The week in pictures

On Tuesday, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) welcomed thousands of brewers, pub landlords, bosses and boozers to the opening trade session of The Great British Beer Festival.

Things were a little different at the Davos of the UK brewery industry this year. For starters, CAMRA banned breweries from serving sexist and discriminatory beer labels throughout the event.

And this year the show, which showcases more than 1000 beers from 250 breweries, tripled its wine and gin offering, having only opened the event up to distilleries and wineries last year.

Five breweries including Tiny Rebel, Adnams, Wild Beer Co, Titanic and Harvey’s brought their own gins to GBBF, which are all distilled at their brewing facilities.

Last weekend TV presenter and one of Ireland’s top celebrity exports, Graham Norton, headed home for the Ahakista August Festival, a smorgasbord of music, entertainment and general merriment to raise money for a community building.

Norton had a chance to plug his award-winning gin at the event, and found time for a G&T himself.

In English fizz, Nyetimber has announced a new partnership with luxury country house hotel and Michelin-starred restaurant Lympstone Manor, which will now serve “the most extensive” range of the brand’s wines.

Celebrating the launch, chef patron Michael Caines has come up with a special one-off menu paired with Nyetimber’s range for restaurant and hotel guests on 20 August.

Lympstone Manor planted 17,500 vines of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay in 2018, and hopes to have its first harvest next year. A spokesperson said it will take a further two years for the wines to “develop and mature before release.”

NACM Orchard Day at Thatchers Cider
2019
Left to right: Richard Johnson, Chris Muntz-Torres, Liz Copas, Gordon Johncox.

In more homegrown drinks news, some 250 people from across the cider industry came out in force for the National Association of Cidermakers (NACM) Orchard and Machinery Day to talk all things agriculture this week.

Thatcher’s Cider hosted the annual event at its Shiplate orchards, offering industry insiders a tour of the grounds before a gripping discussion on the positive impact that soil analysis and nutrition can have on yield and fruit quality.

Agronomist Matt Greep also highlighted the effects of climate change on the lifecycle of apple trees in different regions, and where growth has been compromised most.

On the other side of the world, Diego Arrebola and Gabriele Frizon, both well-known sommeliers from Brazil, paid a visit to Chilean winery Aresti to tour the vineyards on the east-west transect in the Curicó valley, which the estate uses for its Trisquel Series wines are sourced, before an idyllic lunch on the Curicó seaside.

Back on the gin, London Cocktail Week has teamed up with Notting Hill distillery Portobello Road to launch a limited edition gin marking the festival’s 10th birthday this year.

Just 1,000 bottles of The London Cocktail Week Gin will be available at thewhiskyexchange.com and The London Cocktail Week Hub throughout the festival, with an RRP of £40.

Dangerous Liaisons actor John Malkovich’s wine range, made from grapes grown at his home in Provence, has been taken on in the UK by fine wine merchant Jeroboams.

The star makes five wines under the Les Quelles de la Coste label – LQLC for short; a Cabernet rosé, a Pinot Noir and an audacious blend of Cabernet and Pinot called Les 14 Quelles, of which just 600 bottles are made a year.

We have a full interview with Malkovich appearing in the September issue of the drinks business.

A group of scientists from the University of Plymouth have produced a spirit from crops grown in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone

Why? Professor Smith, who lead the study, said it was part of a three-year research project into the radioactivity of the area’s ecosystem, and hopes the new vodka will provide economic support to local communities.

The team are setting up a social enterprise “The Chernobyl Spirit Company” to begin to produce and sell “ATOMIK”, a high quality home-made vodka or “moonshine”.

And in more hazardous gin news, Peter Hook, the co-founder of Joy Division and New Order, has partnered with Manchester Gin on a small batch spirit celebrating one of the city’s most infamous music venues, The Haçienda.

The FAC1 Haçienda, bottled at 42% ABV, uses botanicals such as lemon and lime peel, which Hook said is a nod to the acid house movement, as well as locally-foraged dandelion and burdock root.

The labels have been assigned their own ‘HAÇ’ numbers used in place of batch numbers (any later designs will have new HAÇ numbers). HAÇ13 uses yellow and black hazard stripes – a key part of Haçienda’s design – as its label backdrop, and HAÇ15 uses its “Use Hearing Protection” poster image.

In low and no-news, Diageo announced it had bought a “significant” majority stake in non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ brand Seedlip on Wednesday morning.

Diageo recently filed its annual report, in which the drinks giant also revealed CEO Ivan Menezes was paid £12 million this year, close to a 30% increase on his annual salary, and the second year in a row he’s been treated to such a bonus.