Rhubarb | Rhubarb | Rhubarb

Once upon a Rhubarb time, there was Rhubarb a strange and idiosyncratically Rhubarb British movie, given over Rhubarb to little Rhubarb in the way Rhubarb of narrative Rhubarb development. One need not Rhubarb have noticed, it got filed Rhubarb somewhere in the memory banks Rhubarb labelled - Rhubarb.

Then the pesky mutt, Roobarb came along, diddle de der diddle de der, diddle de diddle de derr... and his cohort, Custard. They smiled, and scampered along. One was pea green, the other day-glo pink. A show lasted a keen 5 minutes long. Once seen, it's never forgotten, which is neither/neither a good or bad thing, it just is.

Neither film or cartoon informed our culinary or brewing traditions, they were nevertheless a somewhat British quirk of creativity. 

Which brings us on to some craft ale tipples...

Brasserie Saint-Germain & Nøgne Ø, Rhub' I.P.A., Edition Limitee 6.9% abv

Cloudy, very keen head topping, moderate carbonation adds lift to spangley aromas and summer pudding-like flavours of red berries + exotic fruits + herbs, + bready malty esters. 

Dans le bouche, sweet rhubarb (not sour), papaya and guava meet a creamy and malty mouthfeel, with rich caramelised rhubarb tatin on the finish. Yes+

Omnipollo, 411 Magic Numbers 6% abv

Cloudy and opaque (like sandwater), an I.P.A. with saison-like fine carbonation, green resinous sage leaf (and hemp) nose, beneath which lurks a fine seam of sweet strawberries, rhubarb, red berry flavours and a creamy mouthfeel from lactose. Clever, not 'alf!

Mad Hatter Brewery, Rhubarb & Custard 7% abv

Take a bretty Saison from wheat and oats, add lactose and hops, muddle in some forced Yorkshire rhubarb (from the Yorkshire triangle of growers) and treat your fans generously with some fresh vanilla pod. Et Viola, Rhubarbe et Crème. 

A funky bretty nose leads in with earthy vegetable patch tones, a keen effervescence is married with a fresh-as-a-daisy palate, clean and crisp to a tee with sourish rhubarb fruit lending a foil. 

One to repeat > cap > refresh > repeat.

FYI - In the Rhubarb Triangle (area between Morley, Wakefield and Rothwell) there are now only around 12 growers.

Both of these two below are public nuisances.

Hard Sun

A light has gone out. Vanquished, and never to return. Aside from the near and dear, who would notice? Gavin Clark was a singer/songwriter best known for work alongside Sunhouse, Clayhill, and a latter-day U.N.K.L.E. vocalist. It's a name that barely registers in the zeitgeist, amongst the clamour to be heard, the hipper than thou, the fakes and fraudsters, the hullabaloo of the market place. Gavin Clark was free of such trappings. An authentic. A songsmith cut from a different cloth. A Southerner who found home in the urban North of England, in Staffordshire.

There's something truly arresting about seeing an Original in live performance. My epiphany came seeing Clayhill support a Beth Orton tour at Glasgow's ABC, circa 2006. A voice, at once gruff, battered, weary, lived in like some old stained and frayed jeans. Comforting, and unique. The delivery was affecting. The subject matter personally experienced, full of emotion, resonant, universal yet set to a frequency few would hear. Eddies and tidal currents rising and falling through song. Broody, largely introverted, imagistic at times, an English Original.

I've said Original twice already, but not alluded to the light; the glimpse of moonlight through a parted curtain when hope glimmers and shimmers to a sick, dog-tired, hungover or strung-out cosmic dance. The last laugh is on the songsmith. The Sun is hard, perhaps one of the finest songs Gavin Clark crafted, 'Hard Sun', a paean to fresh starts with nothing but wits to rely on, and on 'Hector's Laugh' surging piano chords buoy a song where "the light is going out on the sun". There's songcraft from the twilight of consciousness. 'Monkey Dead' is probably the best drug addiction survival song, in a lineage that includes Neil Young's 'Needle and the Damage Done'. Death is close in a broody spectre, friends have fallen, mortality is a ticking watch. The human experience is one of fragility. Yet the song lives on. 

Gavin Clark communicated the difficult songs, wrenched from experience like some rare metal that has yet to be recognised and classified. File with the Tim and Jeff Buckley if you will. A Post-Millennial Nick Drake. Gavin Clark wasn't a tragic 27 year old doomed romantic whose life was shortly curtailed. I can't comment whether Gavin Clark suffered for his art, but I do know a pugilist in the face of adversity, and Gavin was a sparring partner, whose song is unfailingly affirmative.

There's songs of glee as in 'Buy Me A Suit' like some Beatles' 'Abbey Road' out-take, or 'Beard' with xylophonic chimes to a cartoon strip-like ditty, and the effusive punch-to-the-air of 'Grasscutter'. The best work may well have been saved until last with the yet-to-surface-release, and tracks 'Years Have Loved Us' and 'Calling In the Cards' from the solo album, 'Beautiful Skeletons'. Light is dark, dark is light, the twain have met. Shane Meadows' documentary, 'The Living Room' goes a long way to capture the difficulty that Gavin Clark faced in performing his own songs with an audience. A fright that belies his articulacy.

I feel saddened by Gavin's loss. A loss that is paltry compared to his Family, Friends and band associates. I'm just a long-term fan, a true appreciator. Perhaps a Kindred Spirit. And I never did say "Thank You" to him for the songs that resonate and speak to me. 

"Thank You for the music, Gavin. You were one of a kind. Rest in Peace, Fella"!

The Bouche is most amused!

The Wild Beer Co, Amuse Bouche

Brewed with zest and vigour, plus wild yeasts, thence matured in Burgundian Chardonnay barrels, sporting an oxidative character with high VA, and a sweet n' sour finish, this is a most vinous ale. 

Is this a natural wine,

Is this brettanomyces,

Caught in a farmhouse style,

No escape from the wild yeast.

Open your nose,

Look up to the rafters and beams,

I'm just a humble ale, I need no salinity,

Because I'm easy style, easy quaff,

Lambic style, a little doff,

Anyway the yeast goes, doesn't really matter,

if pithy, to zesty.

(apologies, you know who).

Characterful, charming, most beguiling, could be!

something missing

Mikkeller, Drink'in The Sun, American Style Wheat Beer 

brewed at De Proef Brouwerij, Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium

Something is missing. Was it even there, was it taken out? Lurking, forgotten in the cupboard and waiting for it's moment to sing, this cheeky low alcohol number from Mikkeller got the synapses firing, the taste-buds a-tingling, excitement at the thought of a tasty bevvie in this combat zone between #DryJanuary vs #TryJanuary. Drink and be glad, even if it is 0.3% abv and has you hoppy mad!

Any good? Yes! Surprisingly, unfathomably, verifiably good. Rarely has low alcohol beer tasted so exciting. Orangely and tawny hued, there's pronounced muscat-like floral aromatics from Amarillo hops, a candied citrus swirl, a deliciously refreshing palate with a dry bitter-lite finish and a delicate carbonation. 

Low alcohol/negligible alcohol beers are normally some bastard off-spring that would be the swill of Temperance Society members. Happily, we too are gifted, and our choices are elasticated. Abstinence, even momentarily, has a new gravitas!

Shnoodlepip by Wild Beer Co

Shnoodlepip by Wild Beer Co + Good George Brewing Co (NZ) + Burning Sky Brewery - 6.5% abv

Once upon a time, there was ale, and there was wine. And never the twain shall meet. Then a dining scene took the palates to hitherto unexplored reaches, and this shook the foundations of common or garden dining. And it shook the manner and authenticity of wine in its  fermenting, its ageing, the multiplicity of flavours having signatures as well as sense of place, and woe betide heavy handed manipulation. Brewcraft too explored recipes, Belgique and European heritage, and was prepared to diversify, to boldly take on flavour studding and arrive at complex, dining enhancing beers. These are, indeed, the best of times.

Shnoodlepip, sounds like a Dickensian miscreant. It isn't. It is funky, for sure, funky, sweaty fruit and feral on the nose, clean, linear palate, brettanomyces and subtle spice over a moderately carbonated Saison. Spelt grain is used to lend body, Pink Peppercorns an aromatic spice, Saison and Brettanomyces yeast strains bring a dry spicy character, and finishing with wood-ageing in French red wine barrels for 3 months before a chock load of Hibiscus Flowers complete the brew. Well-toned, this is a 1* Michelin Beer, correct, held in check, sour notes matched by full flavour and twisty windey spice notes, exotic fruit flavours of passion fruit, papaya and guava. I've heard it touted as the World's best beer. It isn't. But the brewers and their experimental edge may well ruffle feathers, garner plaudits and make for great dining beers. It's another meeting place where funky Natural Wines meet Brewcraft, where flavour spectrums inform each other. Which, I suppose, is a love-song of sorts!

Siren Bière de Gouttière, Belgian Saison

Poor man's Champagne, Siren Bière de Gouttière, Belgian Saison 4.4% abv - it's gout! I'd get oot more often if the beverages were as gout as this!

hazy, bone-dry, pin prick carbonation, delicate, refreshing, wood shavings, herbaceous (burdock root!), thyme, dryed grass, sous bois woodland. Easy brew!

Collab brew by Siren + Jon Laffler from Off Colour Brewing (formerly of Goose Island, Chicago).

F.e.S.T.i.V.a.L.

One goes to Festivals, one has been to Festivals, each one unique, each the epicentre of the extraordinary.

A mood-setting Festival Playlist is -

a very serious affair

meant to excite (oneself, if no one else)

to bamboozle

to be broader than the horizon

A mood-setting Festival Playlist -

should weird you out

and pump you up

make you wanna groove

embrace the un-familiar

A mood-setting Festival Playlist should -

mix the high-octane and the shit-hot

acknowledge one's musical heritage

know all too well that man lives not be bread alone

be a soupçon, a taster to galvanise the palate

A mood-setting Festival Playlist is -

a point in time, a pre-prandial

foreplay

a roll in the hay

an auditory buzz direct to the pleasure receptors, a kick start to the synapses