All smiles as "Bass Museum" re-opens

Just a quick note to say I finally managed to get to the newly opened National Brewery Centre at Burton. It originally opened as "The Bass Musuem" in 1977 to mark their bi-centenary. But, 30 years later with the Bass brewery site having passed into the ownership of American fizzmeisters Coors, it closed. An example of a real piece of heritage being allowed to wither on the bine in the hand of owners with no geographical, historical or spiritual connection with it. Now, after all sorts of pressure from interested parties (why do we only stand up and fight for things in Britain when it's almost too late?),it's, quite rightly, back. Coors have allowed the functionally titled Planning Solutions Ltd to take on the marketing of the museum and re-open it.

Remember, the brand 'Bass' isn't owned by Coors but by AB InBev (though currently up for sale) but the museum stands in the middle of property owned by Coors. So, brand politics being what they can be, I was desperate to see that in the now, re-packaged, "National Brewery Centre", the name Bass hadn't been 'airbrushed out'. I was actually quite apprehensive as I pulled off the A38. Thank goodness, even though some of the Bass exhibits have been sold off by the owner AB In Bev, the Bass name remains central to the whole Museum experience. No exhibition devoted to British Brewing history sited in Burton-on-Trent could ever present a credible story without full reference to the incredible history of Messrs Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton. For Burton read 'Bass'. It's a beautiful museum set in surviving, elegant Victorian brick buildings which were part of Bass in its heyday. I'll give you a bit more detail in the fullness of time. Meanwhile, here's one of the lovely local Burton girls ready with a warm welcome - and a cool serving of Worthington's 'E' or White Shield - in the museum's Edwardian bar. Cheers.

Double standards.

I just wanted to show you this. It's something we don't see often enough. A beautiful double yoked egg from a local farm here in Yorkshire. Colour, freshness and genuinely large. When did you last see anything like that from a supermarket - even if you forked out for eggs with a cuddly chicks on the box next to the words "free range"? It's freshly laid, freshly bought and freshly boiled. But it's not so much the double yoke I wanted to point out but the size. All the large eggs we get from this farm are, exactly that: large. They're the size of a standard large egg - or larger. Bringing these farm eggs home also brings home how small supermarket eggs seem to have become. Have you seen Tesco's "large" eggs lately? I call 'em medium. And the medium, well, they're like bantam eggs. The lady at the farm who supplies local shops and personal callers, won't have anything to do with the supermarkets. Other local farmers who do, report that the supermarkets, in putting pressure on suppliers to grow everything to suit the supermarkets' cycle, are forcing the farmer to produce smaller eggs. There seems a danger that what we've traditionally called the large egg is being re-sized at the behest of the big boys.

No cure for tradition in the land of the pork pie.

I thought I'd give you a glimpse across the divide that quietly, but defiantly, splits the pork pie world. Just a glimpse, mind. The whole pork pie thing - the endless variants of hot water pastry, how to 'raise' the pie case, whether to bake in tins, moulds or nothing at all and the murky, closely guarded subject of seasoning - is too weighty a subject to cover just now. I was making a batch of pies for a customer the other day and made pies that represent both sides of the political divide. What am I on about? Very simply, pies whose meat is pink and those whose is grey. The geography of this chasm in pie politics isn't a neat north/south split. But, as the heartland of one camp is Yorkshire and the territory of the uncured (grey) pie centres on Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, the 'north/south' heading is convenient. The pie with the pink meat gains its rosy tint from the presence of a proportion of cured meat. A style of cured filling that's shunned in the land of the Melton Mowbray pie where they're a bit sniffy about pinkness in their pies. It's as if nobody in Melton Mowbray ever made bacon or hams.... Two things mark out the midlands version (which claims to be the oldest style of pie): never using any cured meat and baking the pie free-standing without any form of support. The resultant sagging, bowed sides are the external signature of the Melton pie just as grey meat marks out the inner. I make both cured and uncured kinds and, for the record, usually bake them not in a mould, but gently supported by a ring of baking paper. So to the pictures - one pinkish, hammy and sweet, a natural partner to mushy peas and mint sauce and one uncured - haughty, pale and peppery, a pie more easily paired with chutneys or mustard. Remember though, it might be a clear view into my pies but it's only the merest glimpse of the whole subject.

The Bell, Aldworth. One of the greats.

If, like me, you gain comfort from a taste of the past perhaps, as a refuge from what the future has a habit of producing, there's no better hiding place than The Bell at Aldworth. 500ft up on the edge of the Berkshire downs, it was built when we weren't in the habit of growing as large as we do today so you stoop a little as you enter the front door - something folk have been doing since 13 hundred and odd. Now you're in a magical, completely unspoiled taproom, quietly populated with contented locals and appreciative visitors. It's a genuine free house so nowhere are any of those tell-tale corporate touches that smack of a pub pretending to be free but which is under the influence of a brewer, pub group or central control. In fact, as well as not accepting credit cards and having a strict no mobile phone policy, they don't sell draught lager - all of it totally beyond the ken of the average pub group director. They do serve farm cider and local ales such as genteel, copper coloured Arkells and those from the super West Berkshire Brewery, dispensed by handpump in their tiny serving area. The pub's soundtrack, understandably, is that of happy conversation. Food? Soup, Ploughman's, or crusty sandwiches such as Cheddar, Tongue or Crab. Oh, and what a cheese and onion sandwich. A warm roll arrives in a basket with a wedge of mature cheddar, a pot of raw sliced onion and little jars of chutney and mustard. And at a very old fashioned price. The Bell is a truly special pub that everyone should see. Just don't all go at once.

Oatcakes: a serving suggestion...

Here's one of those north Staffs oatcakes I bang on about. Not my home-made ones this time but some I picked up from Morrison's in Burton-on-Trent.

There are actually two in the picture, sandwiching some crisp smoked bacon and a thin omelette, then folded over.

If you buy a filled oatcake ready to eat from many oatcake bakeries in Staffs or Cheshire they tend to be filled then re-heated in the micro-wave. Hot but floppy (and no-one likes to see that..). Serving them like this misses out the key textural pleasure which only comes when you crisp up the outsides of the warmed, folded oatcake. I warm them through and make them pliable with a short burst in the microwave. Then I fill them, roll them and crisp them on both sides under the grill or in a hot pan - as in my picture. The miraculous thing about these ancient English griddle breads is that when you do crisp the exterior, the main body of the oatcake doesn't dry out but retains its delightful sponginess. Only then do you have the pleasure of biting through a crisp outside, then the soft inner oatcake, and on into the filling proper. Like most of the little touches, it's a bit of  a faff doing them this way but it's worth it. Trust me. 

Bass: alive and well in Derby

As you might have deduced, I care rather a lot about the Bass - the beer and its glorious history - even though the present day version of the beer is not a patch on the ale it was in 1980. Obviously, all this business about the rights to brew Bass being up for sale isn't good for me. So to calm myself down, I called in at The Station Inn on Midland Road, Derby last Saturday - and had a pleasant glimpse into the cosy old past. At The Station Inn, David the long-serving licencee, has Marston's Pedigree, Caley Deuchar's IPA and Well's Bombardier on the hand pumps but I was there for a Draught Bass. The landlord placed an empty 'red triangle' pint glass in front of me and disappeared off down the cellar. He returned, a minute or so later clutching a tall, stainless steel jug - like a big metal milk jug -  from which he filled my pint pot with Bass. Other than in the West Country, it's very rare to see any draught beer 'gravity dispensed' these days and certainly not poured from a jug. It's a bit special to see Draught Bass arrive this way in gritty old Derby. The drink was lovely, cool and soothing. If you're ever Derby way, get yourself into The Station. It's only a minute's stroll from the railway station to this unpretentious, well kept and tidy pub where you can enjoy Bass from the jug.

From Bass's ale to Bass's sale.

In case you hadn't heard, the most celebrated, indeed, the greatest name in British brewing is currently up for sale. Or rather, the rights to brew it in Britain are. Of course, I'm talking about 'Bass', the 'East India Pale Ale' whose legendary red triangle trade mark came to symbolise the highest quality sparkling pale beer. That brief description doesn't, in any way, do justice to Bass's fame. It's too long and, the last 50 years apart, too glorious a story to relate but be aware, it's a subject close to my heart. Today, in our totally skewed brewing landscape, the Bass brand is in the hands of the global behemoth "AB InBev". Mouthwatering name eh? It arrived there in the 1980s when 'AB In Bev' was just a twinkling C02 bubble in the brand manager's eye, that is, before the enormous Anheuser Busch corporation of America merged with plain old Interbrew of Belgium. Bass meanwhile (the company that owned the Bass ale brand), sold the family silver by jettisoning the Bass brand in choosing to get out of brewing to concentrate on 'leisure'.  AB InBev - if you haven't yet placed them - are the chaps whose quest for world domination continues apace through brands like Stella Artois and that utterly characterless American, faux lager beginning with 'B'. You know the one - brewed with adjuncts such as rice and served so cold, there's practically zero flavour to interfere with the drinker's concentration on making that all-important style statement in showing off the bottle's label.

AB InBev freely admit they have no interest in the cask ale (that's to say, traditionally brewed English type ale) but, under their stewardship, the great name of Bass, in common with another notable name now 'for sale', Boddingtons, has been allowed over 20 years to sink from being adrift in the choppy waters of lager and alcopops marketing, to almost forgotten obscurity. Of course, it's had no advertising support as the parent group have been too busy helping drive down the flavour expectations of a new generation of British drinker to rock bottom. Dumbing down doesn't even begin to describe it. But if Bass has been reduced from the best selling cask ale in Brtain in 1980 to the beer that Britain forgot, with some irony, I can report that the brand is seen as a stylish, popular choice in the US. Here, sales of a bottled export version of Bass are still very healthy. What really stinks is this. For £15million, you can get your hands on the rights to brew and sell Bass in Britain. But you don't get the rights to the beer in America, nor, do you get to own the brand itself which includes the world famous Red Triangle trade mark. 

In other words, AB InBev, an American-Belgian giant is happy to run Bass into obscurity and at the same time, hold onto the revenue streams that their marketing policies have somehow failed to crush. I pray a new owner comes along who understands the history and potential future of Bass but worry that on these terms, there's no incentive for anyone to re-invigorate this once great name.

Happy St George's Day

Is it me or is there more of a collective urge for the English to celebrate St George's Day lately?

I decided to raise the standard by hand raising a batch of my pork pies. Hope you like the pictures and agree with the sentiment.