Poor old yeast… It really is the unsung hero of brewing.Take for example Delirium Tremens, today’s beer. The brewery shouts from the rooftops about how three different yeast strains are used in its creation - but I’ll be damned if I can find a single thing about what those actual strains are!If it were three different types of malt, hops or even three famous monks pitching in - you can guarantee they would all be named... but yeast, nah, not a sausage.I guess yeast gets a pretty bum rap in general thinking about it. We tend to align it stuff...

In this day and age it’s very easy to get swept away in the wave of modern and rather creative branding, but Timothy Taylor was very much a real person. Born in Bingley, Yorkshire he set up a brewery many, many years ago back in 1826. The brewery is still family owned to this day and continues to make cask conditioned ales and traditional styles such as Landlord Pale Ale.The Landlord brew didn’t arrive on the scene until 1952 and although a youngster in terms of the brewery's lifetime, that makes it 70 years old this year! It’s traditional in...

It seems that the topsy turvy world of Pandemic life has affected everything and a new state of self reflection has forced people to change careers, leave roles and generally shake things up in their masses. Even the niche world of Trappist brewing seems to have been hit!Over the last two years we have seen two authentic Trappist breweries leave the International Trappist Association (ITA).We covered the closure of the Spencer brewery in these very pages, famously after I waxed lyrical about their possible future spanning 100s of years - lol. Spencer had only just appeared as the United State’s...

You wait for ages and then two come along at once! That’s right, following on from last week, it’s another cracking brew from the Belgian producer Vander Ghinste.If you missed the last one, let me catch you up. Omer Vander Ghinste made his first beer back in 1892 and now, five generations and 125 years later, the brewery is still going strong. In fact, the first beer was called Ouden Tripel and over the years it has evolved to become Roodbruin which is today’s beer.The Vander Ghinste website describes Roodbruin as an “authentic red-brown beer of south-west Flanders - Flanders...

It’s another slice of Belgian brewing history today courtesy of Vander Ghinste with a tale that spans 125 years and five generations.The story begins in 1892 in the town of Bellgem, which looks awfully like a misspelt attempt at Belgium but, I assure you, is a small town in West Flanders, near the city of Kortrijk.It is here that Remi Vander Ghinste buys a house (and accompanying buildings) for his son Omer, allowing Omer to dive head first into the world of brewing, which he does with his first beer called Ouden Tripel. We all need something to kick start...