Sherry casks

Whisky. That's basically the same as beer, isn't it? Close enough for me.

Sherry casks. They weren't always what they seemed.

"For all new whisky casks these American staves are used, and let me add that, strange though yet true, because of the demand for, shall I say, a "palateable" whisky, flavoured with sherry, the cooper trade of Scotland lost in wages, year in, year out, an amount almost impossible to state. One thing I make bold to say is, that if all the sherry casks, butts, hogsheads, quarters, and octaves imported, were manufactured in Scotland, the cooper trade would have been one of the most flourishing industries in our country, not only in the past but even to-day. However, by the world's "fancy" for whisky bonded in sherry wood, we create, all unwittingly, a demand for foreign labour, and that, too, at prices far and away in excess of what is paid in this country. If ever "tricks in trade" had an opportunity of profiting thereby, sherry casks opened the door to such "tricks" being adopted, by manufacturing sherry casks. I should like to emphasise the name Slierry Casks supposed to have had sherry wine in them for years, but as "casks" had only been manufactured a few weeks before they were delivered to the distillery for filling with whisky, and having the appearance as if they had been filled with wine for years, lying in some old "Bodega" they never saw, and yet these manufactured or, shall I say, "doctored" sherry casks fetched, and, for all I know, now still fetch, prices double almost, and in cases more than double, the price of new whisky casks.

Let me give one instance, and with all due deference to any distiller who may be present, I think that he will admit my point. I have known of hogsheads (54—55 gallons), sherry shaped, being made and sold at 15s. to 16s. These were shipped to the Continent; they bore no mark, either of maker or manufacturer, yet a father should surely know his child, as it were. I have seen these hogsheads, made by myself, within a few weeks' time in varied distilleries, having been imported from the Continent as fresh sherry casks. Inside, you found a nice crust, as if they had been for years in some old vaults, but, alas, were purely so manufactured, manufactured to sell at 36s. to 40s., with but small cost to the seller, and little advantage, if in many cases any, at all to the bonder. Do we not in many instances thus play into the hands of the foreigner, without knowing the disastrous results that follow to workmen in our own country."
"Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 12", 1906, pages 690-691.

What a scandal. Johnny Foreigner buying cheap casks and making them look as if they'd been used to store sherry. The cheating bastards.

Gordon Ramsay brews

It's a major event when beer makes it onto TV in Britain. Unless it's lager being swilled by tattooed hooligans. So I was intrigued when Gordon Ramsay announced on his f word programme this week that he was going to brew his own beer.

First he had to decide what would go best with the meal it was meant to accompany. There he was, in a pub with a beer and food matching expert and a row of bottles. I was pathetically excited when I spotted Cooper's Sparkling Ale amongst them. Maybe this wasn't going to be as crap as I feared. I was soon disinvested of my illusions.

After the first sip of the first beer he said: "I want something something that doesn't have a strong aftertaste. You can't eat with a bitter taste in your mouth." Timothy Taylor's Landlord he virtually spat out. Anchor Steam - "Initially it's nice, creamy, light. But then there's an aftertaste". He liked Meantime IPA more, but complained of the aftertaste. When he drank Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, it looked like he'd been poisoned. He nearly vomited. Finally he found one he liked. Even before he'd given his opinion, I'd said to Andrew: "I bet he likes this one. It's the worst beer he's tried." Sure enough, he loved the Innis & Gunn barrel-aged bollocks "brewed in Scotland" as he said. Is it brewed in Scotland? Aren't they a bit coy about where the brewing takes place? "This one has no aftertaste." he said triumphantly "It's perfect."

It sounded very much like what the purveyors of macro-swill say "Our beer has no nasty aftertaste." When what they mean is "Our beer has no beer flavour." Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the whole point of quality drinks was to have an aftertaste. That's one way of judging the quality of a wine, the length of the aftertaste.

He decided then and there that he wanted to brew a beer like Innis & Gunn. Or did he? The speed and ease with which he arranged to have someone from the "brewery" come and help him brew in his back garden is suspicious [I now realise the brewer in question wasn't from Innis & Gunn, but the owner of the brewing kit]. Had he already decided he wanted to make a barrel-aged beer before the tasting?

To be fair, he did brew it properly and used whole hops. He had a Bourbon barrel on hand, too. But what signal is it sending out when a renowned chef effectively says that a bitter aftertaste in beer is a fault and disqualifies it from accompanying a meal?


To see who everyone was involved in the project, look at Tandleman's post.

Two of my favourite things

Julie Andrews, Julie Andrews. Bum, it doesn't work for me.

It's been a difficult week. Details bore won't you with. (Construct your own sentence from these five words.) I couldn't say that I was glad to be back in the UK this week. About the only plus point was being able to collect the box of beer that Brewdog had sent to my sister's address. Quite reasonably, they hadn't been up for sending samples to a freeloading blogger in the Netherlands. But a freeloading Dutch blogger with a UK delivery address was fine.

On more than one occasion, I've admitted to being a total tart. Ignore that. I'm honest as the day is short. No, that's not it. I'm as long as the dog is honest.

Barrel ageing. It's all the rage. Until today, I'd only had two and I hadn't cared much for either. Doubts had begun to swell my sad, little brain. Was barrell-ageing just a stupid, pointless fad? (That's a multilingual bad pun that only my scandinavian readers might get.)

In the words of the great poet Neil Diamond, "I'm a believer". I've just cracked a Brewdog Paradox Islay and it's a cracker. It combines two of my Julie Andrews things: Imperial Stout and Islay whisky. Not carcrash but gestalt. Really, dead, dead good. You won't get a precise review, because that's outside this blog's mission statement. You should try it. I seem to have a couple of different versions in my freebie box. Lucky me.

You may have got the impression that I'm a reactionary old twat instinctively opposed to anything new. That is true. Most of the time. Take my endorsement of this beer as an uncharacteristic attack of contemporaneousness. But an honest one.