Friends…

“Mmm, I’m telling you now, the greatest thing you ever can do now, is trade a smile with someone who’s blue now, it’s very easy just..”

I’d been looking forward this weekend so much. Thanks to Mrs H I had a rare Saturday off and I was heading for my first ever visit to the Independent Salford Beer Festival (ISBF), an event organised and frequented by really good friends.

It started with train delays, pretty much par for the course these days. Quickly topped off with a typical Phil dropping myself in the shit moment. After cows on the line, several train cancellations and the added bonus of Manchester Christmas Market travellers, the already overcrowded cattle wagon pulled into Stockport. As hordes more passengers crammed on and forced their way deep into the carriage, I looked right towards the building carnage and exclaimed “Jesus F@*king Christ”. At that exact moment emerging from my left I found myself face to face with a 6ft plus Krishna monk. Shaved head, tiny platted pony tail, painted face, fully robed up in glowing orange, the complete works. As I finished my three word rant, he stopped, turned, looked me straight in the eye and said quite loudly “Hare Krishna” and walked away without a glance back. I was like, no, sorry, not you, I didn’t mean it like….oh bugger!

Anyway, after fighting through Piccadilly and a short ride with a seemingly deaf taxi driver we made it.

I was met inside by organiser and good friend Jim Cullen, Jim doing his customary Wayne’s World style bow of adoration at my approach, as he often quotes my old blogging & and events as being at least part of his inspiration to do the same. If I have in any way shape or form had any part of what this bloke has achieved over the last five or six years I am very humbled, and it is I who’s not worthy my friend. Anyway, enough of that, it was around 11:50 the place was already buzzing, I was gagging for a beer and there was quite a bit of it about.

I headed straight for the cask area, absolutely over the moon to find that oh so rare cask of De Ranke XX Bitter hadn’t gone yet. It was my first choice and didn’t disappoint, richer and fuller than I’d tasted before with a more intensely bitter finish, delicious! I’m not sure if cask XX is a first, it’s definitely something I’ve never seen before and it’s a beer I love so go figure..

That in itself should give you an idea of the sort of beer list Jim pulls together for this festival. An eclectic mix of gems, from progressively traditional and new wave brewers, one-off collaborations and old favourites, I think it’s called putting the miles in. Cask being served alongside “evil keg filth” and being enjoyed in equal measure for what it is, bloody good beer and nobody dying because a rule had been broken, the way festivals should be.

At this point I should witter on about what beers I drank and what they tasted like but in truth everything was so good I lost track. The “Staggeringly Good” Ekuanodon was staggeringly good and a new brewery for me. “Five Towns & Rivington” Sweet Thing Imperial Fruited Ale was gorgeous, Toms Tap, Bexar County, North Riding all fab, in fact everything I had was excellent, apart from that one that everyone seemed to love except me and which shall remain nameless lol.

One thing that struck me about ISBF was the feel good vibes. From the moment I walked through the door to the second I wobbled out I felt happy, IT felt happy. Perhaps that’s because I was among so many friends, perhaps it was much more of an intimate venue than some of the more well-known festivals, my gut feeling though is that it is by design. The whole thing felt inclusive, there was something for everyone from your Grandad to the new breed Untappd “craft beer” ticker. It had warmth and not just from the non-pretentious hot-pot and chips, no doughnut burgers or deep-fried chaffinch livers in sight here. Simple but tasty honest beer and food served with a smile.

In all seriousness isn’t that what beer should be about?

At this point I’m going to put something out there, not only is this my favourite UK-based beer festival this year (I specify UK only because Borefts in the Netherlands is almost untouchable in my eyes), but if it happens in 2019, #ISBF6 will be first on my hit list for next year. Put it on yours too!

Before I close this out it’s worth saying that I almost never blog these days, since opening Otter’s Tears I generally feel gagged. I write something, think twice about it and don’t post it for fear of my views affecting the business. It’s hard enough without my gob making things tougher.. But here I felt compelled to do so albeit in completely different circumstances. I needed to say something to Jim and to all the folk who support him in making this wonderful thing happen and my rambling away on here seemed the most fitting tribute to folk who have done so much more. So thank you all, I had an absolute blast with old friends and new, who could ask for more.

“So anytime, somebody needs you, don’t let them down although it grieves you, some day you’ll need someone like they do, looking for what you new” Friends – Led Zeppelin

 

 

Now for something completely different…

Weirdly, almost two years to the day, something happened that would in time, go on change my life’s path completely. I don’t want to dwell on it too much as it led to some very tough times and hard battles, but lets just say that it involved too many straws, a camel, and it most definitely gave me the hump!

Thankfully those days are long gone, but towards the end of that last road I started to think it was time to make a break and move on, but what could I do?

Beer seemed the most logical answer, not drinking it, although clearly that helped, but a career within the industry would at least give me a chance to do something I know a little about and would hopefully enjoy.

I suppose I could have gone out and hawked a CV around breweries, beer distributors or whatever in the hope that somebody had a vacancy, but the thought of knocking on doors of friends, saying “giz a job, I can do that”, didn’t really feel appropriate. Besides, I have always harboured a dream of doing something for myself and this seemed like an opportunity to take that leap of faith and do just that. So with that in mind, the help, love and patience of the wife and the gentle nudge/shove of some reassuring friends and family, I started to look at opening a specialist beer shop.

Location was a tricky one. For several years I have wished and pushed for more choice in my home city Stoke On Trent, which for a long time seemed to be being left behind in terms of the new trends sweeping most of the country. In more recent times though that has changed, Stoke now has quite a few establishments who are prepared to push the boundaries of choice for something “less traditional” shall we say, with more and more opening month on month. With this in mind it made sense to us to stay local, where we knew there is a growing interest and we have friends to help us get started, so we opted for Burslem, Stoke’s “Mother Town”.

Thoughts then turned to a name, I decided I wanted something different from the traditional type names, thought-provoking even, be that in a knowing smile or a “what the bleedin’ hell does that mean” sort of way. A memorable name that hopefully would get folk talking, although I may live to regret that having already had to explain it to banks, insurers, council staff and many more.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, many people have inspired me to write over the years but from that great bunch of people, nobody made me laugh as much as Simon Johnson, the Reluctant Scooper. He could take a serious subject or equally a nonsensical argument and come up with something witty whilst still getting a point across, be that in a simple tweet or a full-blown blog post. Although Simon passed away in 2013, I still find myself returning to his blog time and again, a memory stirs from somewhere that has me reaching into cyberspace to find the post I’m looking for and it is inevitably one of his.

It was at such a moment that inspiration for the name came to me, although clearly not the credit. The question, “What to me encapsulates the new and exciting buzz that is gripping the beer world, without actually using the words craft?” For the answer, my mind immediately turned to the words of Simon’s “Craft Beer Manifesto” specifically the use of “distilled otters tears”!

“Craft beer is where you find it. Where you find it depends on how you define it.
How you define it? That’s your call.
There will never – never – be agreement in the UK as to what ‘craft beer’ really means.
So let’s just drink good beer and have some fun” 

If you’ve not read it, do it now, the link is above and perhaps linger awhile. Basically it was a tongue in cheek dig at those waging a war of words back then, over what was or was not craft beer. Nothing much has changed of course in terms of defining the C word, but the words of wisdom in Simon’s manifesto clearly tickled me enough to make it commit to memory, so Otters Tears it was.

Thornbridge Brewery

Of course that was only the beginning, the name existed already, as a brew created by Thornbridge and the IndyMan crew as a fitting tribute to Simon and of course there was Rebecca Johnson, Simons wife to think of too, how would they all take to the idea?

Apprehensively approaching the brewers first, thankfully I found my nervousness unfounded as the powers that be at both Thornbridge and IndyMan were equally supportive of the idea and gave their blessing gladly. Rebecca however, found me out before I got the chance to show her what we were planning to do. This tweet setting my heart racing I can tell you..

I googled Otters Tears (wondering if we can get any for @simonhjohnson's birthday in November) and found Otters Tears Beer Company?!

— Rebecca Johnson (@BecEmerald) September 11, 2015

That’ll teach me to stop putting things off! 😉

When we caught up the following morning Rebecca, was happy, sad, moved, ecstatic, emotionally joyful at the prospect if I’ve summed that up correctly, and loves the support and continuing friendship of her “beer family”. We’ve had lots of little DM chats since then and I’m delighted that she is as excited as we are at the prospect. I just hope we can do it justice, one thing is assured, we will try our best.

We sincerely hope that you guys out there in the beer world are on board and get it too.

So, the wheels are now fully in motion. We have found a small starter unit in Burslem that will need a lot of creative TLC to get it looking something like my vision. Our hope is that we can create a place where you can find the best beers around, then either take them away or sample some on site in a relaxing atmosphere. Nothing groundbreaking these days about that concept I know, as many similar places exist, but that only proves that it can and does work.

Our logo was designed by Andy Mogg and his ever patient team at Lemon Top, who after many interventions and changes of heart from me, managed to capture what was in my head and bring it to life. I really like it and hope you do too. (Cheers Andy)

*Disclaimer: No comedy otters were used in the making of this branding..

We don’t have a Facebook page set up as yet, it will be coming soon, but you can catch up with us on Twitter via @otterstears

More news as things develop and time allows during the hard  work that lies ahead. For now though I’d like to thank everyone who has listened patiently to me wittering on about this for yonks, you’ve answered daft questions, given me endless amounts of much needed advice, listened to my moans and groans and no doubt those daft questions again. No names mentioned (yet), much love to you all though.

Wish me luck!

The big three double O..

This is my 300th post, a bit of a milestone for me and long overdue. Much in beer has changed since I first sat down and decided to start blogging under the Beersay handle around five or six years ago..

Brewdog opened their first bar in Aberdeen sometime during my first year in blogging proper. My own first visit to a new-fangled “craft beer” bar came I think a year or so later when I walked through the doors of Mr Foley’s in Leeds. 

Mr Foley’s rapid rise to fame came largely in my view at least, as a result of the vision of it’s then manager Dean Pugh. His potential quickly spotted, @BrewDogBarDean as he is now known, became manager at Brewdog Manchester, before helping to establish the brands UK flagship 40-tap bar in Shepherds Bush. Then bringing the timeline bang up to date. Only a few weeks ago, Dean packed his bags and moved to Berlin, and he’s not just going over to watch better football. 

Although saying that, currently the only team doing “wurst” than his is my own.

In that time of course Brewdog’s massive expansion has been mirrored by a huge rise facial growths of the beardy variety, many other things grown too, breweries, bars, beer columns in the press, full-on “quality” beer publications, podcasts, twitter beer shows, blogs and more.

Beer Festivals are no longer purely the domain of brown, there is a now veritable rainbow of colour choice, cloudy is acceptable and if a beer is sour, it won’t necessarily always mean “it’s off, sorry I’m sending it back”.

The once awful catchphrase uttered by a landlord, “here’s a fruit based drink for your good lady” doesn’t have to mean he’s being sexist, but only if he’s just handed you a bourbon barrel aged imperial apricot and mango saison. If not, he’s still a twat.

Beer is on TV, hooray! OK it still needs work and will get better, but it’s getting there.

Loads of the beer writers that inspired me to write also have moved on. Some have written books, become beer sommeliers, taken jobs in breweries, STARTED breweries, launched enormously successful beer festivals, opened bars, shops etc. Some have done pretty much all of the above.

Personally speaking I certainly don’t write as much now as I once did and there are many reasons for that. So many more folk doing it better than I do being one that immediately springs to mind. But that is a good thing too, as clearly with more being written by more people, beers popularity has risen enough to enthuse more people to be passionate about it in whatever fashion they see fit.

I definitely get a buzz about it still, especially when folk comment or say that I have inspired them in some way, or even if they just tell me I’ve written a complete load of tosh, as at least I know they bothered to take time out to read it.

If nothing else, I have made so many new and good friends over the years, not just drinking buddies, people I truly class as long-term close friends, people I trust and can (and do) confide in, go to for help and get it, help back, have a moan at or with, or just plain have a laugh and get drunk next to. Inspirational people in some way all of them.

THANK YOU ALL!

But the times they are a changing, as old Bobby Dylan once scribbled: and I have exciting news. Things are about to change for me too

Exciting, scary things..

Things are about to get otter, but I’ll tell you more about that in a day or so..

Cheers!