Rate Beer Hop Press

A while ago I was asked if I’d like to write for RateBeer. The idea is to get young beer writers who are not established in the mainstream to become the ‘professional’ face of RateBeer, adding unique content to their Hop Press. The hope is to make it the site for beer around the world. Seven different areas are represented by writers; six of these are in the US and one is International. I am the International man.

We each have a blog and we each have a day to post on. My day is Sunday and this is my blog. As an introduction, all of the writers have posted something today and then normal service will begin from there. This is my first post, titled My Beer and Me.

I’ve prepared some interesting blogs which will hopefully get more and different exposure to Pencil&Spoon. My blog is still my number one – it’s my baby! – but the Hop Press gives me a new space where I can try some different things. It’s basically Pencil&Spoon subbing as a ringer for another side once a week - it won’t change how I play here but it’ll give me a chance to play with others. The first post is up. The next one will be there on Sunday 22nd November. Check out the Hop Press as there are some great writers on there and hopefully it’ll become the best place on the web for varied and interesting beer content.

You may have seen me tweeting about having wordpress woes the last week or so. This is why.

Swapping Beer

The intention for Beer Swap was to share beer and talk about it with others using social media, bringing people in the beer community together. It was about giving someone else a taste of what you can easily get hold of. It started as a blogger project but through the power of the internet it quickly and excitingly developed into more. But something really interesting has developed since everyone received the names of who they are sending to: we are all searching for local beers, we are trying them, we are enjoying them and then proudly talking about what we have found. I think that’s great and it’s something that I didn’t expect. In my own search I wanted to incorporate where I lived previously and where I live now. The two are only about 20 miles apart but they open up a lot more breweries to choose from. Where I am now allows me to reach into Sussex, where I was before allows me north and east Kent. Maybe this is stretching the 30-mile rule, but I think it’s okay… I wanted to send some bottles from Gadds as I think they are the best brewery around here, but as beermerchants stock them and as they are/were 40 miles away I chose not to. I ended up buying all of the beers in shops that I can walk to and shops which I go or weekly. To be sure I was sending the best stuff, I took the bottles off the shelves and I tried them again (research purposes) and suddenly those bottles which I automatically walked past come alive and knocked me on the head for not drinking them regularly. How could I have just walked past these so often? Ignoring them, looking for something more exotic. Silly me for looking elsewhere.

I eventually settled on sending Hopdaemon’s Skrimshander, Whitstable Brewery’s Raspberry Wheat, Westerham’s Little Scotney Pale Ale and Harvey’s Star of Eastbourne. I won’t tell you what they are like, that’s up to Sam Lanes from Real Ale Reviews. I also put a little bottle of Biddenden cider in for him to try as a bonus extra. My box arrived up north a few days ago (although sadly Skrimshander didn’t survive the journey, oops – I’ll send a replacement or two). I know a box is on its way to me – I can’t wait to receive it and drink them! There are still a few weeks left to send, receive, drink and write. I think Beer Swap has been great fun and I love seeing all the #beerswap hashtags coming in (I keep it constantly on my tweetdeck). I’m surprised at how well it’s been taken up and I’m sure there’ll be another in a few months time. For now, what it’s done is show me just how willing we are to share what we have and how eager we are to try new things. It’s also shown that I must look at what’s made on my doorstep as it’s really quite good.

Lauren’s blog: What it’s like to go out with a beer geek

Oh dear, what have I done? Inspired by yesterday’s blog to/about my girlfriend Lauren, she has decided to write what it’s like from her side of things... This could also be subtitled: the view from the other half (or the other side of the table), as some of the pictures will confirm. And this is all her doing, too.


If you read Mark’s blog regularly you will know he has a long suffering girlfriend, I am that girlfriend and I thought I would give this blogging a go.

Mark is a beer geek and this has both pros and cons. Let me start with the pros, hmmmmm, yes the pros, actually let’s come back to that and let’s start with the cons.

I am most frustrated by the amount of Mark’s times he dedicates to his love of beer. He is either drinking, reading, buying or writing about beer, this leaves very little time for anything else, and most importantly no money for presents. When cleaning the flat I often come across bottle tops (Mark insists on hiding these on the top shelf where he thinks I won’t find them... wrong!) and empty bottles (he has taken to using these for flowers; I think this is to stop me throwing them out). Our wardrobe, commonly used for clothes, is used to store beer, and until recently a whole corner of the bedroom was taken up by a box of beer (it might be worth mentioning the 19 bottles I’ve just ordered from Brewdog... I’m eyeing up that corner again). The fridge is always full of beer which I am not allowed to lay down to make more room for my hummus and Coke Zero. I hate washing the odd shaped glasses and finding space for them in the cupboard (Mark is very precious about his glasses). I have been dragged along to beer festivals, often bribed with chocolate and biscuits and magazines. I am often the only female with her own teeth (I haven’t taken her to any good beer festivals, just the down-market smelly ones, so this is probably my fault!) and Mark always leaves me alone while he finds anther beer lover to talk to, and this seems to invite strange drunk men to sit next to me and strike up conversations about the odd band which have been deafening me. After a festival, beer night, pub, or evening in front of the tele with a few beers, I have been kept awake listening to Mark talking in his sleep when he has had one-too-many (yes, it’s quite odd, and he often laughs in his sleep when he has had more than 2 pints, weirdo). And I always know when he’s getting drunk because he doesn’t stop talking, yabbering on about everything and anything, usually beer-related.

And no, I don’t want to just try a sip. I don’t care how good you think it is, I don’t want to try it.

The pros of being with a beer geek are the sheer passion and enthusiasm which I find so infectious. I enjoy smelling the different beers, looking at the pretty labels and watching that smile on his face when he opens the special beer he has been waiting for all week. I enjoy listening while Mark tells me what people are saying on twitter, who is drinking what and where, and reading the lovely comments on his blog (I’m sure there are more pros than this... she gets to go on lovely day trips to different pubs... anything else...).

Sometimes I do wish Mark wrote about biscuits or cake because the tasting would be much more fun and I could share in his enthusiasm, but really I enjoy his passion, and I know it makes him happy. I think that my life would be quite dull without Mark’s interest in beer and the pros far outweigh the cons. I am so proud that this beer geek is all mine.

(During the writing of this blog I also discovered how annoying it is when you are trying to write whilst somebody talks to you. I will in future leave him to write in peace).

Lots of love from Lauren.


There we go. All I have done is a quick clean-up edit. I think this post is great and it made me smile. What do you think your other half would write if she had the chance? See if they’ll do it! And I’ll be reminding Lauren of this post on Saturday night when she comes home and sees six very drunk chaps and a lot of empty bottles of stout (plus general food carnage) spread around the flat.

The Spoon to my Pencil?

Lauren often asks me when I’m going to write about her on here. “What do you want me to say?” I ask her. “Just tell them how I’m the best girlfriend in the world.” “You’re the best girlfriend I’ve got...” I tell her, “but it’s a beer blog and you don’t like beer.” “Oh.” She says.

To begin, she doesn’t actually drink beer. This is both good and bad. It’s good because she can be my driver. It’s bad because I’d love to share these bottles with her and have her get excited about them with me. I’ve tried hard to get her to like it but it’s not going to happen. Lauren does, however, have a great nose for smelling beer. And a great ear for listening about it. You see, whenever I am anywhere with a beer or whenever I’m doing things which I write about on here, Lauren is usually always there. She’s the one next to me in the pub reading her magazine (the bribe to keep her there so I can have a couple), the one opposite me at dinner while I talk to her about something beer-related, or how I wish they had something else on, or how next week I plan to open this bottle or that, or she’s sitting on the sofa while I sit behind at the table tapping into the laptop, “spending more time talking to people on twitter than talking to me”, posting blogs, or she’s in the driver’s seat while I give (always bad or wrong) directions to some distant “old man’s pub”, or she’s listening to me describing why this beer is good and that beer isn’t or how this one could be better or how I wish I could go here or there, or she’s putting beer glasses back into the cupboard or moving bottles around in the fridge because they take up more room than the food, or she sees me putting away my latest beer order and wonders when I’ll spend some money on her for once, or she’s answering questions as I playfully quiz her on my latest blog post (“You’re my favourite beer blogger,” she told me once, “but then I don’t read anyone else’s blog”), or she’s patiently waiting for me to post a blog, or read a blog, or send a tweet, or buy the bottles I’ve been staring at for ages which took us an hour out of our way to get, or she’s following to a pub (“honestly, it’s just around this corner” I say, hearing the feet drag) only to walk straight out because there’s nothing on, or she’s waiting to start eating her dinner while I take pictures of mine, or she’s planning her next few weekends around my drinking schedule, or she’s kicking me out of bed when my 5am alarm clock goes off so I can get up early to write or she’s woken up late when I steam back in at midnight (I’m sure she’ll tell me what I’ve forgotten, too).

And then there’s the times when she talks to me about beer, when she mentions hops or buys me some of my favourite bottles, when she says she likes something I’ve just written or she suggests going to London to go to some pubs or she says, “I bet that beer would be great with chocolate cake”, or when I catch her looking at my blog and reading the comments people leave, or when she smells a beer and picks out aromas I hadn’t, or when she clears away all my empties and tells me that she likes this label or doesn’t remember me drinking that bottle, “what was it like?”, or when she genuinely takes an interest in what’s in my glass.

I’m quite lucky, I think.

I write this blog but there’s always someone else there, someone who probably should hate beer but tolerates it and listens and actually knows a lot about it because she cares about what I care about. I guess she’s the real Spoon to my Pencil.

Sorry if this is gushy and sentimental but that should keep her sweet while we go for a huge steak dinner at the Hawksmoor on Friday (she doesn’t eat meat) and then drink around Borough, followed by a massive and potentially messy beer night at ours on Saturday, followed by more beer on Sunday and Monday (she will also hopefully be cooking me dinner on Monday). Plus next weekend at The Bull’s huge beer festival, the weekend after at The White Horse’s Old Ale Festival, then the British Guild of Beer Writers Dinner (which she isn’t coming to) followed by the Pig’s Ear beer festival the next day and then the next weekend on a London pub crawl.

C-Hops and Change-Ups

Some posts I write and they get sucked up into the backlog and don’t get around to being posted. Or, like this one, when they are posted they have aged horribly. Luckily, only the background colours of this piece are dated, the full-frontal beers are still in bright colour and relevant. So rather than me re-writing this, just focus on the good stuff, the US beer stuff. Mmm. Nothing like that first beer refreshment, especially when it’s a 9.8% hoppy, old ale opened at 1.30am after a couple of hours of pre-World Series nap. Last season I drank a different beer with each game of the World Series (1, 2, 3, 4, 5a, 5b) but, as it wasn’t planned further ahead than the first game, the beer choice wasn’t all that spectacular (there was a Bud and a Root Beer as part of the selection!). I vowed to drink better during the next World Series. That time has come and I do have better beer, it’s just that I don’t really feel that thirsty at 1am, plus something stops me opening them just for the sake of being able to write a blog post about them. But I’m drinking now (or was when I wrote this) – I’ve got a Founder’s Old Curmudgeon Ale while I watch the fifth game of the Fall Classic. Old Curmudgeon (from beermerchants) is red/amber with a heady and fruity nose of cherry, bread and old orangey c-hops. It’s malty, full bodied and smooth, it’s fruity, there’s toasty grain and caramel and then into a dry, bitter, woody finish which rolls into a vanilla oakiness further down the glass. The one thing I love about the Founders beers are their labels – they are great to look at – but the double edge to this is that I have no idea about style or ingredients from it (I like my bottles to come with a style – although the Old on this one is a hint – and a geeky list of the hops used). The Founders website describes Old Curmudgeon as an ‘old ale brewed with molasses... then aged in oak.’ It’s not the most refreshing first beer of the day, but then it is approaching 2am by now (or it was...). I also opened a beer with Game 2 - a Southern Tier Iniquity Black Ale (also from beermerchants - this is a recurring theme...). At 9% it’s black-red, smooth with a great hoppy aroma – oranges and dry, spicy pine – and filled with a caramel and chocolate malt base. The hops live mainly in the nose and flavour and aren’t tongue-smacking-bitter, which is a good thing - it’s one of the first hoppy dark beers which I’ve really enjoyed (I don’t ‘get’ the citrus-floral bitterness and roasty-bitter dark malt combination). While we’re on US beers (...writing to keep the zzzs away...), I’ve had the Founders Double Trouble (from beermerchants) a couple of times and that’s a wicked IPA with cakey malt and a bitterness which clings and claws through grapefruit, orange pith, tropical fruit and a floral flourish. It’s 9.4% and 86 IBU and just my kind of thing – I’d love to get it super fresh from the brewery. Then the Mikkeller/Three Floyds Oatgoop (from beermerchants), a deliciously drinkable hoppy oat wine with a whole spectrum of malt flavours and a big punch of those deliciously more-ish US hops at the end. There was a Lost Abbey Devotion (from beermerchants), a Belgian-style blonde, orange-gold, zesty and peppery, light and drinkable, fruity – I don’t love blondes as a style but this one I liked a lot. Finally, an Alesmith Yulesmith (from beermerchants) with its caramel sweetness to begin, falling deep into fragrant and floral, then piney and punchy c-hop bitterness which hangs around for ages (it was good but not as awesome as the AleSmith IPA I had with the first game of baseball this year). The baseball finished last Wednesday night and the bloody Yankees won the World Series. I haven’t watched enough games this year, which is a shame. If nothing else it’s a good excuse to open some new beers and drink them at a stupid time of day, if you are thirsty. And as you can probably tell, I’ve spent quite a lot of money at beermerchants recently and there are more in the cupboard which I haven’t opened yet – their selection of US beers is broader and more interesting than all the other online beer-sellers and I like them for that. Also, the odd tense-thing going on in this post is, I know, a little confusing. I guess you can expect that with something initially written at 1.30am and then edited at 5.30am a few days later and then edited again (and finally posted) a few more days later at 8pm. I've been getting into some strange writing habits...

Make Beer Not War, Please

James from BrewDog has complained to The Portman Group about his own beer, Tokyo*.

By writing about this I am catching the bait, I’m sure, but some things need saying.

This is idiocy. I get why they are doing it, I see that, but it doesn't make it the right move. I understand that BrewDog want to highlight flaws in the system, that they want to challenge the system and ultimately get publicity at the end of it, but getting their own beer upheld because of a few words which they wrote is completely illogical, especially when it’s one of the best beers they make.

I am a big fan of the brewery and the beers, but as I said with Nanny State, sometimes you have to tell your loved ones when they do something stupid. BrewDog: this is stupid.

Please do what you do best and make great beer. Please exhaust your energy in trying to sell them, not by trying to get them banned. Let the beer speak for itself. The real losers here are the people who want to drink your beer; the people who pay for your beer. And remember, other people own a stake in your company now. I was impressed with the Movember brew (and I bought some) and this is great publicity and that’s something which you should be pressing to get PR from. Shooting yourself in the foot to prove a point makes you limp around painfully while we all watch on, and it isn’t a good look.

Please, let us catch our breath, let us drink some of your beer and let us look forward to the next beer you release, because that’s where the real hype is for BrewDog, that’s what excites me the most – what beer will I be able to buy next and when will I be able to get it. Keep producing new beer and we will continue to buy it, drink it and talk about it. You are a brewery, not an infamy-chasing, d-list celebrity; by all means show us your sexy new equipment, impress us with hot new beers, promise us great things, just don’t go kamikaze in the process.

Pete Brown has also posted about this latest stunt on his blog.

Beer Blogging is Cool

A few of my posts have discussed twitter recently, but it’s important. And it’s becoming increasingly important all the time. Beer Swap is a prime example: that started as a blog project but rapidly, through the power of twitter, turned into a social media project (the hashtag of #beerswap seemed to pique interest from all over the world with many people asking what it’s about and how they can be involved). This also highlighted something else: the number of people who write regular tweets about beer and the number of people who actually write blogs about beer.

I’ve only been writing Pencil&Spoon for a year, but in that time the number of other beer blogs has increased massively, especially in the last few months. And there’s a new trend now, which is interesting: beer bloggers are getting younger. Have you noticed that? Hop around the blogosphere and see how many beer bloggers are in their 20s. Brewers are getting younger too and they are having an influence (the New Wave cometh). Combined, these are changing beer in Britain, keeping the traditions of old but invigorating with US boldness.

In blogging terms, I think twitter has a lot to do with it. Everyone knows the sociability of the beer scene and there really is nothing like it – our love for good beer inextricably links us and is the match to start our friendship. Take that sociability, take the curiosity to know what others are drinking, take the fun and drunken tweets, the honest and real-life stuff, the 140-character conversations and soon it’s like sitting in a virtual pub with mates (blogging is the same, just with unlimited letters to do it). What twitter has done is highlight those who are really interested in good beer and opened the community; it’s made it inclusive, it’s shown that there are a lot of people out here who want to drink good beer. And thanks to a few twits and bloggers I think it’s shown that writing about the stuff you drink in the pub, or the bottles you open while watching TV, is pretty good fun.

It boils down to this: Beer blogging is cool. And real ale is cool, too. It’s no longer solely the realm of the old, bearded guy; it’s slowly crept into a young man’s thirsty territory. Beer can’t survive and grow on the old guard alone (although it’s very important, and let’s not forget, age is a state of mind as much as it is a number); it needs new blood, new invigoration and new passion to take it to new places. BrewDog have helped (although this post links in well with the debate sparked from James’ recent interview with FullPint) as have other young brewers, and interest in interesting beer is increasing all the time. British beer is more than murky best bitter and its future ascension rests in the brewing hands of those who make it and those tapping fingers of those who use technology to write about it. With every blog written, every tweet sent and with every new and different brew that hits the pub we are promoting (marketing and physically) British beer.

Is the virtual pub becoming as important as the physical pub?

Movember Mo-Show

It’s Movember, the month of highlighting male health issues and raising money for charity by growing the ultimate symbol of effortlessly cool manliness: a moustache. Reluctant Scooper is taking part along with Thornbridge (donate to him here) and has written about it with some facts that no man should ignore. He also points me towards BrewDog who have made a beer called Movember and will donate 25% of it’s sale price to charity. Unless I missed something I haven’t heard BrewDog shouting about this one, but they really should as it’s a great thing to do. While it may not be particularly Punk and create as much publicity as making a beer as a two-finger salute to a staid institution, this deserves as much volume as everything else (it might even impress a few people) and it’s for a much worthier cause. Plus if I can buy beer (a new beer, it seems – tick!) and donate to a worthwhile charity in one transaction then I’m all for it!

I won’t personally be growing a Mo’ this year. Vanity is the main reason as it’s my birthday soon and I’ve got lots of beer events coming up (yes, this is the worst excuse ever and completely defies the object). Plus I’ve been told that I look like a paedo when I don’t shave and as I work for a college this could be an issue...

Lauren’s Grandad died earlier this year from prostate cancer so even though I won’t be moustachioed (what an awesome word) I’ll certainly be supporting everyone who does.

As well as Movember, there’s also Pints for Prostate – a beer-specific charity which a lot of US beer-bloggers support.

myBrewerytap

I’m not the first (Pete and Reluctant Scooper) to write about these guys but they were nice enough to box up some beer for me so I’m happy to say what I think of them. It’s myBrewerytap, have a look at their website, it’s pretty good. They sent me a box of British ale from their 52 Week Beer Club.

I’ll admit that I was dubious at first: why would I want 13 random bottles? But when they came I was pleasantly surprised: the beers are different and interesting from all over Britain, you get a pint glass and a bottle opener and a list of tasting notes for the selection.

Golden Warrior's Empire Bitter is clean and tasty with a long, pithy-dry finish. Brentwood Brewing’s Hope and Glory is a red bitter hopped with East Kent Goldings which had a great marmalade and earthy hop flavor which went perfectly with a vegetable curry. Tring’s Death or Glory was all dried fruits and milk chocolate and very drinkable for 7.2%. There’s a Meantime London Stout and a Burton Bridge Porter in there too, plus a few others, Old Bear, Breconshire Brewery, Saffron – lots of new breweries in there for me to try.

It’s a pretty good idea but is this the sort of thing you’d go for with your own cash? Do you like the idea of getting random, new and (hopefully) interesting beers sent to your door (a bit like Beer Swap, really) every three months? Or do you prefer to choose your own bottles from the shop or online?

(In Praise Of) Wetherspoons

This may come as a shocking admission but I used to ‘collect’ Wetherspoons. You see, when you are a student you drink a lot and go to the pub a lot, but no one has the money to be lavish and open the finest bottles in the most lovely establishments; you have to make do. With Wetherspoons we could more than happily make do.

Wetherspoons are berated for their lack of atmosphere, the salubrious clientele (hideous drunks, hideously drunken girls, hideous girls, old boggle-eyed chaps and their boggle-eyed mates with their carrier bags), dodgy carpets, a general all-round cheapness, that smell (what is it?), the marauding binge drinkers in fancy dress every Friday and Saturday from 9pm… but as a student none of the above bothered me, in fact, I went there specifically for those reasons (there’s nothing like fitting in). The people in the pub generally make it what it is, which means that the value-shoppers of Wetherspoons (if Tesco only sold their value range would you go in there? Who else would be in there?) and the disinterested staff create the pub atmosphere and this is probably why there are so many haters. Look beyond this and see what you are actually getting and it’s really not that bad (open those value baked beans and they taste the same as all the others).

Some of the pubs are really interesting, too. They aren’t just soulless, silent, smelly holes, there are also interesting, silent, smelly holes. Old cinemas, old banks, old opera houses, all of them different - unique in their shape and size, if not their content. And the beer – I rarely have impeccably kept pints in there but it’s rarer that I get a too-bad-to-drink pint. A lot are Cask Marqued too (if this means anything) and they feature heavily in the Good Beer Guide (if this means anything).

I’m guessing the ‘collecting’ thing come about one afternoon/evening when we were half-cut and looking at a listing of all the pubs around the UK and the lightbulb turned on – we could go to them all! This developed into a little bit of an obsession and we never left the house without ‘the bible’, otherwise known as the Wetherspoons Directory. One day, now affectionately known as W11, we visited 11 pubs in the chain, starting in Staines and on the train in to Waterloo and then halfway around London. That was quite a day. We planned a W15 but it never happened. Or, perhaps I should say, it hasn’t happened yet…

I have some great memories of Wetherspoonses (I can't get my head around the plural...): an Old Peculiar in Reading (I didn’t order it but wish I had), a few holes of pub golf which deteriorated drastically, playing the IT box every time, shots of stupid-strong rum, an in-and-out shot of tequila on the way to a Blink 182 gig just to scoop the pub, bottles of Kopparberg after beer festivals. I ate there a lot too. I know the food is far from gourmet but it ain’t all that bad either: the value menu is superb for the prices; curry night is £6 well spent (one time, I ordered my curry and it arrived before I had even sat back down at the table!!) and beer and a burger is a regular pit-stop on a pub crawl.

I’m not a student anymore but that hasn't affected the rose-tinted vision I have of the chain and I think Wetherspoons get a bad rap. Sure I can see why, but I think they equally deserve a lot of praise – they promote real ale and, more specifically, they very often feature local ales. And it’s not just one or two rotating casks, most of them have eight-plus handpumps with over half changing as regularly as they are drunk. That’s good. It’s a shame that in the last few years their fridges have changed from interesting bottles of world beer to Eastern European lager and super-sweet fruit ciders, but so what, I go there for a choice in real ale, I go there for ‘value’, I go because I’m strangely drawn to them every time I see one (habitually/fly-shit) and I go because I almost always know what I’m going to get. The rest is part of the ‘charm’.