is most interesting.  The distinct pine character from the hops is most definitely in evidence, but it is complemented and balanced by the distinct aroma of caramel from the Munich and Vienna malts.  Hop bitterness is definitely in evidence also, but again, very much balanced by the sweet caramel of the speciality malts.  The mouthfeel is luscious and the beer is most definitely delicious.

Craft brewing is all about beer being an expression of artistic creativity, but this is very much balanced (and, thankfully, outbalanced) by the idea that beer is a social lubricant.  Lovers of craft beer are spoilt by the superb quality that is available in craft beer nowadays, and by the fact that there is a culture of ‘wanting to get on with one another’ in the craft brewing scene.  Where you have two breweries from the same area, who in other industries would view eachother as competitors, coming together to brew a beer, and sharing knowledge, passion and know how in so doing, this is probably the purest example of how the spirit of craft beer can work in a very positive way.

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