Gadds' Beer Shop

She shoots, she scores!

2009-07-13T08:21:00.002+01:00

On the back of our success at County level, Lois went ahead and entered Gadds' Number 3 Pale Ale (the true taste of East Kent) into the National Great Taste Awards. These competitions are judged not by the public nor by industry peers but by professional buyers, chefs and critics. All entries are assessed blind, by two separate panels, their attributes and faults cross referenced and recommendations put forward for further consideration. It's a rigorous process where by only quality can shine.

And guess what? We did pretty well, again.

POETS day.

2009-07-10T07:36:00.003+01:00

We're closing early, at 3 'o'clock this afternoon.

Stevie is on holiday - to be fair, he hasn't had a day off for a couple of weeks and his workload for the next two months is large and heavy. Make the most of it now, mate.

Coyote is reclining, this time at Lounge on The Farm, a boutique East Kent Fest' where local beer is served fresh and cool.

Clive is doing his proper job. For proper money too.

'Hang 'Em' will be resting, deservedly so if he gets through all the work I'm about to present him with this morning.

Gray the Dray won't get back from today's deliveries until long past beer 'o'clock. He isn't overworked, he takes his time and completes a proper job, properly.

And Lois and I are off to Middle England to visit family, friends and foes.

But we are open as usual on Saturday.

Doktor Sonnenschein's

2009-07-08T18:54:00.003+01:00

Dr Sunshine's Special Friendly English Wheat Ale has been more popular than ever but tomorrow we take the whole thing a step further - we're brewing exactly the same beer - wheat, zest of orange, freshly crushed coriander seed and fruity Perle hops - but fermenting the whole with a very, very different yeast.

Bavarian weizen is characterised by it's coudy, pale yellow appearance (in tall, elegant glasses), smooth, mild and refreshing nature featuring cloves, banana and phenols. Most of that is a result of the unique yeast strain used, and I'm using it tomorrow, albeit on an english recipe. Having done this before, years ago, I'm confident that it'll produce a very tasty beer, and equally confident it will be a complete pain in the arse - sticky, messy and unpredictable. Fun, real fun.

Can't wait.

Big Tasty

2009-06-26T15:14:00.003+01:00

If there's one thing I know you've had fantasies about it's fresh, cool, tasty beer on a warm Summer's day - I'm right aren't I? There you are, sitting on a quay-side slurping from a condensation covered glass, waves gently lapping at your feet, sun high, bright and warm. Maybe there's some decent street merchants vending delicious spicy chick peas or vegetable somosas. There's probably some musicians jamming away in ear shot. And the sound of kids' wild laughter from a nearby funfair. A stilt walker lopes by and you get up and go to chose another tasty, cool pint from a list of a dozen or more.

Wake up. It's happening. Next weekend in Ramsgate.

July 4th - Ram Francisco - not as muddy as Glastonbury.

A taster.....

2009-06-25T08:59:00.002+01:00

Our little tasting last weekend went very well, little Phil captured the mood as usual.

Barely wine

2009-06-21T10:51:00.004+01:00

Now then, remember the barley wine tutorial? Well, after sitting on a bed of spicy English Bramling Cross hops for a couple of weeks I transferred the young ale onto a bed of the strangest variety of hops known to brewers, the recently developed NZ Nelson Sauvin. The resultant concoction, now bottled and on sale, is just about one of the craziest brews I've made to date.

And I'm very pleased to announce that the Beer Merchants are trading our ale on-line so get yer credit card out and spend, spend, spend for the good times just keep on rolling on.

Sizzling Summertime Special Stock

2009-06-10T11:13:00.006+01:00

Welcome to Steve, our latest recruit. He's taken over responsibility for the foreign beer we stock in the Shop. As a result, the range has begun to expand, branching out a tad as we lay down store for the coming, gloriously sunny, Kent months.

It's particularly good to see La Chouffe on the shelves, both the blonde and the Dobbelen IPA Triple. This mad little brewery in deepest Belgium was a cult favourite in the bars across Den Haag a few years back and I've personally enjoyed one or two splendidly late nights in its company. It's a wonderfully spicy and unique style of beer.

The Trappist Brewers have long been represented here by Orval but now others have come to join us from Rochefort, Achel and Westmalle. These brewers consistently attain the loftiest heights on the quality ladder and their beers are nothing short of legendary.

In total contrast we've also shipped Kriek, Framboise and Fruli - fruit beers to delight anyone on a hot day.

There's more besides: Brugges Zot for instance. A beer I've not yet tried but have been assured of it's credentials.

Since we have so many newcomers (beer and staff) we thought we'd crack a few bottles open this Saturday (13th June) lunchtime so we can give 'em a proper tasting (the beer). And since the beers are many, and we, reletively few, there'll be plenty to go round so come up and join in, around 1pm. Steve promised to provide a perfunctuary lunch and a running comentary. Sounds more fun than weeding the allotment anyway. See you Saturday.

English Reserve

2009-06-08T15:25:00.003+01:00

So I've blathered on a bit about barley wines and oak aging over the last couple of months and quite naturally you're getting fed up, wondering where the hell this beer is. Wonder no longer. It's in the Shop as I write, all labeled up and on sale.

Now don't be expecting a beer you can guzzle down in 5 minutes: dig this groovy one in small quantities, late at night, after you've finished operating heavy machinery. I had it with a rich beany stew and new potatoes last night and it were, well, spot on.

This beer has spent 30 days resting in a Rondo 2005 french oak cask from the mighty Chapel Down vineyard in deepest Kent, absorbing fine qualities from the red wine infused wood. If it's a regular beer flavour you're after you've arrived at the wrong place. However, if you adventure fearlessly in the flavour world, step right this way......

Beer Tasting

2009-06-07T11:36:00.000+01:00

Gadds' Beer Shop

For All Your Real Beer Needs

Beer Tasting

Saturday 13 June 2009 at 1PM

As our special Gadds Beer Shop fans you are personally invited to come to our tasting Saturday 13 June at 1 pm held at the Ramsgate Brewery

Unit 1, Hornet Close

Pysons Rd Industrial Estate

Broadstairs Kent

CT10 2YD

This tasting will be featuring beers including Westmalle, Brugse Zot,

De Molen, Zennebrouwerij, Boon and Fruli

This tasting will be offered at no cost to you, however, due to limited space available, this tasting is by invitation only and we ask that if you are interested in coming please reply to this email and let us know to expect you.

Check in with us at our Blog: http://gaddsbeershop.blogspot.com/

On Facebook: Gadds' Ramsgate Brewery Bottle shop

On Twitter @RamsgateBrewery

Make over

2009-05-16T13:22:00.003+01:00

Please extend a warm welcome to Matt who joined the firm a couple of weeks ago. He's flirted with us for years, waiting for the right moment to make his move and his timing is impeccable; the artwork used to front our beers has been getting increasingly random and scruffy and one of Matt's skills, as you'll gather from one of his websites, is design.

Over the next few weeks and months you'll notice the changes to pump-clips, bottle labels, website and letterhead. Crikey, even Morrison, our new van, will get a going over. You'll miss the old and it'll be a fairly painful process of change but in a few years you'll look back and realise that we all grow up eventually, even breweries.

The last 24 hours has been hell for me, relinquishing a creative area of my business. The worst is over and there'll be no more tears.

Psst....pass it on.

2009-05-11T12:48:00.002+01:00

There is an old drinking adage that runs along the lines of 'drink whatever the Landlord drinks'; the suggestion is that if the gaffer don't sup the ale it won't be much good and whilst there are many admirable exceptions there remains a good deal of truth to the rule. Certainly, if the gaffer does drink the ale you can be 99% sure it'll be good.

By extension, is it too much to ask the government to source its food & drink from its own dominion?

Without getting horribly jingoistic I would like to see pride in our own produce displayed at both civic and national level: it is just and right so to do.

Frazer Thompson at English Wines thinks so too and has begun a petition.

Whilst I rather hope he's pushing at a door that will swing open the more support the better. Please, do sign up.

Changling

2009-05-01T12:27:00.005+01:00

'Mild Ale' - a dark, weak and sweetish brew enjoyed in gallons by men wearing clogs and cloth caps after a grueling and dangerous shift on t'face? Well, yes, that's the way it were and completely appropriate it were too; the heavy industries of Britain during the 20th century drew every joule of energy from many thousands of strong, hard men running on enormous volumes of revitalising (and very well deserved) ale that could be consumed in haste and gay abandon.

Examples of this style are relatively rare today - you'll fondly remember GADDS' Dark Ale, a 4% version that reached the finals of the Champion Winter Beer of Britain a few years ago - but generally speaking this kind of ale is left without an audience: the mines have shut, the factories mechanised and the mills have been knocked down. Modern man seeks not a belly full of Mild to slake his thirst after an 8 hour shift in front of his computer - he quite rightly heads home for tea and nips out for a quick and tasty pint later on.

Now Mild was not always dark, weak and sweet. The name referred to any beer that was suitable for drinking soon after brewing. You see, way back, brewers would have two classes of beer: Keeping Ale and Mild Ale. Either could be dark, pale, strong or weak but the difference would be one of bitterness - in brewing Keeping Ale many hops were used for their preservative qualities.

So what is today's Mild like? There's little point in brewing miners ale so lets reinvent, hoping perhaps to rejuvenate. Darkness is out; lets go for an amber colour, that way we can use a mixture of malts with none too overpowering. Hey, if we use a little amber malt with its faintly roasty aroma we'll have elements of dark flavour in a pale(ish) ale! That'll surprise. We can use aromatic and juicy malts too and hop diligently not for bitterness, but for flavour and balance. We'll end up with a bit of the past and much of the future.

Available from next week across the finest of East Kent's hostelries.

In search of Number One

2009-04-25T11:47:00.003+01:00

Remember the barley wine we made last month? And how we split the gyle to create two distinct beers, one well hopped and the other barrel aged? You do? Then you'll also recall I named it 'Gadds' Number One' - well that was an unfortunate premature designation ("it's never happened before") since I've changed my mind. We're bottling the well hopped version this morning and it's a fairly fulsome taste-bud blowing beer, so way out that it doesn't fit its initial moniker - I think we'll call it 'Oooks'. (Take some time to think about that).

And I've just had a tasting of the barrel aged version with the Beer Merchant - 'awesome' was the considered verdict and who am I to disagree with such a broadly travelled beer expert? We'll be bottling that this coming week too and it ought to be on the shelves by mid-May. Lovely. But an oaky vinous barley wine Gadds' Number One ain't; our style is largely straightforward and since both these beers are heavily complex neither is a true reflection of who we are.

So the hunt for Gadds' Number One continues unabated.

The Bells of St Helen's

2009-04-23T12:14:00.004+01:00

Flavour, and I deliberately include that organoleptic duo of olfactory and oral, is a strange and fascinating area of study. Last week I crushed a few handfuls of coriander seeds and hunted down random citizens in search of feedback: 'orange', 'lime' and 'lemon' were the perceived aromas, along with the to be expected 'spice', 'curry' etc etc. But that first citrus family is what I found especially intrigueing - do try it at home, preferably on a saturday night whilst cooking curry. It doesn't work with powdered coriander, only freshly crushed.

So, along with some grated zest of fresh orange (I'm still working my through the residual fruit) I tossed the coriander into the copper and followed this mixture up with some very fruity Perle hops from Hallertau. The morning mash had contained an unusually high proportion of wheat and the hope was that these four flavours would meld in some beneficial way.

Well, the beer is going into cask as I write (thanks Steve) and I've had a sneaky little taste - yup, we have a lovely and refreshing wheat ale redolent of citrus spice and soft vanilla. There is a firm but welcome fruity hoppiness in there too and a mellow maltiness unfettered by bitterness - the whole is a rather balanced and tasty beer, very much reminding me of sunny afternoons sitting outside cafe bars watching the world go by.

From May 1st, everywhere in East Kent.

In praise of alcohol

2009-04-22T20:18:00.002+01:00

So the duty on alcohol has gone up in the budget today, as usual. But what is the backstory?

Thanks to our media friends the dangers of alcohol are well documented, and these dangers come with a fiscal price to our society.

The cost of alcohol misuse to the NHS was estimated to be around £2.7 billion back in 2006/7.

There are indirect costs associated too: policing, social care and 'opportunity costs'.

The duty raised in that period was around £8 billion. That is revenue derived at the source of production. There is a whole industry associated with that production and it contributes corporation tax and personnel income tax too. It also supports an allied traders industry making similar contributions.

Then the alcohol is sold on to a retail industry (more corporate tax revenue) which supports a workforce of millions (more income tax) and sells it on to you and I with value added tax.

All in all society is quids in all round thanks to alcohol.

So raise a glass (of beer) to alcohol, its industry and the vast revenue accrued from it - we'd be pretty stuck without it.

Spring Stock

2009-04-12T14:34:00.005+01:00

Featured breweries include:

Brasserie de la Senne
De Ranke Brouwerij
Mikkeler

and, of course, De Molen Brouwerij.

On the Road

2009-04-08T14:09:00.003+01:00

.........at the Planet Thanet Easter Beer Festival.

We thought we'd take our fine wares over to the Winter Gardens in Margate in order to find a larger congregation than we usually enjoy. We have just taken store of a volumous quantity of our favourite brews from over there, along with some new ones from there, there and there. Septic Steve is in the chair so get along and demand a taster.

Layering

2009-04-03T14:55:00.004+01:00

Sometimes it's good to layer flavours. Last month I brewed our barley wine and got some nice malt, a little toffee (roast barley and chocolate malt make toffee), some lovely red berry notes from the rye and a deep bitterness from our hops.

Then I stored it on bed of 'Bramling Cross' hops to extract some light, fresh green notes for contrast.

Today we split the brew: half into french oak casks from the splendid chaps at Chapel Down Vineyard (big thank you to Frazer and Owen - there'll be a case for you when it's done) and half into another tank liberally dosed with a new variety of hop called NZ Nelson Sauvin. The former aliquot ought to gain vinuous undertones with perhaps a little oak and tannin, the latter, massive fruit and grapes if the early taste of these hops is anything to go by.

So at the moment we have two beers maturing, ready for bottling 'TBC', according to taste.

Layering is very much in this season.

The first few hours....(after the 'lag')

2009-04-03T09:46:00.005+01:00

FV 3 - 08.00hrs 3rd April, 2009

As fermentation begins, bubbles of carbon dioxide rise to the surface accompanied, a few hours later, by fresh yeast cells, hitching a ride. The resulting plume is fungal in form and is superseded a few hours later by a more creamy texture. Whilst I hope my Nokia 6500 classic can do justice to this wonderful example of natural mathematics, technology has yet to provide a transducer capable of communicating aroma. It's all lemon, grass, mint and spice (clove) this morning.

Brewer's privilege. And lets face it, endless free ale apart, we get very few of those.

Cask Watch

2009-03-30T14:27:00.004+01:00

The containers we use to get our beer to the pub, and from which the beer is sold are called 'casks'. They're made of stainless steel and cost a significant amount. We need a surprisingly large number of them, typically around 7 to 8 times the number of casks we sell in a week; we need a week's stock for filling, two week's stock for maturing, two week's worth in the pub and a week to get them back. Add in a week or two for flexibility and there you go, hundreds of casks, many thousands of pounds of capital.

Being stainless steel they have a variable scrap value depending on the demand so we must be vigilant keeping tabs on them. Notice the colour banding? Each brewery in the country retains their own 'population' and has them colour coded for ease of recognition. They're all individually numbered - pressed into the steel permanently. The owners name is similarly embossed round the rim, or chime. And they're bar coded and scanned where ever they go.

We still bloody lose some though so if you come across a BBQ with 3 yellow bands, do give us a shout - it's worth a beer or two!

India

2009-03-27T15:40:00.003Z

I told you all about the Pale India Ales last year when we released 'No Tomorrow', well I was wrong and Tomorrow has arrived. This year's offering is "India", an 8.3% pale ale brewed with all East Kent Goldings from the 2008 crop at Brooke Farm. First run out was a cask at the Dover Winter Beer Festival back in February and it was pretty good. Next is the Planet Thanet Easter Beer Festival and the Chambers Beer Festival, both on the weekend of the 10th April.

In the meantime there is a store of bottled India and it's ready and on-sale. For a paltry £2.50 you get 330ml of smack-in-the-face Kentish hops - there's no fuss and bother about this one, it's bitter, bitter, hoppy and bitter. And it kicks like a mole, to paraphrase Count Arthur.

It does drink extremely well.

Satyameva Jayate.

The bi-monthly series drags on.

2009-03-23T15:25:00.002Z

Dragon's Blood
Extra Special Bitter

I can't remember what I wrote last year about this brew but I'm not about to reread it - onwards and upwards and don't look down and all that.

Anyway, Extra Special Bitter (ESB) is just what it says on the er, cask. Much more malt, many more hops and far more attention to maturation than go into a regular bitter. That's the 'extra special' bit.

The resulting brew is a heady one, rich of colour and flavour and stout of bitter, spicy, hoppiness.

And although it is a St George's Day bevvie, it's availability stretches all the way from March 1st through to the end of April.

Treat yourself and raise a glass to England and decent beer.

Geraldine was a brewster

2009-03-18T21:31:00.008Z

- the first I'd ever met, I think. And although we'd known each other for a few years it wasn't until late one night in the kitchen, over a glass or two of Orval (or some such) that I began to get the tiniest insight into her genius - not for her the stainless, real scientific solidity of fermentation vessels; more like tall old friends rallying forth in a mutual quest to create ale; casks weren't simply 9 gallons of contained, sterile space in which to store fresh beer, they were alive and chuckling away, needing and loving her deft attention. Every department of her small brewery was alive with spirit and character and her role within this arena was one of a caring conductor, atune to the tune and very much maternal in approach. A unique brewhouse perspective and I never forgot it.

Anyway, Geraldine's path continued, as it ought, and now encompasses motherhood, marriage and musical composition. This piece is called 'Gadds of Ramsgate'.

Gerldine has a web site with a rather funky background. Sadly, it makes no reference to her first career.

GADDS' Number 3 - Best Kentish Beer

2009-02-27T09:53:00.002Z

An ecstatic Summer Gadd celebrates the brewery's success before school this morning.

The Ramsgate Brewery won a coveted TOKA at last night's award ceremony held at Leeds Castle, following last year's 'Best Kent Brewery' award with 'Best Kentish Beer' ('Best Beer of Kent').

In a closely contested final, GADDS' Number 3 beat Shepherd Neame's Spitfire Ale and Chapel Down's Brut to emerge victorious.

Many thanks to everyone who voted on-line to get us to the final; if you show up at the brewery over the next 7 days and mutter 'TOKA' I'll make sure you get a free bottle.

Cyclops Tasting Notes

2009-02-25T17:48:00.002Z

Regular reader Ben bemoans festival tasting notes that talk fancy and much prefers the simplified 'Cyclops' system. He wants me, at great expense, to send 1 gallon samples of my ale to the boys at Everards Brewery (owners of Cyclopsbeer) and get them to tell me what they taste like. After forking out a small fortune I'll be sent a jpeg with simplified, standardised tasting notes on it that Ben understands.

OK, will do. In fact, have done. Find them here.

Ben does have a point - I'm just naturally sceptical of joining in with anything.