{"id":832,"date":"2010-09-27T13:21:22","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T19:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tombedell.com\/?p=832"},"modified":"2010-09-29T21:05:40","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T03:05:40","slug":"tap-beer-of-the-week-39-1503-tudor-ale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/832\/tap-beer-of-the-week-39-1503-tudor-ale","title":{"rendered":"TAP Beer of the Week 39: 1503 Tudor Ale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Ryder Cup starts Friday at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales, and I\u2019ll have to go pretty much on the memory of playing the Twenty Ten Celtic Manor Course last month, since I\u2019ll be attending a wedding this weekend in Philadelphia. I don’t imagine I’ll see much of the competition, and while there may be some fine brews there to try, I\u2019m not expecting to find any Welsh ones.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m glad I hung on to the last bottle spirited home from Wales, from the Kingstone Brewery in Tintern, in the Wye Valley and not much more than a sheep toss across the River Wye from England.<\/p>\n

Besides toasting captains Corey Pavin and Colin Montgomerie and the boys–if one needs another excuse for a tipple–Tuesday is National Drink a Beer Day in the U.S. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll treat this day any differently than the other 364, although I did forget to take note of International Beer Day on August 5, so maybe I\u2019ll make it a twofer Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The golfers will be further south, not inspired by the magnificent wreckage of Tintern Abbey near the brewery, so I don\u2019t imagine too many of them will be quoting William Wordsworth:
\nHow oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
\nO sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,
\nHow often has my spirit turned to thee!<\/em>
\nBonus points for those who know the full title of Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cTintern Abbey\u201d is \u201c\u201cLines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

J.M.W. Turner, "The Chancel and Crossing of Tintern Abbey, Looking towards the East Window," 1794<\/p><\/div>\n

The long-abandoned abbey also inspired Tennyson, and the painter J.M.W. Turner, whose The Chancel and Crossing of Tintern Abbey, Looking towards the East Window<\/em> was composed four years before WW\u2019s ramble through the countryside.<\/p>\n

Edward Biggs also takes his inspiration from the natural world, particularly the way yeast takes on sugars in the brewing process: \u201cI\u2019ve always loved ales, and drank them.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we had so many ales in the shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Meadow Farm Shop, which Biggs and his wife, Tori, took on eight years ago, and which sells its own breads, preserves and other baked goods as well as local produce and now the Kingstone beers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA friend was running the brewery and basically said he\u2019d had enough of it, so I took it on,\u201d said Biggs.\u00a0 \u201cNow we sell only our own beers, all brewed on a four-barrel system.\u00a0 They’re all bottle-conditioned or cask-conditioned, and I do about three to five brews a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biggs is a lucky man–he loves his work: \u201cI love the entire process, from grinding the grain, going through the brewing process, bottling, and meeting the customers, which to me is just great.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Edward Biggs pours some of his Kingstone beers with help from daughter Alisia<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cNot that I always understand them.\u00a0 One said to me one time, about the 1503 Tudor Ale, \u2018Oh, I couldn\u2019t drink much of that.\u2019 I said, \u2018What\u2019s wrong with you?\u2019 I think it\u2019s definitely one of our moreish beers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The name comes from his appreciation that 1503 was the year that Nostradamus was born, Leonardo da Vinci began work on the Mona Lisa, and Richard Arnold, in a work called Customs of London<\/em>, made one of the first references concerning the use of hops in flavoring beer, in a recipe that included oats and wheat in addition to malted barley.<\/p>\n

Biggs went from there to produce his Tudor Ale recipe, which he calls an old ale more from antique tradition than alcoholic strength. It includes chocolate malt and some smoked malt along with the barley, wheat, oats and hops.<\/p>\n

I appreciated the full lineup of eight different beers that Biggs poured for me the day I visited, but the 1503 Tudor was my favorite, and it still tastes like it\u2019s right from the brewery. There\u2019s a bit of green apple in nose, but toasty and chocolately aromas, too, all of which carry through to the flavor. It\u2019s a textbook example of how to make a mid-level strength beer with plenty of flavor.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

The European Ryder Cuppers might like this one, but I have my doubts about the American lads, who are more likely to be swilling lite beers, assuming their religiosity permits drinking.<\/p>\n

Richard Arnold would surely have approved.\u00a0 Wordsworth and Turner would probably simply be irked that the brewery wasn\u2019t around 216 years old.<\/p>\n

Name: 1503 Tudor Ale
\nBrewer: Kingstone Brewery, Tintern, Wales
\nStyle: Old ale
\nABV: 4.8%
\nAvailability: Southern Wales, London, Surrey, Bath, Bristol
\nFor More Information: kingstonebrewery.co.uk<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tintern Abbey<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ryder Cup starts Friday at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales, and I\u2019ll have to go pretty much… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,939,627,18,17],"tags":[3498,677,267,268,877,3490,3491,3492,3493,3058,15],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-beer-on-tap","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","tag-united-kingdom","tag-ryder-cup","tag-england","tag-wales","tag-celtic-manor","tag-twenty-ten","tag-kingstone","tag-old-ale","tag-wordsworth","tag-tintern-abbey","tag-europe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2010\/09\/Kings-1503-tudor-ale.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}