The latest 'Iechyd Da' Simon Buckley beer column

The latest Iechyd Da beer column written by Llandeilo brewer Simon Buckley in the Carmarthen Journal -

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I am writing this column as I make my way up to London
I’m not going to see The Queen, but off to yet another meeting. As I look out through the train window, all I can see is rain.
I know it’s summer and that this what we expect in Wales, but where is the sunshine?
All we want is just a hint of a real summer.
If we don’t get a real summer, all us chaps in brewing will have been wrong-footed again. All the work we have put into creating summer beers will be for nothing.
So what makes a great summer beer?
The summer fad started about 15 years ago when the clever marketing johnnies in the big breweries thought that here was a chance to create a series of new beers that would act as cross-overs between the lightly hopped golden lagers and a new style of golden ale.
The theory was to try and replicate the lighter flavour of lager and produce beers that could be drunk colder.
So the idea was that each year, when the temperatures hit the ’80s (in old money), the ale drinkers would shift to cider and lager simply because they were cold. Not because the taste was better - far from it.
So everyone then started to ask the question: Why not produce a new style of ‘Golden’ beer.
And, so, a series of new golden and straw-coloured beers were produced, light in bitterness but ‘full-on’ malty beers with tight white creamy heads.
There were a few really good ones - Hook Norton Bitter, for example, and, from a smaller stable, Summer Lightning.
There was also one from a brewery we now own, Archers Golden.
Now every brewer produces not one but possibly two or more.
At the Evan-Evans Brewery, we produce six golden beers - three under the Evan-Evans label and three under the Archers banner.
Let me tell you now, they are all very different!
So how do we do it?
Well, I know a lot of our competitors read this article, so I won’t give away too many secrets.
But the truth is that once you get the right malts, the flavour changes are all down to minor adjustments of the key adjuncts, an increase in wheat malt, a hint of crystal and then the adjustments of the hops.
In Golden beers, we look for subtle flavours from little known hops from all round the world which will give us that slight edge on each beer – tastes that can be subtle as citrus, blueberry, or even a simply spicy dryness to balance the sweetness from the malt.
Not everyone likes the Golden beers, so this year we have used the opportunity of the Olympics to produce a new amber ale, which has the subtle flavour of the darker malts, and then the dry hint of berry fruit.
Victory has completed the tasting test and will be in the market shortly.
Try it and tell me what you think. For those that are ‘tickers’, Archers Owzatt is a classic straw-coloured summer ale and was brewed by my young Indian brewer, Sajan, who in a very short time has become a highly valued member of my team.
Our next summer ale is Bombay Bitter and it seems only right that Sajan should brew that one.
So, faced with torrential downpours and a gloomy outlook, my advice is to retire gracefully to the pub and dream of summer. I promise you will feel better!
Website –
http://www.evanevansbrewery.com/