Hitchin 2012 Beer & Cider Festival

Not long to go now!

Mark March 9th and 10th on your calendars for the Hitchin Beer & Cider festival. Held jointly by North Hertfordshire CAMRA and the Hitchin Round Table at the Town Hall. (Maybe for the last time – yes, we keep saying that. We expect that eventually they’ll get their act together and make the town hall unusable to us as promised.)

We’re still working on the beer list – so if you have any suggestions let us know via a comment here on this post, or to @nh_camra on Twitter, or using an email to: editor@camranorthherts.co.uk.

More details on the Fesival Page – including the beer list when it is finalised!

We also need volunteers to help out at the festival. To volunteer you need to be a CAMRA or Round Table member. Volunteers get a discounted beer price, a t-shirt, and a festival glass! To volunteer email Paul Beardsley on: socialsecretary@camranorthherts.org.uk

• Polhill Arms Beer & Bangers Festival, Renhold, Bedfordshire: Thursday 10th to Sunday 13th November
• Canary Club Winter Beer Festival, Hitchin Town Football Club: Friday 18th to Sunday 20th November
• Orange Tree Winter Beer Festival, Baldock: Thursday 22nd December to Monday 2nd January 2012

If you know any more local festivals, please feel free to tell us: email, comment on this post or tweet us a message on @nh_camra

Redemption

On Saturday June 4th a group of North Herts CAMRA members headed into London. We assembled at the Betjeman Arms in St Pancras station then made our way to the Tottenham Hale tube stop, twice losing members along the way – but in the end we all safely reached our goal. Tucked away inside an industrial unit in N17 we found ourselves at one of London’s exciting new microbreweries: Redemption Brewing Company. We had traveled all this way into North London to present the brewery with a “beer of the festival” award won at the 2011 Hitchin Beer Festival in March. During our beer festivas all visitors are invited to put in a vote for their favourite beer and at the end, when all the votes were tallied up, one of Redemption’s beers took the prize.

Redemption Trinity

The winning beer was the Trinity, a beer perplexingly described as a “pale mild” – unusual in a time where if you ask most people to describe a mild the first thing you’re likely to hear is “dark”. But “mild” is a bit of beer terminology with a long history and I’ve heard (and been involved in) many debates about what a mild should be. The earliest use of the term I’m aware of was simply to denote “young beer”; a beer that had not been aged and probably didn’t have a lot of preservative hops in it – so not “bitter”. I’ve also read the original milds were probably quite strong and at the darker end of the colour range. So how do I describe the Trinity: a light golden beer dry-hopped to the hilt, when you drink it the first thing you get is a nosefull of fruity hop aroma, in the mouth the fruit continues with citric and and lightly resinous notes backed by a surprisingly solid body for a beer weighing in at only 3%. (That’s just my brief personal tasting note – check out the RateBeer page for far more florid descriptions.) The brewer calls it a mild, you can argue against that if you like, but at the end of the day one thing is most important: it is a damn fine beer!

Trying a sample

The name Trinity is not only derived from the 3% ABV – additional threes come from the beer being made using 3 different malts and 3 different hops. The malts (I don’t know what they are) are mashed at a higher temperature than usual to give the beer more body at a lower ABV. This works because higher mash temperatures favour the extraction of unfermentable sugars. The three hops used are Chinook, Columbus, and Centennial – all members of the brigade of modern American hops that are assaulting the palates of ale drinkers across the UK. (With much debate as to whether this is “proper” for an English beer!) At the end of the ferment the temperature is dropped and a large quantity of these three hops is added and left in the fermenter for 2 days before the beer is transferred to a conditioning tank. This addition of hops to the fermenter is what is known as “dry hopping” and contributes the big fruity aroma often found in these modern-style brews.

Andy Moffat (centre) with the beer-of-the-festival award

Redemption Brewing Company is run by Andy Moffat, who comes to brewing from the banking sector! On choosing the name “Redemption” for the brewery Andy jokes that he is seeking redemption from his previous career; he says he took some inspiration from Dark Star’s style of branding as opposed to choosing something more traditional like “The North London Brewing Company”, he also clearly likes being able to say things like “pubs where you’ll find redemption”. Andy started out, like many professional brewers, with home-brewing and as part of going pro he’s taken courses from BrewLab and David Smith (who he also employs as an adviser and to performing brewery audits.) Redemption’s assistant brewer is Andy Smith (this must get confusing) who’s actually a trained chef turned brewer, with a background and continued interest in home-brewing. There is also a 3-day-a-week van driver who we didn’t get to meet, though Andy told us he does like to do the odd delivery himself so he can meet the people selling his beer – on the topic of beer & brewing in general he says “It’s about relationships.” Some quick facts: it’s 12 barrel affair with equipment originally from Slaters Brewery, they use plain old local water (adjusted slightly at the brewery), they buy all their electricity under an eco-friendly tarrif, and their yeast strain has Scottish & Newcastle origins and was obtained from York Brewery. While they’ve only been operating for about a year they’re already making a great name for themselves in the growing London micro-brewing scene.

Getting off to the right start

Most importantly both Andy’s are simply brilliant blokes and we had a great time at the brewery chatting with them and drinking their excellent beer – even sampling a bit of Urban Dusk and a special one-off brew from the conditioning tanks. Andy gave us a bit of a tour of the brewery explaining their processes and equipment. No matter how many brewery tours I attend they never get boring and Redemption was no exception – it’s about the people as much as the equipment and the beer. Andy seemed rather pleased when our branch chairman, Tony Driscoll, presented him and his assistant with their award. In turn we’re extremely pleased to have had the honour of presenting Redemption Brewing Company with their first beer-of-the-festival award. I’m certain it won’t be their last. Thanks to both Andy’s for being excellent hosts and for their excellent beer, which we can look forward to seeing around our area as our local Buntingford Brewery distributes their beer. In fact while we were at the brewery I gather orders for about 6 firkins of their special one-off beer were made for various pubs in our area. We’ll try to let you know when/where these beers appear via our Twitter account.

To keep tabs on what the Redemption guys are up to you can find them on twitter as RedemptionBrew and PartizanSmith (Andy Smith),

Finally, here’s a gallery of our photos from the visit.

This year our winning pub was The Half Moon in Hitchin – North Herts pub of the year for the third year running. The Half Moon has been on quite a winning streak and was also last years Hertfordshire pub of the year. North Herts branch Chairman Tony Driscoll presented the award to Howard and Wendy during their excellent 7th anniversary beer festival on the 30th of April. (Terribly convenient timing that.)

Half Moon North Herts Pub-of-the-Year Award

As a new feature this year we’re also announcing the two closest runners-up in the branch area in an effort to spread the recognition around a little more (but not too thin!) The Pub-of-theYear award is a tough competition and some pubs have come close for several years but never quite got there. For 2011 the runners-up were: Strathmore Arms in St Pauls Walden and the Lordship Arms in Bennington – congratulations!

It doesn’t end there however – once all four Hertfordshire branches have selected their respective pub-of-the-year winners the competition is on for Hertfordshire pub of the year! In this case CAMRA members from throughout the region are invited to visit all four pubs and score them on the same categories we use for our finalists in North Herts. To aid in this we run a minibus trip that goes on an arduous circuit of four of Hertfordshire’s best pubs where we enjoy the hospitality and beer in each venue (trying not to make it too obvious what we’re up to to begin with in the hope we get a true feel for the place – but this is difficult.) This year our trip took in the four fine pubs below – I’m not going to waffle on about how good they all were, they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t!  You can find more information about the pubs from their respective branches in the June/July Pints of View newsletter.

The Land of Liberty Peace and Plenty, Heronsgate

Land of Liberty - Bar

Land of Liberty Peace and Plenty pub sign

The Queen’s Head, Allens Green

Queen's Head pub sign

Inside the Queen's Head

The Woodman, Wildhill

Woodman pub sign

Inside the Woodman

And our own Half Moon, Hitchin

Half Moon pub sign

North Herts Pub-of-the-Year

Since our trip all the scores from all four branches have been submitted and collated and the winner is… The Woodman! Our congratulations to them on their achievement and all the best in the East Anglian regional competition!

Scoring pubs for this award is truly difficult. Take my personal case: I’d never been to two of the pubs before, one I used to go to regularly and loved several years ago, and our own branch area pub is one of my locals. How can I score these fairly? What if I catch one of the pubs I don’t know on a bad day or at a bad time? Plus we visit the pubs in one day – say: one early in the trading hours,  one in the lunch peak, one in the mid-afternoon doldrums, and one in the busyness of evening. How do you rate these pubs against each other on factors like clientèle and atmosphere? You just have to do your best! Importantly it comes down to statistics, which should even out any bumps – as I said at the beginning of this post: the more people who get involved the better. So next year, when it comes time to judge our pub of the year please come along – we had a few empty seats on our minibus this year.

There’s more information on all these great pubs in the June/July Hertfordshire Pints of View newsletter – which is now being distributed around pubs in our region and will be made available on the South Hertfordshire website in due course.

• Baldock Independent Beer Festival – Friday to Sunday -  58 ales, 23 ciders & perrys, & 14 continental beers!
• Half Moon in Hitchin: 7th Anniversary Beer Festival – Thursday to Sunday – 35 ales, plus ciders and perrys
• Cricketers in Ickleford: Beer Festival – Thursday to Monday – 16 ales

If you know of any other beer festivals on this weekend let us know in the comments.

The branch will be presenting Howard and Wendy with the 2011 Pub-of-the-Year award on Saturday April 30th at 9pm. Please come along (a bit earlier than 9pm of course) and join with us in congratulating them on their PotY hat trick!

The Half Moon

As a splendid co-incidence (sure…) April 30th happens to fall during the Half Moon’s 7th anniversary beer festival. So not only will there be the usual 8 ales available but a few extra festival beers (assuming the locals haven’t drunk it all by then). I’d better not forget the cider and perry, which you will also find in abundance at the Half Moon – there’s usually at least 3 available from the cellar and will probably be more available as part of the festival selection.

See you there!

P.S. Don’t forget that this now means The Half Moon is in the running to be the Hertfordshire Pub of the Year. To help with the judging we’re running a minibus trip to visit all 4 excellent branch PotYs on Saturday May 7th. The other contenders are: The Queen’s Head, Allens Green; The Woodman, Wildhill; and The Land of Liberty, Peace and Plenty, Heronsgate. See the Diary (or Google Calendar) for booking details – and book soon as spaces are very limited.

• Our Mutual Friend, Stevenage: Easter Beer Festival: Thursday 21st April – Monday 25th April
• The Victoria, Hitchin: Easter/St George’s Day Beer Festival: Friday 22nd April – Monday 25th April
• The Cricketers, Ickleford: Beer Festival: Thursday 21st April – Monday 25th April & Thursday 28th April – Monday 1st May
• The Red Lion, Great Offley: Beer Festival: Friday 22nd April – Monday 25th April
• The Lytton Arms, Old Knebworth: St George’s Beer Festival: Thursday 21st April – Monday 25th April
• The Half Moon, Hitchin: 7th Anniversary Beer Festival: Thursday 28th April – Sunday 1st May

It isn’t in our area, but also:

• The Pig n Falcon, St Neots: Double Bank Holiday Beer Festival: Friday 22st April – Monday 2nd May

Please let us know if you know of any other pub festivals or any general pub news! Comment here or email: editor@camranorthherts.org.uk

The good:

• The Fox and Hounds in Barley is reopening on Saturday April 16th as a real-ale friendly freehouse with a close association with the Falstaff Brewery in Derby (see the April/May 2011 Pints of View for more details).
• The Albert in Hitchin has been sold to a new freeholder and is expected to re-open in May and continue to serve real ale. We wish Frank all the best in his retirement.

The not-so-good:

• The Black Horse in Brent Pelham closed for business in late March. Let us know if you have more information about the future of this pub!
• The managers at The Jolly Waggoner in Ardeley have given notice for May 5th, though they may stay on until the owner has found a replacement.

(Note: some pub news comes to us by word-of-mouth and we welcome any corrections and updates in the comments. You can also email any pub news you have to: editor@camranorthherts.org.uk.)

2011 Hitchin Beer Festival Beer

The Hitchin Beer and Cider festival was held on the 18th and 19th of March.  This festival, jointly run by North Herts CAMRA and the Hitchin Round Table, was a tremendous success as usual.

During the festival 2175 people (not including volunteers) consumed:

• 96% of the beer
• over 8400 pints of beer
• around 1000 pints of cider and perry
• nearly 1000 bottles of foreign beer
• all the food (we’ll try to ensure that there is more next time!)

I believe that most, if not all, of those numbers are record-breakers.

Importantly, at the close of the festival we announced the beer and cider of the festival… the winners were:

• Beer: Redemption Brewing Company – Trinity – 3% – “Pale mild brewed with 3 malts and 3 hops.  Generous late hopping provides Seville orange aromas and initial malt sweetness is dominated by citrus flavours which explode on the palate. Brewed with plenty of malt to provide decent body, so it has some backbone for a low abv beer. Pronounced bitterness throughout.“
• Cider: Gwynt y Ddraig – Black Dragon – 7.2%, medium – “Matured in oak barrels to produce a cider rich in colour, body and flavour with a fresh fruity aroma.“

You’ll can read our full report while enjoying a pint when the next Hertfordshire Pints of View newsletter hits your local pub.

It is a bright and airy pub with a new conservatory and full disabled access. Local real ale is stocked and opening night saw Buntingford’s Golden Plover & Polar Star on offer.