APPENDIX A

Recommended Commercial Pale Ales

It seems appropriate to make some comments about examples of this style, but I can do this only on a limited scale. This is not a beer guide. It would take another book, at least, to cover the many examples available in England and America. Also, I certainly cannot claim to have drunk all examples of the style available in these two countries, although I have taken a good shot at it! I recommend the CAMRA Beer Guide 1997 from CAMRA Books (the 1998 version should be out by the time this book is published). It offers information on British breweries and pubs that serve cask-conditioned bitters and pale ales. Also, I recommend the CAMRA Guide to Real Ale in a Bottle by Jeff Evans (St. Albans, England: CAMRA Books, 1997), which might be useful if you are visiting England and want to take home some of the real stuff.

America has nothing as comprehensive as the CAMRA guide. This is not surprising, since it has no organization like CAMRA and it is a much bigger country to cover. A number of attempts have been made by various authors. Of these, I recommend Steve Johnson’s America’s Best Brews (Houston: Gulf Publishing Company, 1997). I also recommend the following On Tap books by Steve Johnson: On Tap Guide to North American Brewpubs (Clemson, South Carolina: WBR Publications, 1993); Vol. I U.S. East of the Mississippi and Canada, Vol. II U.S. West of the Mississippi, and On Tap New England (Clemson, South Carolina: WBR Publications, 1994). The best I can do here is to suggest a few examples of the styles you might look out for.

English Examples

If you go to London, England, try the brews from the two independents, Young’s and Fuller’s. In particular, look for Young’s Special Bitter and Fuller’s London Pride, two best bitters that are hard to beat when at their best! And of course Fuller’s ESB is an outstanding special bitter. West of London, look for Brakspear’s of Henley. Its bitter is an excellent example of just how much flavor can be squeezed from a low-gravity ordinary bitter. Very similar in strength and also very flavorful is Best Bitter from Hook, Norton in Oxfordshire. Another favorite of mine comes from the Salisbury microbrewer Hop Back. Its Summer Lighting, a top-end best bitter, is very hoppy indeed, yet it is a surprisingly easy-drinking beer.

The Flower Pots Inn’s origins as a house are obvious. It’s just the place to slake a thirst generated by cycling around the hilly Hampshire countryside.

Harder to find is Pots Ale, a very bitter, hoppy ordinary bitter. It is brewed at the Cheriton Brewhouse in Hampshire, right in the yard of a delightful country pub, the Flower Pots Inn. Perhaps some of the hoppiest cask-conditioned bitters are those from the Bishops Brewery, based appropriately enough around the corner from the Hop Exchange, in Southwark. This was where the first Flemish beer brewers settled; they introduced hops to England in the fifteenth century. The brewery itself is not too far from the new Globe Theatre, a reconstruction of the one at which many of Shakespeare’s plays were first staged. Get yer Hampsteads around a pint of Cathedral Bitter, and then go and see the Bard’s work much as it was originally performed, in an open theatre, but not, of course, in winter! What are Hampsteads? Hampstead Heaths (don’t pronounce the H) are teeth in Cockney rhyming slang!

On the East Coast, you have to look for Adnam’s in Suffolk. In particular, its Best Bitter (actually an ordinary) and Broadside (a best) are very enjoyable, although another best, Extra, is the championship winner of the three. The brewery is right by the coast in the charming little town of Southwold (where the writer George Orwell once lived). The beers there have an unusual flavor, sometimes said to be redolent of seaweed. Not far away is the town of Norwich. This is where the micro Woodforde brews; it has no fewer than two former Champion Beers of Britain in its portfolio. Try its Wherry Best Bitter for an ordinary with a lot of hop bitterness and aromatic character.

In the Midlands area, try Marston’s, a Burton brewer, although you can find their pubs and beers over a wide area. Pedigree is the only English beer still brewed in Unions. When kept well, it is an excellent best bitter, with the good hop bitterness, nice maltiness, and good dry finish that a Burton pale ale should have. Some of its bottled beers are sold in America, including its India Export Pale Ale, which I found pleasant but somewhat blander than expected. Bass, of course, still brews in Burton, but without the Unions. Its beer, Draught Bass, is a best bitter that can rarely be found in good shape these days. It is, to me, disappointingly bland.

Quite a few northern beers are worthy of note, particularly those from Timothy Taylor, a Yorkshire brewer. Its Landlord, a best bitter and a former Champion Beer of Britain, is a long-time favorite of mine. It is both interesting and dangerously drinkable—hoppy, fruity, and malty with an unusual nutty aspect. From the same county comes Samuel Smith, whose only real ale is Old Brewery Bitter. This, and its bottled Pale Ale, which is widely available in America, are good examples of beers produced in Yorkshire stone squares. They exhibit a characteristic buttery note, derived from diacetyl. The Yorkshire micro Barnsley Brewery offers an IPA, although its gravity puts it only in the best bitter range. Yet, I found this to be one of the hoppiest beers that I have tried in a while in terms of both a lovely grassy, lemony aroma and a hefty bitterness. On a short visit to England, you might not have time to locate it, but the taste of this beer will well repay you for hunting for it.

In Manchester and the Northwest area are a number of good ordinary bitters. Those from Cain’s in Liverpool, Manchester’s Holt’s, and Hyde’s Anvil are worth looking for, while the Cumbrian brewer, Jennings, offers a couple of unusually dark bitters. One of these rejoices in the name of Sneck Lifter—and you can make what you like of that! One of the archetypal pale, very bitter ordinary bitters I used to associate with Manchester is Boddington’s. Whitbread now owns and operates the ex-Boddington brewery and has somewhat emasculated the beer in its efforts to make it a national brand. Boddington’s is available in America as “pub beer” in cans fitted with the nitrogen “widget.” This means that it pours with a creamy head but has a low carbon dioxide content. It still has the very pale color I always knew and a not bad hoppy bitterness, but it no longer has the sharp bite of old.

A pub owned by one of Britain’s largest brewers. The sign is more interesting than the beer!

There are many others I could mention. One is Deuchars IPA (really an ordinary bitter) from Caledonian in Scotland, which is sold in bottle in America. And there are some good brewers in Wales, such as Felinfoel and its unusual Double Dragon (a best bitter), as well as Brains. The latter’s beers are not particularly distinctive, but with advertising slogans like “Get Some Brains,” it is worth mentioning. Of course, there are quite a few British beers on sale in America, but they are all either bottled or kegged and not at all the same as when tasted in cask-conditioned form on their home territory. If you are really interested in this style, you should make the effort to cross the water at some stage in your brewing career.

American Examples

As for American brews in the genre, there are, happily, many more than I could hope to deal with here. Some are now old favorites and were mentioned earlier in the book. These include Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (a little too clean and lacking in complexity for my taste, but it is a classic of its kind) and Ballantine’s IPA. Although not quite the beer it used to be, Ballantine’s is still not a bad drink. Bert Grant’s IPA remains a very bitter but still malty version of the American IPA style, as does Anchor’s Liberty Ale. Geary’s of Portland, Maine, does a nice pale ale. It’s nicely bitter but has more of the nutty, caramel character of the English style of pale ale.

Full Sail from Oregon has an excellent IPA, although this is really an English version, since it uses East Kent Goldings. The same brewery does a good, quite bitter and unusually strong amber ale. Rogue, also from Oregon, has an excellent American Amber Ale that is hoppy and has a nice caramel flavor. And Catamount in Vermont is still turning out its Amber Ale. It is perhaps something of a transition beer, but it is still nicely balanced and has a definite bitterness.

A new-era pale ale and IPA, brewed in Maine and Boston, Massachusetts, respectively. Both more in the English rather than American style, but well hopped and bitter as they should be.

The Commonwealth Brewery, a Boston brewpub, now offers Boston Burton Ale in bottles (actually brewed by Catamount under license). This is a nicely balanced beer, fruity and nutty with good hop bitterness. Also from Boston is Mass. Bay Brewing’s Harpoon IPA. An excellent version of the style, it has plenty of malt, good hop character, and bitterness, as well as a nice fruity background. Redhook, now brewing on both coasts, offers an ESB that has much of the malty character of the original. A very hoppy East Coast brew is Brooklyn Brewing’s East India Pale Ale. It uses some slightly odd ingredients, such as Pilsener and wheat malts, but along with English pale malt and a mixture of English and American hops. In terms of both strength and flavor, it is most definitely a return to basics, in the sense of reproducing the original IPA flavor.

Some beers that are relatively local to me also fit these categories. New England’s Amber Ale, with its fresh, powerful Cascades hop character, could be classed as more of an IPA, although the brewery has recently brought out an IPA also. And Bank Street Brewery, a brewpub in Stamford, Connecticut, offers a tantalizingly complex, malty, and bitter Banker’s Bitter, whose strength would put it in the IPA class, rather than the bitter class. In the Northeast are a few breweries offering cask-conditioned ale, with the most notable being Emerald Isle out of Rhode Island. But none of its outlets are close enough for me to make it a local.

The beer scene in America is still quite fragmented. Many of the craft beers are not available to drinkers unless you are prepared to travel quite a distance, particularly when you are looking at draught beers. It even seems that the choice in liquor stores has recently become much narrower. This is why I do not list any more beers. Also, because I am less familiar with West Coast beers than I am with those on the East Coast, I have mentioned only a few of them. I urge you to get out and see what is available and sample them yourself.

I had to include a picture of the Ship Inn, a brewpub, because it is in Milford, New Jersey, which is as close as I can get to a brewpub from where I live in Milford, Connecticut.

We are still not where I would like us to be in America in terms of distribution of both brewpubs and pubs serving craft beers. Only a few big cities have the luxury of a wide choice of beers and of pubs serving them. I can get decent beer in the town where I live, but the choice is pretty limited, and I have none serving anything more than a couple of nonindustrial beers on draught. And the nearest brewpub is at least a 25-minute drive away. If only somebody would open one in Milford, Connecticut.