Exclusive: Announcing Thornbridge’s New Brewer

“2011 is going to be a big year for us at Thornbridge,” says Simon Webster, director of the brewery, “and as we expanded the brew team it was key that we brought in the correct people.” Thornbridge have recently added Rob Lovatt, previously from Meantime, and Coalan Vaughan, previously from Little Creatures in Australia, and now they’ve added another name... Dominic Driscoll from Marble Brewery.

This image is here to allow a pause for thought. The logo also works perfectly upside-down! 

“I've loved being a Marble brewer, and have never been unhappy in all the 5 years I've worked there,” says Dominic. “It seemed a monumental decision at the time but in the past week I've realised it's an unbelievable opportunity to work at a seriously impressive brewery.” He adds: “You'd have to be a fairly stupid brewer not to want to work at Thornbridge, as it's probably the most innovative and creative brewery the UK has seen.”

“Because brewing is hard work and we're a small team [at Marble], we've spent far too much time in the same room and have thus become a bit like Morecambe and Wise in the breakfast scene. We've had an amazing time together, built a new brewery, made it a success, expanded production, started exporting, and of course made some great beer.”

Dominic’s favourite achievements at Marble include “smashing sales targets, 'meet the brewer' at Cask, brewing Vuur & Vlam and showcasing at the De Molen festival,” but the best moments “were always the beer tastings we did every week. This helped us improve every aspect of our beer-making and tweaked ordinary beers into something of which we could be proud.”

There’s lots of things he’ll miss from Marble, including the Marble Arch, Colin Stronge his fellow brewer, Jan Rogers, owner of the brewery, and there’s also some exciting projects in the pipeline which he would like to have brewed. As for the beer, what was the best he brewed at Marble? “Probably the Special 2009,” a 10.5% barley wine. “I didn't sleep properly for a week whilst it was fermenting. If you have a waxed top bottle, you should bloody keep hold of it!”

It’s a big change for two of the highest regarded breweries in the UK. “We have a great relationship with Marble,” explains Simon Webster, “and I was very keen that it shouldn't be affected so we said to Dom to take as long as they needed him before coming over to us.”

Dominic will join Thornbridge in the New Year. “I can't wait to start work at Thornbridge and be part of their plans for the future, and whilst it'll be hard graft, I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. The next few years will be amazing!”

Marble Brewery have built up a great range of quality beers and I’m sure they will continue to brew fantastic pints, grow and get even better. As for Thornbridge, I think Simon says it perfectly: “I can honestly say that if we would have had a free pick of any of the upcoming brewers in the country Dom would have been top of list!”

Best of luck to Dominic. He’s a great guy and will do great things at Thornbridge, just like he did at Marble.

Imagine Wayne Rooney left Manchester United and joined Chelsea... This is big news, right?

Marble Decadence Kriek: Open It!

I’ve decided to make a weekend of Open It! and get through a few of the nice bottles which are in the beer cupboard. Following the action on twitter, it seems I’m not the only one taking full advantage and getting stuck into some of those beers which were gathering dust.

I’ve had the Marble Decadence Kriek for ages. It’s just been sitting in the cupboard with no real to-be-opened occasion hanging around its shoulders. It’s an 8.7% imperial stout blended with kriek, a sour cherry beer (I was told what kriek it was but my booze-addled brain has completely forgotten). They also do a straight-up Decadence, which I’ve got but haven’t opened, and one blended with Frambozen, which I had months ago. When I opened the Frambozen the cork nearly blew a hole in my kitchen ceiling, so I proceeded with caution with this, making sure eyes, teeth and lights were at safe distances.

It pours an oily black with a tan head flush with the pink of cherries. The kriek dominates to begin with to the point where eyes-closed this could just be a heavy-bodied sour beer, but if ever there was a case for a beer to be decanted then this is it, as over the space of a couple of hours it evolved and grew into something altogether different.

Starting with sour overkill, at one point I wrote that it tastes like cheap red wine (heavy on the tongue, sharply overpowering berries, tannic) but then it all changed and mellowed and the sour went in and the chocolate underneath came out. By the end of the bottle it’s chocolate, sour cherries and almonds in near-harmony, though still a little cherry-heavy for my taste. It won’t be for everyone, given the sharp tang running through it, but it’s an interesting beer. The true test: would I buy it again? Probably not (give me the kriek and the stout separately). I’d stick to the Special (which really is special) or try the new US IPA, Utility Special, which is currently available. Or the delicious Dobber.

Marble Decadence Kriek: I finally opened it! Now what should I have tomorrow... 

Twissup: Manchester and Huddersfield

My memory of Saturday (the third Twissup - a meeting of beer bloggers and tweeters - following Sheffield and Burton) is patchy at best. I clearly remember the sleepy beginning in Manchester Piccadilly Station and the spicy end in the curry house but the bits in between are like an assorted mega-mix of hops, colour and laughter. That probably means it was a good day out…

First up was Marble brewery where we had a tour around the small unit (it’s amazing what these brewers can make in their varies spaces – the Marble lot is nothing more than an open room with silver kit at the back and a store room in the middle) and a glass of Dobber so fresh I thought it might start sprouting hop shots. From here we walked up the hill from the brewery to the Marble Arch, a wonderfully handsome corner pub. It’s smaller than I expected, charming, interestingly tiled, with chairs and tables neatly tucked in and a bar fully stocked with casks and good bottles. In here we drank lots of Marble beer, looked at our twadges, Avery got his del Borgo out and Cooking Lager unmasked himself and then ordered a stout (we were hoping he’d come in a real ale drinking outfit of sandals, socks and fake beard but no, he clearly couldn’t be bothered to dress up like the rest of us). For many of us it was the first visit to Marble and the Marble Arch and it was great to finally get there and see where the beer is made and served. The trouble is that it’s impossible not to drink lots of Marble beer when it’s on the bar in front of us, making for a dangerous start to the day. I could’ve stayed for hours, ordered food, working my way along the casks, but we had places to go…

The Angel was next. An unimposing back-street kind of place with a good beer line-up culminating like a sentence with an exclamation mark by having Ola Dubh 30 on the farthest right cask. That was one of the best beers I’ve had on cask this year – mouth-filling, rich, chocolatey and spiked with the familiar saline edge of Highland Park whisky – and a real surprise to find it. From the Angel we went to Bar Fringe, a cool place which had a beer called Twitter or Busted on cask (they couldn’t have chosen a better beer – and it was tasty too). It’s around here that the memory disintegrates into a series of disconnected jump cuts.

Next we’re outside, way behind the others, lost in the wilds of Manchester. Then we’re at the station ordering Burger King. Then we’re on a train and Yan is opening random bottles from a magical bag of beers which seems to be refilling itself. Then we pass Stalybridge where the group who were ahead of us were drinking – some get on the train; some don’t. We drink another bottle. We drink in the Kings Head with the most sparkled beers I’ve tasted – I needed Tandleman there to start my pint off for me and battle through the foam – but all of it in great condition and a perfect station stop. Then there’s an underpass somewhere (not sure why I remember this bit). Then there’s The Grove, one of the best pubs I’ve been to for beer selection. Some spicy beef jerky came, which tastes like hot stale carpet, and prompted Fletch to ask for half a pint of milk to fight the fire in his mouth (the reply is unprintable but along the lines of: you flipping tart, grow some). There were a few glasses of Jever, brisk and hoppy; a Gadds’ Green Hop bursting with flavour; a Moravka unfiltered, all buttery and smooth; lots of others which I’ve completely forgotten; and some bottles at the bar opened by Kelly. Some people eat earlier, ‘needing to sober up a bit’, then some eat later – it was one of the best curries I’ve tasted, laid out on shallow trays, served with roti bread and mango lassi (no beer!). As we leave we check the train times and realise that the planned final pint has to be abandoned as the last train home is in 15 minutes. We run to the station. The next thing I remember is a horrible hill in some Leeds suburb and then a slice of Norwegian caramel cheese which was horrific. I sleep like a baby.

It was a crazy day that passed in a blur (quite literally) with lots of good beers, lots of good fun and a great chance to catch up with lots of different people. Two towns was ambitious but we managed it – no one said Twissups would be easy. The Marble Arch and The Grove were the headline acts of the trip and they didn’t let us down – they are two of the best pubs I’ve drunk in this year and worthy alone of a trip to Manchester or Huddersfield.

My mind is already planning the next one… I’m thinking we choose a southern town and a northern one and battle it out in a vote. I’d love to do Brighton with a visit to Dark Star and Harvey’s (we’ll hire a bus!) and then some pubs in town, finishing at The Evening Star, so that’s the southern option. As for the north… how about Derby? We’ll sort out the options and speak to some breweries and then throw it to a vote. Just pencil in the date now: Saturday 5^th February.

Manchester and Huddersfield Twissup: The Details

We now have a plan for the Manchester and Huddersfield Twissup (the joint visit was the winner) thanks to Dominic from Marble Brewery and Rich from myBrewerytap.

We meet at Manchester Piccadilly train station at 11.30am. From here we’ll go to Marble Brewery for a tour with Dominic and Colin and then to the Marble Arch for some beers. After this Dominic will lead the procession to Bar Fringe and then The Angel (or maybe the other way around).

From here we head back to Manchester Piccadilly and jump on a train to Huddersfield. It’s about £12 return so not too much for everyone. There are two possible stops - Stalybridge or Marsden - but we’ll only do one. Marsden has the Riverhead pub and brewery which sounds pretty good and could be a food stop. After this it’s back on the train to Huddersfield.

In Huddersfield we stop at The Grove (dribble at the beer list), either first or last. The other options are The Kings Head, The Star Inn and the Rat and Ratchet taking us up until around 10-11pm and then most will need to head off. If anyone needs hotels then you’ll need to sort that out yourselves, either in Manchester or Huddersfield. Nothing is yet planned for the Sunday but I might be in Leeds for a few beers and a roast dinner.

How does that sound? It’s a busy day but these things aren’t leisurely ambles around a couple of pubs, this is a bloody Twissup for goodness sake and we do things a bit differently!! Now get those train tickets booked!

If anyone hasn’t signed up yet then do so here or you might miss out as we’ll do everything else via email from now on. 

FABPOW! Chocolate Cupcakes and Chocolate Marble

I happened to have a half-finished glass of Chocolate Marble beside me as the little chewy, gooey chocolate mouthfuls of cupcake - baked by Dominic from Marble Brewery as a thank you and a gift to everyone who came to try their beer at Cask Pub and Kitchen last week - were passed around... and never wanting to let a potential FABPOW pass, I gulped them both down together.

Chocolate Marble is rich and roasty, 5.5%, packed with cocoa and coffee and a bang of hop and charry bitterness at the end and it was a marvel with the mini cake’s stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth sweetness, making the chocolate in both taste richer but retaining a deft lightness. Plus, pairing two things, both with chocolate in the title, is almost guaranteed to be a winner.

Sometimes food and beer matches are planned, some are complete chance – beer in one hand, food in the other, let’s see what happens – others work a little differently, like this one, where there’s a symbiotic link between the two and they work at a specific time and place. In this case it was beer and cupcake made from the same person, served in a pub with 10 Marble beers on cask where everyone is there to drink them and having a great time. This type of pairing is rare. It’s also powerful. It makes almost anything taste good with anything else because the senses are wrapped up with experience (likely a good experience, too). It’s not about finding perfect flavours to go together, perfect texture counterparts; it’s about the moment.

So, would I try this at home? Probably not (although it was a very good pairing) - unless I’m invited to Dom’s for tea and he decides to get baking again - but right there and then, in Cask, it was a Marbleous match!

The Marble event was excellent. All the beers were in good form and it was great to see 10 casks lined up in one place – as I was waiting to order my first pint/Pint my mouth was literally watering at the prospect. I think the Summer was the beer of the evening, although Pint came close, as did W90... and Dobber, and Beer 57 was also excellent... 

OMG MARBLE MANCHESTER BITTER IS TOTALLY AWESOME

Perhaps I was too hasty in my wild praise of Thornbridge Halcyon. It’s not that it doesn’t deserve it – of course it does, it’s bloody fantastic – it’s just that maybe I’ve found something even better.

It was Friday. It had been a very long bitch of a week. I was hot and thirsty and tired. I slumped in from work, dragged myself to the fridge and pulled out a restorative beer: Marble Brewery’s Manchester Bitter. I’ve had it on cask in The Bull and loved it but was a little worried about how it would transfer over into a bottle... I needn’t have. It’s 4.2% of brilliant. It’s a stunning gold colour. It smells like you’ve been locked in a room full of sacks of deliciously fresh hops - passion fruit, tropical fruit and citrus – the kind of aroma you want to be able to inhale so deeply that it fills every last space of your lungs. It’s easy drinking, it’s completely delicious, it’s got these incredible hops that just keep on teasing and playing and nibbling away, so fruity, astoundingly fresh, vibrant, AWESOME. It puts almost every other bottled British beer I’ve had this year to absolute shame. Breweries: if you want to taste what a 4.2% hoppy bottle-conditioned British bitter can taste like then try Manchester Bitter. Please.

In fact, it’s so good, I put my money where my mouth is and just bought a whole case of it from myBrewerytap – it’s the perfect summer beer and I can’t imagine anything better when sitting in the sun than a chilled bottle of this.

myBrewerytap are also selling four other Marble bottles – Lagonda IPA, Tawny No.3, Ginger and Chocolate Marble. Beermerchants sell the special, limited edition Marbles, which are also fantastic (Special, the American-style barley wine is my favourite).

Marble Brewery: The One for 2010

My beer of the year was Marble Pint. It was totally deserving – it’s clean, hoppy, pale, so fruity and drinkable and rammed with flavour; a marvel at 3.9%. In a year where I’ve been chasing big, brutal and hoppy, this just side-stepped in and took all the glory from beers of much bigger fame, and it was also able to change my mind about ‘boring pale ales’. In truth, I would’ve happily drunk pints of Pint every single day. It’s a quality British beer, made to be drunk in the pub, brewed by a great brewery.

And it’s not just Pint that deserves praise. Earlier today I had a couple of pints of Manchester Bitter, a 4.2% pale bitter, fruity hops, delicious body, bitter but not too-bitter, juicy, gluggable. The word ‘Bitter’ has come to stand as a negative thing. It’s one of those old-style English beers, murky brown in colour, autumn fruit flavour, dry hoppy finish... It’s a classic style but one which, in its frequent incarnation, drags English beer back a peg or two from where it deserves to be. Manchester Bitter raises the bar on what a Bitter is. I just hope others follow it.

Beyond these there’s Dobber; Marble Pint plus a bit more - big bitterness, loads of fruity hops, so clean and fantastic. There’s Ginger, a fruity-spicy ale rich with the fresh ginger and tongue-tinglingly good. Chocolate Marble is a quality, full-flavoured stout. Then there’s Decadence and Special, two 750ml champagne-corked and wax-sealed bottles; one imperial stout, one barley wine.

BrewDog were my Brewery of the Year for 2009. More than anyone else they’ve kicked the arse of British beer and pushed it forward. For the quality of the beer, BrewDog also stand up to their media hype, and that’s very important. Part of why they are my brewery of the year is their social media presence, which cannot be denied or overlooked – they use and exploit it to their benefit better than anyone else (but the beer still stands up to it). If I were to stick my neck out then I’d say that Marble are the British brewery to look out for in 2010. They won’t be as loud and obnoxious as BrewDog but they will make a lot of incredible beer. I know for sure that I’ll be watching them and trying to drink their beers as often as possible. I hope that a new brewery will mean more beer and more availability. I also hope they bottle some more of their specials. Remember Marble. Drink them as often as you can. Taste just how good British beer can be in 2010.

Beer Blogger Awards 2009: My Winners

Personally, I’ve had a good 2009. I graduated from a Masters degree, I started a career, I moved in with my girlfriend, I wrote the first draft of a novel (and another 35,000 words of a second), I became an uncle and the BGBW award topped it all off. Beer-wise it's been a great year too. Lots of new beers tasted, new favourites found, new friends to drink them with and lots of great memories. But... it's time to announce my winners for 2009. It’s been really hard to select most of these, hence why I’ve gone for some honourable mention choices too. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while then most of the winners will be familiar names – I like to talk about the beers I enjoy the most. I did a semi-similar thing last year and my choices are quite different and I’m sure that this time next year they will be very different again.

Feel free to take these categories and the logo (designed, like Beer Swap, by Robsterowski from I Might Have a Glass of Beer – cheers!!) and paste them into your own blog, alternatively you can email me your winners and I’ll post them on here or you can comment yours below.

Here are my winners for 2009:

Best UK Draught Beer: Marble Pint (Thornbridge Jaipur is a very close second)

Best UK Bottled Beer: BrewDog Tokyo* (Thornbridge Bracia and Zephyr are close behind)

Best Overseas Draught Beer: Too many choices... Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Captain Lawrence Reserve, Bear Republic’s Racer 5, De Molen Amarillo... Ultimately, Racer 5 reminds me of a good couple of days in London and I won’t forget it in a hurry

Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Pliny the Elder (a few Mikkellers are up there)

Best Overall Beer: Marble Pint

Best UK Brewery: BrewDog for being constantly interesting, pushing and progressing British beer and making people talk about beer (Thornbridge, Marble and Gadds need mentioning and with all moving to bigger breweries it’ll be interesting to see how 2010 fares for them)

Best Overseas Brewery: Mikkeller

Best Bottle Label/Pump Clip: BrewDog’s Atlantic IPA (shame the beer isn’t as nice as the label!)

Pub/Bar of the Year: The Bull, Horton Kirby (The Rake is runner-up)

Beer Festival of the Year: GBBF (Planet Thanet is second – love that festival)

Supermarket of the Year: Sainsburys (Tesco almost got it for introducing Gonzo Imperial Porter, 77 and zeitgeist but they took away Orval in the process...)

Independent Retailer of the Year: Utobeer

Online Retailer of the Year: Beermerchants

Best Beer Book: Pete Brown’s Hops & Glory

Best Beer Blog: Reluctant Scooper

Best Beer Twitterer: @reluctantscoop

Best Online Interactive Brewery: BrewDog (for their ability to go viral – no one else in UK brewing has that power)

Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Anything with the pork scratching at GBBF!

Open Category: Best Beer-Related Thing about 2009 is...: All the new friends I’ve made and all the great new people I’ve met through beer (The Best Non-Beer-Related Thing...: Becoming an Uncle!)

Next Year I’d Most Like To... : Drink in the US and make some beer-money from writing...

Dubbel, Rabidbarfly and John Clarke have commented their winners here. Chunk, Knut and Andy have blogged theirs. And I think Kelly from Thornbridge needs a special mention for putting the year of blogging into a poem!

2009 has been a good year... Here’s hoping 2010 is even better!

Drinking Beer Swap

After all the organising, the blogging, the tweeting, the hoping things would work out, the collect+ problems, the broken bottles, re-sending those broken bottles, the chasing people up and pushing them along, and then more chasing... after all of that I finally got around to the best part of Beer Swap: getting my bottles and drinking them.

Darren from Blog O’Beer (and @blogobeer) sent beers to me from Manchester. When I returned from the collect+ store I was ridiculously excited about opening the package to see what I had been sent. And it was real excitement, a great sense of fun, just like Christmas. I was delighted with what I unwrapped: Marble Ginger, Chocolate Marble, Outstanding Stout and an Outstanding Pushing Out – four brand new beers to me from two very exciting breweries from the North West.

I started with the Ginger (the 6% version this is – there’s also a 4.5%). The label says this is ‘fiery and intense’ and it certainly pours a colour that deserves that description. The nose is dominated by ginger and that goes straight through to the taste – candy sugar then in to fresh, sweet ginger and peppery spice, fragrantly earthy with a dry, bitter finish. I had the 4.5% Ginger Marble at The 2 Kents Beer Festival and I’ve grown to love it after initially not enjoying it. I had this with belly pork and spicy butternut squash (just like this one I had with Ruination) and it was perfect – a FABPOW! waiting to happen. This is an impressively different bottled beer.

Next was Chocolate Marble (5.5%), a near-opaque red-black pour with a tan head. A full roasty nose, chocolate, caramel, a lactic sweetness. It’s a great drinking stout, dark chocolate, a roasty richness, more of that caramel sweetness and a long, earthy finish. A lovely bottled stout, easy drinking and uncomplicated. And this was followed by the Outstanding Stout (also 5.5%). I was interested in the comparison between these two and it was immediately clear as I poured the Outstanding – it’s darker and fuller-bodied, the aroma was chocolate again but with smoke and liquorice this time, less sweetness and no lactic quality. The taste marked them apart too with this being fruity and ever-so-slightly sharp (in a fresh berries kind of way), full bodied, lots of liquorice and sweet smoke, smooth and with a long, dry, earthy-bitter finish. This had big flavour throughout and was very good. I think bottled stouts are very hit and miss. There’s often a whole middle section of the beer missing and it tastes thin or watery. These both got it just right.

I finished the evening with Outstanding’s Pushing Out, a strong golden ale (7.4%). It pours a great looking amber red with a fluffy head but then things get interesting... A big nose which is immediately like pick n mix, fruity and sweet, but then beneath this it’s earthy and peppery, minty with the slightest hint of Orval to it (this added a great depth and a little tang which mirrored the fizzy sweets in a pack n mix, although I’m not sure if it’s meant to be there). The taste was more of the same – a bag of chewy sweets and then in to a great bitter finish, not too strong but still assertive, and there was a lingering nudge of sour (again, I thought this was better for it!)... I liked this beer a lot. It made me smile and that’s good.

Thanks again to Darren for sending the beers down. It was great to be able to drink new beers from breweries that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to get. I didn’t know about Outstanding before this but now I want to know more. As for Marble, well I’ve got a real soft spot for them, thanks to enjoying them at The Bull, and I think they are just great. Now I just need to venture up to Manchester to drink them where they come from.

Beer swap rocks!