Tyne for a pint

May 16 2008 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

ALE plus arithmetic equals chaos. If our summing-up is as it should be we estimate that over the past two centuries some 400 breweries have hugged the River Tyne.

Granted, they haven’t all existed at the same time and some were little more than brewpubs and glorified home-brew operations, but it’s a tidy figure nevertheless.

Tomorrow at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle we’ll be tasting some of those beers from Wylam to Jarrow and all points between – though sadly the likes of the Crystal Palace Brewery no longer exists in Newcastle’s Rye Hill (it closed in the 1890s) and the thought of Gascoigne Gilmour’s brewery in 1830s Gateshead – at The Brunswick Hotel, to be precise – has us drooling over silkily skilful body movements, audacious dribbling and cheeky after-goal celebrations, with a bit of writing thrown in. And, who wouldn’t have loved to have tasted the end product from the Stella Brewery near Blaydon which was described in 1736 as having “a very good malt kiln, brewhouse and other houses”? Today’s Stella has a very different reputation.

In Liquid Bred: Breweries Raised on the Tyne, we’ll be taking a metaphoric trip down river via Wylam Locomotion No1, Big Lamp Summerhill Stout, Newcastle Brown Ale, Hadrian & Border Tyneside Blonde, Jarrow Rivet Catcher, Mordue IPA and High House Farm Auld Hemp (the brewery may lie a few miles north of the river, but it’s a beer tasting not a geography lesson).

The bread pun is complete via a selection of loaves from the award-winning Cafe Royal Bakery which has been featured in Rick Stein’s guide to the food heroes of Britain and complemented for its high quality, nutritional products made without unnecessary additives. The beer tasting event is part of the Late Show celebrations at Discovery and an extension of the currently-running EAT! NewcastleGateshead Food and Drink Festival which is creating great culinary excitement around the region. We’ll discuss beer as Britain’s national drink and demonstrate the naturalness of its ingredients, made from four basics; malted barley, hops, yeast and water.

We’ll sniff and swirl and peer and sip. We may even spit, but such unseemly behaviour should really be left to wine tasters. We’ll also look at a few beer facts – for example, we consume 26 million pints of beer every day in the UK; we’re the fifth-highest per capita beer drinking nation in the world after the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland and Austria.

Beer is much more than lager or bitter. There are more than 2,000 beer brands available in this country which include light, crisp lagers, dark, intensely flavoured stouts and a whole gamut of styles and tastes in the middle – pale ales, barley wines, wheat beers and beers flavoured with spices, herbs and fruits. Beer’s diversity makes it a hugely versatile drink; a refreshing thirst-quencher in summer, a warming brew in winter, enjoyable on its own or with food. Beer is increasingly challenging wine as the automatic choice to accompany a meal – witness the growth of beer lists in pubs and restaurants and of “wine size” bottles on supermarket shelves.

Choosing a beer to match a food is a matter of personal taste, but broadly, what works with wine and food matching also holds true for beer, so match delicate food with subtly flavoured beer and more robust fare with the stronger, more complex examples. Sweet, rich beers work best with puddings; drier beers with savoury dishes.

The taste of wine comes from the grape variety, or blend of several varieties, and the same is true of beer; its flavour is a testament to the brewer’s skill in choosing and blending the right combination of malt, hops and yeast for his particular needs.

Barley is the main ingredient – rich in starch, it is malted before brewing to start the process of releasing sugars which ferment during brewing to produce alcohol. Hops are used in small quantities, rather like spices, and they contain resins and essential oils that give beer its distinctive flavours.

Brewers use different hops to produce different styles and add them at different times of the brewing process – early on for bitterness, late for citrus or spicy notes.

Yeast converts the sugars from the barley into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation. It also produces an array of flavour compounds which affect the flavour of the beer. Brewers use their own specially selected yeast strains to produce their own distinctive flavours.

Pure water is also essential to brewing. The quality of local water supply explains why brewing industries sprung up in small towns like Burton upon Trent in the Midlands and Alloa in Scotland.

Beer offers a number of health benefits – when drunk in moderation – but more research is needed to fully explain alcohol’s role. Moderate beer drinkers have a substantially reduced risk of coronary heart disease compared to teetotallers or heavy drinkers – studies show that alcohol prevents the build-up of fat on artery walls and reduces blood clotting. Beer, which contains vitamins B6 and B12, protects against osteoporosis, according to research, and moderate beer drinkers also have a decreased risk of developing gallstones or late-onset diabetes.

Real ale – cask-conditioned beer – is literally a living product, developing as it matures into a drink that teems with natural flavours. The Campaign For Real Ale (Camra) defines real ale 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”.

Once it has left the brewery, its final presentation owes a great deal to the skill of the pub landlord who protects it, monitors its quality, and chooses the right moment to serve it. Temperature is a key factor – beer kept too warm will mature unevenly and its yeast action will be unworkable if it is chilled too far.

Ironically, we’ll be tasting beer from Stella glasses tomorrow. Their ratio of width to depth and aroma-gathering shape proves that at least someone got their sums right.

The first of Liquid Bred’s two free tasting sessions starts at 7.30pm with the second at 9.15pm. It’s first come, first served, with space for up to 50 on each. Details of Discovery Museum Late Show on (0191) 232 6789 or at www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery