It’s nearly Christmas, and what could be nicer than to celebrate with a pint of Brodies’ Hoppy Ho Ho Ho?

That’s just one of over a hundred beers available at the Pig’s Ear Beer Festival, which opens tomorrow at Ocean in Hackney.

It’s the twenty-fifth Pig’s Ear – organised by the East London and City branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), and devoted to showcasing the best of real ale.

Winter ales always make a strong showing here with a good selection of porters, stouts, and old ales – a rare but lovely English beer style. There’ll be a few spiced beers too; Hoppy Ho Ho Ho is flavoured with cinnamon and ginger, a real Christmas pudding in a glass.

By the way, if you like your Cockney Rhyming Slang, you might be interested to know that the apparently strange ‘Pig’s Ear’ name of the festival has a very simple explanation.

For a Cockney, Pig’s Ear = Beer.

When: 2-6 December: Tues–Thur: 1200–2230. Fri:–Sat: 1200 – 2300

Where: OCEAN, 270 Mare Street, Hackney (Hackney Downs or Hackney Central rail)

Picture credit: Gordon Joly on flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

First of all; ale, beer, lager. What’s the difference?

Ale and beer – they’re the same for most purposes. Back in the old days, beer had hops in it, and ale didn’t, but nowadays they’re pretty much the same thing. And they come in pints and half pints – no litres, centilitres or millilitres for us.

Lager is different. Technically, the fermentation happens a different way, with a different yeast. And ‘real’ lager should be ‘lagered’ – that is, matured for several months before being served up. I doubt that many of the big brands still do that, though.

As for ‘real’ ale, the difference here is that instead of being pasteurised, filtered, and then served in a keg with gas added to make it fizz, it’s left alive, put in a cask (‘barrel’ to the uninitiated) and sent out to the pub while the yeast is still doing its work fermenting the beer. The yeast should make the beer lively, but you won’t get the sort of fizz in it that comes with a keg beer.

You can usually tell real ale because it’s served from a hand pump that has to be pulled back to make the beer come out – from from one of the little taps. Sometimes, you may also see it served ‘on gravity’ – that is, from a cask which has just had a tap put in it to serve it up. That’s commoner outside London and in ‘beer pubs’ – pubs which put the needs of the drinker ahead of the desire to serve sandwiches, fish and chips, Thai food or tapas.

You can also get real ale in a bottle – that simply means, again, that the yeast has been left to do its work.

Of course serving real ale is not easy, precisely because it is a living thing. A cask of ale has a limited shelf life once it has been tapped – just a few days for the weaker beers. That means the pub has to have enough footfall to shift the beer. If not, it’s likely to go off – to taste stale and unappetising. A busy pub where you see lots of people drinking real ale will be the best place to taste it – if everyone else is drinking lager and keg beer, or shots, that might mean the real ale is past its best.

Now you’re ready to order a pint – or a half. Or even a third – which is something new! Wetherspoons introduced third-pint glasses recently for one of its pub beer festivals, giving drinkers a great way of trying out all the different beers without getting too inebriated. Some beer festivals, too, provide third pint glasses – ignore the comments about ‘for the ladies’, and drink thirds, and you’ll be able to taste many more beers for your money!

Post from: The London Traveler