Multi-award-winning magazine of the Bristol & District and Bath & Borders branches of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale No. 116 Winter 2017/18 PINTS WEST Contents Page 20 BADRAG (rare ales group) Page 24 Bath & Borders news Page 42 Beer scoring and GBG Page 42 Book reviews Page 3 Bristol Beer Festival Page 43 Bristol Beer Week Page 34 Bristol Pubs Group INTS WES Page 46 Brussels Page 48 Bucharest P T Page 51 CAMRA diaries & contacts The multi-award-winning magazine of the Bristol & District Page 22 CAMRA ladies Bristol Beer Festival 2018 branch of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, plus the Bath Page 49 CAMRA young(ish) members he twenty-first annual CAMRA Bristol Beer Festival will run from Thursday 22nd to Saturday 24th & Borders branch Page 32 Shine on pubs with theatres March 2018 at Brunel’s Old Station, Temple Meads, Bristol. There will be a carefully chosen selection Brought to you entirely by unpaid volunteers Page 40 Weston-super-Mare news Tof around 140 different real ales on sale over the course of the festival as well as a good range of cider Ten thousand copies of Pints West are distributed free to Brewery news: and perry. There will also be a variety of food available at all sessions. Beer prices will once again remain hundreds of pubs in and around the cities of Bristol and Bath Page 12 Arbor Ales unchanged with over two thirds of the beer and all of the cider priced at £3.40 per pint or below. ... and beyond Page 17 Ashley Down There is a significant change this year in the way the Also available on-line at www.bristolcamra.org.uk Page 6 Bath Ales and Beerd tickets will be sold. For the first time we are going Date Session Time Cost Page 25 Box Steam to try selling all the tickets online rather than first Published by the Bristol & District Branch of CAMRA, the Campaign Page 30 Brewhouse & Kitchen holding separate member ticket sales in a pub. There Thursday 22 March Evening 6.30pm - 11pm £11.50 (incl £5 of tokens) for Real Ale, November 2017 © Page 9 Bristol Beer Factory are a number of reasons for this, not least feedback Editor: Steve Plumridge ([email protected]) from members that they would prefer to buy tickets Friday 23 March Lunchtime 11.30am - 4pm £11.50 (incl £5 of tokens) Page 26 Brotherhood online rather than queue up, plus demand is exceeding Design & Layout by: Steve Plumridge Page 41 Butcombe Next edition: end of February 2018 (probably) supply with tickets for two festival sessions selling out Friday 23 March Evening 6.30pm - 11pm £11.50 (incl £5 of tokens) Page 39 Cocksure completely at the member sales in 2017. We do not want Printed by: Caric Press Limited (www.caricpress.co.uk) Page 31 Croft Ales a situation where members make the effort to travel to Saturday 24 March Lunchtime 11.30am - 4pm £11.50 (incl £5 of tokens) Spread the word: any written article in this publication may be Page 13 Dawkins Ales the ticket sales event only to find out that the tickets reproduced provided the source (‘Pints West’) and the contributor’s Page 25 Electric Bear they want have already gone. Saturday 24 March Evening 6.30pm - 11pm £11.50 (incl £5 of tokens) name, where applicable, is stated. (No using logos/photos/artwork Page 12 Fierce & Noble (new) Tickets will go on sale online to CAMRA members on without permission.) Page 23 Good Chemistry Sunday 4 February and then on general sale the following day on Monday 5 February. Details including the link to Subscriptions: to be put on a mailing list to receive Pints Wests (for Page 15 GWB buy the tickets will appear nearer the time at www.camrabristol.org.uk. Please note that there will be no ticket UK addresses) send ten standard (not large) 1st class stamps to the Page 30 Incredible sales sessions in any pubs this year. editor Page 27 Kennet & Avon Please also note that online ticket sales on Sunday 4 February will be limited to a maximum of 4 tickets per CAMRA CAMRA Good Beer Guide: suggestions for future entries, and Page 26 Kettlesmith member (to be clear, this means 8 tickets in total for joint members). comments on existing ones, can be made to our GBG co-ordinator, Page 15 Left Handed Giant The amount of beer festival tokens included with tickets is being increased from £4 to £5. Martin Gray: [email protected] Page 5 Little Giant (new) REAL CIDER Tickets for all sessions will cost £11.50 including £5 worth of beer festival tokens, which If you have any pub updates: please enter them via whatpub.com or Page 39 Moor Beer customers will receive on entry enabling them to go straight to the bar. Also included email details to [email protected] Page 39 New Bristol are a festival programme and a commemorative half-pint glass, marked for third- and Further information on all aspects of CAMRA can be had from Ray Page 19 Pitchfork Ales half-pint measures. There will also be a free beer festival app available for download that Holmes on 0117 9605357 (home) Page 28 Ralph’s Ruin customers can use on their smart phones. On presentation of a current membership Trading Standards Officers: contact for problems such as consistent Page 27 Twisted card, CAMRA members will also receive a voucher on entry up to the value of £1.70. short measures, no price lists... Page 17 Twisted Oak If you are not currently a CAMRA member and you want to buy Bristol Beer Festival Bristol: 0117 9223444 / S. Glos: 01454 624000 Page 13 Wiper & True tickets when they first go on sale on Sunday 4 February, make sure that you join well in Glos: 01452 426201 / N. Somerset: 01934 888802 Page 11 Zerodegrees advance of this date. You can do so at www.camra.org.uk/join or by filling in the form on the back page of this Pints West. B.A.N.E.S: 01225 396755 and much, much more... or visit www.tradingstandards.gov.uk We strongly advise keeping an eye on our website at www.camrabristol.org.uk as this LETTERS: please email correspondence to the editor at will feature further beer festival information including updates about ticket availability [email protected] SOLD HERE (including online sales) and the beer and cider lists as they become available. or post it to Pints West Editor, Steve Plumridge, Richard Brooks Garden Flat, 6 Royal York Villas, Clifton, Bristol BS8 4JR ADVERTISE: to find out about advertising in Pints West, please email [email protected] CONTACTS: for further contact details and diaries see inside back page Views expressed in Pints West are those of the individual authors and not necessarily supported by CAMRA Inclusion of an advertisement does not imply endorsement by CAMRA Thanks to this issue’s contributors: Adrian Tierney-Jones Laurie Jackson Phill the Pint Ali Bridle Lesly Huxley Richard Brooks Ben Padfield Martin Ansell Richard Harman Bianca Ambrose Martin Farrimond Roy Sanders Bob Gibson Martin Gray Stephen Edmonds Chris Rogers Marty Cummins Steve Hunt Darren Taplin Michael Bertagne Steve Plumridge Dave Graham Mike Jackson Tim Nickolls Denis Rahilly Neil Ravenscroft Tim Webb Denise Swain Nick Jarman Tom Conneely Eddie Taberner Nigel Morris Tony Durbin Cover picture – the Cornubia Henry Davies Pete Taberner Trevor Cromie in Bristol, as featured in Bob Keith Morey Phil Cummings Vince Murray Barton’s new book ‘Unusual Laurie Gibney Phil Luxton Pubs by Boot, Bike and Boat’. See page 42. 2 PINTS WEST PINTS WEST 3 Little Giant New brewery, new angle he Little Giant Brewery in Fishponds is one of many small Tbreweries opened in Bristol recently, but this one has a new angle – a franchise opportunity. Director Paul Mayer (on the left in the pictures) and brewery manager Keith Meredith both have an engineering background, in Paul’s case fabrication and in Keith’s plumbing, both relevant to the more practical side of the brewing industry. The parent company next door, Reyam Ltd, has long serviced the brewing equipment of large breweries, so they already have knowledge of the technology. Their four regular beers – of which more below – have been designed by themselves with expert advice from Charles Faram, the hop merchant. Cross Guns Avoncliff The Old Crown Inn The Inn at Freshford Bradford-on-Avon Kelston The Hill Wiltshire Bath Bath BA15 2HB BA1 9AQ BA2 7WG 01225 862 335 01225 423 032 01225 722250 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.crossgunsavoncliff.com www.oldcrownkelston.com www.theinnatfreshford.com The Little Giant kit at the brewery CrossGunsAvoncliff OldCrownKelston InnFreshford (the franchise kit is much more compact) Some automated systems can suffer from spurious error signals, which confuse the program and require operator interpretation and The franchise intervention. If this happens the advantage over a manual system can be lost. Little Giant has taken theirs a step further, with many sensors in t The most unusual part of this project is that they also offer a franchise, see he of different types monitoring the process throughout. For example which they are hoping pubs, clubs and ‘trendy bars’ with limited space there are weight sensors under vessels to monitor the volume of liquid but a desire to have their own micro-brewery would be keen to take in them – so when a vessel is being filled the process computer will £70 on. This will include use of the Little Giant name, the names and ignore invalid temperature readings until the correct level has been 20 18 recipes of their four regular beers, pre-packaged brewing kit, training reached.