Many are those who asked me why spend a long weekend in Hull? Lets face it there is an image problem: Grim, industrial, run down, end of the line. None of that put me off. Visited several cities up and down Eastern England during their beer festivals taking in the real ale pub circuit at the same time and over the recent mini heatwave added Kingston-upon- to that list. In the event the place turned out to have more than a few attractions and a bit of culture/history to it. Like a lot of towns dissected by dual carriageways, ring roads and bypasses you sense much of the character has been lost but sections retain their identity and charm.
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| They do things different in Hull |
The Festival venue was the Mortimer Suite of the City Halls, a modestly fronted building on Paragon Street. Inside things were slightly grander: a carpeted dining area where the Halls staff served hot food; a domed central area housing the membership stalls, Tombola,Cider bar and (unchilled) foreign beer bottles; and a picture gallery room with three bars. Don't go to festivals or pubs to drink bottled beer so straight to the casks it was.
As a long time fan of fruity, slightly sour Red ales and being on a mission to try the more obscure local beers the presence of Big River's Big Red(3.9%) from nearby Brough made the first choice an easy one. Found the malt drowned out just about everything else suggesting to me Big River are new to the game. There were some slightly sour fruit notes (raspberries/brambles) in the background and maybe some green apples too. All round not a bad effort, going in the right direction. Next brew hope Big River go for it and not be afraid to push up the sharpness levels with more hop action. Next day I tried the same brewery's Windjammer (4.7%) and was much more impressed. Started off slowly with some noticeably peppery, slightly spicy hops. Quite boozy with a sweetish after-taste that developed down the glass. One of those beers that sneaks up on you to the point where you didn't notice how much you were enjoying it till it has gone.
Another grower was Leyden's Black Pudding Mild (3.8%) Well-roasted malt, creamy body, peppery with mellower after-taste. Possibly drank this out of sequence amid some higher gravity beers so it speaks volumes for its quality that it not only held its own but stood out.
Cleverly bars were named North, South and West with brewers arranged geographically by their relation to Hull. No need for an East bar because until someone starts up a micro on an Oil rig no brewer is located due east of Hull. Not a huge selection compared to some festivals but of the 70 beers on offer I was at best on mere nodding acquaintance terms with about half the breweries. That meant plenty of opportunity to taste something new.
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| Day 1 of E Yorks 2011 Hull Beer Festival |
Being a keen peruser of the beer list I spotted two along similar lines in the programme: Amber's Chocolate Orange Stout and Dunham Massey's Chocolate Cherry Mild. Never one to miss a bandwagon jumped straight on the latter. Not totally convinced by this 3.8% effort. Tasted a bit thin/watery for a mild and the cherry seemed to be from some sort of concentrate as though it has been stuck on as an afterthought. The Amber Stout didn't appear until the next session. This was a decent roast malt stout at 4.0% but tasted more of vanilla than orange to me. So perhaps this fruity dark beer bandwagon has run its course and it was time to get off.
Whitstable's Kentish Reserve (5.0%) seemed as good a jumping off point as any. Brown with a warm mouth feel and a good alcoholic buzz countered with creamy malt led to a nourishing finish. Nothing ground breaking but nothing off-putting either. Then begin to notice the richer fruity tones like burnt orange and maybe some nuttiness too. And then its finished and I want more but there are too many other temptations. Oh well file it away and hope to come across it again somewhere.
A beer I will definitely be looking for in the future in Empire's Imperium (5.1%) It was yellow tasted of tropical fruits like grapefruit and kiwis. It reached right to the back of the tongue and came atop a nice biscuity malt base. At the time I thought it was right up there with Jaipur from Thornbridge, which was lucky since their beers didn't show up for this festival.
Most festivals choose between token or a Cash payment system. Hull like to do things their own way with a hybrid. Tokens worth £1.40 are sold at the door. This will buy you a half of gravity beer up to 4.5 ABV. If you order something on handpull you need to add 10p for a half or 20p for a pint. Same goes if you want anything above 4.5%. If you want a combination of handpull & ABV > 4.5... you need to consult some sort of decision flowchart. Luckily I didn't buy any foreign beer or cider because things got really complicated there. Not going to criticise here because everyone knows the responsibility of organising can be a pain and how forced compromises produce over engineered solutions. That said it does strike me they've ended up with the downsides to both systems and benefits of neither.
From the recent Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt which the Beer Monkey has written about here & here I was familiar with Wold Top. Their Golden Summer was among the top five of that range tried to date. So cask Big Sky (3.9%) couldn't be missed. Unfortunately not sure it was in perfect condition as there was a slight haze to it and rather than the clean hoppy finish expected from the notes I got more the tanginess of stewed Granny Smith apples and very little balancing malt.
Another familiar brewery was Abbeydale. Despite being on exploratory mode decided Sheffield counted as local to Hull so managed to squeeze in a couple of halves across my two Festival sessions. The Deception (4.1%) was a new brew to me and this straw coloured soft mouth feel, dry tropical fruit flavoured gem got me back on course. Delicious. The Black Mass I had next day was as in just as good nick. At 6.7% may not have been ideal for a heatwave but the lasting bitter bite gave me something to remember.
In a similar vein was Old Spot's Spot of Bother (5.5%). Bitter roast, unyieldingly so. Didn't really get the Chocolate ice cream referred to in the tasting notes but I did get the bitterness, that certainly stayed with me. Another dark beer sampled were Great Newsome's Jem's Stout. Had high hopes for this beer and brewery generally. Did my homework and realised they were an East Yorks brewery well regarded. However this 4.3% stout lacked something. First sniff suggested a smoky experience but in the event I got more caramel. It had a decent enough body but too sweet for that style, almost to the point of being sickly.
Didn't get round to Great Newsome's two other beers at the festival after that and curiously didn't find any in the pubs of Hull. However going home via Manchester did come across Wandering Wheaterer(4.2%) in the Boggarts Hole Microbar (Arndale Centre) This was a much more pleasant proposition. Again there was sweetness but more subtle and sat better in this Wheatbeer/Golden ale mash up style of beer. Zestiness of the wheat probably helped. So moral is don't write off a brewery on basis of one bad beer.
Another reason not to be put off is by a name Fat Cat's Marmalade Cat(5.5%) had a sort of childish, self referencing one that could have mitigated against it. I only ordered because something else I was looking for had gone. Asking the bar staff my usual question of "What's selling well? What won't last till tomorrow?" I was pointed in the direction of this copper coloured strong bitter. It had tangey breakfast orange conserve sitting on top of robustly alcoholic warm malt.
Of the other beers sampled two were new to me and both being yellow with a slight haze made me reluctant to judge them too harshly. Great Oakley's Wagtail(3.9%) had a crisp bitterness which lingered almost too long. Quenching just the same. Brown Cow's Sessions(3.6%) was a Pale'n hoppy number. Grassy, let down by that over sweet digestive biscuit malt you get in so many Golden ale style beers. Perhaps under better conditions these new world hop beers could be better appreciated.
The unseasonably warm weather gave the hard-working staff an extra task of keeping the beer cool. As I left at 4pm on the Friday they were spraying down the casks to keep the temperatures down. With the Friday night session being all ticket and Saturday as the last day of the festival which experience tells me to avoid I said goodbye and headed for a pub crawl round Hull which you can read about next.
By the close of play 1800+ visitors drunk most of the beer and cider on offer. Thanks to all the Organisers and Staff for producing a great beer festival and good luck for 22nd to 24th March 2012
Keep in mind It Is All About The Beers so to finish here are my top five beers of the festival:
5) Fat Cat's Marmalade Cat
4) Abbeydale's Deception
3) Whistable's Kentish Reserve
2) Leyden's Black Pudding
1) Empire's Imperium
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