A day in Bodegraven (part two)

Rather than wait for the possible arrival of the stragglers, Kevin gives us a quick rundown of the brewing kit. It's nice and shiny. And quite a decent size, with a 35 hl brew house and fermenters between 50 and 160 hl. But that's just the start. De Molen has recently taken up the other half of the building and plans a big expansion.

Tom Kehoe, owner of Yards brewery in Philadelphia and his wife Linda turns up after not too long.

"We've met before, haven't we?" I say to Tom.

"You're the guy with the book, aren't you?"

"Yep, that's me."

I had a book event at Yards in 2014. The thing I most remember about it is one of the audience trying to take over my talk. Very odd. Only time I've had that happen. Usually I talk so much no-one has chance to jump in. He had to be discretely led away and strangled in a back room.

Kevin is keen to give Tom a hands-on experience of brewing De Molen Style. Or just wants to dodge some work. It's fun to watch Tom play with the hoses. Mostly because it isn't me doing it. It looks like quite heavy work. Past experience (stirring the mash with a paddle) has taught me to be wary of volunteering in a brewery. Unless it's pouring the hops into the kettle. I'm cool with that. Quick, not too strenuous, lovely smell.

"Would you like a coffee or a beer?" Menno asks the new arrivals.

"I'll have a beer, please, Menno." I reply, without really having been asked. He doesn't look surprised. We've known each other for a while. He brings me a bottle of Licht & Lustig.

"Mmmm . . nice hop aroma."

"You've changed your tune. You didn't use to like American hops."

"I've been spending too much time on the other side of the Atlantic."

A little texting reveals that the remainder of the party is still in Amsterdam. So those of us that could be arsed to turn up set off on a tour with Menno.

It's amazing how much the brewery has grown since my first visit. Back when Menno only had the windmill and it was home to brewery, restaurant and shop. The current premises have more than ten times the floor area of the original brewery. Though much hasn't been filled yet. Sure, there is an impressive rack of wooden barrels along one wall. But there remains a lot of empty space. Not for too long. Twelve 150 hl conicals are due to be installed. Along with new bottling equipment and a bar. I'm sure it will be dead impressive, when finished.

Will the remainder of the party make lunch?

A day in Bodegraven

"What the fuck are you doing here, Ron?"

"Nice to see you, too, Menno."

What a nice start to the day at De molen. Well, not quite the start. I'd already been hanging around the brewery for a good half hour before Menno spotted me. Why? I'll need to back up a little to explain.

Back in September I got an email from a contact in Phiadelphia: would I like to go along for the brew day of the Philly Beer Week raffle winner. Every year a lucky individual gets a free trip to Belgium to brew a collaborative beer. Except this year it wasn't at a Belgian brewery, but De Molen in Bodegraven. Would I like to hang around in a brewery for a day? Hell yes. I didn't asking twice. Nor know what to expect.

Like all those over from Philly, I was advised to be at De Molen by 8 AM. I almost managed it. I wouldn't have been more than 20 minutes late, if I hadn't missed my connection in the chaos that is Utrecht Centraal, surely one of the least user-friendly stations in the universe. They've helpfully removed the big departure board and almost all of the timetables. Evidently you're supposed to get train information from your phone. Fucking morons. When I did manage to discover which platform my train departed from, I got there just in time to see it leave. The train, I mean, not the platform. That wasn't going anywhere.

I know, use the 30 miuntes until the next Bodegraven train to have a wee. I followed the toilet signs all the way to the opposite end of the station without encountering any bogs. But did find a sign for toilets pointing back in the opposite direction. I was starting to feel good about my decision to get a coffee rather than a beer before boarding my train in Amsterdam Zuid.

Did I mention it was cold? Effing cold. Unnaturally cold. After two mild Dutch winters, I'm totally unused to cold weather. Last cold snap I encountered was in Denver in November 2014. That's why I was wearing an unusually large amount of clothing.

After a couple of minutes hanging around in the brewery yard, I kindly bearded brewer invited me in from the cold. "Are you here for the collaboration brew?" he asked in English. "I sure am."

I was relieved to see that I was one of the first to arrive. Only three of the Philly crew were inside: Clare, one of the organisers, raffle winner Adam and one other. Over a warming cup of coffee, I learned the others were on their way . . . down to reception in their hotels. Mmmm. . . I could have had another hour or two in bed. And missed the rush hour at Utrecht Centraal.

Kevin, our brewer for the day, talked us through the computer display for the brew. Which had a rather complicated mashing scheme, with rests at 52º C, 62º C and mash out at 72º C. Hang on, I've forgotten to tell you what the beer was. Something rather Dutch: a Porter with salty liquorice. We were having a nice chat about temperatures and rest times when Menno came in.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Ron?"

Next: we look around the brewery and some of us do some work. (Not me, thankfully. I was taking a day's holiday.)

Pint pot

"Next time I'm taking my own glass." That's what I said after the 2011 Borefts Bierfestival. I didn't go last year, being otherwise detained in Canada. But I hadn't forgottten my promise to myself when I was getting ready to head off to Bodegraven on Saturday. I carefully wrapped a Nonic imperial pint in a teatowel and put it in the bag with my camera and lumps of bread.

I hate drinking beer from small glasses. An imperial half pint is the smallest acceptable measure to me. 10 cl? That's just taking the piss. My glass is likely to be empty before I've got back to my seat. Getting two glasses helps a little, but the best solution is more radical: taking a proper glass with me.

In the train from Utrecht, when I was surrounded by young enthusiasts* chatting excitedly about Whales, I knew I wasn't going to fit the festival's demographic very well. Not at all, more like. I'm pretty sure my attitude to the beers on offer was unique amongst the attendees. For I had a very simple plan: drink cask beer by the pint.

Let me explain why that wasn't as reactionary as it might sound. The two British breweries present - Fynes Ales and Thornbridge - brew some pretty decent stuff. Especially in cask form, and they'd both brought several with them. I like cask beer. Love it. I'm not going to apologise for that. I know it's trendy to sup craft keg nowadays, but there's something about cask no other form of beer can replicate. That soft, enticing drinkability. One pint makes you lust for another. And another. It never gets tired, tiring or dull as long as your legs are still up to their job and your lunch isn't threatening a return. Fun and easy to drink -what could beat that?

I don't get to drink cask beer very often. Amsterdam's only regular cask outlet is Wildeman and, let's be honest, they're a bit clueless as how to handle it. They keep the firkin somewhere too cold, then plonk it on the bar when they want to serve it. Pretty much guaranteed to produce a pint that's hazy and lacking condition. I've just about given up on it. Especially as it costs 7 or 8 euros a pint. Which leaves trips to the UK my only chance to drink cask. Three or four times a year. That's how often I can drink my favourite drink. Not much. I'll struggle to knock back a couple of hundred more pints of it in my lifetime. Now there's a depressing thought.

Note all the beards

With the brewers manning the stalls, I was sure there would be no quality problems. Poor handling is cask's Achilles heel. An idiot can turn the best beer in the world into a foul mess. Then again, and this is one of the big points in cask's favour, the opposite is also true. Handled by an expert, the dullest beer in the world can shine and sing. With cask you really can polish a turd.

Sadly neither brewery had brought a Mild with them. Or a Burton. Fyne Ales did have a dark four-and-a-bit ABV dark beer (Vital Spark) that could possibly have been hammered into the Mild category, if you ignored the New World hops. But it didn't fool me, pleasant as it was.

I did make a few notes. A very few notes. Not really enough to have been worth the bother. Sitting next to Beer Nut, a very dilligent note-taker, highlighted what a rubbish job I was doing. He was also being much wider in his choice of beers than me. In comparison, I was an amateurish bumbler, sticking to just a handful of beers.

This festival report is a bit like my festival experience. Narrow, incomplete and





* Bizarrely, I recognised one American from his BeerAdvocate avatar, a picture of himself and his Dutch girlfriend. I would have introduced myself, but what would have been the point? "Hello, I'm the shouty Englishman who annoys Americans on the interweb."

New Ij brewery

It's not oftem I'm invited to an event where the mayor of Amsterdam will be present. Not often? Never would be more accurate. Until now.

After a decade or two of turning away customers, Het Ij has finally invested in a new brewery. If the local paper, het Parool, is to be believed, the new plant has an annual capacity of 6,000 hl, double that of the old one shoe-horned into the cramped premises underneath the windmill. It will brew all the bottled beer while the draught will contine to be brewed at the old plant.

The new building is far less romantic than the windmill, but I'm sure much more practical. And beautifully shiny in the way only brewing kit can be. On the way over I explained to Dolores how all modern breweries look much the same, whether they're in Ontario or China. A mash, a kettle and rows of conical fermenters. Basically like this:

These images are from the beginning of the party. Half an hour later and all you would have seen would be people. Lots of them. An intersting selection of Amsterdammers, some of whom I recognised from beer circles. As for the others, I've no idea who they were. Quite possibly professional liggers. Though that's probably not true in the case of those who had taken their kids along.

On tap was Nummer 1 (Number 1), the first beer made in the new brewhouse. Reassuringly, it had the distinctive Ij house taste. Not sure if it was a special recipe or one of their standard range. It could have been the Witbier. I haven't had that in ages, so I probably wouldn't have recognised it. This isn't being much help, is it?

I'm not used to doing this journalisty stuff. I just turned up and kept grabbing beers as they floated past. No note taking or anything as organised and professional as that. Just a few bits of video and the odd snap.

In the mayor's short speech, he spoke a little about the history of brewing in Amsterdam. I managed to restrain myself from shouting* when he mentioned there being breweries on Browuwersgracht (there were a couple, but only briefly right at the start of the 17th century).

Menno of De Molen was there and we had a chat about brown malt, invert sugar and the ridiculous markup of american beer distributors. Dolores was fascinated. Speechless, at least. I think that blank look on her face was fascination.

We didn't bother having any chips (even though they did look very nice) as we'd planned having a meal in town. Something we do once or twice per millennium. A curry, on the off chance you're interested. Less than 40 euros for the two of us. And not bad, either. Top-class nan bread. But I'm wandering off the path of coherence again.

On the way down we took the opportunity to drop by the Pakistani shop on Javastraat to get some tea. 1.5 kilos of PG Tips.I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. Loose tea, obviously. Tea bags are the work of satan. Believe me, in hell you only get watery tea-bag tea with seven spoons of sugar in it. Eugh! Enough to turn anyone into a saint.




* Dolores downloaded a German TV programme about beer recently. She only let me watch on condition that I didn't scream at it when they said something wrong. It was an odd feeling, watching without shouting. I might try it again.

Education

Maybe it's my fault. I should have insisted on a full explanation on the label.

1914 Whitbread Porter and SSS Stout. That's where my recreation brewing career started. I pitched an idea to an importer and found a brewer. What was that idea? You need to understand my motivation  to get beers brewed first. 

Frustration. Frustration with stupid arguments with brainwashed geeks about beer history. In particular, the difference between Porter and Stout. How best to demonstrate that historically they were just different strength versions of the same thing?

Easy. Get someone to brew a Porter and Stout recipe from the same year from the same brewery. That's the core of my recreation idea. Release a brace of brews whose relationship taught something about beer history. Either two related styles from the same year or the same style from different years.

I thought it was a pretty groovy concept. At least two others agreed.

I hoped the beers would be drunk side by side and my point would be clear. Fat chance. Not necessarily the fault of the punter. No guarantee they could find or afford both.

Judging by these comments on ratings sites, my efforts were in vain.

"Billed as a stout on the chalkboard at the Shelton Bros event - you could/should bump this up into the 'imperial porter' category."

"Lists as an imperial stout but does feel more porter like."

"Really a flavorful malty porter."

"The mouthfeel leaned more towards a Porter than a stout"

"The label describes this beer as a porter, but it definitely isn't. It is somewhere between a light, chocolatey quad, a Belgian stout, a Belgian Dark Strong Ale."

"Think brown porter."

"The result is an old fashioned porter/stout which has a lot in common with current (imperial) brown ale style, so I think they definitely got the point with this recipe."

"it feels lighter in body than a porter. More like a brown ale"

"I’m getting modern porter here."

"The bottle we had said porter, but we believe it to be the same. Nice rich RIS"

"Great stout that may actually may be an exceptional Porter."

"turns out i put the 1914 porter here by mistake.. opps"

"drinkable in quantity if i were into porters masked as thin imperial stouts"

"mouthfeel i find a little thin for my liking more like a porter"

Incidentally, if you want to learn more about Porter and Stout, the differences between them and even the recipes for the two 1914 beers, you should buy my book "Porter!" . There's a 20% discount on the hardback until the end of October.

The Undrinkables

It's Ton Overmars's annual holiday. Two weeks when I wean myself from St. Bernardus, Abt and Prior. Time for cellar bingo.

I'm sure it's the same for you. Beer mysteriously piles up in your house. Ones you want to share. Or mature. Or are just too damn rare to drink. Or you fear are way past not only their best, but the managing to force down your neck because you've bloody paid for it state. Things you never quite bring yourself to drink. The Undrinkables. Until August kicks its boot through the front door.

My supplies of St Bernardus interrupted, I've no option but to work my way through the Undrinkables. This is the special occasion I'd been waiting for: nothing else to drink.

I like Stout. That's what my collection/remainders tell me. "You like Stout, Mr. Pattinson." They're surprisingly formal for bottled beers. There are - sorry were - literally quite a few of them. Some really nice strong Stouts, mostly from De Molen.

Tsarina Esra was chewy and leathery in a light-hearted sort of way. But three-year old Hell & Verdoemnis was best. Liquid black chocolate laced with rum. Scrantastic. Even Dolores liked it. She hates Imperial Stouts. I should know. I've made her taste enough of them.

Hang on. I swore I'd never do them again. Beer reviews. Erase that last paragraph from your minds.

This is the official version: I drank some dark beers that were over 8% ABV. These five cryptic runes adorned their containers:

S  t   O  u  T

What could they mean? A spell or curse perhaps. We may never know for sure.

Only a few days before Ton dispenses Abt once more. How many Undrinkables will be undrunk?

Borefts Beer Festival

I missed the first Borefts Beer Festival. I was out of Holland at the time. No such hindrance this year.

Years ago I abandonned trying to take detailed notes at beer festivals. Spending the whole of my time scribbling seriously sucks the fun out of the experience. At least for me. I did take a few notes. Do you want to see them? Sure you do.



Marble Imperial Stout
            IPA
Närke Stormakts Porter
Mikkeller Black (Islay) - ridiculously boozy and Stouty. Right down my street.

That's the lot. Basically just a list of the first four beers I tried. I was having too much fun to write any more. Particularly with the Mikkeler Black. I had four or five of those. Usually such small glasses would seriously piss me off, but on this occasion I was quite pleased not to be drinking pints. I wouldn't have made back to the station if I had.

I won't bore you by listing all the beers available. Even if I could remember what they were. After a while I pretty much stuck with different versions of Mikkeller Black. All at a nice session-strength of 17.5% ABV. I just couldn't get me enough of that whisky goodness.

The rain. I almost forgot that. It absolutely threw it down a couple of times. A bit annoying, but nothing more.

Meibokfestival 2010

It was a busy weekend. Friday on the lash with Mike. Saturday afternoon, a couple of beers with Dolores. And Sunday, the Meibokfestival.

Amsterdam has two beer festivals. The Bokbierfestival in Autumn and the Meibokfestival in Spring. Both are a bit too bok-themed for my taste. Mike swears by the Bokbierfestival. Sorry, swears about the Bokbierfestival. He complains about it as soon as the first leaf falls from the trees. He calls me a lunatic when I tell him I'm going, as every year. And when its over he glares at me accusingly, daring me to say something positive about it. A happy time.

After his one visit to the Meibokfestival, he wasn't any more positive. He's not a fan of Dutch Bok. Pale or dark.  To be honest, I probably wouldn't go to either festival, if they weren't in the city where I live. The book stall is the main draw of the Bokbierfestival. I always take along extra cash. When the Meibokfestival was held in the old Prael brewery, I went because it was just around the corner. I'm lazy, but not that lazy. That and the fact they always seemed to have Klosterbräu Maibock. One hell of a beer. Full of Bocky goodness.

Surprisingly, Mike was surprised I didn't invite him along to the fest. Things he'd said, like "I'm never going to that again" and "Why go to a festival with just one kind of beer? Would you go to a restaurant that only sold cabbage?" had somehow convinced me he wouldn't be interested. Stupid me. I knew Lexie would be along. Him and Mike don't mix well. A bit like acid and napalm.

Get some peev down yer neck. Just ignore that last sentence. I just felt a sudden urge to include some Newark argot. It won't happen again. I promise.

After waving Andrew off on his school trip to Edinburgh, me, Lexie and Dolores took a number 4 tram into town. Meibokfestival-bound. Whohoo, as Homer would shout. (We were early for Andrew's coach and I persuaded the family waiting would be more pleasant at Diva's. Handily nearby. Later, while we waited for the last errant kids to show up, I passed the time snapping one of my favourite streets, just around the back of Andrew's school.)

This year, the festival was in a former RC church. Very nice and quite suited, as a space to a festival. I won't waste my time, when tea is imminent, with descriptions. I took the precaution of taking photos. They come out surprisingly well, considering the modest light.

For flashing my CAMRA gold card, I got a free token and a card with "een Spring Hop" on it. Funny coincidence, that. It's the beer I planned starting with, anyway. As it was the lowest-ABV beer at the festival. Had to give it a fair chance. One of a brace of cask beers.

That's a reason for attending the Meibokfestival I forgot before. They always have cask beer. At times it's been revealing how well modest-gravity cask beers can stand up against stuff twice as strong. Mike doesn't really give a toss about cask. He'll drink it, but will just as happily swill something filtered to death.

Menno of De Molen was there. And a beer of his. Or two. I see there are two in the programme. I had one. Not sure which. Very grapefruity. As was the Tigertops Spring Hop.

(I'm getting back into this beer describing thing. Grapefruity. It's a good one that. Almost accurate, too. I may try out a few more test adjectives later.)

Hasenbräu Osterbock. That was very German. But more Zweite Bundesliga than top flight. Schlenkerla Fastenbier. I had three of those. Full of bacony goodness. (Another adjective there. German, That was one, too). Great beer. But I'd prefer it a bit warmer and by the half litre. Me being a picky twat. Lexie spat it out, despite loving bacon. Just can't understand these kids.

Lexie had some sausage. Then got bored. I rushed through the rest of my tokens. Some Dutch things. The other Tigertops beer. Warmingly good, that was. (Adverb and adjective. Do I get a double score for that?).

Ooh. We've got prawn curry for tea. Don't want it getting cold. I had some other beers and we went home. By tram.

De Molen tasting

Yesterday there was a tasting of De Molen beers in Bierkoning. Mike told me about it two weeks ago. But he'd thought it was last Saturday, when I was away in Folkestone. Luckily he was wrong about the date (not for the first time) and I did have the chance to attend.

As usual Menno had some new beers to try. I started with Black Damnation. Just my kind of beer, dark and powerful. It's a cooperative effort with Struise: half Black Albert, half Hel en Verdoemenis."You're drinking them in the wrong order." Menno commented when I opted for a Vlaams Hollands. It's a brown beer with a subdued sourness. That was quite nice, too.

It was a popular event. I had trouble manoeuvring myself close enough to the temporary bar to have a word with Menno. By that time I was well into my third sample, Engels. Has the started using American hops in it? That would piss Mike off.

You can probably guess what I wanted to ask him. When was he likely to brew my next two beers. "I'm waiting for the malt." was his answer. "Which malt?" I enquired. "The SA malt. I'm trying to persuade Fawcett's to make some for me, but they're very busy."

I felt a bit humbled. Despite my best efforts, I'd not been able to find out any information about SA malt. It turns out my guess (a slightly more kilned version of pale malt) wasn't far from the mark. Turns out SA malt is between pale malt and Munich malt, with a colour of 10 EBC.

Now why didn't I think of that? Just get in touch with a maltster and ask them about SA malt. Though I guess if you're a brewer, they're likely to have more time for you. There's so much I need to learn about malt. And so little time.

Family trip to Bodegraven

Not much need of an introduction. The title says it all. The kids had already visted De Molen a couple of times, but it was Dolores's first time.

We started not at the brewery itself, but the fermentation and packing department. It's in a former cheese warehouse. Bodegraven is still big on cheese. In the streets around the one used by De Molen, there are half a dozen other cheese warehouses, mixed in amongst quaint, little houses.

Menno's full of ideas. As usual, he had half a dozen new beers for me to try. We started with something light: Amerikaans. This is a version of the cask-conditioned Engels he exports to Britain. Except it uses American hops. And is a bottled beer. It's remarkably tasty for just 4.5% ABV. Dolores was convinced that it was much stronger.

Bloed, Zweet & Tranen (Blood, Sweat and Tears) was next. Brewed from a combination malts that includes brown and peated, it's rich, deep and satisfying. I'd only just about had time to finish my glass when the next beer arrived.

Hel & Verdoemenis is another powerful and complex dark beer. Maybe this was the one with the peated malt. I wasn't taking notes. This one was 12% ABV (I know that for sure) and it wasn't the strongest I was offered.

Cuvee, matured in a wine barrel for six months, which came next is almost 13% ABV. The third fermentation in the barrel has added a zesty lemon aroma that is odd, but certainly not unpleasant, in such a strong dark beer. The beer itself is a blend of Rasputin and Tsarina Esra.

A dessert beer, called B & G, was next in my glass. To hit its 15% ABV, champagne yeast is used for the final part of the fermentation. Malty, sweet and with a touch of raisn that's reminiscent of a sherry. This was much more to Dolores's taste than most of the other beers. Very tasty and really suitable as a substitute for dessert wine. It reminded me a little of Whitbread Gold Label, but richer.

To finish was something really special. Beer Liqueur. The only one in the world made exclusively from beer and nothing else. It's really a fortified beer. First Menno brews an unhopped strong beer. This is fortified by the addition distilled beer. I think the result is delcicious. No idea if you could still count it as beer, but who cares?

After the liqueur, we had a quick tour of the warehouse, paying particular attention to his wooden barrels. If you're going to the Copenhagen festival, you're in for a treat. There's a barrel of Cuvee heading there. Yum.

We eventually made it to the pub and brewery. There I had a draught Borefts Stout. SOme of the last, as it won't be brewed again. Pretty nice, Then a draught Tsarina Esra. Really was yummy, despite being a tad too cold. I finished with a bottled Tsarina Esra that was very close to perfection.

Of course, Menno and I chatted about what he'll be brewing for me next. But not before November. It's just too expensive to buy the hops until the new crop arrives. Barclay Perkins Russian Stout and Whitbread KKK. That's what the plan is.

What a dull post. Apologies. I was having so much fun I didn't pay proper attention. Or take notes. I've let you down. Just drank some wonderful beers and had the brewer explain how he created them. How does that Edith Piaff song go? I think I had my priorities right.

Go to de Molen yourself. Menno has some magnificent beers. Say I sent you, and you might even get to try a few.

P & SSS

Forgive me for not posting much this week. Monday I dropped by Bodegraven to pick up some beer. My beer. Six bottles each of Porter and SSS. They've given my evenings purpose.

Words, words, words. I have literally several of them. Not all different, but you can't make proper sentences for long without repeating some. Try it yourself.

"Where can I buy these exciting new beers?" There's a long answer and a short answer to that question. Let's go with the short option. My tea's getting cold (colder, it was already cold when I started eating it). The USA. As you read this, it should be in transit. The Shelton Brothers have bought both batches in their entirety.

Apart from my bottles. One of the main reasons for the whole project was that I wanted to try the beers. Not just a couple of times, but often. So I have my own stash. I'm hoping that I can keep my hands off some of the SSS and let it age a year or ten. I'm an optimist.

And a few bottles will be on sale in De Molen's shop. You'd best be quick. It really is just a few bottles.

To summarise: in Europe, your best chance of getting hold of any is to be nice to me. I'm a weak man. I can be bribed in so many different ways. I'm cheap, too. So it won't even cost you very much. Just listening to me talk about extinct German top-fermenting styles for fifteen minutes would probably be enough. Few last more than 11 seconds voluntarily.

Joy unbound

Spike Milligan once said he envied laughter of children. He'd lost their capacity for pure, unbridled joy. Was his comedy just a vain attempt to recapture that feeling?

Today was brewing day at De Molen. Not just any brewing day. Brewing my Whitbread 1914 SSS day. I even got to help. I weighed out the hops and tipped them into the boiling wort. They even let me rake the spent grains out of the mash tun.

(I was thinking of metaphors last night while I was trying to fall asleep. The slashing sword of sedition. Spitting arrows of spite. Are they metaphors? I went to school at a strange time. English grammar wasn't taught. All mine comes from learning foreign languages. Could explain my English.)

Even before I crossed the threshold, I was transported back to my youth. The warm, comforting, sweet malt bath of mashing. Magnus Grammar, my secondary school, was just a couple of hundred metres from the Castle Brewery. Our playground was washed with the aromas of brewing every day. That's mashing and boiling. Now the odour of fermenting, that I associate with my one brief professional connection with the brewing industry. The summer of 1975, when I filled kegs at the Castle Brewery. AK. IPA. Whatever the Mild was called (no-one I've asked can remember its name). Have I told you this before? Give me a kick if I start repeating myself.

Menno (the brewer at De Molen) let me try his new Imperial Stout, Tsarina Esra, bottled and draught. It's the one he let me taste very young last time I was there. I'd give it a four dead rating - dead, dead, dead, dead good.

Did I tell you that I hadn't had a beer since last Wednesday? I was ill and couldn't stomach a beer, then I thought I'd give my poor, wasted body a couple of days rest. At 9 AM I broke my fast with Tsarina Esra. It's 11% ABV. Let's consult my notes: "Thick, chewy and delicious. Chocolate, liquorice, leather, elderberry, blackcurrant, roast - it has it all plus some."

I'm a lucky guy. A very lucky guy. Poor Spike, losing his capacity for joy unbound. But he didn't get to see his own beer brewed.

I'm so excited

And I just can't hide it. It's not Lichtenhainer that's getting me worked. Nor my DDR label scans that I finally found this evening. Something much more momentous is the reason for my excitement.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bodegraven to see one of my beers brewed. Not quite sure which it will be (Whitbread Porter or SSS). It should be a memorable experience even though I do have to get up at some ungodly hour. I'll tell you all about it in tomorrow's post.

Bit of a short post today, so here are some of the DDR labels I meant to share with you earlier in the week.

How to get to De Molen

It's handy having children. They learn such useful things. Especially when they're getting bored towards the end of school holidays.

Today Andrew learned how to make Google maps. When I got home, without prompting, he'd made a map showing how to get from Bodegraven station to De Molen brewery. Here it is:


Grotere kaart weergeven

I hope it encourages some of you to go there. It's one of my top three Dutch breweries. The brewer, Menno, is a really nice bloke, too. Great beer, friendly host, beautiful location. You couldn't ask for more. Unless you're a whingeing git.

Bubbles in my Beer

I grew up drinking cask ale. (At least in beer terms. In childhood I grew up drinking water.) Bubbles have never been that popular with me.

I don't mind the odd bit of carbonation. But rising bubbles are the sign of the devil. That's why I always try to remove as many as possible before my first sip. I've just been de-gassing some Maredsous 8. It's almost ready to drink. . . . sound of swizzle stick twirling in beer . . . No, still too gassy . . . . twirl, twirl, twirl . . . Much better. The texture of Tetley's Mild, that's what I aim for. Univac-served, of course. That whacks out almost all the dissolved CO2.

Carbonation in pub-served beer is more problematic. I don't always have a suitable de-gassing stick. I sometimes use my finger. Not the most hygienic solution. Especially after a shit-throwing session.

Some of the best beers I've ever had were barely carbonated. Several Courage Russian Stouts. A couple of Harvey's Imperial Stouts. There's another beer that stands head and elbows with those two: RIP. I probably shouldn't say this. But I'm nototriously indiscrete. I was recently at De Molen, having a chat with Menno, the brewer. He let me try a freshly-bottled version of Rasputin he's developping. Fan-blooming-tastic. Though he apologised for the lack of conditioning, I thought that it went well with the style. Beer always tastes best when served by the brewer.

"The squat is a lower body exercise used in strength training. It is also a competitive lift in powerlifting and an essential movement in the sport of weightlifting."

I understand that. I do know squat. It's the rest of my knowlege that's woefully inadequate.

Summer outing

The kids are on holiday. I've already told you that. Bear with me. We aren't going away, so they'll have to make do with days out.

Today we went to Bodegraven and Leiden.

Lexie has strange ideas about windmills. He thinks they are all breweries. Not without reason. The only two windmills he's been in are both breweries: Het Ij and De Molen. We were in the latter today. All the way back he kept saying "Look dad - there's a brewery." I didn't like to disillusion him.

Holland's microbreweries are of variable quality. (That's the poilite way of saying lots of them are crap.) The good ones can be counted on the fingers of a guillotine operator - three. Lexie wasn't far off with his windmill connection. And there's De Schans, too.

I've never had a bad beer from De Molen. Today did nothing to change that. If anything my opinion went up. The Rasputin slipped down a treat. And only 11%. A real session beer. The brewer showed me his malt store. I felt honouerd and humbled. He even let me chew some of his Special B malt. Very nice. It tasted even better once transformed into beer.

I like variety. I was in two pubs today with three standard-strength pilsners on draught. What's the point in that? Heineken, Amstel and Brand. Here's what they had on in De Molen: Spezial (don't ask me to explain what that is precisely - lager, pale, 5.6% ABV), Bitter, Saison, Stout, Tripel, Imperial Stout. I'll forgive anyone duplication when it comes to Stout. If he'd had a Mild on, I would have offered to bear his children.

I only mention Rasputin (the Imperial Stout) to taunt you. He brews it just once a year in very limited quantities. It's wonderful stuff. You have about two weeks to get to Bodegraven, judging by the depleted shelves, if you want to try the 2007 vintage. Why do I mention a beer most of you have no chance of sampling? Revenge. That simple. You gits over the Atlantic keep teasing me with unobtainable (and thus unverifiable) wonders. This is how it feels.

How good is Rasputin? Hang on, I'll consult my notes . . . . 78 out of 100 . . . powerful, but mellow and complex . . . would be better by the pint . . . So you have some point of reference, here's what I made of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout: "Waaaaay too sweet, like Irish coffee with 6 extra sugarlumps. Not complex enough for the strength and overpowered by the taste of cheap whisky. 56 out of 100."

Since the closure of the former Firkin in Den Haag, De Molen is the only brewer of cask-conditioned beer in the Netherlands.

The brewer was very friendly. Imperial Stout . . . apologies for the draught beer being slightly too cool . . . telling me the yeast used in each beer . . . I was starting to really like this bloke.

Let's consult my notes again. This afternoon:

• The kids are going crazy so I've taken refuge in the nearest decent-looking pub. How can they be so psychopatheic without psychedelics? No wonder everyone thinks my parenting skills are between Homer Simpson's and Stalin's.
  
  Lexie just tried eating his glass . . . Excuse me if this review seems hurried. We may be off to casualty soon.
  
  Brown cafe. Henry VIII pub sign. Views of windmill. Next to a canal.
  
  "Spit out the crunchy bits." That's my advice to Lexie. Though he's been annoying enough in the last 15 minutes for me to not be [before you start accusing me of sloppy grammar, I'll point out that I don't believe in square-peg-hammered-into-round-hole pseudo-Latin rules like split infinitives] that bothered.
  
  Why would a pub sell 3 different Pils [what is the plural of Pils? Pilss. With a silent "l"?]? Probably for the same reason that UK piubs sell 4 or 5 Bitters of pretty much the same strength. Why does the world so often choose to be dull rather than interesting?
  
  When I go out by myself I have to invent the craziness (sometimes). With the kids along, it's always there.
  
  "The good boys get a bag of chips."
  "I don't need chips, dad." [Andrew]
  "That's OK, you're behaving yourself anyway."
  
  "Can I get a court order to keep Alexei 5 metres away from me?" [Andrew]
  "Yes."
  
  "Can I drink your beer dad?" [Alexei]
  "Yes."
  
  I'm such a good dad.
  
  

Numbers, I've got numbers. I've got numbers, who could ask for anything more? You can't imagine how many. They'll last far longer than your attention. Even I started nodding off compiling them.

Tomorrow it will be beer consumption per capita. Unless something more noteworthy occurs. Or "The Story of Watneys" contains real gems. Or I change my mind. The world is an uncertain place.