Living in a lager wonderland
From Festbier to smoked lager, we’re somewhat spoiled in Bristol
The Bristol lager trail
(Interesting) beer of the month
On the blog
Where to find us on social media
The Bristol lager trail
It's Wiesn season which has got us thinking about how lucky we are to live in Bristol, a city with multiple lager breweries.
We reckon you could come here for a whole weekend and do nothing but drink different, decent lagers.
Lost and Grounded is the standout of course. They’re all about Continental styles, with a little token pale ale on the side.
On our last visit, the taproom, which is practically our local, was offering:
Helles
Kellerbier
Dortmunder
Baltic porter
American style rice lager
There was also a Festbier ready to go, awaiting their big Oktoberfest event on Saturday 16 September. And let’s not forget that Landbier, which we hope will be making a return soon.
Not far away, in the Dings, there’s Moor Brewing, whose owner is something of a Germanophile. It has an excellent standard lager, more characterful than many, and, more importantly, an astonishing smoked lager.
And then there's Zero Degrees.
It may not be the hippest, most fashionable brewery, feeling at times like a pizza restaurant and cocktail bar that, oh, yes, now you mention it, does have a brewery out back.
Nonetheless, its beer is extremely accomplished, and the menu usually includes multiple varieties of lager.
Last time we were there we had a choice of Czech-style pils, Vienna beer and a beer of the year contender in the form of Italian pils.
Not lager, but certainly German-inspired, there are also accomplished, authentic Weizens from both Good Chemistry and Left Handed Giant.
Getting onto more complicated ground in terms of provenance, Butcombe also produces a couple of lagers, both of which are very decent.
We say complicated because we’re actually not 100% sure where they’re brewed. It might be at the main Butcombe plant near Bristol; it might be on the Channel Island where the parent company is based; but our beer geek senses are tingling, making us think they might have a partner producing them. We’ve asked for more info.
We know Bristol Beer Factory doesn’t make its own lagers because this conversation came up a while ago. They’re reasonably open about the fact Infinity is produced by Utopian in Devon – which, apart from the question of localness, actually gives it additional credibility.
There are a bunch of other local lagers floating around, too, some of them drinkable, others frankly a bit rough. But even those, in the right glass, can be rustically charming.
Finally, if you want the real thing, there’s The Llandoger Trow’s permanent festival of Czech and German beer. Last weekend (16/17 September 2023) it had eight on offer, including two Schwarzbiers and a Märzen.
How’s the lager in your town?
Are you spoilt for choice, or stuck with Madrí?
(Interesting) beer of the month
Artesian, Thornbridge’s collaboration with Timothy Taylor, is interesting from multiple angles.
First, it’s a 4.2% elderflower and gooseberry pale ale which— no, wait, come back! It’s not one of those fruit syrup jammy novelty beers. It’s a pale ale with fruit flavours low in the mix, almost passing as hops. There is a little acidity but it doesn’t register as sourness so much as complexity. As you might expect from these two breweries, it’s a classy, balanced beer.
Secondly, there’s the nature of the collaboration. Taylor’s doesn’t collaborate, which makes this something of a coup for Thornbridge. It’s interesting that they chose one of the oldest, most respectable, most conservative UK craft breweries.
Finally, it might tell us something about Thornbridge.
A decade ago (!) when we interviewed Simon Webster for Brew Britannia he spoke about wanting to create a family brewery of the future.
Taylor’s is what Thornbridge aspires to be, especially insofar as it is famous for refusing to compromise on the price of its ale.
On the blog
The first blog post we wrote after the last newsletter was a review of Des de Moor’s book Cask which we liked a lot, with a few caveats and suggestions. Tandleman has also reviewed it if you want a second opinion.
We did a lot of pondering on pub atmosphere last month, wandering between pubs with the same number of people but wildly varying degrees of vibe.
Then we put the boot into the new breed of particularly glum London pub, naming no names, and into Samuel Smith’s London pubs in particular – which are not cheap! So stop telling people they are.
We wrote about four really great beers we encountered in close succession, some of them also mentioned in the lager notes above.
And we whizzed back to 1850 for some tips on where to drink the best porter, stout and ale if you find yourself traveling in time.
We also rounded up the best reading about beer and pubs in our regular Saturday morning News, Nuggets and Longreads posts.
For Patreon supporters, there were a few bonus nuggets about ABBA and the best beers we drank in the second half of August. Do consider signing up.
Where to find us on social media
This social media upheaval is a pain in the arse, isn’t it? We’re glad we haven’t got a book to promote in this context.
We’ve more-or-less given up on Twitter, though we still post links there, because several people asked us to keep doing so.
Instead, we are focusing on:
Mastodon, which we both like, because we are nerds
Instagram, which Ray likes as a bit of an amateur photographer
BlueSky, where we’re still finding our feet
Follow us in one of those places if you want to chat or know what we’re up to.
And that’s your lot for September.
Ray & Jess