Tony Thorogood was born in Woolwich, but emigrated with his family as Ten Pound Poms, washing up in South Australia. Tony’s hybrid education was a mixture of school and self-teaching resulting in a law scholarship at the University of Adelaide, which soon turned into studying “revolutions, politics and the new wave of music and theatre”.

The late seventies and early eighties saw Tony write a number of plays and undertake many lines of employment (all night waiter, painter, junk mail distributor, gardener, labourer) before embarking on an epic world tour that took him through North Africa, the middle east, India, Bangkok… and the heady sights of Stockport. Not to mention coming close to death’s door more times than he’s had good cider!

But it was in North Yorkshire Tony met Susan and they now live together down under running the successful Thorogood’s Apple Wine business and writing books together.

The Beers

Hi Tony! Which 5 beers (or ciders!) would you want to have with you if you were stranded on a desert island, and why?

1. Thorogoods Medium Dry Sparkling Scrumpy (Australia – 11.0%)
   “I love my own apple beers and ciders and if I was to have an extended stay on a lovely sandy island of course I would take my own Medium Dry Sparkling Scrumpy, It is a fruity with a complex flavor and goes so well with food, someone described it as Angels Poo, they meant it was brilliant.”
2. Theakston Old Peculiar (North Yorkshire, UK -5.6 %)
   “Theakston’s Old Peculier is one of my all-time favorite beers, at one time I was a head Barman at the Nelson Inn in Yorkshire and when all the punters had finished their lunch I would have a pint of Old Peculier and a bap filled with onion and real Wensleydale cheese. Heaven!”
3. Hecks Kingston Black (Somerset, UK – 8.0%)
   “I went around the world in 2008 trying ciders from all the classic cider regions of the world and in Somerset I became the happy owner of a bottle of Hecks’ Kingston Black which proved to be a mouthful of flavours including the rich tannins one expects from Kingston Black apples – a very interesting cider indeed.”
4. Jehan Lefèvre dry sparkling ciders (France, ABV unknown)
   “One hears so much about French cider but I was unimpressed until I got to the farm of Jehan Lefèvre in Saint-Cast-le-Guildo in Brittany. There I tried a bottle of Jehan’s dry sparkling cider and it was the first and only bottle of real dry champagne style cider I found in France. It was very tannic but I thought that if I could get a dozen bottles and cellar them for ten years that I would have an awesome cider.”
5. West County Roxbury Russet (USA – 7.8%)
   “American cider is forgotten but the USA has a great tradition of cider and it is now being revived. I went to the Franklin County Cider Days in New England and learnt many things about American cider and I tried a sweet West County Cider called Roxbury Russet. Usually I don’t like sweet cider but this one was good. It was tart, sweet, aromatic, with a rich full flavor and a tannic base, it had very few bubbles but a good cider does not need bubbles.”

And which beer (of those selected) do you regard most highly?

“Of course I love my own stuff, that is why I make it; but if I reach for a beer it needs to have real flavour that is why I like Old Peculiar.”

Tony Thorogood A World of Cider

The Meal

You can also take one meal to go with your beers, what would it be and why?

“We created our own recipe book which is to be published very soon – Susan’s Country Kitchen – and it is packed with great food but I love simple food and for a good cider you can’t go past a really good cheddar, a French double or triple cream or in Australia Pyangana from Tasmania and one of my all-time favorite cheeses real Wensleydale from Hawes in Yorkshire. Plus a lump of fresh country bread…”

The Books

You might be waiting a long time on your lonesome on the desert island, so we will automatically allow you a few books to keep your mind busy. You can pick between two beer books and two tomes: ‘The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food’ by Garrett Oliver, or ‘Beer’ by Michael Jackson; plus The Bible, or another appropriate religious or philosophical work

”Either of the beer books sound interesting, but my choice of a religious work would be the complete Jeeves and Bertie Wooster novels by PG Wodehouse.”

And a non-beery, non-philosophical book, something a little less taxing on the brain, what would that be?

“I love great children’s literature and my all-time favorite kids book Wind in the Willows so I’d take that.”

The record

You have a CD/mp3/long player but you can only take one album. Choose wisely!

“If I took one single record I would probably take something sensible and boring. I love Bono and I also love Wonderwall by Oasis so I’d make a compilation album with both of those guys on it for starters.”

The Luxury Item

And finally, what luxury item would help make your stay on the island bearable?

“This is a hard one for me as I’m not into too many luxuries – I’d really like a flushing toilet, a hot shower and clean bath towels.”

Thanks Tony! For more information on Tony’s apple wines visit http://www.thorogoods.com.au/

This article syndicated with All Gates Brewery blog as part of our ‘Desert Island Beers’ collaboration.

Just what beer do you take to a summer music festival?

With Glastonbury only a few days away there’s a big supermarket trip around the corner to stock up on all the liquid lunches we’ll be needing over the 5 days we spend wallowing in mud, Carlsberg cans and the reverberation of  thumping speakers.

But what is the perfect festival beer?

What's the perfect festival beer?

At Glastonbury you can take what you want. Unlike other festivals, once you’re in, you’re in, and you may freely waltz around with your chosen tipple without fear of eviction. Last year one chap had 3 cans of Stella strapped to each limb with duck tape. He was never without a beer.

The perfect drink has to be light. Multiple car trips are not good so you need to be able to pack it in a rucksack, pop it under your arm or balance it on your head for the long walk from car park to chosen pitching ground.

The perfect drink has to be refreshing. If the sun comes out it needs to revive; if the mud rises up it needs to make you feel fighting fit to grapple through the bodies and lost wellies.

This enigmatic tipple mustn’t be too strong. No-one wants to miss the single unmissable act of the day, not drink too much and earn themselves an early retirement to the tent. You want to be up from 11am until 4am, with perhaps a mid afternoon nap in a quiet folk tent near the tippees.

You need to be able to drink all day and never feel under the weather.

And this magic beer (or other alternative beverage) must be passable, nay even enjoyable when warm.  In a perfect world it will chill quickly too and never warm up, if nature or some fancy technology (aka cool box) gives you the opportunity.

We could try lager. Widely available in lightweight cans of various strengths. It’s refreshing when hot which ticks an important box, but crucially though, it’s a bit rubbish when not ice cold.

So in case of warm conditions perhaps we should take some ale. Bottled conditioned is an absolute no-no, and even simply bottles are a bad idea. Stone’s Bitter or Tanglefoot anyone? A choice between garish orange or red, unless you want to risk Smoothflow, of course.

Then there’s the alternative solution, cider. Before you conjure images of vagrants and teenagers on a park bench, just remember the criteria.

Lightweight.

Not too strong.

Easy to carry.

Drinkable warm.

Suddenly Strongbow seems more appealing than ever…

The usually quiet fields of Pilton in Somerset are normally full of cows and green, green grass. But for a few days they'll be home to us and 140,000 other revellers (as the meeja like to call festival folk).

Saltaire Beer Festival

This year Fletch and I made our second trip up the Northern line to taste beers and soak in continental drinking at the Saltaire Beer Festival. We discovered this gem of a brewery last year, whilst wandering around the Saltaire Arts Trail on a hot and sunny Saturday, and ever since we’ve been waiting to go back!

Saltaire Brewery

Saltaire Brewery is based on the Leeds/Bradford canal, a little nearer to Shipley than the world heritage site at Saltaire. It’s a modern affair from a contemporary and friendly brewery, with visitors on the beer festival weekend sitting inside the brewery building, with two bars crammed in the space that isn’t dedicated to fermentation tanks and brewing equipment.

70p is all it costs to get the train from Leeds to Saltaire Brewery

The first piece of news about Saltaire beer festival is how cheap it is to get to Shipley (the nearest train station to the brewery) from Leeds. An off peak return from Leeds costs only £1.40 – to put that in context a single from Horsforth (on the edge of Leeds) to the city centre of Leeds costs me £2.50 on the bus…how cheap is £1.40 to go double the distance?! Beer club is now firmly on the table as an option for starting a Friday night in the near future…watch this space!

Once we were on the 70p train Fletch and I turned the conversation towards our last visit to Saltaire Brewery. It had been for the beer festival last year although we had arrived mid afternoon on the Saturday and most of the guests had already sold out, but not this year we congratulated each other, thanks to Andy we had managed to get tickets to the sold out Friday night when everything was sure to still be on. We were heading towards a temporary Mecca of real ales and we had a strategy in place…

Brewers Gold at Saltaire Festival

The plan was to split up the beer list between us; in general Fletch would focus on the darker offerings and me the paler ones. There were 26 beers (listed below) on the list meaning that we could each have 13 halves and have sampled every beer available. Well we tried!!

Some of them we both wanted to try and some of them were worth revisiting for a full pint, needless to say that the strategy did not come to fruition although, in fairness, I think that there were probably only about six or seven beers that one or the other of us did not try. Under the circumstances it would be frankly impossible to try and offer tasting notes on every beer that we tasted, therefore the whole menu is listed below (sorted by brewery). Our five top beers of the festival are marked with an asterisk (for the sake of fairness I have also marked those that we did not try with a minus).

Acorn Brewery, Barnsley

Harvester
Mittlefruh IPA

Castle Rock, Nottingham

Reed (-)
Black Gold*

Crouch Vale, Essex

A lot of beer goes through a lot of pipes to keep the pumps flowing at Saltaire Beer Festival - thanks to Tony for taking us on an impromptu tour!

Hurricane
Brewers Gold*

Elland Brewery, Halifax

Catch the Rainbow
Night Porter

Great Heck, North Yorkshire

Union Gap
White Rabbit

Ilkley, Yorkshire

Ollcana Gold (-)
Ollcana Original (-)

Jarrow, Tyne and Wear

Slake (-)
Rivet Catcher

Old Spot, Cullingworth

Chilli and Chocolate
It’s Beer

Ossett Brewery

Cherry Porter
Summer’s End

Saltaire Brewery, Shipley

Raspberry Blonde (-)
Saltaire Blonde
Rye Smile (-)
Triple Chocoholic
Hazelnut Coffee Porter*
Cascade Pale Ale*

Wylam, Northumberland

Dognobbler
Northern Kite*

Westons Cider, Herefordshire

1st Quality Draught (-)
Traditional Scrumpy (-)
Old Rosie (-)

Although I have not named them, there were a couple of beers that I did not find exactly overwhelming. In the main however the beers selected for the event were wide ranging, in both style and origin, and sparked debate and discussion amongst the many beer fans at Saltaire. It was a quality evening and a great opportunity to meet many likeminded people with a passion for beer, a great opportunity for swapping recommendations and stories, finding inspiration and generally getting a little bit layer caked with a great bunch of people.

I’m already looking forward to next year and am hoping to dampen the wait with a few visits with some of the locals to Friday night drinks club in the meantime.

Fletch is going to be turning in the grave that is the house we used to share for two years but I have formally bastardised IPA Monday in order to have a cider night. Basically the reason for this is that I have a pack of chops in the fridge left over from Saturday’s BBQ and I’ve decided to make that the theme of the night.

First things first, this is the recipe that I am cooking, passed to me by my mate Jack but changed a little but by me  (I have used Leeks in favour of Onions)…

3 x Leeks

6 x Pork Chops

1 1/2 x Jars of Apple Sauce

1 x Bottle Medium Sweet Cider

Knob of Butter

Salt and Pepper to Flavour

Method – Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed stew pot in order to sweat off the leeks (which should be roughly chopped). Once the leeks are soft, brown off the chops before adding the cider and apple sauce to thicken, simmer for 10-15 mins on the hob and then bang in the oven for 45mins at 180-200 degrees.

Moving on to more important things, I had headed to Beer Ritz to grab a few bottles of cider on the way home from work. My housemate Jim is a big fan of Aspall’s and, although Cider is my weakest area (in University Challenge terms) I am aware off Aspall’s to be a good brand and expected to see it on the shelves of Beer Ritz. It was not, but they were stocking Weston’s and Sheppy’s. I selected Sheppy’s as my brewery of choice for the evening as Fletch is something of a Weston’s fan and has reviewed before I believe. The advice of Beer Ritz’s always helpful management was at hand to ensure that I had the right options for cooking. We selcted three Sheppy’s ciders, Kingston Black to go in the food, a couple of bottles of the same to go with andbottles of Cider with Honey and Falstaff Cider for some experimental tasting with the housemates.

Cider with Honey, 5.4%

This cider was exactly what the label suggested. The honey came through as the first taste with the subtle taste of the cider coming through after. The honey carried this golden cider off an absolute treat, it was readily drinkable and, even at the bottom of the bottle, not at all sickly in it’s sweetness.

Not being a regular cider drinker I’m not  sure how this would be received by the hard core scrumpy faithful but I am sure that other dabblers such as myself could do a hell of a lot worse.

Kingston Black, 7.2%

This cider was far stronger on the tongue than the honey one I’d just put down. It was livelier than the honey cider and drier but was still palatable.

Coming straight after the honey cider there was a danger that this would be too dry but it actually reined in the sweetness to just the right amount and provided the more robust body necessary to accompany the food, without allowing my flavoursome efforts to be overridden. The Kingston Black apple is dubbed as being prized for it’s full bodied aromas and this blend is certainly testament to that fact.

I would note that, at 7,2%, while the flavour and body of this cider suggest that you probably could drink this all night, the likelihood is that you wont!

Falstaff, 5.6%

Returning to the a more reserved abv of 5.6% this cider was also sweeteer than the Kingston black, but crisper and clearer than the honey cider. The Falstaff cider perfectly fills the gap between the Honey Cider and the Kingston Black and completes the set of sweeter ciders for tonight’s reviews.

I had not been forward thinking enough to arrange a dessert to follow the main course but this slotted into the gap really well. I would like to give a more comprehensive analysis but, as it’s the third cider of the night, I have run out of adjectives! I apologise and all I can really say is that if I had to select one of these to drink all night, it would be this one.

Conclusion

Aided by my housemates, Jim and Kat, we have rated the three ciders as follows…

1. Cider with Honey

2. Falstaff

3. Kingston Black

Although I have to say that this was on initial tasting only and that my favourite of the night was probably Falstaff. The important lesson here though is that, while I walked into Beer Ritz looking for Aspall’s, I was directed towards a cracking brewery producing a range of ciders suitable for every palate. It’s not an area I know well and the evening has taught me not to be blinkered and to experiment with what’s about. Who knows, next Monday could be cider night with Weston’s and could be just as much fun…