What is your Brewery name and where did it come from?
The brewery is attached to a public house, and goes by the name of Brewers Union Local 180. This is a union of people, not a labor union. The “Local 180” part plays off the labor union thing, but also represents the idea of a community local and a 180 – a complete change in direction.

A clean brewery is a happy brewery

What is your brewery capacity?
2 UK BBL. 2 Fermenters.

What is different about your brewery?
A brewery that focuses almost exclusively on real ale is different not only in Oregon, but across the country as well.

How long have you been brewing for?
Homebrewer since I was 21. I’m now 46, I hate to admit. The Brewers Union has now been open for two years.

How did you get into brewing?
The homebrewer bit just happened as a result of helping some friends homebrew back after the college years. My change of profession came as a result of walking around the UK, after I quit my job as a Chief Software Architect at the end of 2004, and visiting as many pubs as possible. The night that I “snapped” was a night spent at the Woolpack Inn in Cumbria, formerly run by Dave Bailey who is now the owner of the Hardknott Brewery in Millom. Subsequent trips to Cumbria to learn the arts resulted in the purchase and reconstruction of a building in my current home of Oakridge, Oregon.

What beers do you brew regularly?
I rotate my beers around. I have six beer engines and 47 casks at the moment. I try to represent some of the general families of ales, such as a bitter or best bitter, an IPA, and something dark like a porter or stout. Some of my regular brews are:

A brewer and a pub? what more could you want?

Union Dew, IPA, 6.1% ABV
Cumbrian Moor, Porter, 4.6% ABV
Wotcha, Best Bitter, 4.4% ABV
Baba O’Rye’ly, ESB, 5.9% ABV
This TIme For Sure, Hoppy Pale, 5.7% ABV
Quid Hoc Sibi Vult?, Malty Special Bitter, 4.6% ABV
Chuckle Springs, Brown, 4.6% ABV

What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
Black Wooly Jumper, Dry Irish Summer Session Stout, ABV 3.7%
Frost on the Bumpkin, 7-Grain Winter Stout, ABV 6.8%
Tanninbomb, Oak-Aged Old Ale, ABV 6.8%
Whisky in a Jar, Whisky Oak ESB, ABV 5.9%

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
More pubs with small breweries. You can’t have enough pubs.

What is you proudest moment in brewing?
The second and third batches of commercial real ale that I brewed happened on the occasion of my second visit to the Woolpack Inn. Dave, the owner, had broken his leg skiing and couldn’t be there to educate me, so he handed me two recipes and went off the hospital. Despite my confusion and a couple of really long brew days, I managed to deliver two batches of drinkable ale.

Oh, and getting a cask of Union Dew to the GBBF this year was rather nice.

Do you have any brewing regrets?
Not that I can think of at the moment.

What is your brewing ambition?
To help others open more real ale community pubs in Oregon, and hopefully someday to get myself over to England and work in the brewery and pub trade.

What was last beer you drank?
Currently drinking a pint of Wotcha, brewed about 50 feet away from where I’m lounging with my laptop.

What is your favourite hop?
Generally speaking I don’t really like to pick favorites, but I use a lot of E.K. Goldings. Also working a lot with Centennial and Cascade.

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
I’ve already mentioned Dave Bailey, but am still also inspired by Stuart Johnson at Foxfield Brewery at the Prince of Wales Pub in Foxfield, who taught me that you can brew a decent beer out of whatever you happen to have leftover in the grain storage room.

If you could brew one collaboration beer with someone who would it be with and what would it be?
The most flavorful and drinkable oak-aged session bitter ever devised by the mind of man at the Hardknott Brewery.

Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
Not sure I can answer this one.

How do you spend your time when you aren’t brewing?
I’m usually dealing with one or another aspect of running a pub. I work the bar, clean, repair and do paperwork. I don’t really have regular time off, but am working on that. On those rare occasions when I can escape I try to spend some time walking or riding the Harley, or just sitting by the river for a couple of hours with a good book.

If you could have one superhero superpower what would it be?
The Mirth Ray (™).

Anything else you want to tell us?
I’m warning ya – I’m coming over there, and when I do I’m gonna be powerful thirsty.

Thanks to Ted for filling this in, you can visit his website here or read his blog here

Bitter at it's Best

I was prompted to write this after finding a bottle of Merlin’s Magic at the back of the beer cupboard, how I missed it I really don’t know as the label stands out a mile, as with all the Moor Beers it’s label is great and it’s printed on the same lovely paper, this time in bright orange which really does catch the eye.

Merlin’s Magic is Moor’s take on the classic English bitter only not bland and boring like a lot of the bitters out there. It pours a lovely amber colour with a big head with lots of fine bubbles. The nose is malty, fresh, caramel and lightly spicy with the faintest hint of some hops.

The flavour is light, malty and quite sweet then spicy followed by a lovely hoppy bitterness that has the slightest hints of peaches and fruit, This really is a top notch bitter.

Merlin’s Magic comes in at 4.5% ABV and is one of the best bitter’s I’ve had in a long while, It’s certainly well balanced and much more interesting and packed full of flavour than nearly all of the regular beers in my local, it would make a great session beer I just wish casks of it made their way up here.

Hat’s off to Justin and the guys at Moor, you can follow them on twitter here or visit their website here. You can also view my other Moor beer reviews here or read Justin’s Meet the Brewer here.

Ooops I think I poured it a bit fast.

You might be thinking what’s this got to do with beer?? Well as with just about every wedding, funeral, celebration party and Bar Mitzvah I’ve been to the beer selection was terrible, (actually I’ve not been to a Bar Mitzvah but I hear they are great fun). The choice was of Boddingtons, Guinness, Stella, Newcastle Brown Ale and some 4% piss water called Becks Vier which came out of the pump looking like it had an ice cream on top, fortunately there was no way you’d have been able to stick a flake in the Boddingtons, not that you’d actually want to do that, especially at nigh on £4 a pint.

As it happened the I got chatting to the uncle of the groom who was telling me he is trying to visit every pub in his copy of the 2008 good pub guide, he was a fair chunk into it and mentioned that he was going to pop over the road from the venue to visit Dr Brown’s as it was in the book, I thought it would be rude not to join him so tagged along.

Dr Brown’s isn’t the smartest of pubs but it is a pub I’m very familiar with, I used to work opposite it and it became my regular after work drinking spot. It’s an interesting pub, mainly because of it’s shape, its  a bit like a boat – long and pointy, it sits in the middle of two roads and is right on the corner. It usually has 2 or 3 handpull’s on at any one time and quite often gets some interesting beers in.

Last night’s choice wasn’t great but it was an improvement on the reception beer, I opted for the Deuchars IPA, which after drinking Boddingtons all day seemed packed full of flavour, malty, hoppy slightly sweet and a little bit of citrus, it was the best beer I had all day (apart from the sneaky and rather hastily poured bottle of Brewdog’s Chaos Theory I had between the two receptions.)

After the quick pint it was back to the reception, just in time for the excellent buffet, while scoffing the chicken and spicy wedge kebab I cobbled together we started chatting about the other “do’s” we had been to over the last few years and how that all bar one had the same sort of beer choices.

I guess I can see why all the venues do the same sort of beer choices, they have to appeal to the masses but it seems just a shame when I think back to some of the lovely big country houses and function rooms we’ve been in and how they put so much effort into the decorations, ambience and food but don’t seem to think twice about the beer selections. I understand that the function rooms aren’t always open so keeping a stock of cask beer could be a problem but as the rooms are usually so far in advance surely they could get some local ales in, I was also surprised to hear that many venues even consider getting a cask of ale in or letting you bring your own.

What could be better than sitting in  a lovely country hotel, surrounded my friends and family enjoying a pint of local cask ale with your carefully chosen food?

Is it like this every where? is it like this in other countries?

A plea to all function rooms……please provide a better choice of ale!

What is your brewery capacity?
We have a 20 bbl brewlength with 180 bbls fermenting capacity or 9 brews per week

What is different about your brewery?
We are situated within the City Walls of York and are geared up to do brewery tours of which we have 4 scheduled tours daily, plus the ability to do group tours or functions on a night.

Andrew enjoying a pint surrounded by hops

How long have you been brewing for?
I started brewing in 1993, so nearly 20 years!

How did you get into brewing?
I was a design draughtsman and I got made redundant twice in 3 years in the recession of the early nineties and I played rugby with a lad who’s parents ran a pub who started to brew beer for the pub. I enjoyed drinking beer and had done a bit of homebrew so pestered him to give me a job and the rest as they say is history!

What beers do you brew regularly?
We do 4 permanent beers, Guzzler, Constantine, Yorkshire Terrier, and Centurions Ghost Ale.

What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
We usually do at least one seasonal beer per month. The list is too long to go into here.

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
With the slight growth in cask ales, I hope that the future lies with the smaller craft brewers brewing quality products. Obviously we can’t compete with the supermarkets but as the pub offers something different to take home trade we are in a prime position to take advantage of it.

What is you proudest moment in brewing?
Winning the gold medal and champion beer for Centurions Ghost Ale at the Brewing Industry International Awards. It beat 98 other dark beers and stouts, including that famous black one from Dublin!

Do you have any brewing regrets?
No point having regrets, just look to the future.

What is your brewing ambition?
To carry on making quality beers that people enjoy. The best compliment we as brewers can get is when somebody orders a second one of one of your brands.

What was last beer you drank?
One of our seasonal beers, York Blonde.

What is your favourite hop?
Bramling Cross, which is an English variety. Has a blackcurrant nose and works wonderfully in beer.

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
I don’t really have any heros as such but there are people in the industry who I respect such as Roger Ryman for what he as accomplished at St. Austell brewery, John Bryan for always pushing the boundaries with the beers he makes. Again too many people to mention really.

Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
We already brew them!

Favourite hobby outside of brewing?
Cycling, rugby, cricket.

You can visit their website here, follow them on twitter here or read their blog here.

Brewdog Chaos Theory (taken from the Brewdog site)

I first tried Chaos Theory back when it was a prototype beer in a test case with Bad Pixie and Zeitgeist, Chaos Theory really stood out and soon became a staple in my beer cupboard until Brewdog inexplicably stopped selling it, much to the dismay of lots of Brewdog fans.

Chaos Theory is a 7.1% ABV Singled hopped IPA that uses  the wonderful Nelson Sauvin hops to produce a great floral beer with some really interesting flavours.

My advice is that if you like IPA, beg, steal and borrow some money to buy a case of this wonderful beer, OK maybe don’t steal it as that will get you into a lot of trouble and stealing is very very wrong.

Not only will you get 12 bottles of one of the best beers Brewdog have ever made you also get a free keyring to boot and you can never have enough bottle opener keyrings.

So get your self over to the Brewdog website and buy some before it’s all gone, hopefully if enough people buy it they will persuaded to make it a regular beer instead of a one off.

Oh and thanks Brewdog for making my day and no doubt getting me into more trouble with my other half for buying more beer that I don’t really need, although I could argue I do need this beer. Let’s just hope it’s as good as I remember.

Some have suggested that two places in one day is too ambitious and won’t do justice to either destination, while others are happy with doing both. The thinking behind doing two places is that it’s a taster as much as anything else and by doing two we can just focus on the very best each place has to offer – we can visit any town, any day and drink, but this is a Twissup and we like to do things differently! The journey is also an integral part of the Manchester-Huddersfield trip, where we can stop somewhere on the way for a pint. If there are enough excellent pubs to keep us entertained in one place all day, without it getting samey, then that’s great and we can do that. There’s always the option to go somewhere else on the Sunday, too.

The form below is so that we can take down names and contact details so we can email everyone rather than blog it. You can also vote on whether you’d prefer one place or both. We’ll go with the winning vote – democracy rules!

This has also been posted by Mark at Pencil and Spoon

Where did your Brewery get it’s name?
Amber Ales Ltd, named after the Amber Valley region where we are located – it is literally the valley of the river Amber in central Derbyshire

What is your brewery capacity?
5bbrl (800l) brew length, currently brewing 4x per week

What is different about your brewery?
We like to think of ourselves like Paul Smith – ‘classic with a twist’. Understated, with top-notch crafted quality beers that often surprise with
something different.

Pete looking as proud as punch!

How long have you been brewing for?
Nearly 4 years on a commercial scale

How did you get into brewing?
Well I trained as a chemical engineer, then worked in the paper industry for a while – the UK used to have a big paper manufacturing sector, less so now. The paper industry is like brewing, where it’s chemistry by the bucket rather than the test tube. Wellies not white coats. Got into homebrewing because I was so sick of bland corporate beers and real ale ‘pond water’ – flavourless, sweet & mildly intoxicating at best.

Here I got interested in how to pack the flavours I wanted into beer. Then I left paper and went into business analysis & IT stuff but kept home-brewing. Eventually the long dark night of the soul came knocking and it was a case of “do I want to have ‘corporate manager’ on my gravestone? Do I want to drive a desk? No, I don’t want to do what I’m doing I want to make a difference; how can I combine
training, instinct, passion & hobby into career?” Well that’s brewing, obviously.

What beers do you brew regularly?
We have had the pleasant problem of having to add many one-off brews to our regular roster as they have been so popular, although it gets beyond a joke sometimes! We stared out with 3-4 regular beers and now, particularly since the opening of our 2nd pub, have 7 or 8 on the ‘must stock’ list. These are:

• Amber Valley Bitter (3.6%) – chestnut coloured session beer
• Barnes Wallis (4.1%) – best selling IPA style bitter with styrian golding hop
• Original Stout (4.0%) – traditional black stout, more Mackeson than Guinness
• Amber Blond (3.9%) – refreshing golden summer ale
• Scary Dark (3.6%) – lightish mild with roast & toffee flavours
• Chocolate Orange Stout (4.0%) – award-winning fruity stout (CAMRA Champion Speciality Beer of Britain 2010)
• Dambuster (5.5%) – strong golden IPA with tons of American hops
• Imperial IPA (6.5%) – export IPA in the old Burton style; lots of malt & hops & alcohol

What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
We do a number of seasonal brews, including:

• Summer Bock (4.5%) – dark-lager style ale
• Autumn Pale (4.4%) – classic English pale ale, including limited production of version made with fresh hops sent direct from harvest
• Winter Ruby (5.1%) – rich dark red warming fireside ale

On top of that we do a number of specials, one-offs and experiments (termed ‘experiment-ales’ – if you want to try them they are usually on at the
Talbot Taphouse weekly on a every Thursday, or at the brewery for off-sales). Some from our recent past include…

• Jasmine IPA
• Lemongrass & Ginger
• Almond Dark
• American Amber
• Coriander Spiced
• Black Cherry Stout
• Chilli Blonde
• Oak Aged Stout

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
It’s a cliché but it has to be innovation. Keeping customers excited is the key, otherwise they all turn off and go back to bland regional and smooth brews. That’s not to say we all need to do new wacky stuff every day, just subtle changes can do it too.

What is your proudest moment in brewing?
My first brew commercial brew was done during paternity leave for my first child, hence on his birth certificate is says ‘Occupation of Father –
Brewer’.

Alternatively, every time someone appreciates beer I have made. It’s out there with a little piece of my integrity, made as good as I can make it.
Every positive and negative comment is a possible dagger but you have to deal with it. Also, brewing beers different enough that everyone likes some of them, yet few like all of them – that’s how you know you’ve hit the styles right on.

Do you have any brewing regrets?
Should have started years ago when I was younger, fitter… and slimmer! Then again, never trust a skinny brewer!

What is your brewing ambition?
Top notch best case for our beer, brewed and served perfectly… I’d give that 8 out of 10. At best.

My ambition is to brew and serve the perfect 10 out of 10. Probably will never happen and will drive us all mad in the meantime but hey, it’s my
ambition alone.

What was last beer you drank?
Of mine – a bottle of 12 month old Jasmine IPA, to see how it has aged; of others, Pretty Things Field Mouse Farewell acquired on a recent trip to
Boston USA

What is your favourite hop?
That’s like asking which is my favourite child; they’re all great in their own way, you just have to treat them right. Narrowed down to one it’s
probably Styrian Golding for its spicy versatility. No wait, Cascade’s floral citrus aroma… or the minty, grassy Golding… d’oh!

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
Undoubtably Garrat Oliver, brewmaster with Brooklyn Brewery. Wrote the definitive book on beer & food matching (and on beer styles, incidentally), The Brewmaster’s Table, and still a feet-on-the-ground normal person. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him several times and he is inspiration itself. Also great with the pithy one-liner; on budcoorsinbev lager: “if it doesn’t look like beer, and it doesn’t taste like beer, and it’s not made from what beer is made from, how can you call it beer?”

Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
The very first export India Pale Ale, or maybe I’d be happy just tasting it

Favourite hobby outside of brewing
What would I do if I wasn’t brewing? Sleep maybe. Play with my kids. Going to the pub as a customer not as a critic. Or maybe play golf. Or homebrew…

If you could have one superpower what would it be?
Timewarping to turn 7 days into 8 for the week so I could have a day off occasionally.

Anything else you want to tell us?
The UK beer scene is really starting to happen for microbreweries. It is great to see so many small guys making exciting ales but we have a long way to go. There are still too many bad pints, insipid brews, dodgy breweries and unscrupulous landlords. We have to raise our game – so everytime you order a pint you can help – demand the best, a perfectly brewed and served pint and in doing so you will raise the bar. It is our challenge as brewers to meet it.

Thanks to Pete for filling this in, you can visit the Amber Ales website here follow them on twitter as @talbottaphouse and @amberales or @AmberBrewery and follow them on facebook here

Here are the two choices:

Let's get twissed

Choice 1: Manchester-Huddersfield: We’ve talked about this one for a while. Start in Manchester as it’s easiest for most people to get to, head to the Marble Arch and maybe another stop in town, then to the station for the train to Huddersfield. We stop at a few stations for a beer on the way (on the Rail Ale Trail!), jumping on and off at the best places (this should help). In Huddersfield we have a few more pubs, probably ending at The Grove. Then back to Manchester or stay in Huddersfield.

Choice 2: Leeds-York: North Bar for starters and some other stops at Leeds’ finest, then over to York. Check out Blog O’ Beer and this post for a peek at what’s there. There’s also Pivo which is run by the same guys as The Sheffield Tap and we might be able to get York Brewery in on it, if we ask nicely. Then people can head home in the evening or stay in either Leeds or York.

What would you prefer?! We’ll go to the one with the most votes. Drop comments in the blog too if you’ve got anything extra to add, or if you don’t mind which one we go to (but still vote!).

We’ve looked at the Twissups for next year too. It’ll be London in February 2011, either the first weekend or the last. After that, probably May, we could do Newcastle, Cambridge or Oxford, maybe Brighton if we can arrange Dark Star/Harveys, whatever isn’t chosen for October, plus there’s Edinburgh for the Great Scottish Beer Festival (end of June), maybe with a stop in Aberdeen the day before or after (BrewDog bar, anyone?). And there’s also the option of an international Twissup – maybe Brussels, Amsterdam, Dublin – perhaps at the end of 2011.

Vote below but only vote if you intend on coming! The winner will be announced next week with all the details and a sign-up form.

We started the as every post beer all day drinking session should be started with a huge fryup, this came courtesy of Weatherspoons in Tonbridge, to be fair they had some great looking ales on but it was just that bit early. The breakfast was huge and delicious, the bacon was cooked perfectly and had just the right amount of smoky sweetness, everything else was just right too. We left absolutely stuffed and headed back to the bright lights of London.

The brewer's wall of fame at The Rake

The first port of call was the London Market Porter, where Robsterowski was waiting, It was a lovely little pub with a great range of beers, unfortunately the couple that could have tempted me into starting drinking again weren’t on so we let Rob finish his pint and headed for the Rake.

The Rake is one of many London pubs that I’ve heard lots about from various sources, Glyn even filled in our meet the publican thing a while back.

It’s a great little place, little in sense of space but not in beer selection, the range was pretty huge in fact. They had a great selection of casks, kegs and bottles ranging from 4% session bitters all the way up to high ABV barley wines, which included the last cask of Thomas Hardy’s Ale. Unfortunately I was still feeling a little worse for wear, luckily Glyn had the solution in the shape of a lovely ginger beer, I can’t for the life of me remember what it was but it was full of ginger and quite spicy, it certainly did the trick. This put me back in the mood and I moved onto a Goose Island Pale Ale. In the meantime Mark had gone off to be interviewed for a youtube channel, Steve from Ale Talk arrived as did a few other people from the beer blogging world. I had a great time chatting with everyone and the Rake is certainly a place I will be visiting again, thanks to Glyn and the staff for their hospitality.

Conscious that I had to be on the train in a few hours and we had lots of other pubs to fit in we headed across to Brew Wharf as I wanted to try some of Saint’s and Sinners beers, as I had only ever had a couple of bottles that Phil had very kindly sent me. I plumped for ABC which was their low ABV beer at only 3%, it’s packed full of flavour and is simply delicious, the hops are huge and fresh, the beer is light and extremely drinkable with an astonishingly clean bitterness that gives it a really crisp finish, the only shame was that it came in  a quilmes glass, Hats off to Phil and Steve for living up to the hype, something that I’m finding that more and more beers fail to do. (I also had a sip of “Hopfather” which was another cracker).

ABC at Brew Wharf

It’s also great to be able to see the brewery while you are supping your drink, more places really do need to be like this, I bet its a fascinating thing on brewday to watch the guys whizzing around working their magic, It just so happens the seats we chose were near the kitchen too and the food I saw going out looked rather tasty, unfortunately we didn’t have time to eat as we needed to be across the other side of town for a beer in another place I had heard lots about, The Cask & Kitchen.

After a short tube journey and a little walk we were inside, greeted by a huge row of pumps and a massive fridge of bottles, again like the Rake ranging from pilsners and session bitters all the way up to crazy off the wall beers like Mikkeller Black Hole and Brewdog Sink The Bismarck. I soon spotted the Thornbridge/Odell Collaboration beer, Columbus Red, It came out of the pump a glorious deep dark coppery red colour with a huge head, The aromas was packed full of hops and malt, the taste was huge,nutty,malty, sweet and  fruity with a huge hit of hops to balance it all out. It was a huge beer. It was then I realised this would be my last beer in London as I needed to head for the train, what a way to end though..what a cracking beer.

Once safely back on the train I had time to reminisce about the last couple of days, I was knackered and skint but had a great time, London for the most part lived up to the hype, despite being really busy, humid and turning my snot black.

London – I will be back to sample more of your delights!

30 real ales, ciders and perrys will be available along with 15 different flavoured sausages.

The bar will be open from 11am till midnight each day.

ENTRY IS FREE

Captain Cook Inn

The follwing ales have been ordered:

1. 3.5% Tower, Staffs 70 Shilling
2. 3.8% Nelson, Pieces of Eight
3. 3.8% Dark Tribe, Spruce Goose
4. 3.8% Steamin’ Billy, Grand Prix Mild
5. 3.8% Red Rock, Back Beach
6. 3.8% Teignworthy, Neap Tide
7. 3.9% Red Rock, Lighthouse
8. 3.9% Dark Tribe, Captain Floyd
9. 4.0% Hoskins, White Dolphin
10. 4.0% Nelson, Spinnaker
11. 4.0% Hoskins, Hob
12. 4.2% Newby Wyke, Kingston Topaz
13. 4.2% Nelson, Spanker
14. 4.2% Dark Tribe, Sternwheeler
15. 4.2% Tower, Black Tower Stout
16. 4.3% Nelson, Pressgang
17. 4.3% Red Rock, Driftwood
18. 4.3% Dark Tribe, Intelligent Whaler
19. 4.3% Teignworthy, Spring Tide
20. 4.3% Great Newsome, Holderness Dark
21. 4.5% Teignworthy, Beachcomber
22. 4.5% Westons, Country Perry
23. 4.8% Westons, Bounds Brand Cider
24. 5.0% Newby Wyke, Black Funnel Mild
25. 5.0% Teignworthy, High Tide
26. 5.0% Newby Wyke, HMS Warrior
27. 5.2% Newby Wyke, White Sea
28. 5.8% Red Rock, Capstan
29. 6.0% Westons, Traditional Scrumpy
30. 7.3% Westons, Old Rosie