Three Hampshire Beers

On the Easter Good Friday, 6th April,  I visited Portsmouth and sampled three beers from Hampshire microbreweries. At the White Swan, Guildhall Walk, a Wetherspoon outlet (left), I first tried a half of Upham Stakes Ale. Upham Brewery are based at Stakes Farm, Cross Lane, Upham, Hampshire. They began brewing in 2009 using a 3.5 barrel plant.

The Stakes Ale is a chestnut coloured beer with low carbonated head. Distinctive stilton notes on the nose with toffee-caramel and just a hint of grassy spearmint. Stilton again on the first taste along with toasted malt is followed by very peppery, spicy hop notes giving a lingering astringent finish. The flavours are restrained rather than demonstrative and rather too subtle for my personal tastes. The mouthfeel is smooth but a little thin and understates its 4.6% strength.

At the same pub I then sampled half of Oakleaf India Pale Ale.

Set up in 2000 by Ed Anderson and his father-in-law Dave Pickersgill, Oakleaf Brewing Company Ltd are at Unit 7, Clarence Wharf Industrial Estate, Mumby Road, Gosport, Hampshire. The IPA is a gold coloured version of this historic style with a froth of white lacing. Marmalade, tangerine, citrus hops - even peaches and cream are conveyed in the intense and complex aroma. The smooth and creamy body conveys the full alcoholic 5.5% strength. Hop bite carries through into the taste, initially underpinned by fruity malt but building to a powerfully bitter finish. Very enjoyable.

Later at the Sir Loin of Beef, Highland Road, in the Eastney area of the city, I had a half of Vibrant Forest Stormbrew. Experienced home-brewer Kevin Robinson is the Vibrant Forest Brewery. He began commercial brewing in the summer of 2011 from his home in Totton, Southampton, on the 1-barrel plant previously in use at Havant Brewery.

Stormbrew is a 4.7% dark amber/copper coloured beer with low carbonated head. Liqueur at first on the nose with plenty of milk chocolate notes. Chunky malt mouthfeel and burnt sweetness with dark fruits, treacle and even more chocolate define the character before an emerging bitterness becomes predominant. An excellent beer in my opinion.

http://www.uphambrewery.co.uk/

http://www.oakleafbrewing.co.uk/

http://www.vibrantforest.co.uk/

The Woodman, Brighton

You cannot have a drink in this early-Victorian built pub at  49 Guildford Street –  no one has for over sixty years, since the days in 1949 of its last ever licensee Fred Sparshott. But the photographs present a perfect example of its history literally etched on the exterior.

Faded but visible high up on the near corner above the street sign is THE WOODMAN. Very distinctly on the architrave above the Doric capitals of the Guildford Street door appears C. BRIGGS. In the recess below, appended almost apologetically is T. RICHARDS. Charles Briggs was the first recorded licensee in 1854 (I like to think that his customers in their conviviality called him Charlie). An F. Richards and a Mrs. Richards appear at this address in street directories of 1868. More difficult to discern is the scanty script on the stone wall to the right. Just traceable with some patience is:

VALLANCE & CATT’S

FINE ALES

LONDON STOUT

This is signage from the Victorian owners of Brighton’s defunct West Street Brewery - surely the only surviving example of its kind on a building. Those of you reading this Blog from outside of the UK will, I think, know what London Stout is. But as beer historian Ron Pattinson tells us, Fine Ales did not in those days did not mean ‘good ales’, as we would now understand the term, but ‘clear’, as in reference its clarification. Hence: finings used to clear beer. The advertising tablet below the window further along (scroll along the large photograph below) possibly once read BITTER ALE or perhaps the last word is PALE. Generically speaking, ale was lightly-hopped in comparison to the Bitter Beers and Pale Ales (which confusingly belong to the beer, not ale family) that became increasingly popular from the 1860s onwards.

Despite the dilapidated appearance of what was once the Woodman, the plastic doorbell, clean net curtains and two modern replacement windows make it obvious that the premises are occupied.

Postscript: these passages on the pub were originally written in 2009 for the ‘Brighton Heritage Pubs’ issue (No. 24) of The Quaffer magazine. It was put to me at the time that the signage, faded as it was, had survived at all only because the local Tamplin & Sons brewery had painted over it after acquiring the pub in 1899. The exterior had gradually given up its Victorian secrets as it decayed during the last six decades. Some months ago, when walking past the Woodman, I was taken aback to find the building looking smart and spruce. The names of the landlords had been spared but the brewery signage was completely obliterated, protected once more under a new coat of paint but no longer visible again for decades to come.

 

Anchor Springs Hornblower

At 4.5% ABV, 1045° OG, Hornblower is brewed with pale, crystal, chocolate and amber malts. Challenger is used as the bittering hop with Target in the middle and EKG at the end.

Light notes of berry fruits on the nose; decidedly sweet initial taste; biscuit malt in the mouth; delicate milk chocolate and redcurrant mix on the palate; brewer Frank McCabe’s trademark lingering hop finish.

All aspects combine to create a superb bitter-sweet balance to this lightly-hopped copper-coloured traditional beer.

Turners Best Bitter 4.1%

Turners Brewery is a new microbrewery based at Ringmer, near Lewes, East Sussex. Last night, Tuesday 20th March, I sampled their first beer, Turners Best (4.1%) at the Selden Arms, Worthing.  

Turners Best has a hop nose with delicate milk chocolate notes and a pronounced melon fruits palate that carries through into the body of the beer. The initial taste is sweetish and malty with a good mouthfeel leading to a dry, notably bitter lingering finish.

I was due at an Anchor Springs "Meet the Brewer" event at the Spy Glass Inn on the seafront so had to restrict myself to a pint and a half of this light brown, bronze-hued session ale, but the chap sitting at the table to my right was already on his sixth pint!
 

http://www.facebook.com/TurnersBrewery

http://turnersbrewery.com/

The Shakespeares Head, Brighton – Once a House of Repute in Sussex

Another former Kemp Town Brewery pub, improved in the interwar period and currently closed, the Shakespeare’s Head stands on the corner of Spring Street and Hampton Street, just north of Western Road. 

(The other Brighton pub of the same name, in Chatham Place, was a Tamplins House). Hard to believe it may be but the above two views are photographed from virtually the same angle. That from the James Gray collection of the Regency Society is dated c. 1935 just after much of the surrounding area was cleared but with the pub awaiting a rebuild. My recent shot of the same spot shows just how extensive a transformation of the premises took place. The landlord at the time of the improvements was either a George W. Beall or (by 1939) Stanley Howard Parker.

I’m guessing slightly at the exact year of the rebuild and the architect responsible because the licensing plans with such details are, unusually, not listed in the Brighton Borough Petty Sessional Division catalogue held at the East Sussex Record Office. Nonetheless, I can assert with some confidence that this is another J. L. Denman building. John Leopold Denman was not the only in-house architect for the Kemp Town Brewery (J. T. & F. J. Cawthorn and Frank W. Pearcy were also employed by KTB - or Abbey & Sons as the brewery was previously known) but Denman does appear to be responsible for most if not all the ‘improved public houses’ in so far as we define this term in an ideological way, that is, a house designed to effect a desired change towards ‘respectability’ in the type and habits of its clientele.



What are the architectural clues to this being a Denman building? The interesting use made of brickwork, polychromatic in this instance. Restraint and elegance in design, neo-Georgian with rounded ground floor windows.

Mostly though, and this is perhaps a leap of faith but one forgivable enough for its plausibility, the granite plinth and door surrounds, particularly in the effect provided to the corner entrance which strikes me as a plain and honest pub version of the doorway to Regent House, in Princes Place, Brighton, designed by Denman in 1933/4.

Did Denman have his Regent House doorway as a model in his head as he drafted the plans for the new pub? Compare both doorways in the composite photograph. That is, of course, assuming that Denman was the architect of the Shakespeares Head.

Sources:

Kemp Town Brewery (n.d. but c. 1932), In and Around Brighton: “Houses” of Repute in Sussex, Cheltenham: Ed J. Burrow & Co.

http://www.regencysociety-jamesgray.com/

The National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=179-pts2&cid=9-363&kw=East%20Sussex%20Record%20Office

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leopold_Denman

The Murrell Arms, Barnham

This classic village pub was built c. 1750 as a farmhouse by William Murrell, who owned much of Barnham. Its Georgian brick frontage is covered in Victorian stucco and has recently been given freshly painted traditional signage. The Murrell Arms became a pub in 1866 after the arrival of the railway two years previously caused village trade to prosper. The full licence was granted not without opposition from the Railway Inn, the Vicar and Churchwardens. The interior is little altered in the 47 years since the previous, long-serving licensees Mervyn and Daphne Cutten took over.

The Public Bar on the right was two very small rooms in the distant past and retains very old half panelling with some wall benches and a circa century-old curved counter at the rear. The fireplace, front counter and two small bar backs are at least forty years old. The middle area was originally a Jug and Bottle where a partition has been lost. Behind the servery is the cellar with casks on stillage. This area was at one time the living quarters.

The Stable Bar on the left, entered through a vestibule, has very old half panelling and two old fireplaces. Originally a stable, it was converted c. 1910 to a wooden Club Room with a glass covered walkway to the Public Bar. There is evidence of where a partition once divided the room in two and the barrel-counter (pictured above) replaced a hatch. Note the ceramic buttons with numbers on the doors.

The walls are covered in all manner of curios and artefacts collected by Mervyn Cutten (who died in 2006) and these were purchased from Daphne on her retirement last year by the incoming, present licensees Ryan and Heather Mayo. In the Public Bar is the rare game of Ringing the Bull. Beers are from the Fuller’s range with weekend guests. The Murrell Arms, Yapton Road, Barnham, West Sussex, PO22 OAS, tel. 01243 553320.

Sources:

Cutten, M and May, V. (1992) The Mill and the Murrell: A Brief History (Eastergate: Beaver Print & Publicity Ltd)

Treasure of a Beer

We are delighted to announce that Hammerpot Bottle Wreck Porter has been awarded Gold in the Porter category at CAMRA’s National Winter Ales Festival, at Manchester, from 18-21 January.

This superb beer, named after a 19th century shipwreck off the Sussex coast, found to be carrying hundreds of bottles of porter, was first brewed in 2007. Since then it has won many Beer of the Festival prizes and four regional awards from both CAMRA and the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA). Although several of their other beers have also won awards, this is the first national award to be received by the brewery. Lee Mitchell, the Head Brewer at Hammerpot said that, “despite not being driven by awards it is very nice to be recognised and it reflects the efforts of the whole team here.”

Based in Poling, near Arundel, West Sussex, Hammerpot Brewery was established in 2005 by Lee (pictured left with his wife at the 2010 Worthing Beer Festival) with the intention of producing distinctive, quality craft brewed beers. They now produce at least twelve different beers throughout the year and continue to pursue those same aims.

With their 5-barrel plant, Hammerpot are a micro brewery in the truest sense and are delighted to be able to show that smaller end of the independent brewery sector can make beers worthy of national recognition. This award confirms what real ale drinkers in Sussex have long thought: that in Hammerpot Bottle Wreck Porter we have a great beer that is worthy perhaps of even international recognition. This golden achievement is testimony to the superb quality of this outstanding porter. Our congratulations go to all at Hammerpot Brewery.

http://www.hammerpot-brewery.co.uk/home.aspx