CAMRA Supreme Champion (Coniston Bluebird Bitter)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Coniston Bluebird Bitter
Date:	05/04/01 (68 review reads)
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Advantages: Supreme Champion Beer of Britain

Disadvantages: Only widely available in bottled form.

Coniston Bluebird Bitter is a remarkable success story. The Coniston Brewery is the micro brewery of the Black Bull Inn at Coniston in Cumbria in the heart of the Lake District. It was here that brewers Ian Bradley and Rob Irwin created this superb beer, which first got to be known to an increasing fan club of locals and visitors.

It's fame spread by word of mouth and eventually came to the attention of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale. In 1998 it was entered at the annual CAMRA Great British Beer Festival and walked away with the Supreme Champion Beer of Britain award.

The resultant nation-wide demand, generated by the inevitable fame of success, far outgrew the capabilities of the little brewery. They needed the capacity of a far larger brewer, but who to choose who would be able to preserve the unique characteristics of the beer?

Over the years many nationally available beers have, through mergers and the take-overs of the original brewers, gone on to be produced in one brewery after another. With the best will in the world, no matter how hard they try, the original flavour always suffers. It is very difficult to produce an identical beer at a different brewery where the water at the very least will be different even if the same hop and malt varieties and the yeast are the same. Ask anyone if today's Bass is the same as they remember from years ago.

Eventually an agreement was reached with Brakspears of Henley-on-Thames, no mean brewer in their own right, to produce the beer on behalf of Coniston in the quantities the thirst consumers were demanding. And a very good job they have made of it.

Bluebird is glorious golden bitter of an average strength at 4.2% abv. The taste is quite dry and slightly resinous and is intensified by a strong hop aroma from the large quantity of predominantly English Challenger hops. The malt barley used is the classic Maris Otter, hence the superbly smooth slightly fruity
taste. Despite moves by many brewers to use alternative (cheaper) malted barley, Maris Otter remains the definitive beer barley.

Bluebird is still not widely available on draught. If you are going to find it you will do so in its bottled form. However, this is still a fine drink as it is bottled live. In other words, this is a Real Ale in a bottle, called "bottle conditioned". This means that the beer still has yeast in it in the bottle, which enables the beer to continue to develop its taste even after it has left the brewery.

However, be careful how you pour it. In carrying it back from the shop you will inevitably disturb the yeast and the beer will appear cloudy. This is quite OK. Let the bottle rest undisturbed for a day and the yeast will settle to the bottom.

Flip off the cap and carefully and slowly pour the beer into a glass. Try not to rock or shake the bottle as this will cause the yeast to mix with the beer and cause it to go cloudy again. You will need to leave a little of the beer in the bottle containing the yeast residue.

It's an art and most people need several pints to get it absolutely right <g>. Don't worry if you don't, the yeast won't do you any harm and some people actually prefer it that way.

It is currently on sale at Waitrose at a remarkable £1.29 a bottle (500ml). Get some before it all goes, but leave some for me.

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