What can I say? I’m gobsmacked and chuffed to little meatballs that I was asked back on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV1 last week. This time around the show was celebrating the 200th week that Charles Dickens was born. Much of his work drew on his experiences of living in London in 19th Century (1800s to those of you who bunked off History at school!) and featured pubs & coaching inns. So, of course, beer was a part of that too!

If you didn’t know already London was the brewing capital of the world too – there were around ten or breweries making an absolute sweating FORTUNE brewing beer, selling it through tied-houses and exporting it to places like Russia and India too. As a nation we were revered for our brewing heritage and other countries copied us. Including Ireland who copied the popular beer style of the time – Porter (which developed through the years into  a roasted, smoky flavoured black beer). They made their own version of which Guinness was the most popular. So yes folks GUINNESS isn’t strictly Irish

Check out the clip in full!

So let me get off my high horse and tell you about the drinks that I – and the fabulous Shaun from the research team – sourced for the piece:

1. Hayman’s Old Tom Gin  – 40% ABV – a distiller with a heritage dating back to Victorian times and based on a family recipe

2. Pitfield London Porter  – 5% ABV (I said 1997 but I meant 1987 being the year in which the brewery revived the Porter and got the whole microbrewers of Britain talking about the style and trying it again. ( I think I might have go the ABV wrong on this one but it went down well!)

3. Fuller’s Past Masters Double Stout  – 7.4% ABV – it’s about to hit Sainsburys (RRP £2.74) The second in their series of examining and recreating recipes from their archives. A terrific beer

4. Rudgate Ruby Mild  – 4.4% ABV – delicious beer which fast became the fashion as Brits fell out of love with dark beer and the lighter the beer the better the beer became de rigeur. Plus German beer influences were being talked about. Joseph Groll creating the Pilsner style of beer by largering etc

One beer we didn’t get time to taste – but I did my best to mention right at the very end as we ran out of time – was India Pale Ale. I had bottles of Thornbridge Jaipur waiting in the wings but we simply didn’t have time to get to it in the allocated slot.  If you haven’t tried it already, you MUST. It’s probably the most successful beer in Britain right now. It’s won over 100 awards! I know the brewery well – they’re all lovely guys and gals there in Bakewell, Derbyshire and they make awesome beers. With wonderful grapefruit on the nose, Jaipur harks back to the era of IPA’s which were brewedin London and shipped out to the gentry and aristos in Bombay and Calcutta in the 19th Century. Jaipur is an incredible balance of bitterness and sweetness. Luxury in a glass for sure!

TIME FOR MORE BEER BALANCE ON THE TELLY?

What was sooooooooo exciting about The AT Show is that a production company and a TV channel was actually giving beer a chance again to be discussed on mainstream television, without the waggy finger of ‘OH THIS IS BAD FOR YOU’ or ‘OH LOOK AT HOW DRUNK THESE PEOPLE ARE’. With the exception of shows like Oz & James/Oz & Hugh drinks series (BBC2) and Market Kitchen (Good Food Channel) etc. all that ever seems to be on TV about booze is how dangerous people have become or the dangerous situations that people have gotten themselves INTO as a result of drink.

I’m not denying these things happen. I know only too well what happens at the coalface when it comes to what the emergency services have to deal with on a daily basis. In my days as a regional TV News reporter, I rode in the back of a riot van with the cops as they headed out to see how they deal with drunken revellers on a Friday and Saturday night in Birmingham city centre. I’ve interviewed many an ambulance worker on the same subject and seen the carnage when the pubs and clubs turn out. But what I’m saying is there needs to be some balance about HOW we talk about alcohol in the mainstream media, because – in addition to the people who for whatever reason have a ‘bad’ relationship with booze – there are also HUGE SWATHES of people who have a perfectly healthy relationship with alcohol.

We explore new flavours of drinks; we love hearing about & can yakker endlessly with our mates about who’s making which beer, how and WHY; we appreciate and celebrate the rich & illustrious heritage that there is in Britain surrounding much of the alcohol we drink and yet there’s NOTHING reflecting that in mainstream TV programming. Can you hear the theme from The Dambusters movie building up in the background as I type this??? Because I, for one, was really excited about the opportunity to have a few minutes to discuss some terrific drinks on one of the top rated shows on ITV1 , without it all being viewed as irresponsible and driving people to becoming alcoholic!!! I hope you’re excited too! Cos I feel Spun Gold TV – who makes the show for ITV1 – needs a MASSIVE ROUND OF APPLAUSE!! Can I get an AMEN????

Look out in the coming weeks cos I might pop up elsewhere on the telly talking beer.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you :-0