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Selections

Selection of Beers, originally uploaded by tonypreece.

Here's a selection of bottled beers, but which are truely Real Ale (Real Ale In A Bottle)?

We've got (l-r):-
Chili Beer (with a clili in the bottle, you can just see it at the bottom)
Jennings Redbreast
Morehouse's Pendle Witches Brew
Morehouse's Blonde Witch
Dutchy Originals Winter Ale (produced by Wychwood)
Three B's huttle Ale
Dr Johnsons Definitive Ale
Criminally Bad Elf!
Organic White Lady (lager style live beer)

The Three B's brewery (from Blackburn) produce a selection of bottled Real Ale's, including Shuttle Ale as seen here. Their current range are named after the cotton mills that once made Blackburn famou (it was for a time known as the Cotton Capital of the World).

Unusually, it's the only 'Real Ale' here, but on the far right is a 'Real Lager', organic and fermenting in the bottle it's an English lager that follows the rules of Real Ale.

Just for show on the left is a chili beer (with a chili pepper in the bottle) which is a spicy lager. There's also a couple of Christmas ales in the shot, including Criminally Bad Elf at 10% ABV!

The Black Sheep of the family

The Black Sheep Brewery is not the only brewery in Masham, a North Yorkshire village on the edge of the Dales.

Theakstons was the original brewery in Masham, but when Scottish & Newcastle got involved in 1987, Paul Theakston left the company and set up Black Sheep. The first pint was brewed in 1992 with the brewery's name being born as Paul was seen as the 'black sheep' of the Theakston family.


15 years on and both breweries still exist in the village & Black Sheep has gone from strength to strengh.

Black Sheep beers include Emmerdale Ale & Riggwelter amoungst the more traditional Black Sheep Ale & Best Bitters. Emmerdale, at 4.2% ABV, is a strong and refreshing ale with a dry and bitter finish. It's described as having a 'distinctive balance between the flavours of fruity Golding hope, Maris Otter barley and demerara sugar. I'd give it a full five starts, being my personal favourite beer.

Riggwelter on the other hand, is served at a hearty 5.9% ABV and described as "The pick of the Black Sheep flock - a strong deep chestnut brown beer with a rich near-white head and the aroma of freshly roasted coffee.".

What is Real Ale?

"Real ale is a type of beer defined by its traditional production" - CAMRA

"Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1973 for a type of beer defined as 'beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide'" - Wikipedia

"Real ale is a living beer; the basic ingredients are malt, hops, yeast, water and other natural ingredients. Malt is made from roasting barley and the amount of roasting influences the character and colour of the beer. The brewing process allows the sugar in the malt to ferment with the yeast producing alcohol. The hops provide the bitterness associated with the British style of beer and also add to its character. The beer is racked into casks where more hops or priming sugar may be added and a 'secondary' fermentation takes place; a process essential for the best quality beers." Reading branch CAMRA

I think that last description, from the Reading branch of CAMRA best describes what real ale is. In a pub, look for a hand-pulled beer, rather than a tap thats just 'turned-on'. In shops & supermarkets real ale can normall be found in dark brown bottles, to protect it from sunlight. If you're faced with a blind taste test, you'd recognise real ale over lager from the infusion of tastes and flavours in your mouth and the lack of carbon dioxide fizzind down your throat. It should also be served between 11 & 13 degrees celcius, where as lager is normally served chilled to three of four degrees.

Real Ale World

"I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale. " George Farquhar, 1678-1707.

I've been drinking Real Ale since I discovered alcohol. I disovered alcohol at the grand old age of 15 - or there abouts - back home in Blackburn, Lancashire.

That was 1995, a Wednesday night in the Golden Cup, Darwen. I remember my mum took me in there before a parents evening at my high school, just over the road. Ok, so without getting into the rights and wrongs of underage drinking, especially when bought by a parent, my main memory of this outing was the Thwaites Beer being sold.

Thwaites are one of the top-ten brewers by size in the UK, with a 200 year history of brewing in Blackburn and a large selection of real ales on offer. These days you'd find it hard to pick up a pint of hand pulled Thwaites beer in Blackburn, even though the Lancashire town is full of their pubs, both owned and managed.

Infact, only one of the town centres pubs holds the Cask Marque for the quality of it's real ales. This is the Postal Order, a Wetherspoons free house.

Aside from this, real ale is on the up again. It's popularity is growing, the number of real ale's available has never been higher - not in my lifetime at least - and the variety and quality of beers available is outstanding.

Some ale drinkers will not drink lager, most lager fans wouldn't dream of supping hand pulled real ale and others have simply never tried it.

I went through the lager stage in my late teens. Carling, Carlsberg, Heineken, Fosters and the like. None of them I found very appealing and tended to drink them for social reasons rather than enjoyment.

These days, if a pub doesn't serve real ale, I'll order a soft-drink. I just don't find British lagers (that is British by nature or British by trade agreement) palatable, refreshing or enjoyable. There are some very good quality European lagers, Pilsner Urquell from the Czech Republic standing out above most, however this site is about real, English, ale.

I hope you enjoy using the site, and I hope it encourages you to try out new ales (or drink real ale for the first time). Most of all, I hope that using this site will motivate you to contribute. I'm ready for your ideas and comments, so please get in touch with them.

Tony
Alemaster