A Beer in the Loire

by Tommy Barnes

  Several days later I took the van over to my friend Dale’s to see about getting it fixed up. He lives in Saint-Gervaisles-Trois-Clochers about twenty minutes away, so forty minutes away in the van, and he paints cars for a living. Dale eyed the van up.

  ‘OK, we’ve got two options. Either we can give it a quick coat of paint in your garden using rollers and just cover all the rusty bits, or I can restore it properly in my studio. What will it be?’ asked Dale.

  ‘Properly restored, of course. The J9 is a classic. A piece of French history. When you take ownership of a van such as this you owe it to the nation of France to restore it. You are obligated to do everything in your power to make it great again, as if you’d found a masterpiece faded and torn at the back of your barn. It’s a work of art. You’d restore a work of art, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘OK. Well a complete restoration, including knocking out all the dents, fixing the rusted parts and professional painting, and you’re looking at three thousand euros.’ Dale looked at me for a moment. ‘You just want us to roller over the rust, don’t you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  BEER NO. 9:

  Clifton Porter

  RECIPE

  4.2 kg Pale malt

  1 kg rolled barley

  500 g Chocolate malt

  200 g Roasted barley

  25 g Nugget hops at 60 minutes

  50 g Mandarina Bavaria dry hops in fermenter

  MISTAKES

  Not adding Crystal malt

  Failing to defend myself against the Gallic shrug

  The town of Saumur, which stretches along the banks of the Loire about half an hour west of Chinon, is like Chinon’s older brother – they look quite similar, but whereas Chinon is still innocent, Saumur has a stash of pornos under its bed. I should say these are outrageous slurs I’m about to make about Saumur and I have absolutely no proof of any of them. But it’s what I think.

  Like Chinon, Saumur is a picturesque medieval town built in tuffeau sandstone. It is famous for its military riding school. It’s bigger and grander than Chinon. Like Chinon, it has a fortress/château looming above it. Unlike Chinon, it has an opera house, which for my money makes it a den of sin. Any town with an opera house is smutty. No one goes to the opera to listen to opera. This is my thinking. They go to opera to visit brothels afterwards. That can be the only reason you’d sit through four hours of constricted howls in Italian. That must be what opera is all about. That’s why people still do it. Opera is a front for smut and the pages of porn magazines washed up under hedges.

  I recommend visiting Saumur. Not for the brothels that I imagine exist, although when one enters a smutty town there is a base thrill that is undeniable, but because it has winemakers and restaurants and the École Nationale d’Équitation – the famous military riding school that puts on performances of horses doing what they are told every week. We went to see a particular performance of horses doing what they were told once for Rose’s birthday, and although it was remarkably dull, they did play opera music, so it was obviously a front for smuttiness. Most of the show was incredibly stuffy in a way only the military can really pull off, but they had one act – an act called ‘family rock’ – that was memorable. It was clearly the manifestation of what some elderly general thought would appeal to young people. The act consisted of a man, two women and two children, all in Lycra outfits designed, I’m fairly sure, by one of the local brothel madams, performing acrobatic tricks on horses to the sound of bad music. I presume the name was ironic, as they were the least ‘rock’ family I have witnessed. They performed the cheesiest routine ever devised. What I found most interesting, though, was that there were two women and only one man. It must be assumed, because they were French, that one of the women was playing the role of mistress and this added a real frisson to the display.

  The wine towns in the region – Chinon, Saumur, Bourgueil – have the money, but there are other nice towns around us. Châtellerault, where they used to have a hand-grenade factory, and Loudun, a medieval town that still has some of its ramparts. These other towns are often referred to by locals as ‘run down’; they’re towns you wouldn’t have heard of unless you lived in the area, but compared to their equivalents in England, such as Stevenage or Basingstoke, they are splendid. These are historic towns: they have towers and castles and medieval bridges and an old hand-grenade factory.

  Richelieu, for me, is the most interesting of all the towns in the region. It’s unique: a walled, moated, seventeenth-century ‘new town’ founded by Cardinal Richelieu and designed by the architect who built parts of the Sorbonne and the Louvre, Jacques Lemercier. I’ve never heard of the guy. It’s built on a grid with two great squares, one at each end of the town. One square is said to represent the monarchy and the other the Church. They are connected by the Grande Rue, which is lined on both sides by the most elegant four-storey townhouses, with great courtyards hidden within each of them. There is a cathedral-like twin-spired church and turreted gates on all sides of the town, all dating from the seventeenth century and still to this day almost completely intact. It has a magnificent park on the southern end. A park so magnificent that the gardens of Versailles were based on it. It should be famous throughout the world. It was called ‘the most beautiful village in the universe’ by the French poet Jean de La Fontaine. I’ve never heard of the guy.

  But there is a reason for its lack of fame. There is a tragedy in Richelieu that dates back to the nineteenth century, and you can still feel it in the squares and the symmetrical roads. You can see it on the faces of the Richelais – the people from Richelieu and the surrounding area. The cardinal didn’t only build this incredible town, you see, he also built a château in the park. I’m not talking about a large country house – I’m talking about a vast complex of buildings that ran from one end of the park to the other. The most enormous, extravagant castle, all designed by Jacques Lemercier. A château with the biggest collection of fine art in Europe. A château that was the envy of France.

  The cardinal died and the chateau was passed to his family. But a century and a half later, during the French Revolution, his family were banished. When they returned they were destitute and had to sell the château. By now it was in a state of disrepair. And here is the tragedy. It was bought by an estate agent. Disaster. Any normal person would have realised the significance of the place, thought about the long-term effects of having such a château attached to the town, and set about restoring it, but this fucking estate agent, some kind of nineteenth-century equivalent of a polyester-suit-wearing, girlfriend-cheating, mobile-phone-stuck-up-his-arse, branded-Mini-driving, bloody estate agent drenched in Lynx Fucktard, this small-minded shitty-knickers of a man decided to dismantle the château and sell it off brick by brick for a quick profit, thus tearing the heart out of the place. So there is a feeling of vertigo in Richelieu. A confusion. A lack of confidence. It’s still a town that should be famous – it has enough about it without the château – but there is a sense of something that could have been much more. The Place du Marché should be lined with hundreds of cafés and restaurants like the harbour in Honfleur on the Normandy coast. Instead there are a couple of cafés and the rest of the buildings are garages, offices or old hotels that have been derelict for years.

  They haven’t given up, though. It feels to me like Richelieu could be great again. It’s just been connected to Chinon by a voie vert – a cycle path along an old railway line that should mean more tourists coming in. They are growing in confidence. Since we’ve lived round here a couple more restaurants have opened up. They are planning classical concerts in the park in summer. If it still had the château though, what a town it would be.

  ‘BURT DESIST!’

  It was too late. While I’d been centering myself on the loo, Burt had somehow managed to unlock the gate to the back paddock and was merrily chewing on the neck of one of our chickens. I could swear he winked at me as I walked round the corner to see this scene of horror. I chased him half-hear
tedly round the paddock, but I knew it wasn’t going to achieve anything, so I went back to the house and phoned Rose. Rose was in Cornwall staying with her mum.

  ‘Burt has eaten one of our chickens,’ I grassed. This was serious. Rose liked those chickens. I thought this might be just enough of a crime to get him sent away to a home for dogs with criminal minds. I could feel Burt glaring at me from the garden.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Rose. She was genuinely upset. This was good. Things were going perfectly. But then she said, ‘Although I suppose when you think about it, he only did what we do every week. Except he didn’t get his from the supermarket. In fact, his was free range. Much better for the environment. If anything, we’re the ones at fault,’

  ‘But he ate one of our chickens!’ I said.

  ‘Better that than a battery chicken.’

  How Burt had come out of this as the good guy I didn’t know, but I was boiling over with impotent rage.

  Later that day I shoved Burt into the van and the imaginary arguments began again. I’d started having imaginary arguments with Burt just after Albert was born. A side effect of the caffeine, perhaps. Sometimes he had a gruff Yorkshire accent. Sometimes he had a gruff French accent. No matter how much I tried, he always won the argument. He would finish with, ‘Told you, you rubber duck prick.’ On this particular occasion, while I started off on the offensive, it transpired that Burt was furious with me for grassing on him about the chicken and he gave me a verbal beating that left me cowering in my seat.

  We were making the journey back to the malt house in Issoudun. In the new brewery I used ten times the amount of malt per brew as I did with the GrainFather, so trips to the malt house were going to be frequent.

  The van rumbled along to Issoudun quite happily. It took nearly twice as long as it would have in a car, and the van rattled so much that by the time we got there the wing mirrors were pointing in completely the wrong direction, but it got there. Whereas last time when I arrived in the Renault Scénic they brought the malt out packaged up on a wooden pallet only to be told of my plan to strap each individual bag of malt into the seats like a family of dumpy children, this time they looked with wonder upon the freshly painted Beast of Burgundy as they loaded the entire pallet into its ample derrière. Yes, they laughed as well. They laughed at it not having power steering, they laughed at the smoke pouring out of it and they laughed at the fact it was still rocking back and forth several minutes after rolling over a speed bump, but I felt that in general they had gained a new-found respect for me and we would one day be able to embrace each other as men.

  Burt’s chicken farts started on the way home. Something about eating an animal with a still beating heart hadn’t agreed with him and he became extremely unwell. The odour was abominable. Whenever he farted he looked up at me to gauge my reaction. He enjoyed watching me clutch my throat.

  We were pulled over by a routine police check a few miles out of Issoudun.

  ‘Everything OK?’ said the young gendarme.

  No, it was not OK. A murder was taking place. A murder by chicken fart. The first of its kind. I looked at Burt. His severe admonishment for being a grass was still ringing in my ears.

  ‘Yes, fine. All fine here,’ I said. I gave him my details. As he checked my insurance documents, I mouthed ‘help me’. The policeman looked confused.

  ‘He’s trying to kill me,’ I mouthed silently. ‘With chicken farts,’ I added. Burt flashed me a glance.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ asked the policeman.

  Burt rested his head on my lap and stared up at me innocently.

  ‘Yep, all good.’

  ‘OK, on your way.’

  ‘Tell Rose I love her.’

  ‘What?’ said the gendarme.

  Burt growled.

  ‘Have a nice day!’ I said, and off we rolled.

  It took all my will to live to survive that journey home. At times the smell was so bad I was close to passing out, but I visualised my son and that got me through. It represented a worrying new phase in my relationship with my dog. I’d long suspected he was plotting my demise. Now he was actively trying to kill me.

  The van looked really, genuinely fantastic, thanks to Dale’s expertise, even though we’d painted it using rollers in the garden. It looked better than I could have imagined. Dale is an interesting guy. Lots of people told us about him when we first arrived and no one had a bad word to say about him. Indeed, it seemed he had helped almost everyone out at some point. What they all, to a person, did say though, was that at first glance he might seem a bit scary. I think he’s in his fifties. He’s a muscular biker (the Muscular Bikers – possible band name) with long hair, a bandana and a pink goatee. He has a thick Brummie accent and he has no fear of saying whatever is on his mind. So you can see he would be absolutely terrifying to the meek middle classes.

  Once you meet him, though, you realise he’s a diamond. Painting the van with him was a pleasure. My personal highlight was Dale cutting his hand wide open on a piece of rusty metal and, rather than going to A & E, simply supergluing it back together and carrying on. According to Dale that’s what superglue was originally intended for. It was invented in the Vietnam War. I haven’t fact-checked this yet, but I suspect it’s probably not true.

  Dale loves it over here. He got sick of the UK just like we did and moved over here to be with his partner, Tamsin. He’s the sort of person who has advice for any situation, all of it somewhat singular. When we first got our dogs he advised us, in order to get them to stay by our side, we should take them to the forest, let them off the lead and run as fast as we could. His theory was the dogs would be so scared at being left alone, they would chase after us and from that moment they wouldn’t want to leave our sides. I tried this. As soon as I let them off their leads and ran, the dogs, astounded at their good fortune, turned and disappeared into the undergrowth, splitting off in different directions. I waited hours for them to return.

  Dale has also recommended at various times pinning one’s dog down and growling in its face to establish yourself as pack leader, holding your child’s hand close to a flame to get them to understand the fear of fire and having a boxing match with teenagers who don’t show respect at the dinner table. He’s very much from the old school.

  I chose an army-grey paint for the van. Firstly, it was a cheap colour to buy. Dale explained to me that there are certain paints that are used by the public services in France and these are much cheaper than other paints, presumably because they are mass produced. Secondly, it was the colour of a plastic German soldier I had as a child. From my recollection the soldier seemed like quite a serious, reflective guy but with a fun side when he’d had a few schnapps, until finally he got a bit handsy and he was put in a cab. That’s basically a summary of my brand values. I got large transfers of the Braslou Bière logo printed in gold by a local print firm and stuck them to the sides.

  I was really proud of my van. The failing brakes, the great plumes of black smoke it emitted as and when it felt necessary; it felt like an extension of me. So it didn’t matter that I was a complete amateur at manoeuvring the thing.

  *

  The three vats stand against the bare stone wall at the back of the brewery as you walk in. Open pipework and electricity cables run round the walls. Pipes and wires are everywhere, attached to old stone and crumbling flaps of concrete. It’s a beamed ceiling and between each beam are strips of layered silver-foil insulation. The floor is concrete, painted in several coats of garage paint that are already peeling and flaking. The water for the brewery enters through the heat exchanger, passing along the back wall to the first vat – the water heater. The water heater can hold up to 600 litres. This is because it takes 600 litres of water to make 400 litres of beer. You leave some water in the malt; you lose some water from evaporation.

  From the water heater, the water passes into the mash tun – the middle vat. It’s smaller than the other two. You add the ground malt to the mash tun and the
n you add the water from the water heater. It depends on the beer, but I tend to mash (soak the malt) at 65–69°C. As a general rule, the higher the temperature you mash at, the richer the flavour, but the less alcohol you get.

  Soaking the malt like this converts the starches in the malt into sugar. After an hour or so, you drain the sugary liquid you’ve created, which is now called the wort (often pronounced wurt) through a false bottom in the mash tun, leaving the spent malt behind. The wort is pumped into the last and biggest of the three vats, the copper. The copper serves several purposes. Here you boil the wort for an hour or more to sterilise it. All sorts of complicated chemical reactions that I don’t understand occur at this point. This is also where you flavour your beer with hops and other adjuncts like honey, fruit pulps, anything you like really.

  Once you’ve finished the boil, you pump the sterilised wort into one of the old plastic fermenters that stand along the left side of the room via the heat exchanger, which cools the liquid and refills the water heater with warm water. On the right hand wall are two old fridge freezers that store my hops and yeast. I have a couple of little tables on wheels that carry my labelling machine and bottling machine. To the left and right of the door as you walk in there are flimsy shelving units holding all manner of junk. Siphons, pumps, bottle caps. The brewery is dark and damp, lit by one tiny window and a couple of inadequate strip lights. I really fucking love my brewery.

  ‘OK, switch the water on,’ I said. This was the day I had been waiting for. The brewery was finally ready. I was about to do my first big brew.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked my dad. ‘Have you checked the connections?’