The Foundry, Canterbury

Off the main shopping street in Canterbury, down a small side-road and past The Cherry Tree is The Foundry, a new brewpub in the city. An old brick building with impressive high paned windows and a rusted and worn sign, it’s a smart two-storey place to eat and drink where the beers are brewed downstairs and the food prepared upstairs.

The Canterbury Brewers are Jon Mills and Tom Sharkey and they are using a new 4-barrel kit to make the beers to supply The Foundry and The City Arms, which is part of the same parent company owned by Jon (they also have The Beercart Arms). They currently make three beers: Foundry Man’s Gold, Torpedo and Canterbury Wheat.

Foundry Man’s Gold is a golden ale brewed with Magnum hops for bittering and Citra added post-boil (I know this because when I visited they were brewing so I knocked on the door to be nosy just as they were adding the Citra – “Stick your head in there,” Tom said, directing me to the hops). The Citra immediately jumps out with peach and apricot, plus a little floral fragrance, and it’s light and fresh and very tasty, with the sort of bitterness that doesn’t overpower but definitely gets noticed. At 4% you could happily pass a few hours drinking it.

Torpedo is an amber ale hopped with Bramling Cross and Cascade. The aroma is a subtle mix of British earthiness and American floral and citrus, with more fruitiness evolving through the glass. It’s very clean drinking with a simple background sweetness and a big, lingering British hop bitterness, the sort that gets in your gums and hangs at the back of your throat. It’s one of those modern, pale best bitters which is really drinkable a full of flavour.

Canterbury Wheat is an American-style wheat beer hopped with Target and Cascade. It’s light gold with a slight haze to it and the aroma is immediately interesting – hints of spice, bubble gum and vanilla and a little citrus pith. It’s light and gulpable and the yeast plays an unobtrusive role while still adding a lot of interesting flavour and a little body – it reminded me of an unfiltered lager. The bitterness levels are higher than usual, adding a peppery finish which works well. This beer is served on cask but also runs through a chiller so it’s served slightly colder than the other two cask beers.

The beers are great and all were served in perfect condition. You never know what to expect going to a new brewery, especially one which only started serving their beers two days before you visit, but I was impressed by all of them.

Alongside the Canterbury Brewers beers The Foundry serves a couple of local ales and cider ciders and four Meantime beers on keg. The food is also excellent with a wide choice of dishes on the menu from snacks to feasts. The beer-BBQ ribs, made with a wheat beer and honey marinade, were fantastic.

The Foundry only opened on the 10th June but inside it feels like it’s been established for a long time, with friendly and knowledgeable staff plus drinkers who already look attached to the furniture. It’s a super addition to Canterbury drinking and if you are in the city then it’s a must-visit place. It’s also one for the beer tourist to travel to, especially if you add in a visit to the Bottle Shop and La Trappiste and the many, many other pubs.

Marin Brewing Co. Point Reyes Porter

One of the best beers I had in California. I packed up my case and jumped on the ferry to Larkspur to start the second part of my trip – Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg. It’s a short ride across the Bay; a welcome respite to walking. I’m sad to leave the city behind, the sun bathing it and bringing it alive, but I know there are more adventures ahead. On the ferry I read a beer magazine, flicking through pages about the best beers of the year so far. Before I know it, and just as my tired eyes fall shut thanks to the relaxing rocking motion, we pull into the terminal. “Go over the bridge and you’ll see it.” Mario tells me as I’m pulling along my heavy suitcase, loaded with bottles. Eventually my nose pulls me towards the beer, the smell of toffee and citrus in the air. I’d met the brewers three days ago, lovely guys, they said to come and say hi. Inside, on the left, is the brewhouse and Kim is busy brewing, the whole bar smells amazing, so inviting, a powerful inducer of thirst if ever there was one. “Sit down and we’ll sort you out some beers.” I take a flight, a small pour of each of their brews, and sip while ordering lunch – a burger, of course. Mario knows these beers and goes straight for the Point Reyes Porter. Pitch black, an impossibly neat and thick head. He smacks his lips and nods his head. I sip through pale ales and IPAs, a wheat beer, a barley wine and then onto the porter. It’s astounding. It’s 6% but fuller bodied than something double that, it’s all dark chocolate, coffee roast and sweet smoke. Every sip is more impressive than the last, better than the last. Lunch comes, a charred burger covered in cheese, a hugely satisfying mouthful of that is followed by the last sip of beer - the sweetness of the smoke, the depth of flavour in the beer just echoes everything good in the burger and bounces off of it, enhancing it. Kim comes back, he has a couple of bottles for us: “Here’s the Porter, we bottled it this morning.” We leave through necessity more than choice, in truth I could’ve stayed there all afternoon.

Back home and I’m missing San Francisco. It’s the post-holiday blues, thoughts of things I missed or places I should’ve returned to. The memory of that lunch, seemingly innocuous, a short pit-stop on the way to Lagunitas and Russian River, moved me to remember that bottle and open it at just 12 days old. This is a big award winner for Marin and when Kim handed over the bottles there was obvious pride that this was the first time he’d brewed it himself (“I usually do the stout, Arne [the head brewer] does the Porter... this is the batch that’ll be going forward for competition this year”.) It pours a gorgeous, thick black with a creamy sand-coloured head. It’s dark chocolate, nuts, a hint of milkshake, smoked bacon as it warms. It’s smooth, it’s bold, creamy, intensely roasty, a berry sweetness, a lactic edge, smoke, dry at the end, incredibly drinkable, incredibly good. They do a lot of good things at Marin. If you are in San Francisco then go to the ferry port at 12.25pm and you’ll be sitting in the brewpub by 1.10pm. Order a porter and tell them I say hi.

I wrote about brewpubs here. Marin features in a number of the pictures, including Kim, the brewer.

I want a brewpub

I want a brewpub. A US-style, beer-brewed-out-the-back-and-poured-out-the-front place, with good food and good music. I want to be able to walk into the bar and see the brewer working, I want to be able to smell the fresh hops and the sticky-sweet wort, I want glass behind the bar so you can see the fermentation tanks, I want a line of taps on the bar serving the freshest beer possible. I want a decent line-up of site-brewed beer, a range of styles, a few regulars and a few specials. I also want guest taps of some of the best beer around. I’d happily serve this from the cask and keg and I’d want a good bottle selection for drinking here or taking out. For food, it’d be classic beer sponges: fantastic burgers, sandwiches, chillis, stews, curries, plus a selection of cheeses and chocolates. And I want all of this in London.

I wanted this before I went to California but now I want it even more. In the UK we just don’t do brewpubs the same way (and if there are any like that then tell me, because I want to go). Marin Brewing Company and Bear Republic are the ones which grabbed me the most. You walk in and you smell freshly brewing beer. Behind the bar you can see the tall silver tanks. Both had between 9-16 of their own beers on. Both served large food menus. Both served wonderful beer, super fresh. We got tours of the breweries and the set-ups are similar, although Bear Republic, who have rapidly become one of my favourite breweries, also have two other sites to make their beer, one just across the complex and the other a short drive away. As far as I remember, Bear Republic serve their Racer 5 direct from the tank and it was wonderful, I also got some Citra single-hopped Rebellion straight from the tank which was just delicious (the first time I’d had the Citra hop on its own and it’s bloody lovely – peaches, apricots, tropical fruit) and the stack of barrels aging out the back filled with treats. The lasting memory of Marin, aside from Arne and Kim the brewers, is their Point Ridge Porter, which was one of the best beers of the trip - a velvety, roasty, dark chocolate and smoke-filled beer, modest at 6% but punching above its weight in flavour (I had a bottle last weekend, which I'll likely write about soon). Neither of these bars are in San Francisco city. Marin is a short boat ride away and Bear Republic is a longer drive (which passes Russian River on the way there and/or back and that's another great brewpub with a beer-geek's dream line-up on tap and a teasing tower of oak barrels out the back). Both (all, including Russian River) are essential beer stops in North California, I think.

I want a brewpub. I want to serve great beer in a great place and have people leave my bar feeling the same way as I felt when I left Marin and Bear (happy, that is, not drunk). One day...

I wrote this last week but it ties in neatly with the question Woolpack Dave is asking on his blog about the place you’d want to open if you could. And the top two images are Bear and the bottom three are Marin. That's Kim the brewer. He's a cool guy.

The Swan on the Green

There’s a microbrewery/brewpub near me called the Swan on the Green. I love the idea of brewpubs and wish there were more of them. It seems to me that there are a lot more US brewpubs than English, but attaching the brewery to the restaurant is surely a great way to sell your beers and to make an income from food too. The Swan on the Green brew the beer out the back and serve it out the front; that’s a pretty good system, I think. It’s a modernised 16th century pub in the middle of quintessential Kent countryside, opposite a tiny, banking cricket pitch and surrounded by old houses. It’s a handsome looking place, that’s for sure. Lauren and I went along on Friday to celebrate me getting a new job. I got quite drunk. She drove me home.

Let’s start with food. Their menu is good, with a decent range of fare, exactly the sort of things you’d want to eat in a country pub: hunks of meat, fresh fish, lots of vegetables, different potato dishes. I went a year or so ago and enjoyed the food more than this time, but it was still very nice. My steak was perfectly cooked, my potatoes perfectly nice, the sauce a perfect accompaniment. Lauren’s salad-thing was good too, big sweet pieces of squash, lots of green things, I can’t remember what else... So yeah, a decent meal if unexceptional, but I was there for the beer, of course.

They had six Swan beers on which gave me a half of each and then another half or two after (time restricting – we had to get back for Big Brother, you see). I started on the lager and my half was the last of the keg. Blonde is 4.0%, cold and fizzy and then a whole lots more. It’s biscuity and buttery in a good way and there’s a really great citrusy hop finish. Towards the end it had a grape-like quality to it and actually reminded me of champagne. Very nice; the best lager I’ve had in ages. Next I had Ginger Swan, a 3.6% copper ale (they are all copper coloured…) brewed with ginger ‘and other spices’. Now I’m not a lover of ginger beers… until now! This has a great fresh ginger quality beneath a blackcurrant and raspberry fruit aroma which goes straight through into the taste. It’s fragrant, fresh and fruity with just enough zing to bring it alive.

Then I had the Fuggles Pale, a 3.6% session ale, hopped, I would guess, with Fuggles. It’s crisp and clean, easy drinking with some sherberty sweetness but just a little nothingy compared to the others – not bad, just a little lacking. With my steak I had the Bewick Swan, a 5.3% bitter with a great body of fruity malt and a proper bite of English hops. It worked perfectly with the steak, pairing with the peppery sauce and juicy meat.

After dinner came a Trumpeter Best, a 4.0% best bitter hopped with Target and First Gold. It has a great aroma of brown bread, overripe apples and dryly bitter-herby finish and it’s another classic British bitter. And then was Cygnet, a 4.2% a hopped with Cascades. It was fruity and crisp and bitter and a really enjoyable brew, one I could drink quite a few of. Then, with Big Brother looming, we had time for one more half and I was completely torn with what to go for: I wanted the lager again to try a fresh barrel, I wanted the Cygnet again because, well, it tasted nice, but in the end I went for the Ginger Swan because I was really impressed with the spicy-fruity playful nature of the beer.

The beers from the Swan on the Green microbrewery surprised me. It’s not that I expected them to be bad, I just didn’t expect them to be as tasty as they were and it was great to drink a lot of sub-premium strength beers, brewed with lots of flavour just a few miles from my door.

The thing with getting this new job is that Lauren and I will be moving and it just so happens that the Swan on the Green will be a little bit closer than it is now. That’s a very good thing.

Oh and if you go then watch out for the toilets. They don’t have male or female on the doors, instead the choice is Cobs or Pens painted beneath a white swan. After a few beers I must’ve stood there for ten seconds working out which was which eventually choosing the wrong door. FYI: male swans are called cobs.