Book Review - Making Craft Cider

Book Review: Making Craft Cider – A Ciderist's Guide by Simon McKie

www.shirebooks.co.uk

£7.99, A5, 112 pages, colour

Books on cidermaking are comparatively rare when you look at the number of titles available on home brewing or home winemaking, so it's good to see a publication such as this come out. The 1999 Real Cidermaking on a Small Scale by Pooley & Lomax (see below) has been on the shelves of many a craft cidermaker for years but there has been a bit of a gap in the market for anything with more detail in without being too academic. Luckily Simon McKie takes writing about cidermaking that one step further without overcomplicating the process involved.

Each chapter is lavishly illustrated with colour photographs as well as technical information such as   a specific gravity/alcohol table which is something I find very useful as am always wondering how strong a cider will be after we've just spent all day juicing the apples. Although the results given in the table in this book do differ from those given in Real Cidermaking on a Small Scale by Pooley & Lomax!

The book begins with a brief history of cidermaking and the chapters lead through into apple selection, pressing, measurement, fermentation, tasting and even a piece about cider brandy. The section featuring the hydropress was an innovation to me as I had never come across one before reading this book. The trusty Fruit Shark mill has a photo as well, I can recommend these little Czech-built electric scratters as have been using one at Llanblethian Orchards for years. There is also a relatively easy-to-follow couple of paragraphs on the technique known as keeving which I have seen pages of in some publications.

At the back are a useful, easy-to-find series of appendices with a glossary of cidermaking terms, a troubleshooting guide and a tasting methodology.

All in all, a good little book for the cider enthusiast and the small-scale producer.

Book Review - The Old Dog and Duck

Book Review –

The Old Dog and Duck – The Secret Meanings of Pub Names, Albert Jack.

RRP £12.99, Half price at Waterstone's at the moment £6.49, Hardback. www.albertjack.com

A bit of post-Christmas shopping turned up this gem of a book at half price in my local Waterstone's. I did go looking for pub/beer related books before Christmas but apart from one book which had been published a year earlier there was hardly anything around. Luckily this one turned up in the post-Christmas sales.

A book on pub names is always a fascinating subject, with Delderfield in the 1960s having set the benchmark to be followed up by Dunkling and Wright producing the most inclusive study in the 1980s with their A-Z. Albert Jack has taken a different approach and has not only researched in depth every pub included in the book but gives alternative reasons for pub names. Previous books do tend to concentrate on one story/rumour for the origin of the pub name and often that is repeated in subsequent books, quite often the rumour is bolstered out of all proportion and that becomes the standard reason for the pub name. Jack's approach is to research deeply, often into heraldry and to put the alternative reasons for the pub names. One downside of this approach is that he often gets tied up in national politics as the reason for a pub name, e.g., the name White Hart is said to show allegiance to King Richard II, which may well be the case throughout most of England, however in South Wales the pub is more likely to have connections to the Morgan family who also used it on their coat of arms.

That aside this is a good little book that does not just concentrate on UK pubs, for instance Harry's Bar in Venice is mentioned, a pub identified as a national landmark by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs. As well as the Irish pub Molly Malone's, described by Albert as “The Trollop with the Scallops” as he delves into the history and legends surrounding the person with that name.

This book is packed full of little pieces of information such as Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington was named after British Admiral Vernon who gave his name to pubs and one of his victories was beating the Spanish in the War of Jenkins' Ear which was celebrated by naming a farm and road after a one of the battles – Portobello.

Altogether this is a well-researched book, on an interesting subject, not comprehensive on pub names but well-researched for each and every pub in this book. Roll on volume two sometime!

Book review - Favourite Watering Holes

Book Review

Favourite Watering Holes – featuring pubs in North and Mid-Wales

Ian Parri, £7.50, ISBN 978-1-84524-128-5, www.carreg-gwalch.com

Published around this time last year, a copy of this book has finally found its way to the Brew Wales Towers and the editor has finally found the time to read and review it. In fact it was about this time of year that the Brew Wales Editor was heading into BBC Radio Wales to drink some of Jamie and Louise's homebrew that Ian Parri was a guest on their show, plugging his book. However after drinking various beers in a live tasting on BBC Radio Wales, followed by some mulled wine, all before midday, the morning did become a bit of a blur and this book did get forgotten.

Any back to the book review, Ian Parri has been reviewing pubs in North Wales for the Daily Post, “For more years than he'll care to remember” according to the introduction. The book is a handy A5 size – ideal for packing in a bag to take to the area on a trip. All 50 pubs are listed with their full postal address and phone number as well as website if they have one. The pubs are set out alphabetically with an index at the front, unfortunately there is no map in the book which would have made it easier to visit some of these pubs. Some old favourites of mine are in here such as the Black Boy, Caernafon, and the Douglas Arms, Bethesda, an entry on the CAMRA National Inventory of historic interiors, as well as new ones such as the uniquely named Seven Eyes at Ruthin. The Seven Eyes is so named as it has seven dormer windows and was built by an architect who studied in Amsterdam. This little book is packed full of information such as this, each pub has two pages devoted to it and a photograph. The photographs could be a little bigger, but then again this book is not designed for fans of pub architecture. Ian Parri takes us on a very personal view of these pubs and though he mentions the beer range he nearly always settles on a pint of mass-produced fizzy cider, something that comes as a bit of a regret to him.

All in all a good little book on the neglected area of Welsh pubs. Not perfect, but well worth buying, now to find somewhere on a bookcase to fit it in.

Available online here.

Book review - Thirsty Dragon

Book Review: The Thirsty Dragon, Lyn Ebenezer 2006
ISBN: 1-84527-048-7, £5.50 116 pages, colour and B&W photos

I know this book was published in 2006 but it has only just found its way to the Brew Wales book reviewer. Books on Welsh drinks are few and far between, we have the excellent Prince of Ales by Brian Glover (published 1993) and the odd Farmhouse Brewing (1974, republished in Welsh 1983) and apart from the occasional company histories (Brains 1982 & 2007) and pub guides, books on drinks in Wales are not that easy to find. It was only by chance I found The Thirsty Dragon in a Cardiff bookshop when I was looking for another book! Sorry Doc I'll get round to buying Eagles Rising another time.

Lyn Ebenezer devotes a chapter of the book to a particular part of Welsh drinking; Mead, Monastic brewing, Cidermaking, Welsh Whisky and Wrexham all deservedly have chapters devoted to them but for some reason the entire 6 pages of Chapter 13 are given over to a hagiography of Simon Buckley, late of Buckleys, Ushers and Tomos Watkin Breweries but of more recent times, Evan Evans Brewery. Lyn Ebenezer was clearly taken in by the slimy charms of this former stockbroker as any serious journalistic research would have involved interviews with members of the Brains board and former Tomos Watkin board members in order to produce an accurate and balanced account of Simon Buckley's part in Welsh brewing history. Instead we have the various rants of the Clown Prince of Welsh Brewing blaming everyone else for failures of his businesses in the past. For an account of the opening of the Tomos Watkin brewery in Llansamlet click here. Chapter 13 also has a very amusing photo of Simon Buckley stood in front of pallets of empty casks. The reason why this photo is amusing is that recently Simon has been suspended from his membership of SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers, for using other brewers casks without their permission. In fact one Evans Evan delivery occurred to a pub using 'borrowed' casks which came as a surprise to another brewer who was sat in the pub watching his casks being unloaded from the Evan Evans dray!

The rest of the brewers in Wales have to share the remaining 7 pages and a whole chapter to themselves. The author even gets the name of one award-winning North Wales brewery wrong, it's Purple Moose, not Pink Moose as in the book!

All in all this is a rather disappointing book, let down by the poor standards of research and writing, not to mention the amateurish photographs. I'm not sorry I bought it, but was left with the feeling that the author could have done better. Reminds me of a beer I may try once in a pub but is not that good so will avoid it in future.

Book Review - Guide to Beer

Guide to Beer, Robert Jackson & David Kenning,Published by Paragon 2008, RRP £7.99, £3.50 in Wilkinsons. ISBN 978-1-4075-1773-5

Odd book this; odd shape and with some odd beers and very odd arrangement of the countries they come from. For instance the countries are not listed alphabetically so we begin with Canada and finish with Australia. A good few pages are given over justifiably to the United States, Germany and England but why for heaven's sake are 4 pages given over to beers from Luxembourg, a country that is to brewing beer what Gordon Brown is to depth perception? Once I asked a friend of mine, a CAMRA member who lives in Luxembourg, what he did when he wanted a good beer, “Go to Germany” was the reply.

This book mainly contains beers from the multi-nationals who now own most of the world's breweries, hence the reviews of the beers are mainly lagers with the odd independent brewery thrown in for good measure. The German section does not even mention the Rauchbiers – beers brewed using smoked malt, one of which is even available in UK supermarkets.

Unfortunately the Guide to Beer does not go in depth as to who actually owns the brewery, for that try the very well written Beer Book, edited by Tim Hampson.

There are a few errors in the Guide to Beer. For instance a review of Pauwel Kwak from Belgium mentions its distinctive glass but the accompanying photograph does not show it! I mean come on, did the photo editor actually read the article? Similarly the photo of a foaming pint of real ale is supposed to represent “a bewildering array of quality distinctive beers”. The photograph is only spoilt by the large, brightly lit keg font of XXXX lager in the background!

England, Scotland and Ireland all get a mention in the book but the 39 or so breweries of Wales are missed out. No doubt the authors, based in Darlington and Kent could not find the time to research the Principality. Which is what lets this book down, reading it I have come to the opinion that the authors did not even drink any of the beers they write about, there are hardly any tasting notes and those that are there seem to have been supplied by the public relations department of the brewery. Still another book for the collection (I really must buy another bookcase) and worth splashing out £3.50 on it in the bargain bin section of Wilkinsons.