Craft and (crap) beer at Glastonbury

[balti-pie]

23 minutes ago, p.pete said:

This thread prompted me to have a dig for what beers are best when they're warm - and I found this: https://pedalchile.com/blog/best-warm-beer  

One of the responses in there suggests putting the can in a wet sock (or tea towel) but then leaving it in the sun as the process of evaporating the water lowers the temperature of the can inside.  That might be why people suggest leaving cans under the tent rather than in it?

General suggestions around choice of beer were to avoid hops, go darker, especially if it has punchy flavours.  I might be taking some of @balti-pie's suggestions above this year.  I usually try to give cheap vodka some sort of ridiculous flavour, but some warm stouts might go down better.

oh yes! it gives me about two months of wandering around craft beer shops, undertaking 'research' 😄 i love pastry stouts and barrel aged things, ideally both - and that may well mean four £10 cans in a day, but thats got to be better than the same £40 spent at the bar on pints of Otter or Carlsberg.

Middle of the crowd, band just about to start, out comes the Northern Monk death star from the magic bag! 

[plot2pot]

In the past I've taken a couple of 20 litre bag in boxes of whatever pale ale we were packing in the brewery on the week leading up to the festival. Was generally okay but last time I did it on a hot year I took a 4.2% pale but was drinking so much water due to the heat that I struggled to even get tipsy! Ended up supplementing it with top ups from the cider bus 😁

We started canning during lockdowns - prior to that we bottled so I wasn't able to take any smallpack - so last year I took a variety of our beers from low ABV pales, some NEIPAs, some DIPAs and some Impy stouts - worked well as I could choose what to drink depending on the ABV and how pissed I felt at the time!

[p.pete]

21 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

oh yes! it gives me about two months of wandering around craft beer shops, undertaking 'research' 😄 i love pastry stouts and barrel aged things, ideally both - and that may well mean four £10 cans in a day, but thats got to be better than the same £40 spent at the bar on pints of Otter or Carlsberg.

Middle of the crowd, band just about to start, out comes the Northern Monk death star from the magic bag! 

Damn you - just ordered a 'Amundsen Donut Series Dark Chocolate with Candied Pecan and Coffee Glaze' - this might be the start of my collection.  Or else I'll maybe need to 'test' it before June, or check the date and discover that holding on to it just won't do.

[plot2pot]

3 hours ago, balti-pie said:

Craft beer/a decent pint is appearing in football grounds a lot more reliably, music venues are still a bit hit/miss but I think it’s well worth it. If you’re in for £7 for a pint of dreadful shite like Tuborg, £8 for a Beavertown or or £9 for an actual lovely pint from Burning sky/verdant etc etc becomes a lot more appealing. If you’re gonna ream me, ream me for something really good 

We've just started supplying Stockport County's ground with our beers which is a great move on their part 👍

[Greenelk]

42 minutes ago, p.pete said:

Damn you - just ordered a 'Amundsen Donut Series Dark Chocolate with Candied Pecan and Coffee Glaze' - this might be the start of my collection.  Or else I'll maybe need to 'test' it before June, or check the date and discover that holding on to it just won't do.

I can recommend their 9th birthday collabs.  Less sweet than the Desert In A Can Range.
Bang The Elephant do some outstanding pastry stouts as well, Rumm-Ra, Red Velvet Revolver and Lumiere are things of beauty and readily available

Edited January 27, 2023 by Greenelk

[Greenelk]

4 hours ago, balti-pie said:

An oft-repeated point, but i always curate a box of specially selected beers to bring to glastonbury with me. They tend to be stouts and porters, cos dark beers dont need to be cold (a warm DIPA would not be a great experience) and i tend to go for things north of 10% so i have less of a need to wee, and i only need one or two to get a nice mid-set buzz going on. If i fancy a fresh pint i can head off and have one (the Grimbergen in the t+c bar used to be a right bloody winner at 6.5%) but generally i'll have 3 or 4 proper decent cans in my bag and that'll cover the vast majority of my beer consumption for the day 

We thankfully have a decent cool box, so Wed & Thurs are IPA/DIPA with the odd stout, then stouts from the stash only after that.  To the bar for the odd cold drink alongside this.

 

[carlosj]

I've ordered some impys to pick up this weekend for, er, research.

Tartarus have started using cans, I'm enjoying De Moersleutel in general, Azvex Vantablack, Unbarred Stoutzilla this weekend. Northern Monk Heaven, and Death are worth a look out. Beak and St Mars of the Desert(?) are also producing good stuff.

Think I did a can share with@balti-pie

and another, which was great, thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by carlosj

[balti-pie]

1 hour ago, carlosj said:

I've ordered some impys to pick up this weekend for, er, research.

Tartarus have started using cans, I'm enjoying De Moersleutel in general, Azvex Vantablack, Unbarred Stoutzilla this weekend. Northern Monk Heaven, and Death are worth a look out. Beak and St Mars of the Desert(?) are also producing good stuff.

Think I did a can share with@balti-pie

and another, which was great, thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

You did indeed, lovely to meet and swap with you! 

[balti-pie]

2 hours ago, Greenelk said:

I can recommend their 9th birthday collabs.  Less sweet than the Desert In A Can Range.
Bang The Elephant do some outstanding pastry stouts as well, Rumm-Ra, Red Velvet Revolver and Lumiere are things of beauty and readily available

Dessert in a can are lovely, and perfect for the booze and also the sugar in them, quite invigorating late on in the day. They do give you really bloody sticky fingers though and that can be a pain when in the middle of a crowd. Licking my fingers just isn’t a coping strategy in my armoury at a festival after a couple of days 

[Alvoram]

8 hours ago, The Nal said:

They could stick a couple of Laguinitas taps in a bar somewhere.

Or Beavertown. Heineken own them now so supply shouldn't be an issue.

We have Lagunitas Daytime on tap... Lovely pint in the summer. I'm sure you're aware, but it's also a Heineken brand. 

6 hours ago, plot2pot said:

Thanks for the mention - we only supply our own beer to trade but it is very good 😉

Happy to have a chat!

Cheers buddy, we're already on Sellar, so have already had a nosey. 🙂 

We have 2 keykeg lines, but they're handpull / gas-less with a grundy-like coupler, (coupler has a vent on it that allows air in between bag and plastic, rather than a gas intake, and the beer line has a no return valve in it.) Do you think your keykegs are suitable or do they require the gas? And if so, any reccomedations, most popular beers?

 

(P.s sorry to anybody else reading this for going way off topic haha.) 

Edited January 27, 2023 by Alvoram

[gigpusher]

3 hours ago, plot2pot said:

In the past I've taken a couple of 20 litre bag in boxes of whatever pale ale we were packing in the brewery on the week leading up to the festival. Was generally okay but last time I did it on a hot year I took a 4.2% pale but was drinking so much water due to the heat that I struggled to even get tipsy! Ended up supplementing it with top ups from the cider bus 😁

We started canning during lockdowns - prior to that we bottled so I wasn't able to take any smallpack - so last year I took a variety of our beers from low ABV pales, some NEIPAs, some DIPAs and some Impy stouts - worked well as I could choose what to drink depending on the ABV and how pissed I felt at the time!

Has canning suddenly gotten cheaper in the last few years as I remember when it used to be a big thing to find a beer that Mr Gigpusher liked that was in cans and now the majority are in cans?

[carlosj]

4 hours ago, plot2pot said:

In the past I've taken a couple of 20 litre bag in boxes of whatever pale ale we were packing in the brewery on the week leading up to the festival. Was generally okay but last time I did it on a hot year I took a 4.2% pale but was drinking so much water due to the heat that I struggled to even get tipsy! Ended up supplementing it with top ups from the cider bus 😁

We started canning during lockdowns - prior to that we bottled so I wasn't able to take any smallpack - so last year I took a variety of our beers from low ABV pales, some NEIPAs, some DIPAs and some Impy stouts - worked well as I could choose what to drink depending on the ABV and how pissed I felt at the time!

You have an impressive range of brews! Apologies, I follow you on twitter (I think it was your Turkish Delight brew that caught my eye) but hadn't got round to looking on your site, I will rectify that soon with an order.

Edited January 27, 2023 by carlosj

[plot2pot]

15 hours ago, gigpusher said:

Has canning suddenly gotten cheaper in the last few years as I remember when it used to be a big thing to find a beer that Mr Gigpusher liked that was in cans and now the majority are in cans?

Yeah, there’s a few entry level canning machines available now which has massively reduced the barrier to entry.

Also think a lot of bounce back loans got used for buying them!

[kingbadger]

Putty on at £11.50 a pint in my craft beer place. Not sure how much per can. 

[Alvoram]

20 hours ago, Greenelk said:

We thankfully have a decent cool box, so Wed & Thurs are IPA/DIPA with the odd stout, then stouts from the stash only after that.  To the bar for the odd cold drink alongside this.

 

One of these does the job brilliantly, as it takes those mini camping gas cannisters and is portable enough to carry around in a trolley / under a buggy if you want. (Though over night with ice blocks then transferred to a cool bag each morning is fine too.) 

Also connects via 240v, or 12v to either your vehicle, or 'jackery-like' solar power station for free power when it's available. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KVRZTM0?th=1

[kingbadger]

47 minutes ago, Alvoram said:

One of these does the job brilliantly, as it takes those mini camping gas cannisters and is portable enough to carry around in a trolley / under a buggy if you want. (Though over night with ice blocks then transferred to a cool bag each morning is fine too.) 

Also connects via 240v, or 12v to either your vehicle, or 'jackery-like' solar power station for free power when it's available. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KVRZTM0?th=1

Yeah had one of these at Bearded and was phenomenal. Amazing to just go and get a chilled DIPA, sour, stout etc anytime you liked. Put ice in it on the Thursday and was still some in there on Monday morning.

[Greenelk]

1 hour ago, Alvoram said:

One of these does the job brilliantly, as it takes those mini camping gas cannisters and is portable enough to carry around in a trolley / under a buggy if you want. (Though over night with ice blocks then transferred to a cool bag each morning is fine too.) 

Also connects via 240v, or 12v to either your vehicle, or 'jackery-like' solar power station for free power when it's available. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KVRZTM0?th=1

Looks amazing.  We've got one of these - https://www.costco.co.uk/Sports-Spas-Leisure/Camping/Cool-Boxes/Igloo-Max-Cold-58-Litre-62-US-QT-Cool-Box/p/2622043

Does the trick for a few days!

[stuartbert two hats]

Thanks to you lot, I took a wander down to my local craft beer shop yesterday and found they had Cloudwater beers on offer for only a pound each because they were about to go out of date.

Now I have a fuzzy head.

[p.pete]

On 1/27/2023 at 5:15 PM, Greenelk said:

I can recommend their 9th birthday collabs.  Less sweet than the Desert In A Can Range.
Bang The Elephant do some outstanding pastry stouts as well, Rumm-Ra, Red Velvet Revolver and Lumiere are things of beauty and readily available

Many thanks, will try to remember some of those names!  Our local beer shop keeps a good online stock listing, not spotting any of these at the moment (but have added a couple of 'Azvex Strategic Reserve's to what I'd ordered earlier, I'll go in and collect them all later - they've survived one weekend by not being in my possession at least!)

[Wooderson]

On 1/25/2023 at 2:31 PM, Alvoram said:

Are they really that good? Never had them on the bar before, what would you suggest I try out? (Pale, EP, blonde and mahogony ales sell best here, as it's a walking destination, the darkest ales, stouts and porters don't really sell well.) 

Heya mate. Apart from Guinness I never drink stouts/porters etc so no good to you there. Don't think I've had a crap hazy/new england from them. Must have tried 2 dozen. Along with Wylam and Verdant, Cloudwater have a style and level of consistency that I really appreciate.

[Quark]

I'm nowhere near as into beers as you lot, but I do like to try new stuff and see what comes my way.

Question for you though. At what stage do you find that some of these beers (particularly the ones like dessert in a can) stop being about "beer" and become "what can we make something taste of"?

There are definitely some I've tried (couldn't name them mind) where the beer part is definitely incidental and you might as well be drinking a milkshake that's slightly gone off 😄

If that's what you're after then fair enough, but it's one of those ones that's always confused me a wee bit.

[moogster]

22 minutes ago, Quark said:

I'm nowhere near as into beers as you lot, but I do like to try new stuff and see what comes my way.

Question for you though. At what stage do you find that some of these beers (particularly the ones like dessert in a can) stop being about "beer" and become "what can we make something taste of"?

There are definitely some I've tried (couldn't name them mind) where the beer part is definitely incidental and you might as well be drinking a milkshake that's slightly gone off 😄

If that's what you're after then fair enough, but it's one of those ones that's always confused me a wee bit.

Yeah the only ingredients that play well with the beer are , for me, some fruit for gose/sours and red berries/coffee with stouts. 

It seems that further than that and what you have is a boozy dessert. But then that's what quite a few cocktails end up being too...

[p.pete]

18 minutes ago, Quark said:

I'm nowhere near as into beers as you lot, but I do like to try new stuff and see what comes my way.

Question for you though. At what stage do you find that some of these beers (particularly the ones like dessert in a can) stop being about "beer" and become "what can we make something taste of"?

There are definitely some I've tried (couldn't name them mind) where the beer part is definitely incidental and you might as well be drinking a milkshake that's slightly gone off 😄

If that's what you're after then fair enough, but it's one of those ones that's always confused me a wee bit.

I had a Fererro Rochet (New Bristol) stout last night - it was very nice - didn't leave me with a sense of having had the actual thing though.  I reckon they make it with certain flavours, and just make up a name - would be really interesting to know more about how they make them actually.  

Guy in the shop said that New Bristol are having a 'cinder toffee-February', if that's of interest to anyone - especially like their espresso martini one - he was expecting 5 different versions.  I assume they don't actually chuck toffee and coffee into the thing, but like I say, I'm interested 😛 

[kingbadger]

3 hours ago, Quark said:

I'm nowhere near as into beers as you lot, but I do like to try new stuff and see what comes my way.

Question for you though. At what stage do you find that some of these beers (particularly the ones like dessert in a can) stop being about "beer" and become "what can we make something taste of"?

There are definitely some I've tried (couldn't name them mind) where the beer part is definitely incidental and you might as well be drinking a milkshake that's slightly gone off 😄

If that's what you're after then fair enough, but it's one of those ones that's always confused me a wee bit.

Pretty much my taste in beer is what can give me diabetes as swiftly as possible. A lot of sours just taste like fruit juice. I'm not too much of a thin stout kinda guy - prefer them nice and thick. 

When it comes to pale ales, IPAs etc I still have no idea what hops I like or what each one brings to the table. Just know that West Coast is much hoppier/danker than New England.

[Quark]

56 minutes ago, kingbadger said:

Pretty much my taste in beer is what can give me diabetes as swiftly as possible. A lot of sours just taste like fruit juice. I'm not too much of a thin stout kinda guy - prefer them nice and thick. 

When it comes to pale ales, IPAs etc I still have no idea what hops I like or what each one brings to the table. Just know that West Coast is much hoppier/danker than New England.

Ha, similar! Couldn't tell you the right names for all the flavours and hops, but know what I like when I drink it! Which is most things. My taste in beer is almost as eclectic as my music! 😂