NOW is the Saison to be merry. All seasoned hopheads’ thoughts may be on IndyManBeerCon, due to start on Thursday 8 October, so the West Didsbury bar named after a Franco-Belgian beer style has slipped in under the radar but it is a real contender for ‘Serious Ale Bar That’s Also Quirky And Cosy’.
Like the invasive American crayfish New World style IPAs aren’t going to go away
Under the radar may be stretching it a bit. The Saturday lunchtime we turned up to try it out three of the four handpumps had their clips turned round, leaving (understandably) Thwaites’ Wainwright the only cask available. Friday had been an “enthusiastic night”, our barmaid Rosie explained. The first beer we asked for from the wall of 16 keg pumps had also been drunk dry. Still there was much succour to be had, in particular from the rare ale list, featuring the likes of high strength US bottle imports such as Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout and Devil’s Canyon California Sunshine Rye IPA.
The Rasputin comes in at a whopping 10% ABV, so we went for the California Sunshine at a negotiable 7% as we awaited a batch of small (as it turned out quite substantial) plates. At £5.95 for a one pint 6fl oz bottle, it was remarkable value, a well-balanced, assertively hop-bitter reworking of a traditional British IPA, using rye.
Saison is a sister bar to Dulcimer in Chorlton. The new owners have transformed what was the Violet Hour on Burton Road with the focus very much on craft beer. Every table in a warm, art-filled habitat boasts a 52-page booklet, a coloured primer introducing different beer styles. The effect ought to be earnest, proclaiming “this is a beer geek’s bolthole and we aim to convert you”, but the effect is rather charming. I asked for a Cantillon, iconic lambic ’wild yeast’ beer from Brussels from the rare ale list but – perhaps as a result of further punters’ enthusiasm – had to settle for a Geuze Boon, a less uncompromising lambic blend. The booklet warns me: “It is as sour as a sour gets. A really good geuze is one that really hits the back of your throat and makes you go ‘ooooooooooooo’. This one is such as beer”.
Of course, this sort of stuff is all grist to the wort for the beer aficionados who will make the pilgrimage to Victoria Baths on Hathersage Road for the Independent Manchester Beer Convention (IndyManBeerCon or IMBC), which runs from Thursday, October 8 to Sunday, October 8 to Sunday, October 11. Most will be there to sample some 200 beers from 50 different brewers, including international names such as NZ Collective (New Zealand), Firestone Walker (California), Lervig (Norway), Tilqin (Belgium) and Against The Grain (Louisville, Kentucky). Full brewery list here.
But the hardcore will take in seminars on Modern Real Ale and Can Conditioning, State of the British Hop Industry or attend masterclasses (all sold out now) by Belgian beer blending legend Pierre Tilquin, who produces sought-after Oude Gueuze sour beers at the only gueuzerie in the Walloon region (yes gueuze can be spelt two ways, geeks).
IndyManBeerCon is a mecca for committed hopheads
Back to the supping, brews created especially for the festival include Gooseberry Pale (Weird Beard/Lervig), Quince IPA (Northern Monk), Bilberry Saison (Cromarty), Fig Stout (Squawk) and Sloe Wit (Hanging Bat). All brewed in collaboration with IMBC itself, all decidedly fruit-driven. In contrast there’s a seaweed variant of Gose, an astringent East German beer type, brewed in conjunction with Mad Hatter.
Several of the sessions sold out long ago, but there are still some tickets available with capacity extended to 6,000 folk across the festival. To check availability visit this link. If you can’t make it to IMBC try the fringe events that have sprung up around the city.
You can, of course, get a pal lucky enough to have a ticket to bring you back some of the more weird and wonderful brews in a can. For the first time at IMBC tinny specialists We Can will be providing cans for takeaways. After sealing the beer will last for at least five days.
Canned beers have been a real growth story in the craft beer market, notably the vividly designed Beavertown range (Piccadilly Station Tap conveniently stocks cans of their Neck Oil Session IPA in the fridge, perfect for a Pendolino refresher).
Look out, too, for the colourful and widely available can range from Vocation, a new brewery up on the Pennine moors above Hebden Bridge from John Hickling, who founded Nottingham-based Blue Monkey. Try my favourite Vocation, Life & Death, a US style IPA, with bags of tropical and citrus fruits, with a lingering bitterness at an almost sessionable 6.5% ABV.
Like the invasive American crayfish that colonised our shores in the sixties, decimating local breeds, New World style IPAs aren’t going to go away any time soon. Indeed a gorgeous example is my Beer of the Month. It is SaltaireXS Imperial IPA, a powerful 9.5% ABV beast that has just scooped Europe's Best Imperial IPA at the recent World Beer Awards. It is a real hop fest with Simcoe and Galaxy dominating, while according to the Yorkshire brewery “flavours are developed through multiple hop charges during the brewing process and dry hopping during fermentation and conditioning.”
Finally, a very small brewery that just got bigger. Prestwich’s Beer Nouveau, launched last year as England’s smallest commercial brewery, has been such a success it has taken over the Temperance Street premises of Privateer, which has closed. They were the first brewer to occupy the railway arches in what has since become the Piccadilly Beer Mile. Expect Beer Nouveau to become an integral part of this new wave tap crawl. The new equipment will increase their capacity 25-fold.
