Beer: A little local deity

There are few concepts quite as French as that of terroir. This idea – which, to put it as simply as humanly possible, suggests wine has a unique character dictated by the spot in which the grapes were grown – is both fanciful and beguiling, and thus deadly when it enters the head of the British drinker. Not too many of us can resist the notion that we’re imbibing a little of the South of France with every gulp. Terroir may be hard to swallow in the cold light of day, but it goes down really well after a long and uncomfortable trip home from work.

It’s not, however, something that has ever appeared to much bother brewers. In the world of beer the human being who makes the drink is what matters, and rarely has that been truer than now. British brewers import hops from across the world while the best British products – like Maris Otter barley or East Kent Goldings hops – are sent overseas for the use of discerning beer-makers everywhere. And so while you can’t necessarily taste Bermondsey when you drink The Kernel’s Citra IPA (a good thing, some will say), it doesn’t make it any less of a pleasure.

Nonetheless, there are some beers and some brewers who can lay claim to at least a little of that terroir magic. Take Gadds’, based in the heartland of the East Kent Golding, down in Ramsgate. It is here that Eddie Gadd – Blackpool by birth, Ramsgate by chance and subsequently choice – makes beers that, for the most part, are a tribute to the hops grown in that part of the world. His flagship product – Gadds’ No 3 – is a powerful advert for the quality of EKGs. Not a surprise, given how much he loves them.

“It’s my favourite hop,” he says. “It should be everybody’s favourite hop. It’s just got class – the balance particularly. Goldings are grown in Herefordshire as well, but the very best balance is found only in the Goldings grown in East Kent. Growers from outside of East Kent chunter on about there being no difference but there is a difference and there always has been.”

It’s not a view that’s necessarily popular outside of East Kent, and not only with the aforementioned Herefordshire growers. Many of Britain’s fastest-growing brewers have built their success on the powerful flavours of hops grown in America’s Pacific Northwest and New Zealand; Gadd (pictured left: image from www.beerreviews.co.uk) himself uses them, sometimes. The East Kent Golding, though, remains his first choice. “When you smell them, you know there is a class about them,” he says. “They’re not particularly pungent, mores the pity – they’re pretty bloody shy. It’s very difficult to find really good ones and it’s even harder to get the flavour out of them. But if you can do it, it’s great.”

Gadd’s local focus extends beyond hops. Most of his beer does not venture further than 20 miles from the brewery, a reflection of his belief that ale does not travel well. It’s a conviction that is being challenged as he aims to maintain some impressive recent growth. “As a brewer, I don’t think wide distribution is good for beer,” he says. “It’s difficult to manage – it has to be done properly if it’s still going to be good at the other end of the chain. For example, I’m going to Southwold [in Suffolk, home of the Adnam’s Brewery] tomorrow. I can absolutely bet I’ll have a couple of pints at lunchtime that will be so good they’ll make me cry. But I can have the same beer this evening here in Ramsgate and it won’t do much for me.”

Nonetheless, there appears a good chance that those outside of East Kent will be able to try his beers soon, since he’s been in discussions with pub companies that operate across the UK. This is good news, since Gadd, now 44, has learnt his trade well since getting his start – between engineering jobs – at a Firkin pub on London’s Holloway Road the best part of 20 years ago. He soon realised brewing represented his best chance of a happy future. “I knew that I had to be my own boss,” he says. “I was such an obnoxious employee, I was terribly arrogant. I saw this brewing equipment and I though ‘I can imagine being able to do that one day’. That’s why I pursued it. I found brewing a lot harder than engineering. I wasn’t born to be a brewer. It took me 10 years before I started making stuff I was proud off.”

His chance came when he made redundant from a job in the Netherlands and a friend suggested he join him in setting up a microbrewery in a derelict property on the seafront. That was 10 years ago, and he has no regrets. Well, maybe a few. “It was a stupid place to set up a business,” he says. “Nobody lives here; I’m surrounded on three sides by water!” And he’s a long way from Blackpool, meaning he only sees his beloved Seasiders when they’re in London or the Midlands. “I keep taking my son to see Blackpool and he says ‘dad, do we have to watch Blackpool? They never, ever win!’ He’s never seen them win; he’s barely seen them score a goal.”

A rather more successful project has been the revival of Dogbolter, a beer from those long-gone Firkin days and now a staple of the Gadds’ line-up. “I missed it, so I brewed it,” he says. “No-one from Firkin seemed to care and now I own the name.”  He also recently brewed a 14 per cent stout for the Italian market (“Crazy Italians,” he says) and later this summer his green hop ale – made from undried hops soon after the harvest – could well be part of a celebration of Kent hops at the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival.

“They’re talking about processions through the city, hop pocket races around the city,” he says enthusiastically. “All the brewers from Kent – all those I can persuade – will brew a green hop ale with our local hops and then descend on Canterbury and present it to the great people of Kent. Then everyone can has a glass of beer and a celebration.” And if Gadd can be convinced to send his beer beyond Faversham, the rest of the country can join in too.

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