What brings foreign brewers to work for Wetherspoons?

Earlier this year, craft brewers from around the world flew home after a week's brewing at some of Britain's oldest and most traditional real ale breweries. Last month, the fruits of their - unpaid! - handiwork went on sale at 950+ pubs around the country, as part of JD Wetherspoon's spring real ale festival.

And this was only the latest of several such collaborations, albeit one of the largest, with ten collaboration beers on offer this time. So what is it that attracts these successful brewers - all of them highly regarded at home, whether that's the USA, Australia, Spain or even Brazil – to come to the UK and brew cask ale for Wetherspoons? Especially when, while they get their travel paid for, they're otherwise working for free – it's a real busman's holiday.

Celebration time for the international guests at the Crosse Keys

Luckily, I had the chance to chat with many of those involved, both from abroad and their UK hosts, at a meet-the-brewers event hosted by Wetherspoons at its grand Crosse Keys pub in the City of London. For almost all the visitors, it was the opportunity to do something new and rather different, not least because many of them don't have any experience of brewing cask-conditioned beer.

“We do bottled-conditioning and kegs – cask beer is totally unknown in South Africa, it's a whole new experience,” said Brian Stewart of Shongweni Brewery, who brewed a cask version of his Durban Pale Ale at Batemans. “Some of the American brewers have gone back and started doing cask themselves. Others want UK exposure for possible future exports,” added Dave Aucutt of East-West Ales, who is the beer manager for Wetherspoons' real ale festivals (and is also the Dave pictured on the JDW Real Ale website).

Capacity counts

Then there are the volumes involved. To feature in a Wetherspoon's national festival, you need to be able to brew maybe 200 barrels of your beer. The guest brewers will typically have modern 10 or 20 barrel brewkits of their own, in gleaming stainless steel, so it is quite a thrill to come to a centuries-old family brewery with a capacity of maybe ten times that – and that leads on to the historical angle.

“It's a blast for them, brewing on older and more traditional plants,” said Simon Yates, assistant head brewer at Marston's. “It's the experience of doing something different, seeing a different brewery – we brewed with Hook Norton,” agreed Dave Edney of Australia's Mountain Goat Brewery, adding that you can't get much more historic than Hooky's Victorian tower brewery.

And of course there is Britain's world-class ale heritage more generally, which is way too easy for us Brits to forget, what with all the excitement over craft beers and so on. The fact is that all these brewers look to the British ale tradition for inspiration for at least some of their craft beers. For example, although Brian Stewart said that with South Africa being so hot, the main market is for “easy-drinking beers to watch cricket by”, and that he also brews German and American-inspired beers, his flagship Pale Ale is inspired by IPA dropped off at the Cape by ships on their way to India.

He added that he learnt a huge amount from working with Batemans head brewer Martin Cullimore. “Martin is like a walking encyclopædia on brewing and the technology,” he said. “I will take back a lot of understanding of the technology – he's a very good mentor.”

And what of working with Wetherspoons? After all, while many British beer fans love 'Spoons' for its championing of craft real ale (and now of craft beer in general) at affordable prices – it planned to sell three million pints over the 17 days of its real ale festival – others regard it with horror. To them it's a beery McDonald's, a corporate monster undercutting 'real pubs'.

Clearer vision

Perhaps with the clearer vision that comes from not being so close to the topic, the visitors I spoke with were uniformly enthusiastic. “You get an email saying 'Come to Britain and brew one of your ales to be sold in 950 pubs'! How could you resist that? Sure, there's US pub chains, but it's not the same,” said Tyler Brown, who brewed a version of his Barley Brown's ESA at Marston's.

He added that while exploring Britain he discovered just how varied Wetherspoons can be. “In Edinburgh we went to the Alexander Graham Bell and then to the Standing Order. They're the same company and they have the same menus, but they have an entirely different clientèle.”

The host brewers were enthusiastic about Spoons too, though for different reasons. “You don't make a lot of profit [selling to Wetherspoons], but it does make one and it helps with your volumes, which reduces your overall malt bill and so on,” said Martin Cullimore. It's also great for the visibility of both your brewery and your beer, added Adnams brewer and quality manager Belinda Jennings.

And they were just as enthusiastic about the overseas collaborations as their visitors were. “The first thing is it's enjoyable doing something a bit different,” said Simon Yates. “A lot [of the guests] are not formally trained brewers, what's great is their enthusiasm and passion – it's very invigorating,” added Martin Cullimore.

In addition, while the guests may learn about cask conditioning and brewing in volume, the hosts learn too. “They're often more adventurous with ingredients, for example we might never have thought of using pink peppercorns,” said Belinda Jennings. She added that they could even rebrew some of their collaborations themselves – with the guest's permission of course.

Collaboration or copy?

Talking of which. are they collaboration brews or are they really just cask versions of the guest's original beer? “Sometimes the aim is to recreate the original as closely as possible, for example when we did Harpoon IPA,” said Simon Yates. “Others are interpretations, maybe they're not as strong as at home so they're better suited to pints rather than 12oz measures, such as the Devils Backbone American IPA we brew at Banks's.”

The festival included St Patrick's Day

Much of the time though, it's effectively a new beer – even more so in this festival, because the overarching theme was that all 50 festival beers would be brewed using only British-grown hops (which in practice meant English hops, because so little is grown in Wales and Scotland). Apparently there's now 27 or 28 different hops grown in Britain, ranging from established varieties such as Fuggles and Goldings to newer ones like Archer, Boadicea and Jester, and even English-grown Cascade. The festival beers featured 24 of them, as not all could be sourced in sufficient quantities.

“The beer will be different – it's our existing recipe, but the water is different, the hops are different, and of course cask conditioning is not the same as brewery conditioning,” confirmed Brian Stewart. This also lead Dave Edney to articulate the one big regret shared by the guest brewers, who were already heading home several weeks before the festival ales would be ready to sell. “It's a pity we can't taste the beer – it's a different yeast and water so it won't be the same,” he said.

As mentioned, one of the reasons for pairing the guests with experienced cask ale brewers is to help them brew their recipes in this new-to-them way. Unfortunately, while this concept usually works well – sometimes startlingly well, as with the more recent Caledonian-brewed Nøgne Ø Asian Pale Ale, or the Adnams/Rogue Brutal IPA earlier this year – I'm not sure that it meshed with the spring festival's theme of British hops. Of the international brewers' beers I tried, a couple were pretty good but most were only so-so.

I think that the problem was they were being asked to use unfamiliar ingredients as well as different processes. So where normally the host brewer can help adapt their recipe as needed, this time they were in effect creating a new recipe. Plus there was no time for test brews, so if neither the host nor the guest had brewed a similar combination before, then it's all educated guesswork.

But all in all, it's a brilliant idea. The brewers get to share ideas and expertise, drinkers get some new and hopefully top-notch cask beers, and horizons are broadened all round. That to me is a very large part of what modern (craft, if you like) brewing is all about, and I thoroughly applaud Wetherspoons for supporting and encouraging it.

London beers for London 'Spoons

I heard recently that one of my local(-ish!) Wetherspoons – the Moon on the Square, in Feltham – is having a London Breweries Beer Festival from Monday 16th February to Friday 20th. I've now learnt that this is actually a regional thing and that all 132 London-area 'Spoons are taking part.

Hopefully there will be a comprehensive beer and brewery list along soon, as there was for the similar festival run last year, but in the meantime here's the cask ale list sent over from the Moon:

By The Horns – Bison American Pale Ale 4.8%, Mick The Miller 4%, Diamond Geezer 4.9%
Clarence & Fredericks (Croydon) - Cascadian Black 5%, Golden Ale 3.8%
Cronx – Standard 3.8%, Kotchin 3.9%, Mad-Ass Entire 5.2%
East London – Foundation Bitter 4.2%, Cowcatcher American Pale 4.8%, Quadrant Oatmeal Stout 5.8%
Hop Stuff – Fusilier 4.3%, Renegade IPA 5.6%
Portobello – Chestnut Ale 4.5%, Ginger Bread Beer 4.4%, Apachi 7%
Truman’s – Eyrie 4.3%, Original Porter 4.5%, Runner 4%

And here's some others that will be on at the Kings Tun in Kingston:

Hackney Brewery – NZ Pale, Bitter
Southwark – Best, Gold
Sambrooks – Red, Chocolate Stout
Redemption – Pale Ale, Urban Dusk

Unlike last year though, the festival's not just going to be cask ale – there will be keg too. Windsor & Eton's has brewed Hurricane IPA (5%) specially for the festival, it'll be in all 132 pubs according to W&E's Facebook page. Here will be others too, for example the Kings Tun will also have Twickenham's dry-hopped Tusk keg IPA (4.7%) on tap.

I have to say I've been hugely impressed by the range and quality of the beer in recent Wetherspoons real ale festivals. I know some people have a problem with these pubs, and it's true that they are rarely as comfy and appealing as a cosy local, but they do a great job in providing a good range of well-kept cask ales and now a variety of interesting bottle and keg beers too, all at sensible prices.

I know too that there are various rumours spread about how they keep the prices down – all of which are false, as far as I can discover. Brewers have told me for instance that yes, Wetherspoons expects big discounts, but no more so than any other pub company. It also gave staff an above-inflation pay rise last year.

What's your take on it – do you drink in 'Spoons, and if not, why not?

PS. Through chatting with Andy, the head brewer at Southwark Brewery, I've realised what's going on here. The festival runs throughout February, but different areas of London focus on it in different weeks. So in south-west London the main week is from the 16th, but it'll be different in other areas. Check with your local...

How Wetherspoon's could change the face of Irish ale

JDW's Three Tun Tavern, Dublin

I hadn't realised just how big JD Wetherspoon's plans are for the Irish Republic, and just how much it could change the profile of real ale over there, until I caught up with Cork brewer Shane Long yesterday. He does produce cask ale at his Franciscan Well brewery, and he also runs a popular annual Irish cask ale festival with 50+ beers on offer, but most of his production is keg, simply because the Republic doesn't have enough bars with handpumps.

Indeed, he estimates there's probably only 20 pubs in the country serving cask ale right now (though of course there's more in Northern Ireland). However, that number is set to more than double over the next year or three with the arrival of JD Wetherspoon, which plans to spend up to €100 million developing a chain of pubs in the Republic.

The first Wetherspoon's south of the border - it already has numerous pubs in the north - opened in Dublin earlier this year, and a second Dublin (or rather, Dun Laoghaire) Spoons is due to open next month.

Shane expects the company to open at least 20 more around the country though, while the Belfast Telegraph suggests the total could be as high as 30. “They've four sites planned in Cork city alone, one in the centre and three in the suburbs, with the first probably opening next January,” Shane added.

Given that all are likely to have at least some real ale presence, here's hoping that it will be a big fillip to local brewers wanting to do more than just fizzy keg!

The problem with pumpkins

Have you found any decent Hallowe'en beers this year? They've become something of a staple in the UK, and are starting to appear now in other European countries too, even though none of it reaches the heights of obsessiveness that American drinkers must endure.

Part of the problem is the obsession with pumpkins. These American gourds have relatively little flavour of their own, and to bring out any sort of decent flavour out of them you need spices. Ginger is my preference here, but brewers and bakers tend to go for the likes of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon instead. So what you get is mostly just a spiced beer - a few brewers even admit there's no pumpkin in their Hallowe'en beer, and that where the label says "pumpkin-spiced ale" it is 100% accurate - it is spiced with "pumpkin spices".


One pumpkin beer that's fairly widely available is Wychwood's Pumpking, I've had this year's edition though and it was overwhelmed by burnt caramel flavours and generally unimpressive. The same brewer's version of Night Owl Pumpkin Ale, based on a recipe from US brewery Elysian and brewed for the current Wetherspoon real ale festival, was rather better - at 6% it's also almost double the strength of the distinctly non-kingly 3.8% Pumpking.

(Incidentally, Pumpking was originally 5%, then 4.5% and 4.2%, before dropping to its current poor status last year. And they still have the cheek to describe it as a "rich ruby ale". Shame on you, Wychwood.)

The best so far for not being over-spiced was this year's London Fields Brewery Pumpkin Ale, launched during a Hallowe'en party at the brewery tap in Hackney last night. Another 6%er (last year's edition was 6.6%), it's properly beery as well as being spiced.

Sadly, the same wasn't true of the other ale London Fields launched last night. Called Gyle 666 (presumably because it was their 666th brew - they are currently brewing at least 10 times a week!!), this is a chilli brown ale, but even 6.6% ABV isn't able to save it from being over-sweet, over-chillied and a tad one-dimensional.

Look out for the LFB Pumpkin Ale though - and also the Night Owl, if your local Spoons hasn't sold out already.

Spoons gets craftier

JD Wetherspoon is rolling out craft keg beers across 200 pubs, with availability due from 1st October. The first two beers on tap will be BrewDog's pretentiously named and pompously launched This.Is.Lager., while the other will be an American-style IPA from well regarded US brewer Devils Backbone, but contract brewed in the UK (so I hear) by Adnams.

Here's the tap badges, aren't they dreadful?

The DB one doesn't even tell you the beer name, never mind its style or strength. Still, I foresee local managers coming up with creative fixes for this.

JDW will also be stocking Lagunitas IPA and Rogue American Amber in bottles, according to its Twitter account - presumably these will be the US-made versions. Apparently the Sixpoint beers are staying around, by the way.

Contract or collaboration?

The other week I dropped into the Moon Under Water in Hounslow - a JD Wetherspoon that's a Good Beer Guide regular - to see a Bale Breaker Field 41 Pale Ale pump-clip. It wasn't from Yakima in Washington State though, where Bale Breaker is based, but from Devizes in Wiltshire. Yes, it was another of JDW's popular guest beers where they get the US brewer to come and do a beer at one of several UK breweries - Wadworth's, in this case.

It set me thinking - are these contract brews, or are they collaborations? JDW is rightly quite clear where they come from, with most clips proudly bearing the name of both the guest brewer and the host brewery, and they are never exactly the same beer. For a start, the UK versions are cask-conditioned, whereas the US ones will mostly be kegged or bottled.

Typically the ABVs will differ too - UK Field 41 was 4.8%, versus 4.5% in the US for example - and the recipes may need to be adapted. For example, Mitch Steele of Stone Brewing wrote extensively on his blog about the process of brewing a version of Stone's Supremely Self-Conscious Ale at Adnam's (5% UK, 4.5% US), which he describes as a true collaboration. The two versions used different hops and yeast - as well as different water of course.

Most times though, all we have to go on is the information that brewer X brewed their beer Y at brewery Z. Does that make it a collaboration, or is it merely a contract brew, where the same recipe could be brewed, with appropriate adjustments, on any number of different sites? And do they count as different beers or as the same one?

On the Untappd forums, it's been interesting to see what appears to be a geographic split on this. US voices have tended towards the "same beer" view, I guess to them it's no different from contracting your best-selling beer to a bigger brewery in order to meet demand. Maybe it's also important for it to remain "an American beer". UK voices on the other hand seem to see them as American-inspired but different and collaborative - perhaps it's partly nationalist, but it's also a recognition that the recipe and process will need to change to produce a cask-conditioned ale, and that local expertise will inevitably need to be involved.

(On Ratebeer the two versions always get separate listings. but then Ratebeerians were already very serious about differentiations such as where a beer is brewed, how it's served, etc.)

So is there a dividing line that makes one beer a collaboration and another not, and if so, where is it? Or should I stop worrying about it and have another pint? (-: