FREE TASTING NOTES Autumn Racing Weekend and CAMRA Beer Festival INTRODUCTION On behalf of everyone involved, I welcome you to the 9th Ascot FESTIVAL SPECIALS Racecourse Beer Festival, held in association with the Berkshire We are also pleased to offer you a number of beers brewed especially for the festival. Look South East branch of the Campaign for Real Ale [CAMRA]. out for the following: • Wild Weather – Riders on the Storm All the staff serving at our bars today are members of CAMRA and are • Binghams – Thirst Past the Post unpaid volunteers. If you are unsure about which beer to try, just ask them and they will be delighted to recommend something that suits your taste. • Indigenous – Frisky Mare We have an excellent range of 250 beers and 30 ciders and perries on offer. • Long Dog – English Hopped IPA Each year we feature the beers of a different area of Britain and this year we focus on Please don’t forget to vote for your favourite Beer of the Festival. This is a prestigious award Greater Manchester. Visit our Regional Bar to sample a few of the wonderful beers for any brewer to win and the more people who take part, the better. being produced in that part of the country. REAL ALE AND PUBS All the beers in this programme are listed alphabetically by brewery, with a separate section for the beers on the Regional Bar. The beers on sale are arranged in the same With the exception of beer festivals such as this one, the only place where you can enjoy a order, starting from ‘A’ on the left and ending on the right-most bar. pint of cask-conditioned real ale is in a pub. So I would encourage you to visit the pubs in your own area and see what they have on offer. The very best real ale pubs in the country Some of our beers are shown with a are listed in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide, which is on sale here - just ask at the bar. Of these, golden LocAle logo. These are brewed each CAMRA branch votes for it’s Pub of the Year. This year, ours is the Queen’s Head in within 25 miles of the festival. So, if you Wokingham, which is a very pleasant and welcoming pub, serving an excellent range of local like the LocAles on sale today, ask the beers in perfect condition. landlord of your local to stock one. David Richards Chairman, CAMRA Berkshire South East The Queen’s Head, Wokingham: Berkshire Pub of the Year 2015. 2 3 ABOUT CAMRA BEER STYLES CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is an independent voluntary REAL ALE organisation that promotes real ale and the pubs in which it is sold. With Real ale is a fresh, natural product brewed using traditional ingredients and left to over 170,000 members across the country, the campaign acts as the mature in the cask from which it is served in the pub, through a process called secondary consumer’s champion in relation to the UK and European drinks industry. fermentation. It is this process which makes real ale unique amongst beers and develops We aim to: the wonderful tastes and aromas which processed beers can never provide. It is served without suffocation from extraneous carbon dioxide and is also known as cask- 1. Campaign for the greater appreciation of traditional beer, cider conditioned or naturally-conditioned beer. The fundamental distinction between real and perry as part of our national heritage and culture. ale and other beer is that live yeast is present in the container from 2. Support the public house as a focus of community life. which it is served, although it settles at the bottom and is not poured into your glass. 3. Promote quality, choice and value for money. Real ale is a very diverse product and with more than 1,200 breweries across the UK there is a beer out there to suit everyone’s palate. 4. Protect and improve consumer rights. 5. Seek improvements in licensed premises and throughout the brewing industry. Here is an explanation of the most STRONG BITTER common beer styles: Bitters that are over 4.8% ABV and best sampled with appreciation rather than to Your Local Branch of CAMRA MILD quench a thirst. The Berkshire South East Branch of CAMRA is delighted to bring you today’s Beer Mild is one of the most traditional beer Festival in collaboration with Ascot Racecourse. styles and is enjoying a revival in today’s GOLDEN ALE real ale market. Usually dark brown/black Our branch covers the districts of Wokingham, Bracknell, Ascot and the surrounding areas as Pale, Amber, Gold or Straw coloured ales in colour, due to the use of well-roasted defined by the postcodes: RG12, RG40, RG41, RG42, RG45, SL5, GU17-18 and GU14-15. that are hoppy and refreshing. This style malts or barley, it is less hopped than has become very popular in recent years as We take campaigning for good beer and pubs seriously but believe the best way of doing bitters and often has a chocolatey brewers seek to entice lager drinkers and a this is to go out and enjoy them! character with nutty and burnt flavours. female clientele. There is an active campaigning and social calendar which includes visits to pubs and Milds tend to have an Alcohol by Volume breweries; publication of ‘The Mad Cow’ newsletter; selection and surveying of pubs (ABV) content in the 3% to 3.5% range. STOUT/PORTER for the best-selling ‘Good Beer Guide’; election of a ‘Pub of the Year’, and (in addition STANDARD BITTER Porters are dark, hoppy beers made to organising today’s event) we also give with the addition of roasted barley and Bitters are highly-hopped ales. Standard support to the Reading Beer Festival by tending to have a slight sweetness. bitters or ‘session’ bitters fall in the ABV providing staff and, of course, helping to This style originated in London around range of 3% to 4% and generally have a drink the beer. 1730 and by the end of the 18th Century lighter colour. We are always delighted to welcome was the most popular beer style in new members to our social and business BEST BITTER England. Stouts are a stronger version of Porter, originally called “Extra Porter” meetings – see www.seberkscamra.org.uk Bitters that are over 4% ABV. The most or “Stout Porter”. They are usually dark, for details. common style of real ale found today with heavy and well-hopped with a creamy If you would like to find out more information great variance in colour and taste within head and dry grainy taste from the dark about joining the Campaign, please come and the style. roasted barley malt used in the mash. talk to us at the CAMRA bar or visit www.camra.org.uk 4 5 SPECIALITY ALE OLD ALE BEER OF This beer style captures the flair of the Typically black or dark brown, but can be brewer as he has experimented to bring paler. Old Ales are full bodied with a malty THE FESTIVAL out a new unique flavour and aroma. richness. Fermentation characters such Beers in this category may include the as fruity estery flavours should contribute addition of wheat, oats or other natural to the flavour profile but considerable We would be grateful if you would take the time to vote for your Beer of the Festival. All products to provide something out of the variation can occur within the style. Usually voting forms will be entered into a draw to win a Polypin (36 pints) of your favoured ale. ordinary to the beer drinker. between 4.3% and 6% ABV. My favourite beer tasted at the 2015 COPPER/RUBY ALE CASK LAGER Ascot Racecourse CAMRA Beer Festival was: Beers made with some more highly Beers brewed with lager malts and How did you hear about the Ascot Racecourse Beer Festival? roasted malts to give a red or copper top-fermented. Refreshing with a soft colour to the beer. Usually not as bitterness from traditional continental Word of mouth well-hopped as a bitter and often lager hops. Usually very pale, with an ABV Ascot.co.uk only available in the autumn. between 4% and 5%. What’s Brewing Club Journal Local CAMRA branch CAMRA website Flyer CIDER AND PERRY Beer Festival (please state) : Real cider and perry are long- To make real cider, the apples are washed Local press (please state) : established traditional drinks which and checked for rot or mould. The apples Other (please state) : are produced naturally from apples are then crushed in a machine called a (for cider) or pears (for perry) and are scratter which chops them up into small Are you a CAMRA member? Yes No If so, which branch? neither carbonated nor pasteurised. pieces called pulp. The pulp is placed in Cider has undergone a massive revival layers on a press. If a traditional screw If you would like to join the Ascot Racecourse postal and e-mail mailing list for information in recent years although it is or hydraulic press is used, the pulp is on forthcoming events, please write your name, address and e-mail below: unfortunate that many of the most wrapped in fine mesh cloth parcels called well-known ciders in the UK are cheeses. The apple juice is then extracted Name: cold, fizzy keg products which have and natural yeasts in the juice start the been produced artificially rather fermentation. Several months later you Address: than naturally.