PintPicker

Heaving as usual on the Saturday lunchtime with a particularly good-natured and chatty crowd. IMO the entire annual CAMRA subscription is worth paying just to jump the queue and guarantee a seat. The Prof and I walk in smugly. Now down to business; I have come prepared with a hitlist and look very efficient complete with clipboard. This is the first time that PintPicker has advertised in the Beerfest Programme and various complimentary comments are being made about it by the staff.

We managed to try a dozen or so beers that lunchtime (halves!). Best of the bunch were the feisty Buntingford Pomone 4.0% "Apple on the nose, citrus on the palate. V. bitter with a long bitter finish. Tastes a lot stronger than it is. Commendable" and the spectacular Old Chimneys Red Clover 6.0% "Cloves and cinnamon spice predominate along with plummy fruits. Soak a plum pudding in brandy, ignite and then allow to cool before drinking. You got it!" both meriting 9 out of 10 and the latter going on to take the beer of the festival prize.

Runners-up with 8 were Windie Goat Pedens Cove 3.8% "Dry, florally hoppy, refreshing"; Triple fff Bitter End 2.7% "Clean and dry with a grapefruit bitter finish. Highly impressive for a 2.7"; Tryst Raj IPA 5.5% "Fruity and nicely alcoholic. V. long bitter finish"; Thornbridge John Innes 100 5.9% "Extremely fruity and strong tasting IPA - knocks your socks off"; Farmers Golden Boar 5.0% "Deep golden in colour, buttery, biscuity bitter and nicely zesty.

Popped into the Wellington Beer Festival in Norwich on a Saturday lunchtime; a really impressive range of ales for a local pub event and the courtyard was packed. We had a good chat about PintPicker with Simon and Dougie while sampling a small selection of the many beers on offer. Two really stood out, meriting a score of 9/10: Goose Eye Chinook Blonde (4.2%) "Lemony aromas and very hoppy with elderflowery notes. Pale and interesting" and Orkney Raven Ale (3.8%) "Tart, crisp, dry and massively hoppy with a lovely grapefruit finish. Drinks well above its ABV. Stunning." Dougie says he'd like to use the PP system next time around so watch this space!

Here we are again at the PBF, a great range of ales on offer and, with the help of that gestalt entity AlanandTerry, we managed to sample 22 beers over the Thursday lunchtime. The majority we tried were light, summery pale and golden ales under 4%, and very good they were too; the standard was consistently high. Absolute star of the show for me was Whim Arbor Light (3.6%) "Crisp, juicy, refreshing, fizzy, pale beer. Lovely citrus notes and nice bitterness over a very light biscuity base. Gosh, this is good. 3.6%? Surely not!" which I awarded a coveted 10. Close runners up with 9 were Bewdley Worcestershire Way (3.6%) "Biscuity with apply fruit and a hint of citrus. Good grassy hoppiness. Excellent for a 3.6"; Nobby's Claridges Crystal (3.6%) "Exceeding pale, dry, nicely bitter, florally hoppy and grapefruity too"; Grafter's Moonlight (3.6%) "Nice, hoppy, biscuity brew. Apricot blonde in colour with a touch of pear drops on the palate and a dry grapefruit finish. Great for the ABV."; and Church End Hoptimist (4.1%) "Very hoppy and dry with a big grapefruit finish. Excellent." All my highest scoring beers were pale or golden and, with the exception of the last one, 3.6% ABV. Well, that's no surprise, that just shows my particular preference.
Doing the rounds of the tables, handing out PintPicker publicity, I bumped into the legendary Martin the Mildman who's been contributing large numbers of reviews to the database. It was great to meet him at last. All in all a great day out and the organisers are to be congratulated once again for a fantastic range of new beers and breweries.

PintPicker is back at the Ketts Tavern, Norwich by popular demand and we went to sample some of the results of landlord Kevin Hopkins' recent trip to the the West Country. Outstanding was Exeter Avocet Ale (3.7%) "Excellent pale golden summery ale, lovely citric and floral hops with a crisp biscuity base and a dry finish" which I immediately awarded a coveted 9. Different but equally good was Bays Devon Dumpling (5.1%) "Very dark golden with a biscuity nose. Gorgeous hoppiness on the palate, bursting with grapefruit in the finish". Also worthy of mention scoring 8 were Exeter Lighterman (3.6%) "Great little session bitter with good roasty malts and a crisp grapefruit finish" and South Hams Devon Pride (3.8%) "Deep amber and well-hopped with some vinous fruit leading to a good dry finish. Complex with good depth of flavour". Exeter, Bays, South Hams and Dorset Piddle were all new breweries for us. Then it was sausages and mash all round washed down with more of the praiseworthy Avocet - lunchtimes don't get much better than this. Ketts Tavern SummerFest runs from Friday 21st - Monday 31st August. Download tasting notes here

A jolly day out at the Sheringham Beer Festival was had by all on Friday 17 July (despite the fact that it bucketed down). SBF is held annually on the picturesque Sheringham Station platform, home of the Poppy Line, where steam trains shunt up and down and grown men revisit their boyhoods and dream of driving them. What is it about trains and real ale? A number of breweries have railway themes: Stonehouse (located next to the Cambian Railway line), Beer Engine (overlooking the Exeter to Barnstaple Tarka Line) and Humpty Dumpty (founded close to a railway tavern) all have beers named after trains. Breweries are often located on old stations (Brunswick, for example). Many breweries do one-off beers that are railway inspired: e.g. Potton Shannon IPA, named after the "Shannon" locomotive that once worked the Potton-Sandy Railway. Interestingly, Tydd Steam is named not after steam trains, but after the farm steam engines that originally occupied the building in which brewing now takes place. Steam is evocative though, taking us back to a time before we understood the maximum number of units we could safely drink in a week and real ale was ordered not by the pint but by the gallon. And there are undoubtedly parallels between train- and beer-spotters (often they are one and the same person). Which is probably why the Sheringham Beer festival is so popular; it was heaving. My favourite beer of the festival was Sheffield Seven Hills (4.2%)"Good, dry, crisp very pale-coloured with more than a twist of citrus and v. well hopped. Excellent." which notched up 9 points. Following close behind with 8 were: Consett Steel Town (3.8%) "Nice citric session bitter with a good long bitter finish"; Hopshackle Caskadia (4.3%) "Lovely citrus flavours, lemons and oranges. Hoppy to the max!"; Nelson Jack Knife (4.1%) "Biscuity golden ale with a light juicy summery taste. V. hoppy."; Wylam Summer Magic (4.2%) "Citrussy summery ale"; Black Hole Bitter (3.8%) "Lovely session bitter, hoppy and biscuity"; Salopian Prohibition (4.6%) "Very fruity and hoppy, delicately floral with citrus"; Tydd Steam Armageddon (5.0%)"Bitter beer with a long bitter finish and very fruity."; Ole Slewfoot January 8th (4.2%) "Very juicy and fruity (apples, pears, citrus) with good nettley hoppiness"; Lancaster Red (4.9%)"Berry fruit, nicely hoppy"; Shugborough Mi Lady's Fancy (4.6%) "Deliciously pale and dry with a really crisp edge" and Abbeydale Black Mass (6.66% - hmmm, I understand the numerology, but don't believe you can brew to three significant figures..) "Chewy coffee and quite bitter with dark fruitiness". I should point out (in the spirit of responsible drinking) that these were tastings, not pints! We went with our good friends Alan and Terry who very kindly let us taste their beers too. It is also a testament to the organisers that there were so many high-scoring ales; every single beer we tasted was in absolutely prime condition so well done to them. We'll be back!

Over 100 beers at the Cambridge Blue beerfest and the PintPicker profiles are on the barrel ends provoking comments like: "I saw this in the Whalebone in Norwich the other week...". Favourite beers so far are Tydd Steam Barn Ale (3.9%) "Crisp and refreshing with a biscuity bite and grapefruit finish" and Dark Star American Pale Ale (4.7%) "Splendid pale ale, massively hoppy with a big grapefruit burst at the finish" both warranting a 9.

The Whalebone Beer festival kicks off this Friday with around 80 beers both on gravity and handpump. PintPicker profiles feature colourfully in the tasting notes and will be gracing the barrel ends too, making it very easy for punters to pick their preferred pint! (Try saying that after two or three...)

The tasting notes can be downloaded from http://www.pintpicker.co.uk/assets/docs/whalebone_beerlist.pdf - quite a large file, around 3Mb. Looking through the list, the summery pale and golden ales predominate, but there's something in there for everyone, including some breweries that were new to us, as well as some old favourites.

The Festival runs from 5th - 14th June giving us plenty of time to sample a good range from across the length and breadth of the land.

Update: the programmes arrived late from the printers on Friday (around 4pm in fact) and were printed in b/w instead of colour but they still looked pretty good. Beer of the Festival for me was Rooster's Elderflower (3.9%): "Light and florally hoppy over a crunchy biscuit base. Sweetish at the start fading to an astringent dry finish. Tasty and impressive for a 3.9" I gave it 9/10. Also worthy of mention, scoring 8/10, were Blue Monkey Gold (aka Evolution) (4.3%): "Vegetally hoppy with citrus fruitiness"; Dartmoor IPA (4.5%): Deep golden, refreshing with some citrus and good hoppiness"; Wizard Lundy Gold (4.1%): "Florally, biscuity and refreshingly light" and Ascot Alligator Ale (4.6%): "Sweet upfront with hedgerow and spicy hops and light orchard fruits - oranges, pears and apricots".

Back at the ever-busy Cambridge BeerFest on Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 May. Lots of new breweries (27 at the last count) and far too many ales to taste, but we had a good go nevertheless, racking up 21 over the two sessions. My absolute favourite was the very pale Bowman Elderado (with elderflowers, geddit?) and truly great for a 3.5% with its tangly, nettley hops and lovely floral and citric aromas. I really couldn't fault it and had to award it a coveted 10. Highland Scapa Special (4.2%) merited 9, with citric hops and tannic astringency combining to give a really refreshing and exceptional pale ale. Also worthy of mention were the ones that scored 8: Norfolk Cottage's Festival Special (4.3%) was very special indeed with tobacco and pepper plus a great vegetal straw bale flavour (fancy a roll in the hay? - here it is, in a glass) and let's hope they continue to produce it; Jarrow Rivet Catcher (4.0%) with good bitterness, buttery mouthfeel and tangy hops (what's not to like?); Wagtail English Ale (4.2%) zingy with spicy hops and a good burnt butterscotch flavour; Bays Gold (4.3%) with hedgerow hops and a slightly fizzy citrus zing plus good body too; Green Tye Union Jack (3.6%) caramelly on the nose, burnt toffee on the palate and hoppy too, a great session bitter; Buntingford Golden Plover (3.8%) biscuity, hoppy and refreshingly dry; Devil's Dyke No 7 Pale Ale (4.1%) deep golden and nicely bitter, biscuity with citrus zest; and finally, Mill Green Mawkin Mild (2.9%) very dark with chocolatey aromas and burnt toast on the palate, dry and amazing for a 2.9.
The Festival Programme was a bit light on detail this year; "sorry no tasting notes available" was a bit of a recurrent theme. They should have used PintPicker!

The Ketts Tavern in Norwich is holding a MayFest from Friday 22 to Sunday 31 May and landlord Kevin Hopkins has been busy sourcing ales from the West Midlands. Kevin runs four beer and sausage festivals a year at the Ketts, usually with a geographical theme, plus another four at its sister pub the Rose. This is the first time he's going to use the PintPicker profiles alongside his regular descriptions; he says that colour is the first thing that people want to know when choosing a beer so it will be very useful to have each beer's profile (coloured accordingly and printed out in colour) displayed by the bar. Beers so far confirmed are from Black Country Ales, Olde Swan, Morton, Holden's, Sarah Hughes, Toll End and Windsor Castle plus local ones from Buffy's, Fat Cat, Humpty Dumpty, Brandon, Tipples, Norfolk Square, Elgood's, Wolf, Nethergate and Woodforde's.

There are currently 18 ales with "Spring" in their name in the PintPicker database, so we thought we'd have a look at the data to see if we can draw any conclusions about what characteristics a 'generic' Spring beer might have. To cut a long story very short we've found that the average Spring beer is 4.2% ABV, golden in colour, medium bodied and not too bitter with a biscuity base, some floral hoppiness and zesty citrus notes. In fact, it looks like this:

The closest beer to this in the database is Norfolk Square's Stiletto (99% similar) "a single hop brew using a fragrant and flowery aroma hop, with a citrus character". And the closest Spring beer is Ramsbury Spring Barley (94%) making this the most generic of Spring Ales.
Check out the complete list of Spring beers on the PintPicker site.