Sierra Nevada Dinner at the White Horse SW6

New Year's events at the White Horse in Parsons Green kicked off last Tuesday with a beer-food pairing meal, hosted by Steve Grossman, from the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. I haven't tried a great deal of Sierra Nevada beer before, except for the pretty-widely-available Pale Ale, often found on tap in South West London hostelries.

In fact I realised that I knew very little about the company at all, other than that I liked the Pale Ale, and that it was Californian (based on the name!). Steve Grossman is the brother of one of the two co-founders, and he gave a whistle-stop tour through the history of the brewery, which now produces almost a million barrels a year (it will probably exceed that in 2013 with the building of a new brewery in North Carolina).



Steve talked a bit about the company and accompanied his words with some nostalgic pictures, including that of their first ever brewing kettle back in 1980, helped by the welding skills of one of the founders, since there were no suppliers of such equipment readily available. He sped through the history for a bit, and then we tucked into the first course, deep fried mac and cheese balls, accompanied by a Kellerweis-Heferweisen, at 4.8%. The banana and spicy notes worked perfectly with the crunchy balls.

 
He then moved on to talking about the beers that were accompanying the food, giving some detail on the hops used, bottling, and growth of the brewery. The second course was a delicious seared tuna accompanied with Celebration Ale jelly and avocado puree, washed down with the current season's Celebration Ale. Each year they wait until they get the first of the freshly-harvested hops and produce this annual beer. Apparently this year was one of their best, and they've been brewing it since 1981. It's one of the earliest examples of an American-style IPA.

The third course was Cascade Hop Smoked Wood Pigeon, accompanied with potato and carrot puree, and a Northern Hemisphere IPA. In addition to the seasonal Celebration Ale, they also produce IPAs with fresh hops depending on which hemisphere has them in season; Sierra Nevada has "a love affair with hops". This one was made with fresh hops picked in Washington state and into the kettle within 24 hours (the first time they did this they chartered a couple of planes, at a cost of $25,000 - I guess they've got their transportation sorted out a bit better these days).

Steve then talked us through the palaver involved in the creation of the next beer - Brux Domesticated Wild Ale, a Belgian-style collaboration with Russian River brewery. The beer is live, and the yeast used is rather nasty (the chemist had to come up with ways to kill it, if necessary); it was kept strictly away from their normal beer-producing operations in case of any contamination. It went very well with the small selection of British cheeses and buttery oatcakes. It tasted like Belgium to me, which got me thinking about a trip to Brussels this summer...

The last words from Steve were about the ecological impact of the enormous operation that Sierra Nevada has now become, having grown massively in the past ten years. They've installed solar panels, a water-treatment plant, everything seems to be recycled, and ten months ago they started packaging some of their beer in cans, which weigh half of what the equivalent measures weigh in glass bottles. They make continuous efforts to reduce waste, reduce water consumption, and recycle as much as they can. They built a rail terminal in order to transport their beer by rail, which is more efficient than by road. They look after their staff well (their staff medical programme is aptly-named HOP - Health Opportunity Programme). They run an annual beer camp, where they invite beer producers from around the world to come and make some new beer. The new brewery being built in Mills River, North Carolina will be surrounded by recreational land - hiking trails, cycle tracks, etc... and will cut down on transportation costs to the east coast.

After an inspiring story, we ate an interesting chocolate mousse with poached prunes, accompanied by a wonderfully rich imperial stout called Narwhal. For those who didn't know, one of Steve's entourage gave us a bit of background on what a narwhal is (a toothed whale - the tooth looks a bit like a unicorn's horn). They've recently discovered that narwhals lie on their back and use the tooth to help them feed, very close to the bottom of the ocean. Why they called the beer after the strange creature, who knows.

A few of us hung around afterwards, as usual, having a little more beer and a little more chat. The crowd was the usual eclectic lot - a wholesale beer and pub manager, a guy who runs pub-crawls for backpackers and a beer blogger were on our table, while a prolific beer writer sat on another table. The familiar faces of a few regulars were visible too.

I might have been inclined to stay a little longer but my ongoing cough was getting a bit irritating and I wanted to get back to the poor puppy home alone.

White Horse Old Ale Festival Preview

Last night it was back to the White Horse in Parsons Green for another great beer-tasting event. Today is the opening day of their 30th Anniversary Old Ale Festival and last night a few of us had a special preview of some of the massive selection of ales that will be available this weekend - from stouts to milds, porters to barley wines, Scotch Ales and Strong Ales.

 

The event was hosted by Jamie Percival, the White Horse's Cellar Manager - a great job if ever there was one. He took us on a short journey through the world of Old Ale, giving us a little taste of what we could enjoy over the weekend.

We began the tasting with a Coniston No.9 Barley Wine, a taste I'm unfamiliar with, being a relative newcomer to the world of beer enjoyment. I was accompanied by my husband, sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who were visiting from the States. My brother-in-law is not a great fan of beer, but very much liked the sweet, complex taste of this little tipple. As usual, the pub upheld their long-held tradition of pairing decent beer with decent food and some delicious amuse bouche were brought out to wash down with the Coniston. The sausage rolls (not the kind you get in Greggs) and chunks of soft, tasty beef were swallowed down too quickly to photograph, and were, of course, very yummy. At 8.5% the barley wine was quite a knock-out of a starter.

With each sample, Jamie gave us a quick explanation of the beers, and all present listened avidly, and tweeted their thoughts along the way. After each beer was introduced he then moved around from table to table to answer any questions and get our thoughts on the beers.
Next up was the Rockstar, an American-style brown ale - a collaboration from Darkstar and Magic Rock Brewing. At a mere 6% it was a lot milder than the Coniston, and was rather fruity. Plates of salami were brought round to enjoy with this one.

The third beer was possibly my favourite - another strong one at 8.5% was Marble Beer's Dubbel Chocolate. For a beer with such strength it was very drinkable. Melt-in-the-mouth Scotch eggs were making the rounds by now - will have to go back for some more of those.
Number four was one of those not-for-everyone stouts - Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Special Reserve, at 8%. It certainly had a passing resemblance to engine oil, but it gave it some bite. I quite liked it; I seem to have developed a taste for the rather dark, strong ones. The brother-in-law was not impressed and passed on that one. Some mature cheddar bites helped soak up some of the alcohol.

A slight change in direction led us to the first Old Ale on the list from Binghams Brewery - at only 4.5% it was the lightest of the selection. It was a bit light in flavour for me, especially after the rather harsh engine-oil taste; something I might come back to - at the beginning of the evening.

Last but not least was the Festivity Rum-aged Porter from Bath Ales. It's only 5% but has a much richer flavour than the alcohol content might suggest. The taste of rum and vanilla definitely comes through - another one to go back for!

The evening wasn't over once the beer was gone - some of the press were invited down to the cellar for a tour, but we headed downstairs to the main pub for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for our American visitors - roast turkey and trimmings. No room for pumpkin pie after all that beer, nibbles and turkey (although we did manage to fit in a couple more beers).
Looking forward to heading back there this weekend to sample some more. There's a huge selection of beers on cask and keg - particularly looking forward to the BrewDog Paradox Jura Stout, one of the brewery's limited releases that the pub's been saving all year for this event (may not have many, as it's a whopping great 15% and has a flavour to match!). The festival runs from Friday 23rd November until Sunday 25th, but there'll probably be some leftovers still available next week. Don't forget it's a dog-friendly pub - we'll be taking our little spaniel along too!

Information on upcoming events at the White Horse is best found by following them on Twitter - @WhiteHorseSW6.

Beer for Punks: The BrewDog Phenomenon

I am lucky. The White Horse in Parsons Green is my local pub. For anyone with an interest in decent beer, it is an amazing place. Sometimes it can be overrun with pushy, entitled Sloaney types, which earned it the nickname the "Sloaney Pony" many years ago. But it has a nice garden out the front, does great barbeques in the summer, has a lovely quiet bar upstairs, a restaurant at the back, and an amazing selection of international craft beers. And most of the people are just fine.

The pub hosts a few events during the year. For the past five years they've held an American Beer Festival over the July 4th weekend, at the end of August they have a celebration of Belgian Beers, and then there's a British Ale event in late November. Occasionally they host one-off events, and so the hubby and I excitedly booked tickets for a BrewDog beer dinner.
We'd just visited the wonderful BrewDog pub in Camden, and had previously tried the rather extreme Tactical Nuclear Penguin, via a mail-order purchase.
I'm not an expert on beer, and I'm not giving a detailed review of the beers, but just a bit of a flavour of the evening. We were greeted with a small glass of Dead Pony Club, the first of many delicious and interesting beers, the antithesis of the tasteless stuff that had led the creators to start the company in the first place. It was full of flavour and depth. We sat down at communal tables and made new friends. It promised to be a very good evening.

James Watt, an ex-fisherman from Fraserburgh in north-east Scotland,  started off by telling us the story behind BrewDog.

He and a friend were fed up with rubbish beer that had nothing going for it other than the fact that it got you drunk and was relatively cheap. They longed for something with some real flavour and so decided to try to brew their own. To cut a long story short, their passion, determination, good taste, hard work - and a few early white lies to unsupportive bank managers - have brought them to where they are today: a world-renowned brewer of incredibly diverse, and incredibly delicious, craft beers. James' story was an incredibly inspiring one. Some of the beers are very drinkable, every-day IPAs and lagers. Some of them are so strong and distinct in both flavour and alcohol content that they can only be enjoyed in small doses! Their notoriety has been part of their success, and is the reason my husband found out about them in the first place - no publicity is bad publicity, after all. Tokyo*, at 18.2% had problems after its label was banned in Scotland as it was seen as encouraging excessive drinking. They followed this up with a statement beer called "Nanny State" at a mere 0.5%, before heading back on track to produce Tactical Nuclear Penguin at 32%; this had the accolade of being the world's strongest beer. Some Germans were determined to recapture this record, producing a beer of 40%, encouraging BrewDog to go one further: the final creation was Sink the Bismarck, at 41%. It is now out of stock; I'm not sure if there's any more on the horizon.
James talked us through each of the eight or nine beers, before we were allowed to try them. He told us that we had to get to know our beer, to commune with it, to say hello to it.

With the first few beers we were given delicious amuse-bouches, the taste of the beer complementing the taste of  mouthful, and vice versa. Over the first smaller few courses we were given samples of Punk IPA, Barrel Aged 7.7 Lager, before being supplied with blindfolds, for a blind tasting of AB:08, possibly my favourite of the evening. I took a few snaps around the table while wearing my own blindfold - amazing what you can achieve with good autofocus.

The beer tasted very dark-coloured to me, perhaps even black, but it was a rich amber-colour; we were all quite surprised when we removed the blindfolds. Next was the main course - a scrumptious pork belly, accompanied with a glass of "I Hardcore You" - a blend of BrewDog beer with a brew from Mikkeller, a Danish craft beer company with whom they have had a few collaborations.

Stilton was helped along with the intense, almost chocolate-like Tokyo*,  chocolate parfait was paired with the 15% Paradox Jura, a stunning stout aged in old oak whisky casks (you could taste the peaty Jura influence), and finally we got to taste the infamous Tactical Nuclear Penguin, accompanying a Scottish Coffee (the cream was infused with the Penguin for double impact). We toasted "To Evil" and said hello to our beer before hitting our mouths with each wonderful mouthful.

At the end of the tasting some people left, but living a stone's throw away we could linger a little and not worry about catching the last tube home. We hung around, met some more fascinating people, drank a bit more beer and went home thoroughly satisfied.

If you want to try some amazing beer, please head along to the BrewDog pub in Camden, or any other of their bars near you - they're popping up everywhere. I highly recommend the 5am Saint - a lovely rich "iconoclastic amber ale." Beware, though, it may become addictive...